He
also took possession of Hudson's Bay Company funds with the coolness of
a buccaneer, and his manner in refusing personal liberty to people whom
he dared not arrest was overbearing and impertinent.
The inaccessibility of Red River Settlement in winter added much to the
anxiety. 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. It was a gloomy Christmas time in Red River, and the gloom
was increased by the suspense of not knowing what the Government at
Ottawa would do in the circumstances.
CHAPTER XXVII.
LORD STRATHCONA'S HAND.
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