The half-breeds have turned from their trail and are coming forward at a gallop.
"There 's Grant, the Plain Ranger, Governor! Let me shoot him," pleads one Hudson's Bay man.
"God have mercy on our souls!" mutters one of the colonists, counting the foe; "but we are all dead men."
All the world knows the rest. At a knoll where grew some trees, a spot now known in Winnipeg on North Main Street as Seven Oaks, Grant, the Ranger, sent a half-breed, Boucher, forward to parley.
"What do you want?" demands Semple.
"We want our fort!"
"Go to your fort, then!"
"Rascal! You have destroyed our fort!"
"Dare you to speak so to me? Arrest him!"
Boucher slips from his saddle. The Plain Rangers think he has been shot. Instantaneously from both sides crashes musketry fire. Semple falls with a broken thigh. Before Grant can control his murderous crew or obtain aid for the wounded governor, a scamp of a half-breed has slashed the fallen man to death. Two or three Hudson's Bay men escape through the long grass and swim across Red River. Two or three more save themselves by instant surrender. For the rest of the twenty-seven, they lie where they have fallen. They are stripped, mutilated, cut to pieces. Only one Nor'wester is killed, only one wounded.