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In 1870 the Indian unrest known as the First Riel Rebellion had occurred, but this amounted to little more than a joy jaunt for the troops under Lord Wolseley to Red River.
He had played for a great stake and had lost. As the patrol rode into Fort Calgary the little town was in an uproar of jubilation. "What's the row?" inquired the doctor, for Cameron felt too weary to inquire. "A great victory for the troops!" said a young chap dressed in cow-boy garb. "Middleton has smashed the half-breeds at Batoche. Riel is captured. The whole rebellion business is bust up."
Presently, Governor McTavish saw in the shadow of the fort the rebel leader and a number of followers. "We are desirous of entering," Riel said. "Wherefore?" enquired the Governor. "We cannot tell you now," was the reply; "it is enough for me to say that a great danger threatens the fort."
A force of 1200 regulars and volunteers was sent to the Red River towards the end of May, 1870, under the command of Colonel Wolseley, now a field-marshal and a peer of the realm. Riel fled across the frontier before the troops, after a tedious journey of three months from the day they left Toronto, reached Fort Garry. Peace was restored once more to the settlers of Assiniboia.
The affair at Duck Lake put an end to all parley. Riel had been clamoring for "blood! blood! blood!" At Duck Lake he received his first taste, but before many days were over he was to find that for every drop of blood that reddened the crusted snow at Duck Lake a thousand Canadian voices would indignantly demand vengeance.
A slight twitching of the limbs was noticed, but instantly all was still again. In two minutes after the fall, Louis Riel was no more. His conduct on the scaffold was very courageous. He was pale but firm, and kept up his courage by constant prayer, thus diverting his thoughts from the terrible death before him.
When, therefore, it became known that the Canadian Government had determined upon taking the colony to itself, an ambitious scheme of the highest daring entered into the brain of Louis Riel. He lost no time in beginning to sow seeds of discontent. "Canada," he said, "will absorb your colony, and as a people you will virtually be blotted out of existence.
Louis Riel, the central figure in this drama, was a young French half-breed, vain, ambitious, with some ability and the qualities of a demagogue. He had received his education in Lower Canada, and was on intimate terms with the French priests of the settlement.
While he was sitting in the house eating supper, a man having a gun passed the window; upon which Riel suddenly threw down his knife and fork, and declared that he was about to be shot. Nolin answered that he never would be shot in his house, and immediately went out to see who the man was.
It is necessary to pause a moment here and point out that M. Riel had actually formed a provisional government, and succeeded by his passionate eloquence in deluding the Metis and Indians into the belief that he was exercising a lawful authority, inasmuch as the territories had not, within the interpretation of the law, passed from the Hudson Bay Company under the jurisdiction of Canada.
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