Colonel Wolseley had used precautions to prevent any knowledge of his approach from being carried to the fort. He was unable to learn what Riel intended to do, and the men marched forward in the eager hope that the enemy would abide their coming. As they neared the fort, the gates were seen to be shut, and cannon looked out from the bastions and over the gateways. But on a closer view it was noticed that no men were beside the guns, and the hopes of the assailants fell. A moment later, and the fort was known to be abandoned; men were seen at a little distance in rapid flight. Riel, it appeared, had meditated resistance, if he could induce his followers to fight. He had been able to build some hope, too, upon the six hundred miles of almost impassable country which lay between him and Lake Superior. [Sidenote: Aug. 24, 1870 A.D.] Soothing his anxieties by this dream, the President of the Red River Republic breakfasted tranquilly on this closing day of his career. But just as his repast was ended there were seen from the windows of the fort, at a distance of a few hundred yards, and marching with swift step towards him, the twelve hundred men who had come so far to accomplish his overthrow. The blood of Scott was upon his guilty hands. The wretched man saddled a horse and galloped for life; and the victors did not seek to interrupt his flight. The Red River rebellion was suppressed, and British authority was restored in the valley of the Winnipeg. Until very recently the vast wheat-field of the North-West was almost worthless to man; even now its development has only begun. It is difficult to over-estimate the influence on the future course of human affairs which this lonely and inaccessible region is destined to exert. In the valleys of Lake Winnipeg and its tributary streams two hundred million acres of land, unsurpassed in fertility, wait the coming of the husbandman. Its average production of wheat may be stated at thirty bushels per acre--more than double that of the valley of the Mississippi, and rather more than can be gained from the soil of England by careful and expensive cultivation.[21] Great Britain imports annually one hundred million bushels of wheat--scarcely more than one-sixtieth part of the production of the Winnipeg valley were its enormous capability fully drawn out. The soil is of surpassing richness, and yields its ample fruits so easily that in an ordinary season the cost of producing a quarter of wheat is on an average no more than thirteen shillings. Port Nelson on the Hudson Bay--the natural shipping point of all this region--is eighty miles nearer than New York is to Liverpool and the markets of England.