hool? Will you stay
here, or do you go out again into the wilderness among
the savages?"

His eye would lighten with indignation at hearing the
word "savages" applied to his people. "I will go out to
the Red River," he would reply, to follow in the footsteps
of my father. He has been a benefactor of our people,
and I shall seek to be their benefactor too. When I tire
of work, I can take my gun and go out for herds upon the
plains with our people, whom you call "savages." I know
not what you mean when you say "savages." We speak French
as you do; our hearts are as kind, as noble, and as true
as yours. When one of our people is in affliction the
others give him sympathy and help. We are bound together
by strong ties of fraternity; there is no jealousy among
us, no tyranny of caste, but we all live in peace and
love as the sisters and brothers in one great household.
My eye deceives me if like this live you. You are divided
into envious, brawling factions, each one of which tries
to injure, and blight the reputation of the other. If
one of you fall upon evil times he is left without the
sympathy and succour of the others. In politics and in
social grades you are divided, and in every respect you
are such that I should mourn the day when our peaceable,
simple, contented people on the banks of the Red River
should in any respect choose your civilization for their
model.

He often spoke of a burning desire which he had to be a
political as well as a social leader in the Colony of
Red River. He frequently, likewise, muttered dark threats
against the overbearing policy and dark injustice of "The
Great Monopoly," as he used to characterize the Hudson
Bay Company. Occasionally he would burst out into passionate
words like these:

"They treat us as they would blood thirsty savages upon
the plains. They spurn us with their feet as dogs, and
then they spit upon us. They mock at our customs, they
regard with contempt that which to us is sacred and above
price. They are not even deterred by the virtue of our
women. Now witness, you God who made all men, the white
man and the savage, I will, if the propitious day ever
come, strike in vengeance, and my blow will be with an
iron hand, whose one smiting shall wipe out all the
injustice and the dishonour."

Filled with these sentiments, when his school days came
to an end, he packed his portmanteaus and took his way
by stage and boat for the region that not many years
hence w