The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1920-04-08

each. They also had two small NOR
tars.
Their first job was to TAX Fort
Whoop-up, built and conducted by
Johnny Healy and AL Hamilton, two
noted Montana frontiersmen. Fort
Whoop-up was strongly fortified and
protected by cannon, and word had
been spread abroad that the Ameri-
cans would not surrender the place
without a fight to the last ditch.
When the police reached there, how
ever, Healy and Hamilton had de-
cided not to risk trouble, but had
buried their big store of whiskey in
the ground in the center of the fort
and opened the doors to the scarlet
coated horsemen who wore the
queens insignia on their buttons.
Captain Healy then tried to sell
the post to the police for their use,
but his price of $4,000 was too
high, and Colonel Macleod, com
handing the police, determined to
find another suitable site. The po-
lice therefore rode on another 80
miles and built Fort Macleod out of
cottonwood poles stuck upright in the
ground. Their buildings were of
logs with dirt roofs and the estab-
lishment was a ragged, crude look
ing outpost of the law.
When the Police Mutinied
The Mounted Police had a terribly
hard time the first winter. Their
uniforms wore out and their food ran
short. Finally Fl men mutinied and
taking their rifles, started out on
foot through the deep snow for the
American line. Their leader was an
old British soldier, George Frazier,
who had served through the Crimean
war in one of the English fusilier
regiments, and went by the nickname
of 1.-THE Old Fusilier." For several
days they plowed through the snow,
weak and hungry, forced to eat raw
buffalo meat to keep body and soul
together. Many of them fell in their
tracks, but Frazier would beat and
club them up and on again. Shortly
they left Fort Macleod, their
absence was discovered and an equal
number of mounted police under the
command of a Captain Crozier fol-
lowed them, finally overtaking the
deserters at Belly Butte, some dis
lance south of Macleod on the Fort
Shaw trail.
Crozier, when he came in sight off
the struggling party of desperate
men, did not know what to do. The
deserters entrenched themselves on
a hill in the snow and defied the Of
ficer to arrest them and take them +,
He feared that if he tried to /,
use force that some of the men un-
jor him miphf decart alec FINALLY
turned around and led his men
back to Fort Macleod. /,
Captured in Montana
The deserters, forced OF by Fraz- f
er, finally reached the Blackfeet {
agency on the American side of the '
inc, near where the town of Cho- t
eau, in Teton county, stands today, t
md there they were surrounded by t
! troop of United States cavalrymen t
rom the agency and forced to sur
'ender their arms. There the desert t
were able to get food, and they t
catered, few remaining in Montana.
The same winter there was a mu- T
my at Fort Calgary, the second post 4
o be constructed, which was located b
the site of the present city of Cal Il
,ary. A Frenchman, Captain Bris-
'eau, was in command, and he took g
INTO himself a halfbreed woman, p
.fter the manner of the frontier. The t
counted police, consisting of troop Fl
did not object to this, but they did F
inter- a strong protest against Cap
ain Brisbeau appropriating the troop a
ookstoYe for his own housekeeping Il