From: spammenottsauve@home.com   
      
   That is a truly dreadful story Chris :(   
      
   We are so fortunate that Canada and the US are festooned with hospitals   
   nowadays.   
      
   My great grandfather Everett Parsonage led HBC freight caravans and the   
   occasional wagon train from   
   Fort Garry (Winnipeg) to Fort Edmonton in the mid-1870s, a distance of at   
   least 800 miles through   
   almost entirely Plains Indian territory. This was the same year as the Little   
   Bighorn or perhaps   
   1877, so hostile non-reservation Indians were not uncommon from both sides of   
   the border, as the   
   great buffalo herds were then much larger in western Canada than those that   
   remained in the US.   
   Along the way he dropped off provisions (oats) at the NWMP forts along the way   
   such as Fort Ellice,   
   Fort Carlton and Fort Pitt. On one of his solo expeditions, as he was crossing   
   a river, one of the   
   protruding handles from a cart punctured his side, breaking ribs and leaving   
   him with a nasty gash.   
   I believe he just holed up where he was for two weeks to look after himself. I   
   don't know how he   
   fixed the hole in his side but he survived. It would be interesting to hear   
   him tell the tale but he   
   died on Christmas day 1944 at the ripe old age of 89. I didn't show up for   
   another 14 years but I've   
   heard the story a few times from the old timers before they too passed on.   
   --   
   Todd   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)