he called himself Stubbs. quite a different sort of

He was man from

Shooter a weakling, always halfdrunk. He talked wildly of killing his mother, if he could only get away to Mexico or to Brazil, he sometimes said. "Remittance men," we used to call such fellows, paid to stay away from home.

Briggs said that Shooter had talked a little-saying he was "against the church and the charities and all such grafters," but revealed nothing more personal of himself at Billings.

Seventeen years had passed and the money had grown to near a quarter of a million dollars.

Now, what was I to do with that money? Coates, my lawyer, said I should turn it over to the State, but I pointed out that at best this would pay part of the taxes, and so relieve the land speculators.

"Nonsense," said Coates, "that's the law. You have nothing to do with it."

"But is it the law? Haven't I something to do with it? And if I did turn it over, should I turn it over to Mexico or Montana? Besides, the man had given it to me. To be sure, I neither needed it nor wanted it, then or now. I had always puzzled over what to do with my own money. Relief in the form of philanthropy seemed to me to be only prolonging misery; like the Irishman who cut off the dog's tail one inch a day.

"Now you know," I said to Coates, "that every improvement in the condition of the earth, whether agricultural, mechanical, political, ethical, educational or even religious, goes eventually and mainly to the benefit of the owners of the earth; and just as far as you lighten the burden of the land owner, the price of land goes up. What benefit is that to the State or to anybody, perhaps not even to the land owners?"

"I see. But you've always got some new idea about everything," said Coates. "Why aren't you satisfied with things as they are?"

"The idea isn't new," I told him. "You know Thorold Rogers says,

'Every highway, every bridge, every permanent improvement of the soil raises rent.''

"Yes," acknowledged Coates, "I know how the Brooklyn bridge raised rent in Brooklyn, all right. I made money on that."

"I wish I knew where he got the money," I said. "Probably a mine or some concession, or robbed somebody of it. If we knew, maybe we could make restitution, or at least know what to do with it."

"Well, charities ?" suggested Coates. "You know our munificent donor did not like charities any more than he liked the church. Now come, Coates, how much do you give to the charities yourself?"

"I? I don't give much; what I think I can spare I give to those that I care for. You know it seems to me that all our charities haven't lessened poverty

they only demoralize people. They certainly lower wages by helping people to live cheap, and they subsidize the unfit, and I suppose they multiply them."

"And they raise rents, too, don't they?" I asked.

"Yes, I suppose they do though sometimes they save lives anyhow."

"That increases population and raises the rents some more," I urged; "and prolongs the agony."

"It does; you can't help that; but I guess the landlords should take care of the charities. But you might build a library or a hospital."

"My dear man, don't you see that the very presence of a library raises rents? And if I build hospitals the city won't have to. That lightens taxes again. Besides—"

Coates interrupted. "Yes, I know, you can show all that of any good thing. Are you going to stop good doings on that account?"

"Certainly not," I answered; "but I am going to let the people do the good that get the good out of it-in their rents."

Briggs, the Montana man, wrote me later that the Remittance Man in his drunken babble had revealed the fact

P

ERHAPS the most interesting tribe of Indians in the Great West of Canada is the Blackfeet. This nation belongs to the great Algonkian linguistic stock, and comprises four bands on four separate reserves-Bollds, Blackfeet and Peigans, all resident in Southern Alberta, and South Peigan, located in Montana immediately south of the International Boundary line. These four bands with their allies, the Gros Ventres and Sarcees, formed the Blackfoot Confederacy, a powerful combination which for a century held by force of arms against all comers an extensive territory reaching from the Missouri river north to the Red Deer, and from the Rockies east to the Cypress Hills. The protection of their vast territory against invasion imposed upon the Indians a life of almost constant warfare with the numerous enemies surrounding them on all sides, and developed in them a proud and imperious spirit which, after more than thirty years of reservation life, is still the prominent characteristic of the Blackfeet.

No tribe of the plains has excited more admiration among observers competent to judge. Physically, they were

magnificent men, and at one time are said to have numbered from twenty to thirty thousand people.

L. V. Kelly, author of "The Ranch Men," has this paragraph regarding them:

"When the white men came to trade with the natives they found the Blackfeet a warlike race of magnificent horsemen, trappers of beaver, hunters of buffalo, living handsomely on the spoils of chase and war. They found them already engaged in almost incessant war with the Assinaboines and Crees; they found them treacherous, reckless, brave, underhanded as occasion required, and quite open to trade for whiteman's blankets, guns and whisky."

Their bitterest enemies were the Crees, who held the country in the vicinity of Edmonton. Something of the fear of this northern nation for the Blackfeet may be seen in a letter which Sweet Grass, chief of the Crees, dictated to W. J. Christie, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company at Edmonton, for transmission to the representative of the "Great Mother" at Ottawa, in 1876. In part it read:

"We want you to stop the Ameri

cans from coming to trade in our lands and giving 'fire water,' ammunition and arms to our enemies, the Blackfeet."

That such an overture was neglected for years without untoward results is our good fortune.

It was death to a Cree to cross the Blackfeet border. Fortunately these wars with the Crees were often mere frays for the glory of young bucks seeking a reputation, not a war to the bitter end.

The Blackfeet did not allow white men in their territory. Captain Pallister was admitted in 1857 because he represented her Majesty and carried the British flag. Captain Butler also was allowed into their domains for

the same reason. Reverend Father Scollen, who was the first white man to settle in Calgary, having a mission church there, says that while the Crees regarded white men as brothers, the Blackfeet regarded them as demi-gods, superior in intelligence and capable of doing the Indian good or ill.

They were proud, haughty and numerous. It is said there were some 10,000 of them in Canada in the sixties. They had a regular politico-religious organization. But in ten years their numbers decreased by half, and their organization fell into decay. The reason? The Americans about 1866 crossed the line, and established ten or more trading posts or forts where fire-water flowed freely, and hundreds of the poor Indians fell victims to the white man's craving for money. Some poisoned, some frozen to death while in a state of intoxication, many more were shot down by American bullets. In 1870 came small pox. In 1874 they are said to have been "clothed in rags, without furs and without guns."

It was this state of affairs that led to the mounted police being sent to Macleod to crush out this wanton debauching and robbing in the name of trade. In a few years they had gained again much of their former prosperity and became a peaceful tribe. Father Scollen is authority for the statement that in 1875 the Sioux Indians, who were at war in the United States,

wanted the Blackfeet to make an alliance with them to exterminate the whitemen in the land. This, he says, they flatly refused to do, because they saw that the white man of Canada was their friend and could be relied upon to do justly with them.

Thomas R. Clipsham, pioneer missionary of Protestant denominations to the Blackfeet, has had some interesting experiences in his work with the red men. Over a score of years ago he came, when there was little else on the bald, bleak prairie than coyotes, buffalos and Indians. He helped to run the fifth and third meridians in 1882, when it was a "sight for sore eyes" to see a white man. While thus engaged the party on a Sunday morning topped a rise near Fort Walsh to find an encampment of 2,000 Blackfeet with Big Bear as their leader. The valley, he tells, was covered with tepees, and the fear of the surveyors was great. It looked as though the old fort was surrounded. But all fear was dispelled when it was learned that the Indians had merely gathered to remind the authorities that their grub stake had disappeared. Once the larder had been replenished all signs of hostility vanished.

In 1884, Mr. Clipsham parted with $54 for two days' travel over the dusty plains to get from Calgary to Macleod in a creaking and uncomfortable old stage. He had been directed by the Methodist Church to carry the gospel to the red man of Southern Canada west, and for long years he toiled amongst them, living their life and sharing their meagre comforts and many hardships.

This was during the time of the terrible Riel rebellion, when the mere mention of a white man stirred the fire of hatred in the red man's breast, and when the chief occupation of the warriors was fashioning bows and arrows. It was uphill work, especially as the Indians were none too ready to receive the ministrations of the pale face. They were busy plotting and scheming their deadly maneuvres. But by faithful effort and diligent service

the missionary worked his way into the confidence of the red men, and it was not long till he was thoroughly trusted and admired. He learned their tongue and their habits, attended their councils of war, and discouraged their plotting and scheming.

On one occasion he had an encounter which he will long remember as the most thrilling of his experiences. A daring and fearless brave became antagonized, and threatened to put the missionary off the reserve. He journeyed to the mission house and entered, but had his breath taken away by being immediately precipitated through the door. The brave went for two of his followers and returned with a tomahawk and whip to carry out his original intention, but he was vanquished as before. Crestfallen, he stood, while his companions smiled at him, and ever after he had great respect for the white man.

Many times during the rebellion, Mr. Clipsham counciled with the red men, advising them to keep out of the trouble. Toward the close of the siege he was asked by the chiefs on the Blood Reserve to offer his services to the government to help quell the disturbance. When the Crees held a council

with the Bloods for the purpose of uniting against the white men, his advice was followed by the Bloods, and they refused to have anything to do with the Crees, whom they called "assenah," or cut-throats.

Captain C. E. Denny tells that, in 1872, a Mexican and two associates left Helena, Montana, to pan the streams of the country held by the "plain Indians," the Blackfeet. After working along the Old Man's River one night about the end of August, the two partners had turned in for the night while the Mexican had made his bed under one of the camp wagons. He was suddenly aroused in the night by a thundering discharge of fire arms. Several of the shots found a place in his body, and he knew at once that they were being attacked by a party of Indians, who were hidden under the bank of the river only a few yards away. He called to his companions in the tent, but receiving no answer, he thereby concluded they must both have been killed at the first discharge. On his calling again he was greeted by another volley from under the bank, and felt himself again wounded.

The poor fellow managed to roll out from under the wagon and crawled in