Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1910-04-23

Il LZOLZYZ-ED p
main, and with them and of them are orderee
and orderly living
If the story of how this came about is the stor,
of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police
The mounted policei Don't you remember
when you were a little chap. how you looked aftel
the uniformed man on the glossy bay as he can
tered through the park. and how you had M
oearer dream of glory than to be like him? Ever
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 grown up"-saddest of labels-and will
journey no more to the Never-Never-Never Land
But for us "incurable children" the sight OF
the mounted policeman still catches at those old
heart-strings.
And if all this for the bIue-coated brass-but
toned horseman of the parks and bouleyards
what of that other horseman. the one 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-pitied grown-ups can
catch fire family from the CLEAN of his scarlet
coat.
Recruited chiefly from the younger sons of we'll
TODD, and even titled, English families the North
west Mounted Police has long been an institu-
ton where an English university man can work
on 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 a collec-
ton of young men for whom the Red Gods call
too wildly, men with daredevil dash In their
makeup, who leave England because they are i'm
pecun1ous, or because of a row 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
cynical Smile-and 1t was bad form for the re-
cruiting officer to notice this smiIe-men who had
a habit of reaching for a 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 heir-pre-
sumptive to an English marquisate patroling
5o0-mile beat along the Arctic circle can be out
written of fho md
In the memory of any officer. Fifteen years ago.
Engl1shmen of Kiplings gentleman ranker" type
made up fully half of the force and the other half
was composed of wild Irishmen with all their
country love of fight, old plainsmen and Indian
fighters, the silent, steady-eyed hard-riding men
who gather on the frontier where the savage falls
away before the ragged vanguard of civilization.
And they have done their work so well that they
are fast driving away their own excuse for be-
Ing The present northwest is more what it
was IN 1874 than busy Winnipeg of to-day is the
Did Fort Garry to which the first troop of the
mounted" came 40 years ago. They have made
western Canada what it is out Of the lawIess ter
'itory'-an almost preposterous undertaking
one-quarter of the number of policemen in New
York to govern a country 250.0O0 square miles
anger than the United Statesi
In short, the mounted police hzze brought
British law into western Canada, and firmly
ablished It The homesteader 90 into any
If the provinces and take out his claim in
he assurance that he work his Hand Undis-
urbed and harvest his crop uninjured The home
teader is doing 1t by Thousands ana the Last
Vest is vanishing. The frontier-the last from
Ter of America-is being prosaically pIowe& by
he practical man in blue overalls. who doesn't
AIRY even Il hunting knife except cut or his
hew of Granger Twist.
The Indian has been reduced to HIS lowest
erms When men of the United States
building the Union Pacific across the plains. they
we're obliged to employ Uncle Sans troops to
,uard the builders. If the ghosts of the dead who
lied violently in that first Hve-years' fight for the
vest were to line up along the right of way there
would be almost enough N them to mark the
niles.
On a 3o-mile ride from the North SaskaAche-
wan last FAM met dozens of teams driven almost
wholly by Indians and half-breeds- They
hauling the long logs that were-to be driven
twenty to thirty feet into the sands u the Sas-
katchewan to carry the false work OF the Grand
Trunk Pacific's steel bridge
What contrasti Instead of hindezing. as was
once the case the northern Indians are helping to
build the railroad. In the construction of the
new government transcontinental line. the In
dians employed wherever they be used.
for the road is being rushed with all possible
speed consistent with good work The Indians
are useful, also. to the pathfnders guidess
they know the forests of Canada: they know
the mountain Businesses of the Peace river. and
they know all the crooks and canyons Of the
Coast Range. In short, the red man of to-day is
the trusted guide and faithful servant of the path
finder He hunts for the white man STILL but quite
differently from the he used to hunt for the
pioneers of old
Thanks to the Royal Northwest Mounted Po-
ttce civilizations house Is in order To-day the
be long before the mounted viii be q