changes and incidents that were
fully up to the Police history record for matters of thrilling
importance. In 1891 Sir John A. Macdonald, who was the originator of the
Force, and who had always taken great pride in its splendid efficiency,
passed away after a brief illness at the historic homestead,
Earnscliffe, in Ottawa. Not even Sir John's most rabidly partisan
friends had ever claimed perfection for their political idol, but I did
hear one man say that he was so devoted to "The old Chieftain," that he
was quite prepared to support him whether he was right or wrong. This
was probably an extreme case, but it illustrates the extraordinary
magnetism of the remarkable man who had been the chief pilot in taking
the country through the shoals and rocks that threatened to wreck
Confederation at its launching. Sir John's Canadianism was intense and
so was his Imperialism, for was it not he who said, "A British subject I
was born and a British subject I will die"? The undoubted political
lapses in his career seemed to proceed from his being possessed with the
idea that his presence at the head of affairs was so necessary for the
well-being of the country that he should get there and stay there at any
cost. His two great achievements in connection with Western Canada were
his inauguration of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and his organization
of the Mounted Police. This does not mean that in these two projects he
had not the aid of others, for in some measure he had the support of
even his political opponents, who differed from him in considerable
degree on the railway policy, but who supported him in his proposal to
organize the Mounted Police.

When I last heard this Disraeli-looking man speak, it was in Winnipeg,
when he was making his first and last trip across Canada on the railway
for which he had done and ventured so much. In his semi-humorous and
semi-serious way he said, "I used to state that I never expected to live
long enough to see the road completed, but that when my friends would be
crossing the continent upon it, I would be looking down upon them from
another and better sphere; my opponents said I would be looking up, but
in reality to the surprise of both, I am doing it on the horizontal." On
that same trip the veteran took great delight in seeing the scarlet and
gold uniforms of his favourite corps on their "native heath" in the
great prairie land of the West. Such was Sir John's interest in the
Force that, d