lonel; "in the meantime you go to jail,
and if you say more you may have your sentence doubled."

This was a Daniel come to judgment with a vengeance. To be more modern,
it reminds one of Begbie, the great frontier judge on the west coast,
who tamed the outlaw miners who tried to start rough-house in the
gold-rush days. The dishonest extortioners on the prairie could do
nothing to frighten or flatter or tamper with men like Colonel MacLeod
and his red-coated patrols. Hence, we read the sequel in the Colonel's
report in December, 1874: "I am happy to be able to report" (happy is a
choice word--there are some things that make a good man happy)--"to be
able to report _the complete stoppage of the whisky trade throughout the
whole of this section of the country_, and that the drunken riots, which
in former years were almost a daily occurrence, are now entirely at an
end; in fact, a more peaceable community than this, with a very large
number of Indians camped along the river, could not be found anywhere.
Every one united in saying how wonderful the change is. People never
lock their doors at night and have no fear of anything being stolen
which is left lying about outside; whereas, just before our arrival,
gates and doors were all fastened at night, and nothing could be left
out of one's sight." And then Colonel MacLeod adds a testimony from the
Rev. John McDougall, of Morley, at the edge of the mountains. He and his
father, the Rev. George McDougall, who had been frozen to death on the
plains, were widely known old-time missionaries. In later years I knew
John McDougall well, missionary, scout and frontiersman, tall,
full-bearded, handsome and keenly alive to everything that affected the
welfare of the West land. And this competent witness said, "I am
delighted with the change that has been effected. It is like a miracle
wrought before our eyes." The Police were fulfilling their high,
benevolent and patriotic mission.

Colonel MacLeod felt that the first business of the Police was to thus
protect the Indians who were the wards of the nation, and so it was that
he had struck a decisive blow at the drink traffic, which was bidding
fair to exterminate these children of the plains. Once that was done the
Colonel set himself to get into touch with the various native tribes,
which from the earliest days of the explorers and fur-traders had been
looked upon as the most warlike and dangerous. It is well known that
even the Hudson