Secret of the Slough

*
By

PHILIP H. GoODSELL,
aRKGrS:

*

i JO ae tae ie

Staff Sergeant Anderson was for many
years a personal friend of the writer’s,
and the story was told to him at first
hand in the barracks at Lesser Slave

Lake. The original manuscript of this
story was submitted to the sergeant,
who certified to its accuracy. Hay-
ward’s peculiar dream is a matter of
official record.

eo Ke Br Ue REN ue 7

NYONE who ever ran across

“Andy,” as the big, genial, hard-

featured Sergeant Anderson of
the North West Mounted Police, with
his pitted face and ice-blue eyes was
known, will never forget that burly
Icelander. Literally and figuratively
Andy was a law unto himself. When
all attempts to stem the flow of illicit
firewater into prohibition North West
Territories had failed, he’d been sent
to Lesser Slave Lake; and in six
months the gang who'd made it a
place accursed were behind the bars
or had fled to safer climes.

‘For Andy would rush in where
angels feared to tread, disregarding

Group of Mounted Police at Lesser Slave Lake.

Page Thirty-two

Mounted Police weaves a web from a silver buckle,
a broken needle and a few charred bones that sends

Hard-bitten Sergeant Anderson of the North West
a desperado to hts doom.

such inconveniences as_ search-war-
rants, and, with a stubbornness his
enemies mistook for stupidity, ap-
peared to blunder ahead—yet always
got his man. There was the time he
dogged a criminal for months only
to find him buried in the shadow
of the Rockies. To prove to Head-
quarters that he’d got his man, he’d
casually dug up the body, cut off
the head, thrown it into a gunny-
sack and tied it to his saddle. When

he boarded the train at Athabasca.

Landing there was something about
the sinister bundle that aroused the
nigger porter’s curiosity. Warning him
not to touch it, Andy tossed it under
the berth and hit the hay. As the
Sergeant snored blissfully the in-
quisitive porter hooked the gunny-
sack from beneath the berth. A
grisly human head rolled at his feet,
evoking screams that echoed through
the train .. . and oldtimers insist that
that particular colored man is run-
ning yet!

On this particular September morn-
ing in 1904, Andy was guiding his
sweating roan along the winding
trail to Lesser Slave Lake when a
guttural voice caused him to turn in
the saddle. Padding behind him was

COPYRIGHT PHOTO
Sergeant Anderson in centre, standing.

SS

Philip H. Godsell, Veteran Northerner
old Mistoos, Cree Chief from the
nearby Sucker Lake Reserve.

The Chief’s Story

“Vell,” grinned the sergeant; and
vat you vant, Mistoos—more grub?”

Peering cautiously about, the chief
spoke earnestly. A tall, black-bearded
man and his partner, named Char-
lee, who walked with a slight twist,
had camped at the reserve not long
before. Two days later the tall Sho-
gonash had disappeared, then, later,
the other one had ridden off with all
the horses. There'd been much talk
amongst his tribesmen, then the chief
had found his cattle bawling as they
pawed the ashes of the paleface camp-
fire.

Impassively the sergeant listened,
shot a few swift questions in Cree, and
rode thoughtfully towards the bar-
racks. At dawn next morning the
sergeant jogged into the scattered en-
campment of tepees and entered Mis-
toos’ lodge, conscious of a veiled hos-
tility amongst the young bucks. Mis-
toos waved his sinewy hand towards
a couple of coppery youngsters.
“Napasise and Moonias,” he said,
“will tell you about their visit to the
Shagondsh.”

“The white men gave us things to
eat,” Moonias told him. ‘““Then we

THE SHOULDER STRAP