Snowflakes and Sunbeams | Page 3

immediately
behind the settlement lay the great prairies, which extended in
undulating waves--almost entirely devoid of shrub or tree--to the base
of the Rocky Mountains.

Although far removed from the civilised world, and containing within
its precincts much that is savage and very little that is refined, Red
River is quite a populous paradise, as compared with the desolate,
solitary establishments of the Hudson's Bay Fur Company. These
lonely dwellings of the trader are scattered far and wide over the whole
continent--north, south, east, and west. Their population generally
amounts to eight or ten men--seldom to thirty. They are planted in the
thick of an uninhabited desert--their next neighbours being from two to
five hundred miles off--their occasional visitors, bands of wandering
Indians--and the sole object of their existence being to trade the furry
hides of foxes, martens, beavers, badgers, bears, buffaloes, and wolves.
It will not, then, be deemed a matter of wonder that the gentlemen who
have charge of these establishments, and who, perchance, may have
spent ten or twenty years in them, should look upon the colony of Red
River as a species of Elysium, a sort of haven of rest, in which they
may lay their weary heads, and spend the remainder of their days in
peaceful felicity, free from the cares of a residence among wild beasts
and wild men. Many of the retiring traders prefer casting their lot in
Canada; but not a few of them smoke out the remainder of their
existence in this colony-- especially those who, having left home as
boys fifty or sixty years before, cannot reasonably expect to find the
friends of their childhood where they left them, and cannot hope to
remodel tastes and habits long nurtured in the backwoods so as to relish
the manners and customs of civilised society.
Such an one was old Frank Kennedy, who, sixty years before the date
of our story, ran away from school in Scotland; got a severe thrashing
from his father for so doing; and having no mother in whose
sympathising bosom he could weep out his sorrow, ran away from
home, went to sea, ran away from his ship while she lay at anchor in
the harbour of New York, and after leading a wandering, unsettled life
for several years, during which he had been alternately a clerk, a
day-labourer, a store-keeper and a village schoolmaster, he wound up
by entering the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, in which he
obtained an insight into savage life, a comfortable fortune, besides a
half-breed wife and a large family.

Being a man of great energy and courage, and moreover possessed of a
large, powerful frame, he was sent to one of the most distant posts on
the Mackenzie River, as being admirably suited for the display of his
powers both mental and physical. Here the small-pox broke out among
the natives, and besides carrying off hundreds of these poor creatures,
robbed Mr. Kennedy of all his children save two, Charles and Kate,
whom we have already introduced to the reader.
About the same time the council which is annually held at Red River in
spring for the purpose of arranging the affairs of the country for the
ensuing year thought proper to appoint Mr. Kennedy to a still more
outlandish part of the country--as near, in fact, to the North Pole as it
was possible for mortal man to live--and sent him an order to proceed
to his destination without loss of time. On receiving this
communication, Mr. Kennedy upset his chair, stamped his foot, ground
his teeth, and vowed, in the hearing of his wife and children, that
sooner than obey the mandate he would see the governors and council
of Rupert's Land hanged, quartered, and boiled down into tallow!
Ebullitions of this kind were peculiar to Frank Kennedy, and meant
nothing. They were simply the safety-valves to his superabundant ire,
and, like safety-valves in general, made much noise but did no damage.
It was well, however, on such occasions to keep out of the old
fur-trader's way; for he had an irresistible propensity to hit out at
whatever stood before him, especially if the object stood on a level
with his own eyes and wore whiskers. On second thoughts, however, he
sat down before his writing-table, took a sheet of blue ruled foolscap
paper, seized a quill which he had mended six months previously, at a
time when he happened to be in high good-humour, and wrote as
follows:--
Letter
To the Governor and Council of Rupert's Land, Fort Paskisegun Red
River Settlement. June 15, 18--.
Gentlemen,--I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your favour
of 26th April last, appointing me to the charge of Peel's River, and
directing me to strike out new channels of trade in