nd finally
fixing them upon the arch rebel, he spoke with such
strength and earnestness that his hearers stood breathless
and spellbound. The file of men which had been drawn up
to act as executioners, and the condemned man himself,
hung upon his words. It was significant that, after the
fatal shot had been fired, no one seemed to be apprehensive
of a second.

"Louis Riel," he began, "you are one bigger fool than I
did take you for!"

Riel started forward angrily, and was about to speak when
the dwarf stopped him with a motion of his hand.

"You are a fool because you cannot see where you are
going," he continued.

"Can't I, Mr. Hop-o'-my-thumb?" broke out the rebel in
a white heat, shouldering his rifle.

But the dwarf raised his stick warningly, and catching
Riel's shifty gaze, held it as if by some spell until
the rifle barrel sunk lower inch by inch.

"If you do, Louis Riel, if you do, the Lord will give
you short shrift!" he said. "Now, I will tell you what
I see, and to you it ought to be plain, for you have been
in Montreal and Quebec, and know much more than is known
to the metis. I see--and it will come to pass long before
the ice that is in one great mass in this river is carried
down and melts in the big lakes, whose waters drain into
the Bay of Hudson--I see the soldiers of the great Queen
swarming all over the land in numbers like the gophers
on the prairie. They have wrested from you Battleford,
Prince Albert, and Batoche. I see a battlefield, and the
soldiers of the Queen have the great guns--as big as Red
River carts--that shoot high into the air as flies the
kite, and rain down bullets and jagged iron like unto
the hailstorms that sweep the land in summer time. I see
the bodies of the metis lying dead upon the ground as
thick as the sheaves of wheat upon the harvest-field.
Many I see that crawl away into the woods to die, like
to the timber-wolves when they have eaten of the poison.
I see the metis scattered and homeless. I see you, Louis
Riel, who have misled them, skulking alone in the woods
like a hunted coyote, without rest night and day, with
nothing to eat, and with no moccasins to your feet. But
the red-coats will catch you, for there is no trail too
long or too broken for the Riders of the Plains to follow.
And, above all, and take heed, Louis Riel, I see the
great beams of the gallows-tree looming up blackly against
the grey of a weary dawn; and that will be your portion
if you