The Last Patrol

From Bermondsey and Brighton, From Auckland and the Forth, From all the seas are gathered in The wardens of the North; Whose empty spaces bind them That the return no more, To all they left behind them And all they lived before. And some would fain remember, And some would fain forget, That down the hollow Kentish lanes The wild rose lingers yet; That ‘cross the moor and through the glen The infant rivers run;— The days were long in Scotland then, But here — the midnight sun; And here the great auroras swing Like curtains in the sky, The wild swan lifts his trumpeting, The grey goose hurtles by; For half the year the naked land It sheathed in rigid mail; brothers! God wot, ye understand Who tramp the Dawson trail. FITZGERALD’S patrol was due in Dawson on February the 1st. After three weeks of storm and cold, the Indian Esau arrived, saying that he had left Fitzgerald on January the 1st, at Mountain Creek, twenty days’ easy travelling from Dawson. Thereupon Synder, commanding B division on the Yukon, thought hard, and telegraphed to Perry, Commissioner at Regina, via Eagle, Valdez, and wireless. Perry’s answer halted, for the wires went down under the weight of winter winds. But, when it did arrive, Dempster’s patrol pulled out for Fort McPherson on the very same day. With him were Constable Fyfe, ex-Constable Turner, Indian Charles Stewart, and three teams of five dogs each