ing him out of the tent door, handed him
over to the two stalwart constables, who lifted him into the buckboard
and drove away. Steele remained behind for a while, and told Crowfoot
that he had been misled by the half-breed, and addressing also the
hostile-looking band of Indians present, the Superintendent told them
that the half-breed had spoken to them with a forked tongue, and that it
would be sensible for them to remain friendly with the Government and
the Police. Steele told Superintendent Herchmer, when he came back to
Calgary, that he was sure Riel was going to make serious trouble, and
that he had runners like this half-breed in other places amongst the
Indians, and the sooner the Government knew it the better. So the Police
were doing their part to forewarn the authorities, but the men at Regina
and Ottawa either did not get all these warnings, or else they treated
them too lightly.

And, accordingly, Riel, down at Batoche on the South Saskatchewan, kept
up the agitation, and in the atmosphere of the adulation of his
half-breed admirers his characteristic vanity asserted itself till,
refusing to acknowledge the authority of either Church or State, he
looked on himself as a sort of Divinely ordained leader. Rattle-brained
as he was, he possessed elements of strength and magnetism enough to get
a large following in a short time, and, assuming the name of "Louis
'David' Riel, Exovede," he took the aggressive by plundering some
stores, arresting the Indian agent and others, and sending a flamboyant
message to Superintendent Crozier to come with his men and surrender to
the rebel chief. Crozier, who had done splendid service at Wood
Mountain, Cypress Hills and elsewhere, was not the kind of man to
surrender, but with the hope that he might avert trouble and
incidentally give the Government time to mobilize the long-delayed
reinforcements, he offered personally to meet Riel and discuss the whole
matter with him. Riel, however, would not venture out, and so Crozier
sent Mr. Thomas McKay, a well-known Prince Albert man and native of the
country, to see him at his headquarters. When McKay reached Riel's
council room at Batoche he found things at white heat. Riel told him
excitedly that there was to be a war of extermination, during which the
"two curses," the Government and the Hudson's Bay Company, and all who
sympathized with them were to be driven out of the country. "You don't
know what we are after," shouted Riel