My orders were to kill all the good beef the Mounties could eat and have them write a report that read something like the following: “American cowboy rode 15 miles in Western direction. No American cattle seen. Policeman Smith rode 15 miles in Eastern direction. No American cattle in sight.” Those reports went to Ottawa, Canadian headquarters twice a week. I was always under the impression the Captain of the Alberta Division was getting his right hand greased by the cattlemen. I recall an amusing thing that happened. A report leaked through to Ottawa that those reports were not all true, so the Canadian government sent a special army officer out there to investigate. I was at Police Camp named Writing on Stone the evening he arrived with an escort on horseback. They had rode the trail from the railroad station and it being a cool evening and the cattle out grazing, he saw thousands of American cattle on his way. The next day the old boy got all his regimental regalia with his escort and a tally man together and started out to make a tally and a report on those cattle. Now it turned out to be a very hot day and when he got on the ground, there wasn’t a cow to be seen, as the cattle had all drifted back into the big bend of the Milk River to water and as the Captain would be lost if he got a mile off the trail (and those cattle had went about 10 miles) he was stuck. On his way back to the railroad, he met my partner who was staying at another police camp. He said, “I say, Cowboy, where are all those cattle I saw last evening on this trail?” This fellow was a Texan and had quite a sense of humor. He said, “Damned if I know, Captain. I think they saw your hole card and all went back to Montana.” Of course the Captain didn’t understand that kind of language. But we didn’t hear anymore from him. I don’t know what report he made—but the cattle continued to graze on Canadian soil for several years afterwards. It was pretty soft for those cattlemen of those days. Every year two or three big outfits would pool together and take thirty or forty men, a big band of saddle horses, chuck and bed wagons, and go to the Port of Entry on the Canadian line. There they would report that they were going into Canada to gather and take all American cattle out of Canada which, of course, sounded good to the Canadian government. Now, what they would do was go into Canada and work for several weeks and roundup all the American cattle they could find and bring them out to Montana and report the same just like they did when they went in. They would take them about three or four miles across the line into Montana—several thousand head—then they would brand the calves, cut out the beef cattle that was fit to ship—and then turn the main herd loose right there and, of course, in a couple of days those cattle would all be back in Canada, and nothing to bother about for another year.