at in 1869 he had come to a
standstill in his career as a soldier, because he had neither the means
nor influence to secure any promotion in such a piping time of peace.
And so, when news of the Riel Rebellion in the far West drifted to
London, Butler cabled to Canada for an opportunity to serve in the Red
River Expedition. He immediately followed his cablegram, but on his
arrival found himself too late for a place. However he was given a
special mission to go from Toronto to Fort Garry by way of the United
States in order to find out how the people of that country along the
boundary looked at matters on the Red River. Butler went on to Fort
Garry, passed through the rebel zone, met Wolseley and with him entered
Fort Garry, which had just been evacuated by Riel. As things quieted,
Butler was going to leave for the East, when Governor Archibald got hold
of him, as stated, and sent him out over the West to report on
conditions and make recommendations. He left Fort Garry in October,
1870, treked 900 miles to the Rocky Mountains, then wheeled northward
to Edmonton and down the Saskatchewan River to Lake Winnipeg, boxing the
compass so far as the great hinterland of the plains was concerned. He
heard much and saw more, witnessed the smallpox scourge lashing the
Indian tribes, saw the general disquiet and disorder with no one in
control. The steed of the far West was riderless, the reins had been
thrown away and the country was running wild. Butler's report is graphic
in the extreme and has many recommendations, but the one that mainly
concerns us just now is that which advises the establishment of
constituted authority with sufficient force to back it up, for it was
that recommendation which led to the establishment, though delayed
strangely for two years more, of the famous corps known originally to
history as the North-West Mounted Police.

The particular wisdom of Butler's recommendation lies in the fact that
he advocated along with the civil government a material force which
would be located "not at fixed points or forts." For he said that any
force so located "would afford little protection outside the immediate
circle of these points and would hold out no inducements to the
establishment of new settlements." Wise man was Butler who saw that
settlers must be secured to pour into this vast country and make it the
granary of the Empire, and that a force movable enough to be readily at
the call of scattered settlements wo