“No firing, I tell you,” orders Semple angrily, and the two parties come in violent collision on a little knoll of wooded ground called Seven Oaks.
With Grant are our old friends of the Saskatchewan—Falçon, the rhyming poet; and Boucher, son of the scout shot on the South Saskatchewan; and Louis Primo, old reprobate who had deserted Cocking fifty years ago; and two of Marguerite Trottier’s brothers from Pembina; and a blackguard family of Deschamps from the Missouri; and seventy other Plain Rangers from the West.
Followed by a bloodthirsty crew hard to hold, Cuthbert Grant was appalled to see Semple march out courting disaster.
“Go tell those people to ground their arms and surrender,” he ordered Boucher.
“What do you want?” demanded Semple as Boucher galloped up.
“Our fort,” yelled Boucher forgetting his message.
“Then go to your fort!” vehemently ordered Semple.
“Rascal! You have destroyed our fort,” roared the angry Half-breed.
“Dare you address me so?” retorted Semple, seizing the scout’s gun. “Men—take him prisoner!”