"Wonder who stuck this shack up here," smiled McKeever, glancing inquisitively around the room. "Looks like it had been here quite a while. You can see where Black Moran an' Squigg rammed in fresh chinkin'."
Connie nodded. "Some prospector or trapper, I guess. I wonder what became of him?"
McKeever shook his head. "Maybe McTavish would know. There's nothin' here that would tell. If he pulled out he took everything along but the stove, an' if he didn't the Injuns an' the Eskimos have carried off all the light truck. There was a fellow name of Dean—James Dean, got lost in this country along about six or seven years back. I was lookin' over the records the other day, an' run across the inquiry about him. That was long before my time in N Division. There was a note or two in the records where he'd come into the country a couple of years before he'd disappeared, an' had traded at Fort Norman an' at Wrigley. The last seen of him he left Fort Norman with some supplies—grub an' powder. He was prospectin' an' trappin'—an' no one ever seen him since. He was a good man, too—accordin' to reports. He wasn't no chechako."
"There you are!" exclaimed Connie, "just what we were talking about. I'd give a lot to know what happened at the end of his trail. I've seen the end of a lot of those trails—and always the signs told the story of the last big adventure. And always it was worth while. And, good or bad, it was always a man's game they played—and they came to a man's end."
"Gee, Dan, in cities men die in their beds!"
Upon the evening before the departure of the Indians who were to accompany McTavish and McKeever back to Fort Norman for the mid-winter trading, Connie Morgan, the factor, and the big officer sat in the cabin of Pierre Bonnet Rouge and talked of many things. The owner of the cabin stoked the fire and listened in silence to the talk, proud that the white men had honoured his house with their presence.
"You've be'n in this country quite a while, Mac," said Inspector McKeever, as he filled his pipe from a buckskin pouch. "You must have know'd something about a party name of James Dean. He's be'n reported missin' since six or seven years back."'
"Know'd him well," answered McTavish. "He was a good man, too. Except, maybe a leetle touched in the head about gold. Used to trap some, an' for a couple of years he come in twice a year for the tradin'. Then, one time he never come back. The Mounted made some inquiries a couple years later, but that's all I know'd. He had a cabin down in this country some place, but they couldn't find it—an' the Injuns didn't seem to know anything about him. Pierre, here, would know, if anyone did." He turned to the Indian and addressed him in jargon. "Kumtux Boston man nem James Dean?"
The Indian fidgeted uneasily, and glanced nervously, first toward one window and then the other. "S'pose memaloose," he answered shortly, and putting on his cap, abruptly left the room.
"Well, what do you think of that?" exclaimed McKeever. "Says he thinks he's dead, and then up an' beat it. The case might stand a little investigatin' yet. Looks to me like that Injun knew a whole lot more than he told."