SEVENTY-EIGHT YEARS OF THE MOUNTED POLICE a trail across the prairtes to the foothills to bring the white man’s law to the land of whiskey-peddlers, outlaws, and predatory Blackfeet. Today over three thousand rank and file follow in the steps of that pioneering Three Hundred to ‘‘Maintatn the Right’’ from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Great Lakes to the igloos of the ‘‘ Blonde’’ Eskimos. ORWARD — MARCH!” Spiked helmets glinted in the sunlight. Fluttering banners rippled from burnished lances. A hun- dred and fifty jets of scarlet merged into one rich flame. Thudding hoof- beats and creaking saddle leather echoed back from the pierced stone walls of Lower Fort Garry. Through the stone gateway spilled a raw assemblage of green horses, squeaking harness, shrieking Red River carts and green men to clatter west along the dusty King’s highway. 15 STATIONERY RCA Victor Radio Genuine Native Souvenirs McRAE BROS. LTD. Prince Rupert, B.C. BOOKS ie Variety Store GIFT WEAR SOUVENIRS and NOVELTIES PRINCE RUPERT B.C. Headed for squalid Fort Dufferin and that historic thousand mile trek across sun-scorched prairies to the land of the predatory Blackfeet, the first contingent of a force that was to leave its imprint from the rolling foot- hills of the Rockies to the icy igloos of the “Blonde” Eskimos was under Way. Joined at Fort Dufferin by Com- missioner George A. French’s raw rookies the first three hundred weaved their tortuous, thousand mile way across trackless prairie, the screeching cavalcade of ox-drawn carts with their buckskin-clad drivers awakening strange echoes from the greaseless axles. 50,000 Horse-Stealing, Scalp-Raising Redskins That was just 78 years ago last June. Already Sir John A. MacDonald had united British Columbia and Eastern Canada in matrimony to be bound in a knot of steel. But 50,000 horse- stealing, scalp-raising redskins _ pre- sented an obstacle to the consumma- tion of these vows. From across the United States boundary, too, armed rum-runners were flocking into the west, their bastioned forts at Whoop- Up, Slide Out and Standoff and other * By PHILIP HH. GODSEBE F.R.G.S. * Noted Arctic Traveller and Explorer. Author of: Arctic Trader; They Got Their Man; Romance of the Alaska Highway, etc., etc., etc. nests of besotted depravity shrieking out defiance to law and order. What finally brought matters to a head was the brutal massacre of Cy- press Hills. In 1872 a party of ruffians from across the United States border made their way from Fort Benton, on the Missouri, to the Cypress Hills, in the vicinity of the spot where the Mounted Police post of Fort Walsh was later reared. Here they traded large quantities of rot-gut whiskey to a band of Assiniboin Indians camped on a stretch of prairie since known as “The Massacre Ground.” RUPERT MOTORS Authorized Sales & Service Chrysler, Plymouth Passenger Cars Fargo Trucks Cor. 2nd Ave. & Ist Street Prince Rupert, B. C. Phone GREEN 392 @ BOAT LUMBER @ MILL WORK SHOP AT COW BAY KAIEN INDUSTRIES GENERAL CONTRACTORS INBOARDS AND ROW-BOATS P.O. BOX 1218 @ BOAT BUILDERS @ BOAT REPAIRS PRINCE RUPERT, BRITISH COLUMBIA Page Eight THE SHOULDER STRAP