We University Library 39002024995160 M&&- "C^TS " :25**r vir$j* « V: Mounted Police Life vin Canada A Record of Thirty-one Years' Service BY CAPTAIN R. BURTON DEANE With a Map and Four Plates GASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne First Published September 1916. Reprinted November 1916., CaS».T5 i. 1883-84. Regina I 2. 1884. Regina . 14 3. Rebellion Year, 1885. Regina . . 21 4. 1886-88. Regina . 32 5. 1888. Lethbridge . 44 6. 1888-89. Lethbridge 54 7. 1890-97. Lethbridge 68 8. 1898-1902. Lethbridge and Macleod . 79 9. 1902-6. Maple Creek . 97 10. 1906-14. Calgary . . 105 11. 1906-14. Calgary (continued) 115 12. The Passing of the Calgary Barracks. 1914 126 13. Mounted Police Law 132 14. An Unrecorded Incident of Mounted Police History : The Crooked Lakes Affair ..... 140 15. Wholesale Cattle Smuggling . 154 16. Louis Riel : Executed for Treason 182 17. Three Trials for Murder . 234 18. Incidents of Mounted Police Life 262 19. Humours and Uncertainties of the Law . 281 20. Some Early Reminiscences . . . 299 Index 309 LIST OF PLATES Captain R. Burton Deane . . . Frontispiece FACING PAGE The Mounted Police, Barracks, Regina, 1885 (A Squad at Skirmishing Drill) ... 32 The Mounted Police Barracks, Regina, 1885 (Showing the Guard-room) .... 112 The Northern Bank of the Milk River . . 160 Map of R.N.W. Mounted Police Districts . . 308 MOUNTED POLICE LIFE IN CANADA captain r. burton deane MOUNTED POLICE LIFE IN CANADA | CHAPTER I 1883 — 84. regina IT was a glorious morning, in the early part of July, 1883, when I left the Windsor Hotel in Regina, and started to walk the two and a half miles of roll ing prairie that intervened between the hotel and the barracks of the North- West Mounted Police, some of the roofs of which were distinguishable in the distance. Regina had been selected by Lieutenant-Governor Edgar Dewdney as the capital of the North- West Terri tories, and had been christened by H.R.H. the Princess Louise, whose husband, the Marquis of Lome, was then Governor-General of Canada. The Mounted Police had been ordered to make Regina their head-quarters, and the transfer from Port Walsh had not been quite completed at the time of which I write. In order to facilitate the housing of the police in their new home, a number of so-called "portable " build ings had been shipped in from Eastern Canada. These had been made in sections, and were readily put together on the spot. Needless to say, they were cold habitations, and every room on the ground floor required to have a stove to itself. Mounted Police Life in Canada The prairie was carpeted with wild roses, and for a time I tried to avoid stepping on them, but they were so plentiful that the avoidance of them became irksome, and I hardened my heart and walked on. I found the officer in command to be Superintendent William Herchmer, known all over Prince Rupert's Land as "Colonel Billy." Whence he derived his title of " Colonel " I do not know, but he assumed it and it stuck to him. I sought him out and reported my arrival, and he took me round and introduced me to the other officers in the Post. These were Dr. Jukes, the senior surgeon of the Force; Inspector P. R. Neale, the supply officer; and Inspectors A. R. Macdonell, Greisbach and A. B. Perry. The latter had served a short time in the Royal Engineers at Chatham, but the atmosphere of the School of Military Engineering seemed to have proved uncongenial, and he had returned to his native country to accept a commission in the North-West Mounted Police. The Commissioner of the Force, Colonel A. G. Irvine, was not in Regina at the time of my arrival, and as he had more room in his quarters than he absolutely required for himself, I was installed therein for the time being. Having with me a folding bedstead which I had used in the Ashanti Campaign of 1873-4, and a light kit, I was easily housed until my quarters should be ready for occupation. Inspector Neale was married and comfortably settled, and he and his wife were kind enough to ask me to take my meals with them, which I was very glad to do. The empty shell of a house (a story and a half high) was placed at my disposal, and I was invited to par tition it off to suit my convenience, which I did. Car- 2 1883-84. Regina penters were at once set to work on it, and two rooms were added downstairs, which made it a sufficiently commodious and convenient habitation. Seeing that there was no rent to pay, and that the Government provided stoves, fuel and light, I considered myself supremely fortunate. After a few days the adjutant, Superintendent John Cotton, arrived, and General Orders then announced the appointment, as Inspector, of R. B. Deane, Esq., although my credentials from Ottawa showed that I had been a captain in the Imperial Service. The Mounted Police Force had been in existence for ten years and had not a standing order or regulation of any kind. I was expected to remedy this defect and, asTnad been for five years adjutant of a division of Royal Marines, consisting of 3,500 non-commissioned officers and men, besides officers, and had served afloat and ashore for close on sixteen years, it was child's play to me to draft regulations for a little force of 500 men when once I had become acquainted with the conditions of life and service in the country. Regulations were needed badly enough, but what was more urgently required than anything else was the driving power to compel the wheels of the machine to turn smoothly. I had been told in Ottawa that I should find the Mounted Police an "armed mob," and I certainly discovered them to be so. I spent the best part of the months of July and August in Regina trying to teach the "hay-leg "-"straw- leg " business to some recruits, and when the Comp troller visited the Post towards the conclusion of that interval, he said that he noticed an improvement in the bearing of the men. At the beginning of September I went to Toronto to fetch my family, who were in stalled in a house there, and brought them all westward early in the next month — wife, five children, and a 3 Mounted Police Life in Canada domestic servant whom we had found in Winnipeg. A telegram from T. C. Patteson to Mr. George Stephen, president of the Canadian Pacific (now Lord Mount Stephen), expedited the transmission of the car contain ing our household goods, and we soon settled down in our new home and awaited the advent of our first North- West winter. The first line of study that it was incumbent upon me to take up was obviously that of the Criminal Law. I was familiar with Military Law, and it was fortunate that I was so, for there was no one in the country, either at the bar or on the bench, who knew anything about it, and it devolved upon me, a few years later, to teach the Supreme Court of the North- West Terri tories the true relations between itself and a court con stituted by the Mounted Police Act. The particulars of this will be found under the chapter entitled "Mounted Police Law." The study of the Criminal Law that we were to ad minister in the country was, at that time, a little com plicated, for only certain statutes were in force in the North- West Territories ; having ascertained from Colonel Richardson, the senior stipendiary magistrate, which those were, I set to work to epitomise them into the form of a manual which a constable could carry about with him, so as to inform himself as occasion might require. Colonel Richardson was very kind, and devoted several hours to going over my work with me and to making corrections and suggestions. I studied also all the police manuals which I could procure, the principal ones being those of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Melbourne Force. In this manner I spent the winter of 1883, in equip ping myself for my future duties, and the time was well spent. So far as any idea of a "Constable's Manual" 4 1883-84. Regina was concerned, the Police Department at Ottawa had no interest in, nor any sympathy with, any such pro ject. My manuscript was promptly consigned to a pigeon-hole, where it remained until a sympathetic fire came along some years later and made an end of it and of other records in the departmental building at Ottawa. I next turned my attention to the problem of "Standing Orders," which were very urgently needed, and with that object in view I studied all the literature that I could procure. I have already remarked that, however desirable regulations might be, it was equally desirable that there should be some driving power which would keep the machine moving, and an illustration of this may be offered. One of the officers stationed at head-quarters had been detailed for railway duty, and in pursuance thereof he used to travel on a pass, and to talk mysteriously about the people with whom he used to come in contact, and so on. After I got to know him better he told me that he did not know what his duties were, and that he had never received any orders on the subject. To my knowledge he never made a ' report, and his chief object in life seemed to be to buy scrip cheaply from the half-breeds. He had begun to acquire 1,000 acres of land in Manitoba, and thought of little else. I do not know what good the purchase did him, for when he died he did not leave a penny. Pre sumably he bought more land than he could pay taxes on, with the consequence that in time it was sold to cover the arrears. This is an apt and true illustration of the go-as-you- please manner in which the Mounted Police Force ran itself in the year of Our Lord 1883. In April, 1884, the Commissioner appointed a Board of Officers, of which I was one, to formulate a single rank drill for the Force and to draft Standing Orders. The drill was soon disposed of, and then glances of 5 Mounted Police Life in Canada inquiry were cast at me. I asked if there were any means of ascertaining the contents of the Commis sioner's office, as there was necessarily therein a certain amount of material which would have to be worked into Standing Orders, and this ought to be at our disposal. It seemed that there was no way by which we could obtain the required information, and I therefore said that I did not see how we could make any progress. The board died a natural death then and there. The Commissioner, who had been to Ottawa during part of the session, returned on Good Friday and an nounced that I was to be promoted to superintendent and appointed adjutant from April i . The appointment, however, did not actually reach Regina until May 14, and on that day I took charge of the Commissioner's office. The staff consisted of Staff-Sergeant W. H. Irwin (now Clerk of the District Court at Lethbridge) and Sergeant (now Superintendent) Routledge. The care and attention which my predecessor had not bestowed upon his office were evidenced by the fact that there was not even an index to the correspondence, and it was necessary for us to sort and examine the entire contents of the office and to make a correspond ence register as we went along. This gave me the opportunity that I was looking for, of finding out what orders there were for incorporation in my new work, and, although the operation exhausted several weeks, the time was not ill-spent. The lack of a correspondence register explained some funny little dockets, with which the table in the Com missioner's office was covered. These were all neatly folded up, with labels describing their contents, and an indiarubber band round each of them. When the office was properly fitted up I asked the Commissioner if he had any objection to my removing his treasures piece- 6 1883-84. Regina meal and answering them. There was no very great difficulty in so doing, although I was a stranger to the country. One docket, I remember, related to a claim made by an old widow at Battleford, whose oat crop had been trampled by some police horses which had broken through her fence. I recommended payment of a hundred dollars to settle her claim. Another prolific source of correspondence were the numerous claims made by men, when taking their dis charge from the Force, for compensation on account of having received some injury while in pursuance of duty. One docket related to a claim for 5,000 dollars made by a non-commissioned officer, and it caused us a great deal of trouble to hunt up old ration returns and such-like documents to find out where he was on certain given dates. There was nothing on record to show that the so-called injury had ever been reported at the time, and this obviously called for a remedy in the future. In the Royal Navy I knew that when a man was injured on duty he was given what was known as a "hurt certifi cate," and I made a provision that, in cases where a man was injured in the Force a board of officers should be immediately convened to take the evidence of the persons cognisant of the facts, and to give an opinion in accordance with that evidence. That settled that question. Another source of acrimonious correspondence was the question of discharge by purchase, which had never been either recognised or in contemplation, for the simple reason that it cost the country so much money to bring men into the West, that the least return the Government could expect was that the men should serve the term of five years for which they had engaged. However, so many men claimed that recruiting officers had led them to believe that they could "buy out" if they did not happen to be satisfied, that I introduced a 7 Mounted Police Life in Canada system from my old corps, by which applicants for pur chase had their names placed on a list, and were allowed to take their turn at the rate of three per month. Sir John Macdonald was pleased to approve of this sugges tion, and it was adopted in the Mounted Police. The principle involved was all right, but with the accession to power of the Borden Government in 191 1 it laid itself open to abuse. In the year 1912 no fewer than fifty men were allowed to purchase their discharge out of a force numbering only 654 men. An amendment ^o the Mounted Police Act was made in the following year, increasing the pay of the various ranks and reducing the term of a constable's engage ment from five to three years. In view of this reduction, I wrote to Mr. R. B. Bennett, M.P. for Calgary, ad vising that discharge by purchase should be abolished except in very special cases. He replied saying that he agreed with everything I had written, and would take the matter up with the Comptroller. The vigorous manner in which he did so may be gauged by the fact that in that year, 1913, out of a total number of 708 non-commissioned officers and constables no fewer than 71 had been permitted to purchase their discharge prior to November 1. Out of the aforesaid total num ber, 43 men deserted during the same time, and 49 were dismissed for bad conduct. ' The figures are significant, as tending to show that, in spite of the shortened term of engagement and the increased pay, the Mounted Police was unable to obtain and retain desirable men. In my opinion a great mis take was made. The engagement should have remained at five years, and additional pay should have been given to bring the total wage up to the market level. As it has turned out, the Government took away with one hand what it gave with the other. That it increased the 8 1883-84. Regina pay is true, but it took away from the issue of kit ; and the price of some of the articles of clothing has been raised to a prejudicial extent. Canadians as a whole are very proud of the world- widerreputatron wKicfT the Force' has inade, _but they may as well face the unquestionable fact that the Force is now on the "down-grade "and should be abolished before its reputation is quite gone. Five years were none too long a time to teach a constable the multi farious duties of a mounted policeman ; but when, in addition to the reduced term of three years there is added the pestilential discharge by purchase whenever a man chooses to ask for it, it necessarily follows that the Force is able to render to the public nothing better than a very inferior kind of eye-service. As an illustration of what I mean, a constable who had joined the Force on August 12, 1912, was in course of time transferred to my division, and was subse quently detailed for detachment duty at Bankhead, where there is an anthracite mine. He was by way of being a handy-man, and the manager offered him $2.90 per day to run an engine in the mine. He applied to purchase, was given instant permission to do so, and, on December 1, 1913, took his discharge upon payment of $61.50, that is $3 per month for the unexpired portion of his engagement. Another constable was sent to replace him at Bank- head, and on February 5, 1914, he, too, applied for permission to purchase, which was instantly allowed by the Commissioner, and he took his discharge upon pay ment of $85.50. It seems that a surveyor had offered him $45 a month to join his survey party. To an officer in charge of a police district such eccentricities as these are simply maddening and heart breaking, and the public suffer as a result. The worst case known to me happened in the early B 9 Mounted Police Life in Canada part of 19 14. There was a constable on detached duty at , but he was so utterly neglectful of his duties that I was in process of making arrangements to with draw and replace him. To my intense astonishment I received a telegram from the Commissioner's office at Regina to give him his discharge by purchase. This order had, I subsequently learned, emanated from Ottawa, and, of course, governed both the Commissioner and myself; but any such proceeding cannot fail to be subversive of discipline, and is antagonistic to the best interests of the Force. The people amongst whom I have lived and worked in the West for over thirty years will concede that I am as competent a judge of disciplinary administration as any person in Canada, and they will understand that I am telling them historical facts which they are likely to learn from no one but me, and which it is time they were told. This constable was given his discharge, and his successor, quite a competent young man, had hardly been in his place for one calendar month when he, too, applied to purchase, and was allowed to do so. From all the foregoing it will be seen that the Mounted Police Force has developed into a philan thropic organisation, whose objects are laudable enough, so far as providing young men with means of liveli hood is concerned, but hardly so satisfactory to the lonely settler when "constabulary duty's to be done." Nor is it possible to regard the philanthropic provision of openings for young men as the purpose for which a police force exists. To return, however, to the Commissioner's office in Regina, the muddle that most wanted straightening out was in connection with the medical staff. Whether rightly or wrongly, the department at Ottawa had acquired the notion that the medical officers 10 1883-84. Regina at the various Divisional Head-quarter Posts in different parts of the country were dispensing drugs, &c, sup plied by the Government for the use of the non commissioned officers and men, in their private practice. Oddly enough, an officer could not get any medicine at the police surgery. In order to remedy this state of affairs, an oldish medical practitioner, at St. Catherine's, in Ontario, was persuaded by Sir John Macdonald to give up his practice there and bring his family to the North-West, in order to take up the appointment of senior surgeon. All sorts of promises had been held out to induce him to take this step, and the old man used to complain bitterly that faith had not been kept with him. However that may have been, and I have no personal knowledge of the matter, the appointment was not in any way acceptable to the various assistant surgeons, who seemed determined to do all they could to make Dr. Jukes's life a burden. Correspondence used to be carried on directly between the medical officers, and if the senior surgeon wanted any informa tion or returns which were not quite palatable, the assistants frankly told him to go to the devil. As soon asvl felt myself securely seated in my chair I issued a General Order to the effect that in future direct correspondence between the senior and assistant surgeons was to cease and was to be carried on through the Commissioner's office and the Officers Commanding Divisions, each of whom would be held responsible that information required by the senior surgeon was promptly and accurately rendered, and that replies to corre spondence were couched in proper terms. As soon as the Order reached Ottawa the Comptrol ler at once wrote me a private note, saying, "General Order so-and-so settles the medical question," as, of course, it did in a very obvious and simple manner, and there was no more trouble. u Mounted Police Life in Canada Dr. Jukes became a great friend of mine, and was a very fine old gentleman, and also a very competent practitioner. The Conservative party treated him abominably. When, in course of time, his memory failed and he became past work, they laid him on the shelf with a paltry superannuation of about twenty-five dollars per month. There was a clause in the Act whereby he could have been allowed to count ten more years than he had actually served, but therein lies the difference between the two political parties. The Liberals look after their friends, while the Conservatives do not. Take my own case. When Sir John Macdonald's party met disaster at the polls in 1896, I was not mean enough to leave it at a time when it most needed loyalty and service, as so many of the old chieftain's appointees did, but remained in its ranks until the Liberals went out of power in September, 191 1, over the reciprocity question. At that time both the Commissioner and the Assistant Commissioner were men who had been ap pointed by Sir John, but, after the fateful 1895 election they had turned their coats and had thus secured pro motion over the heads of their seniors. In 1913 a new appointment was made, that of an Assistant Commis sioner for the Province of Alberta, and as I was by eight years the senior superintendent of the Force I naturally expected to obtain the appointment. The whole Western country had the same expectation, but I reckoned without my host. One of the superintendents had a brother in the Dominion Parliament, representing an Ontario con stituency, and conceived the brilliant idea of obtaining promotion for himself over the heads of his seniors and betters. His amiable design in some way became known to another superintendent, senior to himself, and a scion of an old Quebec family. In self-protection, for 12 1883-84. Regina I do the man the justice to believe that he would never have done so otherwise, he set to work to pull political strings, with the result that he got the appointment. All such trickery as this is quite comme il faut in Canada. No one thinks any worse of a man for trying to super sede his superior, and it is this spirit which accounts for the numerous changes which have taken place in the past thirty years in the general officers sent to Ganada from England to command the Militia. The two officers at the head of the Mounted Police of whom I have spoken are graduates of the Royal Military College at Kingston, Ontario ; and Britishers do not sufficiently assimilate the principle that "Canada is for the Canadians," and, that when a Canadian wants a job no Englishman need apply. When General Colin McKenzie could not "get on" with the impossible Minister of Militia, whom most of his party take as a joke, nothing more needs to be said. -Sir George French brought the Mounted Pojjcejinto" the_ Wejspn, 1873, and his treatment by the Canadian Government of the day is a. matter of history. As a comment on the injustice with which he was treated by the Canadians, the Home Government gave him the Queensland Command. 13 CHAPTER II 1884. regina The year of Our Lord 1884 was a very busy year for me. In addition to the work in the Commissioner's and Adjutant's offices, I had the work in the Post and its interior economy to look after, and the training of men and horses to supervise. My outside staff con sisted of Sergt.-Major Robert Belcher (now Lieut.- Colonel Strathcona's Horse) and Staff-Sergeant Walter Simpson (ex-Staff-Sergeant Royal Artillery); and two old-fashioned soldiers such as these could be trusted to render good and loyal service without having to be watched. For the horses I employed Constable Mon tague Baker, who was probably the best rider in the Post, and for the clerical work of the division I had a smart young porporal named S. G. Mills, who sub sequently obtained a commission, and after his retire ment was visited by a terrible affliction — the loss of his sight. I am glad to know that, in spite of his trouble, he is to-day a happy and prosperous citizen of Hamil ton, Ontario. Montague Baker was a very useful man, and I finally appointed him to be sergeant-major of the newly- formed division "K," in the autumn of the rebellion year, when the strength of the Force had been increased to 1,000 men. I was sorry to learn the other day that he had recently "joined the majority." In the summer of 1884 I made two notable engage- 14 1884. Regina ments. Two men named Charles Ross and G. P. Arnold presented themselves, saying that they had crossed the line to homestead near Moose Jaw, but had come to the conclusion that farming conditions were hardly favourable, and that they proposed to join the Mounted Police. I sent them to Dr. Jukes for medical examination, and presently the old gentleman came across the square. "Do you know that those men you sent to me for examination are very fine specimens of muscular man hood, but that they bear the scars of bullet wounds ? " "How do you account for them, Doctor ? " I queried. "Oh ! well, they say that they have worked as scouts for the United States troops and have been wounded in ' scraps ' with the Indians and so on." "All right, Doctor," I replied, "if they have seen shots fired in anger they are the men for my money, and if you say they are sound I shall engage them and take chances on their respectability." I had no occasion to regret doing so, and did not bother my head about their past history. They were dead shots ; they could ride anything with hair on ; they did not drink ; and they were not afraid of work. What more did man want? Ross was, after a time, sent to Calgary and Arnold to Prince Albert, in the north. Arnold was killed at Duck Lake, at the outbreak skirmish of the rebellion. He received one bullet wound in the neck, but paid no attention to it, and continued to "peg away" at the enemy until he was shot through the lungs, and that was conclusive. He and Ross were great friends. The latter, early in the rebellion days in the north, whither he was sent, be came known as "Charlie Ross, the famous scout," and stories were told of him during the fight at Cut Knife Creek how, whenever he had sent an Indian or half- breed to the happy hunting grounds, he would mutter 15 Mounted Police Life in Canada to himself, "Another for Arnold." With a man who habitually shot wild rabbits with a bullet, through the head, in order to avoid spoiling the meat, a poor Indian or "Breed" did not stand much chance so long as there was enough of his dusky carcass visible for Charlie Ross to draw a bead upon. In my company, he followed a horse's trail across the prairie for about fifteen miles at a gallop, and it was none too plain a trail either. Another valuable recruit who offered himself for acceptance during the same year was T. J. Kempster, an upstanding specimen of a man who had served as a trooper in the 2nd Life Guards, and proved to be a very capable riding instructor. The wild eccentricities of the prairie-bred horse astonished him at the outset, but I induced him to undertake the training of them upon the principles of M. Baucher, of the French army. Montague Baker and he used to work together. Baker, by the way, had a very narrow escape on one occasion. A broncho (i.e. an unbroken horse) from the wild and woolly West — a savage brute who was rather more intractable than his compeers — succeeded in planting a hind foot fairly and squarely in Baker's face, but under Dr. Jukes's care he recovered perfectly. In the course of the same year, in company with the Lieutenant-Governor, I visited the famous Bell Farm at Indian Head, which consisted of I forget how many thousand acres. The climate and the country were not, at that time, conducive to any such experi ment, and when the rebellion of 1885 broke out the management were only too glad to hire out their teams and men to the Militia Department for the transport of stores, etc., at the rate of ten dollars a day. They had, I thought at the time, only one useful practice, which was a regulation requiring all their stables to be locked and the keys returned by nine 16 1884. Regina o'clock every evening to the time-keeper of the estab lishment, who lived at the head-quarter farm. I thought that the principle was so good that I immediately adopted it. Our four stables stood east and west with doors at each end, the eastern end facing the barrack square. I secured the western end with Yale padlocks on the inside, and the eastern end with similar contriv ances on the outside, and the stable picket had the keys strapped on to his belt. On September 15, 1884, I received a telegram from Major Bell, that in the course of the previous night fifteen horses had been stolen from the Bell Farm and driven rapidly southwards towards the line. Sergeant Blight and a couple of men from Regina succeeded in recovering seven of the horses in Montana, and as the tracks of only nine animals could be found on the south side of the Missouri River it was conjectured that the others had been driven to ex haustion, and some of them possibly drowned in attempting to cross. I asked Major Bell afterwards how it was that the thieves managed to get the horses out of locked stables, and he replied, "Oh, we gave up that practice ; it became too tiresome ! " I had an amusing experience with Bell in 1885, when Lord Lansdowne was touring the country in the autumn after the rebellion. The first stop he made in the North- West Territories was at Indian Head. There I had orders to meet him with an escort of a hundred men, all of whom we could not mount, and there was thus a most incongruous force of men riding in dead- axe (that is "heavy ") wagons, and so on. Mr. Assistant Commissioner Crozier had recently come into Regina, and these were his ridiculous orders. However, on our arrival at Indian Head, Major Bell was promptly on deck, and said : " I have chosen a most delightful spot for you to pitch your camp. It is just in convenient 17 Mounted Police Life in Canada view from my drawing-room windows, and I am sure His Excellency will be immensely pleased with" the prospect." "That may be so, Major Bell," I replied, "but I have hardly travelled over the fifty odd miles between this place and Regina to contribute to the aspect of your scenery. Canada holds me responsible for the safety of her Governor-General while he is in my charge, and I have already sent a non-commissioned officer ahead to select a ground for our camp in proximity to the railway station. That is where our camp will be pitched. I am sorry to upset any of your arrangements all the same." We camped, therefore, just behind the station buildings. When the viceregal train came into the station (in the very early morning) a sentry was posted at each end of the Governor-General's car, and think ing that everything was seraphic I slept the sleep of the just. His Excellency told me later in the day that he thought four sections (sixteen men) would be ample escort for him on the forthcoming forty-five mile ride next day. And so it was that we started out the next morning with a smart escort of sixteen men, under Sergeant Kempston, on route for Fort Qu'Appelle via Katepwa, where we had luncheon at Father Hugon- nard's Indian School. From there we went to Fort Qu'Appelle, where the Hudson's Bay Company had a store, etc., and there His Excellency had a pow-wow with the Indians of that neighbourhood, and made them the usual presents of food, tobacco, etc. Thence, at the suggestion of the Hudson's Bay factor, with whom Lord Melgund was driving ahead, we started by a roundabout road to Qu'Appelle station on the railway. We rode and rode and rode, and it looked suspiciously as if the factor 18 1884. Regina had lost his bearings. So, after a time, His Excellency said to me, " Well, Captain Deane, I am in your hands. I think we had better head for our train." I had taken care to provide a scout who knew every jnch of that country, and he took us by a bee-line to where the viceregal train had pulled up westward from Indian Head. The Governor-General was due to address a small deputation on arrival, and he then asked me to dinner. In the year 1884 an incident occurred which recalled to my mind an observation made to me by a very astute Indian named Osoup at Crooked Lakes earlier in the year. He intimated that the Indians fully recog nised the power for evil that lay in their hands with regard to the railroad, and it is much to their credit that they have abstained from such mischief during all these past years. Probably if there was one individual who, more than any other, exercised an influence for good in this respect, it was the Reverend Father Lacombe, O.M.I., for he had great influence with Crowfoot, the honoured chief of the Blackfoot nation, and the Blackfeet made no trouble when the Canadian Pacific passed the northern edge of their reserve. It was pathetic to hear the old man say in 1905, after the Province of Alberta had been formed out of the North-West Territories, amid great ceremonies at Edmonton, "They said everything nice about them selves, but never a word about the police or the priests." I replied, "Father, you have put the cart before the horse. Everyone who knows anything about it knows that the police would have been of little use without the help of the priesthood." In the month of June it was reported that an iron rail had been found placed across the track at a point about seventy miles west of Regina, and a sergeant, an interpreter, and three mounted men were at once dis- 19 Mounted Police Life in Canada patched westward by- rail, with orders to> work back along both sides of the track. They returned next day, bringing with them three Indian prisoners, whom they had arrested on suspicion. As I was engaged in in vestigating the matter, it transpired that two of the Indians, who were Assiniboines, were brothers, and were able and willing to point out the real culprit. A passing freight train was detained, and men and horses, with one of the informers, were immediately dispatched westward again. Two days later they returned, bringing in an Indian named Buffalo Calf ; the brothers had seen him place the rail on the track, and he was subsequently convicted on their evidence and sent to the penitentiary for two years. The year wore on with never an idle minute, until Christmas approached, and then it became my duty to write the Commissioner's annual report for presentation to Parliament. This entailed about a month's work, but the report was duly dispatched to Ottawa on Christmas Eve. The Montreal Gazette was good enough to say that it read like a romance. 20 CHAPTER III rebellion year, 1885. regina. On March 10, in response to a telegram from Ottawa, Colonel Irvine left Regina with four officers, eighty-six non-commissioned officers and men and sixty-six horses, en route to Prince Alberta, 291 miles distant. This journey was made in seven days, the average daily travel being forty-two miles, which, considering the short days and the severe weather, was pretty good travelling. His departure left the Head-quarter Post with myself and thirty-two non-commissioned officers and men, and no horses. Fortunately the Indian Department had a few ponies, which they were able to lend us, and with them we had to do the best we could. At the end of March a cipher telegram from Ottawa announced that three hundred men in Chicago had bound themselves together, by oath, to invade Canada in the interests of the half-breeds, and that their objec tive point in the first instance would probably be Moose Jaw, forty miles westward of Regina. Although I did not take this proposition very seri ously, I could not, of course, neglect any reasonable pre caution, and so opened negotiations with some Sioux Indians, who had been for some time camped in the neighbourhood of Moose Jaw, with a view to engaging them as scouts, but the negotiations fell through, chiefly owing to the difficulty in mounting them. It happened that just about that time a man named 21 Mounted Police Life in Canada Louis Legarr£, who lived at Wood Mountain, a settle ment about 90 miles south-east of Regina, came into town to represent to the Lieutenant-Governor that a large number of half-breeds in his neighbourhood were in a starving condition, that they wished to remain where they were so as not to be implicated in any way with the rebellion, and that they would be glad of any employment which would keep the wolf from the door. Legarre' undertook to see that the work was properly done, and to vouch for the good faith of the men for whose selection he would be held responsible, and, this arrangement having been sanctioned in Ottawa, forty scouts were engaged, and an officer was sent to Wood Mountain to supervise proceedings. At this year's session of the Dominion Parliament the strength of the force was increased from 500 to 1,000 men, and in order to provide accommodation for them a number of large square tents, etc., were sent to us from Ottawa. These we pitched round the barrack square in the intervals between the portable houses. On May 3 a telegram was handed to me : " One hundred and thirty recruits will reach you at midnight, and require supper." The men duly arrived. It took us several days to get them all clothed and settled down, for our stock of clothing, etc., was entirely insufficient, and we ransacked all the shops in the town to buy the necessary underclothing, blankets, etc. Con sidering that there was not much money in circulation, this was a godsend to the local storekeepers. This con signment was the first of about 600 men who joined us in the course of the year. As soon astheir training was completed, the men composing eachT squad were dis patched to one J)oint or another in different parts of the country. Of the recruits I can only say that they were the finest and best behaved lot of men that I have ever been connected with. They gave no trouble, 22 Rebellion Year, 1885. Regina and settled down to learn their business with determina tion. In consequence of a little incident that occurred when there were from 250 to 300 men under canvas, it occurred to me to have a heart-to-heart talk with them. I was impelled to this by various considerations, to explain the chief one of which I must hark back a little. Colonel Irvine, soon after his arrival at Prince Albert on March 24, received from the Comptroller at Ottawa a telegram which read : " Major-General Commanding Militia proceeds forthwith to Red River. On his arrival, in military operations, take orders from him." Now, Colonel Irvine, having discussed the subject with the leading men of the neighbourhood, and being in possession of all the ascertainable facts, had come to the conclusion that it was his duty to place Prince Albert in as defensible a position as was possible in the circum stances and to protect the many women and children who gathered there. He accordingly refused to abandon his helpless charges and to move out into the field. The force at his command was not sufficient to admit of his doing both things. General Middleton had enough men with him to eat the rebel half-breeds, moccasins and all, but seemed to have some ridiculous ideas about the risking of human life, and hesitated and demurred until Colonel Wil liams's regiment got tired of being made fools of and rushed the half-breed trenches, out of which the dusky occupants scrambled without any ceremony whatever, and were lost to sight. It was this redoubtable outfit that General Middleton wanted Colonel Irvine's force to attack from the rear, without giving him any instructions to that effect and without making any plans to that end, and because Colonel Irvine did not do so, the gallant General per mitted himself to say on one occasion, alluding to the 23 Mounted Police Life in Canada Mounted Police, "Where are these gophers? Why don't they come out of their holes?" That expression naturally ran round the country, and I made it the text of a sermon which I preached to my men, whom I formed up in three sides of a hollow square. I began by telling them how very gratified I was at the manner in which they had got down to business, and hoped that they would continue in well-doing. I said in effect: "We are not playing at soldiers here; we have got the strictest and most tedious kind of duty to perform. We have upwards of fifty rebel prisoners to guard, and if any one of you men fail in his vigilance when on guard disaster may ensue. We have, as you know, nine sentries posted round the barracks at night, and the safety of all Government property depends upon the ceaseless attention of each of those nine men. Take the hay corral, for instance; what is there to prevent some evil-disposed person from crawling up to that haystack and setting it on fire? There is nothing to prevent it but the vigilance of the sentry. The stables are locked, it is true, but there are over a hundred horses picketed in the stableyard. What an easy matter it would be for two or three rebels to ride into those lines and stampede those horses while attention was being devoted to the burning haystack ! Under cover of the double excitement it is conceivable that an attempt might be made to ' rush ' the guard-room, but I want you all to understand that under no circumstances what ever are the guard to leave their prisoners. They have positive orders to that effect. Their rifles are loaded and they will not hesitate to use them. I tell you these things in order to impress upon each man of you the responsibility that rests upon you. "The whole North-West knows, and you know, that the General Officer Commanding the Militia has so far forgotten himself as to apply the term ' gopher ' to 24 Rebellion Year, 1885. Regina our comrades in the north. Are you content to remain under such a reproach ? I tell you candidly that I am not, but I cannot remove it without your help. Will you help me to remove it? You are aware that Parliament has increased the strength of this Force from 500 to 1,000 men. That means that 500 additional men will be trained in these barracks this year, and you are part of that number. The addition of 500 men cannot fail to have an influence upon the Force as it existed a few weeks ago. Is that influence to be for good or for bad ? Are we still to be called ' gophers ' and to sub mit to the jeers of the criminal classes whom we are to control ? or are we to earn the respect of all right- thinking men in this North-West world by proving our selves to be the best disciplined and most efficient corps in Canada ? It will be a proud day for me if ever that time should come, and I believe it will come. Will you think it over and make up your minds ? Will you, in your barrack rooms, cultivate a little esprit de corps? Will you consider the responsibilities that lie ahead of you in policing these vast territories, and determine first to learn and then to do your duty with honour to your selves and your corps and with benefit to the people amongst whom you may have to live and work? You can do it if each one of you will harden his heart and stiffen his back and say to himself ' I will.' But the issue rests with you and not with me. I can only hope for the best. Sergeant-Major, dismiss the parade." As a matter of fact, the men were so keen that I do not believe a cat could have crept through the line of sentries unseen. They picked up one man who had the appearance of a tramp, but who had a pocketful of matches. He had, of course, a plausible tale to tell about having been trying to get employment from ranchers, etc., and, beyond locking him up for the night, there was no adequate reason for punishing him c 25 Mounted Police Life in Canada as a vagrant. He was thus sent away in the morning and advised not to stop in town. He went a few miles eastward, as far as a place called Balgonie, where there was a railway bridge, and to this he set fire. We soon gathered him into the fold again, and this time he went to the Manitoba Penitentiary for two years. In the autumn of the year the town of Regina got up some athletic sports, and our men were invited to participate. One event was a tug-of-war, and for this there were three1 entries — namely, the town team, the Montreal Garrison Artillery, and ourselves. The artil lery team were easily beaten by the town, who had a very good team, including a powerful, big man who stood about six feet six inches, and whose build and weight were in adequate proportion. Him they placed at the tail end of the rope as anchor, and they thought themselves unconquerable. For my part, in my old corps I had seen a little of tug-of-war teams trained by expert gunnery instructors, and, when the police team was finally chosen and got down to work, my impression was that there was nothing in Western Canada to touch it. It turned out just as I expected. The police team never budged — they just held their opponents while they pulled them selves out, and then, very gradually but very surely, hauled them across the line. As soon as the tug was over I turned aside to talk to the Lieutenant-Governor and Mrs. Dewdney, who were close by in their carriage, and had hardly had time to say a few words before a woman clutched my arm and said, " Stop them ! " I looked to where she pointed, and saw that a merry free fight had begun between the men and the riff-raff of the townspeople. I ran into the fray, and the first man I came across was a hot headed Irish corporal who held a townsman by the throat and was choking the life out of him. I ordered 26 Rebellion Year, 1885. Regina him to let the man go, but he affected not to hear me, or not to recognise my voice, so I took hold of his face with both hands, and, turning it so that he could not help seeing who I was, said, "If you don't drop that man this instant I'll give you six months to-morrow morning." He let go of the man, fell back and saluted, and I said, "Fall the men in over there," indicating a spot by a wave of my arm, "and tell them off into sections." I went to the judges' stand, told them I was very sorry that any unpleasantness should have arisen over a simple tug-of-war, in which the police were un questionably the winners in a fair and square pull, that the police would not touch the prize which they had legitimately won, and that, as the Mounted Police were maintained in the Territories to keep the peace and not break it, it was my intention to take them all home immediately to their barracks. By the time these remarks were concluded my men were fallen in and told off, and away they went. They sang themselves home over two and a half miles of prairie between the town and the barracks, and the town was left. The Lieutenant-Governor and some of the prominent residents left the ground in disgust. In the course of that evening the mayor sent me, through the town police station, a telephone message urging me to send a patrol to keep order in the town, as a great number of rowdies were causing alarm to the peaceable citizens. I had left but one constable in the station to attend to telephone messages, and him I directed to take my compliments to the mayor and say that the appearance of a Mounted Police patrol strong enough to take the rowdies into custody would be likely to cause more disturbance than then existed, and might possibly cause bloodshed. I emphatically declined, therefore, to provoke any such breach of the peace, and advised him to swear in special constables to deal with 27 Mounted Police Life in Canada the situation. I concluded by saying, "The town will have to police itself to-night in any event. " After all, nothing happened. The reputable people were kept awake for some hours by the disreputable element, but the whole trouble had simmered down before the morning. In the course of the forenoon I called my men together and said to them : " I told you not long ago that if you would go on doing your duty as you had done it up to that time you might easily become the best disciplined armed force in Canada. I can this morning go a deal further than that, and can say to you — after your magnificent exhibition of discipline on the athletic grounds yesterday afternoon, when, despite the fact that angry passions were aroused, and there was every prospect of a disastrous row, you answered the call of duty and left your traducers and assailants in contemptuous silence — I say to you that it rests only with yourselves to become the finest force of constabulary in the world; for you have shown to the North-West public that you can control yourselves. You have learned the discipline of the Royal Marines. I am proud of you, men, and I thank you for what you have done." I was very much annoyed during the sitting of the Louis Riel Court when, one day, General Middleton's aide-de-camp handed me a half-sheet of note-paper on which was written, "The General will inspect the police at ten o'clock to-morrow morning. By order, etc." We were not under the Militia Department (we were not engaged in military operations, seeing that we were in an Assize Court), and the Commissioner of the Mounted Police, a stipendiary magistrate, was, to my mind, entitled to at least a more courteous notification than this intimation handed to his adjutant by the General's aide, and my blood fairly boiled. I tried 28 Rebellion Year, 1885. Regina to get Colonel Irvine to object to this inspection, but could not succeed. At 10 a.m. next day the parade was drawn up ready for inspection. The men were all "sized" according to the uniform that had been issued to them and irre spective of the stages of their training, and the General Officer Commanding the Militia rode up and down the rank, and then went off to inspect the tents, etc., in which the men lived. I told the Commissioner before his "High Mightiness" arrived that if the General should say anything about drill he would have to wait until the afternoon, as it would take some time to sort the men into their various drill squads and rides. As it happened nothing was said about drill, but the Lieutenant-Governor remarked to me afterwards : " The General was very pleased with the parade, but there was no drill." "No," I replied, "I took good care of that; when I want General Middleton's assistance in train ing a force of constabulary I shall be quite sure to ask him for it." Not long after this the Lieutenant-Governor went to Winnipeg, where a force of Mounted Infantry had been recently established. He had seen the men on a church parade, and came back full of their smartness, etc. Without in any way wishing to depreciate the Winnipeg men, I remarked, "My night guard of thirty men, or thereabouts, mounts every evening at seven o'clock. Of course, I know that that is an inconvenient hour for you, but it is a pity that you cannot take a look at them, because, if there is anything smarter lo be seen in Canada I will apply for leave to go and see it." Towards the close of the year 1885 I was told by a man who was "in the know" that the Government had decided to supersede Colonel Irvine in the following spring, and that there were three nominees for the posi- 29 Mounted Police Life in Canada tion: first, Major (now Sir Edward) Hutton; Mr. Lawrence Herchmer; and myself. Mr. Lawrence Herchmer was a bosom friend of the Hon. Edgar Dewdney, and Mr. Dewdney had Sir John Macdonald's ear. Mr. Herchmer got the appointment. He was some five or six years older than myself; had served three or four years (it was understood) in a British infantry regiment ; had tried the brewing business in Winnipeg, and then had been appointed an Inspector of Indian Agencies in the North-West. A place called Birtle, in Manitoba, was the home from which he migrated to us. In 1887, when I was on recruiting duty in Ottawa, I took the trouble to ascertain, through the late Sir David MacPherson, then Minister of the Interior, and Mr. George Allen, then Speaker of the Senate, why these things were so. Sir David said that Mr. Herch- mer's father had been an old friend of Sir John Mac donald, who felt bound to do something for the son. Colonel Irvine had managed to acquire some very bitter enemies. One of these was Lieutenant-Governor Edgar Dewdney, another was the late Nicholas Flood Davin, editor of the Regina Leader, and to these General Middleton appeared at this stage to have added himself. At all events, his idea was to have the Mounted Police transferred from the Prime Minister's own particular care to that of the Militia Department, and his reports of the inefficiency of the Force were such that Sir John Macdonald at last resented them and de cided to keep the police under his fatherly eye, and not to hand them over to the Militia Department. An incident occurred some little time after Mr. Herchmer's accession to power. A staff-sergeant of the Force had found a woman whom he desired to marry, but the autocrat of the Mounted Police set his face steadily against matrimony among the non-commis sioned officers and men, and he said to the staff- 30 Rebellion Year, 1885. Regina sergeant, "There is a commission coming to you if you remain single, but you will have to choose between the commission and a wife." "Thank you, sir," said the other, "I'll take the wife." When this story was repeated to Sir John, he said, " I like his spirit ; he shall have the commission too," and he gave it to the bride groom. Colonel Irvine was subjected to a great deal of very unfair misrepresentation. I knew him for a gallant and honourable gentleman, who would never have stooped to soil his fingers with the looted furs which subsequently formed the subject of a conversation in the Canadian House of Commons. 31 CHAPTER IV 1886—88. REGINA Mr. Lawrence Herchmer duly presented himself at the office of the Commissioner of the North-West Mounted Police on the morning of the ist April, 1885. Colonel Irvine was not there to receive him, as he had started off two or three days previously to Macleod, without having said a word, even to me, about his supersession. I had, however, by that time become quite used to the eccentricities of the Mounted Police. Force, and informed the new Commissioner that, in my opinion, he need not expect his predecessor to hand over his command in person. Mr. Herchmer therefore sent telegrams to the officers commanding the various posts saying that he assumed the Commissionership from that day, and that in future all official correspondence should be addressed to himself at Regina. Having done that, he went back to Government House, where he was staying for the time being. In the evening a farewell order was received by wire from Colonel Irvine, and was duly published in General Orders. Among the telegrams sent by Mr. Herchmer on his arrival was one to his brother, the superintendent in command at Calgary, desiring him to come to head quarters, for, as he said, "I don't know how my brother may take my appointment." The brother, however, could never have been fool enough to think that he was 32 THE MOUNTED POLICE BARRACKS, REGINA, 1885 A squad at skirmishing drill. The barrack water-cart drawing water from the "Pile of Bones" Creek otherwise known as the Wascana River \ 1886-88. Regina In the running for Colonel Irvine's vacancy, and so there need have been no anxiety on that score. He came readily enough in answer to the summons, and the first object to which they gave their minds was the breaking up of what they called "the Macleod clique." The officer commanding the Police Post at Macleod at the time, viz. Superintendent John Cotton, my prede cessor in the adjutancy, had always objected to the transfer of the police head-quarters to Regina from Port Walsh, a point which was much farther westward, but had nothing to recommend it as far as I could see, beyond its old associations, etc. The climate was, it must be confessed, very much less severe than that of Regina, but the post itself was situated in a flat entirely at the mercy of rifle fire from surrounding hills. It was here that Sitting Bull, with his victorious band of Sioux Indians, had presented themselves after their massacre of the American troops under General Custer, and naturally some allowance might be made for the sake of old associations ; but they could not necessarily be allowed to militate against the deliberate decision of the Government, which was to place the head-quarters of the Mounted Police at Regina, the capital of the North-West Territories, where, indeed, it would be most convenient. Regina, be it noted, was the choice of Lieutenant-Governor Dewdney, and was christened by the Princess Louise. Mr. Dewdney had been severely criticised for selecting such a spot for a capital, and I was shown an old American map wherein the settle ment (for it was neither village nqr municipality in those days) did unquestionably appear within the apex of a district, delineated on the map as "The Great American Desert." All I can say is that.it is a pretty fortunate desert to have such soil as it has-^deep, rich and heavy — which will be able to grow wheat and other cereals when less favoured localities will be played out, as 33 Mounted Police Life in Canada some of them are now already. I know something of the Regina soil, for, with the exception of that at Government House, I made probably the first garden in the place. A good garden it was, too, though it was made within ten days in the spring of 1884. It is an historical fact that in 1886, when Sir John and Lady Macdonald paid their first visit to Western Canada, I sent to Government House in time for their breakfast a musk melon which, under glass, of course, happened to mature in the nick of time, and was certainly the first of its kind grown within many miles of the spot. It is necessary here to explain that the officer com manding the Mounted Police at Macleod had, until the time of which I write, viz,, a.d. 1886, acted also as Collector of Customs for the western country. This brought him a good round sum every year, as all the cattle, horses and other dutiable goods which entered the country from the south had to pay duty at Macleod, and the former occupant of the position, during his tenure thereof, had made about 25,000 dollars in addi tion to his police pay. At Macleod also was stationed Dr. George Kennedy, a great friend of Superintendent John Cotton's, who was the assistant surgeon in medical charge of the post and district, and the only practitioner in that neighbourhood. This was the combination that Herchmer used to call "the Macleod clique," and between him and it there was bitter enmity. It goes without saying, therefore, that when the Herchmer family came into power the first sign of attack on "the Macleod clique " showed itself in orders transferring "C" Division and its officers to Battleford, a post in the far north about five hundred miles from Macleod. Dr. Kennedy said he would not go, and resigned his commission; so that the division went without him, and was replaced by the division from Battleford. William Herchmer elected to remain at Calgary, 34 1886-88. Regina where he was already stationed. The Customs appoint ment at Macleod was doomed to extinction, so far as the police were concerned, for there were many hungry politicians in the East looking for just that kind of job, and the gift was very soon bestowed upon a " stalwart " of the Conservative party in Ontario. As soon as the newly appointed Commissioner had learnt, as he thought, enough of the rudiments of his new profession to qualify him for the attempt, he started off to make an official inspection of his brother's command at Calgary, by way of practising his 'prentice hand upon a division which might be expected not to be too critical of his academic methods. "E " Division fooled him to the top of his bent, and he was delighted with everything he saw ; he liked the place, he liked the people, he liked the climate, and, as there were lots of trout in the Bow River at that time, some of the men got up early in the morning of his departure and caught some fish, which they packed in ice for him, and sent him home rejoicing. He was as pleased as a child with a new toy, and took an early opportunity after his arrival to unbosom himself to Lieutenant-Governor Edgar Dewdney, to whom he imparted his opinion that Calgary would be a preferable place to Regina for the capital of the North-West Territories. This was the first intimation that his Honour had that his quondam protege" was now able to sit up and take notice for himself. Meanwhile life was none too pleasant for me, as Lawrence Herchmer lost no opportunity to vent his spite upon myself. One instance of his methods was exemplified at the time of his departure to make his first inspection at Calgary, as already mentioned. On the morning after he had gone, when I went out into the barrack square, I noticed that the flag was not flying, and meeting the sergeant-major (now Colonel R. 35 Mounted Police Life in Canada Belcher, C-M.G., of Strathcona's Horse) I inquired, " What has happened to the flag ? Halyards broken ? " "No, sir," replied he, "the Commissioner sent for me yesterday and gave me orders that the flag was not to fly when he was out of the Post." " Well," I remarked, "he said nothing to me about it, and I saw him last night before he started off for the station." That was just the kind of thing that Mr. Lawrence Herchmer did, and there was a hoot of derision from all over the country at the new rule, which could not be kept secret. I have said enough to show that he was quite an impossible man to work with. His appointments did not bespeak the welfare of the public service as the first consideration. For about a year I fulfilled the duties of my office with scrupulous exactitude, and supplied the many deficiencies in the Commissioner's semi-military educa tion, until on the morning of March 14, 1887, he overstepped the line of hard and fast demarcation which I had resolutely drawn, and I told him a little of what was in my mind regarding himself and his methods. It happened that the Comptroller of the Force from Ottawa had arrived at Government House on the pre vious night, and stepped over to the barracks in the morning. He had occasion to pass through my office on his way to see the Commissioner, and as I greeted him I said, " The inevitable row has just occurred. Do not make up your mind until you have heard my side of the story." He nodded and passed on. In a few minutes he came out alone, stopped long enough to say, "Don't let that trouble you, Deane. I quite see how impossible your position is here. I will come over and see you this evening," and wended his way back to Government House. He came to my house soon after ten that night, 36 1886-88. Regina and we had a private talk on the existing regime. Daily manifestations of injustice were producing grave discon tent. For myself, he said that I had put in three years of hard work and should have a rest. He had decided to tell the Commissioner in the morning that I should go to the east on recruiting duty for some months, and that thereafter I should be given the command of a post somewhere, possibly at Calgary or Macleod. In pursuance of this arrangement I left Regina on March 27 with my wife and family for Toronto, which we made our head-quarters for the ensuing four months, during which time we renewed acquaintance with many old friends there and in Ottawa. On my return I found myself in Orders to take com mand of the Depot Division to which all recruits were posted, and to which all men at head-quarters belonged. This was very much more palatable than resuming my former position in the Commissioner's office. I had dry-nursed him for a full year, and was heartily sick of the job. During the autumn and winter months I organised a theatrical troupe, and we had considerable fun from our amateur attempts and from little dances that we occasionally gave. We beguiled the time as best we could, for the winter months were long and dreary. We had, of course, sleighing and snow-shoeing, but we had no covered skating rink, and it was too cold to skate out of doors. We were, moreover, two and a half miles from town, so that we had to be self-contained while the thermometer averaged 200 to 250 below zeroj Fahren heit, and occasionally dipped into the thirties and forties. My family and I were always welcome visitors at Government House, for the late Mrs. Dewdney and my late wife were great friends, and we were in no way dependent upon the uncongenial society of the 37 Mounted Police Life in Canada Herchmers, between whom and Government House the "rift" was gradually but surely widening. It was well understood that the winter of 1887 would be my last in Regina, for the Commissioner had told me on my return from recruiting that I was to take " E " Division, from Calgary to Macleod, in the autumn, and, although that move had not come off, a transfer to some other post was ahead of me. It was customary at that time for the Commissioner to pay an annual visit to Ottawa during the session of Parliament, so that the Premier might obtain, at first hand, any information which might be required from the head of the Force as to police con ditions in the West, and, incidentally, this gave the visitor an opportunity to do a little "lobbying" on his own account. Inter alia, movements of officers had to be discussed, and it was, therefore, without any feeling of surprise that I learned one afternoon from the Lieutenant-Governor that he had that morning "re ceived a letter from Fred White," the Comptroller, who told him that it had been decided to transfer me to Prince Albert in the spring. Now, Prince Albert was, as I had always understood, a very charming place — a landmark in the country, long before either Regina or Calgary had been thought of. It was one of the old- time head-quarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, where a chief factor named Lawrence Clarke had his habitat, and was altogether a most desirable place to live in and work from. It could not, it was true, compete with Regina or Calgary as the metropolis of the North-West Territories, but what did that matter ? I should be only too glad to go anywhere where my services were re quired. As to taking my family, that was quite another matter. My wife was inexperienced in prairie travel, so were her three younger children, and as there were roughly 300 miles of prairie to be negotiated in wagons in order to reach this delectable spot, it was quite out 38 1886-88, Regina of the question for me to subject them to that long journey in weather which was as uncertain as the roads, and I decided to send them to Ottawa. In about a fort night's time the Governor looked me up again, saying "That Prince Albert deal is off. I have had a letter from Fred White in which he says, ' We cannot have her here.' " I replied, "All right, your Honour, it is all the same to me. Fred White is not such a fool as you might think, is he ? " He laughed. As my wife and I had spent some months altogether in Ottawa, we were not entirely friendless there. When the Commissioner came home I learnt that we were to be sent to Lethbridge, so called after the presi dent of the North-West Coal and Navigation Company, which company had been opened by Lord Lansdowne in 1885. The Police Post there had only been completed about a year previously, and the place was still shown on maps as "Coal Banks." I wrote to the officer com manding asking for measurements of his various rooms, etc., and he, poor chap, was quite cut up, for he said he had no previous intimation nor any reason to antici pate a move. He had, as a matter of fact, got into some hot water which had formed the subject of news paper paragraphs all over the country, and he was moved to Macleod under a senior officer. There was in force in those days a Dominion statute prohibiting the importation, sale and even the posses sion of intoxicants by any person within the North- West Territories, except by permission of the Lieutenant- Governor, and it was the duty of the Mounted Police to enforce this Act. When a permit was issued a notifica tion was sent to the police, and they watched for every consignment, promptly took up each permit, and re turned it to the Lieutenant-Governor's office. Permits were not altogether easy to obtain, and one uncancelled permit might be used to cover other importations. 39 Mounted Police Life in Canada The suspicion of a permit caused the "boys " to hang round the Dominion Express office, and wait and wait and watch, until at last, after a long time, the Express Company would be free to deliver the consignment. Then there would be a gathering of the eagles to the slaughter, and the wagon would be followed to its destination, at a discreet distance, by all the thirsty harpies who wanted to have a drink at the expense of someone else. If the owner happened to be away from home the visitors were out of luck, but if, on the other hand, he was there, the entire crowd would follow the keg in and stay with it as long as it contained a drop. This course of action the present-day reader might think would have strained the ties of friendship to the breaking point, but it was not so at all. The generic question of liquor, licit or illicit, was governed by a code of honour all its own. Men, whose word in the ordinary transactions of life (always excepting a horse deal) one would accept without reserve, could not be trusted to speak "the truth and nothing but the truth" where a liquor prosecution was concerned. The first elected Member of Parliament for the Dominion House, when he went north to canvass his constituents in the Edmonton section of Alberta, took with him a sleigh load of carcasses of hogs, and each carcass contained bladders full of whisky, contraband at that, for he never could have obtained permits to cover such an amount as there was, and it had all been smuggled into Macleod from Montana. The half-breed vote might easily be conciliated with whisky, and the candidate was triumphantly returned at the head of the poll. There were, at this time, men who made their living by dealing in illicit whisky, playing poker, etc., and those who had the wit to take care of their money became well-to-do. Probably the most impudent theft 40 1886-88. Regina on a large scale that came under my notice was that of whisky from a car-load of liquor which passed through the North-West Territories en route to British Columbia, where there was no prohibition law in force. This car was bonded and sealed Until it arrived at its destination. It happened, however, that it was side-tracked for a day or two somewhere near Calgary, when the trans-conti nental train service was in its infancy. In some way the liquor-dealing miscreants had ascertained that the car contained (among the profusion of barrels, kegs and cases that it carried) a barrel of whisky, which stood at a certain spot at its rear end. So, with a long auger, a hole was bored clean through the bottom of the car into the bottom of the barrel, when the rest was easy. They drained the liquor into the receptacles which they had ready and drove off with the plunder. Obviously they would not waste time in trying to cover up the traces of their modus operandi, and no clue remained to enable the perpetrators to be identified. When " Larry " (as he was popularly spoken of) re turned from Ottawa in the spring of 1888 he was feeling, as the saying is, "pretty good," and, with the true Hohenzollern spirit, looked for other worlds to conquer. He had a fine new house waiting for him, a flag that was impatiently longing to fling itself to the breeze, and, taking it all in all, he had every reason to think that it was good to be alive. With the hearty co operation of his vis a ter go (so christened by Dr. Jukes) he thought out a scheme of officially asking the Lieu tenant-Governor not to issue any permits to members of the Mounted Police unless the applications were sent through and were recommended by himself. I had private information as to the receipt of this letter in the Governor's office, and knew also that the Governor took several days to consider the proposition. When he assented, which he finally did, a General Order was D 41 Mounted Police Life in Canada issued by the Commissioner to the Force throughout the country. I was then free to talk to the Governor about this order, and told him frankly that I considered it to be an infringement of the liberty of the subject, and calculated to bring into disrepute a body of officers without whose co-operation the existing prohibition law could not be enforced. From a personal point of view, I represented that I considered the order an insult. I said to him, "Your Honour is quite well aware that liquor is not abused in my household, whatever may be the case elsewhere." He understood the implication without any further enlargement, and said it was within his personal knowledge that, in some instances, it might not be inadvisable to have the order carried out, but that so far as I was concerned he should not think of setting a limit to his own discretion. I might rest assured that he would grant me a permit whenever I might think proper to ask for one. Upon this I simply "sat tight," and ignored Mr. Herchmer in the matter of my permits. It was at this juncture that my family and I left Regina for Lethbridge, but it will be convenient to close up this controversy at this point. Every successive permit that was issued to me threw my domineering friend into a fresh paroxysm of rage, and while he lost his temper I placidly kept mine, and stood my ground. The end of it was that, after the lapse of some weeks, the Minister at Ottawa gave instructions that the offend ing General Order should be cancelled and a new one issued providing that intoxicating liquors should not be taken into police barracks without the consent of the Commissioner. As this was entirely intra vires of that officer, I cheerfully accepted the conditions during the few years that the prohibition law remained in force. The ramifications of this dispute brought about an entire rupture of the quondam friendship between the 42 1886-88. Regina Lieutenant-Governor and Mr. Herchmer, and they ceased to speak to one another. This was rendered the more easy, so far as the public service was concerned, as the Governor, on the expiration of his term of office in the Territories, carried the constituency of Moosomin, and entered the Cabinet at Ottawa as Minister of the Interior. 43 CHAPTER V 1888. LETHBRIDGE On April 30, 1888, my fortieth birthday, the "Turkey Track " (so was the narrow gauge railway known) from the Canadian Pacific took me into Lethbridge, a village of about 500 or 600 people — many of them miners — a place where I was destined to spend fourteen happy years thenceforward. There my boys and girls grew up into men and women, and when the inevitable time of parting came, we were all sorry to sever our connec tion with the people we liked so much, and among whom we had lived so long. There was in those days a camaraderie about life in the North-West which is en tirely lacking now, and life was a great deal more worth living. "Live and let live" was the principle upon which we conducted our business ; we constituted a little oasis in a desert, and were as happy a little community as one could find on the broad prairies. I look back with great pleasure upon our theatrical entertainments, which were given always for a local charity, and also upon the little time of stress when our Church of England parson was laid up with a bad throat. I waited for him after the service one day and said, " I will read the lessons for you if it will be a relief." " It will be a great help," he said, and I did so for one Sunday. Then I said, " Better give yourself a chance. Let me read the prayers and you preach the sermon ? " "I shall be so glad if you will," said he. This arrangement continued a while, but 44 1888. Lethbridge the poor chap had to give it up and go to a milder climate. So it was my lot to keep the church doors open and continue the service until a parson could be procured to take the job. In later years, when business had become more progressive and remunerative, and we had to find maintenance for a parson, or to dispense with him altogether, a young Englishman was allocated to our parish, and asked me to be his churchwarden. This was an honour which I had theretofore studiously declined, but at last I gave way. It was a case of the self-supporting rectorship at last, and the question before the vestry was the stipend which we could guarantee to pay. Twelve hundred dollars a year was the irreducible minimum, and I said that I thought we ought to be able to guarantee that much. The people's warden at this juncture was one J. H. Cavanah, and he disagreed with me. There are not many old-timers of that day left in the land of the living now, but such as are in the flesh will endorse what I say about him later on. At the vestry meeting I said : " I will find out what it is possible to do and report at the next meeting." All my exertions in the interim showed that we could not, in addition to church expenses, guarantee 1,200 dollars a year to the rector. As a Government official, independent of business considerations, I was the only person in the community who could try the experiment of securing offers of monetary assistance. I admitted quite frankly to Cavanah that he knew more about it than I did. He was a successful business man in a small way ; that is to say, he ran a very reputable grocery, etc., store, of which the stock was paid for before he began to retail it, and he was a man of sterling character. At the time of the miners' lock-out he was Grand Master of the Ancient Order of the United Work men of Manitoba and the North-West Territories, 45 Mounted Police Life in Canada and I was Master of the local Masonic lodge, No. 22. We had a good many ideas in common, and I often used to drop into his shop for a chat. He had a philanthropic disposition, and his death was a distinct loss. Almost the last that I knew of him was in 1902, when I re turned to Lethbridge from the Customs round-up described in future pages. No sooner had I reached home than I was called to the telephone : "This is J. H. Cavanah. You were elected Worshipful Master at the last meeting, and old Fred Champhess is in hospital, like to die. There is not much time to lose if you want to see him." I kicked off at once to the hospital to see the old chap, whose only expression was, "I'm so tired ! " and I left him with the impression that I had better lose no time in memorising the Masonic ritual for the dead. It was well I did so, for three days later it fell to my lot, as the first act of my assumption of office, to lay to rest a worthy old brother Mason, who had been in Australia and New Zealand before coming to Canada, and whom, at the request of the Customs Department, I had nominated as local assistant collector of Customs at Regina in 1885. It was after I left Lethbridge in 1902 that Cavanah was seized with appendicitis and died from it. Dr. Mewburn, who attended and operated on him, is a graduate of the McGill University of Montreal. He is the fifth of his family in the medical line, and he has for years been known as the first surgeon in the West. What he has done for me and my family I could not adequately tell. We had the benefit of unremitting care and attention and up-to-date skill, for "the little man" (as I speak of him to mutual friends and ac quaintances) was nothing if not up to date, although we lived in a little oasis at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. I remember so well the beginning of our acquaintance. Mewburn was the only medical man in the place 46 1888. Lethbridge (naturally it would not have supported two !), and was both the acting assistant surgeon of Mounted Police and medical officer to the mining establishment. For our part we had, on the bank of the Belly River, a small building which had been erected as a hospital. This was about half a mile from the centre of the village, and contained room for two or three beds, a small kitchen, accommodation for the hospital orderly, and a very limited surgery. It was obviously inconvenient to send every man who had a trivial complaint to attend the hospital parade at such a distance from the barracks ; and within a few months of my arrival the hospital conveniences were brought within the four walls of the wire fencing enclosing our barracks. But that little hospital on the bank of the river, while it lasted, answered Dr. Mewburn's purpose to the full. A chance Indian came to him one day, accom panied by a good many of his relations, and asked if any relief was possible. This case, if my memory serves me correctly, was that of a bad goitre, and "the little man" thought he could relieve that condition, with this proviso, as he put it to the patient and his assembled relatives, "I think I can do good, but I shall have to make a big cut. If I think right, and if you all do as I tell you after the cut is made, this man may get well, but I cannot tell for sure until I have made the big cut, and then, if he does not get well, and if he should die, you must not blame me. What do you say? Shall I make the big cut?" A chorus of "Ugh, ugh, ugh," came from the patient and his numerous satellites, and the operation was duly per formed. It turned out successfully, and then "the little man's " fame began to grow. It spread from the Bloods to the Blackfeet, and severe cases would go to see the Lethbridge doctor. 47 Mounted Police Life in Canada The official medicos, be it observed, were paid liberal salaries by the Indian Department, but not a cent came to Dr. Mewburn, who undertook the work, not so much for the prestige which it gave him amongst the Indians, as for the experience which he gained for the benefit of the world at large. The Indians grew to have a blind faith in him, and brought him all sorts of cases. The enormous experience thus gained begot him the sub sequent reputation of "the first surgeon in the West." In a few years' time the primitive conditions under which he had been compelled to work were replaced by an up-to-date little hospital, which the late Sir Alex ander Gait built and presented to the company, of which he was president. I never shall forget the night of my arrival at Leth bridge. There was only one hotel in the place, and one did not expect very much, but I sat down opposite my bed and for at least five minutes wondered how I could put in the night. There was a clean pillow-case on the bed, but this only served to intensify the mahogany colour of the sheets. In desperation, at last I wrapped myself up in my blue cavalry cloak, and was glad when the morning came. The Police Post at that time consisted of nothing more than a number of houses dumped upon the open prairie, forming the four sides of a sufficiently capacious square, with the guard room and cells at one end and two stables, each capable of containing forty horses, at the opposite, the north end. The range cattle swarmed all over the place at their own sweet will, and at night they used to come and upset our slop barrels, and pick over the contents, making a horrible mess outside our back doors. As the months rolled on we overcame these difficulties by en closing the barrack reserve within a stout wire net fence with top-rail, and by constructing a substantial corral for the 300 tons of hay which we intended to stack in the 48 \ 1888. Lethbridge coming season. In connection with the stables I once had a bad scare. The commanding officer's house was the nearestvto the stables and hay-corral, and about eleven o'clock, when I was in my little smoking-room, I heard the ! stable picket vault ; over the lower half doors, which Vere locked, and shout : " Fire ! " Beyond a few patent extinguishers, we had in the barracks no means whatever of controlling a fire, and on this occasion I bolted out of my front door and ran like a hare into the stable which was nearest to me. At the far end in the centre aisle I saw the wooden floor ablaze. It was just behind the stalls of two very fine shire horses that we used for hauling water from the river. If I had not been too much preoccupied and anxious, I could have laughed at the quizzical expression on the faces of these beautiful creatures as they looked round, as much as to say : " What are you doing ? This is bedtime; why don't you leave us alone?" I was just in time; the fire was on the point of reaching the bed ding of one of them. In lying down, the horse had pushed some of the straw beyond his stall into the aisle, and I whipped off my coat and beat it away. That was all I could do single-handed, but the danger was past. I had barely saved the situation when my next-door neighbour, Inspector Moodie, ran in and helped. Then came Staff-Sergeant Charles Ross with an armful of blankets. He was on his way home, saw the flicker of light in the stable windows, and knew that there could be only one explanation thereof, and liker the man he was, ran to the sergeant-major's store, gathered up an armful of blankets (which were always kept handy for transients) and came to the rescue. In a jiffy, too, came the men from their beds with axes, etc. ; in almost less time than it has taken me to write these lines a plank was chopped through and any remaining fire effectually smothered. Perhaps I should 49 Mounted Police Life in Canada here explain the necessity for the blankets -which Ser- , geant Ross brought. None knew better than himself that a horse will not face fire, and that in order to lead the animals out of their stalls it would be necessary to blindfold them. Happily, this was not necessary, and most of the horses did not bestir themselves. All's well that ends well, but I had a bad quart d'heure while I was keeping the flames under and while I was superin tending the subsequent operations. "How in hell did this thing happen ? " was the question running through my mind. As I subsequently learned, the stable picket had heard a horse loose in this particular stable, and, as was his duty, went in to tie him up in his stall. He had quietly coaxed the horse down to the eastern end of the stable, and just as he was about to lay hold of his halter the brute dashed by him, kicked at the lantern which the man was carrying, and smashed it to smithereens. The lighted oil ran down between the planks and set alight any inflammable dry rubbish that was there, and so spread. The two horses that I speak of were used for nothing but to haul our water-tank, and they, and the teamster who was told off to look after them, were kept fully occupied. All water in the town had to be delivered by water-cart in those days, and used to cost ten cents per barrel. The year 1888 was the first of a dry period that lasted for seven years. Dry summers and hard winters went together, and each year became a little drier than its predecessor. Farming was out of the question, even if anyone had thought of it, which no one did. That would have been far too much like work. Riding long hours after cattle or horses on the prairie was not looked upon as work. There was a story told of an old-timer in the Macleod district who would not take a contract for digging a well because he could not do it on horseback. The country was intended by 50 1888. Lethbridge Providence for stock-growing, and anybody connected with stock who was worth a second glance swore tre mendous oaths, wore Mexican spurs and schappes, and possibly a buckskin shirt with a fringe. I myself did a lot of work which, if it was not hard, was steady, for I determined to have a garden at all costs. Ex perience taught me that the only way in which the seed could be induced to germinate was to make the neces sary drills, saturate them with water, then sow the seed, cover it up and keep on watering. As I had about half an acre of garden and did the work myself, it used to keep my spare hours pretty well occupied. Now and again I used to get a prisoner out of the guard room to help me. There was one to whom I used to give a "horn " of whisky the last thing. He was the cleverest and most successful horse-thief in the country. He was a B.A. of Dublin University, and lived with a squaw on the St. Mary's River. He had a bunch of 500 or 600 horses running at large on the prairie — most, if not all of them, stolen — and once or twice a year he would round them up, cut out some of the likely ones, and drive them across country into Mani toba, where he would sell or trade them for cattle. He had not only a merry life, but a long one, for it was years before we could get a clear case against him, and when at length he was convicted for the first time the judge gave him only six months in the guard-room. It was during this temporary "retreat" that he "used to learn gardening from Captain Deane" (as I found he told his friends afterwards), and earned the little drop of "Oh ! be joyful " which always sent him happy to bed. Poor "Pat," as he was known, did not profit by his experience, for at a later date he came under the notice of Chief Justice A. L. Sifton, who had no sympathy with horse thieves, and sent him to the Manitoba Penitentiary, where he died. I had no 5i Mounted Police Life in Canada fewer than seven barrels, conveniently disposed round my garden fence, which the water-cart man used to keep filled from day to day, and that, to anyone unconnected with the Mounted Polioe, meant a daily expenditure of seventy cents. It was no wonder that people could not afford to have gardens in those days, for every little onion had an appreciable value, and my old wife's prin cipal enjoyment in life was to drive about in her phaeton with a goodly basket of vegetables and give them to her friends. Of cucumbers I always had an abundance, and they were the first of the particular brand to be grown in that country. I had almost forgotten to mention my first tree-growing experiment which turned out so unfortunately. To the south and east there was, for many miles, nothing but a waterless wilderness, with no habitation whatever and without any semblance of a tree or even bush. Having prison labour and water facility at command, I obtained permission from the Coal Company to take seventy-five suitable saplings from their property in the river bottom and to trans plant them on the barrack site. For each tree, I pre pared a hole measuring, roughly, three feet each way, and loosened up the bottom with a little rubble for the sake of drainage. With the exception of about six inches of top soil the rest was clay, very hard to work, which was all taken away. With each tree I brought a cubic yard of the soil that it had been growing in, and, prior to planting the tree, the hole was kept full of water, with the idea of making the walls of clay more negotiable by the roots. I could not foretell that we were simply wasting our time, but so it turned out. As each successive year became a little drier than the last, so the clay subsoil became more and more impervious. Some of the trees lasted one year, some two, some three, but, in spite of the water that we gave them, they suc cumbed one by one, and of all the seventy-five sap- 52 1888. Lethbridge lings that I set out in 1889 and nursed assiduously there is only one alive to-day. It stands at the turn stile entrance to the barracks in a slight hollow, where the snow gathered in the winter and the rain drained at other times, and as the subsoil was thus kept moist the roots were able to take hold. That experience, how ever disheartening, is one which the pioneer in a new country has to put up with. 53 CHAPTER VI 1888 — 89. LETHBRIDGE The Commissioner had told me before I left Regina that he was trying to find some solution of the water problem at Lethbridge, in order to obviate the expense of having a pair of horses and a man do nothing all the year round but fill and haul and empty the water- tank, and to that end had made an arrangement with a local contractor to bore an artesian well at a spot within the barracks which he had designated. This spot was between my house and No. 1 stable, and until I got to know the run of the prevailing winds I used, with some apprehension, to watch the sparks from the gentleman's engine. The contractor had not bored more than about 325 feet when, his troubles with his tools and his tubing multiplied every day, he had at length to admit that he was beaten. He had not quite reached the level of the Belly River, and his tools were not good enough to carry him any farther. Then, of course, he wanted to be compensated for his loss of time, labour and wages of his engine driver, and that opened up a quarrel with Mr. Commissioner Herchmer with which I do not propose to worry my readers. In connection with the ineffectual boring of this well an interesting incident occurred some twelve years later. Mr. Charles A. Magrath, Dominion Topographical Surveyor, pointed out, within a mile to the north and 54 1888-89. Lethbridge east of Spring Coulee, a remarkable feature of the North American continent. This is a gentle swell on the prairie, accurately ascertained by survey to be only eigh teen inches above the general surface level. Horses draw ing a wagon over it would hardly feel any tightening of the traces, and it measured no more than 299 feet across. Yet, standing on the crest of the swell, he said that it was certain that water falling to the north-east would drain eventually into a water-shed falling into Hudson Bay; and to the south-east water would drain into the Missouri River and finally reach the Gulf of Mexico. It was probably ignorance of these facts which accounted for the unsuccessful boring for an artesian well at the Lethbridge barracks. My division in 1888 consisted of 100 men and about no horses and pack ponies. We had, in addition a Blood Indian interpreter and a couple of Indian scouts. The Milk River was about fifty-five miles to the south of us running eastward, and on its banks, when I took over the division, I found three camps of about five men each, with a non-commissioned officer, established. Midway between the barracks and the camp at Milk River Ridge there was another camp, in a place called Kipp's Coulee. It was mainly there because our loaded teams, hauling supplies to the Milk River, required a half-way house of call. Four horses could not haul a heavy load fifty miles in one day, and Kipp's Coulee was the only spot where there was water. It was a pestilential spot, and no teamster stayed there after three o'clock in the morning, for mosquitoes were a veritable pest. A "coulee," I should explain, is equivalent to what in Australia is called a "gully," and Kipp's Coulee (so christened by an old-timer named Kipp who had camped there) was a waterway in the prehistoric times, when Milk River was a very much bigger stream than it is to-day. 55 Mounted Police Life in Canada In 1889 the Kipp's Coulee water was not fit to drink, and the camp was not sent thither. We found, as it happened, a very excellent spring at a hill which was about fifteen miles from the village, which we called "the Fifteen-mile Butte." (A ""butte" is the same thing as a South African "kopje.") We boxed this spring and took great care of it. Although we put a good substantial cover on it, careless travellers did not always close it, and one day we found a dead fox in the water. We established a camp there instead of at Kipp's Coulee, and then we found that the place abounded in skunks, so much so that we had to build a little lattice work fence round each tent, for if one inmate thereof had inadvertently scared one of these brutes which had inquisitively gone in, he would have created a stench that would have saturated the tent and everything in it for months. These are the gentle creatures that supply ladies with the "Alaska sables" which are so becoming. They are good to wear and desirable in all ways but one — don't get them wet, for if you do you will find that "the scent of the roses will cling to it still." The first of my detachments to obtain winter quarters was that stationed at Milk River Ridge, and good accommodation for about eight men, with a non-com missioned officer and twelve horses, was built by a local contractor in the autumn of 1889. All the other detach ments had to come into barracks for the winter. At a small butte, some nine miles to the north of the Ridge detachment, a patrol had the good fortune to find another excellent spring, and this settled for us the difficulty of watering our work teams when hauling supplies for the detachments. A couple of mounted men were installed in camp here, and the senior constructed three capital reservoirs with the help of stones and some lime that he asked for. The first was for drinking 56 1888-89. Lethbridge water for the men, the secdnd for the horses, and the third for bathing purposes. Each reservoir overflowed into the next, and the conjunction of the whole was as clever a contrivance as ever I saw. This meant that a loaded team from the barracks would spend half a day in travelling to the first stopping place, one long day in covering the thirty-nine miles to the Nine-mile Butte, and from thence an easy half-day into Milk River Ridge. Everything had to be so hauled— rations, forage, coal, coal oil, and equipment of every sort. By the time I had my Milk River outposts built and supplied in 1889 for the coming winter, it meant a round trip of 230 miles to reach the farthest detachment. We had good horses, good transport, good harness (that much is due to Mr. Commissioner Herchmer) and, what was a still greater asset, good teamsters. We had four four-horse teams doing nothing but hauling supplies, and it required a capable man to put in nine or ten months of such work out of a year, driving and caring for four horses, picketing them at night, cooking for himself, etc. etc., delivering his load safely and keeping his horses fit. There was no division in the Force that had such long haulage work as we did. In 1889 I was empowered to spend the sum of eleven hundred dollars in constructing three sets of detachment buildings, two on the Milk River and one on the St. Mary's River. This provided for the roofing and, so far as the money would go, sheathing of the buildings. They themselves were composed of logs from twelve to eighteen inches thick, but these we had first to find in convenient coulees and then cut and haul. All this work was done by the division, supervised by a Sergeant Keenan, who was for the time being detached from elsewhere. The establishment of permanent outposts meant that hay had to be provided for winter use, and there was E 57 Mounted Police Life in Canada no one to cut it but ourselves. This necessitated a haying party with mower, rake, rack, etc., and as the prairie dried up more and more, year by year from 1888 onwards it was a very difficult matter to find a sufficient supply. Mr. Herchmer asked me once how many tons of hay we cut to the acre. I replied, "You've got the boot on the wrong foot; you mean how many acres do we travel over to cut a ton of hay ? " One year the grass was so scanty that at Writing- on-Stone detachment, twenty-five miles east of Milk River Ridge, we were reduced to cutting and stacking some reeds which grew in a few small lakes some ten miles distant. From the year 1889 onwards our barrack supply of hay came from the Milk River Ridge, and was hauled about forty-five miles before we got it. This was invari ably done by local contractors at a price per ton stacked. The first year I went to Lethbridge I called for tenders for 300 tons of hay. The only offers I received were from twenty-two to twenty-five dollars per ton. This price being exorbitant, I purchased the amount at five dollars per ton at Pincher Creek, sixty miles west of Lethbridge; the haulage by I. G. Baker and Co. brought the price to twenty-two dollars per ton. As a consequence no further cornering for hay was attempted at Lethbridge. Before I leave the subject of detachments, includ ing one which I established at the junction of the Little Bow and Belly rivers, about twenty miles north-east of our barracks, I should not omit to mention an historic old place where I quartered a couple of mounted men, and which has now passed into oblivion. It was known as " Fort Whoop-up " (a characteristic name), and was the principal stronghold of the whisky smugglers, whom in 1874 the Mounted Police were sent to suppress. With a strong palisade all round it, and substantially 58 1888-89. Lethbridge built of stout logs, it withstood in the early days many an attack by Indians who had become maddened by "fire water." It may interest my readers to know that the price of the Winchester rifle in those days was deter mined by the length of the weapon. The butt was placed on the ground and became the property of the purchaser when he had piled up on the floor sufficient skins, laid out flat, to reach the height of the muzzle. In my day the fort had fallen into bad repair. A good deal of the material had been used for firewood, and the property had passed into the hands of one Dave Akers, one of the old-time . smugglers, who made a precarious living by illicit means and by growing a little honest produce. His holding was situated in the river bottom of the St. Mary's, where the soil was fairly good and moist, and he used to grow the best cabbages in those parts by utilising the numerous empty tin cans to be found in the neighbourhood. He would melt the bottoms off these at his leisure in the winter time, and when he set out his plants he would protect each by pressing a can round it into the soil to the depth of something less than an . inch. This would keep the winds and the cut-worms away from his young cabbages, and when they wanted water he used to fill up the cans by hand. This ensured the water sinking down to the roots, where it would do most good. I adopted this plan myself, until I found that a paper cone around the stem answered the same purpose, and did not look quite so unsightly. For a monthly consideration Dave Akers was able to give us accommodation for a couple of men and horses, and they remained with him until the old place caught fire, from some unexplained reason, and the men were burnt out of their lodgings. We then bought twenty sound logs of what were left and used them for our buildings on the St. Mary's. At a dollar apiece 59 Mounted Police Life in Canada they were not a bad buy — sixteen to eighteen feet long and from eighteen to twenty inches through. I had my own cows (generally two in milk) and chickens, and the two messes had their cows, so that we had an abundance of milk and cream in the barracks. When the Coal Company built their narrow gauge railway into the thriving and picturesque town of Great Falls in Montana we were relieved of our long south ward haul of supplies, but we still had to continue our annual making of hay for the outposts. In 1896 the rainy seasons had begun again and business advanced by leaps and bounds. Travellers from the south won dered at the beautiful green grass on our prairie, and began to think of investing in so promising a country. To all those (not a few) with whom I came in contact who asked my advice I made the one reply : " If you are thinking of taking up a holding do not go far away from water. Stick either to the irrigation ditch or to the rivers so far as your means will allow, but do not go blindly out on to the bald-headed prairie and expect to find water, because you must bear in mind the time- honoured injunction, ' Blessed are they who expect nothing, for verily they shall get it.' " In course of time Lethbridge became incorporated, and rejoiced in a mayor and councillors. We continued to police the place as of yore from an office in town, where one man was stationed, and he had telephonic communication with the barracks, so that if, as generally happened, a Hungarian or Slav wedding was on the tapis, and the inevitable drunken row ensued, he could always get assistance at a few minutes' notice from the barracks. What was called "The Red Light District" used to cause a disturbance now and then, but, as a rule, one capable man could easily handle that and any other spasmodic trouble. It was in the year 1891 that Mr. Commissioner 60 1888-89. Lethbridge Herchmer communicated with this infant town, and demanded that the municipality should pay the rent of fifteen dollars a month for the building occupied by the Mounted Police, and alternatively threatened to remove the men of his Force from the town. It was pointed out to him that people from all parts of the district congregated there; that it was there, so far as intoxicants were concerned, that all dealings were car ried on, and that it was there that the police were able to secure information and ascertain facts in regard to breaches of the law (either actual or contemplated), and that without the facility of an office in town the police would not be able to keep themselves informed of what was going on. The town intimated quite plainly that it was not their business to pay the rent of an office, and I reported that without such a facility I should be unable efficiently to police the district. This, of course, gave Herchmer the chance he was waiting for, and he promptly sent orders for my transfer to Battleford, a point about 200 miles north of the main line of the Canadian Pacific. The Lethbridge people, however, would not hear of it. They got up a numerously signed petition and sent it to the Premier. I dutifully began to pack my goods and chattels, and wrote to my cousin, T. C. Patteson, who was postmaster at Toronto, telling him the circumstances. He wired to the Premier : "Re Deane transfer — Lethbridge to Battleford, Vox Populi Supreme-Lex." He did more : he took the next day's train to Ottawa and saw Sir John Abbott, who promised that no change should be made until after the Herchmer Commission had made its inquiries. So I unpacked my stuff again and "sat tight." The name T. C. Patteson is barely known to the present generation, but it was a name to conjure with thirty-five years ago. He was the man who, when the Conservative party was in its deepest depths after the 61 Mounted Police Life in Canada "Pacific Scandal," which hurled Sir John Macdonald's Government from power, was entreated by the leading men of the Conservative party to undertake the editing of The Mail, the principal organ of the party published in Toronto. Patteson was nothing if not thorough, and with characteristic thoroughness he devoted his whole energy to the task before him. An old Montreal million aire, Henry Judah by name, with whom I stayed a few days in 1882, said of him : "That man can write more and write better than any man in Canada, and I have always been opposed to his giving up the paper." I replied that Patteson's point of view was, that after he had written the Conservative party into power, as had been freely remarked to me by all sorts and conditions of men since my arrival in Canada, and had possibly shortened his life by the unstinted labour which he had given to the call of duty, he was entitled to his rest, and to his reward in the haven of the Toronto Post- mastership. The old gentleman admitted all that, but thought it was a pity notwithstanding. Patteson's connection with me was this : His mother was my father's sister, and when I first went to Canada (which was at his own suggestion, when the Winnipeg boom was in full blast), he said, "I will do all I can for you, because I shall so be pleasing my dear dead mother." That was the sole bond of connection between us, and he lived up to his end of the bond. This was the only time in my career that I ever invoked his aid, but, as he said, "You know where to find me." I have often thought that while it was Sir John Macdonald's voice that spoke, it was T. C. Patteson's brain that conceived. His brother-in-law told me that Lord Dufferin often used to ask him to go to Rideau Hall (the viceregal residence in Ottawa) to discuss some knotty problem during the troublous days. I am con firmed in my belief by an appreciation of T. C. Patteson 62 1888-89. Lethbridge published in The News, Toronto, on September 21, 1907, just after he had passed away at the age of seventy- one. The writer says, inter alia, "Anyone who looks back over the files of The Mail of thirty or thirty-five years ago will find editorial writing of unusual power and of great felicity and dignity. . . . We have had no better editorial writing in Canada, and Mr. Patteson had the genius to preserve the unity of the page, no matter by how many hands the work was done. We cannot penetrate the secrets of that time. We know, however [the italics are mine], that it was in The Mail office that the movement for protection was organised, and if Mr. Patteson had ever told all he knew possibly some great figures would be diminished in stature and some considerable adjustment effected. But he did not speak, and the story must wait." Many of the pro minent Englishmen of the day were his contemporaries, either at Eton or Oxford, and (to quote the aforesaid "appreciation" once more) "He was in intimate touch with the Governors-General of Ottawa for a generation." Patteson it was who, in 1882, at the behest of the Canadian Pacific Syndicate, wrote a pamphlet intro ducing the railway to the English public, and telling them that the presidency of the road was held by George Stephen, who, having begun life as a journeyman car penter, had worked himself up until he had become president of the Bank of Montreal. It was easy for a man like Patteson to get me enrolled as an extra clerk during the Parliamentary session of 1883 in the office of the Marquis of Lome, the Governor-General, and thither I went at a dollar and a half a day for some months. In Ottawa, during that time, my late wife and I met a good many of the Ministers and other prominent people in the social life of the capital. It was not easy, however, to get speech of Sir John Macdonald. Fred 63 Mounted Police Life in Canada White, now Colonel, C.M.G., retired, Comptroller of the Mounted Police, had been Sir John's secretary dur ing the dark days of the party, and was still his chief political agent. I am very much beholden to him for his keen sympathy and assistance, and he said to me one day, "I want to introduce you to Sir John." I got a "hurry message" from him one morning, and went to his office. "Sir John is, by the doctor's orders, con fined to his house at Earnscliffe — you know it — take this note for Pope (private secretary), and be as quick as you can." As luck would have it, I was the only visitor at the time. Mr. Pope read the note, ushered me into Sir John's study, announced "Captain Deane," and retired, shutting the door behind him. I was not exactly a stranger to Sir John, because my wife and I had been to a dance at Earnscliffe, and Lady Mac donald had very kindly made a point of introducing me to her husband. However, I now had the opportunity of having a "pow-wow" with the old gentleman, and told him that I was seeking an inspectorship in the Mounted Police, and that my qualifications were so-and- so. His manner was very nice and attentive, but he was entirely non-committal, which was no more than I had expected. It seemed to me that there was some thing in the old man's mind to which he did not give expression, and I found out, a day or two later, what the hindrance was from a note from Fred White, the gist of which was, "Why did you leave the Service?" I had already explained that stagnation of promotion had driven me out of the Service, but now I wrote a full explanation. In 1866 I joined the Royal Marines, a non-purchase corps, with the belief that if my life were spared and I was not invalided or tried by court-martial, I was bound to become a general officer. In 1867 Mr. Childers, the First Lord of the Admiralty, reduced the strength of 64 1888-89. Lethbridge the corps by abolishing the Woolwich Division, some 3,500 officers and men, and as a result, with no adequate provisior\ for supernumerary officers, for four years and ten months no single promotion took place from the lieutenants' to the captains' list. I was a subaltern of fifteen years, and at the date of my promotion to captain I was nearly five years too old for my place in the seniority list. When I was retired from the Royal Marines in 1882 I was 34 years of age, and if I had continued to serve in the corps I was due to be compulsorily retired, if I was then still a captain, on attaining the age of 42, on a pension of .£225 a year. As this was not enough to provide for a family, I "cut the painter" and went to Canada. I may add that from 1876 I was adjutant of the Chatham Division, and retired with the rank of captain in 1882. That was as much as it concerned the Canadian Department to know, but I may here tell my readers how it was that I brought about an amelioration of the conditions prevailing in my old corps before I left. In the year- 1 88 1 the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty inspected the Chatham Division of the Royal Marines, of which division I was adjutant, and of which corps I was the senior subaltern. I interviewed their Lordships and handed them a memorial which I had drawn up. Lord Northbrook (First Lord), Lord Brassey, and Sir Cooper Key (First Sea Lord) were the principal per sonages, and very attentive they were. I expatiated on the points which I have previously summarised herein, and Lord Northbrook at length said, "I think, Mr. Deane, we shall all be agreed that you have a griev ance. Have you any remedy to suggest ? " "I have, your Lordships," I replied, "and it is this : Give us the same opportunities of retirement while we are young that are open to the two big seniority corps of the Army 65 Mounted Police Life in Canada —the Royal Artillery and Engineers." Legislation to this effect was passed into law, and I was one of the first officers to take advantage of it, and retire with ;£i,6oo to the good. Having followed the drum for so long, I hated to leave it, but what could I do? Warm and well-meaning friends tried to dissuade me from my purpose, but to each one I replied: "This bed is for me and mine. Shall I not have the making of it myself?" My interview with Sir John Macdonald had no im mediate result, and I left Ottawa at the close of the Parliamentary session with the idea of going into a new railway proposition which had been suggested to me, for I could not afford to remain idle. I dropped into Patteson's office in Toronto to report progress, and he, without saying a word, wrote a short letter, which he read to me and signed "T. C. P." He added, as he stamped the envelope with the official stamp, "I think you will hear something within a week." So I did, for within that limit I received a letter from the Comp troller directing me to report myself at the head-quarters of the Mounted Police at Regina, and enclosing with the necessary credentials a cheque for a hundred dollars to pay my expenses. So began my career in the Mounted Police, and now, after thirty-one years and nine months' service in that Force, I became a pensioner of Canada from April i, 19 15. Looking back, it hardly seems possible that I can have served upwards of forty- seven years, as I may say, with the colours, that is, as a regimental officer. I am curious to know how many officers there were on the active list of the Royal Navy on March 31, 191 5, who can say that they learned the handspike gun drill which was in vogue at the time of Nelson, and how many Army officers there are now on the active list who bit off the end of the cartridge before ramming the powder and bullet down the muzzle of the 66 1888-89. Lethbridge rifle. Both handspike and ramrods were in the curricu lum when I learned my drills. I trust my readers will pardon my being so extremely discursive, and that I may now be permitted to recur to the Premier of Canada whom, in 1891, T. C. Patteson interviewed on my behalf. Sir John Abbott had been formerly the legal adviser of the Canadian Pacific, and had been called upon to take the helm of Government after the tragic death at Windsor Castle of Sir John Thompson, of whom the late Nicholas Flood Davin, "the silver-tongued orator of the Western prairie," wrote, that the man who, at birth, was laid in a three-and-sixpenny cradle, had his requiem boomed by the cannon of an Empire. Sir John Abbott had promised that the question of my transfer should remain in abeyance until after the Herchmer Commission. The Government had, very reluctantly, and after long deliberation, consented to appoint a judge of the Supreme Court to act as a com mission of inquiry into the many complaints against this officer which had been made in the Press and otherwise. Mr. Justice Wetmore held sessions at Regina and Macleod, and I was called upon to attend at both places. I said what I had to say without fear or favour, and as a result my Commissioner treated me thereafter with respect, although we had no greater, affection for each other than before. One fact became apparent, and that was that sundry officers who had instigated newspaper-men to publish attacks against the Police Commissioner lacked the moral courage to go into the witness-box and under oath to substantiate their former statements. It was a pitiable expose^ but it had the effect of clearing the air. My transfer to Battleford was no longer a moot point, and the rent of the office in Lethbridge continued to be paid from police funds. 67 CHAPTER VII 1 890 — 97 . LETHBRIDGE No history of the Great Lone Land in these latter days would be complete without some mention of the late Lieutenant-Colonel James Farquharson Macleod, C.M.G. He first went West with the Wolseley Expedition of 1870, and subsequently succeeded Sir George French as Commissioner of the Mounted Police. Later, when Lieutenant-Colonel A. G. Irvine was appointed Com missioner, Colonel Macleod became stipendiary magi strate for the North-West Territories. His head-quarters at first were at Pincher Creek, where he had a nice place, of which he was very proud. He was also very proud of his charming wife and family, most of it daughters, who, I believe, are all well and happily married. After the stipendiary magistrate blossomed into the Supreme Court dignitary, Colonel Macleod went to live in Mac leod. From there he would come down upon us when Lethbridge wanted a gaol delivery, or when there was anything special to try, and on such occasions he would cover the thirty-two miles of road either by means of a convenient police team or he would mount the box of the tri-weekly stage coach, take the reins from "Polly," the stage-driver (his name being Pollinger, an old-timer), and drive the four horses himself. We used to have to hold Court in any convenient place in those days; sometimes, for the convenience possibly of wit nesses, etc., it might be held in a room at the hotel, but generally in the barracks. 68 1890-97. Lethbridge After a time the Coal Company built a very pre tentious building, the lower part of which was designed as a theatre, with stage, proscenium, drop curtain, etc., while the second story was divided up into rooms which could be, and sometimes were, rented. The lower story came in conveniently, too, for concerts, dances and political meetings. I opened this theatre, by the same token, with a play which I got up for the purpose. When Court was to be held I always used to call at the hotel with my carriage for the judge. When I first congratulated him on being able to sign himself J.S.C. (Judge Supreme Court), he said, "For God's sake, Deane, don't call me Judge." "All right, Kur- nell," I replied, and so it was ever after. I used to call for the Colonel at the hotel and drive him to the Court room. I always carried with me a little pig-skin bag, which he christened "amicus curiae," which con tained a small glass, a corkscrew, a bottle of soda water, a little wee drop of the "cratur," a pouch of tobacco, my own pipe and some matches. We knew that the place to which we were going was desolate, and that we must provide our own creature comforts. The judge sat on the stage, the barristers' table was just across the footlights in the pit, the dock and the escort were a little beyond, and the Court had a comprehensive view of all that went on within the limit of its vision. I used to do all the J. P. work of the place, and I remember being told of a remark made by one woman whose evidence was necessary in a certain case if she would consent to give it. There was the rub. A summons would have been no use ; she would, in the witness-box, have been more dumb than the traditional oyster. So it was delicately intimated to her that Captain Deane would be very sorry if she would not help him to get at the bottom of the business. She retorted: "I've never been in a P'lice Court in me life, but I would as 69 Mounted Police Life in Canada lief go up to thim barricks in front of Captain Deane and tell him what I know as I'd go to me church." So that difficulty was overcome. Colonel Macleod always insisted on my sitting beside hina. "Don't you hate a conscientious witness," he whispered to me one day after we had been bored to death, for the best part of the morning, by an eminently respectable citizen who would go into minute particulars and would prayerfully submit to correction at the hands of cross-examining counsel. "How would a smoke go?" "Just the thing we want to sustain us both, Colonel," I replied, and this was his dictum : "Gentle men, the Court adjourns for ten minutes," and we slid off behind the wings to try and forget our boredom. It was my good fortune once to uphold my own conviction in the Court of Appeal — a case of dealing in illicit whisky. After hearing the arguments pro and con, the judge decided not to quash my conviction, and in furtherance of his decision, rose from his seat and beckoned me towards the wings. "What shall we give this fellow ? " he said. I replied, "Well, Colonel, as you have upheld my conviction, I have not much more interest in the matter. If you think proper to let him go on suspended sentence you will not hear a whimper from me." "All right," said the judge, "we'll settle it that way, and then we'll have a smoke, eh ? " The appellant in this case, Pete S , never appeared before me again — he went to the Yukon at the outbreak of the gold rush, and was killed in a brawl there. Colonel Macleod had grown up with the country, did substantial justice in his decisions, and was an exceptionally good man for the job. If he had had a crooked streak in him he could have made lots of money, but he had neither a crooked nor a mean streak, and that was why he was generally held in 70 1890-97. Lethbridge favour. He had the most extraordinary capacity for whisky, and was never known to show any effects of it. An amusing story is told about his going on one occasion to Fort Assiniboine on some business or other. This was an American military post in Mon tana, a few miles across the International boundary line, where there were usually stationed a squadron or so of cavalry and some companies of infantry. The American officers had heard of the Colonel's reputation and of his capacity, and determined to make a compre hensive test of the latter. It was even said that they had one or two relays of officers who were to keep their guest company until he was finally disposed of. As the evening wore on, and the bottle circulated freely, man after man disappeared, either under the table or into an arm-chair or some other seclusion, and when Colonel Macleod assisted the one solitary survivor up the stairs to his bed, the latter stopped short on the first landing and said, " By God (hie), Colonel, w-here d'you put it?" We had a little piece of excitement now and again. One was when it was reported that coal oil had been found in the Kootenay country, and a miniature boom started. It was kept as much a secret as possible, but there were comparatively few people in the country then, and it was a long way to go. I had a capacious four- horse wagon which would comfortably hold half a dozen men and their equipment, and a party of us, which included a surveyor, drove for two long days (seventy-five or eighty miles) to the scene of action. We duly located our respective claims, paid the Dominion Lands Office the fees due thereupon, and engaged a man who had the tools to go out and drill holes. He had everything comfortably settled, derrick erected and ready for operation, when the structure took fire, and as he had no means of coping with a violent blaze, 7l Mounted Police Life in Canada "bang went" our scheme, and we were "out" the fees that we had paid. It was in this neighbourhood that there dwelt in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains an old fellow' who chose to live the life of a hermit. He had cattle on the range, and was well enough to do. He used to employ an ex-mounted policeman to gather his cattle and to attend the spring round-up for him, -so that the calves might be branded, etc., and in the autumn the hired man would cut out any beef cattle that might be fit for the market, but otherwise the old chap lived alone. Somebody put it to him one day : "I don't see what you do and how you put in the time during the long winter months when there is no occupation for you out of doors. What do you do ? " "Oh, well," said the hermit, "sometimes I sets and thinks, and sometimes I — just — sets ! " A mining craze struck Southern Alberta not long after. Pioneers in. a new country must have faith or they are no good. We had faith, and we backed our faith with good dollar bills, which we had far better have kept in our pockets. A banker calculated that a sum of at least one hundred thousand dollars had been withdrawn from circulation in Macleod and Lethbridge. Superintendent Sam Steele, who was then in command of the Mounted Police at Macleod, was the mainspring of the movement, and that was a guarantee that the con duct of the business was at least honest. My friend Dr. Mewburn, and I, and a mutual friend, invested a thousand dollars between us in this venture, but with no result. The next speculation I went into was the Dundee Mine at Ymir, in British Columbia. This was a gold mine, and, unless the reports were all falsified, a good investment. I bought ioo shares (of one dollar par value) at thirty cents per share, and never had any sort 72 1890-97. Lethbridge of run for my money. I was by no means the only investor in Lethbridge, many of whose prominent citizens put their money into it. The local manager of the Bank of Montreal was one, the manager of the Coal Company was another, and so on. The bank manager said to me one day, "By such a date I expect to see those shares selling in the market for fifty cents." The shares did not advance in value, and the directorate at last wondered why no profits were accruing and called in an expert. He pointed out a large dump which had been dug out of the bowels of the earth and said, " Gentlemen, your profits are there ; the wind is blowing them away." Think of it ! The management knew no more about managing a gold mine than they knew about making boots, and even that was not the worst of it. The directors quarrelled amongst themselves, and matters went from bad to worse. Finally, without the knowledge or consent of the shareholders, they borrowed twenty thousand dollars from some British Columbia bank (God knows what became of the money), and when the money was not repaid the bank took the mine ! Readers who have had the patience to follow me through these details will admit that my experience in oil wells and mines had been unfortunate, and will not wonder that when an oil boom broke out in the Calgary neighbourhood in the year 19 13 I resolutely refused to have anything to do with it. There was in 1913 and 1914 a wild craze amongst all classes for speculating in oil. I do know this, though, that in spite of all my preaching, the devil whispered to me that, if there were anything worth buying in the entire outfit, it was the "Dome" Company's shares. The heart of man, besides being "desperately wicked," dearly loves a gamble, and I reasoned with myself that a hundred dollars would neither make nor break me, and, for the sake of a "flutter" I fcnyught 100 shares at ninety cents apiece. F 73 Mounted Police Life in Canada They were of the par value of a dollar. They went gradually down until, about a fortnight after I had bought them, I found them quoted at fifteen, sixteen and seventeen cents. I had had by that time so much domestic affliction that I was glad to find something. that amused me, and I stood opposite a bulletin board and laughed until the passers-by came to see what I was laughing at ! From that moment I forgot all about the " Dome " Oil Company until after I had arrived in Eng land, when a marked Calgary paper reached me giving an account of a judicial proceeding, from which it appeared that the "Dome" Oil Company had been sued in the Supreme Court for breach of contract and had been ordered to pay 250 dollars and costs. "A fool and his money, etc." Early in January, 1898, Superintendent Steele was sent to the Yukon from Macleod, and I was ordered to take over his command and run it in conjunction with my own. This meant that I had a lateral front of about 600 miles to police. The Canadian Pacific were then building a line through the Crow's Nest Pass into British Columbia, and the Mounted Police had been placed in police charge of the line under construction from the eastern boundary of the Province of British Columbia as far as Kootenay Landing. This was 400 miles. In order to familiarise myself with the British Columbia locale, etc., it was obviously necessary that I should go and see for myself. I therefore drove along what was called the "tote " road for about 200 miles, in March, 1898, and, as construction had not then begun beyond Cranbrook, it seemed to me that I had better get home and attend to business. Mr. Assistant Commis sioner Mclllree had been sent to Macleod to take my place while I was away. It was quite a change from our windswept prairies to drive into the British Colum bian forest. The "tote " road was just a passage cleared 74 1890-97. Lethbridge of trees, etc., to admit of the passage of wagons, etc., hauling supplies for the various contractors' camps, and was pretty rough going. Amidst all the wealth of trees there was not a single twitter of a bird. The only live creatures to interest one were innumerable little black squirrels. We had outposts of Mounted Police dotted at convenient intervals along the line of construction, and I had fortunately a capable officer to supervise them ; he went to South Africa with the Mounted Police contingent at the time of the Boer War, and returned as Lieutenant-Colonel G. E. Sanders, D.S.O. He is now police magistrate at Calgary under the Provincial Government, having retired on pension from the Dominion Force. Our red coats carried as much weight in British Columbia as they had done since the opening up of the Western prairies, and our troubles were only of an ephemeral nature. I used to spend four days out of each week at Mac leod and three at my house at Lethbridge. I had at my disposal a four-horse team at each place, which were not diverted from my personal purposes, and, as a rule, at nine o'clock on Tuesday morning I stepped into my wagon at Lethbridge and the team started. The routine was the same winter or summer, except that in winter, when sufficient snow was on the ground, the vehicle was a sleigh. The distance to Macleod was thirty-two miles, and at about the thirteenth milestone the Old Man's River crossed the road. There, on the far side, was a small police reserve, with appropriate buildings, wherein a small detachment of two or three men and horses were accommodated. This was an appanage of the Macleod district, and it frequently happened that it meant a saving of horseflesh to have a Macleod team there wait ing for me. There were times and seasons when it was not possible for a team to ford the river, and occasion ally, when the stream was in flood, or when slush ice 75 Mounted Police Life in Canada was running down, I had to cross to the opposite bank by means of a flat-bottomed boat. When the river was frozen over the crossing was, of course, easy, and then one was often glad of a twenty-minute interlude at Kipp to thaw out and warm up with a cup of hot tea. My pet team belonged to Lethbridge, and consisted of four good trotting horses that were a delight to the eye. Two of them had been sired by a well-known trotting horse named Combination, and they had all been bought from what was known as the " Frank Strong ranche," situated near Kipp. They were driven by a half-breed named Harry Taylor, whose father was an old-time white man who owned the Macleod Hotel, and his mother was an Indian woman. Old Taylor had done his duty by his son, for he had sent him to an excellent school at Port Hope, in Ontario, and young Harry had had a capital education. He was employed by us as an interpreter, but as his services in that respect were not very much in demand, he was given charge of the team I speak of. I first found what his capabilities were in that line when he drove me along the "tote" road in British Columbia. One instance will suffice to exemplify his capacity as a "whip." In 1898 Sir Roderick Cameron, a wealthy New Yorker, who had some years previously bought and fenced a township of land, thirty-six square miles, on the Bow River, within the confines of the Lethbridge district, asked me if I could give him a passage to Macleod. I was only too glad to have his company, and I had arranged to take my team right through from Lethbridge. The team was not its normal self on that day, for the off-wheeler had been found to be a little off colour, and Harry Taylor, in conjunction with the sergeant- major, had chosen another horse to take its place. This substitute was a bright chestnut, a good, capable horse, 76 1890-97. Lethbridge well able to hold his own, but hot-headed, like a good many of his colour. He had, too, a habit of swishing his tail about, which was rather annoying. However, we had got to within about a mile of Kipp, and had made good time so far, when this brute of a horse swished his tail over the rein and would not part with it. Our wagons, I should explain, were not built like Eng lish vehicles, from the box-seat of which the driver looks down upon his horses. Harry Taylor's seat was very little above the level of the horses' backs, and in such a case the driver was at a very considerable dis advantage. The fact that the horse was able to gather the rein under his tail shows this. Taylor made several attempts to free the rein without success, and the chest nut began at last to plunge and kick. This very un usual disturbance communicated itself to the other horses, who had not been accustomed to this kind of thing, and they started off on the dead run. They swept off the beaten trail and, being beyond Taylor's control, headed for a point about a quarter of a mile distant, where the current of the "Old Man" had washed out what is known as a "cut bank," an almost perpendicular precipice cut out of the bank by the stream. Sir Roderick Cameron was a horseman, and had no lack of nerve, but I realised that he was over seventy years of age. The old gentleman said, "They're off ! " Instead of replying I moved up to the front seat and said to Taylor, " Give me the leaders or the wheelers, whichever you think best." "Wait a minute, sir," said he, "I'll have one try," and with that he slacked up all the reins and shouted to his horses : "Whoa ! " There was no more surprised man in Southern Alberta that day than Sir Roderick Cameron, Kt., when the maddened horses heard their master's voice and "whoa-ed," came to a standstill, and allowed me to jump out and free the rein from the chestnut's tail ! 77 Mounted Police Life in Canada I have seen runaways — I was in one only myself — but I never saw such a triumph of mind over matter as I saw on the occasion just described. If the horses had not known the man and had not answered his call as they did, it might have been "Kingdom Come" for some of us. We continued our journey as if nothing had happened, and arrived at Macleod in due time. There was nothing in the demeanour of my septua genarian companion to denote that his pulse had quickened, but mine had on his account, although I treated the matter as a common incident of prairie life. 78 CHAPTER VIII 1898 — 1902. LETHBRIDGE AND MACLEOD At Macleod I had to live in the buildings known as "the Officers' Mess-house," which happened to be bare of occupants, as all the Macleod officers were married. It was a comfortless, barn-like place, but I had to make the best of it, and was fortunate in being able to secure, as a special constable, a Chinaman of middle-age, named Ling, who was quite a good cook and very faithful and attentive to my wants. Particularly so after I had, in one of my cold, blizzardy drives, picked up a bad attack of bronchitis, and was obliged to spend my week-end at Macleod instead of in my comfortable home. Trains were running, but I had not time to go by train when ever it was possible to avoid it. My teams called at my door at five minutes to the hour, and, as the clock struck, the sleigh bells began to jingle and we were off. I knew that within four hours I should reach my destina tion, but, with a train, one might waste" an appreciable slice of one's life in waiting about stations for overdue trains and the like. With a white mantle of snow covering the ground, and no trail visible, we had to be guided by distant landmarks. If they happened to be obscured a compass came in handy. Of the bronchitis that I acquired in that winter of 1898-9, recurrences stayed with me, fit fully, to my great annoyance, for a period of about twelve years, and then I got rid of it for good. And 79 Mounted Police Life in Canada all by a very simple method, which I do not recommend to anyone whose bellows are not sound. I used at odd times, preferably in the winter, or when a cold wind was blowing, to take a long, deep breath, give it time to distribute itself in the lungs, where it could be felt, hold it there until the coolness had worn off, and then let it quietly emerge from mouth and nostrils. By the inhalation of the cold air in this process I unwit tingly cured a weakness in the throat which had at times (as Dr. Mewburn knows) given me trouble. Ling remained with me until one fine day in the spring; he awoke me early and said he had terrible pains in his inward parts and would have to leave at once. The greater part of his life had been spent at sea, and I had an idea that the ocean was calling him. He had answered my purpose well, and I made no objection. It was not difficult to replace him, as the work was easy and the pay good. But I was not quite so complacent subsequently in the case of a namesake of his, a young man, whom I engaged for my family at Lethbridge. The worst feature of Chinamen was that they would suddenly say that they wanted to leave, "quit," they called it, and off they would go at a minute's notice. This was generally after their month's wages had been paid. One afternoon I was in my Lethbridge office and got a "rush" mes sage from my house, which was only a few yards away : "Ling says he is going to quit, right away. Can you come ? " I was very much absorbed in a trouble some case, and it made me as mad as a wet hen to have my attention diverted, but the least said is soonest mended, and in I went to my kitchen. "Well, Ling! You quit, eh ? All light (a Chinaman pronounces his "r's" like "l's"). Good-bye. You get no money. Good-bye. You know Corp'l Louey? I tell him to wait for you in town, he bling you up to guard-loom. 80 1898-1902. Lethbridge and Macleod Good-bye ! " and back to my work I went. I found when I wentin to dinner that Ling had thought better of it. "Corp'l Louey," as the Chinamen called him, was a Corporal Lewis, on town duty, who was a terror to the evildoer, and I 'phoned him instructions, in case Ling should quit, to lay before a town J. P. complaint under the Master and Servant Ordinance against him for absenting hirnself from his employment without leave, and to act accordingly. One of the functions at Macleod was an annual "pow-wow" with the chief and representative head-man of the Blood Indians. The Indians of the Canadian North-West had a childlike faith in the honesty of purpose and sense of justice of the Mounted Police, who had never deceived them, and had always looked after the Indians' interests and upheld them as well as they could. The Indians were in charge of a department of the Government known as "the Indian Department," which had sole and whole control of these wards of the nation and their affairs. The Indians had the Mounted Police always with them, but the self-assertive officials of the Indian Department they had not always. They had their local agents, of course, who were supreme (sub ject to the orders from the department), and were left no sort of discretion where dollars and cents were con cerned. Poor devils ! They had a hard row to hoe ! Their arm-chair critics would come round and cut off a little bit here, and a morsel there, until the poor local men, who had to do the actual economising with abor igines, of whose language they were very imperfectly informed, did not know what they were at. And then the Redskins used to come to us to find out the why and the wherefore. "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be," the politician or employee whose intellect is. devoted to problems of economy will always gain a substantial hearing, and generally make 81 Mounted Police Life in Canada his way. "Economy" is such a catch-word that effi ciency or even convenience of the public is a minor consideration. One such severe economist retired from the Indian Department when the Liberals came into power in 1896, and was elected secretary of a Montreal club. I was in the company of a member of that club "somewhere in Western Canada" when the announce ment of the appointment was made in the papers, and, after reading it, my friend closed up the paper and said, "That means three pieces of toast, instead of four, for breakfast." The same severe spirit of economy mani fested itself in 1908, wherein I became sixty years of age, and married a second wife, the dear mother of my children having died in 1906. In the course of a modest little honeymoon, we made our first stop at Banff, in the Rocky Mountains, where the Canadian Pacific has a very pretentious hotel. Our accommodation had been bespoken beforehand, so that we had no difficulty in that respect, but the place was swarming with German Jews and other tourists, and at dinner on the evening of our arrival I ordered some sherry. Two glasses were brought to us, and I at once disposed of mine. My wife, however, took only a sip of hers, and, after a little while, I noticed that her glass contained a good deal of sedi ment, which had settled at the bottom. I pointed this out to her and sent for the head waiter, who was shocked beyond measure at the occurrence. He carried off the glass, saying that he would "look into this" and would bring us some more, but time went on, and he did not reappear. We went on with our dinner, and presently I coaxed a waiter into coming to me for a parley, and he, after considerable hesitation, said, "Well, sir, that was the last bottle of sherry in the house, and you had the end of it. But (with an anxious glance around) don't give me away." "I will not," I replied; "thank you for telling me." The head waiter did not enter the 82 1898-1902. Lethbridge and Macleod dining-room again that evening while I was in it, and I forgave him. Later, at Lake Louise, west of Banff, we could not get any lager beer. The best substitute the waiter could give us was pints of stout, and we had therewith to be content. It is almost unthinkable, from a business money- _ making point of view, that a very large hotel system, stretching across a continent, should run even a risk of being reduced to such straits as I have described, but such are the effects of the spirit of economy when placed in the hands of its devotees. In "The Crooked Lakes Affair," hereinafter described (page 140), the selfsame economy was brought face to face with ultima ratio. The management of the C.P.R. system became aware of these shortcomings on the part of their staff, as I judged from a visit paid shortly after our return to our home at Calgary by an old Regina friend of mine, who was in the C.P.R. hotel business, dropping in to see me unexpectedly. At the time of his visit to me he was supposed, to some extent, to control the liquor supply of the hotel system, and I knew quite well that he had casually dropped in to see if I had anything to say on the subject. I, however, said never a word. I did not choose to backbite an unhappy manager when I shrewdly suspected that he was very little to blame. I seem to have wandered away somehow from the Blood Indians and their "pow-wow." Their chief at that time was Red Crow, a fine old fellow, who said that the faith of his fathers was good enough for him, and who lived up to it. There was no "forked tongue" about old Red Crow, who realised that the Mounted Police always "played the game," and frankly came to them to say what was in his mind. On the occasion of which I now write, he and his following came to talk about the "Sun dance," which 83 Mounted Police Life in Canada the Indian Department had prohibited. I may say here that I had a very strong objection to this dance, which, having once seen in the early days, I never wanted to see again. It was a brutal and senseless proceeding, from a white man's point of view. I saw a large ring enclosed, and partly covered by boughs of trees and the like, in the centre of which was a tall pole, from the crest whereof depended a number of ropes, according to the number of debutants. Each debutant was secured to the end of his rope by a skewer passed laterally through the flesh of each breast, and it devolved upon him to dance at full pressure round this pole until he fainted from exhaustion or until the continuous strain should compel the flesh of his breast to tear open and set him free. This process constituted the making of a "brave." The unhappy "brave" had a whistle, or something of the kind, put into his mouth, and round that pole the wretched creature jumped sideways (as in a "giant stride "), always at full tension until, as I have said, his flesh or his endurance gave out. The audience consisted of a circle of closely packed natives, with voice and tom-toms encouraging their representative to hold out to the end. This went on for hours, while the poor victims were struggling with pain and, with their painted faces, were blowing their whistles and trying to show that they were putting some heart into their per formance. Then the "braves" who had successfully passed through the ordeal in former years would be re counting their stories of successful horse-thieving and scalp-taking expeditions, and would exhibit, all to the sound of the tom-tom, their search for and finding of the enemy's trail, the stealthy advance, the crash of the tomahawk into the victim, and then the triumphant war-whoop. All such exhibitions as this could only have the effect of keeping alive the primeval homicidal and 84 1898-1902. Lethbridge and Macleod criminal instincts of the native, and my sympathies were wholly with the endeavours of the Indian Depart ment, but I never allowed my sympathies to show themselves. However, old Red Crow made a long speech to set forth the views of his followers, and here it was very helpful to have an interpreter like Harry Taylor, who could interpret finer shades of thought than could the ordinary man. My office at Macleod was unusually large, and with all the windows open could accommo date quite a number of Indian visitors sitting cross- legged on the floor. When the old chap had done, he subsided into an office arm-chair, and within two minutes was sound asleep. The burden of his song was that the Bloods wanted to have a Sun dance, which was forbidden to them by the Indian Department. He represented that the dance was a part of the Indians' religious belief, and was to them (as my interpreter explained it) in some sort a sacrament. That was the sum total of the representa tions made by a great number of Indian orators who "spread themselves" during a long summer afternoon. In reply, apart from a long preamble and eulogistic comments upon the habits of the Indians generally, in my district, I could only ask the question : "When the Indian Department says ' No,' how is it possible for a humble individual of the Mounted Police like myself to say ' Yes ' ? " Old Red Crow had by this time been awakened by his attendant squaws, and admitted that that was a difficulty which seemed to be insuperable. We all parted the best of friends, and an Issue of tea and tobacco cemented the compact. In September, 1898, I thought I was entitled to a holiday, seeing that I had not had one since my appoint ment in 1883, and took my family to Victoria, B.C., for a month. The Canadian Pacific had always treated us 85 Mounted Police Life in Canada liberally in the matter of travel, and gave us free trans portation to and fro. In visiting a place some 800 miles distant this was a very substantial concession. Our old friends the Dewdneys were living in Victoria. He had served a term of five years as Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of British Columbia, after giving up the port folio of the Ministry of the Interior, and at his house we met Admiral PaUiser, who was then in command of the Pacific Station. His Flag Captain happened to be Captain T. Adair, an old shipmate of mine, who was a sub-lieutenant in the Warrior when I joined her in May, 1869. Since that year I had never come across him. While on the subject of H.M.S. Warrior, I may here say that I had the honour of being a shipmate also of the illustrious Field-Marshal who commanded the British army in the early stages of the war. I have not seen him since the ship paid off in 1871. He was a midshipman in her. In 1910 Sir John French came to Calgary to inspect the militia during the month of June, and that happened to be the very month that I had selected to spend on the Pacific Coast, and I was not, therefore, privileged to see him. I left a note for him, offering my own trooper, . Johnny, for his use in riding about the country, but he replied that his wants in that respect had been sup plied from Winnipeg, and he could not, naturally, interfere with the arrangements that had been made for his convenience. Admiral PaUiser was very kind and hospitable. He invited us to luncheon one day, and sent his galley to the wharf to take us off. We took our seats, and the cox swain asked me to take the tiller while he pulled the stroke oar. We had a most enjoyable time from first to last, and to me it was a great treat to be associated again with the inimitable spick-and-span Jack Tar. I was particularly curious to know what my daughter 86 1898-1902. Lethbridge and Macleod thought of it all, and gave her plenty of time to digest all that she had seen before I asked her what had im pressed her most. "Oh, Father," she said, hesitatingly, "I think — the men — and the boat." I had an idea that that would probably be her reply. We had paid our visit to the coast a month too late in the year, and were all of us glad to be at home again when we resumed the even tenor of our respective ways until the Mounted Police were invited to volunteer for the Boer War, and to form a unit under Mr. Lawrence Herchmer. Officers and men volunteered freely. For myself, I officially re ported that I was ashamed of not having joined the ranks, but that, as I had joined the Queen's service a year earlier than Sir Edward Hutton, the General com manding the Canadian Forces, and had commanded a company of Royal Marines in the Naval Brigade under Commodore Hewitt, V.C, in Ashanti in 1874, I did not feel called upon to serve with the relative rank of captain in the Canadian Militia. This was the reason I gave officially, but, apart from that, it was to me unthinkable that I should go on active service under a man whom I considered to be unfit for the responsibility he was seek ing, and so I stayed at home. A very short interval in South Africa was sufficient to prove the truth of my contention, and Lieutenant-Col. Herchmer was quietly laid on the shelf. On his return to Canada, he found that his subordinate had served him in the same manner that he had Colonel Irvine, and had gained the Commissionership of the Mounted Police by the exercise of political influence. I had no sympathy to spare for Lieutenant-Col. Herchmer, who had camped on my trail for many a long year, and I can dismiss him from my reflections with the asser tion, that if his doing so had amused him it had not hurt me. The completion of the Crow's Nest rail way relieved me of my British Columbia responsibili- 87 Mounted Police Life in Canada ties, and it was well that it was so, for I had plenty to do near home. I filled up the blanks in my command as much as possible by means of recruits, but these men had to be trained, and I had no one but myself to take the riding school at each post, so that I had few idle moments. In addition to this, I formulated a new system of crime reports, which was badly needed by the Force at large. I did this at Mr. Commissioner Perry's request, and copies of my specimen reports were circulated for the guidance of officers commanding other divisions. This system has been in vogue ever since. A spell of bad weather was responsible for an un toward contretemps when the Governor-General and Lady Minto came West. They had been invited by Mr. Elliot Gait, president of the Coal Company, to pay him a visit, and to go out to a new settlement named Magrath, about twenty-two miles from Lethbridge. It was settled by Mormons, who had announced their in tention of making the country blossom like the rose. Their Excellencies were coming to us from the Pacific Coast, and Mr. Commissioner Perry and I met their train at Fernie, which had been known as " Coal Creek " when I had spent a night or two there in the "tote" road days. The new name was given to it after that of the original settler. Our first objective was Lethbridge, where rain was threatening. The programme for the morrow was this : Eighteen miles out from Lethbridge on the south-bound railway was the village of Stirling, which was the name of its first Mormon bishop, and there we had placed a temporary camp of half-a-dozen men, with saddle horses for the family and suite of the viceregal party who might wish to ride, and light spring wagons for the convenience of others. It came on to rain heavily that, night, and the next morning was so wet that I went to ask Mr. Gait what the programme 88 1898-1902. Lethbridge and Macleod was to be. He replied, "Oh ! I think you'll find they'll go," and so it was. We all took the special train which had been provided as far as Stirling, and there we naturally found everything sopping wet. It only re mained to pack the ladies into a spring wagon with oil sheets, etc. ; the gentlemen elected to ride, and we galloped over the twenty-mile prairie road to Magrath. We duly arrived at our destination in good spirits and with good appetites, but a little later than we had intended. It was, therefore, somewhat disconcerting to find that the Magrath people had come to the conclusion that even English men and women would not be crazy enough to travel in such weather, and had eaten the luncheon provided for their guests. Their Excellencies, as might be expected of English nobility, took the whole matter so good-naturedly and unconcernedly that the situation was in no way uncomfortable. It was not long, however, before a very nice, satisfying mid-day meal was served to make up for our long fast. In the unsatisfactory state of the weather there was little else to be done but to talk and speechify, and that came quite easy to Mormon apostles, so that as soon as the weather cleared a little we started on our twenty-two mile run to Lethbridge. We had ahead of us a similar jaunt on the following day to the Blood Reserve from Macleod, and to facili tate this operation we loaded our horses into a box-car and attached it to the viceregal train. We then went out to the Blood Reserve, and had luncheon, and saw what was to be seen, being guests there of Mr. W. Wilson, the Indian Agent. Lady Minto told the Indians that she was descended from a famous Indian princess, Pocahontas. They were not at all impressed by the circumstance, and as a matter of fact did not believe the story. An Indian is loath to believe what he G 89 Mounted Police Life in Canada cannot see. In the early days a bunch of them came to Regina. Colonel Irvine left Red Crow and some of them with me in my office, and took Crowfoot and the rest to his quarters. Then we set them talking to one another over the telephone, and their delight was great, but when they went home to their Reserve and told their kith and kin of their experience they frankly thought that the travellers were telling them lies ! On returning to Macleod, Her Excellency was kind enough to ask me to join their family party at dinner in their car, and that was the last time I saw Lord Minto, whose visits were always welcome. He did pay a later visit to the North- West for some duck-shooting, but did not then come into Southern Alberta. Being Governor-General of the Dominion, he quietly effaced himself when their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of York visited the country. We then gathered up, from all surrounding districts, a force of about 250 officers and men, formed them into a camp at Calgary, and had the honour of being there reviewed by the Heir to the British Crown. After the review, the Royal party went to a hill adjoining the city, where a large number of Blackfeet and other Indians were en camped. Mounted braves in all the extravagances of their native costume lined the road of approach on either side for about a mile, and at the summit their chiefs and head men, under the a?gis of the Indian De partment, were permitted to see and speak to their future King. This ceremony being completed, their Royal Highnesses and suite took luncheon at the barracks as guests of the officers of the Mounted Police. The mess- room of " E " Division was a capacious and handy room for the purpose, and the walls were decorated with a large number of well-preserved animals' heads, which had been lent to us for the purpose by owners scattered over a great extent of territory. 90 1898-1902. Lethbridge and Macleod His Royal Highness was observed to take particular notice of these heads with the eye of a sportsman. The officers had all been presented to their Royal High nesses before luncheon, and after that function a smart travelling escort, under command of the late Inspector Montague Baker, conducted the Royal visitors to their train. We had already entrained an escort for duty on the Pacific Coast, and of this, as being by many years senior superintendent of the' Force, it was my birthright to go in command, but I had got mixed up with a criminal prosecution in Montana, which was to be tried in Great Falls within a few days, and, as it was neces sary that I should attend the trial, I was perforce compelled to abandon the trip to the coast. Soon after the occurrences just described, His Royal Highness was graciously pleased to ordain that the Force should be known as the Royal , North-West Mounted Police. The necessity for my attendance at Great Falls had occurred in this wise. A Swedish settler in Southern Alberta had had twenty-seven head of horses stolen from him by an American citizen, and I had for months been engaged in working up the case, so as to bring the thief and his coadjutors to justice. This could easily be done, as a State law was in force in Montana making it felonious to take into that State property which had been stolen in another country. The Montana authori ties and I used to work this to our mutual advantage, as we had a similar law on our side. The twenty-seven horses had been stolen in Canada and taken into Mon tana, where they had all been disposed of to different customers. The United States Collector of Customs at that time was Mr. David Brown, to whom I am under obligation for many international courtesies, and he and his chief 91 Mounted Police Life iii Canada deputy, Mr. Ernest Ringwald, were at all times anxious to help me to keep our mutual frontier free from crooks of all kinds. They took up this horse thieving instance with great earnestness. They found out where the thief had disposed of each animal, and had obtained a promise from each purchaser that, if necessary, he would give up his property to the original owner. There could be no greater expression of goodwill than such a course as this, and it was obviously my duty to live up to it. These attentions, be it observed, were mainly of a per sonal and reciprocal nature, and had been of prolonged and steady growth. My Swedish friend was a capable, hard-working man, who had a wife as hard working as himself. The Government paid his expenses to Great Falls, and I duly accompanied him there. I was in dread lest he should not keep sober enough to appear as a witness, but he gave excellent evidence at the trial. What seemed to impress the jury a good deal was what a reporter called "his audible thinking." He began by holding up his left hand and by ticking it off finger by finger with appropriate commentaries as each horse floated past his mind's eye, then he resorted to the other hand, and so on, obviously in dead earnest, and thinking out each item with childlike simplicity. The judge (good judge, too) charged the jury very shortly, and they retired to consider their verdict and sentence. I learned then, for the first time, that, in case of conviction, the jury had the right to assess the punish ment, if it was their will to exercise that right. This jury brought in a verdict of guilty and a sentence of ten years in the penitentiary. I had, when the jury retired, gone out into the street to have a cigarette, and had lighted a second one, when a newspaper reporter passed me with a rush, gasping as he went, "Prisoner committed suicide." It 92 1898-1902. Lethbridge and Macleod transpired that, after the jury had fulfilled their part of the programme, the prisoner asked to be taken to the lavatory. While there he swallowed a pellet of cyanide of potassium, which he was said to have kept in 'his waistcoat pocket, and then told his guard what he had done. The resources of medical science were, of course, immediately available, and were successfully applied. The prisoner, however, happened to have a foster father who was unusually well-to-do, and who was very much wrapped up in the boy whom he had adopted. He left no stone unturned to obtain the young man's release, and succeeded after he had undergone four years at the penitentiary. Not long after these occurrences I undertook the prosecution of a case of "wholesale cattle smuggling," the particulars of which are fully described in the chapter under that heading.* As a result of my successful engineering of a round up party, terminating in the capture of 596 head of cattle, smuggled into Canada by bosom friends of an influential member of the Dominion Cabinet, I was ordered to be transferred to Maple Creek, a very small municipality in the Province, then known as Assiniboia, but since then re-christened Saskatchewan. A prominent member of the Lethbridge Liberal Association came to ask me the question, "Can't we do something to stop this?" (meaning the move). I said, "I should prefer that you do not interfere." The Minister in question was then in the plenitude of his power, and did as he liked, but there came a day, a year or so later, when he was hurled from his seat by an expos6 in the Calgary Eye Opener, and took refuge in "the tall timber." The end of it all was that my wife and I transferred ourselves, our Lares and Penates, to Maple Creek, * See p. 154. 93 Mounted Police Life in Canada where it happened that our eldest son was successfully practising medicine. We were Darby and Joan, so to speak, for our two daughters were happily married, and, of our other two sons, one was dying of consumption in California, and one was in the Bank of Montreal in British Columbia. The people of Lethbridge gave effect to their sentiments in the following resolution, in an illuminated form, which unexpectedly reached me soon after I had established myself in my new post : "To "Captain R. B. Deane, "Superintendent, N.W. Mounted Police. > "The Lethbridge Town Council and Board of Trade, representing the Town of Lethbridge and surrounding district, sincerely regret your recent removal from this district. "You have had charge of all police matters, in the large territory adjoining the Montana boundary, for the past fourteen years, practically since Lethbridge came into existence. "For several years your Department has almost annually disturbed us with threatened rumours of your removal to other points of the North-West, and on each occasion every effort at our command was put forth to retain you. "The Government of a country is much stronger than a small portion of that country, and recognising that truth on this last occasion when you were called away, we decided to lodge our usual protest and then quietly submit. "The North-West Mounted Police Force is a credit to Canada, and in our opinion that Force is deeply indebted to you, as wherever you are stationed law 94 1898-1902. Lethbridge and Macleod and order will be firmly established and the police respected. "It is unnecessary to recount your services to this district. Being a soldier and a gentleman, you did your duty. We know you always performed it with honour to your country and credit to yourself. Your work has not been in vain. "The universal regret throughout the district occa sioned by your departure is evidence of the esteem and respect in which you are held by the general public, and after so many years of service it is certainly indicative of a record of which any public man should be proud. "Please assure your estimable wife that she has carried away the deep regard of our people, and we trust you will both look back with pleasure upon your many years' residence in Lethbridge. "We ask you to accept the accompanying present, as a slight token of the warm appreciation that prevails throughout the district for Mrs. Deane and yourself. "Dated at Lethbridge, in the district of Alberta, this i$th day of October, 1902. "The Municipality of the Town of Lethbridge, "(Sd.) William Oliver, Mayor. "(Sd.) C. B. Bowman, Secy. Treasurer. "The Lethbridge and District Board of Trade. "(Sd.) M. Barford, President, "(Sd.) C. B. Bowman, Secy. Treasurer." "The accompanying present" consisted of a hand some gold watch, chain and locket. The locket I gave to my wife, the watch and chain I have used ever since. The Western Stock Growers' Association was also pleased to send me a memento in the subjoined form : 95 Mounted Police Life in Canada [ COPY ] President : 1st Vice-President : W. F. Cochrane, Macleod. D. Waemock, Livingstone. WESTERN STOCK GROWERS' ASSOCIATION Secretary -Treasurer : 2nd Vice-President: R. G. Mathews, Macleod. Henry Smith, High River. Office of the Secretary-Treasurer. Macleod, Alberta, " 10th October, 1902. "Stjpt. R. B. Deane, "Commander N.W.M. Police, "Maple Creek. "Dear Sir, — At a meeting of the Executive Com mittee of this Association, held in Macleod on the 8th instant, the following resolution, a copy of which I was instructed to forward to you, was unanimously adopted, viz. : — "Moved by Howell Harris. "Seconded by A. R. Springett. "'This Committee recognising the energy and ability shown by Captain Deane, N.W.M. Police, in the discharge of his duties as Superintendent of the Lethbridge District, desires to record its appreciation of the services rendered the Live Stock Interests of Southern Alberta.' "I have much pleasure in carrying out my instruc tions. — Yours very truly, "(Signed) R. G. Mathews, "Secretary." It is needless for me to say that such remembrances as these cannot fail to be dear to the heart of a public servant. 96 CHAPTER IX 1902 — 6. maple creek I spent four years at Maple Creek. It was a funny little Methodist-ridden place, containing from four to five hundred people. I was there called upon to resume my clerical duties, which had fallen into abeyance dur ing a term of years. The Church of England had a church there, and a limited vicarage, which some hard working devotees of the village and its surroundings had managed to raise money enough to build. It was a poor enough living for the incumbent, who had to administer one or two outside parishes, and when he was called away on sundry Sundays during the year he fell back upon me to hold the fort in the Creek. I was very willing to do what I could in that respect, and, although I never presumed to fill the absent gentleman's pulpit, I read the service and gave contributors an opportunity of placing their offerings in the plate. A parson has been called an "incumbent," a "padre," a "sky-pilot," and I do not know how many more names, but, as far as my knowledge goes, it remained for a cow boy of the Western prairie to christen him the " Devil- dodger ! ' ' The barracks at Maple Creek were about two and a half miles from the embryo town, and I am quite free to confess that I sometimes found it hard to put in the time. I used to ride two and three horses a day for the sake of keeping them exercised, and I have now and 97 Mounted Police Life in Canada again ridden into the town to see if I could find someone to exchange a word with. I had a friend in the manager of the Merchants' Bank, named E. W. McMullen, and while he was there I was sure of find ing somebody, but after he was promoted to a larger branch I have often ridden home disappointed. It was a stock country, and there were no idle men in it. What police business there was was mainly in connec tion with theft of cattle and horses, and the smuggling of animals on the hoof across the imaginary boundary line. The feed on the American side of that line had become depleted, and American owners were in the habit of ranging their cattle and sheep on the Canadian side, where they would fatten them for the Chicago market. The Canadian Customs protested that for this privilege duty should be paid on these animals, and a special officer of Customs was appointed to protect Canadian interests in this behalf. To carry out his instructions he was naturally wholly and solely depen dent on the Mounted Police, and we worked with him very cordially, for he, the late Mr. F. Stumden, always "played the game." He was assigned the duty imme diately after my successful seizure of smuggled cattle, and seemed to be in communication with the Premier, because he told me one day that he had received a letter wherein Sir Wilfrid said he was very glad to find that his relations with the Mounted Police were so happy. The Department of Customs, however, did not always "play the game." They did not do it with me, and to-day they owe me $430 on account of the Spencer seizure in 1902. When Mr. J. Bourinot was sent from Ottawa in that year to co-operate with me in the matter, particulars of which had been reported through the ordinary official police channels, he brought with him and showed me the then prevailing Customs regulation in print, to the effect that, in case of a seizure of 98 1902-6. Maple Creek smuggled goods, one-half of the value thereof became the property of the Crown, the other half was to be divided between the informant and the Customs officer making the seizure. The amount of the penalty in that case, approved by the Exchequer Court, and, on appeal, by the Supreme Court of Canada, was six thousand dollars. Bourinot was therefore entitled to fifteen hun dred, and I, as the informant, who had by my own unassisted efforts worked up the case and carried it suc cessfully through two courts of law, was entitled to a like sum. Whatever may have been done since, the case was unique in Customs annals at that time. After the Supreme Court had affirmed the judgment of the Exchequer Court, refusing to set aside the penalty of $6,000, I received on November 25, 1907 (five and a half.years after the seizure had been made), a Customs cheque for $550. I represented that considerably more money was due to me on this account, and, on February 4, 1908, received another cheque for $575, making a total of $1,070, and leaving due a balance of $430. By advice of the legal adviser of the Merchants' Bank at Calgary I accepted the cheque "under protest." It was sent to me through the Collector of Customs at Calgary, by an Inspector of Customs at Toronto. I told him the circumstances, and he said that a some what similar fate had befallen him, as, in a seizure which he had made, he had been paid only a percen tage of what was due to him. The Inspector of Customs at Toronto who sent me the $575 cheque told me to apply to the collector at Calgary, and to give him a receipt, and also said that he did not know who the informer was. It was never clear to me why he should know, or why he should have had anything to do with a matter in which the Province of Ontario could not possibly be concerned, for it appertained ex clusively to the North-West Territories. I then made 99 Mounted Police Life in Canada inquiries, from the result of which I gathered the con clusion that what was known as the "Inside" service of the Customs Department expected to levy a toll upon the work of the "Outside" service — that is to say, the "Outside" people did the work and the "Inside " people surreptitiously shared the "rake off." Against this there seemed to be no appeal. I wrote a letter of protest addressed to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Prime Minister, and sent it through the Commissioner of the Mounted Police. Whatever was done with the letter, I can only say that I never received even the passing civility of a reply to it, and I presume that it never reached Sir Wilfrid's hands. It was open to me, of course, to pull political strings, but I thought that would be "too small potatoes." At Maple Creek I was responsible for the protection of about two hundred miles of the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and I studied very deeply the possibility of a train being held up and robbed within the limits of my district. Arrangements had therefore to be made to meet such a contingency, and more than once I talked to the Commissioner about it, but the details would neither interest the public nor be good for the public service. Suffice it to say, that if such a thing had happened in my district and I had not been able to account for the thieves, I should have considered it an indelible dis grace upon my name ; more than that, the public among whom I lived and worked would have thought so too. Although my division numbered something less than fifty officers, non-commissioned officers and men, some one would have been sure to ask what the Mounted Police were maintained in the country for. In 1906 a Canadian Pacific train was held up and robbed in British Columbia, and, at the request of the 100 1902-6. Maple Creek British Columbian Government, a posse of Mounted Police were rushed into the mountains, where they cap tured the robbers. The ringleader, a hardened old ruffian named Bill Miner, was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment, but was permitted to escape from the penitentiary at New Westminster, B.C. "What we have we hold" did not apply in that discreditable instance. When, if ever, the Mounted Police are withdrawn from duty in Saskatchewan and Alberta, the public, not only of those provinces, but the travelling public of the Dominion, must make up its mind to face the probability of train robbery. The Mounted Police system appears to be doomed to extinction in Saskatchewan, as, had it not been for the outbreak of the war, that province would have denounced the existing agreement with the Dominion on April i, 1915. As the head-quarters of the Force are in Saskatchewan, and as tffe Alberta Government have intimated their desire to continue the present arrange ment, there are indications that new barracks will be built at Calgary on some land which is still the pro perty of the Dominion Government, on the banks of the Bow River. These changes were foreshadowed in 1905 when the provincial autonomy celebrations were held at Regina and Edmonton respectively. A couple of squadrons of Mounted Police attended, and as they travelled from one capital to another it was openly remarked amongst themselves that, "we are going to attend our own funeral and are going to make as brilliant a flash in the pan as we can." In the spring of 1904 a syndicate of cattle-men im ported, from the East, a number of "stockers," as they are called— that is, young cattle— which they turned out on the range to grow. It happened that, after these 101 Mounted Police Life in Canada poor little creatures had been turned loose, the weather became very bad; a snowstorm, which subsequently turned to rain, set in and soaked and chilled the poor animals through and through. A range-bred yearling will, to some extent, know how to rustle for itself, but these imported beasts knew nothing of the conditions of life on the bald-headed prairie, and they consequently died by the score of exposure and starvation. I never had any sympathy with the syndicate, for they deserved to lose the money which they plentifully lost, and were lucky to escape being prosecuted for cruelty to animals, because that was what their greedy policy amounted to. It transpired, as time went on, that some of the young pilgrims were in process of being stolen by sundry ranchers, and into that complaint it became my duty severely to inquire. In two cases the theft by a pro minent and well-to-do rancher of the neighbourhood was abundantly proved, and the judge at the trial, Chief Justice A. L. Sifton, awarded a sentence of two years in the Manitoba penitentiary. The verdict was hardly ex pected by the general community, and came as a kind of shock to its nerves. The first comment that came to my ears, after pronouncement of the sentence, was a conversation between two ranchers as follows : " Well, Joe, what do you think of this ? " " It would have done more good, Pete, if it had hap pened fifteen years ago." That epitomised the general opinion of the neigh bouring stock-owners, who had lost "here a calf, there a calf, here and there a calf," and had never been able to obtain redress. The convict, in this instance, was a pillar of a Nonconformist church and a man of means, who was very assiduous in his religious attendance and duties. After a few months' confinement in the peniten tiary, he was suddenly released by order of the Minister of Justice, and took up his former abode as if nothing 102 1902-6. Maple Creek had happened. The train that conveyed him westward towards his home carried also the Chief Justice who had tried and sentenced him, and of the latter queried a passenger : " Do you know that is in this train going home ? He says he is not on ticket of leave, and seems to have been given a pardon. Have you heard anything about it ? " "No," said the Chief Justice, "and, what's more, I don't believe it." The passenger's statement was, however, true enough, the convict had simply been released, and the local authorities had no information on the subject. It had for some time been no secret that the minister of the nonconforming church in question had been very active in making supplication to the Government to quash the righteous sentence, and the result showed that he had not laboured in vain. It was a very different proposition, however, a few months later when the same reverend gentleman came to us to complain that his son, a young man, who had recently started a ranch of his own, had had some half- dozen bags of oats stolen from his stable while the owner was absent. The theft was traced to another young rancher, who was trying to earn a living for himself, and then nothing would content the minister of the gospel but his pound of flesh. He insisted on prosecuting the thief, who was convicted in a court of summary jurisdiction and sentenced to imprisonment. It makes all the difference whose ox is gored. In 1906 I was officially asked if I would like to go to Calgary, the command of which post had been vacant for some months, and on my replying in the affirmative I was transferred thither. It was whispered to me, with how much truth I know not, that the new Minister of the Interior, to wit, Hon. John Oliver, was responsible for 103 Mounted Police Life in Canada this amelioration in my condition. He had said that he would not stand by and see an officer persecuted for having done his duty, and, being in the Cabinet, it was within his power to rectify a wrong if he chose to do so. Anyway, to Calgary I went, and my Maple Creek friends, on the eve of my departure, very kindly pre sented me with a short appreciative address and a gold- headed walking stick, both of which I value very much. 104 CHAPTER X 1906 — 14. CALGARY When I went to Calgary in July, 1906, the population there was about 15,000 souls, and in the five or six following years it mounted up to 65,000 or thereabouts. In the barracks the commanding officer's quarters had been torn down, having been declared uninhabitable on account of age. They were a little over thirty years old. The Barrack Reserve consisted of rather more than thirty-five acres, situate on the north side of the Bow, at its confluence with the Elbow River, which latter bounded the reserve on its eastern side, and along" the northern boundary ran the Canadian Pacific Rail way. I was instructed that I might build myself a house on the site of the old one, which had been prettily situ ated, and the sum of 5,000 dollars was appropriated for the purpose. A suitable plan was soon obtained, and the work was put in hand without delay in August. The excavation of the basement was made by prisoners from the guard-room. The supervision of the work was entrusted to our Division carpenter, named Joseph, who was a most capable mechanic, and who left us soon after to go into business for himself at Okotoks. I said to my staff, " Give the working party all the meat they want to eat, and charge the excess ration to me, but tell them also that I want to be living in that house by Christmas." The consequence was that the men worked willingly and well, and gave no sort of trouble. It H 105 Mounted Police Life in Canada happened just at that time that the Carpenters' Union took it into their heads that their wages should be in creased by ten cents per hour, and at the increased rate of fifty-five cents the cost of my house exceeded the estimate by $1,200. No exception, however, was taken to that at Ottawa. 'There was nothing mean about the Police Department so long as Sir Wilfrid Laurier was at the head of it. He is the best friend that the Mounted Police have ever had. He gave them their Pension Bill and took a personal interest in the Force. Any money Bill affecting the Mounted Police passed through the House of Commons without a murmur — to wit, the vote of $35,000 to defray the expenses of the Mounted Police contingent attending the King's Coronation. My house (it was finished early in December, 1906) was certainly the best house in Mounted Police occu pancy at that date, albeit it was a lone house for me to _go into, as the dear mother of my children, whom I had been obliged to send for treatment to the Pacific Coast, died there on the day before Christmas Eve, 1906, and my Christmas Day was spent in travel ling thither to bring back her remains for burial at Lethbridge. My house had a twelve-foot wide veranda on the south and east sides, and this came in very handy in the summer of 1907 when it became a question of entertaining H.R.H. Prince Fushimi of Japan. That nobleman had been to England on his royal master's business to the King of all the Britons, and was on his way home. Some angel of light had suggested to him that he should see Calgary on his way through the Rocky Mountains. The problem for me was that the royal foreigner desired to spend half a day in Calgary, and what could be done for his enter tainment ? In reply to the official letter, I said that I should be glad to entertain the Prince and his suite to 106 1906-14. Calgary luncheon, and it would go hard if I could not, in the interval, devise some sort of amusement to attract his interest. To a man who had commanded an army of 100,000 men in the Russo-Japanese war, it was idle to think of anything in the nature of a military display. My reply as to the luncheon brought a prompt answer from Comptroller Frecl White at Ottawa, ' ' I shall be glad to foot the bill " ; and upon me then descended Mr. Commissioner Perry. The programme that we arranged between us was that a travelling escort should meet the train on its arrival, with a four-horse wagon for the Prince and pair-horse carriages for his staff, and that the visitors should be shown as much of Calgary as was possible in a thirty-minute drive. This drive was to terminate at the barracks, where the party were to be transferred to motor-cars and taken into the country some ten or twelve miles to see a horse ranch of repute, the owners of which were going out of business, and were making preparations to sell their stock, etc., by auction in the very near future. The party was then to be brought back to the city to witness an exhibition game of polo, which the Calgary Club had genially offered to get up for the Prince's edification, and after that he and his suite were to be given luncheon at my house. The Prince's west-bound special train was timed to leave at three o'clock in the afternoon, and every member of my command appreciated the nicety of my life-long dictum that three o'clock meant exactly sixty minutes after two. In order to see how we could most profitably fill in the thirty minutes that we had to start with, I went out one afternoon with the team that was to drive the Prince an be put to this witness, and which your advisers have not put, just tell them quietly and they will put it, if they think it proper to do so. Mr. FITZPATRICK: I don't think he ought to be allowed to say any more. For the last two days we have felt ourselves in this position — that this man is actually obstructing the proper management of this case for the express purpose of having a chance to interfere in this case, and he must be given to understand immediately that he won't be allowed to interfere in it, or else it will be absolutely useless for us to endeavour to continue any further in it. Mr. JUSTICE R. : Is that a matter that I ought to interfere in? Isn't that a matter entirely between your self and your client? Suppose you cannot go on, and my ruling was called in question, and the question was raised and the Court allowed such and such a thing to be done? Mr. FITZPATRICK: I don't pretend to argue with the Court. It is not my practice, it is not my custom. I have stated to the Court what I think of this case. I think the Court here is bound by the ordinary rules of law, and so long as the prisoner is represented by counsel, it is his duty to give such instructions to his counsel as to enable him to do his duty to his case. Mr. JUSTICE R. : I admit he ought to do so. But suppose he doe9 not; and suppose counsel think fit to throw up their brief? 205 Mounted Police Life in Canada Mr. FITZPATRICK: We are entirely free to do that, and that is matter for our consideration at the present moment, if the prisoner is allowed to interfere. Of course, I have to take the ruling 'of the Court. Mr. JUSTICE R. : I don't like to dictate to you, but it strikes me that now an opportunity should be taken of ascertaining whether there is really anything that has not been put to this witness that ought to have been put. Mr. FITZPATRICK: We have very little desire to have questions put which we, in our discretion, do not desire to put. What has this Court to do with theories about inspiration and the division of lands, further than we have gone into it? However, I, of course, have to accept the ruling of the Court as it is given, and then it will be for the counsel for the defence to consider the position. Mr. ROBINSON: It must be quite understood that no rulings of the Court are given with the desire or at the request or with the concurrence of the Crown. We have nothing to do in the shape of interference. We must not be drawn into the position that there is a ruling of the Court on a question of that kind. I think it would probably be right for the Court to ask the prisoner whether the case is or is not fully in the hands of the counsel. It is for the prisoner to say. Mr. FITZPATRICK: We accept that suggestion. Mr. JUSTICE R. : Are you defended by counsel? Answer my question, please. Is your case in the hands of counsel? PRISONER : Partly ; my cause is partly in their hands. Mr. JUSTICE R. : Now stop. Are you defended by counsel or not? Have you advisers? PRISONER: I don't wish to leave them aside. I want them, I want their services ; but I want my cause, your Honour, to be defended to the best which circum stances allow. Mr. JUSTICE R.: Then you must leave it in their hands. 206 Louis Riel: Executed for Treason PRISONER : I will, if you please, say this reason : My counsel come from Quebec, from a far province. They have to put questions to men with whom they are not acquainted, on circumstances which they don't know, and although I am willing to give them all the information that I can, they cannot follow the thread of all the questions that could be put to the witnesses. They lose more than three-quarters of the good opportunities of making good answers; not because they are not able; they are learned, they are talented, but the circumstances are such that they cannot put all the questions. If I would be allowed, as it was suggested. This case is extraordinary. Mr. JUSTICE R. : You have told me your case is in the hands of advisers. PRISONER : Partly. Mr. JUSTICE R. : Now you must leave it there until you get through. I will give you an opportunity of speak ing to the Court at the proper time. PRISONER: The witnesses are passing and the opportunities. Mr. JUSTICE R. : Tell your counsel. PRISONER: I cannot — all. I have too much to say. Mr. JUSTICE R. : If there is any question not put to this witness which you think ought to be put, tell it to your counsel, and they will say whether it should be put. PRISONER: I have on cross-examination 200 ques tions. Mr. ROBINSON: We had better understand this. Counsel for the Crown are taking no part. Our inclination is, if counsel for the prisoner agree to it, to let the prisoner put any questions he pleases to the witness. We don't wish to interfere in any way between the prisoner and his counsel. Mr. FITZPATRICK: Would your Honour allow us, say, five minutes of a consultation? Mr. JUSTICE R. : I was just going to suggest that you should take a little time, and that the prisoner should go with you. 207 Mounted Police Life in Canada An adjournment here took place, and on the Court re-assembling, the conversation was resumed along the original lines. The conference had produced no practical result. Mr. Lemieux explained that although he and his confreres had done their very best to help the prisoner, "It appears that he is not very well pleased, or it appears he thinks we did not put all the questions to the witnesses that we should have put." Mr. Robinson interjected : " If the prisoner under the special circumstances of this case desires to join his counsel in conducting the examination or cross-examina tion of witness, the Crown do not object to it." But the prisoner's counsel were obdurate. As Mr. Lemieux put it : " If the prisoner insists upon putting questions to the witnesses, we object to it, and we, more over, say that we will not continue to act in the case as counsel. We think, however, it is too late for him to now disavow or refuse." It was a hopeless impasse, the prisoner would not discharge his counsel, he would not confide to them the questions that he desired to ask ; they would not concede to him the right to ask them himself, and at one time he said : " Here I have to defend myself against the accusation of high treason, or I have to consent to the animal life of an asylum. I don't much care about animal life if I am not allowed to carry with it the moral existence of an intellectual being." Mr. JUSTICE R. : Now stop. PRISONER: Yes, your Honour, I will. Mr. JUSTICE R. : I think I shall have to tell you that you are in your counsel's hands, and if you and they cannot agree, then will come another question — whether the Court will not further interfere and say counsel must go on. The examination of Charles Nolin was then con tinued, and the witness said that the Council that con- 208 Louis Riel: Executed for Treason demned him to death was one that was called "Exo- vede." He said that the prisoner had separated entirely from the clergy : that the half-breeds were people who need religion, which had a great influence on their mind. Asked, if without religion, the prisoner would have succeeded in bringing the half-breeds with him, the witness answered : "No, it would never have succeeded. If the prisoner had not made himself appear as a prophet he would never have succeeded in bringing the half- breeds with him." Mr. Lemieux re-cross-examined the witness after this. The witness was asked, if the prisoner did not lose a great deal of his influence by the fact that he lost the influence of the clergy, and he replied that at the time the prisoner gained influence by working against the clergy and by making himself as a priest. Asked if he meant the people did not have confidence in their clergy, he said, "No," but they were ignorant, and advantage was being taken of their ignorance and simplicity. PRISONER: I wish to put a question myself to the witness in the box, your Honour. Mr. JUSTICE R. : If your counsel see fit to put it they will put it, and if not the witness is discharged. Mr. LEMIEUX : I asked the prisoner if he had any questions to put to the witness through me, and he said he had none, that he would only put questions by himself. Some little further conversation continued along the same lines, and another witness was called. Several papers were produced in Court at different times bearing the signature, "Louis David Riel, Exovede." One was a demand addressed, "To Major. Crozier, 209 Mounted Police Life in Canada Commander of the Police Forts, Carlton and Battle ford," calling upon him to surrender his forts to the Provisional Government of the Saskatchewan. Another was addressed to Messrs. Charles Nolin and Maxime Lupine, who were instructed to deliver the first mentioned document. A third was addressed to Major-General Middleton, and dated May 15. In order to explain the meaning of the word "Exo- vede " I have to refer to the testimony of Captain George Young, of the Winnipeg Field Battery, who received Riel from General Middleton on the evening of May 15, and remained in charge of him until he delivered him to me at Regina on May 23. This witness said, inter alia : "During the term of eight or nine days that I was living with him (Riel) entirely, there was an immense amount of conversation. We conversed almost constantly and very freely. He conversed on almost every subject connected with the rebellion. When we found the books and papers in the Council room we found the word ' Exovede. ' This bothered us a great deal, and one of the first things I asked the prisoner was what it meant. He wrote the meaning of the word in my note-book. It is lengthy." Mr. GREENSHIELDS: No matter, let us have it. It is as follows : "From two Latin words ex, which means from, and ovede, flbck. That word I made use of to convey that I was assuming no authority at all. And the advisers of the movement took also that title instead of councillors or representatives, and their purpose for doing so was exactly the same as mine, no assumption of authority. . . . Several times, it is true, we made use of the words ' Representative Members of the Council,' but we had to do it until the word Exovede was understood and until it would begin to become usual amongst even the men of the movement. So the 210 Louis Riel: Executed for Treason council itself is not a council, and being composed of Exovedes, we have called the Exovedate." In examination-in-chief this witness was asked by Mr. Robinson : Q. From first to- last of these conversations with you, did you observe anything to arouse a suspicion or indicate that he was of unsound mind? A. Not at all — certainly not. I found that I had a mind against my own, and fully equal to it ; better educated and much more clever than I was myself. He would stop and evade answering questions with the best possible advantage. In the hands of Mr. Greenshields the witness acknowledged that he had had no experience in dealing with people of unsound mind, nor had he received a medical education. Q. You do not consider yourself in a position to give an opinion as to the sanity? A. I could not give a medical opinion, but I consider that during the nine days I was living with him I would know if I was living with a lunatic. The next witness whom I call into the witness-box of this court of reminiscences is Dr. James M. Wallace, who told Mr. Osier that for about nine years he had been in charge of the asylum for the insane at Hamilton, Ontario, but had studied insanity for more years than that. He had been present during the sitting of the Court, had heard the evidence, had interviewed the prisoner alone for about half an hour, and had dis covered no indication of insanity. He thought the prisoner was of sound mind and capable of distinguishing right from wrong. In answer to Mr. Fitzpatrick, the doctor said he had heard of the particular form of mental disease known as 211 Mounted Police Life in Canada megalomania, a term which was scarcely ever used, and that by only one writer.* Q. You are aware that this particular form of insanity is characterised, among other things, by extreme irritability on the part of the patient? A. Not megalomania. Megalomania simply applies to grandiose ideas. It can have no other definition than that, and these ideas, allow me to explain, are delusions ; they are delusions such as a person holding or believing himself to be a king, or possessed of immense wealth, and that the world is at his feet. Q. But are you quite sure that the character of irrita bility is not one of the Characteristics of this malady? A- It is not a malady. It is merely a symptom, commonly found in paralytic insanity. Q. Where the disease exists, is the idea, the result of disease, fixed and constant? A. It is the result of the disease. Q. But is it fixed or intermittent? A. In those cases it is fixed. Q. So that when a "queen" has taken herself to be a queen, she remains a queen ? A. She usually dies a queen. Q. In her own idea? A. Yes. Q. Not sometimes a queen and sometimes otherwise? A. No. The next witness to be called upon to tell his recollec tions was Father Alexis AndnS, Oblate, who had lived with the half-breeds of the Saskatchewan for about twenty-five years. He was one of the witnesses who were brought from Prince Albert, at the expense of the Crown, to give evidence in Riel's favour, and Mr. Lemieux tried to extract from him an opinion adverse to the sanity of the prisoner. * The reader must remember that this was thirty years ago. 212 Louis Riel: Executed for Treason Q. You have had a good deal of experience with people, and you have known persons who were afflicted with mania? A. Before answering that I want to state a fact to the Court regarding the prisoner. You know the life of that man affected us during a certain time. Q. In what way? A. He was a fervent Catholic, attending the church and attending to his religious duties frequently, and his state of mind was the cause of great anxiety. In conversation on politics and on the rebellion and on religion he stated things which frightened the priests. I am obliged to visit every month the fathers (priests) of the district. Once all of the priests met together, and they put the question : " Is . it possible to allow that man to continue in his . religious duties ? " And they unanimously decided that on this ques tion he was not responsible, that he was completely a fool on this question, and that he could not suffer any contra diction. On the question of religion and politics we con sidered that he was completely a fool. Mr. Lemieux rather incontinently dropped this witness, who was taken in hand by Mr. Casgrain for the Crown. Q. I believe in the month of December, 1884, you had an interview with Riel and Nolin with regard to a certain sum of money which the prisoner claimed from the Federal Government ? A. Not with Nolin. He was not present. Q. The prisoner was there? A. Yes. Q. Will you please state what the prisoner asked from the Federal Government? A. I had two interviews with the prisoner on that sub ject. When he made his claim I -was there with another gentleman, and he asked from the Government $100,000. We thought that was exorbitant, and the prisoner said : "Wait a little; I will take at once $35,000 cash. 2H Mounted Police Life in Canada Q. And on that condition the prisoner was allowed to leave the country if the Government gave him the $35,000? A. Yes, that was the condition he put.* Q. When was this? A. On December 23, 1884. Q. There was also another interview between you and the prisoner? A. There have been about twenty interviews between us. Q. He was always after you to ask you to use your influence with the Federal Government to obtain this indemnity ? A. The first time he spoke of it was on December 12; he had never spoken a word about it before, and on De cember 23 he spoke about it again. Q. Is it not true that the prisoner told you he himself was the half-breed question? A. He did not say so in express terms, but he conveyed that idea. He said, "If I am satisfied the half-breeds will be." I must explain this : this objection was made to him that even if the Government granted him the $35,000 the * As we now learn from the late Lord Strathcona's biographer that that nobleman himself, when he was plain Donald A. Smith, at the request of Governor Archibald, paid Riel 83,000 to leave the country for the time being, after the Rebellion of 1870, and after he had perpetrated the cold-blooded murder of Thomas Scott, and as we learn from the same authority that Archbishop Tache declared that the Government authorised him to promise Riel an amnesty, it is quite evident that there was more method in poor Louis3 madness than any of us at the time had any idea of. The same biographer tells us that when the Liberal Party came into power after the exposi of the "Pacific Scandal" in 1873. Louis Riel was elected for Provencher, and " actually travelled to Ottawa for the purpose of being sworn in a member of the House of Commons. At this time he was a fugitive from justice. ... He succeeded in taking the oath and in writing his name in the book. ... In the hurry and confusion of the moment he was allowed to slip away from the House undetected." No one seemed to bother about him greatly, and he "was accordingly permitted to escape." It would be interesting to know if the warrant then issued was in existence, and if so, who had the custody of it, during the traitorous agitation among the half -breeds of the North-West. It would have meant the saving of a little blood and a. good deal of treasure, but the development of the Great Lone Land would have been delayed for at least a generation. 214 Louis Riel: Executed for Treason half-breed question would remain the same, and he said in answer to that, "If I am satisfied the half-breeds will be." Q. Is it not a fact he told you he would even accept a less sum than the $35,000? A. Yes. He said, "Use all the influence you can, you may get all that, but get all you can, and if you get less we will see." Mr. Osier's cross-examination of the next witness was of absorbing interest. Dr. Francois Roy was one of the prisoner's witnesses from Quebec, whose expenses were paid by the Govern ment. He told Mr. Fitzpatrick that for more than fifteen or sixteen years he had been medical superin tendent of the lunatic asylum at Beauport, in Quebec, and it had been his duty to visit the principal asylums in the United States and see how the patients were treated there. He had made a special study of diseases of the brain. He said that the prisoner was an inmate of the asylum for about nineteen months prior to January, 1878, suffering from megalomania, and passing under the name of La Rochelle. He was placed therein by the Provincial Government of Quebec. In reply to Mr. Fitzpatrick, the doctor said : " I am perfectly certain that when the prisoner was under our care he was not of sound mind, but he became cured before he left, more or less ; but from what I heard here to-day I am ready to say that I believe on these occa sions his mind was unsound, and that he was labouring under the disease so well described by Dagonot." In cross-examination, Mr. Osier elicited from the witness that he was one of two proprietors of a private asylum, having an average of from 800 to 900 inmates. He said they had a medical superintendent and a treasurer. Q. The proprietors only have a general supervision? A. More than that, I, myself, am a specialist. The 215 Mounted Police Life in Canada doctor admitted that he had brought no books or papers. Before starting he had looked into the register to refresh his memory as to the date of La Rochelle's discharge, and for the rest said, " I thought they would ask me my opinion of the case." Having satisfied his legitimate curiosity on matters in general connected with the conduct of the institution, Mr. Osier came at length to the disease and its characteristics in this wise : Q. You say the main feature of this disease is what? What is the leading feature of this disease, do you say ? Do you say that it is a fixed idea incapable of change? A. That is one thing I may say. Q. Will you answer the question? Do you say that the leading feature of the disease is a fixed idea incapable of a change by reason? A. I did not succeed in changing. Q. I ask you is that the leading feature of the disease? A. That is one of the features. Q. Is it the leading feature? A. It is one of them. It is one of the characteristic features. Q. A fixed idea with a special ambition incapable of change by reasoning? A. Yes, we did not succeed in changing the idea of the patient. Q. Well, that fixed idea is beyond his control? A. I would not be prepared to say entirely. Q. If it is beyond his control he is an insane man? A. Yes. Q. Is not this fixed idea beyond his control? A. Yes. Q. If within his control, it is an indication of sanity? A. That he was trying to get better, he may have had intermissions in which he understood his condition. Q. It is subject to control, it is not a fixed idea; that 216 Louis Riel: Executed for Treason is what we have agreed upon as the leading characteristic, do you understand? A. I do not know what you are after. Q. If th\s idea is subject to control, then this man is sane? A. There may be intermissions when he can control himself, because then the insanity disappears. Q. And then there is a lucid interval? A. Yes. Q. During the period of the insanity the idea possesses the man and it is not controllable? A. No. Q. Is that the leading feature of the disease? A. Partly. Q. Do you know of any other? A. I am not an expert in insanity. Q. Can you give me any other leading feature of the disease ? A., I have no other feature to give. Q. That is the only one you can describe? A. I gave you the features and characteristics of the disease well enough. Q. I am going to keep you to that unless you want to enlarge upon it. I am going to build my theory upon that. You can enlarge it as much as you like now, but do not go back upon me afterwards. Is there any other leading feature of the disease? A. I have given you the principal characteristics of his disease. Q. I want to get the peculiar characteristic of this form of mania. A. They have intermissions sometimes for months and sometimes for days. The least contradiction excites them. Q. There is a class of healthy intermissions. Some times a man likes beer and sometimes whisky. I want to get the characteristics that distinguish him from a healthy man, not those that we have in common with the insane. A. We always answer reasonably, but when a man O 21/ Mounted Police Life in Canada comes and pretends to know everything, and talks non sense, we suspect that, to a certain extent, he has lost his reason. Q. We want to get at the leading characteristic. You have given us one feature. Is there only the one feature? If there are any other features say so. A. I won't give you any. Q. Will you stick to it? A. Yes. Q. Then what leading idea not subject to change by reason is it that you have fixed upon in the evidence yester day and to-day bringing you to the conclusion that he is of unsound mind? A. It is because of some symptoms. Q. Tell me the symptoms that bring you to the con clusion that this man is within the rule you have laid down. Tell me the facts that bring him within that rule? A. The facts are that he has always kept that characteristic. Q. Answer that question. Mr. FITZPATRICK: This witness has been speaking in English for some time past. If the witness does not under stand the questions properly he should answer the questions in French. Mr. OSLER: If the man wants to hide himself under the French he can do so. Q. You understand what I mean? A. Parle-moi Francois? Mr. OSLER : It will be for the jury to say whether he is making the change at his own suggestion or at that of the counsel on the other side. Q. Having given a rule to test this insanity, what fact is there disclosed in the evidence which leads you to say that the prisoner comes within the rule? A. That part of the evidence given by the clergy to-day shows in a positive manner that the prisoner has manifested symptoms that we meet with in megalomania. Q. That is no answer to my question. I want the fact 218 Louis Riel: Executed for Treason on which you bring the prisoner within the rule that you have laid down. A. I want to take the fact proved by the evidence. Q. Tell me the fact on which you rely. A. The prisoner gets his theory from the idea that he has a mission. Q. Do you understand that to be the fixed idea not controllable by reason? A. I believe so because reason has never so far succeeded in changing the idea that he has. Q. Is that the only reason you have for saying that the prisoner is insane? A. It is, and I believe it to be sufficient. Q. Is it consistent with labouring under an idea not controllable by reason that he would abandon that idea for $35,000? Mr. FITZPATRICK: I object to that. That has not been proved. HIS HONOUR: What is the question? Mr. OSLER: Is it consistent with a man having an idea not controllable by reason that he will abandon that idea for $35,000? Let that be a hypothetical question. Mr. FITZPATRICK: I object to the question. HIS HONO UR : He can put hypothetical questions. Mr. OSLER: My learned friend must know that the question is regular, and should not interfere at a critical part of the examination so as to give the witness a cue. Mr. FITZPATRICK: I did not have any such inten tion. We have the right to object, and intend to exercise that right. Mr. OSLER : You should not exercise it in such a way as to give the witness a cue. That is the second cue that you have given the witness. You gave him a cue in regard to speaking French. It would be unprofitable to follow Dr. Roy's evidence any further. He was hopelessly out of his depth, and his counsel had to do something desperate to save his face. 219 Mounted Police Life in Canada When, in order to evade answering a question, he told Mr. Osier that he was "not an expert in insanity," a good many people who heard him wondered what he was doing there at all. Mr. Osier finally dismissed him with a gesture of great contempt and in these words : " Well, doctor, if you will not answer the question in French or in English, I may as well let you go. You can go." He then turned his broad back upon him, and the doctor stepped blithely out of the box as if he were a hero. Father Vital Fourmond was another of the prisoner's witnesses brought from Prince Albert at the expense of the Crown. It was he who consulted the other Reverend Fathers as to whether Riel should be allowed to continue in his religious duties. He told Mr. Lemieux that Riel "had extraordinary ideas on the subject of the Trinity. The only God was God the Father, and God the Son was not God ; the Holy Ghost was not God either ; the second person of the Trinity was not God, and as a consequence of this the Virgin Mary was not the Mother of God, but the Mother of the Son of God. Instead of saying ' Hail, Mary, Mother of God,' he said, ' Hail, Mary, Mother of the Son of God.' He did not admit the doctrines of the Church, of the Divine Presence. As to his political ideas, he wanted first to go to Winnipeg and Lower Canada and the United States and even France. He said he will take your country even, and then he was to go to Italy and overthrow the Pope, and then he would choose another Pope of his own making." Mr. LEMIEUX: Have you made up your mind about the prisoner being insane as far as religious matters are concerned? FATHER F.: We were much embarrassed' at first, because sometimes he looked reasonable and sometimes he looked as a man whoi did not know what he was saying. Mr. LEMIEUX: Finally? 220 Louis Riel: Executed for Treason FATHER F.: We made up our minds there was no way to explain his conduct but that he was insane, other wise he would have to be too big a criminal. Father Fourmond gave this evidence on July 30 as a witness for the defence. He was somewhat less guarded on August 7 following, when he made an affidavit appealing for mercy on behalf of Philip Carnot, Maxime Lafime, Moise Ouilette, Pierre Parenteau, Emmanuel Champagne, and Philip Carnot, "All of whom I firmly believe (so the affidavit runs) were kept in the rebel camp through terror of their own lives and for fear of their families being punished should they attempt to escape." The following are extracts from the same affidavit : "To impress the people and keep them within his power this man, Riel, reverted to all kinds of trickery. Often have I seen him praying aloud, prostrating himself in prayer, and ordering all the others to do so. Then he made a deep im pression on his poor, • ignorant dupes, and so convinced them of his Divine mission that it was impossible to convince them that he was a trickster and would lead them to destruction. Riel so played on their ignorance that he made them believe in his power to work miracles ; they firmly believed this. I heard them say that Riel could make it thunder and could cure disease without medicines. Riel himself declared that he was once the victim of an incurable disease of the heart, but that on May 24 he had cured the disease by his Divine power. He also declared that if he should be killed it did not matter, he would be with them again alive, and that would prove to them his Divine mission. He cried : ' It is the Holy Ghost that speaks, who shall dare disbelieve me ? . . . Oh ! my poor people ! ' I could not restrain them, they were under the infatuation of this arch traitor and trickster till he got them committed by the effusion of blood. I heard him say and proclaim, ' Death, death, death to any one who tries to desert,' and many of the poor people had 221 Mounted Police Life in Canada guns pointed at their hearts by Riel's orders, because he suspected them of wishing to get away; and to complete his terrorism over the poor people he declared it to be his determination to put me (this deponent) in the front of the battle." This affidavit, of which I have quoted a very small part, is interesting as showing that a week's further re flection was sufficient to bring the Reverend Father to the conclusion that, after all, criminality, and not insanity, was the preponderating weight in the scale. The insanity plea was ridiculous from the first. What did a couple of partizan doctors, hurriedly im ported from the East, after one or two brief interviews, know about the prisoner and the state of his mind com pared with us who were in daily communication with him ? It was no uncommon thing for us to have lunatics in our charge, and very skilful and sympathetic treatment they used to receive at the hands of Dr. Jukes, the Senior Surgeon of the Force. He was in daily communication with Louis Riel in the discharge of his duties, and never had any reason to suspect him of insanity. Nor had I, nor had Sergeant Piggott (the provost in charge of the prison), and we had had the prisoner in custody for over two months. I was asked at the trial if I had ever seen anything to indicate that the prisoner was not of sound mind, and I replied, "Nothing whatever." Q. Anything to* indicate the contrary? A. Yes, I think so, he always gave me the impression of being very shrewd. As I left the witness-box to return to my place in court, I had to pass the dock, and as I did so Riel said to me, "Thank you, Captain," and he meant it. He particularly resented the imputation of insanity, and did not seem to realise that it was the one hope of 222 Louis Riel: Executed for Treason saving his life. I have no doubt in my own mind that if Father Fourmond had laid an information before a Justice of the Peace that Louis Riel was insane and dangerous to be at large, and had adduced in corrobora tion of his complaint some of the evidence which he embodied in his affidavit before mentioned, the accused man, would have been committed to one of our guard rooms for temporary detention pending inquiry and observation. This was not done, and as Father Four mond and his confreres held their peace, the outside world knew nothing of the prisoner's eccentricities as alleged. If the matter had ever been brought to the notice of the Mounted Police they would have been glad of an opportunity to remove this firebrand, and would have attended to it, but, in truth, insanity was never mentioned in connection with Riel's name until his counsel originated the idea at the trial. Mr. Fitzpatrick made a very long and very able address on behalf of his client, and at the close thereof the prisoner was informed by the Court that if he had any remarks to make to the jury then was the time to speak. This is a special privilege accorded by statute to a person charged with high treason, and before Riel opened his mouth, Mr. Lemieux told the Court that his counsel must not be considered responsible for any declaration he might make. Riel made a long, rambling speech, from which it is not an easy matter to make extracts. The following is, however, material to the question of sanity or otherwise : "To-day when I saw the glorious General Middleton bearing testimony that he thought I was not insane, and when Captain Deane proved that I am not insane, I felt that God was blessing me and blotting away from my name 223 Mounted Police Life in Canada the blot resting upon my reputation on account of having been in the lunatic asylum of my good friend Dr. Roy. I have been in an asylum, but I thank the lawyers for the Crown, who destroyed the testimony of my good friend Dr. Roy, because I have always believed that I was put in the asylum without reason. " Even if I was going to be sentenced by you, Gentlemen of the Jury, I have this satisfaction if I die — that if I die I will not be reputed by all men as insane, as a lunatic. A good deal has been said by the two Reverend Fathers, Andre and Fourmond. I cannot call them my friends, but they made no false testimony. I know that a long time ago they believed me more or less insane. . . . "As to religion, what is my belief? What is my insanity about that? My insanity, your Honour, Gentlemen of the Jury, is, that I wish to leave Rome aside, inasmuch as it is the cause of division between Catholics and Protestants. . . . The nineteenth century is to be treated in certain ways, and it is probably for that reason I have found the word Exovede. I prefer to be called ' one of the flock. ' I am no more than you are, I am simply one of the flock, equal to the rest. If it is any satisfaction to the doctors to know what kind of insanity I have, if they are going to call my pretensions insanity, I say humbly, through the grace of God, I believe I am the prophet of the New World." Mr. Robinson, closed the case for the Crown in a magnificent speech, and freely castigated the counsel of the other side who preceded him. I should explain here that we had in the barracks at that time some fifty half- breed and Indian prisoners, including Poundmaker, the Indian Chief, and these men were all awaiting trial for treason felony. Mr. Robinson said among other things : "It will not be necessary to go over the evidence in detail, for a reason we seldom find in cases of this kind. There is no contradiction, there is no dispute, there is not a 224 Louis Riel: Executed for Treason single witness whose word has been doubted, there is not a single fact proved on the part of the Crown which anybody has been called to contradict ; and it stands, therefore, as an admission, and an admission made by counsel for the defence, that the case as presented has been made out beyond all question. . . . "What my learned friends' addresses amounted to was practically this. They told you, in fact, that this rebellion was justifiable. My learned friend, Mr. Greenshields, told you that the men responsible for the blood that was shed were the people who had refused the petitions which the half-breeds made under the direction and guidance of the prisoner at the bar. In the next breath he told you that this rebellion was directed and carried on by an irresponsible lunatic. . . . "My learned friends must make their choice between their defences. They cannot claim for their client what is called a niche in the Temple of Fame and at the same time assert that he is entitled to a place in a lunatic asylum. . . . "What in reality is the defence which you, as sensible men, are asked to find by your verdict? You are asked to find that six or seven hundred men may get up an armed rebellion, with its consequent loss of life, its loss of property ; that murder and arson and pillage may be committed by that band of armed men, and we are to be told that they are all irresponsible lunatics. It is my duty to put these facts to you plainly and strongly, because it is our duty to protect society, and all that I can say is that, if such folly as finding this man insane is possible in this country, you say in effect to men who desire to come here to live that there is no sufficient protection by law for either life, property or liberty. "Are you prepared to say that? Because that is the single issue placed before you by counsel for the Crown ; disguise it as you like, speak of it as you like, that is the simple result and the plain consequence. . . . " My learned friend, Mr. Fitzpatrick, must have forgotten what is due to a prisoner when he charged those who were acting for the Crown with some warmth for not having called 225 Mounted Police Life in Canada Poundmaker to prove the receipt of that document. [N.B. — That is the letter signed by Riel, found in Poundmaker's camp.] " He was good enough at the same time to say that those who were conducting the case for the Crown were persons who understood fair play. It was because we did understand fair play, because it would have been improper to have called Poundmaker to swear to that that we did not call him. If we had attempted to put Poundmaker in the box to prove the receipt of this document we would have been asking Poundmaker to declare on his oath his own complicity in this rebellion, and Poundmaker would have said to us : "'I decline to answer your questions,' and any judge would have said to those who acted for the Crown, ' Gentle men, you had no> business to put a man in that position.' Now that is our answer on the part of the Crown to the charge that we did not call the prisoners to prove their own guilt out of their own mouths. . . . Those who are guilty of this rebellion, and those who have not a proper excuse, have taken the step upon their own heads, and they must suffer the punishment which the law from all time, and which the law for the last five centuries, has declared to be the punish ment of the crime of treason." The case was left to the jury in a very full charge, and the law, as regards the defence of insanity, clearly stated in a manner to which no exception was taken either at the trial or in the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba or before the Privy Council. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty, with a recommendation to mercy, and were discharged. The prisoner was asked if he had anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced upon him, and made a very long, rambling speech, after which he was sentenced to be executed at Regina on September 18. An appeal was taken to the Court of Appeal in Manitoba and also to the Privy Council, but the judgment was affirmed by both courts. 226 Louis Riel: Executed for Treason Riel, after his sentence, was not long in attending to his spiritual affairs, and was then received once more into the bosom of the Church. Before this could be done, however, he had to recant his errors, which he did in a long manuscript document, dated the 4th day of August, and of which a translation is as follows : "Renunciation made by Mr. Louis Riel, whose name is also ' David ' Riel, of all his errors in the presence of the Reverend Father Fourmond, Oblate of Mary Immaculate, his Father Confessor, the 4th day of August, 1885. "I, the undersigned Louis Riel, being in full possession of my faculties and of my free will, without any other motive than to ensure my eternal salvation, in reconciling myself with the God whom I have offended, and to amend the scandals which I have been so unhappy as to cause, do solemnly abjure all the errors which I have believed, pro fessed and taught contrary to the doctrine of the Holy Apostolic and Roman Church, beseeching her in the person of her charitable ministers to bestow upon me her holy absolu tion for all my crimes and iniquities, as I renounce my false mission of prophet, the prime cause of my errors and of all other backslidings. "I particularly abjure my sins against the most Holy and Adorable Trinity, against the Divine Motherhood of the August and Immaculate Mother of God, against the Most Holy and Adorable Eucharist, against the Eternal punish ment of Hell, against the infallibility of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome and of her visible Head, the Holy Father the Pope, against the authority and integrity of Divine Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures and of the Catholic tradition; against the Apostolic institution of the Sabbath Day. " I believe with all my heart, and with my mouth freely and fervently confess that there is one God in three Persons. Consubstantial and perfectly equal in all things, that is to say, that the Father is God, the Son is God like unto the Father, begotten by Him from all Eternity, Consubstantial 227 Mounted Police Life in Canada with His Almighty Father, Eternal, Infinitely perfect like unto Himself, who, when He, the Divine Son of God, abased Himself so as to make Himself like unto us, except as to sin, took our likeness upon Him in the womb of the Blessed and Immaculate Virgin Mary — ever a Virgin by the Operation of the Holy Spirit, and consequently Mother of the Person Who is God : Mother of God according to the Catholic Faith, solemnly confirmed at the (Ecumenical Council of Ephesus. I believe, therefore, that there are two natures in Jesus Christ our Lord, the Divine nature and the human nature, although He can only be one Person, the Person of the Son of God. He is perfect God and perfect Man, so that when He says that His Father is greater than Himself it is not the teaching of the Holy Catholic Church that He is not wholly Man and wholly God. I further believe that the Holy Ghost, the third Person of the Most Holy and Adorable Trinity, is God, like unto God the Father and the Son, pro ceeding from the Father and the Son, being One God with the Father and the Son. I believe in the Seven Sacraments of the Holy Church, and more particularly that an ordained priest only can hear the confession of Christians and give them Holy absolution ; that the Blessed Eucharist is a Sacra ment instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ in His abundant love for us, and that it contains in verity and truth His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, under the Holy species of bread and wine, living in that adorable Sacrament not only for this mortal and temporal life, but more for the glorious and eternal life, enjoying in His Body and in His Holy Spirit all the priceless treasures of His triumphant resurrection. "I believe in the infallibility of the Church and of Our Holy Father the Pope, speaking ex Cathedra and as the lawful successor of Saint Peter, in his supremacy over all other bishops of whom he is the One Visible Head on earth, as well as in his authority and jurisdiction over all priests and the faithful, believing that to him, as to Peter, it was said, ' Feed my sheep : feed my lambs. ' I believe in the eternity of the pains of Hell, that tjhey will forever endure 228 Louis Riel: Executed for Treason and never cease, Purgatory alone having temporal punish ment proportioned to trespasses against Divine Justice. I believe that the Holy Sabbath Day is at least an apostolic institution designed to replace the Sabbath of the ancient law, and that consequently the divine obligation to keep it holy is as binding upon us as was the obligation with regards to the ancient Jewish Sabbath, abolished by the new dispensation. "Most humbly I solicit pardon from the public at large, particularly from the venerable representatives of the Holy Catholic Church, from the representatives of the Civil Power and all my Christian brethren, for the scandalous offences which I have committed against God and His Ordinances, commending myself to the pity of all men, and particularly so to that of the Almighty God Whom I have set at naught. " (Signed) Louis Riel or Louis ' David' Riel." "(Witness) V. Fourmond, O.M.I." „ L. Cochin, O.M.I." Riel asked to see me one day, and handed me the document of which the foregoing purports to be a translation. So far as I recollect now, a recantation in the foregoing form had been presented to him by the priests for acceptance and signature, and he stipulated that he should be allowed to make a copy of it. This copy he then entrusted to me, asking me to keep it. Why, I do not know. He did not ask me to publish it, or I would not have received it, for it was not a time in the country's history when it would have been advisable tp add fuel to the fire. Having explained what the foregoing document was, he then handed me another paper, which was to be signed in my presence by the two priests, Fathers Fourmond and Cochin, and was to be witnessed by myself. This document also was to remain in my custody. A translation of it reads as follows : 229 Mounted Police Life in Canada "We, the undersigned, certify as witnesses the authen ticity of the answers made by Louis David Riel and of his recantation, and of the authenticity of the document of his renunciation ; and we declare ourselves responsible before God and man for the legitimacy of the questions which we have put to him and for the legitimacy of the recantation which we have required from him as ordained priests. "Regina Prison, 7 August, 1885. "(Sd.) V. Fourmond, O.M.I. "(Sd.) L. Cochin, O.M.I. "(Witness) R. Burton Deane, "Superintendent, N.W.M.P." He made a great point of my witnessing this docu ment, and I did so, although I did not want to be involved in any matter which might give possible offence to the priests. Similarly, I did not want to give offence to a moribund man, and accepted both papers from him accordingly. After a lapse of thirty years I presume there is no harm in publishing historical documents. I never discussed religious subjects with Riel. The only occasion on which he ventured to obtrude his pre tensions on me was on November 14, 1885, two days before his execution, and long after the recantation of his errors, when he sent me a note by the orderly officer, written by himself, which purports to be : "The Narration of a Vision as seen this evening, 14th November, 1885, by Louis ' David ' Riel, ' Prophet of the New World.' "Care of Mr. the Inspector Dowling." On the other side of a half-page of foolscap was written : "Capitaine R. B. Deane, "A little before half past eight o'clock this evening, as I had knelt down to make the way of the Cross, my eyes 230 Louis Riel: Executed for Treason being shut, while I was beginning to pray, and being turned toward the West, I saw before me at a distance of about twenty or twenty-five yards a man, dark complexion, black moustache. It struck me that it was the Honourable Hector Langevin. While I was considering his face his features changed and reminded me (sic) the decomposed features of late Sir George E. Cartier, and he disappeared. An instant after my mind was in doubt whether those features were not those of the Hon. Minister of Militia." The before-mentioned appeals to the Manitoba Court and the Privy Council had necessitated the postpone ment of the execution, and it was not until November 15 that the Commissioner of Dominion Police brought the death warrant from Ottawa. We had known, of course, that it was on the way, and arrangements had been made for the morning of November 16, at eight o'clock. Riel was informed by Sheriff Chapleau of the arrival of the warrant at about 9 p.m. on the 15th, and said in reply, " I am glad that at last I am to be released from suffer ing." The strain upon him during the previous three months had been tremendous, and he had become con stitutionally weaker, although his mental condition was unchanged. He was attended at the last by Fathers Andre" and McWilliams, and died with the courage of a man and a Christian, and it was not possible to doubt his sanity. He had asked that his body should be given to his friends, to be laid at rest in St. Boniface, the French cemetery across the Red River from Winnipeg, and we handed it over to a Mr. Bonneau, upon an order from the Lieutenant-Governor, for conveyance thither. While the coffin was thus awaiting transfer to Mr. Bonneau, it was kept in a corner of the prison yard, and, while there, report was made to me that a rumour was in circulation that after the dead man had been cut down from the scaffold, a brutal Mounted Policeman had, to 231 Mounted Police Life in Canada the accompaniment of a blasphemous oath, stamped his booted foot into the dead man's face as it lay on the ground. It seems now, as I write these words after the lapse of more than a quarter of a century, that it is almost incredible that such an improbable, senseless story should have obtained currency ; but it is to be borne in mind that race prejudices and passions were running high, that the neighbourhood was seething with excite ment, and that it was impossible to allow the body to pass out of our possession until the falsity of this report had been demonstrated beyond all question. Colonels Irvine and Macleod were both in barracks, as were Superintendent Gagnon and Dr. Jukes, and I took them all across to the prison yard and had the coffin opened. Gagnon was a native of Quebec, so it was very fortunate that he was able to be there. As was expected, there was no trace of any dis figurement of any kind. A few locks of hair had been taken from the brow, but this had not been done by any unsympathetic hand, and the lie that had found its way into circulation was killed in its infancy. If this had not been done we should never have heard the end of it. I will close the story of Louis Riel, so far as his life came into conjunction with mine, by reproducing a poem which he handed to me on July 13, 1885, and which I believe was his own composition : Jesus : Marie : Joseph : Sauvez-nous. Intercedez pour nous. Priez pour nous. Beni soit Dieu qui glorifie Le Rkgne de Victoria: C'est un Dieu que je me confie Puisque c'est lui qui me crda. 232 Louis Riel: Executed for Treason Dieu venielle que la Regne voie L' eclat des plus beaux cheveux blancs ; Et qu'elle avarice dans la joie Du plus gracieux de ses ans. Fasse Jdsus-Christ qu'elle atteigne Ce grand age qui n'est pas vieux, On la grace des ann6es rdgne Plus, en remontrant vers les cieux. Plaise a Jisus-Christ qu'elle vive Pour le mains encore vigt-ans : Que Sa Majeste soit active En bonne sante, tout le temps. Qu'elle aime, mais sans preference, Le peuple Canadian Franpais : Que toute la Nouvelle France Trouve aupres d'elle un libre acc6s. Sous son admirable couronne Sous son regne majestueux Puissant race Anglo-Saxonne Rendez, les Irlandais heureux. Que Jesus le Fils de Dieu mime Fasse etinceler sur les mers Et les terres, le disdeme. De la Reine, dans I'Univers. Au bureau du Commissionaire a Regina, 12 Juillet, 1885. Dedi£ a Monsieur Le Capitaine R. B. Deane. Complimentary for my being allowed to write in the Commissioner's Office. 233 CHAPTER XVII three trials for murder The Tucker Peach Murder (1910). The Benson Murder and Arson (1913). The Wilson Murder and Robbery (1914) The Tucker Peach Murder On June 29, 1910, a dead body was reported to have been found in the Bow River, not far from the Roman Catholic Industrial School at Durbow. A coroner was notified, and in company with a Mounted Police con stable from Okotoks, visited the spot on the following day. The body had been washed against the trunk of a fallen tree in the river; part of it, which was out of the water, was very much discoloured, and the whole of it was considerably decomposed. When brought to land there was found to be no head on the body ; a shirt and undershirt were all the clothing, and these gave no clue to the identity of the man who had come to so untimely an end. No one was known to be missing, and after a somewhat perfunctory examination the coroner issued his order for burial, and the remains were buried on the river bank by a couple of near-by settlers who volunteered to do the work. It happened that my wife and I were at this time on a month's holiday in British Columbia, and it was not until the month of November following that I first heard of the occurrence. In the course of that month a long-distance telephone message informed 234 The Tucker Peach Murder me that a skull had been found in the bed of the river, just under the tree where the body had been discovered, and that a hole in the forehead indicated foul play. Detective Sergeant Murison was sent to the spot; he found the skull as stated, and close to it, half buried in the sand, a blanket, cowhide and two pieces of rope. These were matted together and frozen solid, and it took a long time to thaw them out. The skull had a small, clean hole in the centre of the forehead, such a hole as could only have been made by a bullet, a piece of cotton batting in one of the ears, and a slight dent, apparently the mark of an old injury received during lifetime some years previously, which extended both ways across the forehead from the centre. Obviously the first thing to do was to find a name for the dead man, and to take that as a starting point for further inquiries. Gradually it transpired that one of the earliest settlers in that sparsely settled district, a man who had been settled there for upwards of a quarter of a century had, earlier in the year, disappeared in a mysterious sort of way, that is to say, he had gone away without saying "good-bye" to sundry neighbours, who were surprised at his omission to go and see them before he left. It was common talk that he had sold his place and his horses to a young fellow who had taken posses sion, but this unceremonious departure, without a word, rankled in the minds of the neighbours, because there was no reason for it, and they could not understand it. The absentee's name was A. C. Tucker Peach, but he was popularly known as "Old Tucker." A few neigh bours, those who knew him, said from the first that that skull, with its few iron-grey hairs, its missing teeth and general contour "looked like old Tucker." One witness subsequently deposed how the deceased man came by the wound on the forehead when a horse had kicked him in his own stable many years previously, and how 235 Mounted Police Life in Canada he had helped dress the wound. The same witness said, speaking of the iron-grey hair, "Many a time I've cut it ! " with the suspicion of a tear glimmering in his eye. The skull was sent to the Provincial bacteriologist at Edmonton for examination, and very masterly treatment it received at the hands of Dr. Revell. The body, which had been buried on the Bow River bank in June, was exhumed, but the cleansing and thawing of it for the examination took several days, and nothing was said about it at the inquest, which was opened on November 29, at Okotoks. Dr. Revell showed the coroner's jury how a bullet had entered the skull at the forehead, and after a somewhat eccentric course had emerged at the inside corner of the left eye. He told the same story to two other juries later on, and they all believed him. The inquest was called for November 29, 191 1, and on November 28 our position was this— we believed -that we had evidence enough to convince the jury that the body was Tucket Peach's, and that he had been murdered by a bullet wound in the head, but as to how or by whom the fatal shot had been fired we were in complete ignorance. We had not, however, been idle since the finding of the skull on November 12. We had been searching high and low for Tucker Peach and making inquiries as to his business relations with T. M. Robertson, the young man to whom he was alleged to have sold out. Robert son at that time was working as a brakesman on the Canadian Pacific Railway, between Calgary and Medicine Hat, and we found ourselves depending ex clusively on him for any intelligence whatever respecting his deal. Robertson had left word with the postmaster at Gladys to forward to his care, at his Calgary address, any mail that might arrive for Tucker Peach, and a report had in some manner become circulated that 236 The Tucker Peach Murder Tucker Peach had written to him from England, where is was known that he had a sister living. On being served with a summons to attend the in quest, Robertson told us that he had bought the Peach ranch of 160 acres for $26 per acre, half down, half pay able in twelve months. That after the deal was made Peach went to Carstairs, and from there to England, and that, in the month of September, Peach had written to him asking how he would be able to meet the remainder of the payment. Immediately on receipt of this report I sent a non commissioned officer to Carstairs, but no trace of the missing man could be found there. Robertson was interviewed as soon as he returned to Calgary from Medicine Hat, and told a slightly dif ferent story; he said now that he had paid $1,000 down by a cheque on the Bank of Montreal, Calgary, and that the transfer had been drawn up by Peach's lawyer. He said that he had received his money by means of a draft from P. Coa;ts & Co., and that Tucker Peach had written to him from Lancashire where his sister was living. The transfer he said he had left at Medi cine Hat, and he did not know the name of the lawyer who had drawn it. We ascertained without difficulty that his account of his monetary transactions was fictitious; but beyond that we had nothing to warrant our depriving him of his liberty, and my men had posi tive instructions to say nothing which might alarm him at all. Another report as to Peach's whereabouts, namely, that he was in Stettler, was investigated and found to be untrue. There was nothing for it but to wait and see what the inquest might bring forth. On the day before the inquest was due to be held, Robertson duly started by train for Okotoks (about thirty miles from Calgary), but instead of stopping there went on to Macleod, some eighty miles farther south. 237 Mounted Police Life in Canada Arriving at Macleod in the afternoon he went to a "sporting house," where he gradually became maudlin under the influence of liquor, and eventually said that he was escaping from the police, that he had stolen about $75,000 in Alaska, that the police were after him, and that he wanted to catch "the Spokane Flyer" that night. The woman of the house wrote a note to the officer commanding the Mounted Police at Macleod, and Robertson was gathered into the fold. At the guard-room, where he was searched, the summons to the inquest was found on his person, a coroner's warrant was applied for and issued, and Robertson was pre sented in custody at Okotoks next day. He was feeling very much the results of his potations of the previous day, and was in no condition to withstand the gruelling examination which he was called upon to undergo. In the witness-box he told a story different from any of his previous stories. He said now that he had bought two quarter sections from Tucker Peach, being 320 acres at $26 an acre, which price included the twenty horses on the place. This purchase money, to the ex tent of $5,000, had come to him by bank draft from Scotland to the Bank of Montreal at Calgary, where he cashed it for notes and gold. He did not remember the respective amounts of each, and so the silly story went on, until at last he was informed that the Bank of Montreal officials could, and would, be called to con tradict his statements in detail, and he was asked if he had any explanations to offer as to the conflict of evidence between himself and them. His answer to that was, "Well! I guess this is not the place to say it. I do not wish to say anything further." Inspector Duffus, the officer who was watching the case for the police, saw that the psychological moment had arrived — he obtained the coroner's permission to speak to the witness, asked the latter if he had anything 238 The Tucker Peach Murder he would like to say to him privately, and, on an affirmative gesture, took him to another part of the house. There, having given the prisoner the full caution enjoined by the Criminal Code in presence of witnesses, he wrote down Robertson's confession and asked him to sign it, which he did. The confession briefly set forth that on the morning of King Edward's funeral Robertson and one John Fisk had murdered Tucker Peach in his own shack, that they had wrapped the body in the dead man's blanket and cowhide, and, with his own wagon and horses had carried it into the middle of the stream. The jury, of course, brought in a verdict accordingly, and the question was how to arrest John Fisk before he could be warned by his sympathisers. It happened that he had recently bought a livery stable business in a new place called Carbon, about seventy-five miles from Calgary in a north-easterly direction. It was after 10 o'clock before I had heard and digested the reports made by the returning inquest party, and there was no time to lose. We had a detach ment at Carbon, but the wires were down, and we could not communicate with them — in addition to which there was the possibility that both men might be away from home on patrol, so there was only one thing to be done.Soon after midnight of November 29 the most power ful motor that I could hire in Calgary, containing two non-commissioned officers, crept quietly out of the city on its seventy-five miles run to Carbon. The men had positive orders to wait for the opening up of the stable in the morning and to take Fisk while he was engaged in his work, for he was well known to be a desperate man, who would not scruple to use firearms if he had a chance. The arrest was effected without difficulty, 239 Mounted Police Life in Canada and the motor discharged its passengers into barracks in Calgary by i p.m. of November 30. Thirteen hours at $5 per hour paid the motor-man's account. Now that the two perpetrators of the murder were secured there was obviously only one course to pursue in order to convict both men, namely, to use Robert son's evidence against Fisk and Robertson's confession against himself. Robertson never weakened in the stand that he had taken. On the contrary, he seemed to be anxious to tell all he knew. A great load seemed to have been lifted off his mind, and he never was dull or dispirited from first to last. He told the cross-examining counsel at Fisk's preliminary hearing that he was not afraid to meet his God, and even later, ten days before his execu tion was due to take place, before the news of his reprieve had been received, a fellow-prisoner remarked of him that he was cracking jokes and laughing, and did not seem to realise at all the terrible position in which he was standing. But I am anticipating. Only one person was allowed to talk to him, and that was the officer to whom he confessed at the time of the inquest. To him, after he had been a day or two in the guard-room, he, Robertson, made an amplified statement, and this revealed such an extraordinary state of affairs that I reproduce it as it was given. This was not used in Court, of course, and was intended for our guidance in hunting up corroborations of the story of an accomplice. As to the law on that very important point I had, many years ago, to wit, in the month "of November, 1889, clipped from the Weekly Times and pasted in one of my textbooks a little nugget of wisdom enunci ated by the President of the Parnell Commission on Wednesday, November 13, 1889. There had been a conversation between the President and Sir Henry 240 The Tucker Peach Murder James as to the principle of law governing the admis sion of an accomplice's evidence, and the President disposed of it in these words : "I rather regard it as a doctrine of expediency and prudence than a principle of law. Juries are strongly recommended not to act upon the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice, but it has never been a rule of law. I may add that the corroboration required is only of the surrounding circumstances so as to lead up to a general presumption as to the truth of the evidence. It would be an absurdity to say [the italics are mine] that no evidence of an accomplice can be received unless corroborated by other independent testimony, because then there would be no need of an accomplice's evidence." Robertson's confession was as follows : "The latter end of January, 1910, I was working at Bob Begg's, at the corner of the Bow and High Rivers. One day in February Jack Fisk drove down with a team and bob sleigh to Begg's place. Mrs. Begg, the two children and I were the only ones there; he sold her a washing machine and a couple of patent fasteners for horse-collars. This was the first time I met Jack Fisk. Two or three weeks after this old man Tucker came down to the river at Begg's for water. He said Jack Fisk's pigs disturbed the water at the top of the hill and he couldn't drink it. He took a barrel of water with him in his wagon. I rode the range for Begg for about a month looking after the cattle, and one day I rode over to Begg's gate at the N.E. corner of his place, where I met Jack Fisk chasing his milk cows into Begg's place. I had some conversation with him about some horses, and he told me that old man Tucker was getting after him about some horses, which he, Tucker, had lost. He said, ' I'm scared the old man will get me into trouble,' and as Tucker had no 241 Mounted Police Life in Canada friends and no relations and no one to take care of him, he thought it would be a good thing to get him out of the way. I said, ' If you have his horses the old man is right and you should get into trouble.' He then said to me, ' If you will help me to get Peach out of the way, you can have his land and I will take his horses as I want them.' I didn't say anything about this as I was scared ; he then threatened me and said, ' If you say anything about this I will put a shot into you.' I said nothing to anybody, and rode home to Begg's, and he went on rolling his fall wheat. I used to meet him nearly every morning after this when I was riding, and he would ask me what I thought about it, and if I had said anything to anyone. We discussed the thing on and off for about two months until the last Saturday in April ; I think it was Saturday when I came into town to see about my job on the Canadian Pacific Railway and stayed at the ' King Edward ' while in Calgary. Begg was in town and stopped at the ' Dominion.' The two of us went home on Monday — this would be the beginning of May. That afternoon the team I was working got up in a bunch and got away from me. Mrs. Begg sent me up to the top to look for them. While I was up on the hill I met Fisk, and he began talking about getting rid of old Peach, and said that if I helped I could have the land and he would take the horses. He was to take them at any time he wanted them. "I then agreed to help him. "Two weeks after this I went into Calgary and started working on the Canadian Pacific Railway as brakesman. I made a couple of trips and went out to Fisk's place the following Wednesday. Before going out to Fisk's I hired a rig from Frank Pashak, who runs a store at De Winton, and told him that I was going to drive to Tucker Peach's.242 The Tucker Peach Murder "When I got to Fisk's place he sent me to Tucker's shack, about 300 or 400 yards away. This was Thurs day afternoon. I helped Peach to clean his grain that afternoon, and talked to him about selling his place and horses. He made a memorandum on a sheet of paper which is now in Medicine Hat in my box. The memor andum showed what he wanted for the horses, land, etc. I went back to Fisk's that night and slept there. Fisk and I agreed that night we would kill Tucker Peach the next morning. He was to fire the first shot and I was to fire the second. He wanted me to fire the first, but I wouldn't. "The next morning, Friday, the day of King Edward's funeral, about 6 o'clock, Fisk and I went to Peach's shack and tried to look into the window. We couldn't see anything as it was covered over with a tent." [Note. — The old man had an instinctive dread of Fisk, and on that account always fastened his door and covered his window. He would not have opened his door to Fisk.] "I knocked at his door, and the old man called, ' Who is there ? " I said I was there, telling him my name. He opened the door. He had his drawers and shirt on. He sat down on his bed, which was on the floor, and started to put on his trousers. Fisk then fired a shot at Peach with a revolver. Blood started to trickle down his face and he fell back. Fisk handed the revolver to me and told me to do the same. I took the revolver, pointed it at Peach, and fired. I don't know whether I hit him or not, I was so excited — but I guess I did. Peach never spoke. He was dead after the shot. We both came out of the shack and looked round to see if anyone was there, but there was no one in sight. We then hitched up Tucker's team and drove up to the door, rolled the body in some blankets, and 243 Mounted Police Life in Canada drove it down to the Bow River at Tucker's lower place. We drove into the river along the west fence, on the west side of his property, and dumped the body into it. The blankets and cow-skin which we rolled him in were tied round him. The river at this point runs east. From what I heard the body was found about a quarter of a mile from where we dumped it. After this I came into town, having stayed at the Durbow School on Saturday night. I told some of them there that I had bought the place. The team I took in were Peach's. I sold them to the Alberta barn for $200, and put the money in the savings bank of the Bank of Montreal. I was to give Fisk any money he needed. I gave him two payments — one was $50 and one $30. The amounts show in my pass book. I went back to the ranch in about two weeks. I saw Ernest Adams then, and he told me that Fisk had been looking after the horses and that four two-year-old horses were missing. Adams said he thought Fisk had stolen them. I didn't say anything. Shortly after this the body was found. Fisk, I think, was living on his place at the time, but shortly after this left for Carbon. Shortly before the body was found I brought one of Peach's horses into town and traded it for one belonging to Mr. Gilmour, the plumber of 827 5th Ave., West Calgary. I sold the horses I got from him to a grocer, who has a store east of the Post Office, for $18. I gave him a bill of sale. I sold a stud about two weeks ago. My cousin sold it for me. My cousin is E. Davis and is looking after the place for me. He knows nothing about this affair. Fisk threw the revolver we shot Peach with into the middle of the river. "Sd. Thomas M. Robertson." With these details to guide us, our next task was, of course, to verify the story. We tried, first, to find the 244 The Tucker Peach Murder revolver in the river. I sent Robertson with Inspector Duffus and others in a motor to the spot. The days were short, the distance from Calgary was about twenty- five miles, and nothing but a motor could cover the ground in the hours of daylight. Slush ice was found to be running down the river. The water was very cold and up to a man's middle. It transpired that Robertson could not tell within a hundred yards where the pistol had been thrown in, and the party returned without having accomplished anything in the way of corroboration. The headless trunk was at this time lying at an undertaker's place in Okotoks, and was in process of being cleaned and thawed out. When it was ready ,Dr. Revell's services were again called in. He spent several hours with the evil-smelling corpse, and the thoroughness of his examination was manifested when he found the bullet which Robertson had fired tucked away under the skin just over the eighth rib on the left side. In the shirts that were on the body when found there were holes corresponding to the situation of the bullet. Adhering to the 32-calibre bullet were some minute particles of the underclothing through which it had passed, together with a single red fibre from the blanket, where it had passed through a stripe. The indications were that the bullet had struck the floor and glanced upwards. Robertson had said that his hand was very shaky. In the floor of the shack, close under the bed, which consisted of nothing more than a few gunny sacks filled with hay, we found an indenta tion made by the bullet in its course. The corrobora tion of Robertson's story, therefore, in that particular was complete. We had once before examined this shack in a search for the dead man's money. He was known to have a sum variously estimated at from $1,200 to $1,500, but nobody knew where he kept it. 245 Mounted Police Life in Canada He would not entrust it to a bank, and we were able to place in the witness-box only one man who had ever seen him with a large sum of money in his hand. When we first entered the shack we found that it had been thoroughly ransacked and the money evidently found and carried off. We were utterly unable to place before Fisk's jury any evidence to connect him with the miss ing currency, but in April, 191 1, after Fisk's conviction, the one man who could have supplied the missing link permitted himself to talk to a neighbour, and I soon heard of it. It happened that he met Fisk at a little place called De Winton, and had supper with him at the "Minto House" hotel. He saw Fisk pay for a twenty-five-cent supper with a ten-dollar bill, drawn from a large roll of bills which he had in his hand. He was surprised to see so much money as Fisk was notoriously impecunious. This incident is a fair sample of the difficulty we experienced in collecting evidence. John Fisk seemed to have terrorised the entire neighbourhood. It was no uncommon thing to hear a witness say, "If Fisk gets off I shall have to quit the country." It was some weeks before I could obtain corrobora tion of Robertson's story as to the conveying of the body to the river, but it presently transpired that a settler named Robert Jones, who lived between Tucker Peach and the river, was working at a fence on his quarter section with an Indian boy when the funeral cortege passed down the trail. Both he and the boy recognised the Tucker Peach team and wagon, saw John Fisk in a khaki-coloured shirt sitting on the front seat with the reins in his hand, and a person, whom they took to be Robertson, at the rear end of the wagon- box. A bitter controversy raged over this testimony when, at length, it was given, and desperate attempts were 246 The Tucker Peach Murder made to discredit it. One witness went the length of swearing that on a particular Sunday after church ser vice he had had a conversation with Robert Jones, who had told him that he had not seen the team and wagon on the road to the river. This evidence was offset by a constable of the Mounted Police, who deposed that on the Sunday in question he spent the forenoon with Robert Jones and that Jones did not go to church at all that day. It came out later, after Fisk had been hanged, that another settler and his daughter had also seen the team and wagon as described by Jones and the Indian boy, but refrained from saying a word about it for fear of Fisk's vengeance in case of his acquittal. Both father and daughter had given valuable testimony but sup^ pressed this important item. After sentence of death had been carried out, as I have said, the father met a juryman at High River, and said: "Your conscience may be quite clear about the verdict you gave : John Fisk was guilty all right." He then intimated, in a round-about way, affected by the denizens of the Western States, that he and his daughter had seen the outfit and that what Jones and the boy had said was true. Robertson was mistaken in telling us that the murder was committed on the day of the late King's funeral. It doubtless would have taken place on that day but for the circumstance that, when Fisk looked round in the morning, he saw Ernest Adams, Tucker Peach's nearest neighbour, moving about on a hill between their two houses, which commanded a view of Peach's shack, and his attention would possibly have been attracted by any shots fired then. Robertson went to visit Tucker Peach that after noon, at Fisk's suggestion, and found him fanning some barley which he had contracted to sell for seed, 247 Mounted Police Life in Canada and to fan which the old man had borrowed Adams's fanning mill. Robertson's evidence was to the effect that, after the barley had been cleaned, he helped Peach to load the mill on to his wagon, and he, Peach, returned the mill to its owner at about supper-time. Adams, on the other hand, deposed that his mill was returned to him by Peach at dinner-time, midday. He said he couldn't be mistaken because he asked Tucker to stay to dinner on that occasion, but the old man declined. Fisk was being defended by the most eminent criminal lawyer and K.C. in the Province of Alberta, and he was not slow to make the most of this conflict of evidence. Robertson was in the witness-box for two whole days, and the learned counsel in effect said to him: "You have admitted spending with Tucker Peach his last afternoon on earth — you killed the old man then and now try to lay the blame on John Fisk." Herein, to my mind, lay the one chance that Fisk ever had of provoking a disagreement of the jury, and if his counsel had stopped there a "reasonable doubt" might have been raised, particularly as we were unable to show the money motive on Fisk's part. But the difficulty settled itself. Lord Brampton in his memoirs gives an interesting instance of a counsel who did not know when to stop cross-examining, and in consequence lost his case. There was something of the same sort here. Cross-examination, prolonged usque ad nauseam, presently elicited the fact that, in the course of the fanning operations, a man with a team and wagon arrived to fetch the seed barley for the purchaser, and took it away. He had to wait until the work was finished, and his evidence was conclusive proof that Robertson was right, and that Adams was wrong in saying that the mill had been returned to him by mid- 248 The Tucker Peach Murder day. This, too, disposed of the suggestion that the murder was committed by Robertson that afternoon. This evidence was all news to me. Nobody knew the name of the purchaser of the barley, and we were only able to secure his attendance at the last minute before the trial closed. From him we learnt the name of the hired man who had fetched the barley, and after extensive search, found him near Montreal. He arrived just in time to give his evidence against Robertson, and deposed that the dead man had told him that he was in process of selling out to Robertson. The trial of John Fisk began on February 21, 191 1, and lasted ten days, forty-one witnesses being examined for the prosecution. The jury brought in a verdict of "Guilty," with a recommendation to mercy. This was to salve the susceptibilities of one of their number who was not in favour of capital punishment, and who required that concession. It had no effect whatever at Ottawa so far as mitiga tion of the penalty was concerned, and John Fisk was executed in the guard-room yard at Calgary on June 27, 1911. A Western politician once remarked in my hearing that he admired the Mounted Police, not so much for what they did, but for what they prevented. I wonder under which category such cases as this would come I Robertson's trial began on May 16, and continued four days. Forty-three witnesses were examined for the Crown and six for the defence. The jury appended a "strong recommendation to mercy" to their verdict of guilty, and the death sentence was in due course commuted to life imprisonment. There is no ground for any such supposition, but one might very readily believe that Robertson was acting under hypnotic suggestion. Q 249 Mounted Police Life in Canada Sir Allan Aylesworth, the Minister of Justice, re marked to the Comptroller of the Mounted Police that these murder trials were the best worked up cases that had ever come under his notice. The Benson Murder and Arson The following extract from a newspaper published in the State of Missouri, U.S.A., tells so concisely and accurately the story of a brutal murder committed on the confines of my district in May, 1913, that I reproduce the item intact. The Alberta coroner's explanation, as given to us afterwards, of his reason for not having had a post mortem examination made, was that there was no doctor within fifty miles, that an adjournment of the inquest for the necessary three or four days would have caused great inconvenience to everyone concerned, including the widow, and that, so far as he and his jury were able to judge, there was no necessity for incurring the expense of the professional services and of the delay. From the Kansas City Star, Sunday, December 21, 1913. "JUSTICE AT QUICK STEP. "The Story of the Swift Moving Court of Canada and a Missourian Who Will be Hanged. "A man from Missouri was sentenced last week to be hanged in Canada. "The manner in which the Canadian Government prosecuted the case, the sure-fire way in which the murderer was brought to justice without technicalities to befog the issue, the directness and speed of it, are lessons the court of this country might take with profit. "The ten witnesses who were taken by the Canadian 250 The Benson Murder and Arson Government from Missouri to Calgary, Canada, to testify against the murderer, at a total cost of $3,000 to that Government, have returned. They are loud in their praise of the sureness and swiftness with which the sword of justice is swung up there, compared with the leisurely manner in which it is wielded here. "One of those witnesses was M. E. Feltis, Sheriff of Caldwell County, Missouri. " ' The courts of Canada waste no time in technicali ties, dilatory tactics, nor meaningless legal phrases,' he said. ' It would be a good thing if our courts would copy them in some things.' "The Crime "Last April, John P. Benson, a lawyer, of Braymer, Mo., and William Jaspar Collins, a young ne'er-do-well, of the same town, went to Canada to take up land claims. Benson had $3,500. Collins had no money, and Ben son paid all of his expenses for the trip to Canada and for filing on the homestead. "Benson built a small frame house and barn on his claim, which was in the country, 150 miles from Cal gary, and Collins lived with him. Benson sent for his wife and young son to come, but before they reached Calgary she got word from Collins that her husband had been burned to death in a fire which started from an exploding oil stove. She went on to the claim, where the body of her husband, the face disfigured with burns, awaited her. "The coroner in that district held an inquest, and as the indications were that Benson Had been burned to death, the verdict was to that effect. Mrs. Benson, her son, and Collins returned to Braymer, Mo., with the body, Mrs. Benson loaning Collins the money to pay his fare. None of the money which Benson had when 251 Mounted Police Life in Canada he died was recovered, and the supposition was that it had been destroyed in the fire, which burned the greater part of his clothing. "With $1,800 in His Pocket "Soon after the funeral in Braymer, Collins began spending money freely, and this excited suspicion. The Masonic Lodge in Braymer, of which Benson was a member, engaged a detective from the Pinkerton agency in Kansas City, and he went to Braymer last August and exhumed the body of Benson. The Pinkerton detective made it appear that he was working in the interest of an insurance company that wished to make sure that it was Benson's body before it would pay the policy it had on his life. This was to quiet any suspicion Collins might have. "The body was identified by J. A. Neville, a dentist, who had put some bridgework in Benson's mouth. An examination disclosed that one side of the skull was crushed in as if with the blow of a club, and a revolver bullet had entered the breast and pierced the heart. "Collins was arrested, and in his pocket was found $1,800, consisting of ninety $20 bills, all new, and all of consecutive numbers, issued by the First National Bank of Braymer. The bank officials said they had paid those bills to Benson just before he departed for Canada. In the pockets of Collins were also found a bunch of keys and a knife that had been owned by Benson. "Collins made a full written confession, telling how he first stunned Benson with a blow on the head and then shot him, robbed him, and poured oil on his body and set it on fire. "The Canadian authorities were notified, and within a few days the Canadian Government in Ottawa sent to President Wilson in Washington a request for the extradition of Collins. 252 The Benson Murder and Arson " A Document Without ' To-wits ' " If this had been an official request from this Govern ment to Canada for the extradition .of a person charged with murder it would have been a formal and lengthy document, full of antiquated verbiage and numerous ' whereases ' and ' to-wits ' and ' as aforesaid.' But the request of the Canadian Government was couched in fewer than fifty words. It stated simply that on May i, 1913, William Jaspar Collins had murdered John T. Benson in the Province of Alberta, Canada, and that Collins had taken refuge in the United States, and was in jail in Caldwell County, Missouri, and the Canadian Government requested this Government to deliver him to the Canadian authorities at Portal, on the national boundary in Manitoba. "President Wilson put his ' 0»K.' on the brief document, and gave it to W- J. Bryan, Secretary of State. He O.K.'s it and sent it to Governor Major, who sent it to the Sheriff of Caldwell County. "Then began delays. A hearing must be had to determine if Collins should go. That was held in Chilli- cothe, Collins fighting against extradition and repudi ating the confession he had made. But in due time, having exhausted every legal cudgel for the prevention of his extradition, the court said Collins must go to Canada for trial. " Meanwhile the authorities in Alberta had their plans all set for a speedy trial once they should get Collins in custody. They sent enough money to Sheriff Feltis for him to bring to the Canadian border Collins, Neville, the dentist; E. H. Michaels, the undertaker; James Burnett, a constable; William H. Pye, a merchant; Dr. H. A. Schroeder, Dr. Gus S. Dowell, Louis W. Reed, prosecuting attorney of Caldwell County; the widow of Benson, and the Pinkerton detective, all to be 253 Mounted Police Life in Canada used as witnesses against Collins. They promised to pay all their expenses from the time they left home until they returned and, to see that Collins had fair play, they paid all the expenses of his brother from Caldwell County to Calgary and back home again. The total cost was $3,500. "The party was met at the international boundary by the Canadian officials, and went straight to Calgary, where it was met by a party of witnesses from the scene of the crime, who had come 150 miles. "A Preliminary 'Next Day.' "The day after arrival in Calgary, a preliminary hearing was given Collins in the barracks of the Mounted Police. The Government appointed an able lawyer to defend him, but how different from the Ameri can method ; there were no motions for continuances, nor changes of venue, nor any other dilatory tactics what ever. Within twenty-four hours after his arrival in Calgary, Collins was given a hearing and held for trial. "Only one day intervened between the preliminary hearing and the beginning of the trial, which was held in the supreme court room in Calgary, before Chief Justice Harvey, with James Short as prosecutor for the Crown. "In any American Court a day or two, at least, would have been consumed in getting a jury, and in many cases, in murder trials in Missouri, weeks and even months have been spent at this. It took just twenty minutes to select a jury to try Collins. In America a jury of twelve men try a man for murder. In Canada a jury of six does it. "A Jury in a Hurry "There was no quibbling; no man was asked if he had ' conscientious scruples against concurring in a 254 The Benson Murder and Arson verdict of guilty if that verdict might mean the infliction of the death penalty.' All the long and complicated questions asked jurors in this country were omitted. Twelve men were called from the venire and were sworn, the State struck off three names, the defence struck off three, the remaining six were sworn to try the case fairly and return a verdict according to the law and evidence ; all done in twenty minutes, and the trial began at once. It lasted two days. There was not a quibble nor a trick nor a subterfuge in the whole of it. Only one objection was made by the defence throughout the trial, and that was to the introduction of the confession made by Collins. His lawyer rose to object to it and was stopped by the Judge, who raised his hand in warning, and said : " ' There is no use wasting time in arguing that point. The Court decides that the confession was given voluntarily by the defendant, without the use of threats or promise or hope of reward or clemency. It will be introduced in evidence.' "And He Will be Hanged ' That Day ' "The different witnesses told their stories. Collins declined to testify in his own defence. There was no witness nor evidence for the defence. The arguments were made very briefly. The jury retired, and within ten minutes returned with a verdict of guilty, and the judge, without leaving the bench, sentenced Collins to be hanged on February 17. "And he will be hanged that day. His lawyer will appeal and it will be passed on at once. No delay of two or three years, as in this country, and no hope of reversal. "February 17 Collins will be hanged in an enclosure in the barracks of the Mounted Police, and his body will be buried there in an unmarked grave, for it is a rule 255 Mounted Police Life in Canada there that the body of a person hanged for murder cannot be claimed by relatives nor others. "The party of Missourians who assisted the Canadian authorities in the enforcement of Canadian law was given a banquet before they returned, and Sheriff Feltis, of Caldwell County, was told that if he would come back to Calgary to see Collins hanged all his expenses would be paid by Canada." The fifty-word communication alluded to in the fore going was a night lettergram, sent at my instigation by the Attorney-General's Department to the Secretary of State at Ottawa, asking him to expedite proceedings, and the result as described followed. The Wilson Murder and Robbery John Wilson was chief clerk of the Canada Cement Company, which had its works at Exshaw, on the line of the Canadian Pacific, about forty miles west of Cal gary. The Company used, in the month of May, 1914, to pay their men every fortnight, and the money for this purpose was transmitted by the Bank of Montreal in Calgary, by means of the Dominion Express Company, to the Cement Company at Exshaw. It was part of the duty of the chief clerk in question, on receiving notification from the Express Company that the necessary currency for paying the wages had arrived at their office, to go to that office and receive the package of money. On May 22, 1914, the package consisted of a small sack, at the bottom of which was the silver, while the bills were on top. It had been the custom for about twelve months pre ceding this date for one of the other officials of the company to go with the chief clerk to fetch the money, 256 The Wilson Murder and Robbery and on this occasion a young man named James Gordon went with Wilson. The Company had provided an automatic pistol for the use of the chief clerk on these occasions, and he was in the habit of letting his assistant carry the money and of walking a pace or so behind as an armed escort. This little procession was within about twenty yards of the railway gate giving egress from that Company's premises when it was met by three men, who had just come in from the outside. These were Russians, whose names were Max Manelek, Afancy Sokoloff and Serkey Konuch, alias "Joe Smith." Without a word being said, "Joe Smith " walked up to young Gordon, presented a revolver at his head with his right hand, and with his left grabbed the bag of money which the boy was carrying in his right hand, and ran off. In his surprise and dismay, Gordon called out to Wilson to the effect that the money was gone, and almost simultaneously heard two shots fired behind him. Wilson fell dead. Someone, probably Sokoloff, came up behind Gordon and felt his pockets, and then Sokoloff and Manelek followed "Joe Smith" into the bushes fringing the Bow River. Sokoloff, before going, took Wilson's pistol out of his pocket and carried it off. Wilson was killed by a bullet which entered his body at the fleshy part of his left arm, passed through both lungs, and was found between the under and outer shirts on his right arm. The pistols carried by Sokoloff and "Joe Smith" were automatic Lugers — wicked- looking weapons, sighted up to 2,000 yards. It happened that there was no Mounted Police de tachment at Exshaw, and so pursuit of these ruffians devolved on the men on the spot. Within fifteen to twenty minutes of the occurrence a force of six men 257 Mounted Police Life in Canada started after the murderers, crossing the river on a raft as their quarry had done. On the other side this party split up, and Ingram Dobson, carrying a shot gun, and William Murby, carrying a rifle, came upon fresh foot marks, which they followed. Dobson saw one of the fugitives hiding behind a stump, and promptly emptied his gun into his stomach, while Murby covered him with his rifle and ordered him to throw up his hands, which he did without loss of time. This man turned out to be Max Manelek, the only one of the three who was not armed. His captors took him into custody and handed him over to the police. They had certainly earned the reward of $200 offered for the capture of each of the three murderers. Within half an hour of the receipt of the telegram reporting the murder some constables were dispatched in a motor to Exshaw, upon which point the three neighbouring detachments at Canmore, Morley and Banff were also ordered to converge. "Joe Smith " and Sokoloff managed to get away from their pursuers, and the next we heard of the former was shortly after mid night on May 23. A freight train had pulled into a place called Cochrane, where a Mounted Police constable was stationed, and he, with the assistance of the railway police, organised a thorough search thereof. " Joe Smith" was found in a car loaded with timber, and after a desperate struggle, was arrested by Constable Watts and two of the railway police. It was a fortunate thing that the safety catch of his Luger revolver had become jammed in some way, so that he was unable to use it, or somebody would have been hurt. On his person was found the stolen money, $2,340.20 — the silver in one of his pockets and the bills, together with the Bank of Montreal pay slip, in the bag inside his shirt. This aroused queries as to what had become of his companion, for it seemed incredible that he should 258 The Wilson Murder and Robbery have allowed "Joe Smith " to carry off all the plunder. I was so much of opinion that the third man had been disposed of that I circulated the offer of a reward of $200 for Sokoloff's body, dead or alive, but nothing came of it. The Calgary City Police Force had on its staff at that time a detective named Ernest Schoeppe, who, in addition to fluent English, could speak German, Polish, Slavish, Bohemian, Russian, Ruthenian and another Slavonic language. He was thus a most desirable accessory to a police force having to do business in such a cosmopolitan city as Calgary had become. He managed to obtain, from a Russian, information that Sokoloff was hiding in a northern suburb of Calgary, and on June 2 the Chief Constable went thither with a strong squad of his men. The hiding-place turned out to be an empty grocery store, which had a small cellar, and in this the fugitive proved to be. As he would not respond to polite invitations to come out, the Chief sent for the fire brigade, and shortly had two streams of water pouring into it. After a while a knocking was heard, and a voice in Russian said, " I come out ; I give up." Sokoloff passed up his pistol and cartridges first and then came up himself. Schoeppe's next move was to obtain from his in formant John Wilson's pistol, which Sokoloff had taken from the dead man's pocket. He had been trying to sell this to the man who gave information of his where abouts to the detective. The three prisoners were tried together on June 16 and 17, and the jury, after forty-five minutes' consulta tion, found them all guilty, with a recommendation to mercy in the case of Manelek. They were sentenced to be hanged in the Mounted Police guard-room at Macleod on August 26 following, and were sent thither next day. 259 Mounted Police Life in Canada After sentence was pronounced, Sokoloff asked Schoeppe to go and see him, as he had something of interest to tell him, and in order to explain what followed, it is necessary to go back a little. The man who gave the information as to Sokoloff's whereabouts was a Russian named Fred Erenenko. He was a witness at the trial of the murderers, and told how Sokoloff had admitted to him that he had shot Wilson, and that he had tried to raise money on Wilson's pistol. He admitted having been intimate with Sokoloff and "Joe Smith," and the trend of his cross-examination went to show that he had been more or less the prime mover of a gang of ruffians, of whom Sokoloff and Smith were the principal tools. Erenenko was asked by the prisoners' counsel, " Why did you give Sokoloff away ? " and he replied, after a moment's reflection, " I had to." At all events, as I have said, Sokoloff sent for Schoeppe and told him that Erenenko had tried to persuade him to kill Schoeppe on the ground that he was the only man in the country that he had to fear. He made several suggestions as to how this should be done, but Sokoloff either thought that the proposed methods were too risky or did not want to hurt Schoeppe. One plan that Erenenko proposed was that they should visit Schoeppe at his home and kill him with some blunt instrument. They should visit the house a few times so as to become thoroughly acquainted with the plan of it, and Schoeppe then remembered that Erenenko had gone to him on two or three occa sions in the previous winter with some papers which he professed himself unable to understand. Schoeppe refused to receive the reward payable for Sokoloff's arrest, and said he had promised to have it paid to Erenenko. In connection with this matter I received from the Attorney-General's Department the following letter : 260 The Wilson Murder and Robbery Copy of letter received 27/5/14. Department of Attorney-General, Edmonton, May 26, 1914. Superintendent Deane, Royal North-West Mounted Police, Calgary, Alberta. Sir, — I beg to convey to you the appreciation of this Department for the very efficient manner in which you have conducted the Wilson murder case. The Attorney-General is home, and is much pleased with the result of your work. I trust that you will be able to capture the third man. I am writing Mr. Short, the Attorney-General's agent at Cal gary, to arrange for trial of prisoners as soon as possible, as I deem this is a case in which justice should be meted out speedily. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient servant, (Signed) John D. Hunt, Acting Deputy Attorney-General. I replied that we could not have done what we had done but for the valuable assistance received from the Canadian Pacific Railway Police and the City Police of Calgary, both of whom helped us to watch all avenues of escape. Mr. Deputy Attorney said he would write a letter of thanks to each of the Departments in question. The Judge in summing up gave due credit to everybody concerned. 261 CHAPTER XVIII incidents of mounted police life a drowning fatality A very sad accident occurred in June, 1889, whereby a promising young constable named Albert Perry lost his life. He was one of a small detachment of a corporal and three mounted men who were camped on the right bank of the Little Bow River where it runs into the Belly River on the west side thereof. This detachment had been placed there in the spring of 1889, and was intended to furnish protection to a large number of cattle, which ranged over a great tract of land, much of it affording excellent feed, in a locality where settlers were very few and far between. The few settlers that were in that neighbourhood were much afraid of the Indians, whose main fault was their insatiable curiosity. Men, women and children were all curious to see the inside of a white man's house, and to that end would prowl about the premises, peer in at the windows and eventually try the doors. If the doors would open the entire outfit would probably walk in, sit on the floor, and wait to be asked if they had an appetite. We had already had an hysterical complaint from the C.Y. Ranche, where there were men enough to stand off a few inquisitive Indians, but it devolved upon us to send a patrol, which tore down the visitors' tents and ordered them back to their Reserve. There was always the possible making of trouble in 262 Incidents of Mounted Police Life a proposition of that kind, for the Indians were under no obligation to confine themselves to their Reserves— their treaties with the Government made no provision of that kind, and it is a certainty that they would not have signed them if they had. As it happened, our "bluff" was never "called" by the Indians, who invariably did as we wanted them to do. The owners of the large number of cattle that ranged in the Little Bow country were naturally apprehensive that a body of Indians travelling at large would not hesitate to kill cattle if they happened to run out of grub. This was the raison d'etre of the Mounted Police camp on the Little Bow, which was situated at a distance of about twenty miles from Lethbridge in a direct line. But Lethbridge is on the east side of the Belly River, which it was thus necessary to cross. All mountain streams are very dangerous to cross during the spring freshets, and strong teams of horses or oxen with wagons have been known to be carried off their feet and swept away by the rush of water. There was a ferry across the river at Lethbridge at the time of which I speak, and by that route the distance to the Little Bow Camp was about thirty-five miles. This increase in the distance was caused by a large coulee which struck westward from the river, and round which it was necessary to make a detour. Opposite the mouth of the Little Bow there was a ford across the Belly River. The ford was freely avail able in low water, but not in the month of June when, owing to the melting of the mountain snows, the river was running like a torrent. It was the custom of all detachments to render weekly reports to Divisional Head-quarters, and Constable Perry had been sent to Lethbridge with his detachment's 263 Mounted Police Life in Canada returns, etc., and had been instructed that the Belly River could not be forded, and that he must travel by the long route. He delivered his reports, etc., at Leth bridge and, in the ordinary course of routine, left barracks one morning to rejoin his detachment. Three or four days later a man rode in to ask what had become of Perry, as he had not returned to camp. We began to make inquiries. The ferryman told us that he had taken him across in the morning, but had recrossed him in the evening, as the boy had come back and had said that he had lost his way. He announced his in tention of taking the shorter cut in the morning, but the ferryman warned him against trying to ford or swim the river, and advised him to go to barracks and tell his troubles. Poor Perry was afraid of the inevitable "chaff" as to being a "tenderfoot," which would make his life a burden in the barrack room, and disregarded the ferryman's advice. He took the trail instead to a small settlement known as the "Eight Mile Lake," about eight miles east of Lethbridge, and there asked a rancher to put him up for the night. No rancher in those days ever refused such a request as that, but when he heard of the young man's predicament, he earnestly remonstrated with him as to attempting to cross the Belly River in flood. Re monstrances had no effect, and Perry started out in the morning after breakfast on his foolhardy errand, and that was the last we could hear of him. As soon as the report of his being missing reached me I organised a large patrol to scour the country within a radius of twenty miles or so, and started with Staff- Sergeant Charles Ross at four o'clock next morning. We went first to the Eight Mile Lake, where the afore said rancher, whom we knew well, told us all that he could tell, and we then headed for the mouth of the Little Bow. Ross was a very highly trained and ex- 264 Incidents of Mounted Police Life perienced plainsman. Perry's horse was shod in front but plain behind, and we had not long left the Lake when Ross said, "Here's his trail." Now and again we had to stop and cast about when crossing a hard piece of clay prairie, but for the most part we followed that trail at a hand gallop for from ten to twelve miles, eventually arriving at the river and seeing Perry's horse, saddled and bridled, standing under a cut bank on the opposite side of the river. There was nothing for the poor beast to eat, and he must have felt pretty sorry for himself. Fortunately, Ross knew of a punt that was in the neighbourhood, and having borrowed that, we made the horse re-swim the river to our side. Perry's body was recovered, about a fortnight later, some twenty miles farther down the river. There was nothing to show how he had come by his death. He was said to be a first-rate swimmer, and had apparently fallen a victim to over-confidence. Singularly, some light was thrown upon the subject a few years later, when the same horse (reg. No. 1,570; I have never forgotten the brute's number) was on detachment duty on the St. Mary's River. At this detachment we used to run our herd of spare horses, and as the river bounded the Blood Indian Reserve, it happened occasionally that some of the herd would cross the river and graze on the other side. One after noon, when it was nearly time to give the horses their oats, before locking them up for the night, the corporal in charge ordered one of his men to cross the river and bring back some of the herd that were there. No. 1,570 happened to be the horse whose turn it was to perform such duty for the day, and, on his back, the constable rode into the river, which was, fortun ately, not at high water mark. The corporal stood on the bank watching the proceedings, and saw the horse, R 265 Mounted Police Life in Canada as soon as he found himiself out of his depth and obliged to swim, deliberately roll the rider off his back. In the circumstances, no harm resulted on that occasion, but there is no doubt that that is how Perry lost his life, and no man was ever after asked to ride that particular brute into swimming water. Lynch Law On the evening of February 13, 1895, it was reported to me at Lethbridge that a man named Willis had blown his brains out. I went to his house and found that the report was in no way exaggerated, as brains were scattered all over one of the walls of his bedroom. He had put the muzzle of a Winchester rifle into his mouth and pressed the trigger with his great toe. The deceased, whom I had known for some years, had had good situations, but had lost them through drink, and he had been steadily going down the hill for some time, his earnings being very precarious. At this time he was out of work and the wolf was at his door. The household, in fact, was kept going by a lodger named James Ronald. "But for him," Mrs. Willis had said on one occasion, "we should have had nothing to eat." Willis had, however, frequently complained to various people of the undue intimacy between his lodger and his wife — an intimacy extending over a period of years — and not a little indignation had been aroused by the treat ment which the husband complained of having received. It was said that on one occasion when Willis arrived at home somewhat the worse for liquor he found his wife sitting in her lodger's lap, and when he re monstrated with them, the lodger .put him quietly but firmly out of the house, shut the door and turned the key in the lock. Ronald had been away from Leth bridge for a time, but had now returned, and it is no 266 Incidents of Mounted Police Life disregard of the obligation " De mortuis " to say that, when Willis readmitted Ronald to his household he knew what his past experience had been. Ronald attended the funeral as chief mourner, and it was said that this helped to precipitate matters. Be that as it may, soon after midnight on the second day after the tragedy a band of masked and armed men broke into the house on the outskirts of the town occupied by James Ronald and his brother Maxwell, who were in bed together at the time. Maxwell was covered by a rifle and ordered not to move. His brother James was pulled out of bed, tarred, feathered, dressed and led with a rope round his neck by a half-mile route to the front door of the Lethbridge House which was the principal hotel in the town. He was pushed into the hall, the door was temporarily fastened from with out, and the masked gang rapidly and quietly dispersed. James Ronald was then at liberty to make his way home without molestation. It was rather a stormy night, with drifting snow; a night on which few people would be about the streets, and no noise was made. Maxwell was detained in bed under the guard of two men, and was forbidden to stir for twenty minutes. At the end of that time his guards departed, and he was allowed to dress and to find his way to my house, where he arrived at a quarter past one. I rang up the town police station and asked the sergeant in charge what had become of James Ronald, and he replied that Ronald had gone home. There was nothing to be done that night. Maxwell had told me that the masked gang were very sparing with their words. Any orders that were given were given by a stranger, who acted as captain, in a quiet, incisive voice with a drawl. Neither of the brothers was able to identify any of their assailants, nor could they give us any information which would help us to trace them, so they decided to 267 Mounted Police Life in Canada let the matter drop, and James left town at once for the East, declining either to make or support a complaint. The incident, however, found its way into the papers, and in a few weeks' time I received from Mr. Ronald, Senior, the father of the brothers, a letter urging me very strongly to bring the masked gang to justice. He said he made a great point of this, because a new association had come into being, calling themselves the "Patrons of Industry," and one of the planks in their platform was the abolition of the Mounted Police. I felt there was a covert threat in the letter, but as I had no intention of letting the matter drop, I could not understand why the old man should write to me in such a strain. The reason, which I heard some months later, will appear in its proper place. In my reply to the old man I said that the matter would unquestionably receive my very serious attention, provided he would guarantee that his son James would return to the West to give evidence when called upon to do so. Ronald, Senior, readily gave the required guarantee, and as soon as it came into my hands I issued for execution a warrant which had been locked up in my drawer for some little time. Just here I must go back for a little space to recount some circumstances that had taken place in the interval. I had not actually imputed blame to the sergeant in charge of the town detachment for (i) having permitted this outrage to take place, and (2) for having no trace of the perpetrators, but I allowed him to see what was in my mind, and it was no surprise to me when, a few days later, he asked to be relieved of his charge and to be returned to duty in the barracks. He was sub sequently, in the course of that duty, exercising a horse when the brute bucked, threw him against the stable wall and broke his arm. Thereupon he went into 268 Incidents of Mounted Police Life hospital. We had our own hospital within the barrack grounds. A few days after this accident it came to my know ledge that Sergeant Phair was one of the members of the tar-and-feather gang, and that he had been seen on that eventful evening with a black mask in his possession and tar and feathers on his Winchester carbine. About the same time, while I was corresponding with Mr. Ronald, Senior, his son Max came to me one day and said that he had found the captain of the gang. He said that, in an idle moment, he was smoking a pipe and basking in the afternoon sunshine in front of the Lethbridge House when he heard a voice, the incisive drawl of which he can never forget. He abandoned all other business that afternoon and devoted it to studying this man and finding out all about him and where he was living. The man's name was Charles Warren ; he was an American citizen, had been in town for a few months, doing no work, and having no visible means of support, but quiet and inoffensive withal. He habitually carried a six-shooter in his breast pocket, and had been asked to lead the gang because he was supposed to have had previous ex periences in like exploits, and there was less chance of his voice being recognised. Entreating Max to keep his secret rigidly to himself, I took his information and issued a warrant for Warren's arrest. It was then that I began to look rather anxiously for a reply from Mr. Ronald, Senior, as to his son James's inten tions. I should explain here that the entire community — ministers of religion, men, women and children of all sorts and conditions — were of opinion that poetic justice had been done. The Presbyterian minister voiced the sentiments of the local public when he said to me one day that James Ronald had committed a moral offence 269 Mounted Police Life in Canada for which the law was powerless to punish him, and it was not well that he should go unpunished altogether. He admitted that he was in no way in favour of mob law, but he could not regret what had happened. "Of course, Captain," he queried, "you have to do your duty, and I suppose this matter will have to come up some day ? " "Oh, yes," I replied, "it will go into Court some time before Christmas, and in the meanwhile I am not losing any sleep over it." With such a feeling of sympathy with the law breakers in the minds of the public, it can be readily understood that any punitive proceedings had to be very warily undertaken. I took but one person into my confidence, and he was a man whom I could trust out and out — Staff- Sergeant P. H. Belcher, who was then Quartermaster- Sergeant of the Division. He had a little room, wherein he lived, behind the store-rooms, and to him I betook myself. I could not myself have visited Sergeant Phair in the hospital and held lengthy con versations with him without attracting a certain amount of attention, and I therefore deputed Staff-Sergeant Belcher to tell him that I was in possession of evidence which would enable me to convict him of "disgraceful conduct " under the Police Act, and to give him twelve months' imprisonment, in addition to any other sentence that might follow a conviction for burglary in the Supreme Court. I desired that he would take time to think it over because, if he should choose to turn Queen's Evidence, I would undertake to lay no charge against him at all. He took time to consider whether he would tell what he knew or take his medicine, and finally decided that he would tell. I asked in the first instance for the names of the gang. There were eight of them altogether, and two had left the country by the 270 Incidents of Mounted Police Life time I wanted them, so that'I had only four to locate, and that was soon done., On June 7 Warren was arrested by Sergeant Brymer, and summonses to wit ness were at once served on three members of the gang. I issued a warrant for the fourth upon information sworn that he would probably leave the country rather than obey a summons. I held the preliminary examination myself, the Crown being represented by Mr. Conybeare, the private prosecutor by a Mr. Wrigley, a young barrister of re pute., and the accused by an ex-partner of Mr. Cony- beare's, who thought he could make more money by defending than by prosecuting criminals. In accord ance with the authority conferred typon me by the Criminal Code, I informed the legal gentlemen, at the opening of the Court, that I intended the inquiry to be private, and that I proposed in the first instance to examine the witnesses myself. This rule I designed to apply more particularly to the four witnesses who had been participators in the outrage, and I took them very minutely over the whole of the evening of February 13, and pinned them down to a sworn statement as to where they were and how they spent that particular evening from about seven or eight o'clock until well after midnight. They told their respective stories with an amplification and lucidity of detail, which not only branded them as most prolific liars with, a wonderful fertility of imagination, but showed also that they had no knowledge of the tar-and- feather proceedings, the making of the masks, etc., and effectually headed off any question of an alibi for the accused. There was no need for counsel to examine further or cross-examine these witnesses, and after their perjured testimony had been duly recorded and signed by themselves they were allowed to depart. Max Ronald was examined and cross-examined in the usual 271 Mounted Police Life in Canada way, and on his evidence the accused was committed for trial, as he reserved his defence. The next step was to obtain a change of venue, and this was granted by the judge upon the affidavit of Messrs. Conybeare, Wrigley and myself that we believed ourselves to be the only residents of Lethbridge who were of opinion that the accused would not receive an impartial trial in that town. The trial was set for July 6, at Macleod, a place about thirty-two miles westward, and thither the accused was sent by a four-horse team in good time. Thither, too, was dispatched James Ronald on his arrival from the East. As he, like his brother, would be able to identify Warren by his voice alone, I asked Superin tendent Steele, who was in command of the Macleod Post, to arrange to have some conversation with the accused within the hearing of James, the witness. This was easily brought about, and Superintendent Steele told me that, on hearing Warren's voice, James became so nervous that he trembled and could hardly stand. It became a grave question whether or not we could put him in the witness-box at all. He had permitted himself at the inquest to say that he had had no im proper relations with the woman, and the defence made no secret of their intention to produce the woman to contradict him if he should repeat such a statement. During my journey to Macleod on the day before the trial, while my team was crossing the Old Man's River, the first rain fell during that year. The country was in a terrible state of drought, and the grass would hardly grow on the prairie. The seasons had been growing gradually drier ever since 1888, and the climax was reached in the year of which I am speaking, 1895. During those dry years we invariably had hard winters, with some snow, which furnished the only moisture that the soil received until the autumn, when heavy rains set 272 Incidents of Mounted Police Life in, generally when our hay crop was being harvested. At Lethbridge the only hay that we could get at that time was grass cut round the edges of sloughs or swamps in the Milk River Ridge district, forty miles distant, and often it happened that contractors after hauling their racks into our barracks, had to unload and dry their hay before stacking it. In the following year, 1896, when the Liberals were returned to power, the wet cycle began, and there was a plentiful growth of green grass; and Sir Wilfrid Laurier was held accountable for the era of prosperity which then set in and has continued ever since ! So far as the trial went, we did not fare much better at Macleod than we should have done at Leth bridge. There had just been at Macleod a pigeon- shooting match between the gun clubs of the two places, and the visiting team had imbued the residents with their own ideas, as we very soon found from their conversation. On July 6 Charles Warren was placed in the dock to answer two counts of burglary and two of riot. Some members of the Lethbridge Gun Club had told their friends in Macleod that Sergeant Phair had been a member of the gang, and this reached Mr. Cony- beare's ears, with the result that he insisted on his being called as a witness. I explained to him that my word was pledged to the non-commissioned officer that he should not be prosecuted, and that he must take the responsibility of calling Phair as a witness. I sent a telegram to Lethbridge ordering Sergeant Phair to be sent to Macleod next morning in time for the opening of the Court, and met him at the door of the court-house on his arrival. It was rather fortunate that I did, for I had an inkling that he might deny all knowledge of the affair, and I think that is what he would have done. That would have attracted to him- 273 Mounted Police Life in Canada self all the sympathy of the two towns, by whose residents he would have been hailed as a hero and a martyr, and I should have been placed in an awkward position by reason of the promise I had given him. I pointed out to Sergeant Phair that in the event of his taking such a stand as that it might be my duty to convict him of perjury. This would not conflict with my promise, and I should assuredly be able to do it. I said this because evidence had already been given by the proprietor of the Lethbridge Hotel that he had seen the masked gang conducting their victim down the street and, indeed, he seemed to think it an excellent joke. He had made the audience in Court laugh once or twice, and did so again when he described James Ronald as looking not unlike a Red Indian, when the judge looked up from his note-book and asked the Crown Prosecutor, "Why has this man not been in dicted?" "Well, my lord," began the counsel, cudgelling his brains for a suitable answer. "Have it done at once," said his lordship, and down went the witness's jaw as far as it could go — there was no more jocularity left in him. As a matter of fact, neither counsel nor I knew what the witness would tell until he found himself in the box. The evidence of this witness, in conjunction with that of my original informant, would have sufficed to convict Sergeant Phair of perjury, and, on my advice, he finally consented to tell the truth. He went into the witness-box and confirmed Maxwell Ronald's story as to Warren being the man who had stood at the end of his bed with a revolver in his hand and had superin tended the proceedings of the lawless gang. James Ronald was in such a state of nervous prostration that he was unable to give evidence at all, but the case was proved to the hilt, and his absence did not seem to matter. Counsel for the prisoner called no witnesses ;'. 274 Incidents of Mounted Police Life and made no defence. Counsel for the Crown waived their address to the jury, and the prisoner's counsel thus secured the last word. The judge summed] up against the prisoner, and the jury disagreed. The law required only six jurors, and of these, as we learned later, two were determined to convict, two were determined not to convict in any circumstances whatsoever, and two were in a state of indecision. There was no prospect of their coming to an agreement, so they were discharged and a new trial ordered. It was unmistakably established afterwards that this impotent conclusion was brought about by a juror who was playing to the gallery of Lethbridge, where he had one or two bosom friends who sympathised with the prisoner. He had so little sense of truth and honour as to falsify his oath of office, which bound him to render a true verdict according to the evidence. Towards the close of the afternoon on which the jury were discharged I was in a room in the Macleod hotel, changing from uniform into plain clothes, when I was drawn to the window by the sound of a heavy shower of rain and the patter of footsteps on the sidewalk across the street. I looked out and saw two men taking shelter under the overhanging eave of a doorway in a house opposite — they were the juryman of whom I have made mention and the learned counsel for the prisoner. They were both well "loaded," and it was enough to make a cat laugh to see them fall on one another's necks. The juryman was obviously taking credit for holding out against a conviction, and the other was only too willing to give him all the credit he wanted. I stood at the window and watched them until the shower ceased, as suddenly as it had begun, and they staggered off arm-in-arm. A new trial was ordered for July 10, and on the 275 Mounted Police Life in Canada night of the 9th Sergeant Phair deserted. The new trial was not unlikely to make some trouble for sundry prominent people in Lethbridge, in that the charge was to be altered so as to dispense with the intervention of a jury. A subscription of $100 was hastily raised by the persons most interested in Sergeant Phair's absence, and he was persuaded to leave the country. Sergeant Phair's arm was at the time in a plaster splint, and he could move about freely. The hospital wherein he was housed stood in the south-east corner of the barrack enclosure, within a few feet of a road, with nothing but a wire fence intervening, and Sergeant Phair was per suaded to climb into a waiting buggy and was driven across the international boundary line into Montana. He only received $40 of the $100 which had been sub scribed, as the driver thought that $60 was due to himself. Warren was released on bail until the winter assizes, and took advantage of his freedom to cross the boundary; one of his sureties followed him. The case was called at Macleod in the following November, but the accused did not appear, and his bail was ordered to be estreated. The prosecution, however, had its effect, and was such as to discourage further experiments with i Lynch Law. A little later in the summer, when I was inspecting my Milk River detachments, I met a well known rancher, who chatted about the tar-and-feather episode. He told me that the men who were mainly instrumental in carrying out the project had written full accounts of it to their friends in Ontario, and in one of the letters occurred the expression, "And the Chief of Police was the biggest toad in the puddle." That, of course, ex plained Mr. Ronald's letter to me; he knew that I was Chief of the Police and actually supposed that I had taken a hand in the business I 276 Incidents of Mounted Police Life "Piegan Frank" " Piegan (pronounced Paygan) Frank " was a Blood Indian, whom I engaged as a scout soon after I went to Lethbridge in 1888. As the Blood Indian Re serve was close by, it was necessary that we should know something of the movements of the Indians, for it was the policy of the Government to keep them on their Reserve as much as possible, and in order to do that we used to employ a couple of scouts, who could visit the Reserve and bring us news at first hand. An interpreter was attached to the Head-quarter Post, as very few of the Indians could speak English, but it happened that Frank could understand and speak it fairly well. He applied for the job, was recommended by the Indian Agent, and was consequently engaged at ten dollars a month and rations. Scouts were required to mount themselves, but they were very particular in exacting the issue of a saddle and revolver. This was the outward and visible sign of their high calling as Mounted Police Scouts. One afternoon I was busy in my office and heard the sound of wheels outside. In a minute or two it was reported to me that Piegan Frank had brought in two prisoners, but that it was not exactly clear what was the charge against them. They came into my office, a young man and a woman, nicely dressed, well mannered, good looking, and obviously in the courtship stage. The young man had hired a buggy for the afternoon, and was taking his best girl out for a drive in the country when that villain Frank came across them and ordered them back to the village, for no earthly reason whatever except to show his authority. As he had his revolver drawn, they thought it best to do as he told them, and turned their horse's head round without any delay. ^77 Mounted Police Life in Canada I apologised profusely for the Indian's behaviour, and the young couple were very nice about it, and were not disinclined to look upon the whole thing as a joke. Before they left my office, however, I ordered Master Frank to hand in his pistol and saddle and then to go straight back to his Reserve and to tell the Agent he had been discharged because he was no good. v The sweethearts then resumed their drive. I did not set eyes on Piegan Frank again for many years, not, I think, until 1900, when he applied to me for a job/. We were very short-handed at that time, so many of our men being in South Africa, and I happened to have a vacancy which the Indian could very well fill. I established him in camp in the detachment grounds at Kipp, a place half way between Lethbridge and Macleod, where the trail crosses the Old Man's River. He was always on the look out for me when I made my weekly journeys between the two places, and attended strictly to business. In June of 1900 the superintendent of the Canadian Pacific Division of that company's Crow's Nest Pass line, stationed at Cranbrook, B.C., informed me that the East-bound train of the previous evening had found a cart wheel laid across the rails near Kipp, and that an Indian had been seen in the distance walking south. As a matter of fact, there were some camps of Indians, hay-makers, in the vicinity. The superintendent said that he had been talking to the sergeant in charge of the Pincher Creek Detachment, who had suggested that it would be a good plan to have a Mounted Policeman travel on each passenger train within certain limits, and the superintendent thought the suggestion so good that he brought it to my notice. Had the sergeant in question been within hailing distance I should have given him the rough edge of my 278 Incidents of Mounted Police Life tongue for talking such rubbish, particularly when he knew how short-handed the Division was; but to the superintendent I wrote and asked, in effect, "If the constable in police charge of a train in the course of his journey sees something suspicious by the roadside and desires to investigate, will he have authority to stop the train for that purpose? If not, he might just as use fully be lying on his bed in his barrack room." It did not surprise me that I did not receive a reply to that letter, although I enlarged on the effect that might be produced upon the passengers by red coat, accoutrements, boots and spurs and all the parapher nalia of war, and the matter rested until I next drove to Lethbridge on the Saturday following. At Kipp my scout was, as usual, waiting for me. "Frank," I said, "someone putting things on rails mile and half west of here. You go and find out who does it. Move your tent over there." "Yassir," said Frank, and I continued my journey. Next week, as I did not want a bad railway accident to occur within my district, I drove back on Monday, instead of Tues day, a day earlier than usual, and thus I had no ex pectation of seeing Frank at the river crossing, but there he was, beaming. "Injun chil'n," he reported, "put iron brake-shoe on rail, and then go and sit on hill and see sparks fly when train comes." He had learned this from a little boy named " Shines- in-the-night," and presently the little chap went with Frank and me to the spot and showed us how he and two companions, a little older than himself, had placed the brake-shoe on the rail and some stones in front of it, and how they had then retired up the hill to enjoy the fireworks. The other two boys were called "The Lizard" and "Slapmouth," and Frank had orders to bring them all into my office at Macleod on the following Wednes- 279 Mounted Police Life in Canada day. He was to notify the Rev. Mr. Owens, who con ducted a Church of England Mission on the Blood Reserve, that I should like him to be present, as I intended that these boys should go to his school, and he was to tell all the relations and friends of the boys in question that the poor little fellows were in the hottest kind of water, and that it looked as if the penitentiary doors were opening to admit them. The difficulty with the Indian parents was that they would not send their children to school and keep them there, and now I had a grand opportunity of disposing of some of the young rascals, and did not intend to let it go. Frank rubbed the fear of God into the parents and relations in great shape, so that, when my solemn investigation began at two o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, the poor Indians were ready to agree to anything in order to save their progeny from prison. The two older boys tried to put the entire blame upon " Shines-in-the- night," but the brake-shoe (a heavy lump of iron) was in court, and I told the boy to lift it. He was barely strong enough to raise it, much less to carry it, and so that story did not go. The end of it was that the boys' parents undertook to let the Rev. Mr. Owens have the care of the children until they should become eighteen years of age, and he agreed to receive them into his Mission School and to look well after them. To prevent any further mischief of the same sort, I stationed an Indian scout to watch the railway across the Reserve so long as any Indian camps remained in that neighbourhood, and there were no more complaints. 280 CHAPTER XIX humours and uncertainties of the law It was during the period of the prohibition liquor law in the early days, when permits were difficult to obtain and beer of any sort, whether lager or other, was expen sive to import, that hop beer came into fashion, and all sorts of people took to making it. The Slavs and Hun garians used to get gloriously drunk and rowdy on it at their marriage feasts, and the Inland Revenue Depart ment used to try to prevent the manufacture' and sale of the beverage. The only interest that hop beer had for the police lay in the question as to whether it was intoxicating or not. A case came before me wherein it was abundantly susceptible of proof that the accused had purchased so much hop beer on a certain day, from a certain person, for a certain price, and had become drunk thereon. The question was, Was the vendor liable under the pro hibitory law for selling an intoxicant? The drunken man would never have admitted that his condition was not brought about by some beverage other than the hop beer pure and simple, and there was to my mind only one way of ascertaining the properties of the beer. I instructed my sergeant-major to buy a couple of dozen bottles of the same brew as had been sold to the drunken men, and then to see if he could find someone who was willing to have a prolonged drink at the ex pense of someone else. There was no difficulty at all s 281 Mounted Police Life in Canada about the latter proposition. A very ready volunteer was found at once, and he was shut up in an empty barrack-room with two dozen bottles of hop beer and such accessories as he needed to contribute to his convenience and thirst. He managed to wade through eighteen bottles, and then was unquestionably drunk. At the trial which ensued, Sergeant-Major Jarvis gave evidence as to the intoxicating nature of the beer, and Mr. C. C. McCaul, K.C., rose to cross-examine him, somewhat in this wise : "Now, Sergeant-Major, you have sworn that this beer (indicating the exhibits before the Court) is intoxicating. Why do you say that?" Answer : " Because I know it to be so." "Have you any special means of knowing it to be so?" Answer : " I have, sir." "Well, then, will you be good enough to tell this Court how it is that you are able to be so positive ? " Answer : " Because I have seen a man get drunk on it." "I think the Court would like to have more details than that; I know I should." Then the sergeant-major told the story. I never met anyone who could enjoy a laugh against himself better than Charley McCaul. He said to me afterwards : " It was too bad to let me drag all that evidence out of the witness and tie the rope round my own client's neck ! " I cannot for the life of me remember now what it was, but he beat me, after all, on a point of law. He took the case to the higher Court at Regina, and the conviction was quashed, with a proviso that no action should lie against the J. P. 282 Humours and Uncertainties of the Law Another amusing case arose out of a conviction which I made against a certain resident of Lethbridge for the unlawful possession of intoxicating liquor. Notice of appeal was given, and Mr. McCaul was counsel for the appellant. The main witnesses for the prosecution were Sergeant Ross and a constable named Stribble. In the interval during which the appeal was pending, Sergeant Ross came to me one morning and said that the convicted defendant in the case was trying to persuade Stribble to desert and that Stribble did not want to go. The defendant's agents, it seemed, were rather persecuting Stribble, and were promising him all sorts of inducements to leave the country before the appeal could be heard. Being assured that Stribble had no desire at all to desert, I instructed Sergeant Ross to tell him to appear to comply with his persecutors' wishes, and to fix a date, about three days ahead, for making his venture. Sergeant Ross and I, in the course of our many rides together, had come across a piece of river bottom about six miles out of the village, and we had agreed that it would make a nice site for a small farmer to settle on. It was situated on the east side of the Belly River, and its eastern bank was rather precipitous and covered with brush. A tent, therefore, pitched close to the bank would be out of sight to anybody on the bench land, although it could, of course, be seen from the opposite side of the river. I arranged with the quarter master-sergeant to give Sergeant Ross a tent, stove, furnishings and rations, and these were all carried down to the place in question, and everything was prepared for Stribble's residence. I arranged also to give him a weekly pass, and he was to amuse himself there as best he could. At the appointed hour on the date arranged, Stribble, dressed in plain clothes, met his friends on the Benton 283 Mounted Police Life in Canada trail. When it came to the scratch they did not keep any of the promises they had made him. They gave him a couple of dollars, a kick on the posterior and started him off. He had before him a walk of ioo miles before he would be able to buy a morsel to put in his mouth, and there were no settlers along the road, so that two dollars would not be of much use to him. However, the dirty crew of whom I am writing cared nothing for that. They thought they had sufficiently involved the man with the Police Force to make it im possible for him to return, and followed him along the road for two or three miles to see that he did not change his mind. When he found that he was no longer being followed he turned aside to his tent and went to bed. When the appeal came on for trial, as it did in course of time, and Constable Stribble walked into the room in response to the call of his name, the ap pellant's face was a study. McCaul had been led to believe that this witness would not appear, and a hurried consultation took place between counsel and client, neither of whom could give any explanation of this un expected episode. Stribble simply repeated the evidence he had given at the original trial, and confirmed Sergeant Ross's evidence as he had done before. McCaul, with a view to discredit his testimony-in-chief, began his cross-examination by asking if he were not in some difficulty in connection with the Police Force. Stribble never pronounced the word "Sir," he never got beyond the first consonant, and his answer to McCaul was, "No, S'." "Let me understand this correctly. Is there not a charge pending against you under the Mounted Police Act?" Answer: "No, S'." There was nothing more to be said; the man's character could not be blackened. There was no reason 284 Humours and Uncertainties of the Law why the Court should discredit his testimony, and the appeal was dismissed. ***** The following is a copy of what appeared in the Western Law Times, vol. i, p. 86, in the late nineties, the city in question being Calgary : " Guilty or Not Guilty ? "A learned Judge of French extraction, not of the Mani toba bench, lately pronounced, within 5,000 miles of this city, the following remarkable sentence on a man accused of stealing a horse : " ' Prisoner, de evidence is conflicting, but I find you guilty and sentence you to tree months in the guard-room. De evidence, as I say, is very conflicting, but if I was sure, if I was quite sure, dat you stole dat horse I would give you two years in de Manitoba Penitentiary. ' " The barrister who habitually furnished the law re ports to the paper was away from Calgary on a holiday at the time of the foregoing deliverance, and on his return his attention was drawn to the report in question. He did not want to be mixed up in a blood feud with the learned judge for all time, and decided to take the bull by the horns. He walked into the judge's chambers one morning with a copy of the Law Times in his hand and said, "Judge, I hope you don't think that I was capable of putting a damned report like this in the paper?" The judge took the volume from him, read the report carefully, shut the book with a slam, and handed it back to him, saying, "You can tell dat man dat I can talk as good Engleesh as he can ! " * * * • * I remember, some years ago, when Colonel Macleod was judge of the Southern Alberta District, that he convicted a Blood Indian of horse stealing, and sen- 285 Mounted Police Life in Canada tenced him to undergo one month's imprisonment with hard labour in the Lethbridge guard-room. The Indian, on having the sentence interpreted to him, burst into a hearty laugh without any apparent reason or explana tion, and it looked perilously like contempt of court, but the judge took no notice, and the Indian was taken away. The police had had in various places, at different times, so much trouble with Indians who tried to escape that a General Order existed in the Force to the effect that convicted Indian prisoners should always wear a ball and chain. This meant an iron ball at one end of a chain, the other end of which was shackled to the prisoner's ankle. He thus had to bear the weight of the ball in his hand. The cause of the merriment in court appeared the next day, when my sergeant-major (who could talk Blackfoot) brought the Indian to me, and said he wished to be relieved of his ball and chain. I explained that the order had not originated with me, and that I could not vary it. To that the Indian replied that he had been given hard labour for a month and he wanted to work, and work hard, but he couldn't do so while carrying that ball about. He said he had expected to be sent to the penitentiary for three years, and as he had only got one month he wanted to do as much work as he could in that time. He considered himself far too fortunate to want to run away. I took off the chain, and he was as good as his word, for he worked like a Trojan as long as he stayed with us. The two stories next ensuing are rather apt illustra tions of the disquieting ease with which even a well-worked-up case may fail in court through the incompetency of counsel. 386 Humours and Uncertainties of the Law In the spring of 1898 the Milk River patrol between Writing-on-Stone and Pendant d'Oreille detachments was in the habit of noticing on the open prairie a particular bunch of cattle which was invariably by itself. It consisted of from twelve to fifteen head of both sexes, but one cow had a calf which had, by some oversight, escaped the branding iron. The calf had, too, what was called on the range a "switch tail," which means that the end of the tail had in all probability been bitten off early in life by a timber wolf or a coyote. The calf was thus quite noticeable, and the patrol never failed to turn aside and see if the animal were still un- branded, wondering always how long she would con tinue to be so. One day the patrol came across the bunch as usual — the cow was there but the calf was gone. Somebody had got her. An immigrant of two or three years' standing had recently taken up a homestead on the. Milk River, and thither the patrol went first to make in quiries. They heard the bawling of a calf, and found the little switch-tailed heifer shut up by herself in a log corral. The next step was to drive the bunch of cattle to the corral. The cow recognised and answered her calf's voice as soon as she came within hearing distance, and when the bars of the corral were taken down the calf ran to her mother, who suckled her and licked her and made much of her, as cows do with their progeny. If the calf had not been her own the cow would not have allowed her to suck. In the language of the range, the cow and calf "claimed one another." The immi grant from the United States was charged with theft and was taken into custody. The case was tried at Lethbridge a few weeks later before my old friend, Mr. Justice Scott. Mr. Cony beare, the Crown Prosecutor, was away from home, and his office was filled by a legal gentleman from Macleod. It was a very plain, straightforward case, and the 287 Mounted Police Life in Canada principal witness, a constable named Arrowsmith, gave his evidence very clearly and well. I was sitting by the side of the counsel for the Crown, and when the witness had described the reunion of the mother and daughter, I whispered to him, "Ask him what that means." The answer would have come like a flash, "It means motherhood on the part of the cow," but in spite of its being such an obviously pertinent question, the counsel, incredible as it may seem, refused to ask it. He was stupidly afraid of giving rise to some cross- examination as to whether a range cow had never been known to suckle a calf not her own. There are such instances, of course, now and again, where a cow has lost her calf and a calf has lost her dam, for then a cow's udder is paining her, and she is glad to have it relieved even by a strange calf. This was a morning session of the Supreme Court, and as I was due to start on my thirty-two mile drive to Macleod at two o'clock, I left the court and went about my business. The following Saturday, in accordance with my weekly practice, I was returning to Lethbridge from Macleod, and at the crossing of the Old Man's River, which was about half-way, met the judge, who was taking ad vantage of my teams to journey to Macleod and there hold his court during the ensuing week. As soon as we met he said, "Well, I had to let that calf thief go." I asked, " How was that ? I thought Arrowsmith gave good evidence." "So he did," he replied, "but noone told me what all that meant. I am not supposed to know the manners and customs of animals. I have to confine myself to the evidence which is given before me by witnesses, and nothing was said to show that the fact of the animals claiming one another constituted relationship between them." "I asked W to ask the question," I remarked, "but he would not, and so a well worked up case has fallen through." 288 Humours and Uncertainties of the Law About six years later, before the same judge at Medicine Hat, I was confronted with a somewhat similar difficulty. A rancher, living at a place called Medicine Lodge, reported that a suckling colt had been stolen from him. The mare was left, but the colt was gone, and it went without saying that the colt did not voluntarily leave its dam. A smart young corporal named McLean constituted the Mounted Police detach ment at Medicine Lodge, and he took the case in hand. In the Course of his search he looked one afternoon into the premises of a settler (away from home at the time), who had always had a somewhat unsavoury reputation, although we had never been able to prove anything against him. I had known of him in the Macleod district years previously. Corpoial McLean found, in an out-of-the-way spot, a corral enclosing a mare and a colt which answered the description of the lost one. The mare had her hind heels tied together. McLean put his horse in the stable and sat down to await the owner's return. He came, after a while, with a rack load of hay, and McLean asked if he could stay the night, as his horse was rather tired, etc. After supper the settler began to unload his hay, and McLean took off his coat to help him. The settler protested that he was under no obligation to do that, but McLean said, "I can't very well sit here and see you work without lending a hand." The reason for McLean's presence being unwelcome appeared when the rack was about half unloaded, and the freshly killed carcass of a sheep was found. There were very few sheep owners in that part of the country ; the settler had none of his own, and it was quite easy subsequently to ascertain that no one had given or sold a sheep to this man, but nothing was said at the time nor was his explanation of the possession of the carcass questioned in any way. 289 Mounted Police Life in Canada Early next morning McLean fetched the owner of the colt, who identified and removed his property, and then criminal proceedings were initiated against the settler, who was admitted to bail pending his appearance in the Supreme Court. In due time the case was brought up before Mr. Justice Scott, the prisoner being defended by the late Mr. P. J. Nolan, K.C. I was, as usual, sitting by the counsel for the Crown, and heard Corporal McLean tell in detail the story which I have here outlined. When he had described how the mare's heels were tied I said to counsel, "Ask him why that was done." He replied, "I don't think it is necessary." I said, " It is so far necessary that, if you don't ask such an obvious question it will appear to the Court that you are afraid to ask it and Paddy Nolan will make the most of it." There was a look of smug complacency on his face, and I turned from him and, in a stage whisper directed at the witness, I asked, "Why?" The judge was busy taking his notes, and after he had finished he looked up from his book and said, "Did I hear someone ask 'Why?'" By this time I was so mad at a possible failure of justice, know ing what the judge would expect, and remembering my former experience in a somewhat similar situation, that I said to counsel in a tone of voice loud enough to be heard by a good many other people, " If you don't ask the question you'll lose your case." This rather shamed him into it, and he asked the witness, "What could be the object of tying the mare's heels?" The answer came without a moment's hesitation. "The mare knew that the colt was not her own and would not have allowed it to suck if her hind legs had been free." The accused in that case "went over the road" (as the Western expression is, meaning that he went to the penitentiary) for two years. 290 Humours and Uncertainties of the Law In the month of December, 1907, complaint was made to us that, at a little settlement some fifty-five miles south-east of Calgary, certain people were butchering cattle which did not belong to them. Two brothers named Runnion were said to have sold quite a lot of beef in the town of High River to house holders at two cents a pound less than the butchers were charging. That of itself was hardly suspicious, for farmers, having no shop rent to pay, could always undersell the butchers who had that expense to meet. The Runnion Brothers were Mormons, the sons of a Latter Day Saints bishop, who had recently come into the country from the United States. Detective-Sergeant Nicholson was detailed from another division to work on the case, and being un known in the district, went to the village in question and put up at the hotel there with the avowed object of looking for land to purchase. In the course of his peregrinations he found evidence of quite a number of cattle having been killed on the Runnion Brothers' homestead, although there were only two hides on the corral fence. This gave rise to a mental inquiry as to where the hides of the other beasts were. At about three o'clock on the morning of January 12, 1908, the weather being fortunately propitious, he hid himself in a straw-stack about half a mile from the Runnions' corral and watched the brothers drive an animal into the corral and kill it. Presently three Indians drove up in a wagon, into which the beef was loaded, and the Indians drove off in the direction of their Reserve. About ten o'clock in the forenoon he saw the brothers cut three head of cattle out of a bunch belonging to another man, who was pasturing them in a field near their place, and drive them on to their own homestead. 291 Mounted Police Life in Canada To readers who are ignorant of the conditions of life on the Western prairie it is, I think, necessary to explain how it was possible for peripatetic cattle to be gathered and stolen in such an easy way as has been described. In the early days a man who owned any cattle, whether many or few, first of all selected a brand, which he registered as his own. He burned his brand with a red-hot iron into the skin of his animals and turned them out to run at large on the public domain. He had nothing to pay for this, and as long as Pro vidence was careful of his interests, his cattle grew and prospered at no expense to himself. They might, and did, suffer to some extent from the depredations of timber wolves and coyotes, and they might be over taken by a severe winter which would freeze and starve the poor brutes to death, but their subsistence was not costing the owner anything, and he did not care how much they suffered. If he found them dead in the spring he was "out of luck," and that was all there was to be said. There are still owners who have more cattle than they can pasture on their own land, and they allow their animals to run at large in the same way. That is how the presence of these estrays was accounted for. Not far from the Runnion premises there was living another American immigrant who had only been a short time in Canada, and had worked for the Run nions for about a month during November and December, 1907. Him Sergeant Nicholson approached "delicately," and in course of time induced him to talk. He said that he had worked for the Runnion Brothers from November 15 until December 15, 1907, and that during that time they had killed at least fifteen head of cattle which did not belong to them, the killing being for the most part done in the night-time. He said: "During the first week in December they killed a roan steer branded. I helped to skin this animal. 292 Humours and Uncertainties of the Law The hide was cached in the stable under some hay, and I believe it is there still. Every night during the first two weeks in December they killed an animal, and I believe there are at least forty hides cached about the premises." He told the sergeant that a lot of beef had been traded to Indians from the Blackfoot Reserve in exchange for coal from the Indians' mine and for wood. In the course of a night or two, Sergeant Nicholson investigated the stable, and therein found some hides and beef hidden. The hides were frozen stiff, and could not, in that condition, be opened out to show what brands they bore. A warrant to search the pre mises and a warrant to arrest the men were issued in Calgary, and to avoid possible trouble, we made rather elaborate preparations to effect the arresj:. Wholesale stealing of the sort described could, obviously, not have continued for any length of time without arousing the suspicion at least of some of the neighbours in those parts, and it was a reasonable inference that, if they did not profit by the nefarious proceedings of the Runnions, they were at least in sympathy with them, and might be expected to help them in a difficulty. A fellow-countryman of the brothers, who was em ployed as stock detective, when necessary, by the Southern Alberta Stock Growers' Association, told us that if these men should happen to be able to do so, they would "put up a fight," as he knew them to be bad characters. That being so, I did not propose to take any chances. Sergeant Nicholson was instructed to get in touch with the Runnions as a possible purchaser of their place and to arrange, if possible, that he could stay in one of their houses as a paying or non-paying guest after the brothers had been removed. As it happened, we had no trouble. Edgar Runnion was arrested in High River on January 18, whither he 293 Mounted Police Life in Canada had gone to sell some beef, and John was found by a mounted patrol at his farm on the following day, and both brothers were sent at once to Calgary. After this, Sergeant Nicholson and some members of the patrol, assisted by Mr. A. F. Fagle, the hired man, of whom mention has been made, made a comprehensive search for hides. Those of the stolen animals were all hidden away — some in the stable under the roof, some rolled up tightly and buried in a hole in the ground, some covered with a load or two of manure, and some had disappeared altogether. Those in the hole and under the manure were frozen so hard that they had to be chopped out with an axe. These hiding-places were all indicated by A. F. Fagle, who had placed the hides there under orders from his employers. Each hide was tagged with a linen luggage label, showing where, when and by whom it was found. There were ten of them altogether, two had the brands cut out, and one bore no brand at all, so that it was impossible to tell who the owners were. The thawing out of these hides and the clipping of the long hair, so as to expose the skin bearing the brand, occupied several days, and then it was necessary to persuade the several owners, scattered all over the country, to come to Calgary to identify their property and to give evidence that they had never parted with their property in the animal under discussion. This case was of such magnitude and importance to the stock industry that the Stock Growers' Association retained the services of the late Mr. P. J. Nolan, the eminent K.C., to assist the Crown Prosecutor, and then we had to find out who the people were who had obtained beef from the prisoners by purchase or by trade. This was not an easy matter, as in the village of Brant district most of the settlers were Mormons and friends of the Runnions, and shielded them as much as 294 Humours and Uncertainties of the Law possible. Another difficulty was that comparatively few of the witnesses could tell, even approximately the re spective dates of their deals. It was easy to obtain, through our detachment on the Blackfoot Reserve, statements from the various Indians who traded some times wood and sometimes coal for beef, and on February 18 the accused were arraigned on a charge of stealing seven hides, the property of seven different owners. They pleaded "not guilty." Their counsel applied to have John Runnion tried separately, and the reason for this appeared when, in his defence, he claimed the protection of the Court, and took the blame of the whole business upon his own shoulders. He swore that Edgar was not implicated in the killing of any of the animals. He said that Fagle and he had buried the hide in the hole, and claimed that Fagle helped him to slaughter the beasts. He also admitted that he had killed seven head altogether. Edgar swore that he knew nothing at all about the hides and the story that had been told in court ; that his brother did all the trading, and that the witnesses were mistaken when they said they had traded with him as well as with his brother when they obtained beef for coal ; further, that Fagle was mistaken when he said that he and Edgar buried the hide in the hole. His wife swore that while she was taking her clothes off the line she saw John and Fagle drive out and bury a hide in a hole ; she said her husband was away at the time. She remembered Indians coming once or twice, but could not say if her husband was at home on either occasion. Fagle had been one of the last witnesses called by the Crown, and gave straightforward evidence as to what he knew, but in preference to taking the oath he asked to be allowed to affirm. When asked his reasons, he replied that he believed in a Supreme Being and in 295 Mounted Police Life in Canada a hereafter, but did not believe in punishment after death for deeds done in the flesh. That made the judge look askance at the witness and his evidence, for he was a son of a Church of England clergyman, and had joined the Church of Rome, so that it was not to be wondered at that he would be horribly shocked by Fagle's religious convictions. Notwithstanding that he had heard the Indians speak of both brothers in connection with their bartering, calling the younger one " Paul," the judge said in his charge to the jury, " I think the whole question consists in the comparative credibility of John and Edgar and Mrs. Edgar on the one side and of Fagle on the other. "If you believe Fagle you will convict this man. If you believe the others you will acquit him. If you have a fair, honest, reasonable doubt in your minds as to the guilt of the accused it would be better to acquit him." There was not a word of comment as to the Indian testimony. The jury followed the advice given and acquitted Edgar, while John withdrew his original plea and formally entered a plea of guilty. He was sent enced to two years in the penitentiary. However gratifying to the Runnion family this settlement may have been, it is unnecessary to say that the police could not accept it as final. It argued a good deal of assurance for foreigners to come into a white man's country and think that they could play fast and loose with law and order in the way these Latter Day Saints had been doing. They were fairly well-to-do people, and had no need to steal other people's cattle. I have never heard of a Mormon bishop who was not well off, not to say rich ; and the Runnion Brothers had money enough to establish themselves comfortably on their farms and to buy out the brand and a herd of cattle numbering about 160 head. In the country from 296 Humours and Uncertainties of the Law which they came money has an influence which it does not have under the British Crown, and these Mormons may have had an idea that it could protect them from the consequences of their evil deeds. I came across an instance of this some years ago in Montana. In Cascade County there lived a very fine old man who was by way of being wealthy, and was very much liked by everyone who knew him. He had a nephew, a worthless scamp, of whom he was in ordinately fond, and to whom he was by far too indulgent. This young rascal conceived the idea of coming to Canada with a chere amie, of whom his uncle highly disapproved, and the pair of them were actually seated in a north-bound train at Great Falls waiting for it to pull out. The old gentleman, dis tressed beyond reason, heard of this escapade at the last moment, and boarded the train to expostulate with his troublesome relative, but all to no purpose. The train was about to start, and the old fellow had to get out. His distress must have made him temporarily insane, for he walked off from the car a few paces and took pot shots at it with his revolver. Fortunately there were very few passengers, and beyond the damage done to the car itself no one was hurt besides the fugitive girl. One of the bullets found its billet in the back of her neck, and the train started. It was a 200 mile run to Lethbridge, and on arrival there the unhappy passenger had to be taken to hospital, where she died within twenty-four hours. A United States sheriff came, of course, to investi gate the circumstances, and a charge of murder was in due course laid against the uncle. The old man, after many weary months, was acquitted, not being held answerable even for manslaughter, but it was a poor man that regained his freedom. To return to Edgar Runnion. As soon as the court T 297 Mounted Police Life in Canada stenographer's notes were transcribed, I preferred a charge of perjury against Edgar Runnion, and called three Blackfeet Indians to prove that Fagle was witness to a trade which they had made with the accused at his farm. They all swore that an Indian named "Sarcee Medicine Pipe " traded a pair of moccasins to Edgar Runnion in exchange for some beef. They were asked why they called the accused "Paul," and they said because his brother called him so. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty, with a strong recommendation to mercy, on account of the man's family, and the judge, who was made of sterner stuff than the judge in the previous case, gave effect to it by saying, " Had it not been for the recommendation of the jury to mercy I would have inflicted a severe sentence, as I do not like this matter of perjury. The accused is sentenced to eight months' imprisonment, with hard labour in the guard-room at Calgary." So after all the young " Saint " got off pretty easily. 298 CHAPTER XX some early reminiscences Prairie Fires Prairie fires used to be the bane of our existence in the early days, for the simple reason that we had to put them out — there was no one else in the country to do it. Many of these fires were started by locomotives, and the rest in most cases by criminal negligence. A careless camper would fail to extinguish his camp fire, or possibly, after lighting his pipe, would throw the lighted match on the prairie and set fire to the grass. The most furious fire I ever saw occurred in the month of February, 1889. In the course of the fore noon I noticed a column of smoke arise from the valley of the St. Mary's River at a point about seven miles distant from Lethbridge, and sent a constable to see what it was. Our herd of horses were at pasture, in charge of a constable in the same valley at a point to the eastward of the smoke, and I was apprehensive of their safety in case a wind should spring up. Within an hour of my constable's departure the wind rose from a gentle breeze to a furious gale. It blew from the west in the direct line of our horses. It was about twelve miles to where our camp was, and Sergeant Ross and I galloped out, but the fire crossed our path like a flash. It was a beautiful grazing country with long grass known as "bunch grass," and this made the fire burn more fiercely. 299 Mounted Police Life in Canada A bunch of grass would be lighted at the roots, the wind would catch it up all blazing as it was and carry it 50 and 60 feet at a leap. There it would set fire to another bunch, which would be similarly caught up and flung ahead, to repeat the same process. Long before we could reach our herd the fire had passed away out of sight, and when we came to the horses we found them bunched up together behind a mound or butte, which was blackened on the windward side, but green on the lee side. Here there was a little pear-shaped patch of grass, just big enough to contain the herd, and it looked as if they had had the sense to shelter them selves there. The constable in charge was busy saving the house, etc., of a settler who was away from home, and he arrived just in time to do so. As the feed was gone we had to take all our horses into barracks and to feed them with hay. Another instance which occurred in April of the same year is a notable illustration of the difficulty in judging the distance of a prairie fire. Mr. Howell Harris, the manager of the Conrad Brothers' and I. G. Baker's ranches, came to me one evening and asked for assistance to put out a large fire, supposed to be from twelve to fifteen miles north of us, which was threaten ing his range. It certainly was a very alarming fire to look at, as there was a line of flame which extended over a great many miles. I happened to be very short of men just then, but went myself with a party of nine, taking with us a wagon, oats, canned corned beef and some tea, etc. We had first to find a ford across the Belly River, then to climb the opposite bank upon a road of our own making, and next we headed straight for the centre of the line of fire. We left barracks at eight o'clock in the evening, and travelled until three o'clock next morning. We seemed then to be just as far from the fire as when we started, but were fortunate 300 Some Early Reminiscences enough to find some water, so we halted for an hour to rest and to feed the horses; then, as we were not rationed for a lengthy trip, and as there was great un certainty about the supply of water, I decided to go home. We reached the Belly River at eleven o'clock, and rode into barracks just as the people were sitting down to their midday meal. We afterwards found that the fire was burning in an arc, and that the centre was really farther from us than either end. We must have travelled over fifty miles. As we neared our journey's end the wind gradually freshened, and after two days of such encouragement the fire came within striking distance. It was then credibly said to be within seven or eight miles, and I went out again with another party at 9 p.m. In spite of the distance, as estimated, we had to ride fifteen miles before we reached it, and by the time we had put it all out it was 5.30 a.m. We reached home, having travelled nearly forty miles. These fires were for the most part extinguished by means of gunny sacks, the business ends of which were saturated with water, and with these the fire was flogged out. Old brooms, too much worn for prolonged household work, were very useful, too, and we used to preserve our old brooms for the purpose. The wetting of the sacks necessitated a supply of water, and thus a barrel of water was carried in a wagon, so that progress could not be very rapid. It was a happy time when the settlers had become so numerous that our duty was mainly limited to warning them to turn out and fight any fire in their own vicinity. Suppressing Illicit Liquor Traffic No history of Mounted Police work would be worth its salt unless it could give some instances of the 301 Mounted Police Life in Canada manner in which the law prohibiting illicit liquor was enforced in the early days. During the first half of the year 1889 we paid par ticular attention to the unlawful importation of the poison that had been in the habit of coming into the country from Montana. There was no railway in that section connecting the two countries, and the liquor must, perforce, travel by wagon or by pack-horse ; yet, for a man who understood how to carry it on, the illicit trade was the most profitable business in the country. The stuff itself was known as "Forty Rod," "Red-Eye," "Rot-Gut," and other similarly expressive names, and it was invariably of overproof strength, so that it might be doctored by the retail vendor. In most cases it was little other than coloured alcohol. In December, 1888, Staff-Sergeant Ross received information that about 100 gallons of this stuff was "cached" on the prairie a few miles to the south of the town of Lethbridge, and after diligent search, found them. He was unable at the moment to provide trans port for more than thirty gallons, which he brought into barracks, and being assured that if he left the balance where it was he would see it again no more, he broke up the rest of the kegs and let the liquor run out on the prairie. It was a provision of the law that seized liquor could be so disposed of. We were never able to prove ownership, so the other thirty gallons went the same way, killing the weeds upon a barrack road. I had occasion to remember this "find," for just at that time my groom came to me and said that my team was a little above itself and wanted more exercise than it had been getting lately. Would it not be a good plan to take them for a ten-mile run into the country to steady them down. I did not want the horses that afternoon, and told him to do as he proposed, dis missing the subject from my mind. I learnt some little 302 Some Early Reminiscences time afterwards that the owners of the hundred gallons previously referred to had lost a ten-gallon keg of so- called brandy, which had fallen off the load, and my enterprising groom in some way came to hear of where it could be found. By means of my team and a buck- board he recovered the keg and sold it for a good round sum, putting the money, of course, into his own pocket. I discovered subsequently what a thorough-paced blackguard he was in this way. My trooper, which had been bought for the Force in Ontario in 1885, was a well-blooded golden chestnut, bred, as I understood, in Kentucky. He had been used on a trotting race-course, and his paces were quite unsuited to the saddle. I had ridden him with Lord Lansdowne's escort in 1885, and again with Lord Stanley in 1889, and on the latter occasion one of the Staff asked me, when my old friend was playing the kitten, whether he was a young horse. I could only reply, "I wish he were." He was "aged" when he was bought, and could not be expected to last for many years longer. Well, I had taken a great fancy to the horse, and allowed no one to ride him besides myself and my young son Percy, who was one of the best riders in the country. After many months of labour I had taught the old horse to canter quite pleasantly, and had always been very careful of his mouth. He showed his breed ing in so many ways; no matter how long the day or how tedious the road, he always had a spare leg to fall back upon, and one day I had occasion to cross the St. Mary's River when the floe ice was floating down, and wasn't quite sure how the horse might take it, never having seen it before. He just cocked his ears and looked at it, and passed through without a second thought. My groom, as it transpired, resented not being allowed to ride the horse, and one day I received, forwarded from the Commissioner at Regina. 303 Mounted Police Life in Canada a very badly written, ill-spelt letter, in which he was informed that if he knew how Percy Deane was per mitted to ride his father's horse he would not allow it. Not very long after this it happened that my groom wanted a night pass, wrote it out himself, and brought to me to sign. I at once recognised the writing as being identical with that of the anonymous letter, and sent both documents to the Commissioner, with the suggestion that my groom should be at once trans ferred to some northern division, which was done. He was subsequently sent to the penitentiary for burglary. The two following instances are good illustrations of the manner in which the detachments used to watch the illicit liquor dealers. Sergeant A. E. Macdonell, of Milk River Ridge detachment, about fourteen miles from the international boundary, was quite well aware that an old-time whisky smuggler, named Tom Percel, had a cargo of liquor in the proximity of the line, on the Montana side, which he was intending to run in whenever opportunity might offer. The 4th of July, American Independence Day, was approaching, and it could hardly be celebrated in gala fashion without a little stimulant, so on the evening of the 2nd, Tom decided to make his venture. At seven o'clock that evening Sergeant Macdonell started out on patrol, came across a fresh wagon track, followed it up, and over took Percel, who had six five-gallon kegs of fire-water in his wagon. Macdonell escorted the outfit to Leth bridge, where, Percel paid $100 fine, and where his wagon, horses and harness were seized, confiscated and sold by the Customs Department. Sergeant Macdonell was the richer by fifty dollars, as half the fine was payable to him as informer. During the same month I had sent out a working party from barracks to construct a bridge over a bad hole in the Fort Benton trail, which our teams, carry- 304 Some Early Reminiscences ing supplies, had to cross. It was about half-way between barracks and the Milk Ridge detachment, that is, at a distance of about thirty miles. About twenty-five miles to the west of where this party was working a detachment was stationed on the St. Mary's River. This detachment was provided with a pack outfit, so that it could act as a flying patrol, and by means of its pack-horses carry its own small "A" tent, grub, etc., for a few days. The detachment was commanded by a live young corporal named Elliott, who never left anything to chance. Corporal Elliott, in the course of his patrol, came across wagon tracks and, on general principles, fol lowed them. The country at that time was overspread with smoke from bush fires in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and the surrounding view was accordingly very limited. At a particular spot on the trail Elliott noticed that the tracks of the wagon ahead of him grew rapidly fainter and fainter, and he reasoned from this that the load in the wagon had, for some reason or other, become decreased. On investigation he found that five ten-gallon kegs of whisky were reposing at the bottom of a bank, down which they had been rolled out of sight from the trail. He went on his way re joicing, and presently rode into our bridge building camp, where he found a noted whisky-runner named "Red McConnell," with horses and an empty wagon. McConnell, who was familiarly known to his con freres as "Reddy," had had a long and merry life at his trade, and had never yet been caught. They all had supper together, of course, and after supper McConnell hitched up his team and drove off into the smoke. Corporal Elliott went back to the kegs and watched them all night. Bright and early next morning Red McConnell returned also to his kegs, and began to move them to 305 Mounted Police Life in Canada a more convenient and accessible spot. Elliott allowed him to remove one, and " held him up " with the second in his arms. The poor man was helpless — nothing could be done except to obey the command to load the kegs into his own wagon and to drive them into Leth bridge and pay the $100 fine which was exacted from him. After this experience Red McConnell did not again operate in my district. The Animals Contagious Diseases Act Among our multifarious other duties, we were called upon to enforce the provisions of this Act, and a great deal of work it caused us from time to time, until at length the Dominion Veterinary Department took over and performed its own duties, some years subsequent to the time of which I am now writing. At the Parlia mentary Session of 1897 the disease commonly known to stockmen as "big- jaw" or "lumpy-jaw," and to the veterinary profession as "actinomycosis," was added to the list of those scheduled in the Animals Contagious Diseases Act. This complaint was very prevalent on the range, and it was contrary to the new law for an owner to dispose of an animal suffering therefrom. In October of that year some 500 head of cattle were shipped from Lethbridge in two trains to Hochelaga. Complaint was made to me by a local stockman that nine head of big- jawed steers were included in this consignment, and that they were all loaded into one car, together with nine cows. This car was the leading car of the train, and it was destined to carry its freight to the cannery. The stockman who brought the complaint to me had been incited thereto by some of the men who had helped to load the cattle, and it was said that the nine steers were suffering from a very advanced stage of the disease. The lumps on the jaws had all burst, and the sores were 306 Some Early Reminiscences exuding matter and blood, and it seemed to be a very exaggerated case. As the trains carrying the cattle had left before the complaint was made, it was fortunate that an Inspector of Brands was present, as he could, and did, give excellent independent testimony as to the condition of the suffering animals. Being an appointee under North-West Ordinance only, he held no authority to interfere under the Con tagious Diseases Act, which was a Dominion Statute, but his attention was drawn to the facts, and he took his own notes. The case was tried summarily before an Associate Justice of the Peace and myself, a charge being laid against one of the shippers (to whom three of the steers were said to have belonged) that he had disposed of the said animals knowing that they were suffering from an infectious disease. Oddly enough, no one would (obviously they could if they would) explain how it happened that the nine diseased animals forgathered in one particular pen. It seemed to be a remarkable instance of animal sagacity. With a small effort of the imagination one could imagine these poor suffering creatures calling aloud in their bovine language, "Unclean, unclean," singling themselves out from the madding crowd and, with self-sacrificing resignation, placing themselves on board the first car to hasten to the cannery. I asked one witness how the cowboys had, in the course of conversation between themselves and the shippers, alluded to the diseased animals, and he replied, " Them with the wattles " ; but not a solitary member of the combination would admit driving or seeing anyone else drive the infected steers into the No. i pen. It did not matter. The charge was proved beyond a shadow of doubt, and the defendant was ordered to pay a fine of one hundred dollars. He gave notice of appeal, and as Mr. Conybeare was 307 Mounted Police Life in Canada acting for him, I had to request that some counsel should be appointed to uphold the conviction. The Crown Prosecutor of another judicial district was instructed to attend to this duty. He duly arrived in Lethbridge in the month of March following, and the case was heard by Mr. Justice Scott. I looked up the learned counsel on his arrival, told him that all the witnesses were present and so on, and that he had a perfectly straight case to handle, and felt not a little surprise when he intimated that the sitting magistrates had taken considerably more evidence than was necessary to a conviction. I did not concede that point, but said nothing, as I had had no experience then of his capacity as counsel. When the trial came on it was, of course, incumbent upon him to prove his case de novo, and I was literally staggered when, after he had perfunctorily examined a couple of witnesses, he said, "That's the case for the Crown, my lord." So much had been left undone that when Mr. Cony beare rose and said to the judge, "I submit, my lord, that there is no case for my client to answer," the judge simply queried, "You don't expect me to uphold the conviction upon such evidence as that, Mr. Blank, do you ? ' ' the man had no answer whatever to make. The appellant, whom he was paid $25 a day to convict, was a stalwart of the Liberal party, which had been returned to power a couple of years previously, and the inference was irresistible that, in contemptuous disregard of his reputation as a professional man and of his obligations as a man of honour, he had de liberately wrecked the case for the Crown in the interests of a political partisan. 308 The Mappa SmSES " INDEX Abbott, Sir John. 67 Adair, Oapt. T., 86 Adams, Ernest, and Tucker Peach, 247, 248 Akers, Dave, 59 Alaska sables. 56 Alberta, Assistant Commissioner- ship of, 12 Allen, George, 30 American troops, Indian massacre of, 33 Andre. Father, 202, 212, 231 Aylesworth, Sir Allan, 250 Baker, Montague, 14, 16, 91 Belcher, Sergt.-Major, 14, 35 Belcher, Staff-Sergeant, 270 Bell, Major, 17 Bennett, E. B., 8 Benson, John P., murder of, 251 Blight, Sergeant, 17 Bliss, Sergeant, 143 Bonneau, Mr., receives body of Eiel, 231 Borden, Sir Robert, 8, 127, 129 Bourinot, J., 98, 160, 162, 175 Brampton, Lord, Memoirs of, 248 Brassey, Lord, 65 Bray, Stock Inspector, 173 Brown, David, 91 Brown, Moses, 121 Bryan, W. J., 253 Brymer, Sergeant, 271 Burbridge, Justice, 180, 193, 196 Burnett, James, 253 Burns, Pat, the " Cattle King," 125 Butte, a Canadian, 56 Cabbages, a novel way of growing, 59 Calgary, the Duke and Duchess of York at, 90; author appointed to, 105; its fire brigade, 108; Prince Fushimi at, 110; sale of barracks site, 113, 126, 129; author's fare- weli to, 131; value of real estate in, 182; a remarkable judicial sentence, 285 Cameron, Sir Roderick, 76, 77 Oanada, political trickery in, 12, 13 threatened invasion of, 21 coroners' inquests in, 119 " Justice at Quick Step " in, 250 ; undesirable aliens in. 260 Canada, Royal Bank of, 182 (note) Canadian Pacific Railway, the, 19, 20, 74, 82, 83, 100 Carnot, Philip, 221 Casgrain, T. C, 193 Cattle smuggling, 91, 93, 154; the Customs Department and, 98, 157, 160, 170; a seized herd, 175-7 Cavanah, J. H., 45, 46 Champagne, Emmanuel, 221 Champness, Fred, 46 Chapleau, Sheriff, 231 Childers, Mr., 64 Clark, Charles B., a poem by, 180 Clarke, Lawrence, 38 Cochin, Father, 227-9, 230 Cochrane, Senator, 182 Collins, William Jaspar, and the Benson murder case, 123, 251; his confession, 252; trial and verdict, 255 Conybeare, C. F. P., 136, 137, 138, 271, 308 Cotton, Superintendent John, 3, 33 Coulee, definition of, 55 Crooked Lakes affair, the, 140 Crowfoot, 90 Crozier. Assistant Commissioner, 17, 210 Customs, Department of, 98, 157 (see also Cattle Smuggling) Davin, Nicholas Flood, 30; apprecia tion of Sir J. Thompson, 67 Deane, Dr., 113 Deane, Superintendent R. B., ap pointed Inspector of Mounted Police, 3; studies military law, 4; superintendent and adjutant, 6; questions of compensation claims and discharge by purchase, 7 ; and the medical staff, 10 ; a busy year, 14; and Major Bell, 17; Rebellion Tear, 21; addresses his men, 24-5, 28 ; and the vacant Commissioner- ship, 30; friction with Mr. Law rence Herchmer, 36; a new ap pointment, 37; life at Lethbridge, 44; Church work at Lethbridge, 44-5; Masonic work, 46; as gar dener, 51; interviews Sir J. Mao- 309 Index donald, 64; evidence at the Herchmer Commission, 67; oil well and mining speculations, 71-4; at Macleod, 79; second mar riage, 82, 112; witnesses the sun dance, 84; a holiday at British Columbia, 85; formulates a new system of crime reports, 88; a criminal prosecution and its sequel, 91-3; transferred to Maple Creek, 93, 178; Church work at Maple Creek, 97; the Department of Customs and, 98; appointed to Calgary, 103; a sad Christmas, 106; serious illness of his wife, 112; and Father Lacombe, 125; death of his second wife, 130; applies to be retired on pension, 131; farewell to Calgary, 131; the case of Constable Nettleship, 133; the Crooked Lakes affair, 140; the Spencer case, 154; engineers a round-up party, 161; and Louis Riel, 185; evidence at Riel's trial, 222; and the execution of Riel, 231-2; a poem dedicated to, by Riel, 232; the Tucker Peach mur der, 234; the Benson murder case, 250 ; the Wilson murder, 256 ; early reminiscences, 299; humours and uncertainties of the law, 281; an enterprising groom, 302 Dennehy, Capt. Barry Valentine, 109 Dewdney, Lieut.-Governor, selects Regina as capital of N.W. Terri tories, 1, 33; and Regina athletic sports, 26, 27; and Col. Irvine, 30; breach with Lawrence Herchmer, 42 Dobson, Ingram, 258 Dodd, Dr., 141 Dowell, Dr. Gus, 253 Dufferin, Lord, 62 Duffus, Inspector, 109, 110, 238, 244 Elliott, Corporal, 305 Ennis, Peter, 179 Erenenko, Fred, 260 " Exovede," meaning of, 210, 224 Fagle, A. F., 292, 294, 295 Feltis, Sheriff, 251, 253, 256 Fisk, John, and the Tucker Peach murder, 122. 239 ; execution of, 249 Fitzpatrick, Sir Charles. 190, 192, 193, 204, 223 Forget, A. E., 149 Fourmond, Father, 220, 221; wit nesses Riel's recantation, 227-9, 230 " Frank, Piegan," 277 French, Sir George, 13 French, Sir John, 86 Fushimi, Prince, 106, 110, 111 Gaddy, Interpreter, 148 Gagnon, Superintendent, 232 Gait, Sir Alexander, 48 Gait, Elliot, 88 George V., Ring, 90 Gordon, James, 257 Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Com pany, 113, 114, 126, 127 Greenshields, I. N., 190, 193, 197 Greisbach, Inspector, 2 Harris. Howell, 300 Harris, John, 163 Harvey, Chief Justice, 254 Henry, William, 162, 173 Herchmer, Lawrence, 30; Commis sioner of N.W. Mounted Police, 32 ; and " the Macleod clique," 33, 34 ; official inspection of " E " Division at Calgary, 35; friction with author, 36; and liquor law permits, 41; breach with Lieut.- Governor Dewdney, 42; and the Boer War, 87 Herchmer, William, 2, 32, 34; the Crooked Lakes affair, 141 et sea- Hewitt, Commodore, 87 Hobbs, Staff-Sergeant, 173 Holford. Jim, 146 Hudson's Bay Company, 38, 141, 151, 182 (note) Humphries, Willard, 178 Hunt, John D.. 261 Hutton, Sir Edward, 30, 87 Illicit liquor traffic, 301 (.cf. Pro hibition) Indians of Canadian North-West, the, 81, 83, 89, 90; the Crooked Lakes affair, 140, 262, 263 Irvine, Col. A. G., 2, 21, 23, 29-31, 232 Irwin, Staff-Sergeant W. H., 6 James, Sir Henry, 240 Jan, Father, 112 Jarvis, Sergt.-Major, 282 Johnstone, Justice T. C, 191, 196 Jones, Robert, and the Tucker Peach murder, 246, 247 Judah, Henry, 62 Jukes. Dr., 2, 11. 12, 15, 41, 222, 232 Kanawos, the Indian, 148 Keenan, Sergeant, 57 Keith, Mr., 140, 141, 142, 143, 152 Kelly, Chief Baron, 138 Kempster, T. J., 16 Kempston, Sergeant, 18 Kennedy, Dr. George, 34 Key, Sir Cooper, 65 Konuoh, Serkey (see " Smith, Joe ") Lacombb, Father, 19, 124, 125 Laflme, Maxime, 221 Lane, George, 161, 168 Lansdowne, Lord, 17; visits Fort Qu'Appelle, 18 310 Index Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, 98, 100, 106, 127, 273 Legarrd. Louis, 22 Le Jeune, Henry, 191 Lemieux, F. X., 190, 208, 223 Lepine, Maxime, and Louis Riel, 210 Lethbridge, origin of name, 39; author's appointment to, 44; a dry spell at, 50; water problem at, 54; incorporation of, 60; Com missioner Herchmer and, 60; the Court and its Judge, 68 Little Child, the Indian chief, 142 Lome, Marquis and Marchioness of, 1, 33 Lynch law, 266 I Macdonald, Hugh John, 184 Macdonald, Sir John, 8, 30, 31; first visit to Western Canada, 34; visits England, 184 Macdonell, Sergeant A. E., 304 Macdonell, Inspector A. R., 2 " Macleod clique, the," 33, 34 Macleod, Lt.-Col. James Farquhar- son, 68-70; his capacity for whisky, 71; and Riel's execution, 232; a horse-stealing case, 285 Macpherson, Sir David, 30, 184 Magrath, Charles A., 54 Maguire, Justice, 138 Major, Governor, 253 Manelek, Max, 257, 258 Maple Creek, 97 Mary, Queen, 90 McCaul, C. C, 135, 282, 283 McConnell, " Red," 305 McDonald, Colonel, 145, 146, 148 Mclllree, Assistant Commissioner, 74 McKenzie, General Colin, 13 McKenzie, Mr., and the Crooked Lakes affair, 138, 141, 150 McLean, Corporal, 289 McMuIlen, E. W., 98 McWilliams, Father, 231 Megalomania, definition of. 212 Melgund, Lord, 18 Mewburn, Dr., 46, 47, 48, 72 Michaels, E. H., and Benson murder case, 253 Middleton, General, 23; an unhappy phrase, 23-5; inspects the police, 28-9; and Col. Irvine, 30; a letter from Riel, 210 Mills, S. G., 14 Minto, Lord and Lady, 88, 89, 90 Moodie, Inspector, 49 Mormons, the, 88, 89, 291, 296, 297 Mount Stephen, Lord, 2 Mounted Police, head-quarters, 1; author's appointment as In spector, 3 ; problem of " Standing Orders," 5; compensation claims for injury, 7: discharge by pur chase, 7; medical staff 10; force increased in strength, 22; a tug- of-war and its sequel, 26-8; Mr. Lawrence Herchmer succeeds Col. Irvine, 30; invited to volunteer for Boer War, 87; luncheon to Duke and Duchess of York, 90; an appreciated mark of Royal favour, 91 ; probable changes fore shadowed, 101; Sir W. Laurier's interest in, 106; regulations re garding marriage, 112; Calgary barracks vacated, 113, 126, 129; the guard-room and gaol for females, 117; an undesirable prisoner, 121, 122; condemned criminals, 122, 123; religious ministrations for prisoners, 124, 125; relations of Mounted Police Courts to ordinary Courts of Law, 132-9; the Crooked Lakes affair, 140; a charge against, at Riel's execution, 231-2; the Tucker Peach murder, 234; the Benson murder, 250; the Wilson murder, 256; a drowning fatality, 262; Lynch law, 266 ; the " Patrons of Industry " and, 268 ; "Piegan Frank," 277; uncertainties of the law, 286; prairie fires, 299; illicit liquor trade, 301; Animals Con tagious Diseases Act, 306 Murby, WiUiam, 258 Murison, Detective-Sergeant, 235 Neale, Inspector P. R., 2 Nettleship, Constable, 133, 134-9 Neville, J. A., and the Benson murder case, 252 Nicholson, Detective-Sergeant, 291, 293 Nolan, P. J.. 290, 294 Nolin, Charles, 201, 202, 208, 210 Northbrook, Lord, 65 North-West Territories, liquor laws of, 39, 281, 283; a New Year's Day custom, 183; climate of, 183, 184; mounted police of (see Mounted Police) Olivbb, Hon. John, 103 Osier, B. B., 191, 193, 199 Osoup, the Indian, 142, 143, 148 Ouilette, Moise, 148, 221 Owens, Rev. Mr., 280 Pacific scandal, the, 62, 214 (note) PaUiser, Admiral, 86 Parenteau, Pierre, 221 Parnell Commission, an echo of the, 240-1 Patteson, T. C., 4; the man and his work, 61-3 Peach, A. C. Tucker, 235 (see also " Tucker Peach Murder ") Penni-pa-ke-sis, the Indian, 148 Percel, Tom, 304 Perry, Commissioner, 88, 107, 109, 111, 131 Perry, Constable, 262 Perry, Inspector A. B., 2 Phair, Sergeant, 270, 273, 274 3" Index Piggott, Sergeant, 222 Playfair, William, 162, 173, 175 Poundmaker, the Indian chief, 200, 224, 226 Prairie fires, 299 Prince Albert, 38 Prohibition laws in N.W. Territories, 39; prosecutions, 281, 283 Pye, William H., 253 Rebellion of 1885, the, 21, 182 (see also Riel, Louis) Red Crow, chief of Blood Indians, 83, 85, 90 Reed, Hayter, 140, 148, 149 Reed, Louis W., 253 Regina, 1, 33; a tug-of-war at, and its sequel, 26-8; Riel a prisoner at, 18!. Revell, Dr., 236 Rice, John, 173 Richardson, Colonel, 4, 148, 149 Richardson, Justice, 191, 195, 204 Riel, Louis, 182; a prisoner at Regina, 185 ; his letter to Sir J. A. Macdonald, 187 ; legal advisers of, . 190; trial of, 191-226; letters from, I 200 ; '.' Exovede " and its meaning, 1 209-211, 224; elected M.P., 214 (note); an inmate of a lunatic asylum, 215; extraordinary re ligious ideas of, 220-1; speech at his trial, 223-4; sentenced to death, 226 ; recantation and recon ciliation with Rome, 227-9; execu tion of, 231; a poem by, 232 Ringwald, Ernest, 92 Robertson, T. M., and the Tucker Peach murder, 236; his confes sion, 239, 241-4; trial of, and verdict, 249 Robinson, Christopher, 186, 193, 194, 197, 198, 204, 224-6 Ronald, James, lynching of, 266 Ronald, Maxwell, 267, 269, 271 Ross, Staff-Sergeant Charles, 15, 49, 264, 265, 283, 299, 302 Rouleau, Judge, 138 Routledge, Superintendent, 6 Roy, Dr. Francois, 215, 224 Royal Marines, the, 64-5 Runnion Brothers, the, 291 Sanders, Lt.-Col. G. E., 75 Sanson, Dr., 108 Schoeppe, Ernest, 259 Schroeder, Dr. H. A., 253 Scott, Justice D. L., 135, 193. 287, 290, 308 Shaw, Inspector, 109, 110, 111 Short, James, 254 Sifton, Chief Justice A. L., 61, 102, 136 Sifton, Clifford, 156 Simpson, Stall-Sergeant Walter, 14 Smart, Captain, 108 Smith, Donald A. (see Strathoona, Lord) " Smith, Joe " (Serkey Konuch), 257, 258 Sokoloff, Afancy, 257, 258; arrest of, 259 Spencer Brothers, wholesale cattle smuggUng by, 154; memorandum of details for settlement with, 170; a suit against the Govern ment, 179 Steele, Superintendent Sam, 72, 74, 272 Stephen, George (see Mount Stephen, Lord) Stewart, Alexander David, 191 Strathoona, Lord, and Riel, 214 (note) Stribble, Constable, 283, 284 Strong, Arthur, 166-7, 173, 179 Stumden, F., 98 Stuttaford, Mrs., 117, 118, 120, 130 Sun dance, the, 83-4 Tach4, Archbishop, 214 (note) Taylor, Harry, 76, 77, 85 Taylor, WiUiam, 154, 161, 164, 175 Thompson, Sir John, tragic death of, 67 Townsend, Inspector, 112 Tucker Peach murder, the, 122, 234 Van Hoene, Sir William, 125 Voice, George, 159, 160, 161. 162. 163, 169 Wallace, Dr. James M., 211 Warren, Charles, 269; arrest and trial of, 271 Watts, Constable, 258 Wetmore, Judge, 67, 138, 139 White, Comptroller Fred, 38. 39, 63-4, 107, 184 Willoughby, Dr. John H., 201 Wilson, John, murder of, 256 Wilson, President, and the extra dition of Collins, 252, 253 Wilson, W.. 89 Winchester rifle, old-time prices of, 59 Wrigley, Mr., 271 Yellow Calf, the Indian chief, 142, 147, 148 York, the Duchess of (see Mary, Queen) York, the Duke of (see George V., King) Young, Capt. George, 185; defines the word " Exovede," 210 ZlMMERMANN, Mr., 114 Printed by Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C. 7,5.1116 YALE UNIVERSITY I