the Cree and Big Bear. The Chief gave Dickens and his men a short time to abandon the fort. This they did, and travelled amongst the ice pans in a leaky scow. Scouts from Fort Battleford reported that everyone at Fort Pitt had been massacred; however, after six days on the river Dickens and his men arrived at Battleford and received a hero's welcome. Discharge and death Following his discharge from the Mounted Police in 1886 (for reasons of ill health—he was becoming increasingly hard of hearing among other infirmities) Frank was going to embark on a series of lecture talks in the U.S. (as his father had successfully done), but died of a heart attack at a friend's house in Moline, Illinois, the night of his first speech. He was 42 years old. Character reputation Contemporary portrayals of Francis Dickens (such as the character Inspector Dicken in the romantic novel Annette the Metis Spy), conformed to a conventional heroic type, reflecting the dominant view of the Rebellion held by (English-speaking) Eastern Canada. However, some of his superiors in the Mounted Police held unfavorable opinions about his overall competence, echoing his father Charles Dickens, who wrote in a letter to his friend on being asked by his son for three hundred pounds, a horse and a gun to set himself up as a gentleman farmer in the colonies, that the consequence of the first is that he would be robbed of it, the second, that it would throw him, and the third, that he would shoot his own head off. In histories of the Mounted Police, Francis Dickens is described as a tragic character, struggling to live in the shadow of his great father. Charges against him include drunkenness, laziness and recklessness. David Carter in the third chapter of his book questions the evidence that these claims are based on. An article in a special RCMP issue of the Canadian history magazine The Beaver called "Francis J. Dickens, An Ordinary Officer" gives a balanced picture, pointing out his twelve years of service during which time many men in the fledgling police force on the plains deserted or were discharged for misconduct. Others have gone so far as to say that he was partly responsible for the deterioration in relations between the NWMP and the Blackfoot in the 1880s. Francis Dickens in Fiction The events surrounding Frog Lake and the battle