Our First and Last Indian War
THERE were only fifteen hundred white folk in Manitoba at the time of
the trouble in 1870, but around them lived ten thousand people of mixed
race. Three-fifths of these owed their white blood to French voyageurs;
the rest drew theirs chiefly from Scots higher up in the Hudson’s Bay
service.
A small but steady stream of white settlers now began to trickle in,
coming from Ontario through the States. The French Métis soon found
themselves in a minority. The wilder spirits sold their land and flitted
to the banks of the Saskatchewan, four or five hundred miles away to the
north-west; but even there the stream of white immigration followed, and
the land surveyors again began to map out the country with ruthless
regularity. The Métis, living along the river bank, from which their
farms ran back in narrow strips, were afraid they might lose their land,
especially as the issue of their patents had been delayed and petitions
to the Government seemed to fall on deaf ears.
In the fall of 1884, it was plain that a storm was brewing. Louis Riel,
after many years of exile, returned from the United States on his
kinsmen’s invitation, and put himself at the head of their agitation for
the redress of grievances. Chiefly, and naturally, they wanted the same
title to their land as had been given to the Métis back on the Red
River. Such grievances as actually existed might have been remedied, and
the threatening storm prevented, if the Federal Government had given a
little attention to the matter. Agitation was allowed to flame up in
revolt, and Louis Riel had proclaimed himself “President of the
Saskatchewan” before the government machine began to stir.
The Métis began, in the spring of 1885, by seizing the persons and
property of their white neighbors at Batoche and Duck Lake. Mounted
Police went to the rescue, accompanied by some volunteers from the
neighboring town of Prince Albert, but were driven back with a loss of
twelve killed, nine being left dead on the snow. The rebels had beaten
the white men!
Imagine what that meant, in a country where the little white population
of peaceful farmers lay thinly scattered among strong tribes of warlike
Indians. The Métis were a mere handful compared to the pure-blooded
red-skins; these numbered, even without the tribes of the distant north,
some 25,000, including braves who had taken many a scalp in tribal wars,
and in fights with white troops south of the frontier. If these tribes
had gone on the war-path, the scattered white population of the
territories might have been wiped out of existence, and the re-conquest
of the country might have involved a long and hard campaign.
Everything depended on the Indians. The Métis knew this perfectly well,
and Louis Riel moved heaven and earth to drag in the only allies who
could give him a chance of winning. Adopting the name David, and
pretending to have supernatural powers, he claimed to be a new Messiah
sent to lead the red men and give them victory over the white. He sent
his envoys all over the plains to rouse the ancient passion of the
tribes for war. Promising impossible gains, and threatening when
persuasion failed, they did their very worst.
The strongest tribes, including the Blackfeet, decided to sit still and
mind their own business. This was partly owing to the fairness with
which as a rule they had been treated by the Canadian Government and the
Hudson’s Bay Company, partly to the influence of missionaries and
Mounted Police in their midst, and partly to their own good sense. The
railway had just arrived; and the spectacle of an army of men
constructing at marvellous speed a road of steel across the prairie was
a most convincing evidence of the white man’s power. But for a while it
was touch and go, even among the Blackfeet. So it was among Piapot’s
Crees near Qu’Appelle.
The flaming words of the new “Messiah” and his apostles had more effect
on the tribes along the North Saskatchewan. The more intelligent chiefs,
like Poundmaker of the Crees, knew well enough what the end of the war
must be, sooner or later; but the younger braves, the hot-headed
extremists, were shouting for a fight, and carried the tribe with them.
An Indian chief will never hang back when his tribe is bent on war,
however crazy he may think it; so even Poundmaker, the white man’s
friend, fought the white man rather than be called a coward by his own
foolish folk.
“The Indians are on the war-path. Battleford is besieged!” That was the
news flashed down to the East before we had recovered from the shock of
the Duck Lake defeat. The whole white population of Battleford town,
with hundreds of refugees from the country-side, crowded into the fort,
standing high on a point of land in the fork of the Battle and
Saskatchewan Rivers. This fort was simply a log stockade enclosing the
Mounted Police barracks, stables and storehouses. The railroad was
nearly two hundred miles away to the south, and the road to it was cut
off by the enemy. The Government telegraph line, the only means of
communicating with the outside world, was cut again and again by an
unseen foe. Imagine the feelings of the beleaguered refugees, watching
the smoke of their burning farmhouses, and wondering whether they
themselves would be slaughtered or starved before any one came to their
rescue!
Within a week, the exaggerations of rumor were rivalled by a terrible
statement of fact brought in by a scout from Fort Pitt. This Hudson’s
Bay post, ninety miles up the Saskatchewan, had been held by twenty-four
Mounted Police under Inspector Dickens, a son of the novelist. Five
miles farther north, on the picturesque shores of Frog Lake, a smaller
Hudson’s Bay post and a Roman Catholic mission had begun to develop into
a settlement, possessing even a mill.
The Crees in that neighborhood, headed by a chief named Big Bear, held a
war dance on hearing of Riel’s victory, and ordered the white folk into
the Indian camp as prisoners. A Government agent, Thomas Quinn, refused
to go, and a furious Cree named Wandering Spirit shot him down. The
Indians had probably not planned a massacre, but this taste of blood
roused their tiger spirit. Nine men in all were shot, including two
priests. Only the Hudson’s Bay clerk was spared. There were two white
women, but friendly Métis paid three dollars and four ponies ransom for
them, and kept them safe.
After the braves had gorged themselves for ten days on stolen victuals,
keeping up their war spirit by frenzied dances, they laid siege to Fort
Pitt. There was no lack of courage in the garrison. Even the girls,
daughters of the Hudson’s Bay factor, William MacLean, shouldered rifles
with the men. But when MacLean went out to parley with the Indians, they
would not let him return; they only promised to protect the white
civilians if the Police cleared out of the fort. MacLean had such
confidence in his Company’s favor with the Indians that he sent a letter
telling his wife and children to come into camp, with several other
white and half-breed families; and he advised the Police to leave, as
the Indians had got fire-arrows ready to burn the fort down.
[Illustration: _Big Bear’s Demand for the Surrender of Fort Pitt_]
His advice was taken. The civilians put themselves at the Indians’
mercy, and the Police made their way painfully down the river, amid
masses of floating ice, in an ancient leaky scow. Battleford welcomed
the two dozen extra appetites with self-forgetting heartiness; and two
days later, on the 24th of April, this modern Lucknow was relieved by an
expedition which had come two thousand miles to save it.
* * * * *
“Would you like to go out as our war correspondent?” the editor of the
Montreal _Daily Witness_ asked me when telegrams were pouring in from
the West begging the Government to hurry up troops or no one would be
left alive to rescue. The editor spoke with hesitation. He had a tender
heart and lively conscience, and hated the idea of sending a young
fellow off “perhaps to be killed.”
The young fellow laughed, and jumped at the adventure—it was well worth
the risk. A few hours later, with a knapsack for baggage, he was rolling
along through the States, as that was before the Canadian Pacific was
finished and the only railway connection between Eastern and Western
Canada was still by way of Chicago.
Canada’s problem, to save the people of the West, was a hard one indeed.
We had no regular army, beyond a few companies at Infantry Schools and
an occasional battery of artillery. The rescuing must be done by
volunteers, who were certainly keen enough, but had little or no
experience of war. Moreover, the troops were not allowed to go through
the States, as I had done.
The Government apparently thought they would have to send the force up
through the Great Lakes by steamer, as there were four unbuilt gaps in
the railway north of Lake Superior, and no passenger cars on the three
disconnected sections of track between the gaps. But spring navigation
was not yet open, and every day’s delay might mean sentence of death to
hundreds of peaceable folk in the West. Van Horne, the manager of the
Canadian Pacific, went to Sir John Macdonald, the Prime Minister, and
offered to take the troops up at once in spite of everything.
“How can you carry the men without a railway?” said Sir John. “It’s
impossible.”
“Raise the men, and give me a week’s notice of their arrival, and I
pledge myself to do it.”
“What do you pledge?” asked Sir John.
“I pledge my word, and, if necessary, my life,” was the answer.
“Can you do it in a month’s time?” was the next question.
“I will do it in eleven days to Qu’Appelle,” said Van Horne. And he did.
Over the longer gaps the troops were carried in sleighs; over the
shorter, they marched through the snow. They looked as if they had gone
through a campaign already by the time they got to Qu’Appelle—but they
got there in eight or nine days instead of eleven, thanks to the vigor
and capacity of the railway men.
Within a month, 3,000 men had been transported to the West, some as far
as 2,500 miles and the rest about 1,800. With over 1,500 Westerners
under arms, a force of 4,500 was collected; though, as it happened, the
later arrivals had no chance to share in the fighting.
The prairie section of the railway was already built, but it only ran
within about two hundred miles of the rebel centres in the north. From
Qu’Appelle one force under General Middleton had to march against the
Métis at Batoche, near Duck Lake. Another column, under Colonel Otter,
had to go on to Swift Current and thence across the prairie to fight the
Indians besieging Battleford. A third force, under General Strange,
including the 91st Battalion from Winnipeg and a French-Canadian
battalion, the 65th from Montreal, had to march north from Calgary to
Edmonton, and thence reach Fort Pitt by trail and river. Some of them
marched the soles off their boots, but when I came up with them towards
the end of the campaign, doing sentry-go in bare feet near Beaver River,
they were cheery as larks and singing the old folk-songs their
forefathers had sung in the France of the seventeenth century.
Embarking at Qu’Appelle in a caboose with an advance party of Otter’s
Indian-fighters, I landed, one fine April morning, at Swift Current,
then consisting of half a dozen shacks. When the rest of the column
arrived, we found ourselves 500 strong: the Queen’s Own Rifles of
Toronto, in their dark green uniforms; a company of red-coated
sharpshooters, picked from the Governor-General’s Foot Guards of Ottawa;
a company from the Toronto School of Infantry; a bunch of blue-coated
artillery-men from Quebec, with a gatling and two field guns; and forty
Mounted Police.
To reach the beleaguered town we knew we should have to cross 180 miles
of uninhabited wilderness. We had, therefore, to accumulate a train of
farm wagons to carry food for the troops, hay and oats for the horses,
and even wood for our camp fires. Many pioneer farmers of Manitoba and
the territories let their land lie fallow that year and spent the summer
teaming at $10 a day for the Government.
Hour after hour, day after day, the thin line of wagons and horsemen,
four miles long from van to rear, rolled northwards up the trail. Not a
man did we see, nor sign of life, except for the meadow larks and
gophers.
At last we stood on the bank of the Battle River,—and over there we
were thankful to see the old Battleford stockade still sheltering the
refugees we had come to save.
The Indians vanished on our approach, and pitched their camp on
Poundmaker’s reserve, nearly forty miles away in the west. So in the
afternoon of the first of May, leaving half our little force to guard
the town, but taking with us a company of the beleaguered white men who
had organized themselves as a “Battleford Home Guard,” we set out on the
enemy’s track, carrying five days’ rations and little else.
All night we rode, and the sun was sending its first rays up behind us
when we saw at our feet a little valley where Cutknife Creek wound in
and out among bushes through a sandy bottom. From the other side of the
creek rose a gentle slope of bare turf, flanked on either side by a
gully. This was Cutknife Hill, where Poundmaker and his Crees had
defeated Chief Cutknife and his Sarcees, many years before. But since
then Poundmaker had distinguished himself as a peacemaker; it was he who
brought to an end the age-long feud between the Crees and the Blackfoot
confederacy.
A few hundred yards beyond the crest of the hill we knew that Poundmaker
was now encamped, and we hoped that he and all his men were still sound
asleep.
They were—all but one. Do you ask how I know that? Years afterwards I
went over the battlefield with an old Indian named Piacutch, who had
been in the fight. When I asked him how the Indians knew we were coming
that morning, he told me—“There was an old Indian, named
Jacob-with-long-hair, who always got up before anybody else. He went out
over the hill, and his horse put up its ears, and then he listened and
heard wagons coming; so he galloped back and told us, and we strung out
as quick as we could, one by one.”
Scarcely had the head of the column got across the stream when a scout
dashed back with the cry “The Nichis are on us!”
The police were flying up the hill in a moment, with the gunners
galloping at their heels, and gained the top of the hill in the nick of
time, for the Indians were racing for the same point of vantage. Foiled
in this, the painted redskins launched a volley of yells and bullets at
the police, and fell back into a hollow, beyond which lay the Indian
camp. Meanwhile the infantry had leapt from their wagons, and in less
time than it takes to tell were lying in skirmishing order all along the
edges of the slope.
Puffs of smoke began to rise from the gullies on our left, on our right,
and even in our rear. We were completely surrounded by hidden Indians,
every one of them a sniper. If a rifleman so much as rose on his elbow
to fire, he was the target of a dozen marksmen. Cover we had none. The
horses and wagons were just bunched together on the middle of the hill.
The air seemed alive with whizzing bullets, and one by one our men were
dropping.
Do you wonder what it feels like, to find yourself suddenly for the
first time in the middle of a whistling concert of bullets, knowing that
any one of them may get you? Well, some are scared for a moment, and a
few stay scared. Others are exhilarated by the joy of fighting. On
Cutknife Hill that day, I suppose nearly all, though tired with the long
night ride, quickly recovered from the shock of surprise, and felt
little anxiety except to do their duty as well as they could.
Personally, I felt too much interested to be afraid; nor could I be
upset by the sight of death in ghastly forms, for my calling had
hardened me to that in time of peace. My chief feeling was just a keen
desire to see and understand everything that was going on, to gather up
all the incidents of the battle into a living and accurate story, so
that others could read and realize what I had seen.
The volunteers, whatever they felt, seemed in action cool as veterans;
cool of nerve only, for the sun beat down upon them with all its western
might. They wasted a monstrous lot of lead at first, but presently
settled down to more systematic work, and even imitated a favorite
Indian trick—one man holding up a hat as target and his comrade picking
off anyone who rose to aim at it. Those clerks from Ottawa and students
from Toronto were as steady under the deadly hail as if they had fought
through a hundred battles.
A most heroic scene was enacted by a pair of theological students from
Toronto. Three of the Battleford Home Guard, trying to clear out the
enemy from the creek-bed in our rear, were cut off by a bunch of
Indians. Their only way of escape was by reaching and climbing a
perpendicular earthen cut-bank. Two of the University Company in the
Queen’s Own, Acheson and Lloyd, who had themselves got separated from
their comrades, caught sight of the Battleford men from the top of the
bank and realized their desperate strait. Acheson stretched himself over
the edge and hauled up the refugees by main force as soon as they
reached the foot of the cut-bank, while Lloyd took aim in turn at every
Indian that rose to fire at the rescuer—took aim, but dared not let
fly, for he had only one cartridge left.
So hot was the Indian fire that every one of the three Battleford men
was shot as soon as he reached the top of the bank. One of them got a
second bullet in him while Acheson was carrying him back, and they
rolled over together. Acheson was picking the man up again, when a Métis
scrambled up out of the gully and levelled his musket at the rescuer’s
back. Lloyd fired his last cartridge and knocked over the Métis, whose
body carried down with it half a dozen Indians climbing up behind him. A
moment after, a bullet pierced Lloyd’s side, took off a piece of a
vertebra, and stretched him helpless on the turf. Acheson, all his
ammunition gone, sprang to Lloyd’s defence, and stood over him with
clubbed rifle; but neither of them would have lived another minute if a
handful of their comrades had not come up in the nick of time and driven
back their assailants.
It is that same Lloyd, now Bishop of Saskatchewan, whose name is
immortalized by the town of Lloydminster. Acheson is a bishop too, in
Connecticut.
Desperately grave as the situation was, it had its moments of humor. A
bullet scraped the skin off Sergeant McKell’s temple. “Another good
Irishman gone!” he cried as he fell—but picked himself up next minute
on discovering that he was not killed at all.
“What on earth have you been wearing that red tuque for?” a rifleman
asked when he met one of the Battleford men at the end of the fight,—“I
heard there was a halfbreed with a red tuque on, and I’ve been firing at
you all the morning.”
The guns were the grimmest joke of all. The gatling sprayed the prairie
with a vast quantity of lead, and a machine gun is all very well when
your enemy stands in front of it in a crowd; but that is not the
Indians’ way. They had a wholesome respect for the seven-pounders—which
was more than the gunners themselves had, for the wooden trails were
rotten and gave way under the recoil, so that one of the guns fell to
the ground after every shot and the other had to be tied to its carriage
with a rope.
At last our men were allowed to charge down the slopes and clear out the
gullies. The Indians fled before them, and prepared to defend their
camp. But we were not allowed to follow up our advantage. Instead, the
order was given to retire. The teams were hitched up in a hurry, and the
retreat began. We had lost eight killed and fourteen wounded.
Imagine the Indians’ astonishment. We were leaving them masters of the
field. Before half of us had re-crossed the creek, they were pouring
down the hill after us like a swarm of angry ants. Now, however, they
were in the open, and a well-planted shell from our rope-swathed
seven-pounder (its companion had been put to bed in a wagon), with the
cool musketry of our rear-guard, held the pursuers in check till the
last of our wagons had struggled through the creek.
The Indians might have turned our defeat into disaster if they had
circled round and picked us off piecemeal as the long-drawn-out line of
sleepy soldiers wound its way home through the woods. And that is
exactly what they would have done if their chief had let them, as an
Indian explained to me afterwards.
“The young men wanted to,” he said, “but Poundmaker held them back out
of pity for you.” Another old Indian added that the chief brandished his
whip and threatened to flog any Indian who dared to go after the white
man.
We were comforted by the assurance that we had taught the Indians a
lesson; but it was exactly the opposite of the lesson we had meant to
teach them. Up to that time Poundmaker had resisted all Riel’s
persuasions to bring the tribes down and join forces with the Métis
fighting further east, but now he could no longer resist the war spirit
of his elated braves.
The bad news burst upon us with dramatic suddenness one day, when a big
train of nearly thirty wagons, bringing food from Swift Current, ran
into the middle of the Indian army streaming away to the east. It was a
great haul for the red men.
* * * * *
That was “the darkest hour before the dawn.” As hot a reception as we
got from the Indians, the other column got from the Métis farther east.
General Middleton had under his command about 850 men—two militia
battalions, the 90th Rifles of Winnipeg and the Royal Grenadiers of
Toronto, with two batteries of artillery, and two bands of mounted men
raised for the occasion, under Major Boulton and Captain French.
On the 24th of April the force was marching down the valley of the South
Saskatchewan, half on one side of the river, half on the other. They
were bound for Batoche’s Ferry, where the Métis had their stronghold,
defended with many rifle pits. One party of rebels, however, under their
“general,” an old buffalo hunter named Gabriel Dumont, came up the
valley a dozen miles on the south side, to meet the white men and if
possible check their advance. Skilfully choosing the best spot for this
purpose, they took cover amongst the trees and boulders just below the
edge of a gully which the soldiers would have to cross. The rebels were
hard to dislodge, and in that skirmishing fight of Fish Creek ten of our
men were killed and forty wounded.
This checked the advance for a fortnight, till reinforcements
arrived—half the Midland Battalion of Ontarians, and a gatling gun,
brought down the river by the same steamboat which had ferried our
column across on the way to Battleford—one of those stern-wheelers
which are said to “float in a heavy dew.” A corps of surveyors under
Captain J. S. Dennis came up in time to join in the final attack.
Arriving at Batoche on May 9, the troops for four days peppered the
hidden foe, who held their ground and fired back with equal courage.
At last the soldiers were allowed to charge, and they cleared out the
rifle pits at a rush. The battle was won, with a loss of eight killed,
including four officers, and forty-six wounded. Riel escaped, but a few
days afterwards he was caught not far away by a party of scouts. Dumont
fled to the States, and the rank and file of the misguided rebels laid
down their arms.
The news travelled swiftly to the west, and Poundmaker saw that the game
was up. One afternoon, therefore, when I had crossed over to the south
shore of the river at Battleford, I met the most pathetic and
picturesque procession I have ever seen: the Indian chiefs riding in to
surrender.
Here was Poundmaker at their head—tall and gaunt, with a strong hooked
nose, his long black hair hanging down his back in a score of tight
little plaits, each bound round at intervals of an inch or two with
brass wire. His clothing was far from royal; a pair of shapeless blanket
trousers or shaps, a colored cotton shirt, an old tweed waistcoat and no
coat at all. But his keen and dignified face was that of a king, and
though he was too thorough an Indian to show the least sign of his
feelings, I could not help pitying the fallen leader in his deep
humiliation.
[Illustration]
_On the Battlefield—_
_Friends Again_
[Illustration]
_A Horse Ranch_
[Illustration]
_Where no Trees Grew—Forestry_
_Station, Indian Head_
[Illustration]
_Quality Raising Quality—_
_School Fair Prize Winners_
Around him rode his allies and lieutenants. No two of them were dressed
alike. One gentleman wore a black “wide-awake” hat and a long blue naval
frock-coat with brass buttons, hanging over the usual dirty blanket
breeches. Another wore on his head the whole skin of a big otter, its
teeth grinning in front and its tail hanging down behind. Still another
had stuck feathers in his topknot, and a fourth wore a hard felt Derby
hat adorned with fluttering ribbons of many colors. All of them had
washed the yellow war-paint off their faces, discarded their guns, and
rode on, silent and impassive as statues, to meet any dreadful fate that
might be in store for them.
General Middleton, newly arrived from his victory at Batoche, held his
court in the open air, sitting on a campstool for bench, with an
interpreter by his side. Poundmaker sat before him on the ground, the
rest of the prisoners squatting around in a semi-circle at a more
respectful distance.
Poundmaker, being severely questioned by the General, denied having any
intention of fighting; nor had he ever promised to help Riel. He did not
know what Indians had committed murder or robbery.
A very gay young Stoney came forward and squatted right at the General’s
feet,—a regular Indian dandy, covered with bead-work, and wearing a
woman’s black straw hat with a bright green plume. With the utmost
coolness, he confessed to a perfectly unprovoked murder. He and a few
comrades had come across an inoffensive farmer greasing his wagon
wheels, and had shot him down like a rabbit. “I told my people I would
give myself up to save them,” the murderer said.
Another speaker, an old and ragged man, had also a murder to confess.
This was Ikta, the slayer of the farm instructor on Red Pheasant’s
reserve. Ikta wound up by offering to be cut into little pieces, if only
the white men would spare his wife and children and give them food.
At last a woman rose to speak. “Tell her we don’t listen to women,” said
the General to the interpreter. “Then why does your Queen send her word
for us to obey?” asked an Indian. The General muttered that the Queen
had men for her advisers; but the woman was allowed to speak, and put in
a pathetic plea for mercy to the conquered red men.
Then the murderers, and Poundmaker, and three other chiefs, were locked
up in the fort, while the rest of the red men were sent off to repent on
their reserves.
The war was not over yet, though the fighting was. Big Bear was still at
large. To rescue the twenty-six prisoners he had been dragging about
with him since his capture of Fort Pitt, flying columns were sent off to
scour the maze of wood and river and lake in the north. It seemed like
hunting through a haystack for a needle; but it gave promise of fresh
adventures in a country very different from any we had so far seen, and
I attached myself to a troop of Mounted Police and Scouts who seemed
more likely than the rest to catch the runaways.
Our experiences on that wild chase were varied and even entertaining, to
those of us who had a spice of the Mark Tapley in our dispositions. For
hardship, this proved the worst part of the whole campaign.
Leaving the sunlit prairie behind, we plunged into a forest broken by
glades and lakes and sloughs and muskegs. If a lake was shallow and had
a reasonably firm bottom, we waded through; if not, we squeezed our way
along the boggy edge between wood and water. One day we covered only
twelve miles. The mosquitoes had no trouble keeping up with us. They had
never had such a feast in their lives. We ourselves had to feast on hard
tack and salt pork, washed down with sugarless and milkless tea.
Spurred on by the hot pursuit, the Indians fled faster and faster, till
they reached Beaver River, which they crossed in hastily built coracles
of hide stretched on willow frames. We, too, reached Beaver River, a
fine stream flowing through a deep valley between steep, thickly wooded
hillsides. Some of us got across, in a derelict canoe, and struck away
north as far as Cold Lake; but Big Bear had clearly given us the slip.
Great was our rejoicing when a messenger from Fort Pitt came after us
with the news that all the prisoners had been saved.
It turned out that a band of friendly Indians, whom Big Bear had forced
to go on the war path, and who had all along protected the prisoners
from the wilder Crees, had one day lagged behind on pretence of mending
their harness, and set the last of the white folk free as soon as the
other Indians were out of sight.
Big Bear soon afterwards came down to Prince Albert and gave himself up.
He and Poundmaker were sent to prison for a few months, while Riel and
eight Indian murderers were hanged. The Métis were now assured of their
rights, on the time-honored principle of locking the stable door after
all the horses have been stolen. Even before receiving this assurance,
the rebels had settled down, quite as glad as we were to be done
fighting. I wandered about among them alone for a time without meeting
the slightest trace of ill will. The earth was still fresh in the rifle
pits of Batoche, and the bullet scars raw on the trees of Duck Lake, but
the rebellion was dead as a camp fire after a rain storm.
THE NEW TIMES