34 THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER 



pelle.* Led by Cuthbert Grant, they skirted north, of 

 the Hudson s Bay post to meet and disembark supplies 

 above Fort Douglas. It was but natural for the settlers 

 to mistake this armed cavalcade, red with paint and 

 chanting war-songs, for hostiles. 



Rushing to Fort Douglas, the settlers gave the 

 alarm. Ordering a field-piece to follow, Governor 

 Semple marched out with a little army of twenty-eight 

 Hudson s Bay men. The Kor Westers thought that he 

 meant to obstruct their way till his other forces had 

 captured their coming canoes. The Hudson s Bay 

 thought that Cuthbert Grant meant to attack the Sel 

 kirk settlers. 



It was in the evening of June 19, 1816. The two 

 parties met at the edge of a swamp beside a cluster of 

 trees, since called Seven Oaks. Nor Westers say that 

 Governor Semple caught the bridle of their scout and 

 tried to throw him from his horse. The Hudson s Bay 

 say that the governor had no sooner got within range 

 than the half-breed scout leaped down and fired from 

 the shelter of his horse, breaking Semple s thigh. 



It is well known how the first blood of battle has 

 the same effect on all men of whatever race. The hu 

 man is eclipsed by that brute savagery which comes 

 down from ages when man was a creature of prey. In 

 a trice twenty-one of the Hudson s Bay men lay dead. 

 While Grant had turned to obtain carriers to bear the 

 wounded governor off the field, poor Semple was bru- 



* More of the voyageurs 1 romance ; named because of a voice 

 heard calling and calling across the lake as voyageurs entered 

 the valley said to be the spirit of an Indian girl calling her 

 lover, though prosaic sense explains it was the echo of the 

 voyageurs song among the hills. 



