get out and stroll in the station garden, which is full of old-fashioned English flowers, stocks, geraniums, verbenas, floxes, and mignonette. There are a picturesque party of Indians with their squaws and papooses on the platform. We have seen some at all the stations selling polished buffalo horns, mocassins and bead work; but try and "kodak" them as we often did—and the instant they saw the small black box, the men turned away and the women put their shawls over their heads.
On leaving Medicine Hat, we ascended the valley above the river and passed on to a more fertile prairie. There was just here a great meeting-place for the buffaloes, and the ground is full of their "wallows" or hollows made by the weight of their unwieldly bodies. Alas, that the law against their slaughter came four years after they had all been wantonly killed!
We reach Calgary at the atrocious hour of two a.m., and turn out of a warm berth into a cold bed at the hotel.
Sunday, August 30th.—We attended morning service at the pretty little wooden church, the Bishop of Saskatchawan officiating.
Calgary is the capital of Alberta and is in the centre of a great ranche country. Like all these towns out west it is an unfinished conglomeration of houses, laid out in imaginary streets at right angles, in which there are few houses and more gaps. The whole is held together by a principal street, in which there are two or three pretentious new stone buildings. From here the houses straggle away into the country, the unoccupied lots being joined to them by a boarded foot-path. These towns have no depth, they are all surface and length. Laid down on the prairie there are no trees near them and they have a bare unfinished ugliness, peculiar to their new growth.
You are reminded at every turn of the reason for Calgary's existence, for its shops indicate the ranchers' wants. There are many saddlers, displaying Californian saddles, stock whips and lassoos; others have camp bedding and furniture; canned goods, that stand-by of the rancher, are evidently in great demand. The dry-goods stores are full of flannel shirts, slouching broad-brimmed hats and "chaps," or the cowboy's leather leggings reaching to the thigh. Nearly everyone you meet is English, there are few born Canadians.
The streets are full of cowboys riding their long-tailed, half-groomed bronchos at a hand gallop, or of sulkies with the unmistakable rancher, with shirt open at the throat, slouch hat, and tanned face. The chief subject of conversation is the dimensions of the ranches, the number of head of cattle and horses on each.
In the afternoon a Police team came with Mrs. McIllree, to drive us out to see one of these ranches. Out here anything from a single horse to a four-in-hand is called a "team," but this was one in our sense of the term.
We galloped across a trail on the prairie, and then wound through a "coolie," as they call the little valleys lying in between the rolling hills, and which are so frequent in this country. There are hundreds of gophers popping out of their holes, and as we see them close, sitting up with their long bodies, they look like tiny kangaroos. We espy coveys of prairie chickens, which are like our grouse.
As we reach the open ground there is a splendid country spread out before us. Far as the eye can reach, extending into the foot-hills at the base of the Rockies, there are miles and miles of rolling upland pastures, that resemble our Wiltshire downs. The whole of this vast area has been "taken up," and is a succession of ranches. We can see the little wooden houses with their outbuildings, scattered at long intervals. Those innumerable specks on the downs are the cattle and horses, literally "feeding on a thousand hills." We are following the sweeping bends of the Elbow river, which lies below us in a cool green ravine, full of trees, in pleasant contrast to the brown hills around.
The Ranche Pupil.
The ranche we are going to belongs to Mr. Robinson, and used to be called the Elbow Ranche, but has lately changed its name to the Chippenham, in accordance with the idea of calling the ranches hereabouts after the great English hunts. Messrs. Martin, Jameson, and Gordon-Cumming (the latter of whom we met at the hotel with his pet black bear), have called their ranche the Quorn. One ranche differs not from the other, except in degrees of comfort. They are all built of wood, generally with verandahs, and after the simplest model of a square house, with a door in the centre and windows on each side. There are no trees or shrubs, or creepers scarcely even an attempt at a garden; a rough paling alone divides them from the prairie. Dogs walk in and out and are part of the family. The plains are bare. Yet what a world of romance lingers round the expression, "out ranching in the West." We dream of sunrise and sunset on the open prairie, of wild gallops in the early morning with the dew on the grass, of camping out under the starlight. But I trow the reality is far removed from the ideal, and that it ends with a bunk in the cowboy's hut wrapped up in a blanket, with tough prairie beef and doughy bread for their fare. I am sure if some fond mother could see her darling boy in his cowboy's dress, and his quarters in the log hut, she would never be happy until she had him by her side again. It is clearly a case of "where ignorance is bliss," etc. But still, for a strong constitution there is nothing to fear, and sobriety and industry may lead to fortune.
We look at the "corral" or wooden pen, subdivided into partitions, where, after the animals have been driven in, the one required is gradually separated by being shut off in pen after pen, until a narrow passage is reached. Here wooden barriers are let down and he is thus confined in a cage. They can then brand him with an iron stamped with the mark of the ranche. If it is a colt to be broken, they saddle, bridle and mount him before leaving the pen. Then comes the struggle, in which the rough rider requires great skill, tact, and experience, for a horse will do anything to unseat his rider the first time. Unmercifully sharp bits are used, but the horse is guided more by the rein on the neck. The boys ride loosely when galloping over the prairie, leaving the horse to look out for the holes, and he rarely makes a mistake.
The horses on this ranche are bronchos, but they have not sufficient blood for the English market, and, added to this, the branding detracts from their value. They are worth about 120 dols. each. This firing is said to be a necessity, as the ranches are often 500 acres in extent. The animals roam at will, with perhaps a couple of men, living in a log hut twenty miles away from the ranche, told off to look after them. Twice a year they "round up;" that is, the owners meet and appoint a place, where the cattle are driven in and claimed by their owners, who know them by their brands, and colts and calves are then marked. This rounding up is done in the spring and the fall of every year, and is beginning now. The brands are some of them very ingenious in device. Settlers advertise in the newspapers for lost animals, giving their brands, which are well known to all the country round.
Does ranching pay? They tell us it can and does, but, as in every other walk of life, hard work, capital and experience are required. Those who are wise, before beginning ranching on their own account, go through a cowboy apprenticeship on some ranche. Our driver in Calgary confided to us "that them young men didn't do no good to themselves out here, but they did good to the country, for they freely spent the remittances from home."
We came home by the Indian Sarcee Reserve. On an open space over the river we saw some poles placed together with a suspended hook. It is the place where the Indians "make their braves." In this terrible ordeal their young men have this hook twisted into the muscles of their chests and are drawn up by it. They must utter no cry of pain. Indian encampments are met with all over the prairie. You know their "topee" tents, by the poles sticking up in the centre, in distinction to the ordinary tents of the half-breeds. They have numerous horses and cattle, which are rounded up with others. They are kept by an inspector within their reserves, and there is a large fine for anyone selling them intoxicating drink. They appear innocent and harmless, and only given to paltry thieving.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CANADIAN ROCKIES AND THE SELKIRKS.
Howe Pass.
Since