“Why haven’t I heard about this before?” he demanded. “It’s only two months since we patroled that region.”
“There wasn’t a trace of it then,” Davis informed him. “You know how these things come. Suddenly. No explaining it. Two weeks after I heard about the first case, it had ravaged the whole countryside.”
“Have you been exposed yourself?”
“Not that I know of.”
The inspector leaned back in his chair, his arms folded, his gaze seeming to rest upon the papers in the letter-tray on his desk. He picked up his fountain pen and turned it thoughtfully in his hand.
“This thing couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time. Richardson is off on patrol and won’t be back for three weeks. Three days ago a murder was committed over at Run River, and Pearly has gone to investigate. Corporal Rand is confined to barracks here, suffering from an attack of pneumonia. I haven’t an available man right now.”
“But what’s to be done? How do you propose to combat this thing? Haven’t you a supply of medicine here at barracks?”
“If I had a room full of it, it wouldn’t help us in the least. There’s only one antidote. You inject it in the arm with a hypodermic needle.”
“Where can this stuff be obtained?”
“Big cities outside. The only places. Edmonton is the closest.”