reaking out in the camp.
Corporal Searle and Constable Kistruck, from Pincher Creek, and
Constable Wilson, from MacLeod, were posted at the entrance to the two
mines to keep the crowd back and preserve order generally, while
Corporals Mead and Grant and Constable Hancock looked after the
mutilated bodies as they were brought out of the mine. Mead and Grant
kept the check numbers of the bodies where they could be found, kept an
inventory of the money or other property found on each, then washed the
bodies, and wrapped them in cotton sheets. Then these bodies were taken
to the Mine-Union Hall, where Constable Hancock looked after them,
placing them in rows upon the floor. Handling 188 mutilated and grimy
bodies in the warmth of June weather was a gruesome, depressing and
difficult task, but these men, assisted by relays of miners, did this
work for four days and nights until funeral services were held over the
mangled remains of these unfortunate victims of the disaster. Mead,
Grant and Hancock especially had a terrible undertaking, and they won
the praise not only of the citizens of Hill Crest, but that of the
miners also, many of the latter, though extreme radical Socialists who
resented the very existence of the Force, saying, "We have no use for
the Police, but we cannot help respecting its members when we see them
working under such trying conditions." Thus were these gallant men
winning the applause of revolutionists who hated them because they stood
for law and order in the country. And I think it well to say here, after
knowing the Mounted Police throughout the years of their history, that
the only enemies they have had have been the elements that resented the
fearless and impartial enforcement of law. Sometimes these elements were
found amongst the reckless promoters and denizens of the underworld.
Sometimes amongst those who would fan the embers of social discontent
into a blaze that would destroy society and not infrequently in the
ranks of those who would not scruple to plunder the public treasury. It
has always been annoying and disconcerting to such elements to find that
they could neither cajole nor frighten nor bribe these inflexible men in
the uniform of scarlet and gold who stood for the administration of
British law in a British country. _Noblesse oblige._ If the recruits of
to-day measure up as they have been doing to the established reputation
of the Force, that reputation will become increasingly one o