s regulations, but dependent for discipline upon the personality
of the officers, the esprit de corps that would be generated and the
_noblesse oblige_ idea that would emerge in the course of service. And
all these things actually developed as we shall see in the process of
this story.

Having finally passed the Act, the legislators rested on their laurels
a few months more, for it was not until September that actual enrolment
of the new force began to take place. The process of enlistment was then
hurried somewhat and later on some sifting was done in order to throw
out any culls. But in the main the men measured up well to the demands
of that most interesting and important clause in the Act, which says:

"No person shall be appointed to the police force unless he be of
sound constitution, able to ride, active and able-bodied, and
between the ages of eighteen and forty years, nor unless he be able
to read and write either the English or the French language."

This was sane legislation, for these men were not going out on a picnic.
They were going to patrol the widest and wildest frontier in the world.
And that frontier has always said in the words of Robert Service:

"Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your
sane:
Strong for the red rage of battle; sane, for I harry them sore.
Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core.
Them will I gild with my treasure; them will I feed with my meat;
But the others--the misfits, the failures--I trample them under
my feet."

And in order that readers may have other testimony than that of the
author on the question of the need for strong men, let me quote words
written by the Hon. N. W. Rowell, who, as President of the Council and
Governmental head of the force, had specially studied the history of the
Police:

"When the Canadian West first saw the scarlet jacket the prairies
were in a transition stage which contained grave possibilities of
danger. The old era, in which the Hudson's Bay Company and the
Indians had dealt peaceably together, was breaking up, and the
private trader, irresponsible and often not too scrupulous, was
laying the seeds of trouble in a land where the Indians still were
numerous and powerful. Tribe waged war against tribe, and
formidable hosts, fresh from fighting against the American army,
surged across the forty-ninth p