them always lose their heads," he laughed. "But I've squared up everything on board, and arranged for a launch to take us ashore. I've made out a list of the baggage, so that my fellows will know exactly what they've got to bring. We can go off directly the Customs people have arrived." The girl put her hand on his arm; she seemed very content. "You're awfully businesslike and competent, Basil," she told him. "Got to be in these days of competition," her husband declared. "We are doing pretty well as it is, but before very long you are going to be the wife of the richest planter in the island." And as they crossed the harbour in the launch he talked eagerly of his plans and ambitions and of the improvements in their house which she should superintend, only interrupting the forecast of prosperity to ask her whether she would mind stopping for a few minutes at the G.O.H. to have a drink with his father's friend, Hawkins, an established ritual which the old fellow would expect. A car was waiting for them at the entrance to the jetty, and Basil Richardson insisted that they should drive the short way to the G.O.H. He followed his wife into the hotel, chatting with animation, pleasantly conscious that the lady of his choice did him credit and would be justly admired. But just inside the door he shied like a frightened horse, and hurriedly conducted the girl to a chair at the farther end of the lounge. "Who," his wife asked as she sat down, "was that funnylooking fat man near the door? I thought he seemed to know you." Basil Richardson frowned. "A fellow named Robins," he answered, "a beachcomber, utter waster, the sort one has to avoid, darling. Once I had to see a good deal of him on business. I was rather afraid he would presume on it. Thank heaven, he hasn't." The Vat, overflowing the cane chair in which he sat commanding the entrance to the hotel, his podgy hands on the arms, his short legs stretched out, his clothes clean but threadbare, a small untasted whisky-and-soda beside him on a table, had been talking to Hawkins as Basil Richardson and his wife came in. The way in which the boy had rushed the girl away had been very obvious. Hawkins turned a snort into a sentence. "Must go and greet the lady," he declared. "She looks capable as well as ornamental." The Vat's eyes twinkled amongst wrinkles and pouches. "Eminently satisfactory," he said. "The evidence of a permanent cure is conclusive." He touched his drink with his lips, nodded to Hawkins, and turned to watch the entry of new arrivals with every appearance of interest. BREAKING TRAIL IN THE SUB-ARCTIC. THE STORY OF A WINTER PATROL WITH DOGS IN THE ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE. BY CAPTAIN H. L. FRASER. THE work of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, better known by its old name of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, has now entered upon a new phase: with the advance of civilisation and the taking over of the policing of the Prairie Provinces by the various Provincial Forces, the sphere of usefulness of this famous old force has been transferred to the Far North. Year by year the Northern detachments in the Eastern and Western Arctic move out farther from railhead and nearer to the Pole, and it is now a very small "jump" from the detachment on Ellesmere Island to the Pole itself. I have headed this account of my patrol "Breaking Trail in the Sub-Arctic” for two reasons: the first, that owing to the patrol being compelled to start off in the early winter before the snow had had time to settle down, and on account of an unusually heavy snowfall, it was a case of breaking trail on snowshoes almost the whole way; and the second, that part of the journey-the portion between the Great Bear I. Lake and the chain of small lakes north of Fort Rae-was across a piece of country over which no white man had previously travelled. In the early summer of 1924 I was transferred to G Division, which stretches from Edmonton in Alberta to bleak wind-swept Herschell Island in the Arctic Ocean. Railhead is at Waterways on the Athabasca River. Beyond stretches one vast forest for hundreds of miles, split up by a network of rivers and lakes, the main route to the Arctic being via the Athabasca and Slave Rivers to the Great Slave Lake, and down the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean. On the Slave River, about 170 miles south of the Great Slave Lake, is Fort Smith, the headquarters of the subdistrict to which I was posted, and the point from which I set out. Some of the difficulties which a winter patrol with dogs has to contend with are: bad weather and trail conditions, shortness of mid-winter days in the Arctic, accidents to men and dogs, loss of direction, and starvation. The sleigh driver can only dog taken out of harness slows ride on the sleigh downhill or under perfect weather and trail conditions. The sleigh carries food for men and dogs, axe, cooking utensils, blankets, &c., and this is a big enough load without his adding his own weight to it. As he gets farther from the beaten track, the points at which he can replenish his food supply become wider apart, and he can only take barely enough food for himself and dogs to carry him through under normal conditions. Meeting inclement weather, storms or deep snow, he is delayed; his food supply runs short, and eventually gives out; and, added to the delay caused by the storm, his progress becomes daily slower on account of the weakness of the dogs. In very low temperatures there is danger of frostbite, and he has always to guard against snow-blindness. Camps should be made in daylight, because, on reaching a camping ground, he has still to cut the wood for the night's camp fire, and in mid-winter this gives him a very short travelling day. If the snow is deep, he may have to break trail twice before the dogs are able to pull the loaded sleigh through it. A day's journey will therefore vary from three or four to fifty or sixty miles. There are many ways in which accidents occur, and probably there is no doctor within hundreds of miles. Dogs go lame and sick, and every up the train but continues to eat his share of the food. Whilst it is almost impossible to lose the way on the main rivers, it is comparatively easy to do so once one leaves them and takes to the bush. A combination of some of these bad "breaks" means a tightening of the belt and striking out for the nearest human habitation; and, if this be too far distant, starvation and death. The ill-fated Fitzgerald patrol is a striking example of what may happen even to experienced northern travellers, as they were. In December 1910 Inspector Fitzgerald left Fort Macpherson on the Peel River for Dawson in the Yukon-a distance of about 750 miles, with Constables Taylor and Kinney, and ex-Constable Carter as guide. They took with them the mail from Northern posts on the Mackenzie, and this, coupled with the fact that the Rocky Mountains had to be crossed - doubling up the dogs to pull the loads up the worst slopes, meant that they were only able to take the bare amount of food to get them through under average travelling conditions. It was the old gamble with the elements which Northern policemen have had to take time and again. All went well until the party arrived at the foothills-about 375 miles from Fort Macpherson-when Carter lost his way. He was searching for the pass through the mountains, but every valley looked alike, and a week was wasted, with food growing more scarce. The food ran out, and Fitzgerald reluctantly decided to turn back and try to make Fort Macpherson. They started back, eating their dogs as they went, and everything began to go wrong. They encountered storms, overflow on the river and deep going, were badly frost-bitten, and were only able to make a very few miles a day. Their non-arrival at Dawson led to a relief patrol being sent out under Corporal Dempster, and they were all found dead within a few miles of Fort Macpherson with "their stomachs flattened to their spines." The story of the patrol's heroic efforts to carry out the duty entrusted to it until no hope of reaching its goal remained, is the most pathetic and the most glorious page in the annals of the Royal NorthWest Mounted Police, but is also an illustration of the ease with which the best arranged trip, undertaken by men who know their job, may become a disaster. Tree River Detachment is an isolated post in Coronation Gulf on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. The mail from this post is carried west along the Arctic coast to the mouth of the Mackenzie River, and then up that river hundreds of miles; it may be a year or more before it reaches the outside. The authorities were anxious to ascertain whether it would be practicable, with a police post established at Dease Bay in the north-east corner of Great Bear Lake, to carry this mail across country from Tree River to Dease Bay, from Dease Bay to Fort Rae on the north arm of the Great Slave Lake, across the lake to Fort Resolution, and then out by the ordinary route to Edmonton. П. In the early winter of 1924 I received orders to make a patrol from Fort Smith vid Fort Resolution, Fort Rae, and a chain of lakes north of Fort Rae, to Dease Bay, and report on the feasibility of the route, the best points to put a couple of shelter cabins en route, the possibilities of getting lumber locally for building purposes, &c. With two trains of dogs I left Fort Smith on the 15th December for Fort Resolution, the first "leg" of a trip that was destined to run into a journey of over 2200 miles, from which I did not get back until the 29th April. As an earnest of what the weather had in store for us, the glass dropped to fifty-six below zero for our start. The trip to Fort Resolution was un |