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Updated: June 6, 2025
"Cuthbert Grant, warden of the plains and leader of the Bois-Brulés," was his terse response. "You're coming to our department at Fort Gibraltar, and I want you to give Father Holland a place in your canoes to come north with us. He's on his way to the Missouri." At that instant Duncan Cameron came up to Grant and muttered something.
No sooner was the massacre over than the Bois-brulés took possession of Fort Douglas and were under the command meantime of Cuthbert Grant. There was the greatest hilarity among the Metis. This New Nation had been vindicated. About forty-five men under arms held possession of the Fort.
When I came out, Duncan Cameron was in the gateway welcoming Cuthbert Grant and the Bois-Brulés, as if pillaging defenceless settlers were heroic. Victors from war may be inspiring, but a half-breed rabble, red-handed from deeds of violence, is not a sight to edify any man.
The Nakonkirhirinons had keener tortures, torments of a finer fibre than mere physical suffering, and the Bois-Brules' liquor had stirred the hidden resources. Again the dancing commenced, but this time it was not the harmless measure of the stamp-dance.
The warden was nervously apprehensive. This was unusual with him; and I have since wondered if his dark forebodings arose from better knowledge of the Bois-Brulés than I possessed, or from some premonition. "There'd be some reason for uneasiness, if you weren't here to control them, Grant," said I, nodding towards the Indians and Metis. "One man against a host! What can I do?" he asked gloomily.
Little Poplar did actually set out, after the attack, to join the bois-brules, and he deliberately I was going to say contemptuously exposed himself to the flank attack by Beaver's men, of which movement, we are told, he had been so much in dread. In due time, as the chief was pursuing his march, tidings came to him that the Metis had been overwhelmed.
The Indian always loved the British-man, whom on the west coast he called, "King Shautshman," or King George's man. The Indian is taciturn, unemotional, and cautious. He knew that the Bois-brulés had assumed their garb and committed the outrage of Seven Oaks, and therefore the tribe were unwilling to be under the stigma being thrown upon them.
The standing of the victims, including a Governor appointed by the Hudson's Bay Company, his staff men of position, the unexpectedness of the collison, the suddenness of the attack, the destruction of life, the cruelty and injustice of the killing, and the barbarous treatment of the bodies of the dead, by the Bois-brulés war party, fill one with horror, and remind one of scenes of butchery in dark Africa or the isles of the South Sea.
Leaving Little Fellow to guard our horses, at sundown I pushed my canoe into the Assiniboine just east of the rapids. Paddling swiftly with the current, I kept close to the south bank, where overhanging willows concealed one side of the river. As I swung out into the Red, true to the Bois-Brulés' report, I saw only blackened chimneys and ruined walls on the site of Fort Gibraltar.
Foremost was Bois DesCaut, his evil eyes glinting like a witch's omen. Yelling, jumping, flaming with the liquor of the Bois-Brules, they fell upon the two men and dragged them, half-falling, half-running, toward the circle, into it, and up to the fire. "Ho-ho! ho-ho-o! Ha-ha! ha-ha-a! ha-ha!"
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