ae ee ES TE Ir eR SE ee

r

ré

36 THE CARIBOO TRAIL

Engineers and marines and set out for the
scene of the disorders. Royal Engineers to
the number of a hundred and fifty-six and their
families had come out from England for the
boundary survey; and their presence must
have seemed providential to Douglas, now
that the miners were forming vigilance com-
mittees of their own and the Indians were on
the war-path. He went up the river in a
small cruiser and reached Hope on the Ist of
September. Salutes were fired as he landed.
Douglas knew how to use all the pomp of regi-
mentals and formality to impress the Indians.
He opened a solemn powwow with the chiefs
of the Fraser. As usual, the white man’s
fire-water was found to be the chief cause of
the trouble. Without waiting for legislative
authority, Douglas issued a royal proclama-
tion against the sale of liquor and left a mining
recorder to register claims. He also appointed
a justice of the peace. Then he went on to
Yale. At Yale he considered the price of
provisions too high, and by arbitrarily reduc-
ing the price at the company’s stores, he broke
the ring of the petty dealers. This won him
the friendship of the miners. Within a week
he had allayed all irritation between white man
and Indian. In a quarrel over a claim a