No matter how large or how small, every city has something or other of which it is pardonably proud. Halifax has it harbor, its citadel and its Point Pleasant Park; St. John has its big fire, its high tides and Reversible Falls; Montreal, its splendid situation Mount Royal and its Royal Victoria Hospital; Ottawa, its Parliament Buildings and Chaudiere Falls; Vancouver, its Stanley Park; Quebec, its romantic history, its citadel, its Dufferin Terrace and its Chateau Frontenac; Moncton, its “bore”; Peterboro, its big Trent Canal lift lock—the biggest in the world; Kenora, its ten thousand islands; Lake Louise, in the Canadian Rockies, its enchanting beauty; Oshawa and Galt their manufactures; but Toronto’s great boast is that it possesses the biggest fair on the continent and the tallest building in the British Empire. CHAPTER XIII Scarlet and Gold—The Rough Riders of the Plains—The Fourth Semi-Military Force in the World—Its Wonderful Work in the Park—Why the Scarlet Tunic Was Chosen—Some Curious Indian Names—Primitive Western Justice. The famous Royal North West Mounted Police of Canada, whose record constitutes a strikingly romantic chapter in the history of Canada, was called into being in 1873 to preserve British law and order in the vast wildernesses lying between the Great Lakes and the mountain ranges of British Columbia. The newly-formed Dominion of Canada had but recently acquired these huge preserves from the Hudson’s Bay Company, subsequently to convert them from the Northwest Territories into the Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. It was the duty of the little force, some 300 strong, known as the North West Mounted Police—destined to gain an imperishable name throughout the civilized world for its remarkable efficiency and valor—to administer the law and to represent supreme authority over this immense area of undeveloped Canadian territory. Intrepid pioneers were pushing their way into Western Canadian fastnesses hitherto unknown except to the aboriginal Indians, explorers, and agents of the Hudson’s Bay Company. As may be imagined, the R.N.W.M.P. had to exercise extraordinary discretion and courage in dealing with the free and easy forerunners of civilization and the fierce and untamed Indian tribes. Most of the people feared neither God nor man, and a man had to stand upon his own naked merit and strength of character.