or or trapper, I guess. I wonder what
became of him?"

McKeever shook his head. "Maybe McTavish would know. There's nothin'
here that would tell. If he pulled out he took everything along but the
stove, an' if he didn't the Injuns an' the Eskimos have carried off all
the light truck. There was a fellow name of Dean--James Dean, got lost
in this country along about six or seven years back. I was lookin' over
the records the other day, an' run across the inquiry about him. That
was long before my time in N Division. There was a note or two in the
records where he'd come into the country a couple of years before he'd
disappeared, an' had traded at Fort Norman an' at Wrigley. The last seen
of him he left Fort Norman with some supplies--grub an' powder. He was
prospectin' an' trappin'--an' no one ever seen him since. He was a good
man, too--accordin' to reports. He wasn't no _chechako_."

"There you are!" exclaimed Connie, "just what we were talking about. I'd
give a lot to know what happened at the end of his trail. I've seen the
end of a lot of those trails--and always the signs told the story of the
last big adventure. And always it was worth while. And, good or bad, it
was always a man's game they played--and they came to a man's end."

"Gee, Dan, in cities men die in their beds!"

Upon the evening before the departure of the Indians who were to
accompany McTavish and McKeever back to Fort Norman for the mid-winter
trading, Connie Morgan, the factor, and the big officer sat in the cabin
of Pierre Bonnet Rouge and talked of many things. The owner of the cabin
stoked the fire and listened in silence to the talk, proud that the
white men had honoured his house with their presence.

"You've be'n in this country quite a while, Mac," said Inspector
McKeever, as he filled his pipe from a buckskin pouch. "You must have
know'd something about a party name of James Dean. He's be'n reported
missin' since six or seven years back."'

"Know'd him well," answered McTavish. "He was a good man, too. Except,
maybe a leetle touched in the head about gold. Used to trap some, an'
for a couple of years he come in twice a year for the tradin'. Then,
one time he never come back. The Mounted made some inquiries a couple
years later, but that's all I know'd. He had a cabin down in this
country some place, but they couldn't find it--an' the Injuns didn't
seem to know anything about him. Pierre, here, would know, if anyone
did." He turned to