The tempest which Alexander Macdonell had presaged burst upon the colony soon after this demolition of Fort Gibraltar. The {88} incidents leading up to an outbreak of hostilities have been narrated by Pierre Pambrun, a French Canadian. In April Pambrun had been commissioned by Governor Semple to go to the Hudson's Bay fort on the Qu'Appelle river. Hard by this was the Nor'westers' trading-post, called Fort Qu'Appelle. Pambrun remarks upon the great number of half-breeds who had gathered at the North-West Company's depot. Many of them had come from a great distance. Some were from the upper Saskatchewan; others were from Cumberland House, situated near the mouth of the same river. Pambrun says that during the first days of May he went eastward along with George Sutherland, a factor of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Qu'Appelle, and a number of Sutherland's men. The party journeyed in five boats, and had with them twenty-two bales of furs and six hundred bags of pemmican. On May 12 they were attacked on their way down the river by an armed force of forty-nine Nor'westers, under the leadership of Cuthbert Grant and Peter Pangman. All were made prisoners and conducted back to Fort Qu'Appelle, where they were told by Alexander Macdonell that the seizure had been {89} made because of Colin Robertson's descent upon Fort Gibraltar. After five days' imprisonment George Sutherland and the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company were released. This did not mean, however, any approach of peace. Pierre Pambrun was still held in custody. Before the close of May Macdonell caused the furs and provisions which his men had purloined from Sutherland's party to be placed in boats, and he began to move down the Qu'Appelle, taking Pambrun with him. A band of Bois Brûlés on their horses kept pace with the boats. At the confluence of the Qu'Appelle and the Assiniboine Macdonell made a speech to a body of Saulteaux, and endeavoured to induce some of them to join his expedition to the Red River. The Hudson's Bay post of Brandon House, farther along the Assiniboine, was captured by Cuthbert Grant, with about twenty-five men under his command, and stripped of all its stores. Then the combined force of half-breeds, French Canadians, and Indians, in round numbers amounting to one hundred and twenty men, advanced to Portage la Prairie. They reached this point on or about June 16, and proceeded to make it a stronghold. They arranged bales of {90} pemmican to form a rude fortification and planted two brass swivel-guns for defence. They were preparing for war, for the Nor'westers had now resolved finally to uproot Lord Selkirk's colony from the banks of the Red River. {91} CHAPTER IX SEVEN OAKS