COPYRIGHT PHOTO

Lower Fort Garry, 18 miles from Winnipeg. birthplace of the North West Mounted Police. The writer was the last Hudson's Bay Company

When night enveloped the land
these fiends in human form decided to
clean out the Indian camp, and posted
themselves on a cutbank on the south
side of the creek. Here they could
stand on the gravel, breast-high, rest
their Winchesters on the top, and fire
from excellent cover. The Indians
were in the midst of their drinking
orgy, every lodge luminous as a
Chinese lantern—braves and squaws
silhouetted against the painted tepee
covers, when the whites turned loose
a murderous barrage upon the in-
offensive and unsuspecting people.
Thirty of the Assiniboins — men,
women and children — were mowed
down by the gunfire of the hidden
assailants; many more were wounded,
and the rest, not knowing where their
adversaries were, fled, pell-mell, to
the hills for refuge.

The massacre was witnessed by Abe
Farewell, a respectable American

OLD EMPRESS
HOTEL

Angelo Rossi, Proprietor

PRINCE RUPERT

TWENTY-FOURTH EDITION

officer in charge of this historic fort.

trader, whose trading post arose
nearby, and who was married to Big
Mary, a Crow squaw. As the Indians
fled the outlaws made prisoner a
comely squaw who'd fled across the
creek to take refuge at Farewell’s, and
were in the act of carrying her off
when Big Mary appeared like an
avenging angel upon the scene,
brandishing a huge revolver. Backed
by Abe she succeeded in dragging the
girl to safety.
Force With Little Lace, Fuss
and Feathers

So “John A.” had called fora force
‘with as little lace, fuss and feathers
as possible,” to tame the wooly west,
establish Canada’s sovereignty and
run the whiskey peddlers out. Thus
the Stone Fort on the historic Red
had been the cradle for Canada’s
North West Mounted Police.

Raw, unseasoned men, those

NORTHERN B.C. POWER
¢€o., LTD.

Electric Supplies and Merchandise

Prince Rupert, B.C.

original Mounties were quick work-
ers. Before Christmas Assistant Com-
missioner J. F. Macleod of the ageres-
sive eyes and square-cut beard had
built his whipsawn fort on the Old
Man River, raided the nests of the
swashbuckling rum-runners and
chased them back across the border.

In the conclusion of his report to
the Canadian Government, Colonel
French briefly summarised the doings
of the newly-established force. “The
broad fact is,’ he wrote, “a Canadian
force hastily raised, armed, and
equipped, and not under martial law,
in a few months marched two thou-
sand miles through a country for the
most part as unknown as it proved to
be bare of pasture and scanty in its
supply of water. Of such a march un-
der adverse conditions, all true Cana-
dians may well be proud. To the
Government of the Dominion my
heartfelt thanks are tendered for hav-

RADIOS WASHERS TRONERS
RANGES : REFRIGERATORS
e

Stewart, B.C.

Page Nine