e recent victory and the formal surrender
of Fort Douglas took place the following day.

"What are you going to do with the settlers, Cuthbert?" I asked of the
warden before the capitulation.

"Aye! That's a question," was the grim response.

"Why not leave them in the fort till things quiet down?"

"With all the Indians of Red River in possession of that fort?" asked
Grant, sarcastically. "Were a few Nor'-Westers so successful in holding
back the Metis at Seven Oaks, you'd like to see that experiment
repeated?"

"'Twill be worse, Grant, if you let them go back to their farms."

"They'll not do that, if I'm warden of the plains," he declared with
great determination. "We'll have to send them down the Red to the lake
till that fool of a Scotch nobleman decides what to do with his fine
colonists."

"But, Grant, you don't mean to send them up north in this cold country.
They may not reach Hudson's Bay in time to catch the company ship to
Scotland! Why, man, it's sheer murder to expose those people to a winter
up there without a thing to shelter them!"

"To my mind, freezing is not quite so bad as a massacre. If they won't
take our boats to the States, or Canada, what else can Nor'-Westers do?"

And what else, indeed? I could not answer Grant's question, though I
know every effort we made to induce those people to go south instead of
north has been misrepresented as an infamous attempt to expel Selkirk
settlers from Red River. Truly, I hope I may never see a sadder sight
than the going forth of those colonists to the shelterless plain. It was
disastrous enough for them to be driven from their native heath; but to
be lured away to this far country for the purpose of becoming buffers
between rival fur-traders, who would stop at nothing, and to be
sacrificed as victims for their company's criminal policy--I speak as a
Nor'-Wester--was immeasurably cruel.

Grant was, of course, on hand for the surrender, and he wisely kept the
plain-rangers at a safe distance. Clerks lined each side of the path to
the gate, and I pressed forward for a glimpse of Frances Sutherland.
There was the jar of a heavy bolt shot back. Confused noises sounded
from the courtyard. The gates swung open, and out marched the sheriff of
Assiniboia, bearing in one hand a pole with a white sheet tacked to the
end for a flag of truce, and in the other the fort keys. Behind, sullen
and dejected, followed a band of Hudson's Bay men. Grant stepped up to