Policing the Plains

Policing the Plains, by R.G.
MacBeth

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Title: Policing the Plains Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous
North-West Mounted Police
Author: R.G. MacBeth
Release Date: August 2, 2007 [EBook #22220]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE PLAINS ***

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[Illustration: MOUNTED POLICE ROUNDING UP HORSE
THIEVES. From painting by C. W. Russell, Montana. Courtesy of the
Osborne Coy., Toronto.]

POLICING THE PLAINS
BEING THE REAL LIFE RECORD OF THE FAMOUS ROYAL
NORTH-WEST MOUNTED POLICE
By R. G. MACBETH, M.A., Author of "The Romance of Western
Canada."
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
HODDER AND STOUGHTON, LTD. LONDON NEW YORK
TORONTO
MCMXXI

CONTENTS
I A GREAT TRADITION 7 II ENTER THE MOUNTED POLICE 25
III MOBILIZING 33 IV THE AMAZING MARCH 48 V BUSINESS
IN THE LAND OF INDIANS 57 VI HANDLING AMERICAN
INDIANS 78 VII THE IRON HORSES 93 VIII RIEL AGAIN 106 IX
RECONSTRUCTION 126 X CHANGING SCENERY 141 XI IN THE
GOLD COUNTRY 153 XII STIRRING DAYS ABROAD AND AT
HOME 175 XIII MODESTY AND EFFECTIVENESS 206 XIV ON
LAND AND SEA 233 XV GLORY AND TRAGEDY IN THE
NORTH 255 XVI STRIKING INCIDENTS 266 XVII THE GREAT
WAR PERIOD 281 XVIII GREAT TRADITIONS UPHELD 297

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Mounted Police Rounding Up Horse Thieves (Frontispiece) Sir John A.
Macdonald 16 Hon. Alexander Mackenzie 16 Hudson Bay: R.N.W.M.
Police with Dogs 17 Major-General Sir A. C. Macdonnell, K.C.B.,
C.M.G., D.S.O. 32 Major-General Sir Samuel B. Steele, K.C.B., etc. 32

Superintendent A. H. Griesbach 33 Inspector J. M. Walsh 33
Commissioner A. G. Irvine 48 Commissioner George A. French 48
Commissioner James F. Macleod 49 Commissioner Lawrence W.
Herchmer 49 Sitting Bull 64 Colonel James Walker 65 Colonel T. A.
Wroughton 112 Lieut.-Col. Aylesworth Bowen Perry, C.M.G. 112
Colonel Cortlandt Starnes 113 R.N.W.M. Police Wood Camp,
Churchill River 113 Indian Tepee 128 Dog-Train 129 Yukon Rush:
Summit, Chilcoot Pass 144 Group of Indian Children on Prairie 145
Chilcoot Pass: R.N.W.M. Police and Custom House 160 Klondyke
Rush: Squaw Rapids, between Canyon and 161 White Horse Rapids,
1898 Supt. Constantine in Winter Uniform on the Yukon 176 Piegan
Indians at Sun-Dance 177 Rev. R. G. Macbeth, M.A. 192 Group,
R.N.W.M. Police, Tagish Post, Yukon 193 Fort Selkirk, Yukon 208
Esquimaux Family 209 Coronation Contingent, London, 1911 224
Indians Receiving Treaty Payment on Prairie 224 Fort Fitzgerald,
Athabasca 225 Ice-bound Government Schooner 225 Herschell Island,
Yukon Territory 240 Esquimaux Visiting R.N.W.M. Police Tent 240
Barracks at Fort Fitzgerald, Great Slave River 241 R.N.W.M. Police
Shelter, Great Slave Lake 241 Cabin of Rev. Fathers Le Roux and
Rouvier 241 R.N.W.M. Police Barracks, Churchill, Hudson Bay 256
Police with Dogs and Equipment on Split Lake, N.W.T. 257 Inspector
Fitzgerald 272 Supt. Charles Constantine 272 Inspector La Nauze 273
CHAPTER I
A GREAT TRADITION
A few years ago I was away north of Edmonton on the trail of
Alexander Mackenzie, fur trader and explorer, who a century and a
quarter before had made the amazing journey from the prairies over the
mountains to the Pacific Coast. We looked with something like awe
and wonder at the site of the old fort near the famous Peace River
Crossing, from which, after wintering there in 1792, he had started out
on that unprecedented expedition, and we followed up the majestic
Peace to Fort Dunvegan, past whose present location Mackenzie had
gone his adventurous way. And during our trip we came across a little
frontier encampment building itself into a primitive wooden town in

view of the advent of a railway that was heading that way. It was a
characteristic outfit with lax ideas in regard to laws which touched
upon personal desires as to gambling, strong drink, Sunday trading and
the rest. These men were out to make money as their type has been on
most of the frontiers of civilization, and the unwary traveller or the
lonely settler who ventured unduly was promptly fleeced of his
possessions and turned out amidst a good deal of revelry in the hours of
night. And then one day there rode into that shack-town a young athlete
in a uniform of scarlet and gold, the rough-rider hat, the tunic of red,
the wide gold stripe to the top of the riding boots and the shining spurs.
He rode in alone from the nearest post some 60 miles away and, when
he dismounted, threw off the heavy saddle and