that counter with his dog whip; an’ what A did t’ y’r Sheriff last week in the Pass is nothing to what that bit of an Indian boy did t’ yon bullying Agent!  He thrashed him, an’ he thrashed him, an’ he chased him bellowin’ round the Agency House till the blackguard’s pants were ribbons an’ the blood stripes reached down an’ soaked his socks.  Boys, A went on to th’ Mountains!  When A came back next year an’ when MacDonald came back from MacKenzie River, we found that Agent had had Little Wandering Spirit arrested by the Mounted Police for assault an’ battery, an’ sentenced to a year in th’ penitentiary!  ‘Twas too late to undo the wrong!  Th’ girl, th’ woman y’ know as Calamity, had gone insane from abuse!  A helped to pry her dead child from her arms!  A helped the priest t’ bury it in the snow!  Next year, was the Rebellion!  Y’r sheepman an’ his wife, Miss Eleanor here was na’ born then, had come down from the North.  The Indians loved him.  They’d never touch him; but when the Rebellion broke out, ‘twas Wandering Spirit went dancing mad for revenge from one end o’ the Reserve t’ th’ other!  When the massacre came, the officer had tripped the little Indian fellow to his face an’ was pointin’ the old muzzle loader at the back o’ his head to blow out his brains, when along comes the MacDonald man an’ kicks the gun from the bully’s hand!  Little Wandering Spirit up an’ he pours that muzzle loader into the officer’s face; an’ he borrows another gun an’ empties that in his face; and he snatches a knife; an’ what he left o’ that brute y’ could bury in a coffin th’ length o’ y’r hand!  ‘Twas th’ Indian’s way o’ vengeance; but blame fell on MacDonald; an’ when Wandering Spirit was hanged for the murder, MacDonald fled from Canada; for his sympathies were with the Indians, as every right feelin’ man’s were;[2] for back a generation, there was Indian blood on the mother’s side; but the Act o’ Amnesty has been passed this many a year; an’ A’d come to take him back to a fortune waitin’ him in Scotland, to an inheritance when this happened.

“Y’ know how he found her again, eatin’ garbage in the Black Hills where the miners had cast her off; how he gave her an asylum an’ a home; an’ this is the man y’r fulthy sheriff poltroon coward says she’d shoot!  Men, men o’ th’ Nation, murder has been done here:  coward assassin murder on an innocent man!  The notes on the mine have been robbed from his pocket.  Who planned this murder?  Who shot MacDonald by mistake?  Who planned th’ Rim Rocks outrage?  Is it to this y’ have let y’r Democracy come?  Is this y’r self government workin’ worse outrage than the despotism o’ Russia?  We’d have hanged our kings in Scotland for less sin!  France would a’ tanned her rulers’ hide into moccasins for less!  What are y’ goin’ to do about it.”  His shout rang and rang through the court.  “Will ye make of self-government a farce, a screamin’ shame, a shriekin’ laughter in th’ ears o’ th’ world?”