After I had killed this otter, I went in pursuit of a bear. I had now three dogs, one of which was not yet fully grown. This dog, which was of a valuable breed, and had been given me by Mr. Tace, escaped from his halter at home, and came after me. When he came up, he passed me and the other dogs, and immediately assailed the bear’s head, but the enraged animal almost instantly killed him, caught him up in his mouth, and carried him more than a mile, until he himself was overcome and killed.
It is usually very late in the spring before the ice is gone from the Lake of the Woods. When I arrived at our village with the son of Wau-zhe-gaw-maish-koon, the Indians who were there had been for a long time suffering from hunger, but I had my canoe loaded with provisions, which I immediately distributed for their relief. On the day after my arrival, came my wife and her mother. She laughed when she saw me, and came to live with me as heretofore. She-gwaw-koo-sink and Ais-kaw-ba-wis were both there, and both unfriendly to me, but I made it my business to seem wholly ignorant of the many attempts they made to injure me. About planting time, the traders of the North West Company sent messengers and presents to all the Indians, to call them to join in an attack on the Hudson’s Bay establishment at Red River. For my own part, I thought these quarrels between relatives unnatural, and I wished to take no share in them, though I had long traded with the people of the North West Company, and considered myself as in some measure belonging to them. Many of the Indians obeyed the call, and many cruelties and murders were committed. On the part of the North West were many half-breeds, among whom, one called Grant, distinguished himself as a leader. Some of the Hudson’s Bay people were killed in open fight, others were murdered after being taken prisoners.
A Mr. M’Donald, or M’Dolland[*], who was called a governor for the Hudson’s Bay, was waylaid and fell into the hands of a Mr. Herschel, or Harshield, a clerk of the North West. This man sent him in a canoe with some Frenchmen and a half-breed with directions to kill him and throw him into the water. When they had gone some distance, the half-breed, whose name was Maveen, wished to have killed him, but the Frenchmen would not consent. They left him on a small rocky island, from which he had no means of escape, and where they thought he must perish, but he was discovered and taken up by some Muskegoe Indians, who set him at liberty. Mr. Harshield beat and abused the Frenchmen for having neglected to kill the governor when he was in their power, and despatched other men in pursuit of him. When again taken, he entrusted him to the half-breed Maveen, and one white man who had been a soldier, but whose well known cruelty of disposition made him fit to be chosen for such business. These two murdered him, in a manner too cruel and shameful to be particularly narrated, and then returned with the account of what they had done to Mr. Harshield[*].
After the settlement at Red River was reduced to ashes, and the Hudson’s Bay people driven out of the country, the Indians and half-breeds in the employ of the North West, stationed themselves at a place called Sah-gi-uk, at the outlet of Lake Winnipeg, to watch for, and destroy, any of the Hudson’s Bay people who should attempt to enter the country in that direction. Ba-po-wash, my brother-in-law, was at length tired of starving there, and started by himself to come to our village, where I remained, refusing to take part with either side. On his way up, he met a Mr. M’Dolland of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who, with Mr. Bruce for his interpreter, was going into the country. This gentleman was slow to listen to the advice of Mr. Bruce, who being better acquainted with the state of affairs in the country, had many fears on his account. On meeting Ba-po-wash, whom he well knew, Mr. Bruce, by pretending to be still in the interest of the North West, was able to gain full intelligence of all that had passed. Being convinced of the truth of this information, Mr. M’Dolland was persuaded to turn back, and probably saved his life by so doing.
He came to me at Me-nau-zhe-tau-naung, and I confirming the statement of Ba-po-wash, he hastened back to the Saut De St. Marie, where he met Lord Selkirk, then coming into the country to settle the affairs of the two rival companies.
For my own part, I spent the summer in the usual quiet manner, being occupied with hunting, and the employments about our cornfields, in gathering wild rice and fishing. When we were returning from the rice swamps, I stopped on one of the small islands in the route towards Rainy Lake, to hunt a bear with whose haunt I had long been acquainted. Late at night, after I had killed my bear, and as I was lying quietly in my lodge, I was surprised to hear at the door, a voice, which I knew immediately to be that of the Mr. Harshield I have already mentioned. I soon learned that he was on the look out for some one he had not found. Having discovered my light at a distance, he had supposed it to be that in the camp of Lord Selkirk, and had crept up with the stealth of an Indian warrior, or he could not have approached my lodge without my being aware of it. He did not immediately mention his intention of killing Selkirk, but I knew him and his companions, and was not at a loss to comprehend his purpose. Nor was I ignorant of the design with which he, with much art, endeavoured to get me to accompany him to Rainy Lake. But when he found that insinuations and dubious hints would not effect what he had in view, he openly avowed that it was his intention to kill Lord Selkirk whenever he should meet him, and he then called up his two canoes, and showed them to me, each with ten strong and resolute men, well armed. He tried many methods to induce me to join him, but I would not.
After leaving me, he went on to Rainy Lake to the trading house of Mr. Tace, but that gentleman being less inclined to violent measures, advised him to return immediately to his own country. What arguments Mr. Tace made use of I know not, but after two days Mr. Harshield returned towards Red River, leaving concealed in the woods near the trading house, the soldier who had taken part with Maveen in the murder of the governor the year before. It was not certainly known among us what this man’s instructions were, but it appeared he did not like his solitary residence in the woods, for after four days he returned to the fort.
In the mean time, Lord Selkirk had taken Fort William, which was then held by Mr. M’Gillivray, for the North West. From Fort William, he sent on an officer, with some troops, to take possession of Mr. Tace’s trading house, in which the soldier who had killed governor M’Dolland was found. He was sent, with others who had attempted to rise after they had surrendered at Fort William, to Montreal, and I have heard that he was hung.
About this time, I made up my mind to leave the Indian country, and return to the States. I had many difficulties to encounter, originating in the ill will which had been raised against me among the Indians, particularly in the family of my father-in-law, by Ais-kaw-ba-wis. Mr. Bruce, with whom I now met, gave me much information and advice. He had travelled more, and seen more of white men than I had, and his statements encouraged me.
The war of 1812 was now over, and there was, I thought, no insurmountable obstacle in the way of my return to my own country.
I had a fine crop of corn, and plenty of wild rice, and as I wished to move to Rainy Lake where I could spend the winter, Mr. Bruce, who was going the same way, agreed to take twenty sacks of my corn, and at length I followed with my family. When I arrived near the trading-house at Rainy Lake, and where I expected to have found Mr. Tace, being as yet ignorant of the changes that had taken place, I found the captain I have before mentioned. He treated me with much attention, and would have given me some goods, but all those left in the house by the North West had already been disposed of to the Indians. After several days’ conversation with me, he succeeded in convincing me that the Hudson’s Bay Company was that which, in the present quarrel, had the right on its side, or rather, was that which was acting with the sanction of the British government, and by promising to aid me in my return to the states, by liberal presents, good treatment, and fair promises, he induced me to consent to guide him and his party to the North West Company’s house, at the mouth of the Assinneboin. The winter was now coming on, and had already commenced, but Capt. Tussenon, for that was his name, as nearly as I can recollect, said his party could not live at Rainy Lake, and it was necessary for him to go immediately on to Red River.
*
Many of the names of white men in the northwest and in other parts of the country, which are mentioned in this narrative, are grossly misspelt; the same principle having been followed in writing both foreign and Indian names, in all instatnces where the name the narrator intended to mention did not immediately recur to the recollection of the writer. Thus Codman is here written for
*
Some of the circumstances of this murder seem to identify it with that of Keveny, for which Charles De Reinhard and Archibald M’Lellan were tried at Quebec, in 1818, and the former condemned to death. De Reinhard, Mainville, and Jose, or Joseph, an Indian, otherwise called the Son of the White Partridge, seem to have been the immediate actors in this affair. It is not surprising that Tanner, who was then, as far as opportunities for particular information on this subject were concerned, on a par with the wildest Indian, should have mistaken foreign names, as well as the comparative rank and importance of foreigners in the country.