I do not think I would be so hard now that more than thirty years intervene and my outlook is broader, and my thought more liberal; nevertheless, I believed I was right at the time, and therefore acted as I did.
Fall in with a party of "plain hunters"--Marvellous resources of this great country--A "hunting breed"--Astounding ignorance--Visit a Church of England mission--Have my first square meal of bread and butter in two years--Archdeacon Cochrane--Unexpected sympathy with rebellion and slavery--Through the White Horse Plains--Baptiste's recklessness and its punishment--Reach our destination--Present my letter of introduction to Governor McTavish--Purchasing supplies--"Hudson's Bay blankets"--Old Fort Garry, St. Boniface, Winnipeg, St. John's, Kildonan--A "degenerate" Scot--An eloquent Indian preacher--Baptiste succumbs to his old enemy--Prepare for our return journey.
The next day Baptiste and I went ahead. We were now three-quarters of the way down, our horses had picked up well, and I wanted to hurry on so as to get through my business as quickly as possible, and give more time to the homeward trip, when we would have heavy loads. The first night we camped with a large party of plain hunters, on their way out for a summer hunt. These men were from all over the Red River settlement, from the White Horse plains, and Portage la Prairie. Their encampment was like a good-sized village. They must have had five hundred or more carts, besides many waggons. Then this number would be very much augmented from Fort Ellice and other points eastward.
Looking on one of these parties, and remembering that two such parties went out on the plains after buffalo every summer for the purpose of making dried provision; that some of these would make fall and winter forays for fresh meat; that this same thing was going on in the Saskatchewan country among the same class of people, and that from Texas to the North Saskatchewan many Indian tribes were living on the buffalo, winter and summer;--I say, that if one thought of all this, he would begin to have some small conception of the extent and numbers of the buffalo. Moreover, if he continued to think, he would wake up to the appreciation of a country that could in its crude and wilderness condition maintain such countless and enormous supplies of food, and that of the choicest kind.