Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/251

Rh have eaten, we present them with the remains of our repast, which is, indeed, the common custom of the north. After meals we occupy the same fireside, chatting or smoking together; at night they sleep in our hall, and on winter journeys and hunting excursions side by side with us in the same encampment. Every circumstance indicates a kindly familiar intercourse; the natural result of which is, that the Indians are attached to the Company's officers, whom in common discourse they style their "fathers" and their "brothers." In our particular case I must frankly confess my surprise at the facility with which we acquired their confidence, for only in 1835 a cruel and unparalleled injury had been inflicted upon them by some half-breeds who disgraced the service. Three of these wretches (two of them Red River Catholics, the third a countryman of the victims,) sought a quarrel with a party of unfortunate Hare Indians about one of their women, whom they carried off; and attacking them unawares, after partaking of their hospitality, brutally massacred eleven persons of both sexes. The criminals were taken out for trial to Canada, where the ringleader, Cadien, escaped with the mild sentence of banishment, and his accomplices were acquitted! It is to be hoped that the Company