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So list ye the song of the Bois-Brulés, Of their glorious deeds in the days of old, And this is the tale of the buffalo hunt Which I, Pierre, the rhymester, have proudly told. A more desolate existence than the life of a fur-trading winterer in the far north can scarcely be imagined.
To add to the small resentment against him which began to rankle in McElroy's heart, and which had never really left it since that evening in De Seviere when Maren Le Moyne had passed behind the cabin of the Savilles with some voyageur's tot on her shoulder and the handsome gallant from Montreal had lost his manners staring, one day in this same week a Bois-Brules came to the post gates and asked for one Maren Le Moyne.
"Captain Stephens has been tried by le chef's court martial, and is condemned to be shot. Le chef has only a few braves and bois-brules about him; and I could fetch you to the nest in an hour and a half by hard riding." When the coureur learnt that the force had been dispatched he rode away again. And we shall likewise bid good-bye to the poet and the colonel, and join Browninge.
"Now, deuce take those rascals! What are they doing?" exclaimed Grant angrily, as we left the river trail and skirted round a slough of Frog Plains on the side remote from Fort Douglas. Our forces were following in straggling disorder. The first battalions of the Bois-Brulés, which had already rounded the marsh, were now in the settlement on Red River bank. It was to them that Grant referred.
I could make out several Hudson's Bay faces, that seemed to remind me of my Fort Douglas visit; but of the rabble of Nor'-Westers and Bois-Brulés disguised in hideous war-gear, I dare avow not twenty of us were recognizable. "Miserable rogue!" Boucher was shouting, utterly beside himself with rage and flourishing his gun directly over the governor's head, "Miserable rogue!
Hurriedly McLeod, with a cart, carried thither the three-pounder cannon in his possession, then cut up lengths of chain to be his shot and shell, used with care his small supply of powder and with three or four men, his only garrison, stood to his gun and awaited the attack of the Bois-Brulés. Being on horseback his assailants could not long face his one piece of artillery.
I reminded him that they were his father's country-women and in his deceased father's name, I begged him to take pity and compassion on them and spare them. "At last he said, if all the arms and public property were given up, we should be allowed to go away. After inducing the Bois-brulés to allow me to go to Fort Douglas, I met our people; they were long unwilling to give up, but at last our Mr.
Let him seek the rafters of the Nor-Westers' fort in the new walls of Fort Douglas! Pembina, too, had fallen before the Hudson's Bay men. Since the coming of the great governor, nothing could stand before the English. But wait! It was not all over! The war drum was beating in the tents of all the Bois-Brulés!
"What what what?" sputtered the Highland governor, springing first on one side of Grant and then on the other, all the while rumbling out maledictions on Lord Selkirk, and Governor McDonell and Fort Douglas. "What do ye say, mon? Do I understand ye clearly, there's no prisoners with ye?" "Laughs at the Bois-Brulés. The fool laughs at the Bois-Brulés!
The Bois-Brulés from childhood were familiar with the Indian pony, knew all his tricks and habits, began to ride with all the skill of a desert ranger, were familiar with fire-arms, took part in the chase of the buffalo on the plains, and were already trained to make the attack as cavalry on buffalo herds, after the Indian fashion, in the famous half-circle, where they were to be so successful in their later troubles, of which we shall speak.
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