There is something to be said even on the side of revolt
and murder, and let us see what it is. Since the foundation
of the colony the people had lived under the government
according to the laws propounded by the Hudson Bay Company.
The people had established a civilization of their own,
and had customs and rules which were always observed with
great reverence. When tidings reached them that they were
to be transferred to the Dominion of Canada, they began
to have some misgivings as to how they should fare under
the new order. Of late years, too, there had come into
prominence among them a man whom early in these pages we
saw bid good-bye to his father upon the plains on his
way to school in the East. The fire seen in young Riel
at the school, and when he turned his face again for the
prairies that he loved, had now reached full flame. He
had never ceased to impress upon the people that the
Hudson Bay Company was a heartless, soulless corporation,
and that the treatment accorded to the Metis was no better
than might have been given to the dogs upon the plains.
There never was public peace after the tongue of this
man had begun to make noise in the settlement.

When, therefore, it became known that the Canadian
Government had determined upon taking the colony to
itself, an ambitious scheme of the highest daring entered
into the brain of Louis Riel. He lost no time in beginning
to sow seeds of discontent.

"Canada," he said, "will absorb your colony, and as a