Another impressive way in which the Mounted Police made history was their extraordinary handling of the Indian tribes who were the original possessors of the soil. History, both ancient and modern, is full of the bitter tragedies created by the way in which incoming people have treated original inhabitants of the lands they were coming to possess. In our own day just across the border, owing to mishandling by some unfaithful Government agents and other causes, there was war for decades between the Government and the Indians, who looked upon the cavalry and other military bodies in that country as their enemies. This was never the case with our Western Country. The first business our Mounted Police did was to stand between the Indians and the vile creatures who would give them drink and rob them of all they possessed. So that some two years after the scarlet tunic had made its appearance in the foothill country, Crowfoot, the famous Chief of the warlike Blackfeet, referring to the Police, said in his beautiful imagery, "They have protected us as the feathers protect the bird from the frosts of winter." The Indians knew that they could not commit crime and go unpunished any more than the white man, but the Indians also knew that the Police would see that every man, whether red or white, got fair play. Hence the Indians recognized the Police as their friends and not as their enemies. With thousands of Indians, accustomed to almost constant war, thrown upon their hands, the Police never had any real revolt on the part of the Indians to deal with save only when the mad Riel inveigled a few of them on the war-path by cunning guile. And with some personal knowledge of that whole affair we venture to say that had the warning given by Superintendent Crozier and other Policemen months before the outbreak been taken, and had the Police Force been doubled and given a free hand, there would have been no rebellion and no bloodshed. But when the outbreak did come we are also ready to affirm, as amongst those who took part in its suppression, that but for the missionaries and the Police the rebellion would have been far more widely spread. And equally are we ready to declare that the Police were the backbone of every brigade in which they served, and this we say without any desire to minimize the arms of the service to which we belonged.