Meanwhile, out in Red River, gold seekers bound for Cariboo, prospectors for the bad lands of Montana, settlers for the farms of Minnesota--roll past in a tide. Trade increases in jumps. A steamer runs on Red River connecting by stage for St. Paul. Among the hosts of new comers to Red River is one Doctor Schultz, who helps to establish the newspaper, _Nor’Wester_, which paper has the amazing temerity, in 1867, to advocate that in the Council of Assiniboia there should be some representative of the people independent of the Hudson’s Bay Company. A vacancy occurs in the council. _The Nor’Wester_ advocates that Dr. John Schultz would be an excellent representative to fill that vacancy. A great many of the settlers think so, too; for among other newcomers to the colony is one Thomas Spence, of Portage la Prairie, who is for setting up a provisional government of Manitoba. A government independent of British connection means only one thing--annexation. The settlers want to see Schultz on the Council of Assiniboia to counteract domination by the Hudson’s Bay and to steer away from annexation. Not so the Hudson’s Bay Company. Schultz’s paper has attacked them from the first, and the little store of which he is part proprietor, has been defiant opposition under their very noses. But this council business is too much. They will squelch Schultz, and do it legally, too. In all new countries, the majority of pioneers are at some stage of the game in debt. Against Schultz’s firm stood a debt of a few hundred dollars. Schultz swore he had discharged the debt by paying the money to his partner. Owing to his partner’s absence in England, his evidence could neither be proved nor disproved. The Company did not wait. Judgment was entered against Schultz and the sheriff sent to seize his goods. Moral resistance failing, Schultz resisted somewhat vigorously with the poker. This was misdemeanor with a vengeance--probably the very thing his enemies hoped, for he was quickly overpowered, tied round the arms with ropes, and whisked off in a cariole to prison. But his opponents had not counted on his wife--the future Lady Schultz, life partner of the man who was governor of Manitoba for eight years. That very night the wife of the future Sir John led fifteen men across to the prison, ordered the guides knocked aside, the doors battered open, and her husband liberated. His arrest was not again attempted, and at a later trial for the debt, Schultz was vindicated. His party emerged from the fracas ten times stronger.