On being further questioned, one of the traders did remember that the hair of the boy seemed to him unusually brown and curly for that of a redskin, but his reminiscences were somewhat vague. Still, on the strength of them, Victor and Ian resolved to continue the chase, and Rollin agreed to follow. Thus the summer and autumn passed away.

 

Meanwhile a terrible disaster had befallen the buffalo-hunters of the Red River.

 

We have said that after disposing of the proceeds of the spring hunt in the settlement, and thus securing additional supplies, it is the custom of the hunters to return to the plains for the fall or autumn hunt, which is usually expected to furnish the means of subsistence during the long and severe winter. But this hunt is not always a success, and when it is a partial failure the gay, improvident, harum-scarum half-breeds have a sad time of it. Occasionally there is a total failure of the hunt, and then starvation stares them in the face. Such was the case at the time of which we write, and the improvident habits of those people in times of superabundance began to tell.

 

Many a time in spring had the slaughter of animals been so great that thousands of their carcasses were left where they fell, nothing but the tongues having been carried away by the hunters. It was calculated that nearly two-thirds of the entire spring hunt had been thus left to the wolves. Nevertheless, the result of that hunt was so great that the quantity of fresh provisions—fat, pemmican, and dried meat—brought into Red River, amounted to considerably over one million pounds weight, or about two hundred pounds weight for each individual, old and young, in the settlement. A large proportion of this was purchased by the Hudson’s Bay Company, at the rate of twopence per pound, for the supply of their numerous outposts, and the half-breed hunters pocketed among them a sum of nearly 1200 pounds. This, however, was their only market, the sales to settlers being comparatively insignificant. In the same year the agriculturists did not make nearly so large a sum—but then the agriculturists were steady, and their gains were saved, while the jovial half-breed hunters were volatile, and their gains underwent the process of evaporation. Indeed, it took the most of their gains to pay their debts. Thus, with renewed supplies on credit, they took the field for the fall campaign in little more than a month after their return from the previous hunt.

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