A few years later the great Fur Companies became amalgamated, or rather the North-west ceased to exist, and henceforth the Hudson Bay Company ruled supreme from the shores of the Atlantic to the frontiers of Russian America.

From that date, 1822, the progress of the little colony had been gradual but sure.  Its numbers were constantly increased by the retired servants of the Hudson Bay Company, who selected it as a place of settlement when their period of active service had expired.  Thither came the voyageur and the trader to spend the winter of their lives in the little world of Assineboine.  Thus the Selkirk Settlement grew and flourished, caring little for the outside earth-"the world forgetting, by the world forgot.”

But the old feelings which had their rise in earlier years never wholly died out.  National rivalry still existed, and it required no violent effort to fan the embers into flame again.  The descendants of the two nationalities dwelt apart; there were the French parishes and the Scotch and English parishes, and, although each nationality spoke the same mother tongue, still the spread of schools and churches fostered the different languages of the fatherland, and perpetuated the distinction of race which otherwise would have disappeared by lapsing into savagery.  In an earlier chapter I have traced the events immediately pre ceding the breaking out of the insurrectionary movement among the French half-breeds, and in the foregoing pages I have tried to sketch the early life and history of the country into which I am about to ask the reader to follow me.  Into the immediate sectional disputes and religious animosities of the present movement it is not my intention to enter; as I journey on an occasional arrow may be shot to the right or to the left at men and things; but I will leave to others the details of a petty provincial quarrel, while-I have before me, stretching far and wide, the vast solitudes which await in silence the footfall of the future.

CHAPTER NINE

Running the Gauntlet—­Across the Line—­Mischief ahead-Preparations—­A Night March—­The Steamer captured—­The Pursuit-Daylight—­The Lower Fort—­The Red-Indian at last—­The Chief’s Speech—­A Big Feed—­Making ready for the Winnipeg—­A Delay—­I visit Fort Garry—­Mr. President Riel—­The Final Start-Lake Winnipeg—­The First Night out—­My Crew.

The steamer “International” made only a short delay at the frontier post of Pembina, but it was long enough to impress the on-looker with a sense of dirt and debauchery, which seemed to pervade the place.  Some of the leading citizens came forth with hands stuck so deep in breeches’ pockets, that the shoulders seemed to have formed an offensive and defensive alliance with the arms, never again to permit the hands to emerge into daylight unless it should be in the vicinity of the ankles.