Just a few words with reference to Mr. McDougall, and I shall dismiss him from these pages.  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 Dominion of Canada.  So, towards midnight, on the 30th of November, the Governor-Designate and his party sallied, forth from the “line” and took formal possession of the territory in the name of the Government of Canada.  There was no one stirring about the prairie on the night in question, for the glass shewed the thermometer to be 20 degrees below zero:  so the gallant Governor was enabled to take possession without obstruction.

Riel was now fairly intoxicated with success.  Some of his followers would sometimes ask him if he had no fear that the Canadian Government would send out a large force of soldiers against 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 man’s cunning and courage, he was almost as short-sighted as any savage upon the plain.  And the small measure of Indian blood in him would assert itself in many ways.  The people began to look upon him as another Napoleon triumphant, and to give him honour in every way that suggested itself.  He made a great display of his importance, and would boast among his friends that he was as diplomatic and as able as any statesman in Canada, and that even his enemies admitted this.  In his earlier days he sought, persistently, the smiles of the fair girls of the plains, but somehow or another he was never a very great favourite with the olive-skinned beauties.  Now, however, the case was different with him.  The Red River belles saw in him a hero and a statesman of the highest order, the ruler of a colony, and the defiant and triumphant enemy of the whole Dominion of Canada.  So the poor, shallow pets began to ply their needles, and make for him presents of delicate things.  One sewed gorgeous 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, whom Monseigneur had left in charge of the Diocese while he was attending the Ecumenical Council in Rome, came forward with their homage.  These worthy gentlemen had been in the habit of reading 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 damnation.”  Here was a madly ambitious adventurer “resisting the power,” and, therefore, “resisting the ordinances of God;” but these precious divines saw no harm whatever in the act.  Indeed, they were the most persistent abettors in the uprising, counselling their 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 from house to house denouncing the Canadian Government and inciting the people.