26 



Fort and all whom they found there were made prisoners. 



A week later Madame Lajimoniere found herself lodged 

 anew in the house that she had been obliged to abandon on 

 the 19th of June after the battle with the Metis. Her fate 

 seemed to be ameliorating, for the rest of the winter all her 

 wants were supplied and the forts protected by soldiers no 

 longer dreaded an attack by enemies. 



In the spring as M. Lajimoniere was obliged to return 

 to the chase the Fort filled with military men seemed hardly 

 a proper place for a woman living alone, so she asked the 

 trader if he would kindly give her a large tent which she 

 could pitch at some distance and retire to it with her little 

 ones. Her request was willingly granted and she remained 

 during' the summer under canvas in the neighborhood. 



Lord Selkirk spent the summer in regulating the affairs 

 of his colony. He restored Fort Gibraltar to the North- West 

 Trading Company who rebuilt it ; granted lands to the military 

 whom he had brought to Red River; concluded a treaty with 

 the Indians, and in October left for England. 



M. Lajimoniere with some others conducted him almost 

 to the American territories, returning to Fort Douglas in 

 November. 



Lord Selkirk recompensed M. Lajimoniere for his de- 

 votion to the Company in undertaking the long journey to 

 Montreal by giving him the land on the bank of the Red 

 River opposite Point Douglas. It was a part of this land that 

 one of his sons sold in 1882 for the large sum of one hundred 

 thousand dollars. 



After his return from accompanying Lord Selkirk M. 

 Lajinmoniere made preparations for building a living place 

 for his family on his own land. The season was too far ad- 

 vanced to think of building a wooden house so he dug a hole 

 in the ground over which he put a kind of thatch roof and 

 installed his family there for the winter of 1817-18. 



The reader will see that since 1806 there had not been 

 any great amelioration in comfort as far as lodging was con- 

 cerned. The camps at Pembina, the tents on the prairies of 

 the Saskatchewan, the hut on the Assiniboine, Bellehumeur's 

 house, none of these were improved very much by the quarters 

 which she occupied through the winter of 1817-18. However, 

 obliged to live in this poor retreat which more resembled a 

 vault than the dwelling of a human being this woman had one 

 hope in which her heart rejoiced. 



