duty.

Several times in this book has come the necessity for expressing regret
that there is no decoration for valour in time of peace corresponding to
the Victoria Cross in times of war. Of the two we have good ground for
thinking that a gallant deed done in peace time in cold blood and with a
full sense of the danger, is at least as great as the same kind of deed
done when the blood is hot with battle and the risk is unknown or
unconsidered. Take, for instance, the case of Constable Moorehead, as
related not by himself (the Mounted Policeman's eleventh commandment is
not to talk), but in a letter to Superintendent Primrose from Dr.
Nyblett, the coroner near Nanton, Alberta, where was a reducing plant of
the Natural Gas Company. The letter says, "It was reported to Constable
Moorehead that some men were suffocating in the high-pressure station
and he immediately rode over." He had no orders to go except from his
own conscience, but there was no hesitation, though he knew the supreme
danger. The letter goes on. "There was a disconnected four-inch pipe,
with a pressure of 125 pounds to the inch, in the building, and
Constable Moorehead could see one of the bodies moving and he thought
there was life." It was probably being moved by the terrific gas
pressure. "Moorehead placed his hat over his mouth and went in; on
getting near the bodies the jet of gas struck him and blew him to the
other side of the building; there he groped for the door, but was too
nearly unconscious to find it. Another man who had come up saw him and
was able to reach in and pull Moorehead out. When Moorehead recovered
consciousness he found a bar and prised off some of the corrugated iron
near the bodies. He then crawled in through the hole with the other man
holding his feet, and pulled out one of the bodies; he then went in
again and got another. He was so weak and exhausted by this time that he
had not strength to pull the third out, but crawled in and tied a rope
to it, and after it was pulled out did the same with the fourth."
"Unless one was actually there," says the coroner, "it would be very
difficult to realize just how plucky this act was. The pressure of the
escaping gas was so great that the caps of the men were held up against
the roof of the building, and the poisoning by this gas in large
quantities is instantaneous."

We have not read anywhere in the annals of war a finer tale of
gallantry. Constable Moorehead got another stripe fo