Superintendent Crozier and other Policemen months before the outbreak been taken, and had the Police Force been doubled and given a free hand, there would have been no rebellion and no bloodshed. But when the outbreak did come we are also ready to affirm, as amongst those who took part in its suppression, that but for the missionaries and the Police the rebellion would have been far more widely spread. And equally are we ready to declare that the Police were the backbone of every brigade in which they served, and this we say without any desire to minimize the arms of the service to which we belonged. It was the swearing in of the "originals" of the Mounted Police that led to the writing of these special reflections. For on looking back over the years of this West that I have known from childhood, it seems to me that the day of that first enlistment oath was a pivotal point around which much of the destiny of Western Canada would turn for the rest of recorded time. Hence it is at this stage of the story that the formative day at Lower Fort Garry should be noted. That winter in the old stone-walled fort was a busy one for the new recruits. After they were sworn in by Colonel Osborne Smith, that officer returned to his duties at Upper Fort Garry. He had done a good day's work, and if he addressed the men in the crisp, incisive style I have often heard him use on patriotic occasions, then he had made additional contribution to the considerations that inspired the Police to determined endeavour. On his leaving Superintendent W. D. Jarvis, who had seen service in Africa and became a very popular officer, took over the duties of Adjutant and Riding Master, Griesbach took charge of discipline and foot-drill, while S. B. Steele, popularly known in the West to the close of his days as Sam Steele, looked after the breaking of the broncos and gave instruction in riding, which latter proved to be highly necessary. There were no eight-hour days, the only limit being the daylight each way. Steele drilled five rides a day in the open, and the orders were that, unless the thermometer dropped beneath 36 degrees below zero, a rather cool temperature, the riding and breaking were to proceed. The broncos were of the usual exuberant type, given to every device to throw a rider, and falls on the frozen ground were not infrequent, but by spring the men knew how to handle broncos so as to become the pioneers of fine horsemanship amongst the riders of the plains.