Inasmuch as this tale is chiefly one of Scottish and of Colonial life, the story of the movement from Old Kildonan, on the German Ocean, to New Kildonan, on the Western Prairies—­we may be very sure, that it did not take place without irritation and opposition and conflict.  The Scottish race, while possessing intense earnestness and energy, often gains its ends by the most thoroughgoing animosity.  In this great emigration movement, there were great new world interests involved, and champions of the rival parties concerned were two stalwart chieftains, of Scotland’s best blood, both with great powers of leadership and both backed up with abundant means and strongest influence.  It was a duel—­indeed a fight, as old Sir Walter Scott would say, “a l’outrance”—­to the bitter end.  That the struggle was between two chieftains—­one a Lowlander, the other a Highlander, did not count for much, for the Lowlander spoke the Gaelic tongue—­and he was championing the interest of Highland men.

The two men of mark were the Earl of Selkirk and Sir Alexander Mackenzie.  Before showing the origin of the quarrel, it may be well to take a glance at each of the men.

Thomas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, was the youngest of seven sons, and was born in 1771.  Though he belonged to one of the oldest noble families, of Scotland, yet when he went to Edinburgh, as a fellow student of Sir Walter Scott, Clerk of Eldon, and David Douglas, afterward Lord Reston, it was with a view of making his own way in the world, for there were older brothers between him and the Earldom.  He was a young man of intense earnestness, capable of living in an atmosphere of enthusiasm—­always rather given indeed to take up and advocate new schemes.  There was in him the spirit of service of his Douglas ancestors, of being unwilling to “rust unburnished,” and he was strong in will, “to strive, to seek, to find.”  This gave the young Douglas a seeming restlessness, and so he visited the Highlands and learned the Gaelic tongue.  He went to France in the days of the French Revolution, and took great interest in the Jacobin dreams of progress.  The minor title of the House of Selkirk was Daer, and so the young collegian saw one Daer depart, then another, until at last he held the title, becoming in 1799 Earl of Selkirk and was confirmed as the master of the beautiful St. Mary’s Isle, near the mouth of the Dee, on Solway Frith.  On his visits to the Highlands, it was not alone the Highland straths and mountains, nor the Highland Chieftain’s absolute mastership of his clan, nor was it the picturesque dress—­the “Garb of old Gaul”—­which attracted him.  The Earl of Selkirk has been charged by those who knew little of him with being a man of feudal instincts.  His temper was the exact opposite of this.  When he saw his Scottish fellow-countrymen being driven out of their homes in Sutherlandshire, and sent elsewhere to give way for sheep farmers, and forest runs, and deer stalking, it touched his heart, and his three Emigration Movements, the last culminating in the Kildonan Colonists, showed not only what title and means could do, but showed a kindly and compassionate heart beating under the starry badge of Earldom.