of the Provisional Government, and many of his colleagues; going steadily
from bad to worse, from violence to pillage, from pillage to robbery of a
very low type, much supplemented by rum-drunkenness and dictatorial
debauchery, he and they finally, on the 4th of March, 1870, disregarding
some touching appeals for mercy, and with many accessories of needless
cruelty, shot to death a helpless Canadian prisoner named Thomas Scott.
This act, committed in the coldest of cold blood, bears only one name:
the red name of murder-a name which instantly and for ever drew between
Riel and his followers, and the outside Canadian world, that impassable
gulf which the murderer in all ages digs between himself and society, and
which society attempts to bridge by the aid of the gallows. It is
needless here to enter into details of this matter; of the second rising
which preceded it; of the dead blank which followed it; of the heartless
and disgusting cruelty which made the prisoners death a foregone
conclusion at his mock trial; or of the deeds worse than butchery which
characterized the last scene. Still, before quitting the revolting
subject, there is one point that deserves remark, as it seems to
illustrate the feeling entertained by the leaders themselves. On the
night of the murder the body was interred in a very deep hole which had
been dug within the walls of the fort. Two clergymen had asked permission
to inter the remains in either of their churches, but this request had
been denied. On the anniversary of the murder, namely, the 4th March,
1871, other powers being then predominant in Fort Garry, a large crowd
gathered at the spot where the murdered man had been interred, for the
purpose of exhuming the body. After digging for some time they came to
an oblong box or coffin in which the remains had been placed, but it was
empty, the interment within the walls had been a mock ceremony, and the
final resting-place of the body lies hidden in mystery. Now there is one
thing very evident from the fact, and that is that Riel and his
immediate followers were themselves conscious of the enormity of the deed