When I arrived at the Assinneboin, Mr. Hanie had not yet passed, and I stopped to wait for him opposite Mr. Well’s trading house. An old Frenchman offered me a lodging in his house, and I went in and deposited my peltries under the place he gave me to sleep in. Mr. Wells, having heard of my arrival, sent three times, urging me to come and see him. At last, I yielded to the solicitations of my brother-in-law and crossed over with him. Mr. Wells was glad to see me, and treated me with much politeness. He offered me wine and provisions, and whatever his house afforded. I had taken nothing except a little tobacco, when I saw his Frenchman come in with my packs. They carried them past me into Mr. Well’s bed room. He then locked the door, and took out the key. Immediately his kindness and attentions to me relaxed. I said nothing, but felt not the less anxious and uneasy, as I was very unwilling to be deprived of the means of paying Mr. Hanie his credit, still more so to have my property taken from me by violence, or without my consent. I watched about the house, and at length found an opportunity to slip into the bed room, while Mr. Wells was then taking something from a trunk. He tried to drive me, and afterwards to push me out, but I was too strong for him. After he had proceeded to this violence, I did not hesitate to take up my packs, but he snatched them from me. Again I seized them, and in the struggle that ensued, the thongs that bound them were broken, and the skins strewed about the floor. As I went to gather them up, he drew a pistol, cocked it, and presented it to my breast. For a moment I stood motionless, thinking he would certainly kill me, as I saw he was much enraged. Then I seized his hand, and turned it aside, at the same moment drawing from my belt a large knife, which I grasped firmly in my right hand, still holding him by my left. Seeing himself thus suddenly and entirely in my power, he called first for his wife, then for his interpreter, and told them to put me out of the house. To this, the interpreter answered, “You are as able to put him out as I am.” Some of the Frenchmen were also in the house, but they refused to give him any assistance. Finding he was not likely to intimidate or overcome me by violence, he had recourse once more to milder measures. He offered to divide with me, and to allow me to retain half my peltries for the Hudson’s Bay people. “You have always,” said he, “belonged to the North West; why should you now desert us for the Hudson’s Bay?” He then proceeded to count the skins, dividing them into two parcels, but I told him it was unnecessary, as I was determined he should not have one of them. “I went to you,” said I, “last fall, when I was hungry and destitute, and you drove me, like a dog, from your door. The ammunition with which I killed these animals, was credited to me by Mr. Hanie, and the skins belong to him but if this was not the case, you should not have one of them. You are a coward. You have not so much courage as a child. If you had the heart of a squaw, you would not have pointed your pistol at my breast, and have failed to shoot me. My life was in your power, and there was nothing to prevent your taking it, not even the fear of my friends, for you know that I am a stranger here, and not one among the Indians would raise his hand to avenge my death. You might have thrown my body into the river, as you would a dog, and no one would have asked you what you had done, but you wanted the spirit to do even this.” He asked me if I had not a knife in my hand. I then showed him two, a large and a small one, and told him to beware how he provoked me to use them. At last, wearied with this altercation, he went and sat down opposite me in the large room. Though he was at considerable distance, so great was his agitation that I could distinctly hear his heart beat. He sat awhile, then went and began to walk back and forth in the yard. I collected my skins together, and the interpreter helped me to tie them up; then taking them on my back, I walked out, passed close by him, put them in my canoe, and returned to the old Frenchman’s house on the other side.
Next morning, it appeared that Mr. Wells had thought better of the subject than to wish to take my property from me by violence, for he sent his interpreter to offer me his horse, which was a very valuable one, if I would think no more of what he had done. “Tell him,” said I, to the interpreter, “he is a child, and wishes to quarrel and forget his quarrel in one day, but he shall not find I am like him. I have a horse of my own, I will keep my packs, nor will I forget that he pointed his pistol at my breast when he had not the courage to shoot me.”
On the following morning, one of the clerks of the North West Company arrived from the trading-house at Mouse River, and he, it appeared, told Mr. Wells when he heard what had passed that he would take my packs from me, and though Mr. Wells cautioned him against it, he determined on making the attempt. It was near noon when the old Frenchman, after looking out of his house, said to me, “My friend, I believe you will lose your packs now. Four men are coming this way, all well armed; their visit, I am sure, is for no good or friendly purpose.” Hearing this, I placed my packs in the middle of the floor, and taking a beaver trap in my hand, sat down on them. When the clerk came in, accompanied by three young men, he asked me for my packs. “What right have you,” said I, “to demand them?” “You are indebted to me,” said he. “When did I owe the North West any thing, that was not paid at the time agreed on?” “Ten years ago,” said he, “your brother, Wa-me-gon-a-biew, had a credit from me, which he paid all but ten skins. Those are still due, and I wish you to pay them.” “Very well,” said I, “I will pay your demand, but you must, at the same time, pay me for those four packs of beaver we sent to you from the Grand Portage. Your due bill was, as you know, burned with my lodge at Ke-mu-kaw-ne-she-wa-bo-ant, and you have never paid me, or any member of our family, the value of a single needle for those one hundred and sixty beaver skins.” Finding this method would not succeed, and knowing, though he disregarded it, the justice of my reply, he tried the effect of violent measures, like those used on the preceding day by Mr. Wells; but when he perceived these were and would be equally unavailing, he returned to the fort without having taken a single marten skin from me.
When I ascertained that it would be some time before Mr. Hanie would arrive, I went down to Dead River, and while I was waiting there, killed four hundred muskrats. At last, Mr. Hanie arrived at the place where I, with another man, had been waiting for him. He told me that he had passed Mr. Wells’ trading-house at the mouth of the Assinneboin, in the middle of the day, with his crew singing. Mr. Wells, on seeing him, had immediately started after him, with a canoe strongly manned and armed. On perceiving this pursuit, Mr. Hanie went on shore, and leaving his men in his canoe, went up about twenty yards into a smooth prairie. Hither Mr. Wells followed him, attended by several armed men, but Mr. Hanie made him stop at the distance of ten yards, and a long dispute followed, which ended in his permitting Mr. Hanie to pass down. I related to him my story of the treatment I had received, and paid him his credit. I traded with him for the remainder of my peltries, and after we had finished, he gave me some handsome presents, among which was a valuable gun, and then went on his way. As I was re-ascending Red River, I met Mr. Wells. He was destitute of fresh game, and asked me for some, which I should have given, had it been in my power, but he attributed my refusal to ill will. Afterwards, though I was living at a distance from him, he sent his horse to me, and again subsequently to Pembinah, but I constantly refused to accept it. Notwithstanding my steady and repeated refusal, I was informed he always said the horse belonged to me, and after his death, which happened three years later, the other traders told me I ought to take the horse, but I would not, and it fell into the hands of an old Frenchman. After the death of Mr. Wells, I returned to the North West Company, and traded with them, as before, but never while he lived. If he had shot me, and wounded me ever so severely, I should have been less offended with him, than to have him present his pistol, as he did, to my breast, and take it away without firing.