leon. So, leaving their native parish of Kildonan in Sutherlandshire,
these people established another Kildonan in the very heart of North
America, in the midst of an immense and apparently boundless prairie.
Poor people! they had a hard time of it-inundation and North-west Company
hostility nearly sweeping them off their prairie lands. Before long
matters reached a climax. The North-west Canadians and half-breeds
sallied forth one day and attacked the settlers; the settlers had a small
guard in whose prowess they placed much credence; the guard turned out
after the usual manner of soldiers, the half-breeds and Indians lay in
the long grass after the method of savages. For once the Indian tactics
prevailed. The Governor of the Hudson Bay Company and the guard were shot
down, the fort at Point Douglas on the Red River was taken, and the
Scotch settlers driven out to the shores of Lake Winnipeg.

To keep the peace between the rival companies and the two nationalities
was no easy matter, but at last Lord Selkirk came to the rescue; they
were disbanding regiments after the great peace of 1815, and portions of
two foreign corps, called De Muiron's and De Watteville's Regiments,
were induced to attempt an expedition to the Red River.

Starting in winter from the shores of Lake Superior, these hardy fellows
traversed the forests and frozen lakes upon snow-shoes, and, entering
from the Lake of the Woods, suddenly appeared in the Selkirk Settlement,
and took possession of Fort Douglas.

A few years later the great Fur Companies became amalgamated, or rather
the North-west ceased to exist, and henceforth the Hudson Bay Company
ruled supreme from the shores of the Atlantic to the frontiers of Russian
America.

From that date, 1822, the progress of the little colony had been gradual
but sure. Its numbers were constantly increased by the retired servants
of the Hudson Bay Company, who selected it as a place of settlement when
their period of active service had expired. Thither came the voyageur and
the trader to spend the winter of their lives in the little world of
Assineboine. Thus the Selkirk Settlement grew and flourished, caring
little for the outside earth-"the world forgetting, by the world forgot."

But the old feelings which had their rise in earlier years never wholly
died out. National rivalry still existed, and it required no violent
effort to fan the embers into flame again. The descendants of the two
nationalities