It was as well for the prisoners that Poundmaker was not aware of the fact that they had overpowered their guard and had been in the act of escaping when he came round the corner.  It is only probable to suppose that he was surprised to find them all alive and unscathed by the shell-fire, and that he imagined some natural mishap had occurred to the escort during the progress of the fight Lucky it was for that same escort that it was the British troops, and not Poundmaker’s men, who afterwards found them bound hand and foot, for it is safe to say that in the latter case they would never have had an opportunity of being surprised again.  They would have dangled by their heels from the bough of some tree while a slow fire underneath saved them the necessity of ever after requiring to braid their raven locks.

In point of fact, Poundmaker was in rather a good humour than otherwise, for the British were now withdrawing to take up a position on the open prairie, where they knew the Red men and metis would not attack them.  True, the rebels had suffered severely, but so had the Government troops.  Before the British could make another attack, he would be off into the wild, inaccessible fastnesses of the Eagle Hills, where they would have to catch him who could.  He had sense enough to know that the British must catch him in the long run, but he would have a high old time till then.  Civilisation was a very tame affair, and a rebellion was a heaven-sent opportunity for resuscitating a picturesque past with lots of loot and scalps thrown in.  His meditated revenge on the prisoners would keep—­there was nothing like having a card up one’s sleeve.

He straightway broke up the party.  With a certain rude sense of the fitness of things, he put Douglas and Pasmore together.  He assured the former that the same young squaw who had been in attendance on his daughter would continue to wait upon her in the future.  His lieutenant, “Young-Man-Who-Jumps-Like-a-Frog,” a very promising young man indeed, would be responsible to him for her safety.  If anything happened to her, or she escaped, then Young-Man, etc., would no longer have eyes to see how he jumped.

It would have been madness for the party to have made any serious attempt to resist arrest, for they were simply covered by the muzzles of fire-arms.  Still, Pasmore sent two Indians reeling backwards with two right and left blows, which made them look so stupid that Poundmaker was secretly amused, and therefore stopped the pulling of the trigger of the blunderbuss that an Indian placed close to the police sergeant’s head in order to effect a thorough and equal distribution of his brains.  The grim and politic chief, who was not without a sense of humour, ordered that a rope be tied round the waist of the wild cat—­as he was pleased to term Pasmore—­and that to the two braves who had been so stupid as to allow him to punch their heads, should be allotted the task of leading him about like a bear.  He hinted that if Pasmore occasionally amused himself by testing the powers of resistance of their skulls with his hammer-like fists, no difficulties would be thrown in his way by the others.