CHAPTER XX.
SAYER AND LIBERTY.
Stone forts and ermined judges were not, to the mind of the unbridled and ungovernable Metis.

True, the French mind has a love for show and circumstance and dignity of demeanor, but the conviction had taken hold of the people of Red River, and especially of the French half-breeds, that these meant curtailment of their freedom.

They felt the dice were loaded against them.
But, now, in the year after Sinclair and his friends had shown such a firm front to Governor Christie, and when something like a feudal system was being introduced into the Red River Settlement, a new surprise came upon French and English alike.

This was immediately after the terrible visitation of a plague, which had cut down one-sixteenth of the whole population.

It was the arrival of a party of the Sixth Royal Regiment of Foot, along with artillery and engineers, amounting in all to five hundred souls.