 CHAPTER XVII THE BENSON MURDER AND ARSON The following extract from a newspaper published in the State of Missouri, USA, 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 is 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 Missourin 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 surefire way in which the murderer was brought to justice without technicalities to be fogged the issue, the directness and speed of it, or lessons the court of this country might take with profit. The ten witnesses who were taken by the Canadian government from Missouri to Calgary Canada to testify against the murderer at a total cost of three thousand dollars to that government have returned. They are loud in their praise of the sureness and swiftness with which the sort of justice is swung up there, compared with the leisurely manner in which it is wielded here. One of those witnesses was M. E. Feltas, Sheriff of Caldwell County, Missouri. Quote, the courts of Canada waste no time in technicalities, dilatory tactics, or meaningless legal phrases, he said. It would be a good thing if our courts would copy them in some things. End quote. THE CRIME Last April John B. Benson, a lawyer of Bramer, Missouri, and William Jasper Collins, a young, near well-to-do of the same town, went to Canada to take up land claims. Benson had three thousand five hundred dollars, Collins had no money, and Benson 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 one hundred and fifty miles from Calgary, 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 Bramer, Missouri, with the body, Mrs. Benson, loaning Collins the money to pay his fare. None of the money which Benson had, when 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 eighteen hundred in his pocket. Soon after the funeral in Bramer, Collins began spending money freely, and this excited suspicion. The Masonic Lodge in Bramer, of which Benson was a member, engaged a detective from the Pinkerton Agency in Kansas City, and he went to Bramer 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 suspicions Collins might have. The body was identified by J. A. Neville, a dentist who had put some bridge work in Benson's mouth. An examination disclosed that one side of the skull was crushed in, as if with a 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 one thousand eight hundred dollars, consisting of ninety twenty dollar bills, all new and all of consecutive numbers, issued by the first National Bank of Bramer. 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, a document without two wits. If this had been an official request from this government 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 warehouses and two wits and, as aforesaid, but the request of the Canadian government was cooched in fewer than fifty words. It stated simply that on May 1st, 1913 William Jasper 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 Port Hall on the national boundary in Manitoba. President Wilson put his OK on the brief document and gave it to W. J. Bryan, Secretary of State. He OKs 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 Chilcouth, Collins fighting against extradition and repudiating 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 share a feltus for him to bring to the Canadian border. Collins, Neville, the dentist, E. H. Michaels, the undertaker, James Burnett, a constable, William H. Pi, 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 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 a rival in Calgary, a preliminary hearing was given to Collins in the barracks of the Mounted Police. The government appointed an able lawyer to defend him, but how different from the American method. There are no motions for continuances, no changes of venue nor any other military tactics whatever. Within 24 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 20 minutes to select a jury to try Collins. In America a jury of 12 men try a man for murder. In Canada a jury of 6 does it. A JURY IN A HURRY There was no quibbling. No man was asked if he had. Conscience of scruples against concurring in a verdict of guilty, if that verdict might mean the inflection of the death penalty. All the long and complicated questions asked jurors in this country were omitted. 12 men were called from the veneer and were sworn. The state struck off three names. The defense 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 20 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 defense 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 defense. There was no witness nor evidence for the defense. 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 there that the body of a person hanged for murder cannot be claimed by relatives nor others. The party of Missourans who assisted the Canadian authorities in the enforcement of Canadian law was given a banquet before they returned, and Sheriff Feltas of Caldwell County was told that if he could come back to Calgary to see Collins hanged all his expenses would be paid by Canada. The fifty-word communication alluded to in the foregoing was a night letter Graham 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 the 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 Calgary. 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 preceding this date for one of the other officials of the company to go with the chief clerk to fetch the money, 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 Menelik, Afansi Sokolov, and Cirky Kunach, 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 Sokolov, came up behind Gordon and felt his pockets, and then Sokolov and Menelik followed Joe Smith into the bushes, fringing the bow river. Sokolov, 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 pistol carried off by Sokolov and Joe Smith were automatic luggers, wicked looking weapons, sighted up to two thousand yards. It happened that there was no mounted police detachment at Eksha, 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 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 shotgun, 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 Menelik, 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 two hundred dollars 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 Eksha, upon which point the three neighbouring detachments at Canmore, Morley and Banff, were also ordered to converge. Joe Smith and Sokolov managed to get away from their pursuers, and the next we heard of the former was shortly after midnight on May twenty-third. 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 Lugger revolver had become jammed in some way so that he was unable to use it or somebody would have been hurt. When his person was found the stolen money, two thousand three hundred and forty dollars and twenty cents, the silver in one of his pockets in the bills together with the bank of Montreal payslip in the bag inside his shirt. This aroused queries as to what had become of his companion, for it seemed incredible that he should have allowed Joe Smith to carry off all the plunder. I was so much of the opinion that the third man had been disposed of that I circulated the offer of a reward of two hundred dollars for Sokolov'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 Schupp, 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 Sokolov was hiding in a northern suburb of Calgary, and on June 2nd 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. Sokolov passed up his pistol and cartridges first and then came up himself. The chief's next move was to obtain from his informant John Wilson's pistol which Sokolov had taken from the dead man's pocket. He had been trying to sell this to the man who gave information of his whereabouts to the detectives. The three prisoners were tried together on June 16th and 17th, and the jury, after forty-five minutes consultation, found them all guilty with a recommendation to mercy in the case of Manolec. They were sentenced to be hanged in the mounted police guard room at MacLeod on August 26th following, and were sent thither next day. After sentence was pronounced Sokolov asked Shoup 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 Sokolov's whereabouts was a Russian man named Fred Ironenko. He was a witness at the trial of the murderers, and told how Sokolov 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 Sokolov 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 Sokolov and Smith were the principal tools. Ironenko was asked by the prisoner's counsel, why did you give Sokolov away, and he replied, after a moment's reflection, I had to. At all events as I have said Sokolov sent for Shoup, and told him that Ironenko had tried to persuade him to kill Shoup 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 Sokolov either thought that the proposed methods were too risky or did not want to hurt Shoup. One plan that Ironenko proposed was that they should visit Shoup 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 Shoup then remembered that Ironenko had gone to him on two or three occasions in the previous winter with some papers which he professed himself unable to understand. Shoup refused to receive the reward payable for Sokolov's arrest, and said he had promised to have it paid to Ironenko. In connection with this matter I received from the Attorney General's Department the following letter. 27.5.14. Department of Attorney General Edmonton, May 26, 1914. Superintendent Dean, Royal Northwest 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 Calgary, 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 summoning up, gave due credit to everybody concerned. CHAPTER XVIII. INCIDENCE OF MOUNTAID POLICE LIFE. 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 the neighborhood 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 output 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. Ranch where there were many enough to stand off a few inquisitive Indians, but it devolved upon us to send a patrol which tore down the visitor's tents and ordered them back to their reserve. There was always the possible making of trouble in a proposition of this kind, for the Indians were under no obligation to confine themselves to the 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 freshettes, 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 coolly 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 available 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 headquarters, and Constable Perry had been sent to Lethbridge, with his detachments' returns, et cetera, and had been instructed that the Belly River could not be forwarded, and that he must travel by the long route. He delivered his reports, et cetera, at Lethbridge, 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 ferrymen 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 he had lost his way. He announced his intention of taking the shorter cut in the morning, but the ferrymen warned him against trying to forward 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 tender foot 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. Reminstances 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 last report of his being missing reached me, I organized 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 aforesaid 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 experienced 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, four 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 neighborhood, 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 further 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 overconfidence. Singularly, some light was thrown upon the subject a few years later when the same horse, Reg. 1570, 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 a 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 afternoon 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. Number 1570 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, fortunately, not at high water-mark. The corporal stood on the bank, watching the proceedings, and saw the horse, as soon as he found himself 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 this 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 13th, 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 rescattered 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 treatment 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 remonstrated 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 Lethbridge for a time, but had now returned, and it is no disregard of the obligation, de morteus, 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, broken to 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 without, and the masked gang rapidly and quietly disappeared. 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 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 Sr. 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 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 Sr. 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 one, having permitted this outrage to take place, and two, 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 subsequently, 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 the hospital. We had our own hospital within the barrack grounds. A few days after this accident it came to my knowledge that Sergeant Fair 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 Sr., 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 wit 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, and had been in town for a few months doing no work and having no visible means of support, but quiet and inoffensive with all. 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 experiences in like exploits. And there was less chance of his voice being recognized. And treating 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 for Mr. Ronald Sr. as to his son James's intentions. I should explain here that the entire community, ministers of religion, men, women and children of all sorts and conditions, were of the 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, 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 lawbreakers 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 storerooms, and to him I betook myself. I could not myself have visited Sergeant Fair in the hospital, and held lengthy conversations 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 all. 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 time I wanted them, so that I had only four to locate, and that was soon done. On June 7th Warren was arrested by Sergeant Brimer, and summonses to witness 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. Coneybear, the private prosecutor by a Mr. Wrigley, a young barrister of repute, and the accused by an ex-partner of Mr. Coneybear's, who thought he could make more money by defending than by prosecuting criminals. In accordance with the authority conferred upon me by the criminal code I informed the legal gentleman 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 13th, 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 taran feather proceedings, the making of the masks, etc., and eventually 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 way, and in 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 Mishir's conny-bear, Wrigley and myself, that we believed ourselves to be the only residents of Lethbridge who were of the 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 Superintendent 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 improper 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 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 the 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 Wilford 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 Lethbridge. There had 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 Fair had been a member of the gang, and this reached Mr. Coney Bear'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 Fair a witness. I sent a telegram to Lethbridge ordering Sergeant Fair to be sent to MacLeod next morning in time for the opening of the court, and met him at the door of the courthouse 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 attention to himself all the sympathy of the two towns by whose residence he would have been held 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 Fair 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 notebook and asked the Crown Prosecutor, why has this man not been indicted? Well, my lord, began the counsel, cuddling his brains for a suitable answer. Have it done it 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 suffice to convict Sergeant Fair of Perjury, and on my advice, he finally consented to tell the truth. He went into the witness's 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 superintended the proceedings of the lawless gang. James Ronald was in such a state of nervous prostation 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 and made no defense. Counsel for the Crown waved their addresses to the jury, and 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 sympathized 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 powder of footsteps on the sidewalk across the street. I looked out and saw two men taking shelter under the overhanging eve of a doorway in a house opposite. They were the jurymen of whom I 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 jurymen were 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 10th, and on the night of the 9th Sergeant Fair 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 a hundred dollars was hastily raised by the persons most interested in Sergeant Fair's absence, and he was persuaded to leave the country. Sergeant Fair'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 southeast corner of the barrack enclosure, within a few feet of a road, with nothing but a wire fence intervening, and Sergeant Fair was persuaded to climb into a waiting buggy and was driven across the international boundary into Montana. He only received forty dollars out of the hundred which had been subscribed as the driver thought that sixty was due to himself. Warren was released on bail until the winter of sizes, and took advantage of his freedom to cross the boundary. One of his sureties followed him. The case was called at McLeod in the following November, but the accused did not appear, and his bail was ordered to be estreted. The prosecution, however, had its effect and was such as to discourage further experiments with 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, explained Mr. Ronald's letter to me. He knew that I was chief of police, and actually supposed that I had taken a hand in the business. Pagan Frank Pagan, pronounced Pagan, Frank, was a blood Indian whom I engaged as a scout, soon after I went to Lethbridge in 1888. As the blood Indian reserve 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 would visit the reserve and bring us news at first hand. An interpreter was attached to the headquarters 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 Pagan 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 delay. I apologized profusely for the Indians' behavior 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. The sweethearts then resumed their drive. I did not set eyes on Pagan 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 Kip, a place half way between Lethbridge and McLeod, where the trail crosses the old man's river. He was always on the lookout 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 eastbound train of the previous evening had found a cartwheel laid across the rails near Kip 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 Pinscher Creek Detachment, who 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 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 the authority to stop the train for that purpose? If not, he might just as usefully 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 passengers by red-croat accruements, boots and spurs, and all the paraphernalia of war, and the matter rested until I drove to Lethbridge on the Saturday following. At Kip my scout was, as usual, waiting for me. Frank, I said, someone is putting things on rails, mile and a half west of here. You go and find out who does it, move your tent over there. Yes, sir, 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 Tuesday, a day earlier than usual, and thus I had no expectation of seeing Frank at the river crossing, but there he was beaming. Engine chilling, 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 retired up the hill to enjoy the fireworks. The two other boys were called the Lizard and Slapmouth, and Frank had orders to bring them all into my office at MacLeod on the following Wednesday. He was to notify the Reverend Mr. Owens, who conducted 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 break 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 Reverend 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. CHAPTER XIX HUMERS 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 any beer of any sort, whether lager or other. Was expensive to import, that hot beer came into fashion, and all sorts of people took to making it. The Slavs and Hungarians used to get gloriously drunk and rowdy on it at their marriage-feasts, and the inland revenue department used to try to prevent the manufacture and sale of the beverage. The only interest that hot 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 hot 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 prohibitory law for selling an intoxicant? Then 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 pro-long drink at the expense of someone else. There was no difficulty at all 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. McCall, 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 Charlie McCall. He said to me afterwards, It was too bad to let me drag all that evidence out of the witness and tie the rope around 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. Another amusing case arose out of a conviction which I made against a surgeon resident of Lethbridge for the unlawful possession of intoxicating liquor. Notice of appeal was given and Mr. McCall 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 prosecutor's 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 sight 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 a quarter-master sergeant to give Sergeant Ross a tent, stove, furnishings and rations, and these all were 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 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 a hundred 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'm riding cared nothing for that. They thought they had sufficiently involved the man with the police force to make it impossible 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 appellant's face was a study. McCall 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 unexpected episode. Stribble simply repeated the evidence he had given at the original trial, and confirmed Sergeant Ross's evidence as he had done before. McCall, with a view to discredit his testimony in chief, began his cross-examination by asking him 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 McCall was, NOS, let me understand this correctly, is there not a charge pending against you under the Mounted Police Act? Answer, NOS. There was nothing more to be said, the man's character could not be blackened, there was no reason 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, Volume 1, page 86, in the late nineties, the city in question being Calgary. Guilty or not guilty. A learned judge of French extraction, not of the Manitoba Bench, lately pronounced within five thousand miles of this city, the following remarkable sentence on a man accused of stealing a horse. Prisoner, the evidence is conflicting, but I find you guilty and sentence you to three months in the guard room. The evidence, as I say, is very conflicting, but if I was sure, if I was quite sure, that you stole dad horse, I would give you two years in the Manitoba Penitentiary. The barrister who habitually furnished the law reports 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 that man that I can talk as good English 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 sentenced 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 explanation, 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 gotten 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 illustrations of the disquieting ease with which even a well-worked-up case may fail in court through the incompetency of counsel. In the spring of 1898 the milk-river patrol between writing on stone and pendant d'orail detachment 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 switched 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 unbranded. Wondering always how long she would continue 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 inquiries. They heard the balling of the calf and found the little switched tail heifer shut up by herself in a long corral. The next step was to drive the bunch of cattle to the corral. The cow recognized 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 immigrant 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. Coney Bear, the crown prosecutor was away from home, and his office was filled by a legal gentleman from a cloud. It was a very plain, straightforward case, and the principal witness, a constable named Aerosmith, gave his evidence very clearly and well. I was sitting by the side of the council 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 council, 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 painting her and she is glad to have it relieved, even by a strange calf. This was a morning session of the Supreme Court, and I was due to start on my thirty-two mile drive to McLeod 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 McLeod, and at the crossing of the Old Man's River, which was about half way, met the judge, who was taking advantage of my teams to journey to McLeod, 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 Errol Smith gave good evidence. So he did. He replied. But no one 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. 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 detachment 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 unsavory reputation, although he had never been able to prove anything against him. I had known of him in the McLeod District years previously. Corporal 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, et cetera. 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 easily, 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. 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 council for the crown, and heard Corporal McLean tell in detail the story which I have here outlined. When he had described how the mayor'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 you are afraid to ask it, and Patty 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, knowing 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 mayor's heels? The answer came without a moment's hesitation. The mayor knew that the call to his 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. In the month of December 1907, complaint was made to us that at a little settlement some fifty-five miles southeast of Calgary certain people were butchering cattle which did not belong to them. Two brothers named Runyon were said to have sold quite a lot of beef in the town of High River to householders 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 Runyon 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 unknown in the district went to the village in question and put up in 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 Runyon 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 Runyon's 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 the 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 onto their own homestead. Two readers who are ignorant of the conditions of life on the Western prairies 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 it 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 Providence 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 overtaken 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 pass through on their own land and they allow their animals to run at large in the same way. That is how the presence of these astrays was accounted for. Not far from the Runyan premises there was living another American immigrant who had only been a short time in Canada and had worked for the Runyans 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 Runyan brothers from November 15th until December 15th 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 rhone steer branded. I helped to skin the animal. The hide was cashed in the stable under some hay and I believe it is still there. Every night during the first two weeks in December they killed an animal and I believe there are at least forty hides cashed 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 premises and a warrant to arrest the men were issued in Calgary and to avoid possible trouble we made rather elaborate preparations to effect the arrest. Wholesale stealing of the sort described could obviously not have continued for any length of time without arousing the suspicion of at least some of the neighbors in those parts and it was a reasonable inference that if they did not profit by the nefarious proceedings of the runyons 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 employed as stock detective was necessary by the Southern Alberta Stock Rowers 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 had instructed to get in touch with the runyons 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 nonpaying guest after the brothers had been removed. As it happened we had no trouble. Edgar Runyon was arrested in High River on January 18th wither he 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. Fagel, 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. Fagel, 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 brands at all, so that it was impossible to tell who the owners were. The thawing out of these hides and 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 Stockrowers 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 Runyans and shielded them as much as possible. Another difficulty was that comparatively few of the witnesses could tell, even approximately, the respective dates of their deals. It was easy to obtain through our detachment on the Blackfoot Reserve statements from the various Indians who traded sometimes wood and sometimes coal for beef. And on February 18th 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 Runyan tried separately. And the reason for this appeared when in his defense 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 Fagal and he had buried the hide in the hole, and claimed that Fagal 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 in 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 his brother when they obtained beef for coal. Further that Fagal 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 Fagal drive out in buried 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. Fagal 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 a hereafter but did not believe in punishment after death for deeds done in the flesh. That made the judge look a scance 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 Fagal'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 Fagal on the other. If you believe Fagal 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 sentenced to two years in the penitentiary. However gratifying to the Runyan 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 Runyan brothers had money enough to establish themselves comfortably on their farms, and to buy out the brand and a herd of cattle numbering about one hundred and sixty head. In the country from 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 inordinately fond, and to whom he was by far too indulgent. This young rascal conceived the idea of coming to Canada with a Cher Amie, of whom his uncle highly disapproved, and the pair of them were actually seated in a northbound train at Great Falls, waiting for it to pull out. The old gentleman, distressed 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 potshots 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 two hundred mile run to Lethbridge, and on arrival there the unhappy passenger had to be taken to the hospital, where she died within twenty-four hours. A United States Sheriff came, of course, to investigate 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 Runyon, as soon as the court's stenographer's notes were transcribed, I preferred a charge of perjury against Edgar Runyon, and called three black-feet Indian to prove that Fagal was witness to a trade which they had made with the accused at his farm. They all swore that an Indian named Sarky Medicine Pipe traded a pair of moccasins to Edgar Runyon 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. After twenty. 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 campfire, 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 four 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. A bunch of grass would be lighted at the roots. The wind would catch it up, all blazing as it was, and carry it fifty or sixty 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 butt, 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 themselves 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 threatening 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 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 uncertainty 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 further 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 nine 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 five thirty 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 wedding of the sacks necessitated a supply of water, and thus a barrel of water was carried in a wagon, so that process 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 manner in which the law prohibiting illicit liquor was enforced in the early days. During the first half of the year, 1889, we paid particular 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, per force, 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. This stuff itself was known as Forty Rod, Red Eye, Rotgut, 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 colored alcohol. In December, 1888, Staff Sergeant Ross received information that about one hundred gallons of this stuff was cashed on the prairie a few miles to the south of the town of Lethbridge, and, after a diligent search, found them. He was unable at the moment to provide transport 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, dismissing the subject from my mind. I learnt some little time afterward 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 fours in Ontario in 1885, was a well-blooded golden chestnut bread 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 Landstown'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 breeding in so many ways, no matter how long the day or how tedious the road, he had always a spare leg to fall back upon, and one day I had occasion to cross the St. Mary's River, when the flow ice was floating down, and wasn't quite sure how the horse might take it, having never 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, a very badly written, ill-spelled letter, in which he was informed that if he knew how Percy Dean was permitted 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, rode it out himself, and brought to me to sign. I at once recognized the riding 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 transferred 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. MacDonald, of Milk River Ridge Detachment, about fourteen miles from the international boundary, was quite well aware that an old-time whiskey smuggler, named Tom Purcell, 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 fourth of July, American Independence Day, was approaching, and it could hardly be celebrated in gala fashion without a little so on the evening of the second, Tom decided to make his venture. At seven o'clock that evening Sergeant MacDonald, started out on patrol, came across a fresh wagon-track, followed it up, and overtook Purcell, who had six five-gallon kegs of fire-water in his wagon. MacDonald escorted the outfit to Lethbridge, where Purcell paid one hundred dollar fine, and where his wagon, horses and harnesses were seized, confiscated, and sold by the Customs Department. Sergeant MacDonald was the richer by fifty dollars, as half the fine was payable to him as in former. 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 team's carrying 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 life-young corporal named Elliot, who never left anything to chance. Corporal Elliot, in the course of his patrol, came across wagon-tracks, and, on general principles, followed them. The country at that time was overspread with smoke from bushfires in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and the surrounding view was accordingly very limited. At a particular spot on the trail Elliot 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 whiskey 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, rejoicing, and rode into our bridge-building camp where he found a noted whiskey-runner named Red McConnell, with horses and an empty wagon. McConnell, who was familiarly known to his comfraise 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 Elliot 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 a more convenient and accessible spot. Elliot 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 Lethbridge and pay the one hundred dollar fine which was extracted from him. After this experience Red McConnell did not attain operate in my district. The Animals Contagious Disease 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 parliamentary 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 Disease 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 five hundred head of cattle were shipped from Lethbridge in two trains to Hatchalaga. 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 there too 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 all had burst and the sores were 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 Northwest Ordinance only, he held no authority to interfere under the Contagious 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 foregathered 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 maddening 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 waddles. But not a solitary member of the combination would admit driving or seeing any one else drive the infected steers into the number one 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. Coneybear was 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 to 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. Coneybear 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 twenty-five dollars 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 honor, he had deliberately