Bond, The Whisky Trader

"Bond, the whisky trader, had not yet heard of the coming of the rugged, red-coated Mounties.  His wagon bounced joltingly over the rough ground, but Bond was happy.  This journey in the year 1874 had already brought him 116 buffalo robes, and the trip was young.  The wagon was heavy with kegs of alcohol, and the Indians were eager to offer him a buffalo pelt for each fiery pint.  Four of Bond's men drove wagons behind him.  They were armed with Henry rifles.  A wandering tribe would think twice before it fell on such a party and tried to take the whisky by force.  Most of the traders were dead shots.  In his mind, Bond was spending the rich profits which he felt sure would be his.  He thought longingly of the gambling casinos and plush hotels in Helena, south of the border.  Life seemed good to Bond.  He had even built his own stockade.  He wasn't going to divide his money with the Fort Whoop-Up gang.  Then, from out of the dusk came a command: "Halt, in the name of the Queen!"  The American had forgotten that the British Empire was ruled by a queen, whose name was Victoria.  But now Bond saw before him a tall man on a prancing horse.  The man wore a red jacket with frayed cuffs.  On his head was a white helmet.  Behind him in the gloom were other men on horseback.  Bond knew nothing of the North West Mounted Police, but he sensed danger.  One of Bond's men reached for a rifle at his feet.  "I'd put that down if I were you," said the tall man quietly.  The trader hesitated, then dropped the gun.  Inspector Crozier lifted the heavy tarpaulin on the wagon driven by Bond.  Beneath the canvas he saw casks of whisky, sinister rows of rifles, and heaps of buffalo robes.  "I think we'd better go to Fort Macleod," said the Inspector.  "Where's that?" asked Bond.  "You'll soon find out," replied the Mountie, from behind his thick dark moustache.  At Fort Macleod the Constables were already in barracks but the officers still lived in tents.  Macleod believed in the best food and quarters for the enlisted men.  He thought this was the way to have high morale under difficult conditions.  The traders were brought before the Assistant Commissioner.  He eyed them sternly while Inspector Crozier presented the evidence.  Macleod fingered one of the thick robes.  "The Indians need these for teepees and for clothing," he said.  "You have taken away their robes and given them nothing except alcohol, which wrecks their health and ruins their sanity."  The traders shifted their feet nervously.  For possessing liquor in Indian country, each of the whisky traders was fined fifty dollars.  The head trader, Bond, had to pay a fine of $200 and go to the log jail, because he sold alcohol to an Indian named Three Bulls.  The Indian testified against Bond at the brief trial.  The traders cursed angrily as the Mounties opened the casks and let the whisky run out onto the snow.  The buffalo robes were returned to the Indians.  "Tell your friends this is only the beginning," said Macleod to the traders, who went free after paying their fines." - from Royal Canadian Mounted Police by Richard L. Neubergter (Random House, New York, 1953)

A King Brothers Tall Tale? Probably Not.

A Porcupine Hill

Soon after we moved to The Jewel in 1976, I became friends with another young local professional who had lived here a lot longer than I - a fellow who not only was a dyed-in-the-wool rancher and hunter but one who had met the King Brothers in person.  My impression was that he had visited them on several occasions, perhaps in his professional capacity, perhaps as a young man they took a liking to, probably both.  (Like them, he is plain-spoken, smart as hell, loves the outdoors, and is tough as nails, so they may have seen something of themselves - when they were young - in him.)  His description of their spartan living quarters matched that as related by Mary-Jo Burles in her book, First And Second Kings.  He once told me of a visit to the log house that had been their home for many, many years up in the Porcupine Hills, during which his conversation with them was continually interrupted by a mouse running back and forth along the wall opposite.  Noticing that the mouse was distracting their visitor, one of the brothers took a jackknife out of his pocket, and deftly threw it across the room - impaling the mouse instantly.  The dimensions of the room weren't related to me but we can assume a minimum distance wall-to-wall of ten feet, and the room, he said, was lit by a single light bulb hanging in the centre of it, so the throw was pretty amazing - at least to me.  Considering the source of this little anecdote, I believe it to be true.

The Running Iron

Cattle rustling was a pervasive crime in the early west, particularly when cattle were allowed to wander on huge unfenced leases, and frequently the first person to brand a new calf claimed it as his own - whether or not that was actually the case.  "The chief way of stealing calves was to pick them up one at a time and subject them to the so-called "running" or "round" iron.  A rustler would travel the range with a branding iron short enough that he could slip it into his bootleg when he needed to conceal it.  The iron had a round edge on one end that the rustler could use to fashion any brand he desired.  In 1906 the NWMP officer in charge at Lethbridge told his superiors that he was not sure whether rustling had increased in the past year but that he was 'inclined to think it has, judging by the rapid increase of some of the herds in this district ... The cattle rustler rides the ranges with a running iron strapped to his saddle generally in stormy weather and picks up calves which have arrived at the age to be easily weaned from their mothers.  It is only a work of a few minutes for these experts to rope a calf and drive it to some place where it is held till it would not be claimed by the mother, or recognized by the owner.'  As time went on, virtually any unmarked cattle - not just those from the great herds but from all the ranches, large and small - became fair game.  The Mountie quoted above added that "fortunately" for the running iron rustlers, 'a number [of ranchers] have settled in the district with small bunches of unbranded cattle.'  These cattle, he was insinuating, were being pilfered.  This measure was not just used on mavericks.  Even the rancher who had previously branded his cattle was not safe from the running iron as it was useful for changing brands.  Sometimes the rustler would simply obliterate the original mark on an animal by burning over it and then would replace it with his own brand.  Or he might alter or "vent" the existing mark.  The letter E could, for instance, be turned into a B by closing up the open side; or a D could be made into a B by adding a dividing line in the middle; Vs became Ws, Cs became Es, Ps became Bs, and so on.  In the 1870s and '80s the NWMP acted as recorders and distributors of brands, but many were not recorded.  Therefore, one caught in possession of cattle with a particular brand could claim that he had used it strictly for the purpose of telling his own animals from neighbouring herds." - from Cowboys, Gentlemen & Cattle Thieves by Warren M. Elofson.