and for conspiring to ruin
the trade of the company, and he was mulcted in heavy damages. Two
years later Lord Selkirk died in France, and then the two companies,
which had received great injury through their rivalry, were
amalgamated, and the old Hudson's Bay Company reigned supreme in this
region until 1870. The Red River settlement became the headquarters of
the company, who established in 1835 a system of local government--a
president and council and a court of law--and built Fort Garry on the
site of a fort also bearing the same name--that of a director of the
company. The new fort was a stone structure, having walls from ten to
twelve feet high, and flanked by bastions defended by cannon and
musketry. In 1867 the houses of the settlers occupied the banks of the
Red River at short intervals for twenty-four miles. Many evidences of
prosperity and thrift were seen throughout the settlement; the churches
and school-houses proved that religion and education were highly valued
by the people. The most conspicuous structure was the Roman Catholic
Church of St. Boniface, whose bells at matins and vespers were so often
a welcome sound to the wanderers on the plains.

{386}

"Is it the clang of wild-geese,
Is it the Indians' yell
That lends to the voice of the North wind
The tone of a far-off bell?

"The voyageur smiles as he listens
To the sound that grows apace:
Well he knows the vesper ringing
Of the bells of Saint Boniface.

"The bells of the Roman mission
That call from their turrets twain,
To the boatmen on the river,
To the hunters on the plain."

On all sides there were evidences of comfort in this little oasis of
civilisation amid the prairies. The descendants of the two
nationalities dwelt apart in French and British parishes, each of which
had their separate schools and churches. The houses and plantations of
the British settlers, and of a few French Canadians, indicated thrift,
but the majority of the French half-breeds, or _Metis_, the descendants
of French Canadian fathers and Indian mothers, continued to live almost
entirely on the fur trade, as voyageurs, trappers, and hunters. They
exhibited all the characteristics of those hardy and adventurous men
who were the pioneers of the west. Skilful hunters but poor
cultivators of the soil, fond of amusement, rash and passionate,
spending their gains as soon as made, too often in dissipation, many of
them w