Fading West BY ISAAC COWIE At the time of my coming to the coun- try in 1867, it was as much in a state of nature, outside the Red River Settle- ment and the pickets of the posts and mission stations, as it was when orig- inally discovered and explored. Only nature’s highways through the webs of interlocking waterways were in use, ex- cept where the Red River carts roved complaining o’er the plains. But the great changes to come were already casting their shadows before, and 18 years after my arrival the prairies had been swept of their buffalo, and the great transcontinental railway had invaded the domain of the cart and ayuse, leaving only picturesque memo- ries of a wild and romantic past. The prairie Indians when I first saw them were monarchs of all they surveyed, living_like princes on the fat of abun- dant game, hunting their sport, and war their glorious pastime. No more pitiful result of the coming of civilization into the North-West can be seen than the contrast between “the chief, his warriors leading,” in barbaric spleador arrayed, when buffalo covered the plains, and the poor, ragged out- casts who now pick .up the leavings of the people who are now lords of the land. To a less unfortunate extent have been the circumstances of the bold and the free Metis hunters, the freighters of the plains . . . but they, too, when all things became new, found their old happy days were over, and many of the-m were too old ever to become recon— ciled to the civilization which had ec— lipsed the things of the past. Yet these are the men who were the forerunners and blazed the trail, and beat the path for the newcomers, and who, recom~ mending them to the friendship of the Indians, gave freely also ,the benefit cf their long experience and acquaintance of the country. Their successors owe them a debt which can never be repaid. Land Problem BY CHARLES A. BOULTON The secret of the (North West) re- bellion lies in the fact that the majority of the half-breeds were petitioning for something they were not entitled to, and were not likely to get by consti- tutional means, but which might be ob- tained by extreme measures of violence if successful. Riel also formulated a scheme which raised the hopes and am- bitions of the half-breeds and Indians. The half-breed reserve in the Prov- ince of Manitoba was allotted on the proportion of one-seventh of the lands contained in the province at that time created which, upon computation, was found to be 1,400,000 acres, or 240 acres of land to each resident half-breed then born. Riel at once made the bold claim that the principle of o--ne seventh of the land which had been accorded in the Province of Manitoba should be carried out in the North West Terri- tory, and held out hopes to the Indians that one-seventh of the land should be theirs also. It was these ambitious ideas that enabled him to exercise a control over the half-breeds and Indians, in leading them to break out into open and murderous rebellion, while Riel him- self hoped to make a big stake for him- self in consequence, as he supposed, of the weakness of government. Last Stand BY WILLIAM FRANCIS BUTLER “It is well,” answered the Indian “and listen now to what I say to you but first,” he said, turning to his men, "‘,you my brethren, you, my sons, who sit around me, if there should be aught in my word that you would not say yourselves, stop me, and say to this black-robe I speak with a forked tongue.” Then, turning again to the priest, he continued, “You have spoken true, your words come straight; the Long Knives are too many and too strong for us; their guns shoot farther than ours, the big guns shoot twice” (alluding to shells which exploded after they fell); “their numbers are as the buffalo were in the days of our fathers. But what of all that? do you want us to starve on the land which is ours? to lie down as slaves to the white man, to die away one by one in misery and hunger”! It is true that the Long Knives must kill us, but I say still, to my children and to my tribe, fight on, fight on, fight on! go on fighting to the very last man; and let that last man go on fighting too, for it is better to die thus, as a brave man should die, than to live a little time and then die like a coward. So now, my brethren, I tell you, as I have told you before, keep fighting still. When you see these men coming along the river, digging holes in the ground and looking for the little bright sand” (gold), “kill them, for they mean to kill you; fight, and if it must be, die, for you can only die once, and it is better to die than to starve.” 35