With the buffalo vanished the Indians' chief source of support, their
food, their clothing, their shelter, their chief article of barter.
Bereft of these and deprived at the same time of the supreme joy of
existence, the chase, bitten with cold, starved with hunger, fearful
of the future, they offered fertile soil for the seeds of rebellion. A
government more than usually obsessed with stupidity, as all governments
become at times, remained indifferent to appeals, deaf to remonstrances,
blind to danger signals, till through the remote and isolated
settlements of the vast west and among the tribes of Indians,
hunger-bitten and fearful for their future, a spirit of unrest, of fear,
of impatience of all authority, spread like a secret plague from Prince
Albert to the Crow's Nest and from the Cypress Hills to Edmonton.
A violent recrudescence of whiskey-smuggling, horse-stealing, and
cattle-rustling made the work of administering the law throughout
this vast territory one of exceeding difficulty and one calling for
promptitude, wisdom, patience, and courage, of no ordinary quality.
Added to all this, the steady advance of the railroad into the new
country, with its huge construction camps, in whose wake followed
the lawless hordes of whiskey smugglers, tinhorn gamblers, thugs, and
harlots, very materially added to the dangers and difficulties of the
situation for the Police.
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