Alberta's Wild Horse Hunt

              TORONTO STAR WEEKLY Alberta 9s Wild Horse i
A band of Stoney Indiana recently staged a wild-horse hunt
in the vicinity of Morley, Alta. Here'* one of their chiefs wear­ing
a tribal costume.
By L E S L I E SARA
IS the Indian losing his cunning as a hunter?
Has the craft of previous generations who
rode down the thundering herds of buffalo,
who filched horses from under the noses of
the earliest settlers or secured fresh mounts
i n fair chase among the roving bands of wild
mustangs, become a mere memory? There
are those who believe that education has u n ­fitted
the present tribesmen for the pursuits
of their forefathers; there are others among
the ranchers and riders of the plains who
know them as more efficient horsemen than
the red men of fifty years ago and who com­pete
w i t h them as equals i n the cowboy sports
and rodeos of the west.
Were one inclined to believe that the I n ­dians
of to-day are not the mighty hunters
of an earlier age, the view might be strength­ened
by the result of one of the most
spectacular hunts staged i n recent years. Yet
their very failure is an epic which w i l l often
be retold i n the lodges of the tribe.
A few weeks ago, a band of Stoney Indians
at Morley had high hopes of winning a reward
of $1,000. They were matching their own wits
and the performance of their ponies against
the speed and craftiness of one of the last
remaining herds of w i l d horses in the west
For years they have roamed the foothills be­tween
Calgary and the Banff National Park,
and so far have outwitted attempts of both
white and Indian cowboys to corral them.
Now the Indian riders are back on their
reservation in the shadow of the Rockies.
Their mounts are crippled. They themselves
are weary from long hours i n the saddle, worn
with the privations of the chase and their
battle w i t h the elements. Back among those
rolling hills a black stallion shrills his mock­ing
challenge echoing through the mountain
passes as, w i t h tossing mane and tail carried
before the advancing flames. By night the
red glare continued to urge them on.
Climbing the" steep divide between the
Highwood and Elbow River watershed, they
eventually reached safety in the Bow River
forest reserve, having drifted scores of miles
ahead of the fire.
Carefully Planned Chase
\ | O T until the following year was their
* ^ presence noticed on the forest grazing
grounds, where despite efforts to turn them
out, they remained. The forestry branch
could neither impound them for trespass, nor
could their owner get possession, as two i n ­effectual
attempts during the first year only
encouraged the horses to maintain their free­dom.
Since then, their numbers by natural
increase have grown to a band variously
estimated at between 200 and 300.
Only a few of the original stock remain
bearing brands which identify ownership. An
occasional stray f r om ranches has been known
to join the herd. But most of them have
never bowed to man's domination to suffer
the indignity of restraining rope or the sear­ing
stab of the branding iron. They have
remained as free as the deer and the moun­tain
sheep of the hills.
Jimmy Dew's interest i n the herd has long
since lapsed. He took the best of a bad
bargain by selling them cheaply years ago—
w i t h the canny proviso that he was not re­sponsible
for their capture. Since then, own­erships—
if such can be applied to creatures
elusive as the wildlings of the forests—has
often changed as previous owners have made
futile efforts to secure them. Some of the
best riders in the foothills have tried to cap­ture
the bronchos. On one occasion, most
of the herd were driven into a corral after
an extensive round-up. But during the night,
they cither jumped the rails or bettered Ihcir
"Suddenly the retreating herd wheeled
in their tracks and headed directly for
their old passage through the coulee*"
ot $5 per head to anyone who could corral
the bunch which fired the Stony Indians to
make another effort to rid the foothills
grazing range of this band of w i l d horses.
F r om Chief Jacob Two Young Men, leader
of the horse hunt, 1 learned something of the
strategy which they intended to employ.
Plans were based on weeks of careful ob­servation
of the animals' movements, their
favorite w i n t e r feeding grounds, their reaction
on the approach of human beings.
Few were better qualified for the task than
this young Stony chieftain, son of a former
chief and one of the outstanding riders among
a t r i b e who exist by their hunting and ranch­ing.
Around him he had gathered equally
efficient cowboys of his band: Tom and Louis
La Belle, Tom Daniels and the Kootenai
brothers. All have featured as successful
competitors in the Calgary stampede events
and other rodeos. All were thoroughly con­versant
w i t h the country over which the hunt
would extend; a terrain bristling with d i f f i ­culties,
thick bush, burnt and fallen timber,
rocky sidehills and muskegs. It abounded in
coulees hedged by steep slopes of shale scree;
it was intersected with valleys with precipi­tous
canyon walls. Altogether it was one of
the most hazardous territories to traverse at
the breakneck gallop which would have to be
maintained when heading off the herd. Every-stallion
would lead them out of the open coun­t
r y to a narrow winding valley and through
it to the safety of the bills. It was in this
coulee, hidden from view around a jutting
wall of towering cliffs that the trap was to be
laid.
Here they intended to build a strong narrow
corral with wide wings. Into this ambush,
the herd "hazed" by the Indians hard on their
heels would be unable to t u r n i n the confines
of the fenced funnel u n t i l too late. Poles placed
across the entrance to the pass would then
effectually pound the horses i n an area suffi­ciently
small for the Indians to handle them
at their leisure, when after a number of the
leaders of the herd had been roped and h a l ­tered
it was thought that the balance of the
horses would follow them in the drive back
to the railroad at Morley. Necessary jack-pine
poles for the heavy barrier had already
been cut and stacked i n the coulee and evi­dence
that the herd was still habitually passing
up and down the trail indicated that they were
not suspicious of the intention.
While Jacob seemed sanguine for the suc­cess
of this subterfuge, he was prepared to
use other means in the event of the bronchos
avoiding the cul-de-sac. The alternative plan
was to use additional riders who working in