in sight and then construct and cross by a swinging raft. The raft
was constructed under his direction, and his own detachment of Police,
with the gun and ammunition and harness put on board. Of course, he went
himself, as he never asked his men to go anywhere without him. Things
went fairly till near the other side, when the rope made out of the
picketing lines of the horses broke by binding round the tree, from
which it was being paid out, and the raft began to go down the raging
current. At the risk of their lives Perry and Constable Diamond,
grasping another rope, plunged into the torrent and managed to reach the
shore and fasten it to a tree. But the current was too strong and this
rope gave way. The boat went down a mile or so and, being caught in an
eddy, was beached, and the stuff on board dragged up a steep cut bank.
Then Perry commandeered lumber from a primitive saw-mill down the river,
and built a ferry on which, in a day or two, we crossed. In the
meanwhile, as we were in the hostile Indian country, Perry had
accomplished the difficult task of crossing the 65th Regiment in the
little skiff, taking a whole dark night to do it. He kept our regiment
on the south side till the ferry was built. He thus had both sides
guarded against any attack. Once over the river, we made a quick march
100 miles to Edmonton, where General Strange paid a high compliment
publicly to Major Perry for the splendid way in which he had overcome
obstacles and got our relief column through in such good time. The
people of Edmonton gave us a hearty welcome, as their position in the
midst of a big Indian country was very serious for a time.

Big Bear, with the prisoners, was now treking away to the north, and it
was our business to overtake him. The Infantry went down the river,
while the Mounted Men went by trail near the river bank, or our clumsy,
open flatboats might have come under fire. Forced marching, from Fort
Victoria by Frog Lake to Fort Pitt, brought us to the scene of the Big
Bear's atrocities, as we saw from the Sun-dance Lodge, the mutilated
body of Constable Cowan and the charred remains of the nine white people
who had been massacred at Frog Lake reserve. Fort Pitt was burning, but
we saved two buildings. Big Bear and his marauding band in large force
had kept up their retreat and vanished, but whether it was on the north
side of the river, or the south side where they would effect a junction
with Poundmaker could only be a