The enterprise. [volume] (Harlem, Mont.) 1899-1926, 1910-04-20

main, and with them and of them ordered
and orderly living.
If 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 were 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 bluecoated, erect figure in the saddle
at crowded city crossing? If you do not, you
are grown up"-saddest of labels-apd will
journey more to the NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. Land
But for us favourable children" the sight of
the mounted policeman still catches at those old
heart-strings.
And if all this for the blue-coated, brass-but-
toned horseman of the parks and boulevards.
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 to-be-pitied grownups, can
catch fire family from the CLEAN of his scarlet
coat.
Recruited chiefly from the younger sons OF we'll
to-do and even titled, English families, the North
west Mounted Police has long been an institu-
ton where an English university man can work
off the bubbling froth of drop of gypsy blood
before settling down head of a county family
and warden of his church, in the main colec-
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
pecunious because of row with their fam1-
lies, for sheer love of adventure. Come with
me to Regina or 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 it was bad form for the re-
cruiting officer to notice this smile-men who had
habit of reaching for monocle that wasn't
k~1l <I~~4 dan
ciation and thrashing the fellow.trooper who
called attention to this fact.
And any story you ever heard OF the helr-pre-
sumptive to an 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,
Eng1ishmen of Kipling's gentleman ranker' type
made up fully half of the force, and the other half
was composed of wild Irishmen with all their
cUmntTy's love Of fight, old plainsmen and Indian
fighters, the silent, steady-eyed, hard-r1dlng 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
ere fast driving away their own excuse for be-
Ing The present northwest Is no more what 1t
was In 1874 than busy Winnipeg of to-day is the
old Fort Garry to which the first troop of the
~raounted~ came 10 years ago. They have made
western Canada what 1t Is out Of the lawess "ter.
1itory"-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 e.
tab,ished It. The homesteader can go into any
of the provinces and take out his claim. secure In
the assurance that he can 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 frontier-the last from
tier OF America-is being prosa1cally plowed by
tho practical man in blue overalls. who doesn't
carry even hunting knife except 10 cut on Ills
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, tney
were obliged to employ Uncle Sans troops to
guard the builders. II the ghosts OF the dead VINO
died violently in that first fiveyears fight for the
west were to line up along the right of way there
would be almost enough OF them to marx the
miles.
On 3O-mile ride from the North Saskatche
wan last fall met dozens of teams driven Amos
wholly by Indians and half-breeds. They were
hauling the long logs that were to be driver
| twenty to thirty feet into the sands of the Sas
katchewan to carry the false work OF the Crane
| Trunk Pacifics steel bridge.
What a contrast! Instead Of hindering, as was
once the case the northern Indians are helplng u
build the railroad. In the construction or the
new government transcontinental line, the IN
dams are employed wherever they can De useu
for the road is being rushed with all possible
speed consistent with good work. The lndian
are useful, also, to the pathfinders as guides
they know the forests of new Canada; they know
| the mountain Businesses of the Peace river an
they know all the crooks and canyons OF IN
Coast Range. In short the red man OF to-day
the trusted guide and faithful servant OF the patl
finder He hunts for the white man STILL but quit
differently from the way he used to hunt for tn
| pioneers of old.
/ Thanks to the Royal Northwest Mounted r.
+. nce civilizations house Is in order. To-day tn
| be long before the mounted Will he