surveyors had been busily
engaged for some time in laying out the Saskatchewan country in order to
keep pace with the rapidly increasing settlement. When they came to the
mission of St. Laurent they were met with the same distrust that had
done so much harm in 1870. The half-breeds feared that the system of
square blocks followed by the surveyors would seriously interfere with
the location of the farms on which they had "squatted" in accordance
with the old French system of deep lots with a narrow frontage on the
banks of the rivers. The difficulties arising out of these diverse
systems of surveys caused a considerable delay in the issue of patents
for lands, and dissatisfied the settlers who were anxious to know what
land their titles covered. The half-breeds not only contended that their
surveys should be respected, but that they should be also allowed scrip
for two hundred and forty acres of land, as had been done in the case of
their compatriots in Manitoba. Many of the Saskatchewan settlers had
actually received this scrip before they left the province, but
nevertheless they hoped to obtain it once more from the government, and
to sell it with their usual improvidence to the first speculators who
offered them some ready money.

[6: A certificate from the government that a certain person is entitled
to receive a patent from the crown for a number of acres of the public
lands--a certificate legally transferable to another person by the
original holder.]

The delay of the government in issuing patents and scrip and the system
of surveys were no doubt the chief grievances which enabled Riel and
Dumont--the latter a resident of Batoche--to excite the half-breeds
against the Dominion authorities at Ottawa. When a commission was
actually appointed by the government in January, 1885, to allot scrip to
those who were entitled to receive it, the half-breeds were actually
ready for a revolt under the malign influence of Riel and his
associates. Riel believed for some time after his return in 1884 that he
could use the agitation among his easily deluded countrymen for his own
selfish purposes. It is an indisputable fact that he made an offer to
the Dominion government to leave the North-west if they would pay him a
considerable sum of money. When he found that there was no likelihood of
Sir John Macdonald repeating the mistake which he had made at the end of
the first rebellion, Riel steadily fomented the agitation among the