“No harm can come to you,” he would say; “you have in the Canadian Government a good friend in Mr. George E. Cartier.  He will see that no hair of one of your heads is touched.”  And Riel went abroad giving the same assurance.  Moreover, it was known to every thinking 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 Lordship 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 mere figure-head.  When the end of the pretence had been accomplished, this poor scare-crow was thrown down and Louis Riel assumed the presidency of the Provisional Government.  Now he began to draw to himself all those men whom he knew would be faithful tools in carrying out any scheme of villainy, or even of blood that he proposed to them.  The coarse and loud-mouthed O’Donoghue was duly installed as a confidential attendant with wide 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 community could produce, and the vicar-general and the swaggering 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 some of them held prominent places in the community through high 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 criminal and treasonable rebellion.  At meetings, held in the town of Winnipeg, some of these gentlemen were at no pains to give expression to their sentiments.  But Riel’s murderous eye was upon them; and he was revolving over divers plans of vengeance.  There was no reason why he should hesitate in taking any step that promised help to the cause, for Holy Church was praying 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 patriotism under, and religion behind it.  We shall leave Riel glaring with wolfish eyes upon the good men who raised their voices against 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.