“Wishing you the season’s compliments,
“I remain,
“Yours very truly,
“Jno. M. Egan.”
Taken together these letters, written by matter-of-fact men, are great tributes paid to the men of the Mounted Police for the part they played in those critical periods of the history of the pioneer railway. In such masses of railway men of all kinds and nationalities thrown together in construction times, there was constant danger of disorder under certain conditions. There were amongst these men, many adventurous agitators who cared nothing for the ultimate success of the railway. Had the whiskey-peddlers who always hover around such camps been allowed to ply their nefarious trade, there would have been constant danger to the men themselves from high explosives carelessly handled. And there would have been the ever-present menace of unreasonable outbreaks causing delay and damage to a great and necessary undertaking. No wonder that such highly practical and observant men as Van Horne and Egan understood and gladly acknowledged the co-operation of the Mounted Police in a vast national enterprise.
People have often wondered how this road, traversing some three thousand miles across lonely prairie and lonelier mountains, escaped having its trains held up by robbers, as was common in some other similarly situated countries. In an official report some years after the road opened Superintendent Deane of the Mounted Police at Calgary refers to an effort at train-robbing that year and starts out with the following revealing statement: “It has for years been an open secret that the train-robbing fraternity in the United States had seriously considered the propriety of trying conclusions with the Mounted Police, but had decided that the risks were too great and the game not worth the candle. After the object lesson they received last May, it may be reasonably supposed that railway passengers will be spared further anxiety during the life of the present generation at least.”
The special event to which Deane refers was a train hold-up at Kamloops in British Columbia by a notorious train-robbing expert, Bill Miner, alias Edwards, etc., assisted by two other gunmen, William Dunn and “Shorty” Colquhoun. A train robbery had been committed by the same gang some months before, but local authorities could not trace the robbers. When the second robbery took place at Kamloops, the railway heads thought they could not afford to take more chances, although Provincial Police, especially Fernie, of Kamloops, were doing good trailing work. Mr. Richard Marpole, then Superintendent of the Canadian Pacific Railway at the Coast, who was always devoted to the interests of the road, wired to General Manager (later Sir) William Whyte to secure the help of the Mounted Police, who were not then on duty in British Columbia. Mr. Whyte telegraphed to Regina to Commissioner A. B. Perry, head of the Mounted Police, who, wiring Calgary to have two detachments ready, left for that point to take charge of the case. From Calgary, Perry (now Major-General and C.M.G., retired after years of distinguished service) sent Inspector Church, an excellent officer, with a detachment, to Penticton to cut off the escape of the robbers over the boundary-line. Perry left for Kamloops with a detachment under charge of Staff-Sergeant J. J. Wilson, with Thomas, Shoebotham, Peters, Stewart, Browning and Tabateau. The weather was bad and the horses secured at Kamloops were poor, but, despite these handicaps, this posse trailed and captured the robbers, after a sharp fight, within forty-eight hours. The effect of that lesson is still apparent, as Deane prophesied.
When the last spike had been driven on the Canadian Pacific Railway at Craigellachie, and there was a through train to the Coast, Steele, above-mentioned, who was back again on Mounted Police work in the mountains, was given a trip to the Pacific out of compliment to himself and the force generally. It was a time when the railway men were trying out the road which they knew had been well constructed. Steele describes his trip in a semi-humorous way, and speaks of the train going at fifty-seven miles an hour, roaring in and out of the tunnels and whirling around the curves. He says it was a wild ride, but adds these fine words, “Many years have passed since that memorable ride, and to-day one goes through the mountains in the most modern and palatial observation cars, but the recollection of that journey to the Coast on the first train through, is far sweeter to me than any trips taken since. It was the exultant moment of pioneer work and we were all pioneers on that excursion.” And we add again, all due honour to the law-and-order men in scarlet and gold who had watched over the construction of the long steel trail.
CHAPTER XIII
Intensive and Extensive Work
The Canadian Pacific Railway, after terrific fighting against heavy odds, had reached its objective in the completion of the main line from sea to sea. It was a thin steel line reaching across the continent. But the driving of the last spike at Craigellachie simply gave the Company a base of operation from which to reach out for other conquests, in order that the work already done might prove productive of the best results. Mr. Van Horne, who had a perfect passion for doing new things and for bringing unknown places into the limelight, saw tremendous opportunities looming up for the full play of his abilities in that regard.