“The Indians are on the war-path. Battleford is besieged!” That was the news flashed down to the East before we had recovered from the shock of the Duck Lake defeat. The whole white population of Battleford town, with hundreds of refugees from the country-side, crowded into the fort, standing high on a point of land in the fork of the Battle and Saskatchewan Rivers. This fort was simply a log stockade enclosing the Mounted Police barracks, stables and storehouses. The railroad was nearly two hundred miles away to the south, and the road to it was cut off by the enemy. The Government telegraph line, the only means of communicating with the outside world, was cut again and again by an unseen foe. Imagine the feelings of the beleaguered refugees, watching the smoke of their burning farmhouses, and wondering whether they themselves would be slaughtered or starved before any one came to their rescue! 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_]