Phone: Fernie 25 - Night 52

FERNIE

CHAS. G. HAMRIN
GENERAL MERCHANT
Our Motto: “One Price to All”

Phone: 2 Short, 1 Long
WARDNER., B.C.

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WARDNER HOTEL

Jack Kennedy, Proprietor

Big Game Hunting and Fishing
Clean Rooms and Good Meals

FULLY LICENSED
WARDNER, B. C.

JAFFRAY
GENERAL STORE

V. H. Collinson, Prop.

GROCERIES, FLOUR, FEED
P.O. JAFFRAY, B.C.

JAFFRAY HOTEL
A. Anderson, Proprietor

® Fully Licensed

® Good Hunting and Fishing

® Clean, Comfortable Rooms

P.O. JAFFRAY, B.C.

P.0. Box 1075

WILSON LUMBER C0. (Fernie) LTD.

Dealers in
CEDAR POSTS AND POLES
RAILWAY TIES, PROPS, ROUGH AND

DRESSED LUMBER
BRITISH COLUMBIA

KING

Fernie

EDWARD HOTEL

Commercial and Tourist House
First Class Dining Room Coffee Shop in Connection

FULLY LICENSED
British Columbigq

without warning while the police were in-
tent on the bodies.

So confident of success were the out-
laws and so sure of the secrecy of their
hiding place, that they posted only a single
guard during the night. Sambo and Geor-
gie waited till midnight before slipping out
of the sleeping group.

As the result of their return it was de-
cided to try strategy before making a
direct attack upon the outlaw stronghold
in Windginna Gorge.

A. party of natives actually volunteered
for the dangerous assignment. The party
consisted partly of police trackers, partly
of stock-boys from the Lennard Station.
They were to pose as anxious to join the
outlaw band, and when admitted to camp
must try to seize the outlaws’ firearms and
arrest the leaders of the gang.

STRATAGEM Dipn’t Work

The valiant little party of blacks set out
toward Windginna Gorge, announcing
their coming to the outlaws with loud
shouts of their peaceable intentions. They
were conducted readily enough to Pidgeon
when they boasted they had killed a white
man called Barnet and his boy Billy.

When they repeated this proof of their
loyalty to the outlaw cause to Pidgeon,
he said nothing but personally stripped
them of their weapons while his armed
warriors stood alertly by to guard against
any overt move.

Pidgeon valued his leadership too much
to kill a fellow black in cold blood. The
effect on his followers would be bad, and
if the story got about it would discourage
would-be recruits.

“Go back,” he contemptuously ordered
the six cowed captives. “You make better
lie ‘nother time. I kill old Barnet’s boy
mesel’ other day.”

Constable Drewry now had no choice
but to split his small party and attack the
stronghold from both sides. The outlay
blacks had overwhelming advantage jy
numbers, but their chief fighting skill lay
in use of spears and boomerangs. Pidgeon
was probably the only good rifle shot
among them all. They had tremendoys
respect for a rifle in the hands of a police-
man, so their fighting methods were based
on trying to deliver sudden blows from
concealment, then retire rapidly to another
vantage point.

Under such circumstances the attack
moved slowly, depending largely on the
native police-boys to discover the enemy,
There were thick grass and bushes in the
canyon bottom, countless clefts and caves
along its walls. Nevertheless, the defent-
ers suffered casualties heavy enough to
create alarm, but no less than three police.
boys lost their lives in fearless devotion
to duty. |

The battle of Windginna Gorge lasted
till darkness ended it. Pidgeon was known
to have been wounded, but a thorough
search of the abandoned stronghold next
morning failed to find any trace of his
body. Eelemarra and Captain were als
among the outlaws believed to have slipped _
through the cordon by means of under -
ground passages known only to a few
blacks. A wide sweep of the surrounding
country led the conclusion the fugitives
had probably fled to some far-off refuge

The search finally led Const. Drewry
about two hundred and forty miles to the
southern border of the King Leopold
Range. There they had the satisfactiol
of discovering a native camp. It sheltered
only women and children, but among them!
was noticed Pidgeon’s favourite “lubra
Terrewarra, a fine-looking quarter-castt

The story the police worried out of het
was that the outlaws had sent the womet

Head Office - -

POWER

Transmission lines from Kimberley, B. C. to Bellevue, Alberta,
to major metal mining operations at Kimberley; the important Coal
Pass and the Cities and Towns of the East Kootenay District.

EAST KOO

Page Sixty-eight

TENAY POWER COMPANY, LTD.
= - - - - - - Fernie, B.C.
Hydro Plants—Elko, B. C. and Bull River, B.C. Steam Plant—Sentinel, Alta.

supply electrical energy
Mines in the Crows’ Nest