But when the Commissioners were within twenty-five
miles of the Fort they got a letter from the Hudson's Bay Company's
agent telling them that the Indians had eaten up all the provisions
there, and had left for their hunting-grounds, with no hope of
their coming together again that season. They therefore returned
to Fort Dunvegan, and took the adhesion of some Beaver Indians,
and then left for Lower Peace River. On the 8th July, Mr. Laird
secured the adhesion of the Crees and Beavers at Fort Vermilion,
and Messrs. Ross and McKenna of those at Little Red River, the
headman there refusing to sign at first because, he said, "he
had a divine inspiration to the contrary"! This was followed by
adhesions taken by the latter Commissioners, on the 13th, from
the Crees and Chipewyans at Fort Chipewyan.
"Here it was," Mr. McKenna writes me, "that the chief asked for
a railway--the first time in the history of Canada that the red
man demanded as a condition of cession that steel should be laid
into his country. He evidently understood the transportation
question, for a railway, he said, by bringing them into closer
connection with the market, would enhance the value of what they
had to sell, and decrease the cost of what they had to buy. He
had a striking object-lesson in the fact that flour was $12
a sack at the Fort. These Chipewyans lost no time in flowery
oratory, but came at once to business, and kept us, myself
in particular, on tenterhooks for two hours.
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