Part 3 (1/2)

”I shall take no notice of this inise such a piece of presumption, and deal with a communication which would be the rankest insolence, but that it is so extreallant Lieutenant-Governor, with his officials, boldly crossed the line and proceeded towards Fort Garry But they were met on their triumphant march by a detachment of fourteen armed half-breeds whose spokesman said:

”You received an order from the Provisional Government not to enter these territories When that order was passed it was the Government's intention to take care that it should be carried out Yet you have forced yourself in here I give you till to-all's lip began to hang a little low The calm, even polite, tone of the spokese

With the nextca the horses of the Governor's party by the head, turned them around, and packed the whole of them back In this way, and without so nate turned out of the territories

Every success, however trivial, was fuel to the courage and enthusiasun this matter,” the leader said to one of his followers, ”and I do not mean to deal in halfFort Garry is worth our having just now, but wepossession of it” So it was ordered that his followers should proceed in twos and threes, as if on no special mission, to the desired point Presently, Governor McTavish saw in the shadow of the fort the rebel leader and a nu,” Riel said

”Wherefore?” enquired the Governor

”We cannot tell you noas the reply; ”it is enough for er threatens the fort”

Without further explanation, the feeble-willed Hudson Bay officer permitted the rebel and his followers to enter

”Huzza!” they all shouted, when they found thelanced at tier upon tier of barrels of flour, and pork, and beef, and , and better than all, upon the arms and ammunition

”I am at last master in Red River,” Riel said to one of his followers ”My ht now, for here we have at once a fortification and a base of supplies”

Just a feords with reference to Mr McDougall, and I shall dises He lived quietly at Pembina between the date of his expulsion from Red River and the first day of December The latter date was fixed for the transfer of the new territory to the Doht, on the 30th of Novenate and his party sallied, forth from the ”line” and took formal possession of the territory in the na about the prairie on the night in question, for the glass shewed the therallant Governor was enabled to take possession without obstruction

Riel was now fairly intoxicated with success Some of his folloould sometimes ask him if he had no fear that the Canadian Governainst him His invariable reply was:

”They never will do this The way is too long, and the march too difficult They will eventually make up their mind to let us rule this Province ourselves”

”And do you propose to stand aloof as an independent colony?”

”Perhaps! And, perhaps, we may, by and by, discuss the subject of annexation” For all the hted as any savage upon the plain And the small measure of Indian blood in hian to look upon hiive hireat display of his i his friends that he was as diplomatic and as able as any statesman in Canada, and that even his eneht, persistently, the sirls of the plains, but soreat favourite with the olive-skinned beauties Noever, the case was different with him The Red River belles saw in hihest order, the ruler of a colony, and the defiant and triumphant enemy of the whole Doan to ply their needles, and eous beads upon his hunting coat, and another set his jacket spangling with quills of the porcupine The good priests of Red River, and their pious vicar, _pere_ Lestanc, whoe of the Diocese while he was attending the Ecue These worthy gentle from the Catechism ever since the time they were first able to tell their beads, or to make mud pies, these words: ”He that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that (so) resist shall purchase to themselves da the power,” and, therefore, ”resisting the ordinances of God;” but these precious divines saw no harm whatever in the act Indeed, they were thetheir flock to be zealous and firm, and to follow the advice of their patriotic and able leader, M Riel The great swaggering, windy _pere_ Richot, took his coarse person fro the Canadian Govern the people

”No harm can come to you,” he would say; ”you have in the Canadian Governe E

Cartier He will see that no hair of one of your heads is touched” And Riel went abroad giving the sa one of the fifteen thousand Metis that Riel was a _protege_ of Monseigneur Tache; that through this pious bishop it was he had received his education, and that His Lordshi+p would not alone seek to minimize what his favourite had done, but would say that the uprising was a justifiable one This was how the Catholic Church in Red River stimulated the diseased vanity and the lawless spirit of this thrice-dangerous Guiteau of the plains

I have already said that Bruce was put up by Riel as a ure-head When the end of the pretence had been accomplished, this poor scare-croas thron and Louis Riel assuan to draw to himself all thoseout any scheme of villainy, or even of blood that he proposed to thehue was duly installed as a confidential attendant ide powers, and Lepine was made head of the military part of the insurrectionary body It certainly was strange if the treasonable undertaking should not be successful with the acquisition of all the fearless and lawless personages that the half-breed coering father Richot offering up masses that it should prevail

It must not be supposed that there were no white people in this Red River region There were very many indeed, and soh character or through affluence Most of these persons were loyal to the heart's core, and were of opinion that the rising had nothing justifiable in it, and regarded it as a cris, held in the town of Winnipeg, soive expression to their sentiments But Riel'sover divers plans of vengeance There was no reason why he should hesitate in taking any step that pro for its success, and working for it, too The shedding of the blood of a few heretics was a matter of small consequence: indeed, the act would only hallow a cause that had patriotislaring olfish eyes upon the good ainst lawlessness, and relate a story which will shed a new light upon the darkest deed of the dark career of the miscreant Rebel

CHAPTER V

Some time before the outbreak, Riel, in co chicken along the prairies The hunting-ground was many miles distant from Riel's home, so that the intention of the sportsmen was to trust thehbourhood The settlers were all, with two or three exceptions, Metis; and the door of the half-breed is never shut against traveller or stranger

One late afternoon, as the twothe prairie footpath towards a little settleing

The song was exquisitely worded and touching, and the singer's voice eet and limpid as the notes of a bobolink M Riel, like Mohaion, is strong of will; but he is weaker than a shorn Samson when a lovely woman chooses to essay a conquest So he ht be, and proposed that both should leave the path and join the unknown fair one A few rove, and there, upon a fallen tree-bole, in the delicious cool of the autu She was a hteen years, and her soft, silky-fine, dark hair was over her shoulders In girlish fancy she had woven for herself a crown of flowers out of olds and daisies, and put it upon her head She did not hear the footsteps of the men upon the soft prairie, and they did not at once reveal the to her

She had ceased her song, and was gazing beyond intently