Westward with the Prince of Wales

by W. Douglas Newton

The guide-book makers are not to blame. Somewhere about 1903 there were no more than 150 people within its boundaries. Now, from the look of it, it could provide ten motor-cars for each of these oldest inhabitants, and have about 500 over for new-comers—in fact, that is about the figure; there are 2,000 cars on the Saskatoon registers. Saskatoon was full of cars neatly lined up along the Prince's route during every period of his stay.

The great function of the visit was the "Stampede." This sports meeting took place on a big racing ground before a grand-stand that held many thousand more people than Saskatoon boasted. The many cars that brought them in from all over the country were parked in huge wedges in and about the ground.

Passing off the wild dirt roads, the Prince headed a procession of cars round the course before entering a special pavilion erected facing the grandstand. His coming was the signal for the Stampede to commence. It was a new thrill to Britishers, an affair of excitement, and a real breath of Western life. They told us that the cattle kings are moving away from this area to the more spacious and lonely lands of the North; but the exhibition the Prince witnessed showed that the daring and skilful spirit of the cowboys has not moved on yet.

We were also told that this Stampede was something in the nature of a circus that toured the country, and that men and animals played their parts mechanically as oft-tried turns in a show. But even if that was so, the thing was unique to British eyes, and the exhibition of all the tricks of the cattleman's calling was for those who looked on a new sensation.

Cattlemen rode before the Prince on bucking horses that, loosed from wooden cages, came along the track like things compact of India-rubber and violence, as they strove to throw the leechlike men in furry, riding chaps, loose shirts, sweat-rags and high felt hats, who rode them.

Some of the men rode what seemed a more difficult proposition—an angry bull, that bunched itself up and down and lowed vindictively, as it tried to buck its rider off.

From the end of the race-track a steer was loosed, and a cowboy on a small lithe broncho rode after it at top speed. Round the head of this man the lariat whirled like a live snake. In a flash the noose was tight about the steer's horns, the brilliant little horse had overtaken the beast, and in an action when man and horse seemed to combine as one, the tightened rope was swung against the steer's legs. It was thrown heavily. Like lightning the cowboy was off the horse, was on top of the half-stunned steer, and had its legs hobbled in a rope.

One man of the many who competed in this trial of skill performed the whole operation in twenty-eight seconds from the time the steer was loosed to the time its legs were secured.

A more daring feat is "bull-dogging."

The steer is loosed as before, and the cattleman rides after it, but instead of lassoing it, he leaps straight out of his saddle and plunges on to the horns of the beast. Gripping these long and cruel-looking weapons, he twists the bull's neck until the animal comes down, and there, with his body in the hollow of the neck and shoulder, he holds it until his companions run up and release him.