ievances of
the men settled, and my representations to the general manager of
construction always met with prompt attention." So they should, for they
would be fair and just.

Inspector Howe, who was in charge in 1898 at Regina, had a wire from
Boston about a man who had robbed the merchants of that aesthetic city of
large sums of money. The man was supposed then on the train heading
towards Regina. Howe sent a sergeant to Qu'Appelle, who boarded the
suspected train and located his quarry in a Pullman compartment, which
was locked. The man within, who was accompanied by a lady, would not
open the door. At next station a Mounted Police constable got on board
and the two men in scarlet uniform smashed the door. The woman
threatened to blow their brains out, but failed. The runaway couple had
the money and bonds, and after due process went back to Boston to serve
a term.

Inspector Howe tells rather a rich story of a Police Inspector in
Montana who apologized profusely to Howe for not answering by wire a
telegram in which Howe had notified the said Montana Inspector of the
whereabouts of a man much desired by the Police in that State. The
Montana Inspector writes, "I handed my deputy a telegram and told him to
send it off to you at once. He went out to send it but was shot dead,
and this morning the coroner handed the telegram to me. It had never
been sent, so you will see I am not altogether to blame." Howe
considered the excuse valid, but the estimate of the value of human life
in Montana it disclosed did not suit the ideas of a Mounted Policeman.

CHAPTER XII

STIRRING DAYS ABROAD AND AT HOME

In the report of Superintendent Cotton for the year of the big Yukon
stampede there is related one of the many incidents which indicated that
on the plains the Mounted Police were keeping up to their record for
initiative and daring, even though their work was less in the limelight
than the spectacular world rush to the Yukon furnished. It seems that
some months before the date of the report a prisoner named Nelson,
sentenced to a term of imprisonment for a serious offence, escaped by
jumping from a train on the way to the Manitoba Penitentiary from
Regina. Constable Clisby, who was on duty at Saskatoon, was notified by
wire from Dundurn station, and at once took up the recapture. The
Saskatoon ferry was out of order, so he could not use it. But he was not
to be deterred from the pursuit of a criminal by a trifle lik