, and New
Napoleon; as he was variously named by friends and foes in the little
tea-cup of Red River whose tempest had cast him suddenly from dregs to
surface. "I wasn't so sure that they wouldn't have searched the boat for
you," said the captain from his wheel-house on the roof-deck, soon after
we had passed the Hudson Bay Company's post, whereat M. Riel's frontier
guard was supposed to hold its head-quarters. "Now, darn me, if them
whelps had stopped the boat, but I'd have just rounded her back to
Pembina and tied up under the American post yonder, and claimed
protection as an American citizen." As the act of tying up under the
American post would in no way have forwarded my movements, however
consolatory it might have proved to the wounded feelings of the captain,
I was glad that we had been permitted to proceed without molestation. But
I had in my possession a document which I looked upon as an "open sesame"
in case of obstruction from any of the underlings of the Provisional
Government.

This document had been handed to me by an eminent ecclesiastic whom I met
on the evening preceding my departure at St. Paul, and who, upon hearing
that it was my intention to proceed to the Red River, had handed me,
unsolicited, a very useful notification. So far, then, I had got within
the outer circle of this so jealously protected settlement. The guard,
whose presence had so often been the theme of Manitoban journals, the
picquet line which extended from Pembina Mountain to Lake of the Woods
(150 miles), was nowhere visible, and I. began to think that the whole
thing was only a myth, and that the Red River revolt was as unsubstantial
as the Spectre of the Brocken. But just then, as I stood on the high roof
of the "International," from whence a wide view was obtained, I saw
across the level prairie outside the huts of Pembina the figures of two
horsemen riding at a rapid pace towards the north. They were on the road
to Fort Garry. The long July day passed slowly away, and evening began to
darken over the level land, to find us still steaming down the widening
reaches of the Red River.

But the day had shown symptoms sufficient to convince me that there was
some reality after all in the stories of detention and resistance, so
frequently mentioned; more than once had the figures of the two horsemen
been visible from the roof-deck of the steamer, still keeping the Fort
Garry trail, and still forcing their horses at a gallop.

The