Walter did not like the appearance and manner of these men, but they aroused his curiosity. “Who are the DeMeurons?” he asked Louis. “How did they come here, and why do they call themselves by that name?”
“They came with Lord Selkirk when he recaptured Fort Douglas from the Northwesters. They were soldiers brought over from Europe to fight for the King in the last war with the Americans. After the war they were discharged and Lord Selkirk engaged about a hundred of them to protect his colony. Because most of them had belonged to a regiment commanded by a man named DeMeuron, the settlers call them all DeMeurons. Lord Selkirk gave them land along the Rivière la Seine, which comes into the Red about a mile above here, but they do little farming, those DeMeurons. They would rather hunt. I blame them not for that. The other colonists have no love for them.”
“I don’t like their looks myself,” Walter replied, “but they seem kinder to strangers than anyone else here is.”
“The DeMeurons are all bachelors,” Louis explained with a grin. “They seek wives to keep their houses and to help them farm their lands, and perhaps they think Swiss girls will work harder than bois brulés. So they are kind to the fathers and brothers that they may not be refused when they propose marriage to daughters and sisters. Soon there will be weddings I think.”
“I should hate to see a sister of mine marry a DeMeuron,” was Walter’s emphatic comment. He changed the subject. “Have you found out,” he asked, “if it is true that Lord Selkirk is dead?”
“Yes, it is true. He died, they say, a year ago last spring.”
“Then who owns the Colony now, the Hudson Bay Company?”
“I don’t quite understand about that,” was the doubtful reply. “I asked one of the Company clerks at the fort and he said that the land and everything belong to Lord Selkirk’s heirs. But M’sieu Garry, the Vice-Governor of the Company, as they call him, was here during the summer, and with him was M’sieu McGillivray, a big man among the Northwesters, and now, since the two companies are one, of the Hudson Bay also. They were much interested in the settlement, the clerk said, and made plans about what should be done.”
“Lord Selkirk was one of the owners of the Company, wasn’t he?” Walter questioned. “Then his heirs must own part of it. Perhaps the Company is going to run the Colony for them. Does Governor McDonnell belong to the Company?”
“That I don’t know. It was Lord Selkirk who made McDonnell governor. Truly it is he who runs the Colony now, with a high hand.”