ars. It is a
somewhat remarkable coincidence and a decided testimony to the
directness with which the Mounted Police when organized struck at the
very heart of the lawlessness in the West, that Fort Walsh, called after
this recruiting Inspector, was built as a Police post not many months
later practically on "The Massacre Ground" in the Cypress Hills country.
That Fort was a direct and visible challenge to every outlaw, white or
red, who expected to have his own way in British territory.

We shall meet Walsh from time to time in this story and his name simply
occurs here as one of the earliest recruiting officers. I knew him at
different stages in his career, but most particularly when he had
retired from the Force and entered the coal business in Winnipeg. Later
on he was the Civil Governor of the Yukon Territory. Clean-cut in
figure, athletic, wiry and always faultlessly dressed, Walsh was a
good-looking type and bore in his carriage the unmistakable stamp of his
cavalry training. In Winnipeg he was popularly known as the man who had
tamed Sitting Bull, the redoubtable Sioux of Custer Massacre fame, but
others of the Police also had a hand, as we shall see, in that
extraordinary experience.

There was no difficulty in getting men to enlist in the Mounted Police.
This was clearly not due to any mercenary motives on the part of men
enlisting. The remuneration for both officers and men was small, as it
remains comparatively speaking to this day, when we remember that the
work has always called for an unusual degree of endurance, initiative,
reliability and courage. But the Government no doubt placed considerable
reliance on the fact that the spirit of adventure is strong in the
hearts of young men and that the lure of a new land would draw them with
compelling magnetism. In this the authorities were not disappointed. In
fact, Colonel George A. French, a Royal Artillery Officer, then at the
head of the School of Gunnery at Kingston (who died recently after much
distinguished service to the Empire during which he rose to a
Major-Generalship and a Knighthood with many decorations), and who was
early given command of the Mounted Police with the title of
Commissioner, saw the danger of a rush for places in the new Force and
took steps to weed out undesirables. More than once in Toronto and again
at Dufferin in Manitoba when the great venture of the march out into the
unknown began, Colonel French put the matter before the me