f the recent transactions at
'the Forks,' and did so; but his account did not please M'Leod. 'You
have drawn up a pretty paper,' he grumbled; 'you had better take care
of yourself, or you will get into a scrape.'

Michael Heden also was examined as to his knowledge of the matter.
When M'Leod heard the answers of Heden he was even more wrathful.

'They are all lies,' he declared with emphasis.

{105}

The result of M'Leod's judicial procedure was that five of the party
were detained and placed under arrest. The others were allowed to
proceed on their way. John Bourke was charged with felony, and Michael
Heden and Patrick Corcoran were served with subpoenas to give evidence
for the crown against him, on September 1, at Montreal. John Pritchard
and Daniel M'Kay were among the five detained, presumably as crown
witnesses. After some delay--M'Leod had to visit Fort Douglas and the
neighbourhood--the prisoners were sent on the long journey to Fort
William on Lake Superior. Bourke was at once stripped of his valuables
and placed in irons, regardless of the fact that his wound was causing
him intense suffering. During the whole of the journey he was
compelled to lie manacled on a pile of baggage in one of the canoes.

Fort Douglas on the Red River was still standing, but the character of
its occupants had changed radically. At first Cuthbert Grant took
command, but he soon made way for Alexander Macdonell, who reached Fort
Douglas shortly after the affair at Seven Oaks. When Archibald Norman
M'Leod appeared, he was the senior officer in authority, and he {106}
took up his residence in the apartments of the late Governor Semple.
One day M'Leod and some followers rode over to an encampment of Crees
and Saulteaux near the ruins of Fort Gibraltar. Here M'Leod collected
and harangued the Indians. He upbraided them for their failure to
interfere when Duncan Cameron had been forcibly removed to Hudson Bay,
and he spoke harshly of their sympathy for the colonists when the
Nor'westers had found it necessary to drive them away. Peguis, chief
of the Saulteaux and the leading figure in the Indian camp, listened
attentively, but remained stolidly taciturn. On the evening of the
same day the Nor'westers returned to Fort Douglas and indulged in some
of their wildest revelries. The Bois Brules stripped themselves naked
and celebrated their recent triumph in a wild and savage orgy, while
their more staid companions looked o