lcade
was organized.

The half-breeds were mounted on their prairie steeds and formed a
company of sixty men under command of Cuthbert Grant. Dressed in their
blue capotes and encircled by red sashes the men of this irregular
cavalry had an imposing effect, especially as they were provided with
every variety of arms from muskets and pistols down to bows and arrows.
They were all expert riders and could equal in their feats on horseback
the fabled Centaurs.

Down the Portage road which is a prolongation of the great business
street of Winnipeg running to the West, they came. On the 19th of
June, 1816, they had arrived within four miles of the Colony
headquarters--Fort Douglas. Here at Boggy Creek, called also Cat-Fish
Creek, a Council of War was held. Some importance has been attached to
their action at this point, as showing their motive. That they did not
intend to attack Fort Douglas has been maintained, else they would not
have turned off the Portage Road and have crossed the prairie to the
Northeast. There is nothing in this contention. The plan of campaign was
that the Fort William expedition and they were to meet at some point on
the banks of Red River, before they took further action. Showing how
well both parties had timed their movements, at this very moment those
coming from the East under Trader Alexander McLeod, had reached a small
tributary of Red River some forty miles from Fort Douglas. That they at
present wished to avoid Fort Douglas is certainly true. Governor Semple
and his garrison were on the look-out, and the alarm being given, the
party from the Fort sallied forth. Was it to parley? or to fight?

The events which followed are well told in the evidence given by Mr.
John Pritchard, who afterwards acted as Lord Selkirk's secretary. Mr.
Pritchard was the grandfather of the present Archbishop Matheson of
Rupert's Land. His evidence has been in almost every respect
corroborated by other eye-witnesses of this bloody event:

"On the evening of the 19th of June, 1816, I had been upstairs in my own
room, in Fort Douglas, and about six o'clock I heard the boy at the
watch house give the alarm that the Bois-brules were coming. A few of
us, among whom was Governor Semple--there were perhaps six
altogether--looked through a spyglass, from a place that had been used
as a stable, and we distinctly saw armed persons going along the plains.
Shortly after, I heard the same boy call out, that the party on
horseb