During the year 1912 there was constant oversight exercised in the Hudson's Bay and Mackenzie River districts, as well as in the Yukon. All this involved much dangerous patrol work, but it was carried out without any untoward happening. Superintendent Demers, Inspectors Beyts and French were in the former districts with a small but excellent body of men; Superintendent Moodie and Inspector Acland were in the Yukon and White Horse districts. In the Yukon there was a serious case of dynamiting dredges which Sergeant Mapley handled with great ability. Patrols and general oversight by these non-commissioned officers and constables may, to the superficial onlooker or reader, seem of no great value, but these men, by tact and firm, friendly dealing with the natives and traders, really introduced a new code of ethics in the Northland. The questions at stake may not have been very large ones from our standpoint, but the ownership of a sled-dog or the fairness of values in exchange of furs, were as important to the children of the wild as the possession of a province might be to people in Europe. And in these local matters these patrolmen became recognized as fair and impartial adjudicators whose word was law. Thus were new ideals as to the rights of property and the sacredness of life being inculcated in the vast spaces of the Arctic. And these sturdy, courageous Policemen became so greatly interested in their strenuous work that they were always ready for a larger venture. It is interesting to find Corporal C. D. LaNauze, after returning from a patrol of some fifty-two days and over 1,000 miles, writing: "I cannot speak too highly of my dogs. I would like to see how far I could go with this train." Well, he was to get his opportunity to find out shortly. Whether with that train of dogs or not we cannot say, but when the opportunity came he used it to the limit. There were some lonely places. Sergeant Edgenton, a noted patrolman in the Arctic, writes as to Cape Fullerton on Hudson Bay: "Fullerton during the winter has been very lonely. Constable Conway and myself and two natives were the only persons there." And it is rather a striking instance of Police methods to find Edgenton putting in the usual detachment report and, under the head of discipline, speaking highly of Conway: "I have had to leave him alone during my patrols, and always found everything in good order on returning. He is a good man for duty in the North, and has made several patrols in very cold weather." Other men well known in that district were non-commissioned officers like Sergeants Handcock, Belcher, Currie, Mellor, LaNauze, Jones and several Constables. And, like the army of Sparta, which was the wall around that country, "every man was a brick." CHAPTER XVII THE GREAT WAR PERIOD