“Couple of men!” ejaculated Mr. Cadwaller breathlessly. “A couple of hundred, you mean, General!”
“What for?”
“Why, to sur—raound them—there—Indians.” The regulations of the court room considerably hampered Mr. Cadwaller's fluency of speech.
“It is not necessary at all, Mr. Cadwaller. Besides, we have only some eighty men all told at this post. Our whole force in the territories is less than five hundred men.”
“Five hundred men! You mean for this State, General—Alberta?”
“No, Sir. For all Western Canada. All west of Manitoba.”
“How much territory do you cover?” enquired the astonished Mr. Cadwaller.
“We regularly patrol some three hundred thousand square miles, besides taking an occasional expedition into the far north.”
“And how many Indians?”
“About the same number as you have, I imagine, in Montana and Dakota. In Alberta, about nine thousand.”