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Show Men of the ounted by Captain G. Elliott -Nightingale Copyright, WNU ADVENTURES OF A HERO AND A LUNATIC ALL the outfit he had was the clothes he wore. In his right hand, held high, he carried a Bible. Just where he came from no one knew, for he very suddenly appeared ap-peared on the Saskatchewan plains calling upon all to "Repent, and seek Eternal Life." Now and then he changed his text and warned us that the Day of Judgment was at hand. After we staked him to some food, and a warmer coat donated by the most notorious blasphemer in the group, he was on his way again shouting his warnings. The poor chap was obviously a ."bit cracked," but as long as he kept to the prairie he was not in much danger. But, the poor misguided mis-guided prophet kept heading due northwest, and just when the terrific man-killing sub-Arctic winter took a good grip on the Athabaska lake country, he came to grief. He was found badly frozen, and dying of starvation, on a trail that might see a human being once during the winter. win-ter. In spite of his serious physical condition he was still shouting texts and singing hymns, but the half-breed half-breed who found him knew but few words of English anyway, so the warnings, and texts fell on deaf ears. At any rate, the "breed" soon had the demented white preacher in a warm bunk, and warm food inside of him. As the days passed, though, the roving missionary developed Into a raving maniac, and the half-breed half-breed benefactor left for safer surroundings. sur-roundings. He did not actually desert de-sert the unfortunate white, but he did get a report to the Fort Chip-pewyan Chip-pewyan post of the Mounted Police. When Constable Pedley, certainly one of the most courageous trailers and trackers ever to wear the scarlet scar-let and gold, arrived at the tiny log hut he found an extremely violent lunatic in charge. Moreover, in spite of frostbite and emaciation, the lunatic possessed prodigious strength and the six-foot constable had a tough time to get the prisoner under controL Wise in the tricks and wrinkles of the northern trails, Pedley wrapped the lunatic in two great big sleeping bags. Then he tied him onto the sled, and shoved off on a 500-mile mush to the nearest near-est hospital, at Fort Saskatchewan. Even to this day all the details of that nerve-wracking trip have never been told. The big, strapping constable had his hands more than full while the mercury stuck at 40 and 50 below all the time. It was out of the question, of course, for the constable to keep the lunatic strapped up and tied down all the time, so every time he released the prisoner he had to get into a free-for-all fight whether he wanted to or not. Apart from this, there was great trouble feeding the crazy man. The constable took extreme measures meas-ures in this, however, for he realized real-ized that his patient would soon die of exposure and starvation unless he was fed. Mile after frozen mile they mushed, day after day, with the lunatic centering his hatred and vituperation on the constable, and the latter centering his attention on the trail and the dogs and doing all possible to get the patient to shelter and warmth and medical attention. To add to all this terrific mental and physical punishment, Constable Pedley's dog-train was often beset by packs of flat-bellied, starving timber wolves. Pedley's integrity is beyond reproach, and he stated that he didn't stop to light fires until un-til it was absolutely inevitable that the wolf pack would jump the train in another minute or so, so ravenous were these flat-bellied wolves. Finally Constable Pedley and his tragic load mushed into Fort Saskatchewan, Sas-katchewan, and the demented preacher was soon in good hands. After a few days of rest for himself him-self and dogs, Pedley started off on the 500-mile return trip to his post on Lake Athabaska. All alone, mushing through that ever-lonesome land, God only knows what thoughts were Pedley's as he moved across the snowy wastes thinking over the events of the past weeks. At any rate, halfway down the Athabaska river his own mind snapped, and he wandered for days in the bitter cold until found by some Cree Indians In-dians who, strange to relate, tied him to a dog sled and mushed him back to Fort Saskatchewan, where lay the demented preacher. The preacher was as right as rain, mentally and physically, inside in-side of two months, but almost a year passed before Constable Pedley Ped-ley came back to the world to which he belonged. The force gave him a fairly decent job a't headquarters. As the war left its mark on those who saw real front-line service, so did that trip through the Arctic wastes, with a lunatic for company, leave its mark on Mounted Constable Consta-ble Pedley. a real hero if there ever was one. |