Policing the Plains | Page 7

orders could be disregarded with impunity.
And it is now pretty well known that our good Queen and her advisers who had been shocked by the Riel outbreak in 1869 were concerned for the good government of the vast domain that had been recently handed over by the Imperial Government to Canada. It was not the British way to allow things to get out of hand, nor to permit wards of the nation, like the Indians, to become the victims of the lawless in trade and in morality. Hence the Governor-General of Canada received for himself and his responsible advisers more than one dispatch from the Headquarters of the Empire admonishing that steps should be taken to preserve peace in the vast new domain and to give all who would immigrate thither the proper British safeguards as to life and liberty and the pursuit of their lawful avocations. And, of course, the Canadian authorities, chagrined over the Riel outbreak and having some knowledge of the immense responsibilities they had assumed by taking over the North-West, were anxious to prevent anything that would make the new country unattractive to the people who were desirous of coming with their families to settle within its borders.
As a result of all this, Governor Archibald, of Manitoba, within a few weeks after his arrival in Fort Garry, took steps to secure a report on conditions on "The Saskatchewan," outside the Province where he was the representative of the Crown. The fact that he did this so soon after assuming office and when matters in his own Province required special attention, indicates strongly the pressure that had been brought to bear upon the Canadian authorities by headquarters. And when a man was required for the special mission out over the far North-West he was there on the spot in the person of Lieutenant W. F. Butler of the 69th Regiment, afterwards famous as Sir William Butler, of South Africa. On account of his splendid powers of endurance, his great faculty for observation and his remarkable literary genius, he was a man with unique qualifications for the task--the difficult and delicate task--to which Governor Archibald called him. A person has to be sadly destitute in the religious sense to believe that Butler was on hand by accident. It is exceedingly interesting to find that another man, who afterwards became noted in South Africa, namely the bluff and valiant fighter, Redvers Buller, was in the Red River expedition with Wolseley and had been mentioned in connection with the mission to the North-West hinterland. Years afterwards in the Boer War time this same Redvers Buller, then commanding the British forces on the veld, said to Colonel Sam B. Steele, of Strathcona's Horse, who also had served under Wolseley: "I know Lord Strathcona very well: when I was at Fort Garry on the Red River Expedition he spoke to me about going out over the plains to investigate conditions, but I was recalled to my regiment and Governor Archibald sent Butler out instead, a good thing too; for he wrote a very good book on his journey which I could not have done." And this big-hearted, manly, generous reference by Buller properly indicated that he not only recognized his own limitations, but was glad to pay tribute to the literary genius who wrote that Classic The Great Lone Land and the noble biography of General Gordon of Khartoum.
But Butler had more than literary gifts. He had, as already stated, great powers of observation and that remarkable faculty for forecasting, which was exemplified, then, on Canadian prairies as it was later on the South African veld.
In the book The Great Lone Land, to which allusion has been made, Butler tells us with manly frankness that in 1869 he had come to a standstill in his career as a soldier, because he had neither the means nor influence to secure any promotion in such a piping time of peace. And so, when news of the Riel Rebellion in the far West drifted to London, Butler cabled to Canada for an opportunity to serve in the Red River Expedition. He immediately followed his cablegram, but on his arrival found himself too late for a place. However he was given a special mission to go from Toronto to Fort Garry by way of the United States in order to find out how the people of that country along the boundary looked at matters on the Red River. Butler went on to Fort Garry, passed through the rebel zone, met Wolseley and with him entered Fort Garry, which had just been evacuated by Riel. As things quieted, Butler was going to leave for the East, when Governor Archibald got hold of him, as stated, and sent him out over the West to report on conditions and