he flagstaff, no men upon
the walls, no sign of resistance visible. The gate facing the
Assiniboine River was open, and two mounted men entered the fort at a
gallop. On the top steps stood a tall, majestic-looking man--an officer
of the Hudson Bay Company, who alternately welcomed with uplifted hat
the new arrivals, and denounced in no stinted terms one or two
miserable-looking men who cowered beneath his reproaches.

With insult and derision Riel and his colleagues had fled from the scene
of their triumph and their crimes. On the bare flagstaff in the fort the
Union Jack was once more hoisted, and from the battery found in the
square a royal salute of twenty-one guns told settler and savage that
the man who had been "elevated by the grace of Providence and the
suffrages of his fellow-citizens to the highest position in the
government of his country," had been ignominiously expelled therefrom.
The breakfast in Government House was found untouched, and thus that
tempest in the teacup, the revolt of Red River, found a fitting
conclusion in the president's untasted tea!

Colonel Wolseley had been given no civil authority, and a wild scene of
drunkenness and debauchery among the _voyageurs_ and Indians followed
the arrival of the troops; but when the Hon. Mr. Archibald, the Civil
Governor, reached Winnipeg, he set matters completely to rest. Before
ten days elapsed the regular troops commenced their return journey to
Canada. On September 10, Colonel Wolseley also took his leave, and I was
left alone in Fort Garry. The Red River expedition was over. My long
journey seemed finished; but I was mistaken, for it was only about to
begin.

_III.--In the Far North-west_

Early in the second week of October the Hon. Mr. Archibald,
Lieutenant-governor of Manitoba, offered me, and I accepted, a mission
to the Saskatchewan Valley and through the Indian countries of the West,
and on the 24th of that month I quitted Fort Garry and commenced my long
journey. My instructions were to inquire into the state of affairs in
the territory; to obtain every particular in connection with the rise
and spread of the scourge of small-pox, from which thousands of Indians,
Esquimaux, and others had lately perished; to distribute medicines
suitable for its treatment to every fort, post, clergyman, or
intelligent person belonging to the settlements, or outside the Hudson
Bay Company's posts.

I made the first stage of 230 miles in five days to For