It was about this time that the Scots people, to the number of one hundred or more, arrived to settle at Red River, under the protection of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and among these I saw, for the first time in many years, since I had become a man, a white woman. Soon after my arrival, I was taken into the employment of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and Mr. Hanie, the agent, sent me, accompanied by Mr. Hess, an interpreter, and some men, to kill buffalo. The buffalo were at that time, at a great distance, and the Scots people in great distress for want of provisions. I happened to find and kill two bulls near home, and after sending back the meat, I went on to the herds.
I had hunted here a few days, when our number was increased to four clerks and about twenty men, the latter employed in bringing in the meat I killed to my lodge, whence it was carried in carts to the settlement. All of these lived in my lodge, but one of the clerks named M’Donald was very abusive to my wife and children. Mr. Hess repeatedly checked him for this conduct, but as he continued it, he complained to Mr. Hanie, who sent M’Donald to a place several miles distant where the Indians had killed about twenty buffaloes, which it was not convenient, at present, to bring out, and there he remained by himself for two months, having no other occupation or amusement than to scare the wolves away from the meat. Mr. M’Kenzie was one of the three remaining clerks who lived in my lodge, and he was so different from M’Donald, that at the end of four months, when the greater part of the people were called in to the settlement, he solicited and obtained from Mr. Hanie permission to remain longer with me, to improve himself in the Ojibbeway language, and he did not leave me until after the sugar season.
I killed, in the four months that I hunted for the Hudson’s Bay Company, about one hundred buffaloes, but as part, or all of many of these were eaten in my own lodge, I delivered only forty entire and fat ones to the company’s people, for which Mr. Hanie paid me, in the spring, three hundred and ten dollars. Those Scots labourers who were with me, were much more rough and brutal in their manners than any people I had before seen. Even when they had plenty, they ate like starved dogs, and never failed to quarrel over their meat. The clerks frequently beat and punished them, but they would still quarrel.
Mr. Hanie, and the governor for the Hudson’s Bay Company, proposed to me to build me a house, and engage me permanently in their employment, but I delayed accepting their offer, as I thought it doubtful whether their attempt at settling the country would finally succeed. Some of the Indians whom I had left at the Lake of the Woods had followed me out, spent the winter with me, and returned long ago. I was still by myself at Red River, when Wa-ge-tote came from Me-nau-zhe-tau-naung with a message from my father and mother-in-law. They had lost several of their children by death, and feeling lonely, they sent for me to come to them. This message Wa-ge-tote delivered to me in the presence of the traders, and some other persons, but afterwards he called me out by myself, and said to me, “Do not believe that your father-in-law calls you to Me-nau-zhe-tau-naung, to be at peace, or with any kind intention. When the children were sick, they called Ais-kaw-ba-wis to do something for them, and he having made a chees-suk-kon, said he had called you into his enclosure, and made you confess that you had shot bad medicine at the children, though you were at that time at Red River. He made your father-in-law believe that you had the power of life and death over his children, and he continues to believe, as do most of the Indians of the band, that it was your medicine which killed them. Be assured, therefore, that they call you thither with the design of killing you.” Notwithstanding this admonition, I started immediately, as I knew if I did not they would be but the more confirmed in their unfounded opinion of my culpability.
I had bought a shirt from some of the Scots people at Red River, which I put on as I was about to start on this journey. Probably it was from this I contracted a disease of the skin, which became so troublesome and violent that I was compelled to stop at the Be-gwi-o-nus-ko River. Here I remained for a month, being for a long time unable to move. When I first stopped I set up my lodge on the brink of the river, and after I was unable to walk, I subsisted myself and family by lying in my canoe and fishing. After being placed in my canoe, sometimes I lay there for three or four days without being moved, covering myself with a mat at night. My wife was not so severely affected, being, though very sick, still able to walk. When I began to get a little better, I tried all sorts of medicines I could procure, but none seemed to do me so much good as gun powder, moistened a little, and rubbed upon the sores, which were very large. This disorder, caught originally from the Scotch people, spread among the Indians and killed numbers of them.
After I had recovered, I went up the Be-wi-o-nus-ko, to the small lake of the same name, where I stopped to hunt, and killed plenty of meat. While I remained here, there came one day to my lodge, four young men from our village at Me-nau-zhe-tau-naung. In one of them, who was painted black, I recognized my brother-in-law. The three other children being dead, grief, and a feeling of loneliness, influenced him to leave his father, and start in search of some war party, that he might accompany them against their enemies, and thus have an opportunity of sacrificing, honourably, a life that had become irksome to him. The three young men his companions, being unwilling to see him depart alone, had voluntarily accompanied him. I gave him my horse, and then went up to the Lake of the Woods to my father-in-law, where I remained a few days. As it was then the time when the wild geese, having cast their quills, are unable to fly, we caught great numbers of them.
After four days, I said to the old people, “I cannot remain here, while my little brother has gone crying about, with none to protect him. I know there is danger in the path he will walk, and I ought to follow to show him where it lies. He wishes to join a war party, that he may walk in a dangerous road, but there is often danger where we least expect it.” I knew that Wa-me-gon-a-biew would fall upon this boy, and insult or perhaps kill him on account of his remote relationship to the man who wounded Taw-ga-we-ninne, at Mackinac, or at least with this pretence. Sha-gwaw-koo-sink, hearing my determination, and the reasons I gave for it, said he would accompany me. We started together, and on our arrival at Red River, we heard that Wa-me-gon-a-biew had taken from the boy the horse I gave him, and had already threatened to kill him. I went immediately to Wa-me-gon-a-biew, and a quarrel would probably have taken place at once on account of the young man, had not old Net-no-kwa come between and separated us, as we were about to come to blows. We were all now about to join the Crees and Assinneboins to go against the Sioux, and I cautioned my young brother-in-law to be, on this journey, always watchful of the movements of Wa-me-gon-a-biew. We were about forty men in number when we started from Red River. As we passed along through the Cree and Assinneboin encampments and villages on our route, our party was augmented to the number of two hundred men long before we arrived at Turtle Mountain. While we were encamped near one of the Cree villages, Wa-ge-tote and the principal chiefs being called away to a feast, Wa-me-gon-a-biew began to talk of my brother-in-law, and as I did not like to hear him, I went out and walked about at a distance from the camp. When I thought the chiefs had returned from the feast, I re-entered the camp, but from the expression of concern and interest visible in the faces of those about me, I immediately comprehended that something had happened. I went to search for the young man on whose account particularly I felt anxious, and finding him safe, was returning to my own place, when I discovered in the hands of an old man, who was trying to replace them in their original shape, the splinters and fragments of my new gun. I was at no loss to comprehend the nature of the accident which had deprived me of the use of my gun at a time when it was likely to prove so important to me, and in the first moment of irritation, I seized the barrel, and was walking towards Wa-me-gon-a-biew to beat him with it, when I met Wa-ge-tote, who interfered to prevent me from striking him, though Wa-ge-tote himself, as well as the other chiefs, expressed the greatest dissatisfaction at what he had done.