The Nor’Westers utter a war whoop, beat the gun’els of their canoes, shout their victory. “_Thank Providence_,” writes one partner, Robert Henry, “_that the battle was over before we got there, as it was our intention to storm the fort. Our party consisted of one hundred men, seventy firearms, two field pieces. What our success might have been, I will not pretend to say; but many of us must have fallen in the contest._” The Nor’Westers have always maintained that they had not planned to attack Fort Douglas and that the onus of blame for the fearful guilt of Seven Oaks Massacre rested on Semple for coming out to oppose the Half-breeds, who were going to meet the Montreal express. Such excuse might do for Eastern law courts, whose aim was to suppress more than they revealed; but the facts do not sustain such an excuse. The events are now a century past. Let us face them without subterfuge. The time had come, the time was bound to come, when the rights of a Feudal Charter would conflict violently with the strong though lawless arm of Young Democracy. Therein lies the significance of what apologists and partisans have called the Skirmish of Seven Oaks. Norman McLeod, the Justice of the Peace, hails the harried colonists ashore at Nettley Creek. They notice among the Northwest partners several soldiers dressed in regimentals--mark that, those who condemn Selkirk for hiring De Meuron soldiers! Two can play at the game of putting soldiers in red coats to bluff the Indians into believing the government is behind the trader. The settlers notice also, carefully hidden under oilcloth, two or three brass cannon in the Nor’Westers’ boats. Mark that, those who condemn Selkirk for bringing cannon along with his bodyguard! As justice of the peace, Norman McLeod seizes the dead Semple’s baggage for incriminating papers. As justice of the peace--though it was queer kind of peace--he arrests those men who escaped from Seven Oaks, and claps them in irons that prevent Bourke, the storekeeper, from dressing his wounds. The colonists are then allowed to proceed to their wintering ground amid the desolate woods of Lake Winnipeg at Jack River.