THE GREAT NORTHWEST 235 



The mounted police is said to be the best force of 

 its kind in the world, and numbers over one thousand 

 men. They patrol the whole Northwest, including the 

 provinces of Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Athabasca and 

 Alberta, keeping in order the Indian population as well 

 as the rest of the inhabitants who might be inclined to 

 stray from the right path. 



Canada's treatment of the Indian problem has long 

 been acknowledged as wiser, more humane and more 

 successful than ours and, as a result, we see the 

 prairies dotted everywhere with Indian tents, the 

 men being occupied with the business of farming or 

 the grazing of cattle. They follow these pursuits 

 contentedly and with good financial results. They 

 are well dressed, seemingly prosperous and have gen- 

 erally overcome their instinctive desire for the excite- 

 ment of the hunter's life. 



What a sad sight is the great square piles of buffalo 

 bones stacked up at different stations and awaiting 

 shipment to the East where they usefully wind up 

 their existence in the sugar refineries and manu- 

 factories of phosphates. The men who gather up the 

 bones on the prairies and haul them to the station get 

 six dollars per ton. As an indication of the extent of 

 the business, the quantity sent forward from Moose- 

 jaw Station alone is counted by the hundred carloads. 



When we think that the few pounds of bleached 

 bones, forming one skeleton and bringing perhaps ten 



