Instead, Middleton took the advice given to him by the Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, who suggested that he recruit local troops, who would be "much more serviceable than town-bred men who compose our cavalry.

[3] Commanded by John Stewart, a rancher turned militia officer from the Fort Macleod area, the RMR was a microcosm of local citizens, stockmen, trappers, politicians and discharged Mounties hammered into an irregular cavalry unit.

The members were to supply their own mounts, tack and sidearms but since this last resulted in a variety of questionable weapons, Major Stewart arranged for the issuance of some NWMP rifles including a few of the obsolete single-shot Snider–Enfield .577 and 40 of the new Winchester Model 1876 .45-75.Number 3 Troop of the RMR remained in the Fort Macleod area as a home guard, but Number 1 and 2 Troops were sent to Medicine Hat, a very strategic point where the newly built Canadian Pacific Railway bridged the South Saskatchewan River – the largest physical obstacle on its entire route between Winnipeg and the Rocky Mountains.

Seizure or destruction of the bridge at that point would have played havoc with continued effective use of the railway, which was of immense help in transporting men, equipment and supplies.

As events unfolded quite rapidly in the North-West Rebellion near Batoche and Duck Lake, Saskatchewan, a fair distance north of the Cypress Hills, it soon became apparent that the Rangers were not going to be directly involved in that fighting.