ccurred. Colonel Otter had made a swift
march from Swift Current to Battleford and relieved the beleaguered
garrison and civilians there. With Otter came Superintendents W. M.
Herchmer and Neale with a few Mounted Police. And when Otter decided to
go out and attack Poundmaker these, with the few who had been at
Battleford, and those who had come from Fort Pitt under Inspector
Dickens, made up seventy-five Police, who went on that errand with
Otter, and some 200 of his infantry and artillery. Just why Otter went
out has never been very clear, except that he possibly wished to punish
the band of Indians and prevent a possible junction of Poundmaker and
Big Bear. Anyway, the Police were under his command, and they went in
obedience to orders, as was their fashion. And the Police, being the
advance guard to Cutknife, and both the advance and rear guard on the
return, as well as in the hottest part of the fight for seven hours,
where they behaved with great gallantry, lost heavily in killed and
wounded in proportion to their numbers. It is not any reflection on the
gallantry of the other corps, who were totally unused to Indian warfare,
to say that it was the masterly tactics of the Police which extricated
the column from the ravine after Colonel Otter saw that it was not
advisable to continue the conflict against the large force of Indians
who had every advantage in position. A few days after this Poundmaker,
who was a very splendid-looking Indian, and who had given the order to
cease fire when Otter was retiring, came in and surrendered to General
Middleton, and the rebellion was practically over, though it was still a
few days before Big Bear was captured, as already related.

Perhaps there is no finer summing up of the services of the Mounted
Police during the rebellion than that given by Dr. A. Jukes, Senior
Surgeon of the Force, in his report at the end of that year. He says,
"While I must leave to those whose duty as combatant officers it more
especially becomes to record with sorrow, not unmingled with pride, the
names and services of the gallant men who have fallen unflinchingly in
the path of duty, I cannot withhold my humble tribute to the courage and
fortitude of the mere handful of Mounted Police who, fewer in numbers
than any battalion engaged in active operations, and generally far
over-matched by enemies wherever it was their privilege to meet them,
have left beneath the bosom of the prairie of their dead, 'ki