July of 1817 comes Selkirk himself to the Promised Land. There is no record that I have been able to find of his thoughts on first nearing the ground for which so much blood had been shed, and for which he himself was yet to suffer much; but one can venture to say that his most daring hope did not grasp the empire that was to grow from the seed he had planted. He meets the Indians in treaty for their lands. He greets his colonists in the open one sunny August day, speaking personally to each and deeding over to them land free of all charge. "This land I give for your church," he said, standing on the ground which the cathedral now occupies. "That plot shall be for your school," pointing across the gully; "and in memory of your native land, let the parish be called Kildonan."
Of the trials and counter trials between the two companies, there is not space to tell here. Selkirk was forced to pay heavy damages for his course at Fort William, but the courts of Eastern Canada record not a single conviction against the Nor'westers for the massacre of Seven Oaks. Selkirk retired shattered in health to Europe, where he died in 1820. The same year passed away Alexander MacKenzie, his old-time rival.
The truth is, each company had gone too far and was on the verge of ruin. From Athabasca came the furs that prevented bankruptcy, and whichever company could drive the other from Athabasca could practically force its rival to ruin or union. When Colin Robertson had rallied the dispersed colonists from Lake Winnipeg, he had left John Clarke to conduct the two hundred Canadian voyageurs to Athabasca for the Hudson's Bay Company. Clarke had been a Nor'wester before he joined Astor, and was a born fighter, idolized by the Indians. So confident was he of success now that he galloped his canoes up the Saskatchewan without pause to gather provisions. Once on the ground on Athabasca Lake, he divided his party into two or three bands and sent them foraging to the Nor'westers' forts and hunting grounds up Peace River, down Slave Lake, at Athabasca itself. Weakened by division and without food to keep together, his men fell easy prey to the wily Nor'westers. Of those on Slave Lake eighteen died from starvation. Those on Peace River were captured and literally whipped out of the country, signing oaths never to return. Those at Athabasca being leading officers were held prisoners. Meanwhile the Hudson's Bay Company is defeated at Seven Oaks and victorious at Fort William. The Nor'westers at Athabasca were keen to keep the frightened Indians of the north ignorant that Selkirk had triumphed at Fort William, but the news traveled over the two thousand miles of prairie in that strange hunter fashion known as "moccasin telegram," and the story is told how the captured Hudson's Bay officers let the secret out for the benefit of the Indians now afraid to carry their hunt to a Hudson's Bay man.
Revels and all-night carousals marked the winter with the triumphant Nor'westers of Athabasca Lake. Often, when wild drinking songs were ringing in the Nor'westers' dining hall, the Hudson's Bay men would be brought in to furnish a butt for their merciless victors. One night, when the hall was full of Indians, one of the Northwest bullies began to brawl out a song in celebration of the Seven Oaks affair.
"The H.B.C. came up a hill, and up a hill they came,
The H.B.C. came up the hill, but down they went again."
Tired of their rude horseplay, one of the Hudson's Bay officers spoke up: "Y' hae niver asked me for a song. I hae a varse o' me ain compaesin."
Then to the utter amaze of the drunken listeners and astonishment of the Indians, the game old officer trolled off this stave:
"But Selkirk brave went up a hill, and to Fort William came!
When in he popped and out from thence could not be driven again."
The thunderstruck Nor'wester leaped to his feet with a yell: "A hundred guineas for the name of the men who brought that news here."
"A hundred guineas for twa lines of me ain compaesin! Extravagant, sir," returns the canny Scot.