"Commissioner,
"North-West Mounted Police,
"Regina."

And at the close of the year 1884 the General Superintendent of the
Western Line, Mr. John M. Egan, who was even less than Van Horne given
to incursions into the sentimental, wrote the following:

"MY DEAR COLONEL,--Gratitude would be wanting did the present year
close without my conveying, on behalf of the Canadian Pacific
Railway, to you and those under your charge most sincere thanks for
the manner in which their several duties in connection with the
railway have been attended to during the past season.

"Prompt obedience to your orders, faithful carrying out of your
instructions, contribute in no small degree to the rapid
construction of the line. The services of your men during recent
troubles among a certain class of our employees prevented
destruction to property and preserved obedience to law and order in
a manner highly commendable. Justice has been meted out to them
without fear or favour, and I have yet to hear any person, who
respects same, say aught against your command.

"Wishing you the season's compliments,
"I remain,
"Yours very truly,
"JNO. M. EGAN."

Taken together these letters, with tributes from two such men, more than
substantiate the claims we have made for the part played by the Police
in that critical era of Western Canadian history.

It is anticipating in order of time, but this is our railway chapter,
and so we note here another service of enormous value rendered the
railway by the men in scarlet and gold. The road was completed in 1886
from Montreal to the West Coast, and people used to wonder how this
railway, traversing some 3,000 miles across lonely prairie and lonelier
mountains, escaped having its trains held up by robbers, as was so
frequently the case in other countries. The reason emerged in a report
given by Superintendent Deane, of Calgary, and that reason was the
preventive power of the presence and prestige of the Mounted Police.
Deane, in his annual report for 1906, refers to the only effort that had
ever been made to rob a train, and starts with the following revealing
statement: "It has for years been an open secret that the train-robbing
fraternity in the United States had seriously considered the propriety
of trying conclusions with the Mounted Police, but ha