The chief responded coldly and gave no assistance.
Next morning the Indians departed, and the party proceeded on their journey. Pambrun was at first left behind, but in the evening was given a spare horse and overtook Grant's cavalcade at the North-West Fort near Brandon House. At the North-West Fort Pambrun saw tobacco, carpenters' tools, a quantity of furs, and other things which had been seized in the Hudson's Bay Fort, Brandon House, and been brought over as booty to the Nor'-Westers.
Resuming their journey the traders kept to their boats down the Assiniboine, while the Bois Brûlés went chiefly on horseback until they reached Portage La Prairie. Sixty miles had yet to be traversed before the Forks were reached. The Bois Brûlés now prepared their mounted force. Cuthbert Grant was Commander. Dressed in the picturesque garb of the country, the Metis now arrived with guns, pistols, lances, bows, and arrows. Pambrun remained behind with Alexander Macdonell, but was clearly led to believe that the mounted force would enter Fort Douglas and destroy the settlement. On their fleet Indian ponies these children of the prairie soon made their journey from Portage La Prairie to the Selkirk settlement.
We are indebted to the facile narrator, John Pritchard, for an account of their arrival and their attack. He states that in June, 1816, he was living at Red River, and quite looked for an attack from the western levy just described. Watch was constantly kept from the guérite of Fort Douglas for the approaching foe. The half-breeds turned aside from the Assiniboine some four miles up the River to a point a couple of miles below Fort Douglas. Governor Semple and his attendants followed them with the glass in their route across the plain. The Governor and about twenty others sallied out to meet the western party. On his way out he sent back for a piece of cannon, which was in the fort, to be brought. Soon after this the half-breeds approached Governor Semple's party in the form of a half moon. The Highland settlers had betaken themselves for protection to Fort Douglas, and in their Gaelic tongue made sad complaint.
A daring fellow named Boucher then came out of the ranks of his party, and, on horseback, approached Semple and his body-guard. He gesticulated wildly, and called out in broken English, "What do you want? What do you want?" Governor Semple answered, "What do you want?" To this Boucher replied, "We want our fort." The Governor said, "Well, go to your fort." Nothing more was said, but Governor Semple was seen to put his hand on Boucher's gun. At this juncture a shot was fired from some part of the line, and the firing became general. Many of the witnesses who saw the affair affirmed that the shot first fired was from the Bois Brûlés' line.
The attacking party were most deadly in their fire. Semple and his staff, as well as others of his party, fell to the number of twenty-two. The affair was most disastrous.
Pritchard says:—
"I did not see the Governor fall, though I saw his corpse the next day at the fort. When I saw Captain Rogers fall I expected to share his fate. As there was a French Canadian among those who surrounded me, and who had just made an end of my friend, I said, 'Lavigne, you are a Frenchman, you are a man, you are a Christian. For God's sake save my life; for God's sake try and save it. I give myself up; I am your prisoner.'"
To the appeals of Pritchard Lavigne responded, and, placing himself before his friend, defended him from the infuriated half-breeds, who would have taken his life. One Primeau wished to shoot Pritchard, saying that the Englishman had formerly killed his brother. At length they decided to spare Pritchard's life, though they called him a petit chien, told him he had not long to live, and would be overtaken on their return. It transpired that Governor Semple was not killed by the first shot that disabled him, but had his thigh-bone broken. A kind French Canadian undertook to care for the Governor, but in the fury of the fight an Indian, who was the greatest rascal in the company, shot the wounded man in the breast, and thus killed him instantly.