194 PERMANENTLY APPOINTED TO GOVERNMENT 



Fort, and I immediately asked him to give me a cake of soap as 

 I wished to wash a wound in my hand. As soon as I uncovered 

 it, the whole face of the thiimb was seen to be covered with a purple 

 flesh and the soap given me being carbolic soap it caused such 

 excrutiating pain that Mrs. MacDonnell, the wife of the officer 

 in charge of the Fort, came into the room and saw my condition 

 and she immediately said: "Oh, dear me! Mr. Macoun, how 

 did that take place?" 'I simply said that I shot it off, and she 

 then asked what I was going to do and I said I wanted to find out 

 and she asked if it were painful and I said: "Yes, it is awful." 

 "Well," she said, "I can soon stop the pain." And she went out 

 and got a basin of hot water and stirred into it a handful of bak- 

 ing soda and stirred it well. Then she had me put my hand into 

 it and the change was so great that it was like passing from Hell 

 to Heaven. It took away the pain at once. She then told us 

 that one of the men had shot himself through the hand a year 

 before and that the only thing that was done to his hand was to 

 keep it covered with a rag wet with water in which baking soda 

 was dissolved. As soon as I had my hand dressed, I found I was 

 all right again and my anxiety now was to get to Winnipeg as 

 as soon as possible as my work was over. 



My party now broke up and Davie Macoun and young Wil- 

 liams remained behind and took up land later. My son and 

 young Moore decided to come on with me and I hired a half- 

 breed with a horse and cart to take our stuff to Brandon, where 

 I took the train. The distance there was said to be one hundred 

 and twenty miles, and the half-breed promised to take us there 

 in three days. The young men had been on the water all summer 

 and were aching for a walk on land so we started on foot. I gave 

 the young men the privilege of riding in the cart at any time they 

 saw fit. Every hour or two we stopped and I bathed my thumb. 

 We plodded on and, late the first day, struck the railroad, where 

 the men were working. As we were walking along, an Irishman, 

 who was also walking, said: "Are you leaving the country?" I 

 said: "Yes; as fast as we can get out of it." He said: "I am 

 doing the same myself. Just think of it, the frost in the winter 

 sinks down forty feet and the men say that neither themselves 



