After twenty days, I returned to Pembinah to my family, and then went, with Wa-ge-tote, to hunt buffalo in the prairie. I now heard that many of the half breed people in the country were enraged against me for the part I had taken against the North West Company, and from some of the principal men I heard that they intended to take my life. I sent them back for answer that they must fall on me as I had done on the people of the North West, when I was sleeping, or they would not be able to injure me. They came near, and were several times lurking about with intention to kill me, but they were never able to effect their object. I spent what remained of the winter among the Indians, and in the spring returned to the Assinneboin. Lork Selkirk arrived from Fort William in the spring, and a few days afterwards Mr. Cumberland and another clerk belonging to the North West, came up in a canoe. As they did not stop at the fort, Lord Selkirk sent a canoe after them, and they were brought back and placed in confinement.
The people of the Mouse River trading-house, belonging to the North West Company, came down about this time, but being afraid to pass by the fort, they stopped and encamped at no great distance above. The Indians from distant parts of the country, not having heard of the disturbances and changes that had taken place, now began to assemble, but they manifested great astonishment when they found that their old traders were no longer in possession of the fort.
A letter was this spring, or in the early part of summer, received from Judge Codman, offering two hundred dollars reward for the apprehension and delivery of three half breeds who had been very active in the preceding disturbances, namely, Grant, the principal leader of the half breeds for the North West, Joseph Cadotte, and one called Assinneboin. These were all taken by a party from our fort, aided by the interpreter, Nowlan, but they were released upon their promise to appear again when Judge Codman should arrive. This party had scarce returned home, when Assinneboin came and surrendered himself, at the same time giving information that Grant and Cadotte had fled the moment Nowlan and his party turned their backs. They went to the country of the Assinneboins, from whence they did not return until they were sent for, and brought to attend the court, but the man who had given himself up was pardoned.
Lord Selkirk had for a long time expected the arrival of the judge appointed to try those accused of capital crimes, and to adjust the dispute between the two rival companies. Becoming very impatient, he despatched a messenger to Sah-gi-uk, with provisions and other presents, who was instructed to proceed on until he should meet the judge. At one of the North West Company’s houses, beyond Sah-gi-uk, this man was taken prisoner, and severely beaten by the company’s agent, Mr. Black, but about this time the judge arrived, and Mr. Black, with a Mr. M’Cloud, fled, and secreted themselves among the Indians, so that when Judge Codman sent for them from Red River, they were not to be found.
The trial continued a long time, and many prisoners were, from day to day, released, but Mr. Harshield, and the half breed Maveen, were loaded with irons and put in more rigorous confinement. The judge had his camp in the middle, between our fort and the camp of the North West Company’s people, probably that he might not seem partial to either.
One morning, as I was standing in the gate of the fort, I saw the judge, who was a large, fat man, come towards me, attended by Mr. M’Kenzie, and a half breed called Cambell, and an old Naudoway Indian. They came into the house, looked from room to room, and at last entered the one in which Selkirk then was. Cambell followed the judge in, and having a paper in one hand, he laid the other on Selkirk’s shoulder, and said something I did not understand. Much discussion followed, all of which was incomprehensible to me, but I observed that Mr. M’Kenzie and Cambell were standing near the whole day. It was nearly night when Nowlan told me that the judge had fined the North West a considerable sum, I think either three hundred or three thousand dollars, and that Lord Selkirk was released from arrest. After this, Mr. M’Kenzie and Cambell went out, and were much insulted on the way to their camp by the people belonging to the Hudson’s Bay, but the judge remained to dine with Lord Selkirk.
Col. Dickson, who was now at Red River, sent a man for the Sioux, as it was thought desirable that they should be called in and made acquainted with the state of affairs. In the preceding winter, after I had returned to Pembinah, two Ojibbeway women had arrived there, with pipes from the Sioux country, to invite the Ojibbeways to make peace. These women had been prisoners among the Sioux, and their release, as well as the message they bore, was considered as indicative of a disposition on the part of the Sioux to bring about a peace with the Ojibbeways.
One of these women had been married to a Sioux, and her husband had become attached to her. When the common voice of his people made it necessary she should be sent back to her own country, he sent a message to her husband among the Ojibbeways, offering to give him, in exchange for her, whichever of his own wives the Ojibbeway might choose to take. But this man was not disposed to accept the offer of the Sioux, and there was no one to return to answer the messages the women had brought until Mr. Bruce, the interpreter before mentioned, offered his services. These negotiations, though they had produced little apparent effect, had prepared the minds of the Sioux, in some measure, for the message from Mr. Dickson, and they sent, according to his request, twenty-two men, and two Ojibbeway prisoners, that were to be given up. One of these prisoners was a young woman, the daughter of Gitche-ope-zhe-ke, (the big buffalo,) and she also had been married among the Sioux. Her husband, who was one of the twenty two who now arrived, was a young man, and was extremely fond of his Ojibbeway wife. The chiefs of the party, when they were about to return, tried to persuade him to leave her, but this he obstinately refused to do, and they were at last compelled to abandon him, though it was evidently at the imminent peril of his life that he ventured to remain by himself among the Ojibbeways. After his companions had left him, he went out, and wandered about, crying like a child. Seeing his distress, I called him into my lodge, and though, on account of difference of language, I could not say much to him, I endeavoured to console him, and make him believe that he would find some friends even among the Ojibbeways. On the following day, he determined to follow his companions, and to return to his own country. He started out, and followed along their path two or three hundred yards, then he threw himself down upon the ground, cried and rolled about like a mad man, but his affection for his wife getting the better of his wish to return, and his fears for his own life, he came back and would have remained among us. But about this time we heard of other Ojibbeways who had threatened to come and kill him, and we well knew that it would be scarce possible for him to remain long among us without attempts being made against his life. Wa-ge-tote and Be-gwais, our chiefs, interfered to send him away, and having selected eight trusty men, of whom I was one, directed that he should be taken one day’s journey towards the Sioux country. We were compelled to drag him away by violence, nor could we urge him forward in any other manner, until we arrived at the crossing place of the Assinneboin River, where we met a party of two hundred Assinneboins. The young Sioux had taken the precaution to dress himself like an Ojibbeway, and when the chief of the Assinneboins asked us where we were going, we told him our chiefs had sent us to hunt buffalo. This man, Ne-zho-ta-we-nau-ba, was a good and discreet chief, and although the terror of the young Sioux immediately made him acquainted with the deception we tried to practice upon him, he appeared to take no notice of it. He even placed himself in such a situation as to divert the attention of his own people from the young man until the band had passed. He then addressed the Sioux in his own language: “Fly, young man,” said he, “and remember if you are overtaken before you reach your own country, there are few among the Assinneboins, or Ojibbeways, who would not gladly take your life.” The young man started to run accordingly. At the distance of one hundred yards we heard him burst out crying, but afterwards we understood that he overtook his party at Pembinah, and returned in safety to his own country.