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Half-breeds, bearing the names of French, English, and American employees of fur and trading companies, or of refugees from criminal justice "in the settlements," are to be found in almost every tribe and band, however distant.
All day long had there been masses and processions on land. Hundreds of Jesuits, with thousands of the populace, had filed behind the cross and the host. And now there was a candle in every window. Indians, half-breeds, coureurs du bois, native Canadians, seigneurs, and noblesse, were joining in the function. But De Casson's eyes were not for these.
The Kanakas, pale brown, with crisp hair, have nothing on but a shirt and a pair of trousers; but the half-breeds are very smart with flaring ties and patent-leather boots. The Japanese, with their obsequious smile, are neat and trim in white duck, while their women walk a step or two behind them, in native dress, with a baby on their backs.
While I was yet gazing in mute amazement after Louis Laplante, wondering whether his strange emotion were revenge, or remorse, the women and children marched forth with the men protecting each side. The empty threats of half-breeds to butcher every settler in Red River had evidently reached the ears of the women.
The coming of the railway, the flocking in of settlers, and the rapid dwindling of the vast herds of buffalo which had provided the chief support of the half-breeds, made their nomadic life no longer possible.
We here saw two hunters who were Chipewyan half-breeds and made many inquiries of them respecting the countries we expected to visit, but we found them quite ignorant of every part beyond the Athabasca Lake. They spoke of Mr. Hearne and of his companion Matonnabee, but did not add to our stock of information respecting that journey.
Their fury was at an end; a tacit reconciliation succeeded and the ideas of the whole mongrel crowd whites, half-breeds and squaws were turned in a new direction. They all formed into groups and taking their places at the several fires, prepared for one of the most exciting amusements of the Nez Perces and the other tribes of the Far West.
"And when you have done with my people," continued the king, "you will go among that other race, along the mainland, where men have thrown off the restraints of society to give loose reign to lust and avarice; where the Indian is brutified that his wife may be intoxicated by compulsion and prostituted by violence before his eyes; where the forest cabins and the streets of towns are filled with half-breeds; where there stalk wretches with withered and tearless eyes, who are in nowise troubled by recollection of robbery, rape and murder.
"'No loss at all my dear friend, replied the Governor: 'give it to the Indians and half-breeds. Now you are aware that government had undertaken to give relief to the Indians and to the Metis, with employment that would bring them food. Well, this meat was given to both, and for every pound of the foul meat the wretched Breed or Indian was charged fifteen, cents.
They were half-breeds from near Montreal, and were well learned in the ways of the whites." One man was holding up the otter by the tail and laughingly commenting on his gain, while the other was resetting the trap beneath the ice.
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