Bay stores is to-day. It
was probably built a few years after Fort Gibraltar, and was called
"Fidler's Fort." By this time, however, the Hudson's Bay Company,
working from their first post of Cumberland House, pushed on to the
Rocky Mountains to engage in the Titanic struggle which they saw lay
ahead of them. One of their most active agents, in occupying the Red
River Valley, was the Englishman Peter Fidler, who was the surveyor of
this district, the master of several forts, and a man who ended his
eventful career by a will made--providing that all of his funds should
be kept at interest until 1962, when they should be divided, as his last
chimerical plan should direct. It thus came about that when the
Colonists arrived there were two Traders' Houses, on the site of the
City of Winnipeg of to-day, within a mile of one another, one
representing a New World, and the other an Old World type of mercantile
life. It was plain that on the Plains of Rupert's Land there would come
a struggle for the possession of power, if not for very existence.

CHAPTER II.

"A SCOTTISH DUEL."

Inasmuch as this tale is chiefly one of Scottish and of Colonial life,
the story of the movement from Old Kildonan, on the German Ocean, to New
Kildonan, on the Western Prairies--we may be very sure, that it did not
take place without irritation and opposition and conflict. The Scottish
race, while possessing intense earnestness and energy, often gains its
ends by the most thoroughgoing animosity. In this great emigration
movement, there were great new world interests involved, and champions
of the rival parties concerned were two stalwart chieftains, of
Scotland's best blood, both with great powers of leadership and both
backed up with abundant means and strongest influence. It was a
duel--indeed a fight, as old Sir Walter Scott would say, "a
l'outrance"--to the bitter end. That the struggle was between two
chieftains--one a Lowlander, the other a Highlander, did not count for
much, for the Lowlander spoke the Gaelic tongue--and he was championing
the interest of Highland men.

The two men of mark were the Earl of Selkirk and Sir Alexander
Mackenzie. Before showing the origin of the quarrel, it may be well to
take a glance at each of the men.

Thomas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, was the youngest of seven sons, and was
born in 1771. Though he belonged to one of the oldest noble families, of
Scotland, yet when he went to Edinburgh, as a fellow st