Until this time of arrivals there had been no village of Winnipeg. The first building back from the McDermott, Ross and Logan buildings on the bank of Red River, was on the corner of Main and Portage Avenue. Here gathered those, who may be spoken of as free traders, being rivals of the Hudson's Bay Company Store at Fort Garry. Another village began a few years after at Point Douglas on Main Street, near the Canadian Pacific Railway Station of to-day, while at St. John's, on Main Street, was another nucleus. These were in existence when the old order passed away in 1870, but they are all absorbed into the City of Winnipeg of to-day. The Hudson's Bay Company, while long attached to its ancient customs, brought over from the seventeenth century, has fully and heartily adopted the new order of things. Glorying in the old, it has embraced the new, and has become thoroughly modern in all its enterprises. It has been a safe and solvent institution in its whole history. That it has been able to do this is no doubt, largely due to the enterprise and modern spirit of its great London Governor, who for years watched over its time of transition in Winnipeg--Donald A. Smith--Lord Strathcona of to-day. When the regime of the Hudson's Bay Company is recalled old timers delight to think of a figure of that time who was an embodiment of the life of the Red River Settlement from its beginning nearly to its end. This was William Robert Smith, a blue-coat boy from London, who came out in the Company's service in 1813, served for a number of years as a clerk, and settled down in Lower Fort Garry District in 1824. Farming, teaching, catechising for the church, acting precentor, a local encyclopaedia and collector of customs, he passed his versatile life, till in the year before the Sayer affair, 1848, he became clerk of Court, which place, with slight interruption, he held for twenty years. One who knew him says: "From his long residence in the Settlement, he has seen Governors, Judges, Bishops, and Clergymen, not to mention such birds of passage as the Company's local officers, come and go, himself remaining to record their doings to their successors." CHAPTER XXVI. RIEL'S RISING. The agitation for freedom which we have described in Red River Settlement, and the efforts of Canada to introduce Rupert's Land into the newly-formed Dominion of Canada had, after much effort, and the overcoming of many hindrances, resulted in the British Government agreeing to transfer this Western territory to Canada, and in the Hudson's Bay Company accepting a subsidy in full payment of their claim to the country. This payment was to be paid by Canada. Somewhat careless of the feelings of the Hudson's Bay Company officers, and also of the views of the old settlers of the Colony--especially of the French-speaking section--the Dominion Government sent a reckless body of men to survey the lands near the French settlements and to rouse animosity in the minds of the Metis.