Pierre and his People, Volume 2

Little Hammer was not a success. He was a disappointment to the / missionaries; the officials of the Hudson's Bay Company said he was / "no good; " the Mounted Police kept an eye on him; the Crees and Blackfeet / would have nothing to do with him; and the half-breeds were profane / regarding him. But Little Hammer was oblivious to any depreciation / of his merits, and would not be suppressed. He loved the Hudson's Bay / Company's Post at Yellow Quill with an unwavering love; he ranged the / half-breed hospitality of Red Deer River, regardless of it being thrown / at him as he in turn threw it at his dog; he saluted Sergeant Gellatly / with a familiar How! whenever he saw him; he borrowed tabac of the half- / breed women, and, strange to say, paid it back -- with other tabac got by / daily petition, until his prayer was granted, at the H. B. C. Post. He / knew neither shame nor defeat, but where women were concerned he kept his / word, and was singularly humble. It was a woman that induced him to be / baptised. The day after the ceremony he begged "the loan of a dollar for / the love of God" from the missionary; and being refused, straightway, and / for the only time it was known of him, delivered a rumbling torrent of / half-breed profanity, mixed with the unusual oaths of the barracks. Then / he walked away with great humility. There was no swagger about Little / Hammer.

He was simply unquenchable and continuous. He sometimes got / drunk; but on such occasions he sat down, or lay down, in the most / convenient place, and, like Caesar beside Pompey's statue, wrapped his / mantle about his face and forgot the world. He was a vagabond Indian, / abandoned yet self-contained, outcast yet gregarious. No social / ostracism unnerved him, no threats of the H. B. C. officials moved him; / and when in the winter of 187_ he was driven from one place to another, / starving and homeless, and came at last emaciated and nearly dead to the / Post at Yellow Quill, he asked for food and shelter as if it were his / right, and not as a mendicant.