Westward with the Prince of Wales

by W. Douglas Newton

They are lonely but magnificent. They extend with lakes, close, tight patches of bush and small and occasional woods over undulating country to the sharp, bare wall of the snow-capped Rockies. The light is marvellous. Calgary is 3,500 feet up, and the level mounts steadily to the mountains. At this altitude the sunlight has an astonishing clarity, and everything is seen in a sharp and brilliant light.

In the rambling but comfortable house of the ranch the Prince was entertained with cattleman's fare, and on the Tuesday (after a ten-mile run before breakfast) he was introduced to the ardours of the cattleman's calling. He mounted a broncho and with his host joined the cowboys in rounding several thousand head of cattle, driving them in towards the branding corrals.

This is no task for an idler or a slacker. The bunch was made up mainly of cows with calves, or steers of less than a year old, who believed in the policy of self-determination, being still unbranded and still conspicuously independent. Most of them, in fact, had seen little or nothing of man in their life of lonely pasturage over the wide plains.

Riding continually at a gallop and in a whirlwind of movement and dust and horns, the Prince helped to bunch the mass into a compact circle, and then joined with the others in riding into the nervous herd, in order to separate the calves from the mothers, and the unbranded steers from those already marked with the sign of Bar U.

Calves and steers were roped and dragged to the corral, where they were flung and the brand seared on their flanks with long irons taken from a fire in the enclosure.

The Prince did not spare himself, and worked as hard as any cattleman in the business, and indeed he satisfied those exacting critics, the cowboys, who produced in his favour another Westernism, describing him as "a Bear. He's fur all over." Then, as though a strenuous morning in the saddle was not enough, he went off in the afternoon after partridges, spending the whole time on the tramp until he was due to start for Calgary.

His pleasure in his experience was summed up in the terse comment: "Some Ranch," that he set against his signature in Mr. Lane's visitors' book. It also had the practical result of turning him into a rancher himself, for it was at this time he saw the ranch which he ultimately bought. It is a very good little property, close to Mr. Lane's, so that in running it the Prince will have the advantage of that expert's advice. Part of the Prince's plan for handling it is to give an opportunity to soldiers who served with him in the war to take up positions on the ranch. Mr. Lane told me himself that the proposition is a practical one, and there should be profitable results.

Leaving Bar U, the Prince returned to High River at that Canadian pace of travelling which sets the timid European wondering whether his accident policy is fully paid up. In High River, where the old cow-puncher ideal of hitting up the dust in the wild and woolly manner has given way to the rule of jazz dances and bright frocks, he mounted the train and steamed off to Calgary.

In Calgary great things had been done to the Armoury where the ball was to be held. Handled in the big manner of the Dominion, the great hall had been re-floored with "hard wood" blocks, and a scheme of real beauty, extending to an artificial sky in the roof, had been evolved.

At this dance the whole of Calgary seemed in attendance, either on the floor, or outside watching the guests arrive. In Canada the scope of the invitations is universal. There are no distinctions. The pretty girl who serves you with shaving soap over the drug store counter asks if she will meet you at the Prince's ball, as a matter of course. She is going. So is the young man at the estate office. So is your taxi chauffeur (the taxi is an open touring car). So is—everybody. These dances are the most democratic affairs, and the most spirited. And as spirited and democratic as anybody was the Prince himself, who, in this case, in spite of his run before breakfast, a hard morning in the saddle, his long tramp in the afternoon, his automobile and railway travelling, danced with the rest into the small hours of the morning.