12 A SCOTCH CLERK. 



the other dogs, I let him go, when he at once rushed in and 

 closed with the wolf, and for some time it was doubtful which 

 would get the best of it, till the hound getting a chance seized 

 the wolf by the throat and very soon killed him. 



While we were at Fort Carlton we frequently had shooting 

 matches, some Indians who had come in to trade shooting with 

 us ; and when coming back to the fort one day, with a double 

 rifle in my hand, which I wished to fire off, I saw a crow coming 

 over my head and fired at it, and no one was more astonished 

 than I was when it fell dead, and from that day, as I firmly 

 refused to waste any more ammunition on crows, I found that 

 I had gained a wonderful reputation as a shot among the 

 Indians hearing of what I had done many months afterwards 

 in an Indian camp. 



We found at the " Post " as all forts are usually called a 

 Scotchman named Alexander, who having tried a great many 

 things and failed at all of them, had ended by becoming a 

 Hudson's Bay Company's clerk, at twenty-four pounds a year 

 and his food. Having some relics of his departed greatness yet 

 with him, he went about in an old velvet dressing-jacket, bound 

 with gold cord, with a cap of the same material on his head, 

 and being a fine man and very handsome, he looked quite 

 imposing and was the admiration of all the squaws. 



One day I heard a story of him, which is worth inserting 

 here. It seems that the Sioux and Cree Indians wished to 

 make peace, and it had been arranged that they should do so at 

 the Post. Accordingly the Sioux chief " White Cloud " arrived 

 with seventeen warriors and camped outside the stockade, the 

 Crees having also sent a deputation to meet him, and while the 

 preparations were being completed, " White Cloud " who was 



