When Russia gave up, Colonel Boyle went over into Rumania, where he became a national hero. He undertook all sorts of dangerous and important missions. For instance, when the Bolsheviki were beginning to get the upper hand, he offered to go to Moscow to bring back the national treasure of Rumania, which had been sent there for safe keeping. He got into Moscow, loaded millions of dollars’ worth of bank notes and securities on a special train, and started back. On the way the engineer of the train deserted, leaving his boilers without water or fuel. Boyle and his helpers carried water in buckets from the nearest station and cut wood for the fire. Though he had never driven a locomotive before, Boyle climbed into the cab and got the train and its treasure across the border. Later he turned the Russian Black Sea fleet pro-Ally, arranged peace terms between Rumania and the Bolsheviki, and saved sixty Rumanian deputies from banishment to Sebastopol.
After the Armistice he was commissioned to superintend the distribution of the food and supplies bought for the country with the Canadian credit of twenty-five million dollars. Then he became interested, with the Royal Dutch Shell Transport Company, in oil concessions in Caucasia.
In the course of his many adventures in Rumania, Colonel Boyle flew so high and so fast in airplanes that he suffered a sort of paralytic stroke. During his illness he was attended for two months by Queen Marie and her daughter, who did everything they could to show their appreciation of his service to their country. He finally recovered, but when in England on his way back to Canada, he died of heart failure.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Everyone has heard of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They constitute one of the most remarkable military forces in existence, with an amazing record for the capture and punishment of criminals in the frontier lands of the Dominion. I have met with the Mounted Police in all parts of Canada, have visited the headquarters in Ottawa and the training station at Regina, and have talked here at Dawson with the inspector in charge of the Yukon division. I find the service a gold mine of stories, and fully deserving its reputation for maintaining law and order on the fringes of civilization.
Our own “wild and woolly West” has disappeared, but Canada still has vast areas of undeveloped country into which white men are pushing their way under conditions similar to those in the United States a generation or two ago. But where our frontier was notorious for its lawlessness, that of the Dominion is equally noted for its few crimes. In the Canadian Northwest a “bad man” cannot long escape the strong arm of the law, and in nine cases out of ten he meets with punishment both swift and sure.
From the wheat lands adjoining our border to the gold rivers of the Yukon, from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean, the settler, the prospector, or the trader can lie down to sleep at night with little fear for his safety. That this is so is chiefly due to this police force.
Detachments of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are now located all over Canada. They are to be found in the thickly populated centres as well as in the Far North. But it was as a frontier police that the organization was first created, and it was in the Northwest Territories that its reputation was made. It has its stations about Hudson Bay, along the Peace River, on the banks of the Mackenzie, and on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. The latest posts established are those on the north coast of Baffin Island, opposite Greenland, and on Ellesmere Island, less than one thousand miles from the North Pole.
The duties of the Mounted Police are widely varied. They are especially charged with the enforcement of federal statutes, and are wholly responsible for law and order in the Northwest Territory, the Yukon, the national parks, and the Indian reservations. Elsewhere the organization coöperates with provincial authorities and the federal departments. It looks after such matters as violations of the customs, of excise regulations, the circulation of radical or revolutionary propaganda, the improper storing of explosives, and the debauching of the Indians. Special patrols are sometimes sent out to strengthen the hands of the Indian Department when unrest is reported among their charges. Some are detailed to see that the betting at the race tracks in the various provinces does not infringe upon the laws, and others to escort trainloads of harvest workers to their destinations and prevent disorders on the way. Patrols go for hundreds of miles by dog sled into the Far North to keep order and investigate crimes among the Eskimos.
The actual discharge of these duties leads to a variety of activities. The Mounted Police patrol the United States border to guard against smuggling of liquor, Chinese, and narcotics. They ride about the newly colonized districts, visiting the homes of the settlers and watching for cattle thieves. Any complaint of disorder or law breaking is promptly investigated, and a member of the force may spend months in the rôle of detective, seeking evidence or making a search for a suspected man.