The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief | Page 5

to founding the colony. It need
not be said that the place we have been describing was the prairie on
the banks of the Red River.
In a little while ships bearing numbers of sturdy Scotchmen began to
cross the sea bound for this famous colony, where the land was ready
for the plough, and mighty herds of wild cattle grazed knee-deep
among gorgeous flowers and sweet grasses. They brought few white
women with them, the larger number being young men who had bade
their "Heeland" lassies good-bye with warm kisses, promising to come
back for them when they had built homesteads for themselves in the far
away wilds of the West.
But when Lord Selkirk planted here his sturdy Scotchmen, wild beasts
and game were not the only inhabitants of the plains. The Crees, a
well-built, active, war-loving race, had from ages long forgotten
roamed over these interminable meadows, fishing in the streams, and
hunting buffalo. Here and there was to be found one of their "towns," a
straggling congregation of tents made of the skins of the buffalo.
Beautiful, dark-skinned girls, in bare brown, little feet, sat through the
cool of evening in the summer days sewing beads upon the moccasins

of their lovers, while the wrinkled dame limped about, forever
quarrelling with the dogs, performing the household duties.
But the Crees liked not the encroachment upon their territories by these
foreign men with pale faces; and they held loud pow-wows, and
brandished spears, and swept their knives about their heads till their
sheen gleamed many miles over the prairie. Then preparing their paint
they set out to learn from the pale-faced chief what was his justification
for the invasion.
"You cannot take lands without war and conquest," were the words of a
young chief with a nose like a hawk's beak, and an eye like the eagle's,
to Lord Selkirk. "You did not fight us; therefore you did not conquer us.
How comes it then that you have our lands?"
"Are you the owners of this territory?" calmly enquired the nobleman.
"We are; no one else is the owner."
"But I shall shew you that from two standpoints, first from my own,
and afterwards from yours, it belongs not to you. Firstly, it belongs to
our common Sovereign, the King of England. You belong to him; so
likewise do the buffalo that graze upon the plains, and the fishes that
swim in the rivers. Therefore our great and good Sovereign sayeth unto
me, his devoted subject, 'Go you forth into my territories in the North
of America, and select there a colony whereon to plant any of my
faithful children who choose to go thither.' I have done so. Then, since
you hold possession of these plains only by the bounty and sufferance
of our good father the King, how can you object to your white brethren
coming when they were permitted so to do?"
Ugh; that was only the oily-tongued talk of the pale-faces. While
seeming to speak fair, and smooth, and wise, their tongues were as
crooked as the horn of the mountain-goat. Yet no chief could answer
the Earl's contention, and they looked from one to another with some
traces of confusion and defeat upon their faces.
"But," continued Lord Selkirk, in the same grave and firm voice, "from

your own standpoint you are not the proprietors of this territory. The
Saulteux, with whom you wage your constant wars, have been upon
these plains as long as you. In times of peace you have intermarried
with them, and I now find in your wigwams many a squaw obtained
from among the villages of your rivals."
Ugh! They could not deny this. It was evident from their silence and
the abject way in which they glanced from one to another that the case
had gone against them.
"But there is no reason for your jealousy or your hostility," Lord
Selkirk continued; "our people come among you, not as conquerors, but
as brothers. They shall not molest you but quietly till the fields and
raise their crops. Instead of showing unfriendliness, I think you should
take them by the hand and welcome them as brothers." These words at
last prevailed, and the Crees put by their war paint, and came among
the whites and offered them fish and buffalo steak.
Thus was the colony founded. The grain grew well, and there was
abundance in the new settlement, save that at intervals an army of
locusts would come out of the west and destroy every green leaf. Then
the settlers' needs were sore, and they were obliged to subsist upon
roots and what fell to them from the chase.
Many years rolled on, and the sturdy Scotch settlers had driven their
roots fast into the ground. One alone of