In March, stealthily crossing the silent pathways for upwards of four hundred miles and striking the Red River some where near the international boundary line, the De Meurons came northward and made a circuit towards Silver Heights. There, having constructed ladders, they next made a night attack on Fort Douglas, and being trained soldiers easily captured it, and restored it to its rightful owner, Lord Selkirk. On May day, 1817, Lord Selkirk, with his body guard, left Fort William and following the water-courses arrived at his own Fort in the last week of June. Fort Douglas was the centre of his Colony, and there he was at once the chief figure of the picture. None of the Selkirk Settlers' descendants who are living to-day saw him in Fort Douglas, but a number who have passed away have told the writer that they remembered him well. He was tall in stature, thin and refined in appearance. He had a benignant face, his manner was easy and polite. To the Indians he was especially interesting. They caught the idea that being a man of title he was in some way closely connected with their Great Father the King. Because of his generosity to them in making a treaty, they called him "The Silver Chief." He was the source of their treaty money. It is said that some of the last party to reach his Colony had seen him at Kildonan in Scotland, where he had visited them, and encouraged them in their departure for the Colony. His first duties were to the unfortunate settlers, who had been brought back from Jack River. Lord Selkirk gathered the Colonists on the spot where the church and burial ground of St. John's are still found. "The Parish," said he, "shall be Kildonan. Here you shall build your church, and that lot," he said, pointing to the lot across the little stream called Parsonage Creek, "is for a school." He was thus planning to carry out the devout imagination of the greatest religious leader of his nation, John Knox: "A church and a school for every parish." Perhaps the most interesting episode in Lord Selkirk's visit was his treaty-making with the Indians. The plan of securing a strip of land on each side of the river was said to have been decided to be as much as could be seen by looking under the belly of a horse out upon the prairie. This was about two miles. Hence the river lots were generally about two miles long. His meeting with the Indians was after the manner of a great "Pow-wow." The Indians are fluent and eloquent speakers, though they indulge in endless repetitions. Peguis, the Saulteaux chief, befriended the white man from the beginning. He denounced the Bois-brules. He said, "We do not acknowledge these men as an independent tribe." "L'Homme Noir," the Assiniboine chief, among other things, said: "We have often been told you were our enemy, but we hear from your own mouth the words of a true friend."