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Cameron, Agnes Deans, 1863-1912

"The New North"

Sergeant
Anderson hired Indian women to wade in the ooze, feeling with their toes
for any hard substance. In this way were secured a sovereign-case and a
stick-pin of unusual make. The lake was systematically drained and
yielded a shoe with a broken-eyed needle sticking in it. Sifting the
ashes of the camp-fire and examining them with a microscope, Anderson
discovered the eye of the broken needle and thus established a
connection between the camp with its burnt flesh and the exhibits from
the lake. The maker of the stick-pin in London, England, was cabled to
by the Canadian Government, and a Mr. Hayward summoned to come from
there to identify the trinkets of his murdered brother. A cheque drawn
by the dead Hayward in favour of King came to the surface in a British
Columbia bank. Link by link the chain of evidence grew.
It took eleven months for Sergeant Anderson to get his case in shape.
Then he convoyed forty Indian witnesses two hundred and fifty miles from
Lesser Slave to Edmonton to tell what they knew about the crime
committed in the silent places. The evidence was placed before the jury,
and the Indians returned to their homes.


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