United States or Barbados ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The white women of Portage la Drome were too blind, too prejudiced, to see all that she really was, and admiring white men could do little, for Pauline would have nothing to do with them till the women met her absolutely as an equal; and from the other halfbreeds, who intermarried with each other and were content to take a lower place than the pure whites, she held aloof, save when any of them was ill or in trouble.
Then, the groups of Indians, squaws and halfbreeds loafing around the village and the store! One never felt sure what one was to meet, and although by this time I tolerated about everything that I had been taught to think wicked or immoral, still, in Ehrenberg, the limit was reached, in the sights I saw on the village streets, too bold and too rude to be described in these pages.
In these shelters the three hundred halfbreeds and Indians who had come in from the forest trails to the New Year carnival at the Post were sleeping. Only here and there was there a movement of life. Even the dogs were quiet after the earlier hours of excitement and gluttony. Past the big fires, with their huge spits still standing, Challoner passed toward the Factor's quarters.
The halfbreeds, little acquainted with questions of government, saw in the appearance of surveying parties an insidious attempt to dispossess them eventually of their lands, to which many of them had not a sound title.
Pierre's eyes glowed in the shadow, but he idly replied: "I do not remember quite who said it. Well, 'mon ami, perhaps I lie; perhaps. Sometimes we dream things, and these dreams are true. You call it a lie 'bien! Sergeant Fones, he dreams perhaps Old Aleck sells whisky against the law to men you call whisky runners, sometimes to Indians and half-breeds halfbreeds like Pretty Pierre.
All that morning they had not met a solitary human being upon the river, and when Eli commented upon this, their new comrade assured them that it was no unusual thing to go for several days thus, especially at this time of year, when the Indians and halfbreeds who trapped for the fur company were hunting back in the forests, laying in venison to be "jerked" or dried for consumption during the winter months, when attending to their traps far up the small branches of the Saskatchewan, or the Athabasca.
Pierre had thrown over the Irishman's shoulders the great skin of a musk-ox which he had found inside the stockade. He was a strange, immense figure, as he walked into the open space, and, folding his arms, looked round. In the shadow of the gate behind were Pierre and the halfbreeds, with guns cocked.
The factor sighed as he spoke in this meditative way, and Cuthbert could read between the lines, knowing what a wasted life it must seem to look back upon, with the monotony broken only by scenes of violence, when Indians went upon the warpath or halfbreeds became rebellious, as during the great uprising along the Saskatchewan, when the ugly front of war made this region its battle ground.
As it was, they caused us no little trouble and anxiety, but after a hot pursuit of a whole day, with the assistance of the halfbreeds our horses were recaptured. Slow Dog was one of those Indians who are filled with conceit, and boasting loudly their pretensions as medicine men, without any success, only bring upon themselves an unnecessary amount of embarrassment and ridicule.
But as he advanced, his eyes trying to pierce the cloud of smoke that hung all about the burning building, he began to sense the import of the wild cries that were being uttered about him, a Cree shouting to a voyageur, or it might be one of the French halfbreeds to a fellow, and as the nature of their shouts broke in upon his intelligence, he felt a new thrill of alarm.
Word Of The Day