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Book, page 51 / 172 Francois Breault. It was epic--a colossal monument to this man, thought Sergeant Fitzgerald, as they pried the frozen body loose. To Corporal Blake fell the unpleasant task of going after Jan Thoreau. Unpleasant, because Breault's starved huskies and frozen body brought with them the worst storm of the winter. In the face of this storm Blake set out, with the Sergeant's last admonition in his ears: "Don't come back, Blake, until you've got him, dead or alive." That is a simple and efficacious formula in the rank and file of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. It has made volumes of stirring history, because it means a great deal and has been lived up to. Twice before, the words had been uttered to Blake--in extreme cases. The first time they had taken him for six months into the Barren Lands between Hudson's Bay and the Great Slave--and he came back with his man; the second time he was gone for nearly a year along the rim of the Arctic--and from there also he came back with his man. Blake was of that sort. A bull-dog, a Nemesis when he was once on the trail, and--like most men of that kind--without a conscience. In the Blue Books of the service he was credited with arduous patrols and unusual exploits. "Put Blake on the trail" meant something, and "He is one of our best men" was a firmly established conviction at departmental headquarters. Only one man knew Blake as Blake actually lived under his skin--and that was Blake himself. He hunted men and ran them down without mercy--not because he loved the law, but for the reason that he had in him the inherited instincts of the hound. This comparison, if quite true, is none the less unfair to the hound. A hound is a good dog at heart. In the January storm it may be that the vengeful spirit of Francois Breault set out in company with Corporal Blake to witness the consummation of his vengeance. That first night, as he sat close to his fire in the shelter of a thick spruce timber, Blake felt the unusual and disturbing sensation of a presence somewhere near him. The storm was at its height. He had passed through many storms, but to-night there seemed to be an uncannily concentrated fury in its beating and wailing over the
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