When news of this was carried down to the annual meeting of Nor’Westers at Fort William, in July, 1814, the effect can be more readily guessed than told. Rumors true and untrue filled the air; how Northwest canoes had been held up on the Assiniboine; how cannon had been pointed across Red River to stop the incoming Northwest express; how the colonists refused to embroil themselves in a fur traders’ war; how Peter Fidler threatened to flog men who refused to fight. Such news to the haughty Nor’Westers was a fuse to dynamite. “It is the first time the Nor’Westers have ever permitted themselves to be insulted,” declares William McGillivray. The fiery partners planned their campaign. At any cost “a decisive blow must be struck.” Cuthbert Grant, the Plain Ranger, is to keep his hand on all the buffalo hunters. James Grant of Fond du Lac and Red Lake, Minnesota, is to see to it that the Pillager Indians are staunch to Nor’Westers. Duncan Cameron, who had worked so dauntlessly in Albany region and who had title to the captaincy of a Canadian regiment, was to don his red regimentals, sword and all, and hold the Forks at Red River to win the colonists across to the Nor’Westers. And on the Assiniboine--it is to be a MacDonell against a MacDonell; he of the murderous work in the Albany region with revenge in his heart for the death of his brother at Hudson’s Bay hands--Alex MacDonell is to command the river and keep the trail westward open. “_Something serious will take place_,” writes Alex MacDonell on August 5, 1814. “_Nothing but the complete downfall of the colony will satisfy some by fair or foul means--So here is at them with all my heart and energy._” “_I wish_,” wrote Cameron to Grant of Minnesota, “_that some of your Pilleurs_ (Pillagers) _who are full of mischief and plunder would pay a hostile visit to these sons of gunpowder and riot_ (the Hudson’s Bay). _They might make good booty if they went cunningly to work; not that I wish butchery; God forbid._” Dangerous enough was the mood of the Northwesters returning to their field without adding fuel to flame; but no sooner were they back than Miles MacDonell served them with notices in Lord Selkirk’s name, to remove their posts from Assiniboia within six months, otherwise the order ran, “_if after this notice, your buildings are continued, I shall be under the necessity of razing them to the foundations_.”