ALBERTA 



47 



At Calgary, I took the semi-weekly train for Macleod, a 

 hundred miles southward. This village, twenty miles from the 

 Porcupine Hills and fifty from the Rocky Mountains, stands 

 upon a low rocky bluff overlooking the Old Man Creek. It is 

 a typical frontier town, where a number of mounted police are 

 stationed for the maintenance of law and order among the 

 heterogeneous white population and to keep an eye on the Pie- 

 gans, Bloods and Blackfeet, whose reserves are not far distant. 

 The Piegans had tried to murder their farm instructor only a 

 few days before I arrived, but they are usually content with 

 cattle stealing. A policeman in a burst of confidence, informed 

 me that the Piegans and the other "niggers" were solving the 

 Indian problem on their own account. They were closely con- 

 fined on the reserves, and were rapidly reducing their numbers 

 by overfeeding! The site of the fort is said to have been 

 determined by the presence of a large spring, but it is certainly 

 not an attractive spot in March, surrounded by monotonous, 

 undulating plains, covered with gray buffalo grass. The scanty 

 fringe of timber along the Old Man Creek affords little shelter 

 for birds, and the continuous chinook wind would have made 

 collecting difficult. I therefore hastened to push on by stage 

 to the little village of Pincher Creek, fifteen miles east of the 

 mountains. 



I learned that mountain sheep were obtainable in the range 

 near the "Creek" and that a band of Stoney Indians from 

 Morley were encamped in the foothills. I at once visited them 

 and after consulting their leader, Old Peter, decided to engage 

 him for a week's hunt. He thought a horse could be taken into 

 the mountains by traveling on the hard crust of the snow, and 

 we might see some sheep or goats. I accordingly hired a gray 

 broncho, that was decidedly nervous at the sight and smell of 

 an Indian. Peter rode an old white-eyed Cayuse and led a sec- 

 ond, concealed under a pack consisting of a well-smoked can- 

 vas lodge and our camp outfit. Peter was dressed in an old 

 be-ribboned blanket capote, with a ten-inch butcher knife at his 

 belt. His feet were encased in overshoes and rags. His hat 

 was tied on with a piece of mosquito netting which protected 

 his ears on cold days, and his eyes from snow-blindness on 

 warm ones. 



We wound our way for two days through the foothills to the 



