g them away with him from among the
roughest sort of crowd of their associates.

And in the R.N.W.M.P., if a man does not show himself consistently
capable of doing that which the traditions of the force say is to be
expected of him, his place in the force will know him no more. There are
no failures in the R.N.W.M.P.--they are not allowed. The force could not
afford to allow them, because their existence--the existence of any of
them--would weaken R.N.W.M.P. prestige; and that prestige is the armor
without which the work of the force would be utterly impossible; not
merely for the average trooper, but even for an individual possessed of
the combined genius of a Napoleon, a Sherlock Holmes, and an Admirable
Crichton.

As things stand, the maintenance of law and order in the western and
north-western prairies, with their vast, trackless stretches of as yet
almost uninhabited territory, is fully equal to the level attained in
London or New York. The law is quite as much respected there;
infractions of it are quite as surely punished; peace and security are
to the full as well preserved. This truth is speedily understood even by
the least desirable brand of foreign immigrant. The fugitive from
justice reckons his chances considerably better in any other place than
the territory of the Riders of the Plains. And all this because of a
handful of mounted men in red coats.

"The fact is," said a Minnesota farmer to the present writer, "it don't
matter a cent what sort of a pull a man has, how many guns he carries,
or how many dollars are behind him; if he breaks the law up there in the
North-west, he knows he's just got to be jailed for it, sure as he's
alive. It may take a day, or it may take a year. It may cost the
authorities a dollar, or it may cost 'em a million, and a life or two
thrown in. But that tough is just going to be jailed, and he durned well
knows it. That's what the R.N.W.M.P. means to the North-west; and you
take it from me, it's a pretty big thing to mean."

It is a big thing. And what makes it possible for that handful of
redcoats is not money, or guns, or numbers, but a solid, four-square
foundation of irreproachable prestige; an unspotted tradition of
incorruptible honesty, tirelessness, braveness, fairness, and real
_decency_. This is the reason why no failures are allowed in the
R.N.W.M.P.; this is the reason why eighteen months of service in that
corps, of a sort that earns promotion, means so much