The story of this tragedy of the plains, to which for a time was cynically applied the term, "battle," has been often and variously narrated; but the facts seem clear enough. Semple the Governor, was on the point of returning to York Factory on the concerns of the Company, when the rumours of immediate hostility, which have been described, checked his departure. Measures of precaution were adopted and a watch regularly kept to guard against surprise. On the 17th of June, two Cree Indians who had escaped from the party of North-Westers under McDonell, came to the Governor at Fort Douglas, adjoining the settlement, with the intelligence that he would certainly be attacked in two days by the Bois-Brulés, under Cuthbert Grant, who were determined to take the fort, and that if any resistance were made, neither man, woman or child would escape. Peguis, chief of the Swampy Indians, who came periodically to the district about the mouth of the Red River, also waited on Governor Semple for the purpose of offering the services of his tribe, about seventy in number, to assist in the colonists protection. A conflict seemed inevitable. On the afternoon of the 19th a man in the watch-house called out that the half-breeds were coming. Governor Semple and his officers surveyed the neighbouring plains through their telescopes and made out the approach of some men on horseback. These were not, however, headed in the direction of the fort, but of the settlement. [Illustration: THE SHOOTING OF GOVERNOR SEMPLE. (_See page 413._)] [Sidenote: Killing of Governor Semple.]