There was no difficulty in getting men to enlist in the Mounted Police. This was clearly not due to any mercenary motives on the part of men enlisting. The remuneration for both officers and men was small, as it remains comparatively speaking to this day, when we remember that the work has always called for an unusual degree of endurance, initiative, reliability and courage. But the Government no doubt placed considerable reliance on the fact that the spirit of adventure is strong in the hearts of young men and that the lure of a new land would draw them with compelling magnetism. In this the authorities were not disappointed. In fact, Colonel George A. French, a Royal Artillery Officer, then at the head of the School of Gunnery at Kingston (who died recently after much distinguished service to the Empire during which he rose to a Major-Generalship and a Knighthood with many decorations), and who was early given command of the Mounted Police with the title of Commissioner, saw the danger of a rush for places in the new Force and took steps to weed out undesirables. More than once in Toronto and again at Dufferin in Manitoba when the great venture of the march out into the unknown began, Colonel French put the matter before the men in a sort of forlorn-hope admonition. They were to be one of the few forces in the world constantly on active service and neither Garibaldi nor Bruce of Bannockburn ever warned men more distinctly of what possibly lay ahead of them. And the picture, as after events proved, was not overdrawn. These men were to face cold and hunger and the perils of drought in the various seasons of the year; they were to leave the comforts of civilization and live under the canopy of the sky amidst the storms of summer and the blizzards of winter; they were to be called to root out nests of outlaws who had no scruples about taking human life, and they, a mere handful of men, were to control and guide Indians whose brethren to the south of the boundary were engaging attention of thousands of soldiers in the endeavour to keep them in order. All this and more did French tell the new recruits. But only a very few dropped out and throughout the years the force has attracted a fine class of men both from Canada and the British Isles. Young men from the towns and farms of the old Provinces, University Graduates and younger sons of the nobility in the Mother Land, men of birth and breeding and social advantage have always been in the ranks. But once in the force there were no social distinctions sought or recognized. Genuine manhood was the only hall-mark allowed as a standard. The fine democracy of Robert Burns,-- "The rank is but the guinea stamp; The man's the gold for a' that,--