Within a week, the exaggerations of rumor were rivalled by a terrible statement of fact brought in by a scout from Fort Pitt. This Hudson’s Bay post, ninety miles up the Saskatchewan, had been held by twenty-four Mounted Police under Inspector Dickens, a son of the novelist. Five miles farther north, on the picturesque shores of Frog Lake, a smaller Hudson’s Bay post and a Roman Catholic mission had begun to develop into a settlement, possessing even a mill.
The Crees in that neighborhood, headed by a chief named Big Bear, held a war dance on hearing of Riel’s victory, and ordered the white folk into the Indian camp as prisoners. A Government agent, Thomas Quinn, refused to go, and a furious Cree named Wandering Spirit shot him down. The Indians had probably not planned a massacre, but this taste of blood roused their tiger spirit. Nine men in all were shot, including two priests. Only the Hudson’s Bay clerk was spared. There were two white women, but friendly Métis paid three dollars and four ponies ransom for them, and kept them safe.
After the braves had gorged themselves for ten days on stolen victuals, keeping up their war spirit by frenzied dances, they laid siege to Fort Pitt. There was no lack of courage in the garrison. Even the girls, daughters of the Hudson’s Bay factor, William MacLean, shouldered rifles with the men. But when MacLean went out to parley with the Indians, they would not let him return; they only promised to protect the white civilians if the Police cleared out of the fort. MacLean had such confidence in his Company’s favor with the Indians that he sent a letter telling his wife and children to come into camp, with several other white and half-breed families; and he advised the Police to leave, as the Indians had got fire-arrows ready to burn the fort down.
[Illustration: _Big Bear’s Demand for the Surrender of Fort Pitt_]
His advice was taken. The civilians put themselves at the Indians’ mercy, and the Police made their way painfully down the river, amid masses of floating ice, in an ancient leaky scow. Battleford welcomed the two dozen extra appetites with self-forgetting heartiness; and two days later, on the 24th of April, this modern Lucknow was relieved by an expedition which had come two thousand miles to save it.