A Council of War - Big Bear.

A week later the camp crier one morning went up and down among the lodges to call the warriors, and Simpson, Fitzpatrick, Halpin - who had arrived from Cold Lake - and myself, to a council. They were going, he said, to Fort Pitt on the following morning to take it and wanted to talk over and decide on the best plans for accomplishing their object before they left.

We found the old chief and his men forming a large double circle in the dancing tent, a big lodge formed of several smaller ones. Big Bear sat in state at one side within the circle. Beside him on the right sat Wandering Spirit, wearing his war bonnet with the five glistening eagle plumes. He was filling an old stone pipe belonging to the chief with tobacco and red willow bark.

Big Bear was in an amiable mood. He grew reminiscent as the pipe was handed to him. "This pipe is very dear to me," he said. "It was smoked by all my wives in turn. One by one they have gone to the Sand Hills, and this is all I have to remember them by."

Followed the ceremony of lighting the Peace Pipe in council. Taking the stem between his lips, Big Bear applied the lighted match handed to him by Wandering Spirit to the bowl. He took a long pull and tightly closing his lips so that none of the smoke should escape, turned the stem in succession to the four cardinal points of the compass, then toward the ground; finally, bowing his head, he raised it straight up before him, so that the Great Spirit might be first to smoke. After this, he blew the first draught of smoke from his own lips, muttered a prayer and after taking a few draws himself, passed the pipe to the man on his left. It then travelled from mouth, each warrior in turn taking a few pulls, around the circle. The purpose of this ceremony is to propitiate the Kitse Manito and ask his guidance in the matter before the council. It will be noticed that the pipe follows the course of the sun, indicating the association of his deity in the mind of the red man with the most powerful visible celestial body in his simple and beautiful religion.

When all, ourselves included, had smoked, Big Bear rose and spoke, making a strong plea for the course urged upon him by Simpson and myself and asking those present to state their views, we white men first, as having a knowledge of the usages of our nations in war. Fitzpatrick - an American ex-soldier, Simpson and myself, in turn, begged the warriors to be guided by their chief, assuring them they would never regret sparing the lives of the comparatively defenceless people at Fort Pitt, among them many women and children. It was customary, we said, for a superior force to allow a small body of the enemy to surrender and march off unharmed, rather than to attack them.

Several Indians followed and supported our plan. One man thanked us for the suggestion. It would be much simpler to lure the police out of the fort by fair promises and then surround and kill them in the open than to attack them under cover of the buildings. Wandering Spirit said they had not spared our lives thus far to have us dictate to them what they should do in time of war. Imasees said Riel's orders were to kill the police. As for the Plains Crees, they meant to fight. They had men enough to capture and burn the fort and kill everyone in it. If the police went they would take with them their guns and ammunition, things the Indians most needed.

The council broke up and we went back to our tents, saddened and discouraged. Our efforts had come to nothing, apparently. There was a slight chance the suggestions we had made would serve any purpose, except to further a plot to wipe out the garrison at Pitt by treachery instead of in open attack. Big Bear, however, promised if possible to get the police away in safety and the sequel shows that the old chief was not unmindful of his word.

Early the next morning the crier again went through the camp. The warriors were to prepare to go to Fort Pitt. Missa Jim and his young men (Halpin and myself) must accompany them. Simpson and I were sitting in his tent when these commands reached our ears.

"The swine!" exploded the old man. "They want to use us - make us write letters to decoy the police out of the fort so that they can kill them like sheep. I'll see them damned first! They won't get me to go." "Or me," I said. "Life is sweet, but I don't value mine as against those of thirty of my fellows."

Simpson called his stepsons, Louis and Benjamin Patenaude, and they came with their guns. A moment later Wandering Spirit, with Imasees and two of the murderers, entered. The war chief expressed surprise that we were not preparing to go to Fort Pitt. He ordered us to get ready at once.

Then Louis Patenaude got up and there was in his black eyes that deadly gleam that I and the war chief had seen in them when he held the knife over Wandering Spirit's heart.

"My stepfather," he said, "is not strong. He is an old man. He has lived among you since he was a boy and has always used you well. But how have you used him? Why are you persecuting him? You have taken his horses, you have looted and burned his house. Isn't that enough, that you should wish to drag him after you around the country? He will not go!"

The four were armed and painted, but the war chief did not care again to provoke Louis. "But the young man?" he said, indicating me. I said: "He is my chief and my place is with him."

The war chief submitted, but his anger was evident. They got up and went out. As Imasees reached the door, he turned and said over his shoulder: "Remember, if any of our people are hurt at Fort Pitt, it will be hard to keep the young men from doing harm when they get back."

It was his parting shot. For our refusal to assist in their treacherous scheme, we were to be held accountable should any of them suffer. Under these circumstances. It may be imagined that our feelings were not of the cheerfulest during the next few days.

Only a few old men, women and children were left at Frog Lake. The warriors, mounted, assembled at the lower end of the camp. They, as well as their ponies, were decked in all their finery. With their paint and feathers, their polished weapons, gaudy blankets, beaded leggings and moccasins, they made a picturesque panorama against the setting of green grass and delicate aspens, the distant hills, the glint of blue waters in the lakes below, and immediately behind, the white canvas lodges with their smoke-browned tops and crossed poles. They came riding slowly around the camp, their war chant rising weirdly on the fresh spring air, their ponies prancing under their flashy trappings. They reached the far end again, broke into a gallop and with wild cries and a crash from their guns, clattered away in the direction of Fort Pitt.

Halpin was the only white man to accompany them. He had no option. Simpson, Fitzpatrick and myself might easily have escaped in their absence, but there were the two white women in the camp; we might yet be able to do them some service. At all events they could not but have felt that we had deserted them had they been left alone among these savages and we could not have found it in our hearts to go. In any case, almost all the bands for three hundred miles east along both Saskatchewans we knew had risen and the whites in the country had taken refuge in the police forts and towns which had been fortified; the prospect of being able to bring relief to the other prisoners could we have reached Battleford in safety was slight, and Battleford, the nearest fort or settlement, was more than a hundred miles away, surrounded by hostiles who had murdered and pillaged just as had those in whose hands we were. Moreover, Big Bear's band had asserted that should one escape they would kill all other prisoners. This threat alone was sufficient to hold us.

So we sat down to wait with what patience we might for the return of the belligerents from Fort Pitt. Henry Quinn arrived on the morning of April 3rd at Fort Pitt, after his thirty-five-mile tramp through the slush under the friendly cover of a moonless night. Warned by Mondion, he had managed to slip away unobserved from Frog Lake through the thicketed hollows shortly before the massacre began. In fact, he had gone only a mile or two and after crossing a chain of low-lying lakes, was working his way stealthily up through the hills on the other side, when the faint mutter of rifle fire reached his ear, mounted and died away. Quinn was a nephew of the murdered Indian agent. He had no difficulty in accounting for these sounds or in interpreting to Captain Dickens what had occurred at the settlement - information confirming reports brought to Pitt by George Mann, a farming instructor at Onion Lake, who had arrived there with his family the previous night.

Mann had been told of the massacre by friendly Indian runners who had witnessed it. Quinn was sworn in by Captain Dickens as a special constable.