When McLeod had failed in his appeal, he laid
many sins to their charge. They had allowed the English to carry away
Duncan Cameron to Hudson Bay, they were a band of dogs, and he would
count them always as his enemies if they should hold to their English
friends. Peguis, who was a master diplomat, looked on with attention and
held his peace.
It was now about a week from the time of the massacre. Huerter, the
discharged soldier spoken of, rode down with a party from the Fort to
the field of Seven Oaks. He saw a number of human bodies scattered on
the plain, and in most cases the flesh had been torn off to the bone,
evidently by dogs and wolves.
Far from discouraging the talkative half-breeds, whose blood was up with
the sights of carnage, McLeod and his fellow-officers expressed their
approbation of the deeds done, and the Bois-brules became boisterous in
detailing their victories. The worst of the whole, old Deschamps, a
French-Canadian, who murdered the disabled even when they cried for
quarter, drew forth as he detailed his valorous actions to Alexander
Macdonell, the exclamation, "What a fine, vigorous old man he is!" On
the evening of this Red-letter day of the visit to the Indian encampment
and to Seven Oaks, a wild and heathenish orgy took place.
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