Their duties: general maintenance and enforcement of the law, with all it meant; imposition of punishments; arbitration of any dispute, from a fight involving life and death to one involving the possession of a can-opener; care of the sick and destitute; burial of the dead; collection of taxes, Government royalty on gold, and of customs at Hopeful Pass; relaying the mails from post to post or escorting them by steamer to the seagoing vessel at Prospect; guarding and escorting gold deposits; and running the boats of the ignorant herd through the rapids so that no lives might be lost.
The detachments, in order to carry out all these jobs, must travel immense distances in the heat of summer or depth of winter, take their lives in their hands at least once a day and, for the rest of the time, enjoy the delights of camping in leaking, wind-swept tents, flooded inches deep, pitched in the trough of sunless valleys or on the bleak flanks of frozen mountains; while they received, for their pains, an average stipend of under a dollar a day and were not allowed to stake claims.
The command was no task for a weakling. Hector remembered what the Commissioner had said in sending him to take that command six months before: 'It's the last bit of true pioneering this country will see, Adair. Carry it through, and you'll have played a part in the whole show, from the settlement of the North-West to the end. It will be a big job—one of the biggest we've ever done—this job I'm giving you; but it will be a splendid thing in the way of a crowning achievement to all you've done already. Make it a credit to yourself and Canada.'
The 'big job' was now at hand. The spring rush marked its advent. The winter had been only the prelude. Hector, watching the boats from the hill above Nugget, sensed the coming battle.
Tomorrow he would return to Discovery, there to fight it out.
Dusk hiding the fleet at last from his eyes, he walked down to the rough shanty in Nugget where Cranbrook had his headquarters.
"Corporal Dunsmuir reports a distinguished visitor arrived at Hopeful Pass, sir." Cranbrook greeted him as he reached the door. "At present he's taking a breather but will move on to Discovery in a few days."
"Who is it?" asked Hector.
"Molyneux—the M.P.," answered Cranbrook.
II