A lone blanketed Indian standing on the upper bank of the river looked down rather disdainfully upon the strange iron thing and the interested crowd of spectators who hailed its coming. He evinced no enthusiasm, but stoically gazed at the novel scene. What did it portend? To him it might be the dread thought of the passing of the old life of his race, the alienation of the stamping grounds of his forefathers, the early extinction of their great God-given provider, the buffalo, which for generations past had furnished the red man with all the necessities of life—shelter, food, clothing, shaganappy—a necessity for his cart or travois—and even fuel. The untutored mind may have dimly pictured the paleface usurping his rights to an hitherto unquestioned freedom of the plains, and the driving back of the red man by the overwhelming march of civilization. Whatever he may have thought, this iron horse actually meant that the wild, free, unrestrained life of the Indian was nearing its end, and that the buffalo, with its life-giving gifts and its trails and wallows, would disappear, to be replaced by immense tracts of golden grain fields which would, in years to come, make this fair land the granary of the world. Buffalo and agriculture are an impossibility together, and the law of the survival of the fittest is unfailing. And so it was in this case, when the first locomotive was the _avant courier_ of thousands to come. The Pembina Branch In the early days of December, 1878, the last spike of the Pembina Branch of the C.P.R., connecting St. Boniface and St. Vincent, Minnesota, where connection was made with the St. Paul & Pacific road to St. Paul, was driven. There were no palatial sleepers or high-toned parlor cars in those days on the road, and the primitive train consisted of several not very comfortable flat cars and a box car in which were some rude benches, a lot of straw carpeting, and a small wood-burning heater. It was called “Joe Upper’s private parlor car”. There were a great many of the first families of Winnipeg aboard, many of the excursionists being of the gentler sex. The ceremony of driving the last spike took place at Rosseau River. There was a dispute as to which lady should have the honor of doing the driving, and to settle the controversy, U. S. Consul Taylor diplomatically suggested that they all take a whack at it. And they did—gently tapping the spike with a heavy sledge hammer, but not driving it very far into the tie. After all had had their turn, and the spike was still in painful evidence, the consul called upon Mary Sullivan, the big strong buxom daughter of the boss section man, who with one mighty blow drove the spike home amidst the loud cheers of the assembled multitude.