The Patrol
In December of 1910,
a patrol of four policemen,
with four-dog team,
a routine patrol it seems.
They would not return,
everyone would soon learn.
Dawson City they departed,
to Fort McPherson they started.
They took the wrong trail,
to find the way they fail.
At minus sixty below,
their food was getting low.
Because of their fate,
some of their dogs they ate.
The patrol was lost,
and their lives it cost.
Four frozen bodies were found,
twenty-five miles from town.
They found in the Inspector’s coat,
a will that he had wrote.
One constable committed suicide,
a gun was found by his side.
The reason the entire patrol died,
was because they didn’t have a native guide.
The dead Mounties of the Northwest,
in Fort McPherson were laid to rest.
