John McLeod has already figured in our story. Coming out with Lord Selkirk's first party from the Island of Lewis, as one of the "twelve or thirteen young gentleman clerks," he, as we have seen, gave a good account of himself in the "imminent and deadly breach," when he defended the Hudson's Bay Company encampment at the Forks against the fierce Nor'-Westers. His journal account of that struggle we found to be well told, even exciting. It further gives a picture of the fur trader's life, as seen with British eyes and by one of Hudson's Bay Company sympathies. He met at the Forks, immediately on his arrival, three chiefs of the Nor'-Westers. One of these was John Wills, who, as an old X Y trader, had joined the Nor'-Westers and shortly after built Fort Gibraltar. A second of the trio was Benjamin Frobisher, of the celebrated Montreal firm of that name, who perished miserably; and the last was Alexander Macdonell, who was commonly known as "Yellow Head," and afterward became the "Grasshopper Governor." McLeod vividly describes the scene on his arrival, when the Hudson's Bay Company, as represented by trader William Hillier, formally transferred to Miles Macdonell, Lord Selkirk's agent, the grant of land and the privileges pertaining thereto. The ceremony was performed in the presence of the settlers and other spectators. McLeod quaintly relates that the three bourgeois mentioned were present on his invitation, but Wills would not allow his men to witness the transaction, which consisted of reading over the concession and handing it to Macdonell. Hugh Henney, the local officer in charge of the Hudson's Bay Company affairs, then read over the concession in French for the benefit of the voyageurs and free traders. McLeod relates a misadventure of irascible Peter Fidler in dealing with a trader, Pangman, who afterwards figured in Red River affairs. After Henney had taken part in the formal cession, he departed, leaving McLeod and Pangman in charge of the Hudson's Bay Company interests at the Forks. McLeod states that prior to this time (1813), the Hudson's Bay Company "_had no house at this place_," thus disposing of a local tradition that there was a Hudson Bay trading post at the Forks before Lord Selkirk's time. McLeod, however, proceeded immediately to build "a good snug house." This was ready before the return of the fall craft (trade), and it was this house that McLeod so valiantly defended in the following year.