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among the Company’s servants. The Okan-
agans fled for safety, and the chief trader
sent his half-breed wife and three children
with them.

But a Canadian named Lefevre came
back. “I cannot leave you, Mr. Tod. I would
rather die with you,” he said.

“No, you had better go. If the others
had done their duty and stood by to defend
the company’s property we might have held
the fort till help came from Fort Langley.
As it is I prefer to be alone.”

Tod planned to use a trick, not new, but
which he believed the local Indians had
never heard of. There was plenty of danger
if he failed in carrying it out, and if Nicola
suspected that it was a trick the fort was
lost.

Nicola had a keen intellect, a powerful
will, and a savage hatred when aroused. But
Nicola’s intelligence told him that the white
man’s superior arts and appliances left the
redskin at a disadvantage. Another point
which would help Tod’s plan was the fact
that an officer of the Hudson’s Bay Com-
pany rarely deceived an Indian. Their policy
was to inspire confidence as well as fear.

Springing from ambush, Tod captured
one of Nicola’s scouts who reconnoitered
what he supposed was the deserted fort. Tod
dragged the captive inside the palisades, and
compelled him to carry three kegs of powder
from the magazine.

Tod kicked in the heads of two of the
kegs and sat down cooly on the third.

“Give me your flint,” he cooly demanded

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of the Indian. “Now I’m ready to meet
Nicola and all his warriors. I have enough
powder here to blow to atoms the whole
earth from Kamloops to Okanagan Lake.”

With kingly magnanimity Tod turned to
the terror-stricken captive. “Ill give you a
chance to save yourself if you swear you
will not reveal this to Nicola or any other
person.”

The scout, more dead with fear than
alive, returned to Nicola and could not keep
the dread news secret—which was exactly
what the wily Tod wished, and knew would
happen.

The Indians had never seen so great a
mass of powder—for that matter, countless
white people of the present day are highly
credulous about the amount of destruction a
single stick of dynamite will produce—and
the Indians had no idea of the possible des-
truction resulting from three kegs of powder
exploding at one time. If a nushellfull would
bring down a bull moose, three kegs might
bring the world down, and what Mr. Tod
said he would do, that he would do.

“Then, too,” reasoned the Indians, “if the
bull moose is killed while he who fires the
shot is uninjured, might it not be most likely
that he who blows up the world with three
kegs of powder would likewise escape
harm?”

So Nicola made peace and consented to
include the Okanagans in the pact.

In another encounter with warlike Indians
Tod had no warning in advance. A certain
fine sorrel horse, the best among the three

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hundred belonging to the fort, played an
important part in the affair.

Tod, as a matter touching his personal
dignity, obstinately refused to part with it
on any terms to any Indian. He was domin-
eering, reckless, without seeming to know
the name of fear.

This sorrel horse was coveted by the chief
of the Shuswap tribe who at this time spent
nearly as much time around Kamloops as
around the lake bearing their name. Their
famous chief, christened by the Catholic
priest, Jean Baptiste Lolo, would give any-
thing for that horse, endure any hardship,
and perhaps kill any person.

For twenty years before Tod’s time, Lolo
had lived there on friendly terms with the
fur-traders, and he lived on for a dozen
years after Tod left—in his old age the
company’s officers treated him with both
kindness and respect.

Lolo was a big man with fine bold features
which included a Roman nose. His black
eyes were restless and piercing, but generally
displayed a melancholy cunning. His per-
manent dwelling was a substantial hut near
the old fort. From here he ruled his tribe
with absolute authority long after civiliza-
tion had filled the Kamloops plains with
farmers.

Even after old age and sickness bound
him to his bed, the story of the naked sword
and loaded gun beneath his pillow served to
enforce obedience from the most distant
member of the tribe.

Lolo was a man of intellect and nerve as

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