But before suffering the Company to pass out of this narrative, I must satisfy the reader’s curiosity concerning the terms it secured. It received a money payment of £300,000; it was granted one-twentieth of the arable land in the country over which, at the date of the arrangement, it held dominion; and its title to all land on which its forts stood was confirmed. Probably the shareholders have never regretted the bargain made on their behalf. “How valuable one-twentieth of the arable land was to prove,” says Agnes Laut, “the company itself did not realise till recent days, and what wealth it gained from the cession of land where its forts stood may be guessed from the fact that at Fort Garry (Winnipeg) this land comprises five hundred acres of what are now city lots at metropolitan values.” Moreover, I understand that the business of collecting furs is still a lucrative one; while visitors to Canada will not fail to notice, in all the great cities, the magnificent general stores of the Hudson’s Bay Company. [Illustration: OLD FORT GARRY, WINNIPEG] [Illustration: NEW UNION STATION, WINNIPEG] One regrettable fact has to be noted in connection with the creation of the Province of Manitoba. The anxious and bewildered Half-Breeds, fearing their interests were in peril, rose in rebellion under Louis Riel, the trouble not being repressed until Colonel (afterwards Viscount) Wolseley crossed the continent with an armed force. The growth of Manitoba under representative government has been one of the most inspiring achievements of modern times; but the history of that province merges at this point into the history of Western Canada, to which it had become the open door. Western Canada provided the Federal Government with several problems, of which the most pressing concerned the status of the roving bands of Indians. In the States, civilisation was driving back the natives with fire and sword. In Canada, recourse was had to milder and more effective methods. But in one respect the Yankees and the Canadians acted in concert. They joined in a war of extermination against the buffalo. Of the number of those animals roaming the prairie, it is difficult for anybody nowadays to form a conception. One traveller recorded that he rode for twenty-five miles through an unbroken herd, which he estimated to include one million animals. In the States, “Buffalo Bill” (Colonel Cody) took an active part in the work of extermination. He is credited with shooting forty-eight of the poor creatures in fifty minutes. In a period of some eighteen months—when he was under contract to supply all the meat needed by the huge army of men engaged in constructing the Kansas Pacific Railway—he accounted for 4,280 buffaloes. On both sides of the international boundary line, the country was swept clean of these fine beasts. I have seen places on the prairie white with an accumulation of their bones, whereof the weathered relics may still be found.