chrane Ranch. But
the Police took a hand at this point. Superintendent Neale wired
Superintendent MacDonnell for a detachment of officers and men, and
MacDonnell sent Inspector Howe with twenty men to meet Neale with a like
number at Stand Off. The result was that both "Calf Shirt" and "Good
Rider" were arrested at two different camps, and each was duly tried and
sentenced to a term with hard labour. This nipped the law-breaking in
the bud. That was the Mounted Police way.

After this experience it is not surprising to read in Commissioner
Herchmer's report for 1888, "There has been a remarkable absence of
crime during the past year and, outside arrests of criminals from the
United States, we have made no important arrests in our territory." This
was the gratifying result of the thoroughness of the Police patrol
system, and the natural sequence to the fact that there was not much use
or profit in trying to thwart the law when these red-coated guardians of
the peace were around, and as the Indians found that law-breaking did
not pay, they turned to more profitable pursuits, in which they were
encouraged and helped by the Government and the Police. Hence this
observant Commissioner is able to say that "in all quarters of the
territories the Indians are making rapid strides towards self-support."
The day was coming when, under the same paternal encouragement, the
Indians would be the prize-winners at the fairs on the plains where they
had once hunted buffalo--a very remarkable transformation.

In the same year Herchmer calls attention to the highly pleasing fact
that the introduction of the telephone would lead to an enormous saving
of men and horses, and notes the able and diplomatic way in which
Superintendent Steele, assisted by Inspectors Wood, Huot and Surgeon
Powell, had quieted matters in the Kootenay country where Chief
Isadore's attitude had discouraged settlement. With his usual social
insight, Herchmer indicates that the Mormon settlement in southern
Alberta, with its possible polygamy, will be the better of some
oversight in the interests of British law. This latter was a wise
decision, and led at least to the practical abandonment of a doctrine
that had brought much odium upon that sect.

It is interesting to find in that period of the late eighties a letter
to Superintendent Deane, at Lethbridge, from the Montana Stock Growers'
Association conveying a resolution of "thanks to the officers and men of
the No