d in the telegrams. An orderly stood behind his chair.

"Send Inspector Sanders to me!" commanded the Commissioner.

The orderly saluted and retired.

In a few moments Inspector Sanders made his appearance, a tall,
soldierlike man, trim in appearance, prompt in movement and somewhat
formal in speech.

"Well, the thing has come," said the Commissioner, handing Inspector
Sanders one of the telegrams before him. Inspector Sanders took the
wire, read it and stood very erect.

"Looks like it, sir," he replied. "You always said it would."

"It is just eight months since I first warned the government that
trouble would come. Superintendent Crozier knows the situation
thoroughly and would not have sent this wire if outbreak were not
imminent. Then here is one from Superintendent Gagnon at Carlton. He
also is a careful man."

Inspector Sanders gravely read the second telegram.

"We ought to have five hundred men on the spot this minute," he said.

"I have asked that a hundred men be sent up at once," said the
Commissioner, "but I am doubtful if we can get the Government to agree.
It seems almost impossible to make the authorities feel the gravity
of the situation. They cannot realize, for one thing, the enormous
distances that separate points that look comparatively near together
upon the map." He spread a map out upon the table. "And yet," he
continued, "they have these maps before them, and the figures, but
somehow the facts do not impress them. Look at this vast area lying
between these four posts that form an almost perfect quadrilateral.
Here is the north line running from Edmonton at the northwest corner
to Prince Albert at the northeast, nearly four hundred miles away;
then here is the south line running from Macleod at the southwest four
hundred and fifty miles to Regina at the southeast; while the sides of
this quadrilateral are nearly three hundred miles long. Thus the four
posts forming our quadrilateral are four hundred miles apart one way by
three hundred another, and, if we run the lines down to the boundary and
to the limit of the territory which we patrol, the disturbed area may
come to be about five hundred miles by six hundred; and we have some
five hundred men available."

"It is a good thing we have established the new post at Carlton,"
suggested Inspector Sanders.

"Ah, yes, there is Carlton. It is true we have strengthened up that
district recently with two hundred men distributed between Battl