"The population of the Territories has doubled in ten years and the strength of the Force has been reduced by half. Our detachments have increased from 49 to 79." This was one of the striking and illuminating statements made by Commissioner Perry in his Annual Report for 1901. The Commissioner was looking around and ahead and did not intend that the Government should be left ignorant of the rapid changes which were taking place. The reduction of the Force was a tribute to the extraordinary efficiency of its members in establishing peace and order throughout a vast domain. But it is not fair or human "to ride a willing horse to death," and with increased population and widening areas to oversee, the strain being put upon the men in the corps was too great. In even the organized portions of the Territories there was only an average of one constable to every 500 square miles. It was highly important that with half the population foreign born, alien to our laws, unacquainted with our institutions and disposed to bring with them a sort of a hatred of authority born of experience under old-world despotisms, there should be present the educative and restraining influence of an adequate number of the riders in scarlet and gold. Without that influence the newly-found liberty of these European immigrants would soon degenerate into licence. Those of us who recall those critical formative days agree with the statement that the constables took a large view of their duties and that their tact and discretion led these strange people not only to obey the laws but to look upon the Police as friends willing to aid and assist them in every way.

The Commissioner therefore strongly urged not only the maintenance of a sufficiently large force to meet the situation, but pressed for the adoption of his particular policy to have a reserve of at least fifty men always in training at headquarters who would be qualified for detachment duty whenever occasion arose. He gives adequate reason for this policy when he says, "The men on detached duty are in responsible positions; they have to act on their own initiative, often on matters of considerable public concern; their advice is sought by new settlers. To carry out their important duties satisfactorily they must be well trained, have experience, and be of good character. It is therefore unwise, contrary to the interests of the public and the good reputation of the force, to send on detached duty men who have not the proper qualifications, necessary experience, and who have not yet established a reputation for reliability and sobriety; in other words who have not been tested and proved."

There was an old song, written perhaps in the days of the Peninsular War, to attract men to sign up for service in the possible hope that some one of them might be instrumental in putting the tyrant out of commission:

But the Mounted Police Force was not built on those lines. Their business was to keep avoidable shooting off the programme altogether either by themselves or others, and to effect that desirable end they must be self-controlled, disciplined and tactful men. In order to be of that type every man must get thorough groundwork training in the depÔt division before he goes out with the possibility of being on detached duty at any moment. Successful insistence on these points of policy was one of Commissioner Perry's early achievements. It was in the best interests of the country and the Force that such things should be recognized by the authorities.

How necessary it was that the Police should be wise and at the same time firm is evidenced that very year when Superintendent Charles Constantine was in command at Fort Saskatchewan. Amongst the Rutherian or Galician people there arose a religious controversy, and a religious controversy is a hard thing for civil authority to tackle. But Constantine was a very discreet officer. He saw how easily a serious conflict on the subject might be precipitated amongst an excitable people. "Religion," writes Constantine, "is a very real thing to the Galician and on this matter he feels very strongly." Constantine made special study of the situation. There were three different branches of the church amongst these people, the Roman and Greek Catholic and the Orthodox Russian or Uniate Church, which was in creed and ritual a sort of half-way between the other two. The Russian church people had put up a church building near Star, but having no pastor of their own, they divided on which of the two others, the Roman Catholic or the Greek Catholic priest, should conduct services. The discussion became quite warm and threats of violence were common. Constantine would not interfere as between the controversialists, but he kept his eye on the situation and gave special direction to certain of his men. Matters came to a climax on Easter Sunday, when the two rival priests, each accompanied by some 200 followers, came to hold service in the church. Constantine knew of the situation beforehand, and he had sent a sergeant and two constables, prudent men, to see that there was no breach of the peace. Both parties claimed the right to hold services in the church and neither would yield nor would they hold a joint service. So the Police held the balance level by locking the door and then asking the parties to go one to each side of the church outside and hold their own services. This was done and there was no ill-will. After the services they dispersed to their homes and the danger passed. Constantine thought well of people who could be earnest about religion and law-abiding. And he makes this general remark about them: "On the whole my observation leads me to believe that the Galician immigration has brought a very desirable class of settler to the North-West and one which will in a short time be of material assistance to the productiveness and prosperity of the Dominion." And the record of these people during the years since this wise officer wrote these words has amply borne out his opinion. In the earlier years the excitable character of the Galicians, and the absence of instruction in their old haunts as to rights of life and property, led them into the commission of a good many offences against our laws, but no alien race has been more anxious to become Canadian and especially, amongst the young people who have grown up in this country, we have met many who are a large asset to the Dominion. As a rule they are industrious, and Constantine's vision of their future has become a reality.

FORT SELKIRK, YUKON.

ESQUIMAUX FAMILY.

Up in the Yukon that year there were continued echoes of the famous O'Brien murder case detailed in our preceding chapter, the leading note being that the capture and execution of this desperate criminal had attracted world-wide attention to the efficiency of the Police and had made the Klondike country safer for everybody. For instance, Superintendent A.E. Snyder, who took over the command at White Horse from Superintendent Primrose, says, "I am very pleased to be able to state that there were no very serious cases of crime during the year. I am satisfied that it was not for want of material that we were indebted for such a happy state of affairs, as among the class of people continually on the move coming in and going out there are quite a few that would be capable of attempting anything if they were certain of escaping detection. I can only attribute the lack or comparative utter absence of serious crime to the extreme watchfulness of our men which renders it well nigh impossible for loose characters to engage in doubtful enterprises and stay in the country. The (under the circumstances) speedy and condign punishment meted out to O'Brien elicited favourable comment from citizens generally irrespective of nationality, the Americans especially commenting favourably on it and contrasting it with their experience of similar incidents in mining regions of the Western States." Referring to the same case Inspector Starnes, then in charge at Dawson, says, "This case has cost the Government a great deal of money, but I am sure it had a very salutary effect on the bad element, as it has shown them that nothing will be left undone and no expense will be spared to prevent crime and bring the guilty ones to justice." Starnes has a reference to the verdict of a coroner's jury in the case of one Dr. Bettinger which indicates that he thinks the jury "played safe." It appears that the doctor had started from Dawson for the coast on foot and that he was not clad well enough for such a trek. When he did not turn up at points he ought to have reached, Inspector McDonnell was put on the trail and all the detachment men along the river took up the search. In a few days the body of the unfortunate man was found seven miles off the Yukon trail up the White River. Inspector Wroughton, who was out on an inspection trip, held an inquest in order to have the body properly identified, so that any matters connected with the estate might not be confused. And this jury concluded that the body was that of Dr. Joseph Bettinger and that the said Bettinger "came to his death from some cause or causes unknown to the jury, but are of the opinion that death was caused by exposure during extreme cold weather." The opinion of the jury was no doubt correct, though they expressed it with proverbial caution.

Starnes refers with proper sarcasm to the cases in which people imagine the Police ought to save them from the results of their own carelessness. He says, "There have been a number of sluice box robberies on some of the creeks, and we have been fortunate in securing one or two convictions, but in many instances it was impossible to find the thieves. This class of crime is one of the hardest to detect, owing to a great number of miners leaving their sluice boxes unprotected when there is a lot of gold in them, and another reason being that it is impossible to identify gold dust. We may have our suspicions in many cases, and in some feel sure of our man to a moral certainty, but it is almost impossible to prove the guilt unless we catch the man in the act. The distances being so great, it is out of the question for us to place guards on every claim, and the miners who wish to keep their gold must take proper precautions. It would be just as well for a farmer in the East to leave ten dollar bank notes in his stable yard with no one to watch them, as to leave gold in the sluice boxes the way some of the miners do." Starnes here hits at the all too common assumption of people who, with sense enough to be responsible for their acts, think that some one else is under obligation in matters of health and property to save them from the consequences of their own practices. And he delicately suggests to the careless miners that they have missed the fact of contributory negligence when they have thus led others into temptation.

These policemen were making a constant study of the unveneered humanity on the frontier and developed a keen perception of right and wrong, and had a rugged conviction that every one should get a square deal, but should realize that he must bear his own burden of responsibility. A fine instance of the Police opinion that men should get fair play is found in the report of Inspector A.M. Jarvis, who in 1901 was in command of the Dalton trail post in the Yukon country. He says, "The Dalton trail, which is the pioneer route to the 'inside,' is much in need of repairs. A vast area is tributary to this trail. From the Yukon River to the 141st parallel and as far north as the White River the Dalton trail is the main artery. Three years before the Klondike was heard of, Mr. Dalton blazed his route into the interior, acting as guide to the explorers into the country where he had done important work or trading in furs. When the rush into the gold-fields took place, he spent large sums in bridges and corduroy, especially between Dalton House and Five Fingers, which, now that the Yukon has the monopoly in freight and passengers, brings him no return. While the construction of this trail was a business venture, yet it remains a benefit to the country, and is of great value to the prospector. I should like to see Mr. Dalton recompensed for his unprofitable outlay." What came of this suggestion history does not record. The world is under immense obligation to adventurers who have blazed new trails to hidden natural resources. But the world is not always as fair as this Police Inspector in recognizing its obligation.

In his report in 1902 Commissioner Perry, in view perhaps of comments made by some who were ignorant of conditions, and such are occasionally found in public bodies, frankly says that the expenditure on the Mounted Police is large, but that when it is looked upon as a factor in the peaceful settlement of a vast territory, such expenditure is a splendid investment which will pay big dividends to the country for generations in the form of a contented, happy and prosperous population. The Commissioner's words are that "the benefits will be reaped by posterity when the Force has disappeared and its work is forgotten." It is hard to get these policemen to estimate their work highly enough. They have the usual British reticence intensified by definite practise of it, and that is why no man who has been a member of the Force will ever give a true history of its achievements. He is afraid to give the Force its due lest he should seem to be boastful when he records deeds that are stranger than fiction. And so when the Commissioner speaks of the Force disappearing and its work being forgotten we must enter a protest against this being read except in the light of the well-known habit of these men to keep religiously far away from the braggart spirit. The Force has undergone changes and may ultimately disappear in so far as the present form of organization is concerned, but those of us who have known the country and the men all through the years affirm without reservation that it can never be forgotten. The work of the corps has been so indelibly stamped upon the history of Canada that the record can never be erased as long as this country endures.

How, for instance, can any country forget a Force concerning one of whose members this same Commissioner Perry, proud always of his men, writes in the very next paragraph, "To one who is unacquainted with the country it is difficult to convey any adequate idea of the labour involved in policing such a vast region and carrying out the multifarious duties imposed on us. As an instance of this I may mention the work done by Corporal Field last winter. He is stationed at Fort Chippewyan, Athabasca. He was informed that a man had gone violently insane at Hay River, 350 miles from his post. He proceeded there with dog train, accompanied by the interpreter only and brought the unfortunate man, who was a raving maniac, back to Fort Chippewyan, and thence escorted him to Fort Saskatchewan, travelling a distance of 1,300 miles with dogs and occupying forty-four days on the journey. This is not an isolated instance. It represents the work of Inspector West and his men in the Northern Country."

All this is written by the Commissioner with the most admirable and characteristic police restraint. He gives the facts in outline and leaves the rest to the imagination of those who know the country. He says nothing about Corporal (later Inspector) Field having just come in from a long patrol, tired and entitled to a rest, albeit he was a noted trail-maker. Nor does he relate any details of the trip after the insane unfortunate. But those who have travelled the broken plain can see much between the lines of the simply worded report. We can see the vast white expanse of snow and ice wind swept at times by the fierce blizzards out of the north. We can see the return journey when the violent man would have to be watched day and night and yet given liberty enough at times to keep him from being chloroformed with the cold. A fine humane act was this and one that could only be done by a man who embodied in himself the coolness, courage and gentleness that form so splendid a combination. This and countless deeds of a like kind ensure the Mounted Police an enduring place in our Canadian temple of Fame.

It appears that there were always some people who believed that all they had to do when any mishap occurred in their experience was to sit back and get the Police to put things right. This was a tribute to the way in which the Force had exercised paternal oversight in their districts. But it was carrying things rather too far and forgetting that the best help comes to those who help themselves. There was a good deal of horse-stealing and horse-straying in progress in 1902 and when their horse got out of sight some settlers imagined they were stolen when in reality they had only strayed. These people thought the Police should assume the task of securing the return of their herds and droves. This calls a mild protest from Inspector J.O. Wilson, when at Regina. Wilson says, "Settlers are still prone to report a horse stolen when it is missing without making any special effort to find it themselves. There is a case on record where a settler named Hansen, who for the past seven years has lost horses, now expects the Police to find them for him. Much time has been spent in fully investigating his complaints, but this gentleman is not yet satisfied and has written to say that he considers it the duty of the Police to hunt up lost horses." And then the Inspector indicates the lines along which the efforts of the Force are properly directed. "In connection with this," he says, "I beg to state that when horses are reported lost, descriptions are forwarded to all detachments and instructions issued that should they be seen or heard the owners are to be notified. A large number of horses have been returned to their owners in this way." But to leave their police duties and hunt the stray horses of careless settlers was a little too much to ask.

Up in the Yukon that year there were contrasting pictures of events in a country that could always be counted on for happenings of interest. There is a fine touch in a report from that tender-hearted officer, the late Inspector Horrigan. Two gallant Police Constables, Campbell and Heathcote, were drowned at the mouth of the Stickine River, where they were crossing in an old boat as no other was at hand. Campbell's body was not found, but Heathcote's was recovered and brought to the nearest point, Wrangel, in the United States, for interment. "I am informed that the funeral was one of the largest and most impressive ever held in Wrangel. The service was conducted by the Rev. Mr. Reirdon, of the Presbyterian Church, with a full choir. The edifice was crowded to the doors, and the majority followed the remains to the last resting place. I chanced to be in Wrangel on June 30, Memorial Day, and noticing a procession of children clothed in white, several veterans of the Civil War and a number of citizens, I followed them to the cemetery and witnessed a very touching sight. To my surprise I noticed that Constable Heathcote's was the first grave decorated with bouquets and sweet-smelling flowers by kind and loving hands. It mattered not to them what altar he knelt at or what flag he had served under. They knew him in life as a policeman, proud of his uniform and his country. In death they honoured his memory." This is well put by Horrigan, and the whole incident indicated the deep-seated attachment existing between the two great branches of the English-speaking race. Incidents like this go far to destroy the "ancient grudge" which some Americans have against Britain because a century and a half ago a foolish British King and a still more foolish set of advisers treated British subjects overseas in an absolutely un-British way.

And then in the same northern area we have in the report of that exact and capable Inspector, W.H. Routledge, another side of life in the account of a murder case which, in cold-blooded deliberateness and treachery, perhaps puts the O'Brien case into the shade. O'Brien was a very inhuman and brutal murderer, but he, though on the look-out for prey, seems to have somewhat accidentally fallen in at Fossal's road-house with the three men he murdered a few miles farther along the way. But there is no particular evidence that he had made special efforts to be their ostensibly friendly companion beyond the usual comradeship of mutual helpfulness on the trail. But in the case Routledge reports two men, La Belle and Fournier, seem to have gone to White Horse with the deliberate intention of ingratiating themselves with some of their fellow-countrymen by the use of their French mother tongue, joining them on the way down to Dawson, and then murdering them when they arrived at a convenient place. And so these two creatures found at White Horse, Leon Bouthilette, Guy Beaudien, and Alphonse Constantin from Beauce County, Quebec, who had recently come from the East, going to Dawson. La Belle and Fournier got passage with these men on a small boat, travelled with them, camped, ate, and slept with them till one night in camp on an island near Stewart River they murdered their three hosts, probably in sleep, and after rifling their pockets, and to hide their crime, they tied the bodies up, weighted with stones, and threw them in the river. Then they burned up all evidences of their crime, got in the boat and went to Dawson, from which place they proceeded farther, found another compatriot named Guilbault and murdered him on the way to Circle City, Alaska. Once again it was a case where the murderers left no possible witness to testify and considered they were safe. But they forgot they were in the Mounted Police country—in the land of the men in scarlet and gold who never let go till justice is done.

The Police at White Horse had the number of the boat, 3744, and the names of all the men in it. Other boats, starting from White Horse about the same time, arrived in Dawson. But boat 3744 and its occupants, though seen by several on the way, dropped out of sight at Stewart River and was not seen again till Constable Egan discovered it empty at Klondike city.

The body of a man who had been killed by bullets was found in the river, and there was a small key tag with the name "Bouthilette, Beauce, P.Q." on it. This gave the Police a clue, and it was followed with characteristic energy and skill. A web of circumstantial evidence had again to be woven. Later on another body was found and Surgeons Madore and Thompson were satisfied that another death by violence had occurred. The body corresponded with the description given of Guy Beaudien. Constable Burns, of the Dawson Division, who could speak French like a native, haunted the mines and creeks in plain clothes, unearthed Fournier, who was identified by one Mack, who had seen him at White Horse, as one of the men in boat 3744. Detective Constable Welsh, Sergeant Smith, Corporal Piper, Constables Burke and Falconer with others were on the scent. Welsh went to Skagway and found the sailing list of the boat Amur on which the murdered men had come from Seattle. To that point and others he went, and then acting on information from Constable Burns, who had combed the French Colony for evidence, Welsh went on through six different States and finally caught and arrested La Belle in Nevada. La Belle said enough to indicate the whereabouts of the murder event and Welsh wired this information. Corporal Piper and Constable Woodill and the Dawson photographer went, located the "Murder Island," gathered some incriminating articles and took photographs from every angle. Then the work went on and the Police accumulated such an unbreakable chain-mail web of evidence starting with a man who had come with the murdered men from Montreal to White Horse, continuing with others who had seen all the parties on boat 3744 and then with men who had seen articles and money on La Belle and Fournier which they knew to have been the property of the murdered parties, that these cold-blooded monsters practically confessed, each throwing the blame on the other. They were committed for trial, found guilty by judge and jury, and paid the extreme penalty for their horrible crime.

Down on the prairie the Police were equally intent on duty and equally successful in serving notice on all and sundry that tampering with human life and prosperity would not be tolerated. And every one who came into the Canadian West was wise if he governed himself accordingly. An accomplished young forger and potentially worse, by the name of Ernest Cashel, barely twenty-two, drifted up to Calgary from the State of Wyoming and proceeded to test the calibre of Canadian authority. He was arrested, but escaped from the city authorities. Then the Mounted Police, whose officer commanding at Calgary was Superintendent Sanders, D.S.O., were called upon and discovered that Cashel had stolen a pony at Lacombe to help in his escape. Shortly afterwards D.A. Thomas, north of Red Deer, notified the Police that a relative, J.R. Belt, had disappeared from the latter's ranch east of Lacombe. Constable McLeod investigated and discovered that when Belt was last seen a young man, who gave himself the name of Elseworth, was staying with him. The description indicated that Elseworth and Cashel were one and the same. Belt's horse, saddle, shot gun, clothes and money, including a $50.00 gold bill, had vanished. It looked like a murder case, and so Superintendent Sanders put our old friend Constable Pennycuick, who had unearthed O'Brien in the Yukon, on the trail of Cashel. Every detachment of the Police was put on the scent. In a while a man, answering Cashel's description, stole a diamond ring up in the edge of the mountains and, despite great cunning, was arrested by Constable Blyth at Anthracite. He was wearing some clothes like Belt's and had the diamond ring. Then Constable Pennycuick, hearing that Cashel had been staying at a half-breed camp near Calgary, went there and got some clothing Cashel had left there. Part of it was the rest of Belt's corduroy suit. Pennycuick also got track of the $50.00 gold bill which had been seen by some of the half-breeds with Cashel. Pennycuick traced Cashel's route from Belt's to near Calgary with Belt's clothes, horse, saddle and the aforesaid $50.00 gold certificate. But thus far there was no evidence that Belt was not alive somewhere, and so Cashel was tried for stealing and sentenced to the penitentiary. Two months later the river gave up its dead, and the body was identified by certain marks and by an iron clamp on the heel of the boot. Bullet holes in the body of the same calibre as the revolver and rifle carried by Cashel completed the evidence. He was brought back from the penitentiary, charged with murder, and after a trial in which he was brilliantly defended by Mr. Nolan of Calgary, was sentenced to be hanged.

But the end was not yet. John Cashel, a brother from Wyoming, had come up and was given permission to see Ernest in the cell. As he entered the chaplain was leaving and the guard being relieved. Taking advantage of the situation, John Cashel slipped his brother two loaded revolvers with which that evening Ernest held up the unarmed Constables and made his escape. It was a dark night, with heavy snow falling, and this clever and daring criminal well armed got clear away. Then the alarm was sent out, detachments were notified and Commissioner Perry, accompanied by Inspector Knight, went up to Calgary to take personal direction of the search. Evidently, as happens in such cases this outlaw had friends, who, supplied him with information, telling him what was being done and to add to the confusion, people all over the country became nervously excited and began "seeing things," so that several supposed Cashels were reported from a dozen directions. A drunken half-breed in Calgary caused excitement by telling that he had Cashel tied up in his camp, but the cool-headed Sanders saw through his yarn and locked up the half-breed for being drunk and disorderly. Superintendents Primrose and Begin, on the Commissioner's orders, sent patrols out through the ranches. Here they came across ranchers who had been held up for food and money by a man whose description tallied with that of Cashel. As the Police could not cover the whole country, some civilian volunteers were called for and these were placed along with police detachments. Finally Sanders mapped out the country, got detachments together to the number of five under Major Barwis, Inspector Knight, Inspector Duffus, Sergeant-Major Belcher and himself, and the order was to search every building, cellar, root house and haystack with instructions that if they found Cashel they were, if human life was to be saved thereby, to set fire to the building or stack where he was and smoke him out. The detachment under Inspector Duffus, consisting of Constables Rogers, Peters, Biggs, Stark and McConnell, while searching Pittman's ranch 6 miles from Calgary, came across Cashel in the cellar. He was found by Constable Biggs, who was fired at by Cashel out of the dark hole. Biggs returned the fire and backed up the steps to tell the rest. Constable Rogers then ordered the men to surround the house and sent word to Inspector Duffus, who came and called on Cashel to surrender. But he would not answer and the building, a mere shack, was set on fire. When the smoke started, Cashel agreed to come out and was arrested. This was the close of an arduous hunt, a great many of the Police having been almost continuously in the saddle day and night in cold weather for weeks. They were determined that no one should boast of eluding the Police by making a clear "get away."

This time there was no escape, and the daring murderer was hanged in Calgary, first confessing his crime to the Rev. Dr. Kirby, his spiritual adviser. Once more the unbreakable net of the famous riders of the plains had been thrown out to show that the whole country became a prison for anyone who offended against its laws.

It was perhaps the recurrence of cases of this kind where the Police were proving the enormous value of the Force to the country that caused Superintendent Primrose in 1903 to make a plea for some increased recognition of his men. In his report he says, "In nearly every walk of life in the past twenty years wages have gone on increasing, but, I regret to state, the same scale of wages still obtains in the Police Force. For instance, I am at present employing a constable on detective work whose pay is seventy-five cents a day for which we have to pay a Pinkerton man eight dollars a day." And it is no disparagement to the Pinkertons to say that the Police could give them some "pointers" when it came to work on the frontiers.

The question of pay for their men was a constant anxiety for the officers, who were themselves receiving a mere pittance in comparison with the salaries paid to men of equal education and experience in other departments of the civil service. So we find, in 1904, that fine officer, Superintendent Wood, in the Yukon making reference to the fact that though an increase of pay had been granted to others the pay of the Police had remained practically the same since their organization. Wood feels that it is humiliating for the men. "A constable's life," he writes, "is not altogether an enviable one. He is liable to be exposed to the inclemencies of the weather at all seasons of the year, and is at times called upon to risk his life in the performance of his duty. He is under much closer and severer restraint than private individuals." This is putting it all very mildly, as was the manner of the Police when they were speaking of themselves. Then Wood goes on to say, "It is of importance that a member of the Force should be made to feel that his position is an honourable one, and that he is entitled by virtue of his office or calling to the respect of the community at large. This state of things could be arrived at if he felt that his position was equal to those in other walks of life, and that his services were rated equally as high. But the mere fact of his receiving 50 cents to 75 cents a day with his food and clothes while carpenters, blacksmiths and labourers on the outside receive five times as much and in the Yukon ten times as much, is enough to instill a feeling of inferiority so far as his calling is concerned." This is an important view. And Wood in the same report emphasizes his argument, though he does not refer to it in that connection, that the Police are expected to do work as mail-carriers, postmasters and such like, outside proper police duty, because the country could not get civilians to do it at the remuneration offered. The whole thing troubles Wood, who was of a sensitive temperament and very anxious to retain high-class men in the Force. And so he refers to it again in the following year and says that a constable who was a skilled mechanic and was saving the country great expense by looking after the manufacture of stove pipes, tinware, etc., had been offered as much an hour by town merchants as he was getting in a day in the corps on the scale allowed by the Police Act. And Wood, who feels keenly for the men, says, "Our poor circumstances are so generally known that it has become usual to send members of the Force complimentary tickets for entertainments and reduce the fees in clubs and societies for them." Probably what was in the minds of those who sent tickets and reduced fees was that it was an honour to have with them the men in scarlet and gold who made human life and property safe on the frontier and whose standards of manners and education made them most desirable company. But the comparative poverty was there amidst abounding chances to be rich in the gold country and elsewhere in a new land. Men who served through the dangerous formative periods of Western history died poor in worldly goods. It is a fine thing to know that all through the years these men out of the sheer love of adventure and their high ideals of devotion to duty did such service, but the facts should not be lost sight of when the pensions of the "old guard" survivors are being considered from time to time.

The quality of the non-commissioned officers and men is often brought out in their detachment reports. These reports reveal not only men of ability and insight, but throw light on the kind of people these Police in the north had to guide. Sergeant Frank Thorne, for instance, was in charge at a place called Tantalus. The man who gave that name to the elusive mining prospects of the region had a sense of humour and the fitness of things. Thorne says, "Hundreds of people landed at Tantalus en route to the new White Horse diggings. Most of these people had been misinformed as to the best place to start from. I informed some of them, but found that a person with gold fever is very unreasonable and stubborn. Those that returned this way wore a very dilapidated and sorry appearance." But the Police, I suppose, helped them out of their troubles, for these red-coated giants did not lose their humanitarian disposition even amidst the follies of the foolish. And the Police knew well the strain under which these deluded and disappointed people often found themselves, for Wood tells us of the Police at Dawson and White Horse having as many as forty lunatics committed to their care in a single year. This involved heavy and anxious work, and the Superintendent shows the spirit in which it was done when he laments the lack of suitable accommodation and fears lest some of these unfortunates may hurt themselves in the unsuitable quarters provided.

Speaking of the humanitarian disposition of the Police, one finds many incidents to show how they resented offences against the helpless, and how relentlessly they brought the perpetrators of such offences to book. In the same year, 1904, of which we have been writing, Sergeant Field, of Fort Chippewyan, to whose rescue of a lunatic we have already referred, got word that an Indian had, at Black Lake, 250 miles away from the Fort, deserted two little children, two and three years of age and that these two children according to the testimony of other Indians had been devoured by wolves. Part of the clothing had been found and all around the blood-stained ground was trampled by wolves. The Indian was at Fond-du-Lac, but could not be advantageously arrested unless Field could get some evidence from others who were not there. So Field bided his time till all the Indians were at Fond-du-Lac in the summer. Some eight months had gone by, but Field did not forget. Fond-du-Lac was several hundred miles from Fort Chippewyan, but Field got there at the proper moment, arrested the Indian, took the witnesses along and started for Edmonton, where the Indian was tried and given a term in the penitentiary. It had cost Sergeant Field a strenuous trip by trail, river and train of nearly eighteen hundred miles, but he had by his action told the Indians of the whole region to deal properly with their children and their old people.

A very remarkable case in 1904 was that in which after an extraordinary display of mastery over difficulties, the Police under Staff-Sergeant K.F. Anderson (now Inspector) brought one Charles King to justice for the murder of his partner Edward Hayward, near Lesser Slave Lake in Northern Alberta. The case was not only a portrayal of the persistent methods of the Police, but it threw a fine sidelight on the way in which the Police had won the friendship of the Indians through guarding the Indians against exploitation by white men. It moreover gave a good exposition of the Indians' unique powers of observation.

CORONATION CONTINGENT. LONDON. 1911.

INDIANS RECEIVING TREATY PAYMENT ON PRAIRIE.

FORT FITZGERALD, ATHABASCA.

ICE-BOUND GOVERNMENT SCHOONER.

In October, Moos Toos, the headman of the Indian Reserve at Sucker Creek, came to Sergeant Anderson and told him that white men were cutting rails on his Reserve. Anderson immediately went over with the Chief and found men employed by a very prominent firm of contractors cutting rails. The Sergeant stopped them at once and made them pay the Indian for what they had already cut. This, of course, was pleasing to Moos Toos, who, on returning home with Anderson told the Sergeant that some days before, two white men with four pack-horses had come from Edmonton and camped on the Reserve near a slough. They had stayed there some three days or so and then one of them left, but there was no sign of the other. An Indian boy had noticed that the dog that had come with the white men would not follow the one that left. This was observation number one. Then some Indian women, as their custom is, went over to the place where the men had camped to see if anything was left that might be of service. One Indian woman noticed that the camp fire-place was much larger than required for ordinary use. Another Indian woman stood at the edge of the fire-place and looking up noticed, on the underside of the leaves of a poplar tree, globules of fat where the thick smoke had struck the cool leaves and the evaporating fat had condensed. She said, "He was burning flesh in this fire." These two things, added to the fact that a shot had been heard by other Indians in the direction of the white men's camp, made them suspicious. They told Moos Toos, their headman, and he, in recognition of the goodness of the Police to him, told Anderson about it, and added that he thought something was wrong. Anderson thought so too, and with Constable Lowe went down to the place. They raked in the ashes and found fragments of bone and other substances which they carefully sealed up and kept for analysis. Moos Toos, who was on hand with some of his Indians to help, found a large needle with the eye broken, then by going barefooted into the slough where the water was four feet deep, discovered a camp-kettle which some of the Indians had seen with the white men. Later on Moos Toos and Lowe found in the slough a pair of boots in one of which was stuffed a rag with various articles, including the other part of the broken needle. In the meantime, Anderson had got into touch with the surviving white man at the home of a trader some distance away and asked for his story. This man, who gave his name as King, said that his companion was a man he had overtaken on the trail over the Swan Hills. His name, he said, was Lyman, and he had been on the way on foot. King said Lyman had left the camp on foot for Sturgeon Lake and that he supposed he was on the way there. Anderson sent out in that direction, but there was no trace of such a man at any point, and a Hudson's Bay employee who had just come from Sturgeon Lake met no one on foot and there was no trace on the trail of anyone so travelling. Anderson and Lowe then arrested King on suspicion and held him while they pursued further investigations. Anderson was convinced that the bed of that slough, if uncovered, could unfold a tale. And so he hired the Indians to divert it by digging a ditch that would drain it into Sucker Creek a half-mile away. It was quite an undertaking, but the Indians, who have lots of time on their hands in the summer and fall, offered to do the work for a hundred dollars. The work was well done and Anderson's expectations were not disappointed. He found amongst some minor articles a sovereign-case which was fairly conclusive evidence that the man who had vanished from the earth was probably an Englishman. The sovereign-case was traced back to the manufacturer in England and to the man who had sold that number to a certain Mr. Hayward, a man up in years, then deceased. The clue was followed up and a son of Mr. Hayward was found who recalled that his father had presented a sovereign-case to another son when that son left for Canada. The son who had gone to Canada was known to be in the Edmonton and Northern country, but the people at home had not heard from him for some time. Regardless of expense and without delay, the Police brought Hayward all the way from England to Edmonton for the trial. He identified the sovereign-case as the one given by his father to the missing man Edward Hayward. A specialist in analysing had been brought from Eastern Canada who pronounced the blood, brains and bones found in the ashes of the camp fire to be human elements. There were some twenty witnesses in the case, those outside the Police being Messrs. J.K. Cornwall, George Moran and the rest half-breeds and Indians. Once more the police had the chain of circumstantial evidence welded solidly link by link. King was declared guilty, but on a legal technicality a new trial was ordered. By this time the witnesses were all back home. But they were brought back, including the brother of the missing man from England. The verdict again was guilty and King paid on the scaffold the penalty for his mean and cold-blooded murder of a travelling companion. A very curious thing in this trial was the sworn statement of Hayward, the witness from England, that his sister had told him there, the morning after the shot was heard by the Indians near the Lesser Slave Lake, that she had dreamed that their brother Edward had died by violence in Canada. This was not offered or accepted as evidence, but was mentioned incidentally as at least an extraordinary coincidence.

The Mounted Police were evidently determined not to allow crime to make any headway because if the impression ever got abroad that men could play fast and loose with law and go unrebuked, there would be no end to it. So we find Superintendent Sanders saying again that the Force should have more men to cope with the demands of the immigration movement. "It is only natural," he says, "to expect that a percentage of criminals should accompany a large migration into a new country. A malefactor who finds it necessary to lose his identity for a while cannot choose a more convenient location than a country just filling with new settlers and where one stranger more or less is not likely to be noticed." This is sound reasoning, and Sanders is looking into the future when he is asking for men enough to deal with the new order of things so as to prevent trouble in the future. "Once," says he, "get the new-comers within our gates imbued with the proper respect for British law and British justice, and prevent the criminal element getting a foothold, and a work will be accomplished of inestimable value hereafter."

And up in the Yukon, Assistant-Commissioner Wood, out of wide experience, says, "It is a well-known saying that prevention is better than cure, and any innovation in our system tending to the prevention of crime in Canada, and more particularly in the North-West and the Yukon Territories, is to be welcomed." And then Wood goes on to advocate the adoption of certain methods for the detection of criminals which for that period showed that these men were keeping a little more than abreast of their times though they were on duty in the wilderness places of the earth. He advises the establishment of a Criminal Identification Bureau at Ottawa with branches in all the cities and at the headquarters of each division of the Mounted Police Force. He goes on to define methods by photographs of every one arrested, measurements under the Bertillon system and the use of the finger-print method, which he quite properly declares, as we now know, to be the most infallible means of identification. That Wood had made a special study of the subject is evidenced by the fact that he backs his argument by appeal to history. He says the finger-print system had been in use in Korea for 1,200 years as a means of identifying slaves and was adopted in India in 1897 as a way of preventing impersonation amongst the natives. The Scotland Yard authorities accepted the system in 1898, which was the year of the Yukon Gold Rush, and it is very interesting to find the Officer-Commanding on that frontier being so forehanded as to be amongst the first in Canada to advocate the use of methods now generally adopted. These men of the Mounted Police were wide awake and were determined, we repeat, to prevent the criminal class from getting a foothold in this country.

It is interesting to find in the same period that the Police never seemed to forget. As related above, Fournier and LaBelle had been executed in January, 1903, for the murder of Beaudien and Bouthilette. A third man of the same party had vanished at the same time, but no body had been found. Two years afterwards a body was found in the river, taken to Dawson, the clothes removed and washed by Sergeant Smith and the body identified by these clothes and a paper dried out, as the body of the third man, Alphonse Constantin. Thus was the fact of his death established in the interests of relatives and estate—a matter of vital importance for the satisfaction of all concerned. And thus did the curtain fall on the final act in a dark tragedy of the North.

But all these incidents were making for the future peace of the country. It was the establishment of the "Pax Britannica," as Commissioner Perry said with justifiable pride in the record the Police had made throughout the years. He quotes the words of a famous Indian Chief to which we have already called attention in the chapter on Indian treaties when that Chief, referring to the Police, said, "Before you came the Indian crept along. Now he is not afraid to walk erect." "For thirty-one years," said Perry in 1905, "neither white man nor Indian has been afraid to walk erect, whether in the great plains, the far North or the distant Yukon."

And even at the time he was writing those words Corporal Mapley was on patrol over an unknown route from Dawson to the Peel River, Inspector Genereux of Prince Albert was away on a 1,750-mile trip North, of 132 days by canoe and dog-train to investigate a case of alleged murder, Sergeant Fitzgerald was on patrol to the mouth of the Mackenzie River and Inspector Moodie was establishing new posts around the Hudson Bay—all having a reassuring and stabilizing effect on the vast uncivilized North land.

And again turning to another side of their work there were many cases that were charged full of a Victoria Cross type of valour which went unnoticed except as things done in the ordinary course of duty unless some tragic element intervened to call special attention to it. Constable Pedley, of Fort Chippewyan, for instance, a noted trailmaker, had made many a trip (as others did) fraught with tremendous hardship. But it was not till one day when he broke for a while under the tremendous strain that his extraordinary efforts got into the light of public notice. Here is part of his modest report when he was detailed to escort a lunatic from Fort Chippewyan to Fort Saskatchewan: "I left Chippewyan in charge of the lunatic on December 17, 1904, with the interpreter and two dog-trains. After travelling for five days through slush and water up to our knees, we arrived at Fort McKay on December 22. Owing to the extreme cold, the prisoner's feet were frost-bitten. I did all I could to relieve him, and purchased some large moccasins to allow more wrappings for his feet. I travelled without accident until the 27th, reaching Weechume Lake. Here I had to lay off a day to procure a guide as there was no trail." This is put with great suppression of anything like telling what a difficult time he was having, but again we read between the lines. The trip is "without accident" but there was "extreme cold." Pedley was nurse and doctor as well as guard over the unfortunate madman who raved as they travelled along almost impossible roads. Then Pedley goes on: "I arrived at Lake La Biche on the 31st, and secured a team of horses to carry me to Fort Saskatchewan. I arrived on January 7, 1905, and handed over my prisoner." Pedley had spent his Christmas and New Year not in a happy social circle, but in the company of the unhappy victim of insanity. And he ends his report by saying, "During the earlier part of the trip the prisoner was very weak and refused to eat, but during the latter part of the trip he developed a good appetite and got stronger." Pedley's care was improving the madman's condition, but it was taking it out of himself. The unfortunate was transferred to Calgary guardroom, and that Pedley's nursing had worked a change is evident because Assistant-Surgeon Rouleau reports that it was "a remarkable case." He was taken to hospital and discharged in February. Says Rouleau, "His mind and speech were as good as ever. His life was saved." But the sequel is told in Commissioner Perry's report, "Constable Pedley began his return trip to Fort Chippewyan. When he left Fort Saskatchewan he was apparently in good health, but at Lake La Biche he went violently insane as a result of the hardships of his trip and his anxiety for the safety of his charge. He was brought back to Fort Saskatchewan and then transferred to Brandon Asylum." But we rejoice that this is not the end. Perry goes on, "I am glad to say that after spending six months there he recovered his mind and returned to headquarters. He was granted three months' leave and is now at duty as well as ever." And that this gallant man who was not conquered by cold and danger was not going to be conquered by the recollection of the breaking of a cord that had been subjected to too great a tension is attested by Perry's closing reference: "In spite of all, he has recently engaged for a further term of service." Comment on this is unnecessary. It is like a flash which dispels the night in a prairie thunderstorm.