No telegraphic connection nearer than St.Paul, some four or five hundred miles, was possible, even the regular conveyance of the mails could not be relied on.

Meanwhile the Canadian people were in a state of the greatest excitement, and the Government at Ottawa, well-knowing its mismanagement of the whole affair, was in desperate straits.

To make the situation more serious the only man who could deal with Riel and could remedy the situation, Bishop Tache, of St.Boniface, was absent at the great conclave of that year in Rome.

The more intelligent French people had no confidence in the sanity and reasonableness of Riel.

He was to them as great a puzzle as he was to the English.