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Rh agony of a soul's birthpangs and the actual sweat of blood. They have evolved because man, as a race, cannot do without them. They have sprung from the flesh and blood of our progenitors even as we have; but because they come from the loins of a race they are too strong for us. We can't break them now. We can only break ourselves if we struggle against them. A man's duty to himself; to women; to the rest of men—there is no imagination left about those things. The soul-sweat of the whole of mankind has gone to the clearing of the position there. We know what we owe to our ancestors and to our posterity. We know what Life requires of us on the broad lines of the physical and mental bases"

"We, of the police, for instance?"

"Well—we hold a unique position which brings unique responsibilities. We are building directly for the future of a nation, and there can never be anything quite like us again. We do the work of an army, with each division a regiment, and each man a company—and we're barely the strength of a regiment all told, Heaven help us. We are policing the last West of the world, and all the restless men of all the centuries have run West, until they are here, in the last West of all. That makes it necessary enough for us to define and cling to our ethical standards. In all probability we won't have more than fifty years in all for the enforcing of them. Then the Royal North-West Mounted Police is done—not wanted—wiped off the roll of service for ever. And it is for us—we fellows who are doing the cleaning up—to say what sort of record the Force is going to leave behind it"

"Give the devil his due too," suggested Dick amiably.

"Why; we don't claim to be saints. We're something the world wants more. We're men, doing men's work in men's way. We're men of all ranks and all lives and all lands, and I imagine most of us have got private memories to trouble us when they get us alone on the trails. But we do the work." He stopped suddenly. And we don't talk about it," he added. "But you—you know."

Dick flipped a light finger against his black metal collar-badge.

"Maintien le droit," he said, as though he could read