The Montgomery tribune., 1910-04-22

4 [ZOCIVZED 70
main. and with them and of them ordered
and orderly living.
II the story of how this came about is the story
of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police.
The mounted police! Don't you remember
when you a little chap, how you looked after
the uniformed man on the glossy bay he
tered through the park, and how you had
dearer dream of glory than to be like him? Even
now. don't you feel the old, boyish thrill at the
sight of blue-coated erect figure in the saddle
at crowded city crossing? If you do not, you
are a grown up"-saddest of labes-and will
journey to the Never Never-Never Land
But for "incurable children" the sight of
the mounted policeman still catches at those old
heart-srings.
And If all this for the bluecoated, brass-but.
toned horseman of the parks and bouevards
what of that other horseman, the who rides
alone with the stretch of endless prairies for his
beat with the criminal who holds life at less
than naught his quarry? Surely even your dulled
imagination. poor, tobe-pied grownups.
catch fire family from the CLEAN of his scarlet
coat
Recruited chiefly from the younger sons of well.
todo, and even titled English families. the North
west Mounted Police has long been an insttu
tion where English university man can work
off the bubbling froth of drop of gypsy blood
before settling down as head of a county family
and warden of his church, in the main collec.
tion of young men for whom the Red Gods call
makeup. who leave England because they are i'm
pecunous because of a with their fami
lies. or for sheer love of adventure. Come with
me to Regina Edmonton and you will hear
stories of men who gave the recruiting officer the
name of plain John Smith with something of a
cynical smiie--and it was bad form for the
cruiting officer to notice this sme-men who had
habit of reaching for monocle that wasn't
there. of talking with the correct London pronun
citation, and thrashing the fellow-trooper who
called attention to this fact
And any story you ever heard of the her-pre-
sumptiye to an English marquisate patroling a
500miie beat along the Arctic circle can be out
matched on the written records of the force, and
in the memory of any officer. Fifteen years ago.
Englishmen of Kiping's gentleman ranker" type
made up fully half of the force, and the other half
composed of wild Irishmen with all their
country's love of fight old plainsmen and Indian
fighters, the silent. steady-eyed, hardridng men
who gather on the frontier where the savage falls
away before the ragged vanguard of civilization
And they have done their work well that they
are fast driving away their own excuse for be-
ing The present northwest is what it
was In 1874 than busy Winnipeg of to-day is the
old Fort Garry to which the first troop of the
mounted" came 40 years ago. They have made
western Canada what 1t is out of the lawless ter
ritory"-an almost preposterous undertaking.
onc-quarter of the number of policemen in New
York to govern a country 250000 square miles
larger than the United States!
In short the mounted police have brought
british law into western Canada. and firmly es-
tablished it. The homesteader go into any
of the provinces and take out his claim, secure In
the assurance that he can work his land undis-
Surbed and harvest his crop unnjured. The home
steader is doing 1t by thousands and the Last
West Is vanishing. The frontier-the last from
tier of America-s being prosaically plowed by
tho practical man in blue overalls. who doesn't
carry even hunting knife, except to cut off his
chew of Granger Twist
The Indian has been reduced to his lowest
terms. When men of the United States were
building the Union Pacific across the plains, they
were obliged to employ Uncle Sans troops to
guard the builders. If the ghosts of the dead who
died violently in that first f1veyears fight for the
west were to line up along the right of way there
would be almost enough of them to mark the
miles
On s0-mile ride from the North Saskatche
wan last fall | met dozens of teams driven almost
wholly by Indians and hafbreeds. They were
hauling the long logs that were to be driven
twenty to thirty feet into the sands OF the Sas
katchewan to carry the false work of the Grand
Trunk Paclfc's steel bridge
What a contrast. Instead of hinderng. as was
once the case the northern Indians are helping te
build the raiiroad. In the construction OF the
new government transcontinental line, the In
dams employed wherever they can be used
for the road is being rushed with all possible
speed consistent with good work The Indians
are useful. also. to the pathhnders as guides
they know the forests of new Canada; they know
the mountain fastnesses of the Peace river. ant
they know all the crooks and canyons OF tn
Coas. Range In short the red man of to-day Il
the trusted guide and faithful servant OF the path
finder He hunts for the white man still, but quit
differently from the way he used 70 hunt for th
pioneers of old
Thanks to the Royal Northwest Mounted Pc
lice civilizations house IL in order To-day tn
be 4 long before the mounted VIII be