Lord Selkirk had in the eyes of the Nor'-Westers much presumption, indeed nothing less than to buy out the great Hudson's Bay Company, which for a century and a half had controlled nearly one-half of North America.

The Nor'-Westers--Alexander Mackenzie, Inglis and Ellice--made sport of the thing as a dream.

But the "eccentric Lord" was buying up stock and majorities rule in Companies as in the nation.

Contempt and abuse gave place to settled anxiety and in desperation at last the trio of opponents, two days before the meeting, purchased L2,500 of stock, not enough to appreciably affect the vote, but enough to give them a footing in the Hudson's Bay Company, and to secure information of value to them.
The mill of destiny goes slowly round, and Lord Selkirk and his friends are triumphant.

He purchases an enormous tract of land, 116,000 square miles, one-half in what is now the Province of Manitoba, the other at present included in the States of Minnesota and North Dakota, on the south side of the boundary line between Canada and the United States.
The Nor'-Westers are frantic; but the fates are against them.