14 



taken across the river. I . was kept a prisoner five days. 

 Cuthbert Grant, Peter Pangman, Thomas McKay were of the 

 party who made me a prisoner. I was taken back to River 

 Qu'Appelle, to the Northwest Company's post. I was kept 

 there for five days. Mr. Alexander Macdonnell was in com- 

 mand at this station, and I asked him why I had been made 

 a prisoner, or by whose orders I had been arrested ? He said 

 it was by his own. There were about forty or fifty Bois- 

 Brules at this fort. Cuthbert Grant frequently said they 

 were going to destroy the settlement, and I was told Mr. 

 Macdonnell said the business of the year before was a trifle 

 to what this should be. Cuthbert Grant frequently talked 

 with Bois-Brules about going, and they sang war-songs as if 

 they were going to battle. 



"On the 12th I left Qu'Appelle. We drifted down to the 

 place where I had before been stopped, and the pemican, 

 which had been landed from our boats, was re-embarked by 

 the North-west people. When we got to the forks of the 

 River Qu'Appelle we encamped. The people who were taken 

 with me had been liberated some tim.e before, and had gone 

 away. I had been left a prisoner. The next morning after 

 we had encamped, that is, the people in the two boats which 

 went with Mr. Macdonnell, a number of Indians who were in 

 camp at some distance were sent for, and they came and 

 went into Mr. Macdonnell's tent, who made a speech to them ; 

 a party went also on horseback from Fort Qu'Appelle armed, 

 but I was in one of the boats with Mr. Macdonnell. In going 

 down the river they talked freely of breaking up the settle- 

 ment and taking Fort Douglas ; and the people frequently 

 told me that Mr. Macdonnell had said the business of the year 

 before had been nothing to what this would be. Mr. Mac- 

 donnell's speech to the Indians was to this efiect : 



" My Friends and Relations, — I address you bashfully, for I 

 have not a pipe of tobacco to give you. All our goods have 

 been taken by the English, but we are now upon a party to 

 drive them away. Those people have been spoiling fair lands 

 which belong to you and the Bois-Brules, and to which they 



