Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

THE YUKON ADVENTURE 173methods the rights of property in the Yukon were hammeredhome with success.In some of the murder cases in the north, where the crimewas committed on a distant trail, thus enabling the perpetratorsto escape and remain for a time unknown, the work of theMounted Police seems little short of miraculous. They keptup the pursuit like bloodhounds, scouring not only the Yukon,but many cities in Canada and the United States, and finallyapprehending the culprits and establishing a complete caseagainst them. A perusal of the annual reports of the variousofficers in the Yukon will be found of most absorbing interest,although the various incidents are invariably recorded in themodest and unembellished language of actual fact. It wasa wise and fortunate measure that this force was directlyunder the control of the central Government of the Dominion,and fully supported by the latter in their efforts to detect andpunish crime. In more than one case very large sums werespent in order to bring a murderer to the gallows.In the autumn of 1898 the Yukon Field Force, a compositeunit recruited from the permanent militia, which was sent intothe country by the arduous Glenora-Teslin route, establishedheadquarters atSelkirk and sent to Dawson a detachment ofabout fifty officers and men for service there. This detachmentwas under the command of Captain H. E. Burstall,R.C.A., now Major-General Sir Henry Burstall, K.C.B.,K.C.M.G., who distinguished himself greatly in the recentGreat War, being knighted and otherwise decorated for hisfine service. This force was able to relieve the MountedPolice in guard duty and in other ways, and was well thought ofduring its stay of about a year and a half in the country.Dawson had been built on swampy ground. Therewas at first no system of drainage, and an appreciation of thevalue of sanitary precautions was hard to instil into itsheterogeneous population. For this reason, the scurvy prevalentin the early spring was followed, as the season progressed,by even more widespread typhoid and dysentery, from the last