It was because the homesteader could pursue his way in peace that a railway to carry what he imported and exported, had a future. And not only from possible human enemies, but from the terrific danger of prairie fires and such like, did the rider of the plains stand on guard. When one, for instance, sees Constable Conradi, despite warnings that he was attempting the impossible, spurring his horse through rolling clouds of smoke and saving a family from death at the risk of his own life, one realizes how these knights of the saddle gave people a sense of security. Or when one sees thirty of these gallant riders sweeping the plain till they found a lost child and restored her to her mother’s arms, he understands how the presence of these men robbed the life on the prairies of the sense of insecurity. The element of security drew settlers to the plains and thus encouraged railway building. Coming to railway construction time we have the cases in which the contractors and engineers were terrorized by the Indians in the early stages of their work. One chief, Pie-a-Pot, who had always been a source of trouble on account of his ugly disposition and his evident determination not to acquiesce in the incoming of civilized life, took it into his head one day to camp on the railroad right-of-way on the prairie. The surveyors and engineers worked up to that point and found Pie-a-Pot’s tent squarely in the way. Around him were many other tents and all supported by a big band of braves who, mounted on their ponies, circled around, discharging fire-arms into the air and indulging in war-whoops and other hostile demonstrations. The surveyors and engineers asked the hostile chief to move, but he only laughed at them and urged his braves to more violent exhibitions of their prowess. The men of peaceful occupations discreetly withdrew to a safe distance and halted their work, but at the same time managed to send back word to the Mounted Police headquarters as to the situation. Headquarters sent a message to the detachment of police nearest the scene of disturbance, though it was many miles away. That detachment of police consisted of only two men, a sergeant and a constable. Numbers have never counted either way with the Mounted Police, and so these two in the scarlet and gold uniform rode miles to Pie-a-pot’s camp on the railroad right-of-way. They told Pie-a-Pot that they were instructed to ask him to move out of the way, but the defiant chief sat in front of his tent and encouraged his braves to rush the two police horses with their ponies. The sergeant and constable, however, sat their horses unmoved and again warned the chief, who laughed in their faces. Then the sergeant, pulling out his watch, indicated the minute hand and gave the chief ten minutes to move. The Indians became more violent, but the police sat tight and at the end of the ten minutes the sergeant, throwing his reins to the constable so that the horses would not be