“That red-bearded fellow is a character we’ve been after for a long time,” he said, “and thanks to you, I guess we’ll be able to round him up at last. Nevins of Ours almost had him once years ago, but he slipped through his fingers.”
“What became of Nevins?” asked Jim interestedly. “That man always made me wonder what a chap like him wanted to join the Northwest for.”
Trooper Carthew drew thoughtfully on his pipe. Then after a minute he looked up and spoke softly.
“Nevins has gone on a trail he won’t come back from, Jim.”
“Dead?”
The other nodded.
“How’d it happen?”
“What kills a lot of unseasoned men in the service: snow madness!” was the rejoinder. “It’s a thing I don’t often talk about, but if any of your young men here,” he nodded toward the boys, “think that life in the Northwest Mounted is any cinch it might be a good thing to tell ’em the yarn.”
“We wish you would,” said Ralph, scenting a story out of the ordinary.
“Well, it happened a dozen winters ago,” began Trooper Carthew, “and it must be fifteen since I’ve seen Jim. Time slips by here in the mountains. Well, as Jim here said, Nevins was a man who ought never to have gone into the Mounted. He was a nervous, harum-scarum kind of man. I don’t know where he came from or what made him join, but anyhow there he was, and it fell to my lot to look after him.