Motioning M. Riel to be seated, I took a chair myself, and the conversation began.

Speaking with difficulty, and dwelling long upon his words, Riel regretted that I should have shown such distrust of him and his party as to prefer the Lower Fort and the English Settlement to the Upper Fort and the society of the French.  I answered, that if such distrust existed it was justified by the rumours spread by his sympathizers on the American frontier, who represented him as making active preparations to resist the approaching Expedition.

“Nothing,” he said, “was more false than these statements.  I only wish to retain power until I can resign it to a proper Government.  I have done every thing for the sake of peace, and to prevent bloodshed amongst the people of this land.  But they will find,” he added passionately, “they will find, if they try, these people here, to put me out-they will find they cannot do it.  I will keep what is mine until the proper Government arrives;” as he spoke he got up from his chair and began to pace nervously about the room.

I mentioned having met Bishop Tache in St. Paul and the letter which I had received from him.  He read it attentively and commenced to speak about the Expedition.

“Had I come from it?”

“No; I was going to it.”

He seemed surprised.

“By the road to the Lake of the Woods?”

“No; by the Winnipeg River,” I replied.

“Where was the Expedition?”

I could not answer this question; but I concluded it could not be very far from the Lake of the Woods.

“Was it a large force?”

I told him exactly, setting the limits as low as possible, not to deter him from fighting if such was his intention.  The question uppermost in his mind was one of which he did not speak, and he deserves the credit of his silence.  Amnesty or no amnesty was at that moment a matter of very grave import to the French half-breeds, and to none so much as to their leader.  Yet he never asked if that pardon was an event on which he could calculate.  He did not even allude to it at all.

At one time, when speaking of the efforts he had made for the advantage of his country, he grew very excited, walking hastily up and down the room with theatrical attitudes and declamation, which he evidently fancied had the effect of imposing on his listener; but, alas! for the vanity of man, it only made him appear ridiculous; the mocassins sadly marred the exhibition of presidential power.

An Indian speaking with the solemn gravity of his race looks right manful enough, as with moose-clad leg his mocassined feet rest on prairie grass or frozen snow-drift; but this picture of the black-coated Metis playing the part of Europe’s great soldier in the garb of a priest and the shoes of a savage looked simply absurd.  At length M. Riel appeared to think he had enough of the interview, for stopping in front of me he said,