XXVIII THE LAND TO THE SOUTH
Pembina seethed with indignation when the Periers' story was told. TheSwiss, who were all undergoing their share of suffering, sympathizedwarmly with their country folk. Though still prejudiced against the newcolonists, the Scotch and Irish settlers had nothing but condemnation forthe rascally half-breed Murray. Many of the _bois brules_ of Pembina hadbitterly opposed the Selkirk settlement, and some had joined with theNorthwesters in driving out the colonists. Since the union of the twocompanies, however, most of the enmity had evaporated. Walter hadreceived only the kindest treatment from the French mixed bloods. Nowthere was not one to defend Murray in his heartless desertion of helplesstravelers. So strong was the feeling against the treacherous voyageurthat if he had been in Pembina when the Periers arrived, he wouldscarcely have escaped with his life. Though he had been gone severalhours, a party of armed men went out to search for him. Uncertain whetherhe had told the truth when he had said he was going up river, theyscoured the country for miles to the east and west as well as to thesouth. They did not overtake him. He had too long a start.
Murray was not well known in Pembina. He had never lived there nor at St.Boniface. No one in either settlement knew much about him. The springafter the killing of Governor Semple, the tall voyageur had come down theAssiniboine from the west with a brigade transporting furs to YorkFactory, and had remained in Hudson Bay service. It was said at that timethat he was the son of a free trader of mixed Scotch and Cree blood. Theelder Murray had wandered far,--so it was said,--and had taken a wifefrom among the western Sioux. If this story was true, Murray could not bemore than one quarter white and was at least half Sioux. The Indian bloodin the Pembina half-breeds was chiefly Ojibwa and Cree. The Sioux werethe traditional enemies of the Ojibwas and the Crees. To the people ofPembina Murray's Sioux blood did not endear him. There was not a man tofind excuse for behavior of which few full-blooded Sioux would have beenguilty.
It was some time before the Perier family recovered from their terribleexperience. The frost bites Elise and Max had suffered were so severethat the outer skin of their cheeks, noses, hands, and feet peeled off inpatches, leaving sore, tender spots. Their father was in a far worsecondition. His feet and ankles, his right hand and arm, were badlyswollen and inflamed and very painful. It was weeks before he was able towalk or to use his right hand. Had the boys failed to give him prompttreatment when they first found him he would have frozen to death.Realizing what might have happened if they had camped on the prairie thatnight, instead of pushing on to the river, Walter felt that he and hiscompanions had indeed been guided to the rescue.
The little settlement had passed through hard days while the three boyswere in the hills. Food had been very scanty. The buffalo had been faraway, and following them in the deep snow next to impossible. Other gamehad been exceedingly scarce. Even the nets set under the ice of the tworivers had yielded little. The _bois brules_ and the older settlers hadfared better than the Swiss. Though the rations had been slender, neitherthe Brabants nor the MacKays had been entirely without food. The Swisshad suffered severely. Johan Scheidecker told Walter that at one time hisfamily had not had a morsel to eat for three days. At Fort Douglasconditions had been even worse than at Pembina. By February most of thesettlers were on an allowance of a pint of wheat or barley a day, whichthey ground in hand mills or mortars. Soup made from the grain and anoccasional fish were all they had for weeks at a time. Though their farehad been meager enough, the Periers, in Sergeant Kolbach's care, hadfared better than many of their country folk. They had never been quitewithout food.
With the coming of spring matters improved at Pembina. When the ice inthe rivers began to break up, wild fowl arrived in great flocks. Almostevery night they could be heard passing over. By day they alighted tofeed along the rivers and in the marshes. Every man able to walk, everyboy large enough to carry a gun, shoot an arrow, or set a snare, and manyof the women and girls, hunted from daylight till dark for ducks, geese,swans, pelicans, cranes, pigeons, any and every bird, large or small,that could be eaten. The buffalo also were drawing nearer the settlement.Following the herds over the wet, sodden prairie was difficult, even onhorseback, but a skilful hunter brought down a cow or calf now and then.The lucky men shared generously with their neighbors.
Louis and Walter had no time for long hunting trips. Both had obtainedtemporary employment at the Company post. Indian and half-breed hunterswere bringing in the winter's catch, and the two boys were engaged tohelp with the cleaning, sorting, and packing of the pelts.
The post was a busy and a merry place those spring days. The men workedrapidly and well, but found plenty of time for joking, laughing, singing,and challenging one another to feats of strength and agility. After thecold and hardships of the winter, the spring fur-packing was a season ofjollity for the voyageurs. Walter and Louis enjoyed the bustle andmerriment, while they worked with a will.
The skins were thoroughly shaken and beaten to free them from dust anddried mud. Then they were sorted, folded to convenient size, and pressedinto packs by means of a wooden lever press that stood in the postcourtyard. Each bundle,--about ninety pounds weight,--of assorted furswas wrapped in a strong hide. In every package was a slip of paper with alist of the contents. To the outside was attached a wooden stave, withthe number and weight of the pack, and the name of the post. The numbersand lettering were burned into the wood. Because he wrote a good hand,Walter was able to help the overworked clerk with these invoices andlabels. He did a share of the harder physical work as well.
The Swiss boy was heartily glad of employment. His wages, in Hudson BayCompany paper money, were exchanged for food and ammunition, and clothesfor Elise, Max and himself. The Periers needed his help sorely. They hadreached Pembina destitute. When they had left Switzerland, they had beenwell supplied with clothing. They had also brought with them theapothecary's herbs and powders and such household goods as they werepermitted to take aboard ship. In the crowded open boat in which they hadcome from Fort York, there had not been room for all their belongings, sosome had been left behind. Nearly everything else had been lost in thewreck on Lake Winnipeg. The little that remained had been on the tobogganthat Murray had run away with. Every cent of Mr. Perier's money, as wellas the Hudson Bay paper he had received for his work at the buffalo woolfactory, had gone for food and other expenses during the winter. Even hissilver watch and chain he had turned over to Murray. Father and childrenhad nothing left but the worn clothes they were wearing, two blankets,and the few packets of medicinal plant seeds the apothecary carried inhis pockets. He must begin all over again, and on credit at that.
Mrs. Brabant's sympathy for the unfortunate family was genuine and warm.They crowded her house to overflowing, but she would not hear of theirgoing elsewhere. Indeed there was no other place for them to go but FortDaer, and the fort was too well filled for comfort. It was hardly worthwhile to attempt building a new cabin, if they were to return to theSelkirk settlement in a few weeks.
Were they going to return to the settlement? That was the question thattroubled Mr. Perier and Walter. It led to many debates, as the twofamilies sat around the fire after the evening meal. There was thathundred acres of land to be considered. A vast estate it seemed to theSwiss apothecary. The promise of that great tract of land had dazzled himwhen he first talked with Captain Mai in Geneva. Since his coming to thenew country, however, the hundred acres of unbroken prairie had grownless alluring. He had learned that not one of the older colonists hadbeen able to cultivate more than a few acres. He had no farming tools andhe could obtain nothing but hoe and spade at the Colony store. There wasnot a plough to be bought for credit or cash. Breaking tough prairie sodwith hoe and spade would be slow and painful toil for Walter and himself.
Because of the depredations of the locusts, seed grain was very scarce.The little Mr. Perier might buy would be high in price. From his firstcrop he would have to pay for seed as well as r
ent for the land. If hedid not succeed in raising a crop, if the grasshoppers came again anddestroyed it, he would be far in debt to the Colony, with no immediatehope of getting out. Already he had learned to his cost that prices werehigh at the Colony store, and that bills were sometimes rendered forthings that had not been bought. In the end he might easily lose his landand have nothing to show for his labor. The prospect was not bright.Hopeful though he was by nature, he doubted his ability to make a successof farming under such discouraging conditions.
Walter was strongly against returning to Fort Douglas. It would be betterto remain where they were, he argued, and trust to making a living, asthe _bois brules_ did, by hunting, fishing, and planting a small garden.Perhaps the Company would let Mr. Perier have his hundred acres in theneighborhood of Pembina. Both Louis and Jean Lajimoniere,--who wasconsulted,--shook their heads at the latter suggestion. Pembina wasincluded in Lord Selkirk's grant, but the real Colony was established atand near Fort Douglas. It was there that the land was allotted. Theythought it unlikely that Mr. Perier could obtain his anywhere else. Inany case there would be the same difficulty about tools, seed, supplies,and rent. And so the argument went on.
In the meantime spring had come in earnest. The ice was gone from therivers. Birds were nesting in the woods, in the marshes, and on theprairie, according to their habit. As the rivers subsided from floodstage, fishing was resumed and yielded good results. The snow had meltedfrom the prairie, though it still lingered in shaded places in the woodsand along the river banks. The burned stretches showed new green. The sunwas drying up the excess of moisture that had turned the prairie intoponds and spongy expanses and had converted the rambling paths and carttracks of Pembina into sticky mud.
In May the old colonists and most of the new began to prepare for thereturn to Fort Douglas. Still Mr. Perier and Walter were undecided. Atlast they came to a decision suddenly and almost by accident. ThroughLajimoniere, Mr. Perier met a man named St. Antoine who had traveled morewidely than most of the Pembina mixed bloods. Two years before, he hadbeen far to the south and east with Laidlaw, the Colony superintendent offarming, when the latter had gone to Prairie du Chien on the MississippiRiver for seed grain. St. Antoine had many tales to tell of the countryalong the Mississippi and the St. Peter rivers.
"That is a fine land," he told Mr. Perier, "a land with hills andforests,--not flat and bare like this, though there is open country theretoo, good land for farming. At Prairie du Chien now, there the soil isrich and the crops grow well and ripen. It is not so cold as here. Thespring comes earlier and the frost later."
"Are there grasshoppers there?" Mr. Perier inquired.
"The kind that eat up everything? No, no. Those grasshoppers have neverbeen seen in that country, the people say. And where the two rivers cometogether, where the Americans are building a fort, it is beautiful there,with high hills and bluffs like mountains, and woods and waterfalls."
Mr. Perier's brown eyes were wistful. St. Antoine's description soundedgood to a Swiss homesick for his mountains. "How does one go to thatcountry?" he asked. "Can land be bought or rented?"
"Oh," replied St. Antoine confidently, "you do not have to buy or rentit, that land. There is no Hudson Bay Company to say where you shall liveand where you shall not, and to charge you so many bushels of wheat ayear. You find a place that you like and you build a house and plant yourcrops and it is yours. That is the way folk do on the east side of theRiviere Mississippi. On the west side the American government does notwant people to settle. That is Indian country. You may live there if youare a trader. But there is plenty of land on the east side, fine landtoo. Some time I am going back there to stay,--when I get old and want tosettle down."
St. Antoine's tales took hold of Mr. Perier's imagination. The more hethought of that country to the south and east, the more he wanted to gothere, and the less he wanted to return to Fort Douglas. He told Walterand Louis, and they too talked to St. Antoine, who fired theirimaginations as he had fired the older man's. It did not take Walter longto decide what he wanted to do. The question was how were they to get tothe Mississippi. It would be a long journey, hundreds of miles, by cartand horseback through the country of the Sioux. But it could be done ofcourse. It had been done a number of times. The previous summer's threatsof trouble with the Sioux had come to nothing. Yet the trip might be adangerous one for a small party. At this point Louis had a suggestion tooffer.
"The summer buffalo hunt will start in June," he said. "It will go far tothe south, perhaps near to the Lake Traverse. We can travel with thehunters at first. When we are near Lake Traverse,--or if the hunters gotoo far to the west,--we can leave them and make haste to the lake. Thereis a trading post there, so St. Antoine says, and another at the Lake BigStone. Traders go back and forth along the Riviere St. Pierre to theMississippi. There will surely be some party we can travel with."
"You will go too, Louis?" Walter asked eagerly.
"But _certainment_. Do you think I would let you and M'sieu Perier andMa'amselle Elise and the little Max go alone? No, no, I want to see thatcountry too. And I think Neil MacKay will go also."
"His people would never let him."
"I am not so sure of that. M'sieu MacKay is not well pleased with theSelkirk Colony. He says if the grasshoppers come again, he will gosomewhere else. I think he would not object to Neil's going to see thatcountry to the south."
So, gradually, the plan took shape. It was Mrs. Brabant who made thestrongest objections at first. But when Mr. Perier and Walter finallydecided to go, and Louis insisted on going with them, she suddenly madeup her mind, much to Raoul's delight, that she and the children would goalong. "And if we like that country, Louis," she said, "we will stay. Itmay be there will be a better chance for you there. If we do not like it,we can come back when some party comes this way."
Neil proved eager to go. After some argument, he got his father'sconsent, with the provision that he was to return to the Red River colonyat the first opportunity, before winter if possible. He must learn all hecould about that Mississippi country, his father said. If the cropsshould fail again, it might be that the MacKay family would have to leavethe Red River for good. The Northwesters could not drive the stubbornScot to give up his land, but against the locusts he could not contendforever.
South from Hudson Bay: An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys Page 29