John Tanner - A narrative of the captivity and adventures of John Tanner

Before ten o’clock next morning, I heard human voices on the river above me, and from the situation I had chosen, I could see a canoe coming like that I had seen in my dream, loaded with white men. They landed at a little distance above me, and began to make preparations for breakfast. I knew that this was the canoe belonging to Mr. Stewart of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who, together with Mr. Grant, was expected about this time, and being conscious that my appearance would make a painful impression upon them, I determined to wait until they had breakfasted before I showed myself to them. After they had eaten, and put their canoe again in the water, I waded out a little distance into the river to attract their attention. As soon as they saw me, the Frenchmen ceased paddling, and they all gazed at me as if in doubt and amazement. As the current of the river was carrying them rapidly past me, and my repeated calls, in the Indian language, seemed to produce no effect, I called Mr. Stewart by name, and spoke a few words of English which I could command, requesting then to come and take me. In a moment their paddles were in the water, and they brought the canoe so near where I stood that I was able to get into it.

No one in the canoe recognised me, though Mr. Stewart and Mr. Grant were both well known to me. I had not been able to wash the blood off my body, and it is probable that the suffering I had undergone had much changed my appearance. They were very eager and rapid in their inquiries, and soon ascertained who I was, and also became acquainted with the principal facts I have related. They made a bed for me in the canoe, and at my urgent request went to search for my children in the direction where I had heard them crying, and where I told them I feared we should find they had been murdered; but we sought here, and in other places, to no purpose.

Having ascertained who it was that had wounded me, these two traders agreed to take me immediately to the village of Ome-zhuh-gwut-oons, and they were determined, in case of discovering and taking him, to aid me in taking my revenge by putting him immediately to death. They therefore concealed me in the canoe, and on landing near the lodges, an old man came down to the shore, and asked them, “what was the news in the country they came from?” “All is well there,” answered Mr. Stewart; “we have no other news.” “This is the manner,” said the old man, “in which white people always treat us. I know very well something has happened in the country you have come from, but you will not tell us of it. Ome-zhuh-gwut-oons, one of our young men, has been up the river two or three days, and he tells us that the Long Knife, called Shaw-shaw-wa-ne-ba-se, (the falcon,) who passed here a few days since, with his wife and children, has murdered them all; but I am fearful that he himself has been doing something wrong, for he is watchful and restless, and has just fled from this place before you arrived.” Mr. Stewart and Mr. Grant, notwithstanding this representation, sought for him in all the lodges, and when convinced that he had indeed gone, said to the old man, “It is very true that mischief has been done in the country we come from; but the man whom Ome-zhuh-gwut-oons attempted to kill is in our canoe with us; we do not yet know whether he will live or die.” They then showed me to the Indians who had gathered on the shore.

We now took a little time to refresh ourselves and examine my wounds. Finding that the ball had entered my body, immediately under the broken part of my arm, and gone forward and lodged against the breast bone, I tried to persuade Mr. Grant to cut it out; but neither he nor Mr. Stewart being willing to make the attempt, I was compelled to do it myself, as well as I could with my left hand. A lancet which Mr. Grant lent me was broken immediately, as was a pen knife, the flesh of that part of the body being very hard and tough. They next brought me a large white handled razor, and with this I succeeded in extracting the ball. It was very much flattened, and the thong of deer’s sinew, as well as the medicines Ome-zhuh-gwut-oons had inserted in it, were left in my body. Notwithstanding this, when I found that it had not passed under my ribs, I began to hope that I should finally recover, though I had reason to suppose that the wound being poisoned, it would be long in healing.

After this was done, and the wound in my breast taken care of, we went on to Ah-kee-ko-bow-we-tig, (the Kettle Fall,) to the village of the chief Waw-wish-e-gah-bo, the brother of Ome-zhuh-gwut-oons. Here Mr. Stewart used the same precaution of hiding me in the canoe, and then giving tobacco, which he called every man in the village, by name, to receive; but when there appeared no prospect of finding him, they made me again stand up in the canoe, and one of them told the chief that it was his own brother who had attempted to kill me. The chief hung his head, and to their inquiries about Ome-zhuh-gwut-oons he would make no answer. We, however, ascertained from other Indians, that my daughters and their mother had stopped here a moment in their way towards Rainy Lake.

When we arrived at the North West Company’s house at Rainy Lake, we found that my daughters and their mother had been detained by the traders on account of suspicions arising from their manifest agitation and terror, and from the knowledge that I had passed up with them but a few days before. Now when I first came in sight of the fort, the old woman fled to the woods taking the two girls with her. But the Company’s people sent out and brought them in again. Mr. Stewart and Mr. Grant now left it to me to say what punishment should be inflicted on this woman, who, as we all very well knew, had been guilty of aiding in an attempt to kill me. They said they considered her equally criminal with Ome-zhuh-gwut-oons, and thought her deserving of death, or any other punishment I might wish to see inflicted. But I told them I wished she might be sent immediately, and without any provisions, away from the fort, and never allowed to return to it. As she was the mother of my children, I did not wish to see her hung, or beaten to death by the labourers as they proposed; but as the sight of her had become hateful to me, I wished she might be removed, and they accordingly dismissed her without any punishment.

Mr. Stewart left me at the Rainy Lake trading house in the care of Simon M’Gillevray, a son of him who many years ago was so important a partner in the North West Company. He gave me a small room where my daughters cooked for me, and dressed my wounds. I was very weak, and my arm badly swollen, fragments of bone coming out from time to time. I had lain here twenty-eight days when Major Delafield, the United States commissioner for the boundary, came to the trading house, and having heard something of my history, proposed to bring me in his canoe to Mackinac. But I was too weak to undertake such a journey, though I wished to have accompanied him. Finding that this was the case, Major Delafield gave me a large supply of excellent provisions, two pounds of tea, some sugar and other articles, a tent, and some clothing, and left me.

Two days after this, I pulled out of my arm the thong of deer’s sinew which had been attached, as I have before stated, to the bullet. It was still about five inches long, but nearly as large as my finger, and of a green colour. Ome-zhuh-gwut-oons had two balls in his gun at the time he shot me; one had passed near my head.

Immediately after the departure of Major Delafield, the unfriendly disposition of Mr. M’Gillevray made itself manifest; it had been only fear of Major Delafield that had induced him hitherto to treat me with some attention. Insults and abuses were heaped upon me, and at last I was forcibly turned out of the house. But some of the Frenchmen had so much compassion as to steal out at night, and without Mr. M’Gillevray’s knowledge, furnish tent poles and set up my tent. Thanks to the bounty of Major Delafield, I had a supply of every thing needful, and my daughters still remained with me, though Mr. M’Gillevray repeatedly threatened that he would remove them. His persecutions did not abate when I left the fort, and he went so far as to take my daughters from me, and send them to sleep in the quarters of the men; but they escaped, and fled to the house of an old Frenchman, near by, who was Mr. M’Gillevray’s father-in-law, and with whose daughters mine had become intimate.