the whole our attitude towards the Indian people has been
fair; our policy has revealed ordinary sense,--and not
much brilliancy. Probably half a dozen level-headed
wood-choppers, endowed with authority to deal with the
tribes, could have acquitted themselves as well; perhaps
they might not have done so well, and it is probable that
they might have exhibited a better showing.

It was in this settlement that in after years appeared
Louis Riel _pere_. For some generations the Hudson Bay
Company had carried on an extensive trade in peltry, and
numbers of their _employes_ were French peasants or
_coureurs de bois_. Thousands of these people were
scattered here and there over the territories; and they
began to turn loving eyes toward the rich meadows along
the banks of the Red River. Some of these had for wives
squaws whom they had wooed and won during their engagement
in the peltry trade. These finding that other whites had
taken Indian girls for brides, felt drawn towards the
new settlement by sentiments stronger than those of mere
interest. Numbers of unmarried French took up farms in
the new colony, and soon fell captive to the charms of
the Cree girls. Now and again the history of the
simple-hearted Scots was repeated; and a _coureur_ was
presently seen to bring a shy, witching Saulteux maiden
from the tents of the Jumping Indians. But the French,
it must be said, were not so _dilettante_ in their taste
for beauty as were their Scottish brethren; yet, as a
rule, their wives were the prettiest girls in the tribes
--after, of course, "braw John" had been satisfied--for