Part 2 (1/2)

Having sealed and dispatched this note he resu any further concern about the , the love-lorn Jennie saw her pleading-eyed lover pass along in the shadow of the poplars toward her guardian's house She heard his ring at the door, and his step in the hall Her heart was in a great flutter; but her sister was at her side giving her co was so husht, that the girls could plainly hear the folloords spoken in the guardian's library:

”I understand, Mr Saunders, that you have been taking the astonishi+ngly presu the hand of one of iven to severity, or I do not exactly kno I ought to resent an act which exhibits such a forgetfulness of what your attitude should be towards a person in the station of my ward You are merely a half-breed; you are half-Indian, and for that ether My ward's position is such that the bare idea of such a union is revolting She is a lady by birth and by education, and is destined for a social sphere into which you could never, and ought never, enter You norance is the only palliation of your presu man the way out”

”O, my God, ill become of o after him! I will fly with him! I cannot endure this separation! O, sister, will you not intercede for my beloved? Tell uncle how noble andfor me? My God, what shall I do?”

In this fashi+on did poor Jennie's grief find words, and we leave her alone with her sore heart, while we follow the rejected suitor He walked swiftly down the lawn, turning not his eye, or hear madly in his veins, and it burned like fire His heart was hot, and his teht as well be all Indian for that matter! O, God! A despised half-breed!

They have shown the fangs at last We now see how they regard us” And he went forth a his friends, and told the story of the insult and huht in Red River burned with vengeance against the whiteof the indignity; and these two bodies, sundered before through petty cause, now united in a brotherhood of hate against the white population It needs no further words to she ready these dusky people would be to rise and follow a crafty leader, who cried out:

”We are despised by these white people We want no social or political alliance with thenominy and union with the to rise and lead the people to revolt, for this occurred some years before his bloody star reached the zenith; but the saovernor sent to the colony by the Dominion out of the territories, and set up an authority of his own Well nisant of the fate of the luckless suitor, and the consequences of the rejection, cry out with the poet:

”_Amour tu perdis Troie_”

[Footnote: Love thou hast conquered even Troy]

As for poor Jennie, heroic Jennie, ould follow her lover to death itself, she subhts, and days that for her ithout a breakfast, to the uardian, and to the philosophy of her sister A little later, a tall, ungainly young Highlander caic daughter of the Company's officer

Despite the blizards that so belated travellers, and un-roofing dwellings, notwithstanding the frequent incursions frorasshoppers, Red River settlement throve in wealth and population, till, when the period hich I shall now deal arrived, it numbered no fewer than 15,000 souls

Upon the coreat Act of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces in 1867, the attention of Canadian statesotiations were opened for the transfer of the Territory to the Doreat land had resuuished John Company; and this act had paved the way for a si Charles to ”the Governor and Co into Hudson Bay” The transfer was to be effected, as one writer puts it, by a triangular sort of arrangehts claimed by the Hudson Bay Company --and Red River lay within the Company's dominions--were to be annulled on payment of 300,000 pounds by Canada, and the country would then be handed over by Royal procla allowed to retain only certain parcels of land in the vicinity of its trading posts I o upon the authority of the same writer [Footnote: Captain G

L Huyshe] The transfer was dated for the 1st of Deceer to secure the rich prize, appointed its Minister of Public Works, the Honourable Williaall, CB, to be Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Territories, and sent him off in the month of September, with instructions to proceed to Fort Garry ”with all convenient speed” there to assist in the formal transfer of the Territories, and to ”be ready to assume the Government” as soon as the transfer was completed

So far so well, but let us pause just here

There is so to be said even on the side of revolt and murder, and let us see what it is Since the foundation of the colony the people had lived under the govern to the laws propounded by the Hudson Bay Company

The people had established a civilization of their own, and had custoreat reverence When tidings reached them that they were to be transferred to the Dos as to how they should fare under the new order Of late years, too, there had coesbid good-bye to his father upon the plains on his way to school in the East The fire seen in young Riel at the school, and when he turned his face again for the prairies that he loved, had now reached full flame He had never ceased to impress upon the people that the Hudson Bay Company was a heartless, soulless corporation, and that the treatht have been given to the dogs upon the plains

There never was public peace after the tongue of this un to make noise in the settlement

When, therefore, it became known that the Canadian Govern the colony to itself, an a entered into the brain of Louis Riel He lost no ti to sow seeds of discontent

”Canada,” he said, ”will absorb your colony, and as a people you will virtually be blotted out of existence

White officials will coatherer will plunder the land for funds to build s, and numerous railroads in the East The poor half-breed will be looked upon with conteards as sacred will be respected; no right which is inherently his, will be acknowledged

They will send their own henchmen, who have no sympathy in common with the half-breeds, to rule over us; no complaint that the people arded; yea, this new rule will fasten itself upon us as sos into a soil that has been yours so long Yes; you will be of _some_ interest to thehters, and those virtuous pale-faces fro admiration for lovely women In this respect, you shall receive their attention”

The effect of such argu these credulous people, who saw not the wily traitor behind the rich, eloquent voice, quivering with indignation, was si torch upon the prairie indeceiver went secretly to several of the leading half-breeds in Red River, and whispered certain proposals in their ear

Meanwhile, events were transpiring which furnished just the very fuel that Riel wanted for his fire During the su party, under Colonel Dennis, had been engaged surveying the country, and dividing it into townshi+ps, etc, for future allotood authority, the proceedings of this party had given great offence to the Metis The unsettled state of the half-breeds' land tenure not unnaturally excited apprehension in the norant people that their lands would be taken frorants Then they had the burning words of Louis Riel ringing in their ears saying that the thing _would_ be done To lend colour to theparty put up claims here and there to tracts of land to which they happened to take a fancy But this was not all So the Indians drink till they beca them to h any superior tract of land without observing the stakes of some person or other of Colonel Dennis's party

”I foretold it,” cried Riel ”Go out for yourselves and see thetheir plunder”

Nor was this the only grievance presented to the half-breeds The very survey then being carried on they looked upon as an act of conteht