t the Mounted Police were to the fore. Constantine
and his men kept on their track and perpetrators of ordinary offences
were astonished when they were run out of the country in order to save
food for the decent people who were willing to work without preying on
others. And the Inspector gives parting salute to the deported
individuals by saying, "Many of them could well be spared in any
community, for the rush had brought in toughs, gamblers, lewd women and
criminals of almost every type, from the petty thief to the murderer."

But Constantine gave them no quarter, and so it was that by the time the
big stampede took place into Dawson and the Creeks it had become known
far and wide that the Mounted Police would stand no nonsense. So the way
was made simpler, though not at any time a sinecure, for those who
followed the intrepid pioneers in the scarlet tunic. But coming at the
summit of an active and strenuous life, the exposure, responsibility and
general wear and tear of his Yukon years undermined the once rugged
strength of Constantine. He was transferred to the prairie after nearly
four years in the Yukon, but never fully recovered his vigour. His
leaving the Yukon had a very human side. The miners showed their
appreciation of his manly, straightforward character by crowding in and
presenting him and his wife and boy with nuggets of gold and indicating
in their diffident but genuine way that if ever any of them needed help
they could count on their Yukon friends for anything required. Which
reminds us that tribute should be paid to the wives of these policemen
who braved the wilderness places of the west and north to be helpers to
their husbands and to make their homes centres of social refining
influence where such influences were of untold value.

[Illustration: CHILCOOT PASS: N.W.M. POLICE AND CUSTOM HOUSE.]

[Illustration: KLONDYKE RUSH: SQUAW RAPIDS, BETWEEN CANYON AND WHITE
HORSE RAPIDS. 1898]

Inspector Cortlandt Starnes, the present efficient
Assistant-Commissioner at Ottawa Headquarters and who has done valuable
service all the way across the country from Hudson Bay to the Yukon as
well as on the plains, took over the command from Constantine and
remained in charge till the arrival of Superintendent Steele, a period
extending from June to September, 1898. Starnes, who is a short, heavily
built and powerful man, capable of enduring much hardship, had come
through in the previous winter, staying some month