E-text prepared by Al Haines

THE LUCK OF THE MOUNTED

A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police

by

SERGEANT RALPH S. KENDALL

Ex-Member of the R.N.W.M.P.

Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers New York

1920

  This truest of stories confirms beyond doubt,
  That truest of adages—"Murder will out!"
  In vain may the blood-spiller "double" and fly,
  In vain even witchcraft and sorcery try:
  Although for a time he may 'scape, by-and-by
  He'll be sure to be caught by a Hue and a Cry!
                                        —THE INGOLDSBY LEGEND

TO

MY OLD COMRADES

PRESENT, AND EX-MEMBERS OF THE

R.N.W.M. POLICE

THIS WORK IS DEDICATED WITH EVERY KIND THOUGHT

CHAPTER I

  O sing us a song of days that are gone—
  Of men and happenings—of war and peace;
  We love to yarn of "th' times that was"
  As our hair grows gray, and our years increase.
  So—revert we again to our ancient lays—
  Fill we our pipes, and our glasses raise—
  "Salue! to those stirring, bygone days!"
  Cry the old non-coms of the Mounted Police.
                                        MEMORIES

All day long the blizzard had raged, in one continuous squalling moaningroar—the fine-spun snow swirling and drifting about thebarrack-buildings and grounds of the old Mounted Police Post of L.Division. Whirraru!-ee!—thrumm-mm! hummed the biting nor'easter throughthe cross-tree rigging of the towering flag-pole in the centre of thewind-swept square, while the slapping flag-halyards kept up an infernal"devil's tattoo." With snow-bound roof from which hung huge icicles,like walrus-tusks, the big main building loomed up, ghostly andindistinct, amidst the whirling, white-wreathed world, save where, fromthe lighted windows broad streamers of radiance stabbed the surroundinggloom; reflecting the driving snow-spume like dust-motes dancing in asunbeam.

Enveloped in snow-drifts and barely visible in the uncertain light thereclustered about the central structure the long, low-lying guard-room,stables, quartermaster's store, and several smaller adjacent buildingscomprising "The Barracks." It was a bitter February night in SouthAlberta.

From the vicinity of the guard-room the muffled-up figure of a man, withhead down against the driving blizzard, padded noiselessly withmoccasined feet up the pathway leading to the main building. Soonreaching his destination, he dived hastily through the double storm-doorsof the middle entrance into the passage, and banged them to.

Flanking him on either side, in welcome contrast to the bitter worldoutside, he beheld the all-familiar sight of two inviting portals, eachradiating light, warmth, and good fellowship—the one on his right handparticularly. A moment he halted irresolutely between regimental canteenand library; then, for some reason best known to himself, he steadilyignored both, for the time being, and passing on began slowly to mount ashort flight of stairs at the end of the passage.

Sweet music beguiled each reluctant step of his ascent: the tinkle of apiano accompaniment to a roaring jovial chorus from the canteen assuringhim with plaintive, but futile insistence just then, that—

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