“Yes,” answered Bob, “with you as guide.”
“Thunderbolt much good guide,” said Wandering Bear, his stern eyes resting fondly on his grandson. “Always he fear nothing. See?”—he pointed to the massive antlers of a moose resting close by—“Thunderbolt kill him.”
“Ah! The Rambler Club has a rival!” laughed Larry.
“I’ll be leaving in about an hour or two,” Ashe was saying, “so it isn’t likely I’ll see you chaps again unless you find your way back to the post.”
“We’ll get there all right,” said Tom Clifton, confidently.
“About how many men are there in the service of the Northwest Mounted?” inquired Dave.
“Not far from seven hundred,” answered Ashe. “Saskatchewan has the most; Alberta comes second, while the rest are divided between Manitoba, Yukon and the Territories.”
“Have lots of work to do?”
“We always manage to earn our pay. The boys even patrol mining camps; and, believe me, some of ’em are in pretty out-of-the-way places.”
“The work must be awful in winter,” remarked Larry Burnham.