Imagine what that meant, in a country where the little white population of peaceful farmers lay thinly scattered among strong tribes of warlike Indians. The Métis were a mere handful compared to the pure-blooded red-skins; these numbered, even without the tribes of the distant north, some 25,000, including braves who had taken many a scalp in tribal wars, and in fights with white troops south of the frontier. If these tribes had gone on the war-path, the scattered white population of the territories might have been wiped out of existence, and the re-conquest of the country might have involved a long and hard campaign. Everything depended on the Indians. The Métis knew this perfectly well, and Louis Riel moved heaven and earth to drag in the only allies who could give him a chance of winning. Adopting the name David, and pretending to have supernatural powers, he claimed to be a new Messiah sent to lead the red men and give them victory over the white. He sent his envoys all over the plains to rouse the ancient passion of the tribes for war. Promising impossible gains, and threatening when persuasion failed, they did their very worst. The strongest tribes, including the Blackfeet, decided to sit still and mind their own business. This was partly owing to the fairness with which as a rule they had been treated by the Canadian Government and the Hudson’s Bay Company, partly to the influence of missionaries and Mounted Police in their midst, and partly to their own good sense. The railway had just arrived; and the spectacle of an army of men constructing at marvellous speed a road of steel across the prairie was a most convincing evidence of the white man’s power. But for a while it was touch and go, even among the Blackfeet. So it was among Piapot’s Crees near Qu’Appelle. The flaming words of the new “Messiah” and his apostles had more effect on the tribes along the North Saskatchewan. The more intelligent chiefs, like Poundmaker of the Crees, knew well enough what the end of the war must be, sooner or later; but the younger braves, the hot-headed extremists, were shouting for a fight, and carried the tribe with them. An Indian chief will never hang back when his tribe is bent on war, however crazy he may think it; so even Poundmaker, the white man’s friend, fought the white man rather than be called a coward by his own foolish folk.