PAGE 9
The Grateful Indian, A Tale Of Rupert’s Land
by
IV.
Long we continued to hope against hope. Neither was our father’s body, nor were any of the cattle he was driving off ever discovered. The current must have swept them down into Lake Winnipeg.
“I ain’t much of a person for it, young masters,” said Sam Dawes, taking a hand of each of us and looking at us affectionately, “but I loves ye as sons, and I’ll be in the place of a father, that I will.”
Faithfully did Sam Dawes keep his word.
“Grief is right and does us good in the end, depend on’t, or it wouldn’t be sent; but it mustn’t make us forget duty. Now you see it is our duty to live, and we can’t live without food, and we can’t get food without we work, so let’s turn to and plough and sow the ground.”
This proposal may seem like mockery, but among the valuables placed by our father in the canoe was a good supply of seed corn and other seeds, and we had discovered our plough driven deep into the ground. Sigenok disappeared the moment he understood our intentions, and Sam looked very blank, and said that he feared he did not like work and had gone off.
“I think not,” observed Malcolm; and he was right. In a few hours Sigenok returned with two horses and several hides well tanned, and needles, and fibre for thread. I thought Sam would have hugged him, he was so delighted. Without loss of time they set to work and cut out a set of harness, and, lighting a lamp, seated at the entrance to our tent, laboured at it the greater part of the night, Malcolm and I helping as far as we could. Sam made us go to sleep, but as I looked up they were still at work, and when I awoke in the morning it was finished. The horses were a little restive, evidently not being accustomed to ploughing, but they obeyed Sigenok’s voice in a wonderful way, though it was necessary in the first place to teach him what ought to be done. It is said by some that Indians will not labour. I have reason to know that they will when they have a sufficient motive. Sigenok showed this. His motive was gratitude to us, and affection excited by compassion. No white man would have laboured harder. When the wheat and Indian corn was in the ground, he with his horses helped Sam and us to bring in stuff for fencing and to put it up. All this time he slept outside our tent, under shelter of a simple lean-to of birch bark. Another day he disappeared, and we saw him in the evening coming up the river towing some timber. He brought a heavy log up on his shoulders. “There is part of your house,” he observed, “we can get the rest in time.”
So we did; we borrowed a large boat, and taking advantage of a northerly wind, we brought up, piece by piece, the whole of our hut, which had grounded near the banks of the river. Our neighbours, in spite of the value of their time to themselves, came and helped us, and we very soon had our hut over our heads, though, excepting the articles we had saved in the canoe, we had no furniture remaining.
“Sigenok live here with you,” observed our Indian friend.
“Of course; very glad,” we answered, thinking he intended to take up his abode in our hut.
We had arranged that morning to go to the Port [Fort Garry, belonging to the Hudson’s Bay Company.] to obtain flour and other articles. We were not without money, for our father had put his desk in the canoe, and in it we found a sum of money, considerable for our wants. On our return from the Port, we found that Sigenok had erected close to our door an Indian wigwam. It was very simple of construction. It consisted of about a dozen long poles stuck in the ground in a circle, and fastened together at the top so as to make the figure of a cone. Against these poles were placed large slabs of birch bask. It comes off the tree in layers, which, having a tendency to regain their circular form, cling round the cone, and are further secured with bands of fibre. In the centre is the fire, while the smoke escapes through an opening left in the top; some mats on the ground, and some lines stretched across on which clothes or other articles can be hung up, form the chief furniture of these wigwams. To these may be added a bundle of hides or mats, and an iron pot.