Riel's frontier
guard was supposed to hold its head-quarters. "Now, darn me, if them
whelps had stopped the boat, but I'd have just rounded her back to
Pembina and tied up under the American post yonder, and claimed
protection as an American citizen." As the act of tying up under the
American post would in no way have forwarded my movements, however
consolatory it might have proved to the wounded feelings of the captain,
I was glad that we had been permitted to proceed without molestation. But
I had in my possession a document which I looked upon as an "open sesame"
in case of obstruction from any of the underlings of the Provisional
Government.
This document had been handed to me by an eminent ecclesiastic whom I met
on the evening preceding my departure at St. Paul, and who, upon hearing
that it was my intention to proceed to the Red River, had handed me,
unsolicited, a very useful notification. So far, then, I had got within
the outer circle of this so jealously protected settlement. The guard,
whose presence had so often been the theme of Manitoban journals, the
picquet line which extended from Pembina Mountain to Lake of the Woods
(150 miles), was nowhere visible, and I.
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