But old Chief Peguis of the Sauteurs knows nothing at all about that word “law.” June 18th, at night when the late sunset is dyeing the Western prairies blood red, Peguis knocks at the fort gates. “Governor of the gard’ners and land workers,” he declares, “listen to me--listen to me, white man! Let me bring my warriors to protect you! The Half-breeds will be here to-morrow night. Have your colonists sleep inside the fort.” Semple grows impatient. “Chief,” he declares, “mark my words! There is not going to be any fighting.” All the same Peguis goes to Marie Gaboury, Lajimoniere’s wife. “White woman,” he commands, “come you across the river to my tepee! Blood is to be shed.” And Marie Gaboury, who has learned to love the Indians as she formerly feared them, follows Chief Peguis down the river bank with her brood of children, like so many chickens. Such is her fright as she ensconces the children in the chief’s canoe, that she faints and falls backward, upsetting the boatload, which Peguis rescues like so many drowned ducklings, but Lajimoniere’s family hides in the Pagan tent while the storm breaks. * * * * * On the evening of June 19th, the boy on watch in the gate tower calls out, “the Half-breeds are coming.” Semple goes up to the watchtower with a spyglass. So do Heden, the blacksmith; and Wilkinson, the secretary; and White, the doctor; and Holte, the young lieutenant of the Swedish Marines; and John Pritchard, who has left the Nor’Westers and joined the colony; and Bourke, the storekeeper. “Those certainly are Half-breeds,” says Pritchard, pointing to a line of seventy or a hundred horsemen coming from the west across the swamps of Frog Plain beyond Fort Douglas toward the colony. “Let twenty men instantly follow me,” commands Semple. “We’ll go out and see what those people want.” Bayonets, pistols, swords are picked up in confusion, and out sallies a little band of twenty-seven men on foot. The Half-breeds are not approaching Fort Douglas. They are advancing toward the colony. Half a mile out, Semple meets the colonists rushing for the fort in a wild panic. Alex McBeth, a colonist who had been a soldier, calls out, “Keep your back to the river, Governor! They are painted! Don’t let them surround you.” “There is no occasion for alarm! I am only going to speak to them,” answers Semple, marching on, knee-deep through the hay fields. All the same, he sends a boy back with word for Bourke, the storekeeper, and McLean, the farmer, to hitch horses and drag out the cannon. As the Half-breeds approach Semple sees for himself they are daubed in war paint and galloping forward in a semi-circle. Young Holte of the Marines becomes so flustered that he lets his gun off by mistake, which gives the Governor a start. “Mind yourself,” Semple orders. “I want no firing at all.”