n in a sort of
forlorn-hope admonition. They were to be one of the few forces in the
world constantly on active service and neither Garibaldi nor Bruce of
Bannockburn ever warned men more distinctly of what possibly lay ahead
of them. And the picture, as after events proved, was not overdrawn.
These men were to face cold and hunger and the perils of drought in the
various seasons of the year; they were to leave the comforts of
civilization and live under the canopy of the sky amidst the storms of
summer and the blizzards of winter; they were to be called to root out
nests of outlaws who had no scruples about taking human life, and they,
a mere handful of men, were to control and guide Indians whose brethren
to the south of the boundary were engaging attention of thousands of
soldiers in the endeavour to keep them in order. All this and more did
French tell the new recruits. But only a very few dropped out and
throughout the years the force has attracted a fine class of men both
from Canada and the British Isles. Young men from the towns and farms of
the old Provinces, University Graduates and younger sons of the nobility
in the Mother Land, men of birth and breeding and social advantage have
always been in the ranks. But once in the force there were no social
distinctions sought or recognized. Genuine manhood was the only
hall-mark allowed as a standard. The fine democracy of Robert Burns,--

"The rank is but the guinea stamp;
The man's the gold for a' that,--

has had right of way. There was an intangible but real atmosphere in the
corps which in some quiet but quite definite fashion, eliminated any man
who did not measure up to the mark which the members felt they ought to
reach. Mr. Charles Mair, the author and frontiersman, already quoted,
says finely, "The average Mounted Policeman was an idealist regarding
the honour of his corps; and if, as sometimes happened, a hard character
crept into it, physically fit, a good rider or a good shot, but coarse,
cruel and immoral, he fared ill with his fellows, and speedily betook
himself to other employment."

The men who first enlisted in the East, mainly in Ontario, in September,
1873, were sent away westward by the Great Lakes and the difficult
Dawson Route to the Red River country in order to be on the ground and
get down to work preparatory to the trek towards the setting sun. The
Dawson Route, so-called after the designer of it, was a trail which
utilized the