One can guess the anger in the annual meeting of the Nor'westers at Fort William in July of 1814. Like generals on field of war they laid out their campaign. Duncan Cameron, a United Empire Loyalist officer of the 1812 War, is to don his red regimentals and proceed to Red River, where his knowledge of the Gaelic tongue may be trusted to win over Selkirk settlers. "_Nothing but the complete downfall of the colony will satisfy some_," wrote one of the fiery Nor'westers to a brother officer. Such was the mood of the Nor'westers when they came back from their annual meeting on Lake Superior to Red River, and MacDonell fanned this mood to dangerous fury by threatening to burn the Nor'westers' forts to the ground unless they moved from Selkirk's territory. For the present Duncan Cameron contents himself with striking up a warm friendship with the Highlanders of the settlement and offering to transport two hundred of them free of cost to Eastern Canada. MacDonell seizes still more provisions from northwest forts. Cameron, the Nor'wester, comes back from the annual meeting of 1815 still more bellicose. He carries the warrant to arrest Governor Miles MacDonell for the seizure of those provisions. MacDonell, safe behind the palisades of Fort Douglas, laughs {390} the warrant to scorn; but it is another matter when the Plain Rangers ride across the prairie from Fort Gibraltar armed, and pour such hot shot into Fort Douglas that the colonists, frenzied with fear, huddle to the fort for shelter. To insure the safety of his colonists, MacDonell surrenders to the Nor'westers and is sent to Eastern Canada for a trial which never takes place. No sooner has Governor MacDonell been expelled than Cuthbert Grant, warden of the Plain Rangers, rides over to the colony and warns the colonists to flee for their lives, from Indians enraged at "these land workers spoiling the hunting fields." What the Indians thought of this defense of their rights is not stated. They were silent and unacting witnesses of the unedifying spectacle of white men ready to fly at each other's throats. It was too late for the colonists to reach Hudson Bay in time for the annual ships of 1815, so the houseless people dispersed amid the forests of Lake Winnipeg, where they could be certain of at least fish for food.