ntrolled
according to British law, they had to be kept from interfering with the
loyalty as well as the rights and reserves of our own Indians, and they
had to be restrained from making this country the base of any operations
against our friendly neighbour country south of the line. The whole
situation was filled with dramatic incidents and dangerous possibilities
of international complications. The honour of handling it with masterly,
firm and yet conciliatory methods must be given not to Ottawa, which was
too far away and which often misunderstood, but to the officers and men
of the Mounted Police whose consummate skill, courage and initiative are
the leading features of that serious period. And the amazing thing about
it all is that in the midst of seething thousands of American and
Canadian Indians on the wide and lonely frontier, we had a mere handful
of these gallant red-coated guardians of the peace.

The influx of American Indians began in December, 1876, when some 3,000
Indians, with large droves of horses and mules, crossed over and camped
at Wood Mountain. They told the officers of the Mounted Police who
visited them at once that "they had been driven out by the American and
had come to look for peace; that they had been told by their
grandfathers that they would find peace in the land of the British; that
their brothers, the Santees, had found it years ago and they had now
followed them; that they had not slept sound for years and were anxious
to find a place where they could lie down and feel safe." It was not the
British way to turn a deaf ear to that pathetic appeal, and so Inspector
Walsh, then in charge at Fort Walsh, took charge of the situation, began
at once to regulate the possession of arms and ammunition to what was
necessary for hunting for subsistence and generally to keep in close
touch with the Indian encampments.

In the following May the famous and redoubtable Sitting Bull with quite
a large force came over and joined the American Indian colony. They also
were interviewed at once by the Mounted Police and promised to observe
the laws of the Great Mother. In the following months bands of Nez
Perces and others arrived in flight from the American soldiers. And so
the situation became more involved. Efforts were made to persuade these
Indians to return to their own country, but they declined to do so and
of course no one would compel them. The Indians said they had been
robbed and cheated by ag