Robert William Reading

“ Gazing at the sleeping infant, I envied her calm, for my own mind was in a turmoil. Then I remembered that perhaps the first duty of a Mountie is to protect life. I determined to save the baby somehow. ”

“ Distances in the Arctic are so great that it takes months to make a patrol, arrests if necessary, and then to return natives to their own people. The trouble which had led up to my escorting this girl home had been no exception; eight or nine months had elapsed since the girl had been stolen from her rightful husband, so perhaps what occurred was only natural after all, especially in the Arctic where life is elemental in the extreme. ”

“ Most of the trouble which the Mounties have to straighten out in the Arctic is occasioned by clashes between the white men, who go in to trade for the furs which milady of civilization deems necessary, and the natives. ”