Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police Part 68

"Why, yes. Mighty smart, too! But say, you were jest jos.h.i.+ng, weren't you?"

"No, Sir," replied the Inspector. "The Police never break a promise to white man or Indian."

Then Mr. Cadwaller cut loose for a few moments. He did not object to waiting any length of time to oblige a friend, but that he should delay his journey to answer the charges of an Indian, variously and picturesquely described, was to him an unthinkable proposition.

"Sergeant Crisp, you will see to this," said the Inspector quietly as he rode away.

Then Mr. Cadwaller began to laugh and continued laughing for several minutes.

"By the holy poker, Sligh!" at last he exclaimed. "It's a joke. It's a regular John Bull joke."

"Yes," said Mr. Sligh, while he cut a comfortable chew from his black plug. "Good joke, too, but not on John. I guess that's how five hundred police hold down--no, take care of--twenty thousand redskins."

And the latest recruit to Her Majesty's North West Mounted Police straightened up till he could feel the collar of his tunic catch him on the back of the neck and was conscious of a little thrill running up his spine as he remembered that he was a member of that same force.

CHAPTER VII

THE MAKING OF BRAVES

It was to Cameron an extreme satisfaction to ride with some twenty of his comrades behind White Horse, who, handcuffed and with bridle reins tied to those of two troopers, and accompanied by Chief Red Crow, Bull Back, and others of their tribe, made ignominious and crestfallen entry into the Fort next day. It was hardly less of a satisfaction to see Mr.

Cadwaller exercise himself considerably in making defence against the charges of Bull Back and his friends. The defence was successful, and the American citizens departed to Lone Pine, Montana, with their recovered horses and with a new and higher regard for both the executive and administrative excellence of Her Majesty's North West Mounted Police officers and men. Chief Red Crow, too, returned to his band with a chastened mind, it having been made clear to him that a chief who could not control his young braves was not the kind of a chief the Great White Mother desired to have in command of her Indian subjects. White Horse, also, after three months sojourn in the cooling solitude of the Police guard room, went back to his people a humbler and a wiser brave.

The horse-stealing, however, went merrily on and the summer of 1884 stands in the records of the Police as the most trying period of their history in the Northwest up to that date. The booming upon the eastern and southern boundaries of Western Canada of the incoming tide of humanity, hungry for land, awakened ominous echoes in the little primitive settlements of half-breed people and throughout the reservations of the wild Indian tribes as well. Everywhere, without warning and without explanation, the surveyors' flags and posts made appearance. Wild rumours ran through the land, till every fluttering flag became the symbol of dispossession and every gleaming post an emblem of tyrannous disregard of a people's rights. The ancient aboriginal inhabitants of the western plains and woods, too, had their grievances and their fears. With phenomenal rapidity the buffalo had vanished from the plains once black with their hundreds of thousands.

With the buffalo vanished the Indians' chief source of support, their food, their clothing, their shelter, their chief article of barter.

Bereft of these and deprived at the same time of the supreme joy of existence, the chase, bitten with cold, starved with hunger, fearful of the future, they offered fertile soil for the seeds of rebellion. A government more than usually obsessed with stupidity, as all governments become at times, remained indifferent to appeals, deaf to remonstrances, blind to danger signals, till through the remote and isolated settlements of the vast west and among the tribes of Indians, hunger-bitten and fearful for their future, a spirit of unrest, of fear, of impatience of all authority, spread like a secret plague from Prince Albert to the Crow's Nest and from the Cypress Hills to Edmonton.

A violent recrudescence of whiskey-smuggling, horse-stealing, and cattle-rustling made the work of administering the law throughout this vast territory one of exceeding difficulty and one calling for prompt.i.tude, wisdom, patience, and courage, of no ordinary quality.

Added to all this, the steady advance of the railroad into the new country, with its huge construction camps, in whose wake followed the lawless hordes of whiskey smugglers, tinhorn gamblers, thugs, and harlots, very materially added to the dangers and difficulties of the situation for the Police.

For the first month after enlistment Cameron was kept in close touch with the Fort and spent his hours under the polis.h.i.+ng hands of the drill sergeant. From five in the morning till ten at night the day's routine kept him on the grind. Hard work it was, but to Cameron a continuous delight. For the first time in his life he had a job that seemed worth a man's while, and one the mere routine of which delighted his soul. He loved his horse and loved to care for him, and, most of all, loved to ride him. Among his comrades he found congenial spirits, both among the officers and the men. Though discipline was strict, there was an utter absence of anything like a spirit of petty bullying which too often is found in military service; for in the first place the men were in very many cases the equals and sometimes the superiors of the officers both in culture and in breeding, and further, and very specially, the nature of the work was such as to cultivate the spirit of true comrades.h.i.+p.

When officer and man ride side by side through rain and s.h.i.+ne, through burning heat and frost "Forty below," when they eat out of the same pan and sleep in the same "dug-out," when they stand back to back in the midst of a horde of howling savages, rank comes to mean little and manhood much.

Between Inspector d.i.c.kson and Cameron a genuine friends.h.i.+p sprang up; and after his first month was in, Cameron often found himself the comrade of the Inspector in expeditions of special difficulty where there was a call for intelligence and nerve. The reports of these expeditions that stand upon the police record have as little semblance of the deeds achieved as have stark and grinning skeletons in the medical student's private cupboard to the living moving bodies they once were. The records of these deeds are the bare bones. The flesh and blood, the life and colour are to be found only in the memories of those who were concerned in their achievement.

But even in these bony records there are to be seen frequent entries in which the names of Inspector d.i.c.kson and Constable Cameron stand side by side. For the Inspector was a man upon whom the Commissioner and the Superintendent delighted to load their more dangerous and delicate cases, and it was upon Cameron when it was possible that the Inspector's choice for a comrade fell.

It was such a case as this that held the Commissioner and Superintendent Crawford in anxious consultation far into a late September night. When the consultation was over, Inspector d.i.c.kson was called in and the result of this consultation laid before him.

"We have every reason to believe, as you well know, Inspector d.i.c.kson,"

said the Commissioner, "that there is a secret and wide-spread propagandum being carried on among our Indians, especially among the Piegans, Bloods, and Blackfeet, with the purpose of organizing rebellion in connection with the half-breed discontent in the territories to the east of us. Riel, you know, has been back for some time and we believe his agents are busy on every reservation at present. This outbreak of horse-stealing and whiskey-smuggling in so many parts of the country at the same time is a mere blind to a more serious business, the hatching of a very wide conspiracy. We know that the Crees and the a.s.siniboines are negotiating with the half-breeds. Big Bear, Beardy, and Little Pine are keen for a fight. There is some very powerful and secret influence at work among our Indians here. We suspect that the ex-Chief of the Bloods, Little Thunder, is the head of this organization. A very dangerous and very clever Indian he is, as you know. We have a charge of murder against him already, and if we can arrest him and one or two others it would do much to break up the gang, or at least to hold in check their organization work. We want you to get quietly after this business, visit all the reservations, obtain all information possible, and when you are ready, strike. You will be quite unhampered in your movements and the whole force will co-operate with you if necessary. We consider this an extremely critical time and we must be prepared. Take a man with you. Make your own choice."

"I expect we know the man the Inspector will choose," said superintendent Crawford with a smile.

"Who is that?" asked the Commissioner.

"Constable Cameron, of course."

"Ah, yes, Cameron. You remember I predicted he would make good. He has certainly fulfilled my expectation."

"He is a good man," said the Inspector quietly.

"Oh come, Inspector, you know you consider him the best all-round man at this post," said the Superintendent.

"Well, you see, Sir, he is enthusiastic for the service, he works hard and likes his work."

"Right you are!" exclaimed the Superintendent. "In the first place, he is the strongest man on the force, then he is a dead shot, a good man with a horse, and has developed an extraordinary gift in tracking, and besides he is perfectly straight."

"Is that right, Inspector?"

"Yes," said the Inspector very quietly, though his eyes were gleaming at the praise of his friend. "He is a good man, very keen, very reliable, and of course afraid of nothing."

The Superintendent laughed quietly.

"You want him then, I suppose?"

"Yes," said the Inspector, "if it could be managed."

"I don't know," said the Commissioner. "That reminds me." He took a letter from the file. "Read that," he said, "second page there. It is a private letter from Superintendent Strong at Calgary."

The Inspector took the letter and read at the place indicated--

"Another thing. The handling of these railroad construction gangs is no easy matter. We are pestered with whiskey-smugglers, gamblers, and prost.i.tutes till we don't know which way to turn. As the work extends into the mountains and as the camps grow in numbers the difficulty of control is very greatly increased. I ought to have my force strengthened. Could you not immediately spare me at least eight or ten good men? I would like that chap Cameron, the man, you know, who caught the half-breed Louis in the Sarcee camp and carried him out on his horse's neck--a very fine bit of work. Inspector d.i.c.kson will tell you about him. I had it from him. Could you spare Cameron? I would recommend him at once as a sergeant."

The Inspector handed back the letter without comment.

"Well?" said the Commissioner.

"Cameron would do very well for the work," said the Inspector, "and he deserves promotion."

"What was that Sarcee business, Inspector?" enquired the Commissioner.

"That must have been when I was down east."

"Oh," said the Inspector, "it was a very fine thing indeed of Cameron.

Louis 'the Breed' had been working the Bloods. We got on his track and headed him up in the Sarcee camp. He is rather a dangerous character and is related to the Sarcees. We expected trouble in his arrest. We rode in and found the Indians, to the number of a hundred and fifty or more, very considerably excited. They objected strenuously to the arrest of the half-breed. Constable Cameron and I were alone. We had left a party of men further back over the hill. The half-breed brought it upon himself. He was rash enough to make a sudden attack upon Cameron.

That is where he made his mistake. Before he knew where he was Cameron slipped from his horse, caught him under the chin with a very nice left-hander that laid him neatly out, swung him on to his horse, and was out of the camp before the Indians knew what had happened."

"The Inspector does not tell you," said Superintendent Crawford, "how he stood off that bunch of Sarcees and held them where they were till Cameron was safe with his man over the hill. But it was a very clever bit of work, and, if I may say it, deserves recognition."

"I should like to give you Cameron if it were possible," said the Commissioner, "but this railroad business is one of great difficulty and Superintendent Strong is not the man to ask for a.s.sistance unless he is in pretty desperate straits. An unintelligent or reckless man would be worse than useless."

"How would it do," suggested the Superintendent, "to allow Cameron in the meantime to accompany the Inspector? Then later we might send him to Superintendent Strong."

Reporting this arrangement to Cameron a little later, the Inspector enquired:

"How would you like to have a turn in the mountains? You would find Superintendent Strong a fine officer."