The Iuka vidette. (Iuka, Miss.) 1894-1912, 1910-04-21

Il
main. and with them and of them are ordered
aud orderly living.
If the story of how this about is the story
of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police.
The mounted police! Don't you remember
when you were a little chap how you looked after
the uniformed man on the glossy bay as he can
tered through the park. and how you had no
dearer dream of glory than to be like him? Even
now. don't you feel the old, boyish thrill at the
sight of a blue-coated, erect figure in the saddle
at a crowded city crossing? If you do not you
are grown up'-saddest of labels-and will
journey no more to the Never. Never-Nev Land
But for us favourable children" the sight of
the mounted policeman still catches at those old
heart-strngs
And IL all this for the blue-coated, brassbut-
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 your dulled
imagination, poor. to-be-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 titled English families the North
west Mounted Police has long been institu-
ton where an English university work
off the bubbling froth of drop of gypsy blood
before settling down head of county family
and warden of his church, in the main 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 i'm
pecunious, or because of a with their fami
lies, for sheer love of adventure. Come with
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 smile-men who had
habit of reaching for monocle that wasn't
there, of talking with the correct London pronun
thraShfng fellow -trOODer
called attention to this fact.
And any story you ever heard Of the her-pre
sumptive to English marquisate patroling
500-mile 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 Kiplings gentleman ranker" type
made up fully half of the force and the other half
composed of wild Irshmen with all their
countrys love of fight. old plainsmen and Indian
fighters, the silent, steadyeyed 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 we'll that they
are fast driving away their own excuse for be-
Ing The present northwest is what 1t
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
one-quarter of the number of policemen in New
York to govern country 100000 square miles
larger than the United States!
In short the mounted police have brought
British law into western Canada. and firmly
tablished It. The homesteader can go into any
of the provinces and take out his claim, secure in
the assurance that he work his land undis-
turbed and harvest his crop uninjured. The home
steader is doing it by thousands, and the Last
West is vanishing. The fronter-the last from
tier of Americans being prosaically plowed by
the 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 iveyears' 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 a 30mile ride from the North Saskatche-
wan last fall met dozens of teams driven almost
wholly by Indians and half-breeds. 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 Paciic's steel bridge
What a contrast Instead of hindering, 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
dams are 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 pathfinders as guides;
they know the forests of new 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 today is
the trusted guide and faithful servant of the path
finder He hunts for the white man STILL but quite
differently from the way he used to hunt for the
pioneers Of old
Thanks to the Royal Northwest Mounted Po-
lice, civilizations house is in order. To-day the
be long before the mounted will be