NAT LANGHAM'S.
"You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house."
Merry Wives of Windsor, Act III. sc. iv.
It is not so many years ago that the lands through which the lines of the Great Trunk Railway of Canada run, after leaving Winnipeg, away up to Calgary in the "Rockies," were the happy hunting-grounds of the Cree and Blackfeet Indians. Now the traveller sees little besides a number of small towns and thriving settlements, all along the line.
Occasionally a nondescript representative of the almost extinct races may be observed, disillusioning the mind of the beholder of whatever romantic notions he may have imbibed from the pages of Fenimore Cooper. But away in the hills, or out on the more distant prairies, where even if the pioneer has ventured the settler has not yet attempted to follow, encampments of these "children of nature" still exist.
And it is only at extremely rare intervals that we hear of them being upon the "war path."
Like the buffalo he was wont to hunt, or the aboriginal Australian, the North-American Indian promises soon to be but a figure of history.
Amongst the foot-hills of the "Rockies," as well as in the glens and valleys amid the higher peaks, and secluded amongst the hills and woods which abound in the far interior, down through the provinces of Alberta, Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, to Manitoba, roving bands of lawless men are to be found, guided occasionally by one or more of what are known as "half-breeds" or native scouts, who, if not the last of their race, are more frequently for some delinquency the outcasts of their tribes.
The cattle-lifting frays of these bands of desperadoes are dreaded events in the lives of the peaceably disposed settlers, their tracks being generally marked by the destruction and ruin of happy homesteads, and the murder of their defenceless occupants.
Only recently a raid had been made on a settlement at the foot of the Beaver Hills, some distance to the north of Ranger's homestead, but sufficiently near to set him on the alert, and give rise to some anxiety for his own safety as well as the lives of the many dependent upon him.
The mounted police—a thoroughly efficient and well-organised body—had been scouring the country in all directions, in hopes of striking the trail of this band of marauders, but hitherto to little effect.