A. De Herries (Augustus De Herries) Smith
The Arctic legions
"The Arctic legions by A. De Herries Smith" is a pulp adventure short story written in the early 20th century. The story centers on a Mountie and the dangerous prisoner he’s captured, stranded amid a vast caribou migration on the Barren Lands, where their standoff becomes a brutal test of will, cunning, and survival against nature’s relentless tide. Corporal Conroy, injured and disarmed, faces Yeyik, the Yellowknife killer, on a boulder as millions of caribou thunder past. Yeyik taunts him with a stolen Colt while both men fray under the maddening click of hooves. Conroy needles the vain hunter into firing into the herd; Yeyik leaps onto a deer, and Conroy dives after him, the pair swallowed by the stampede. Fighting through the chaos, Conroy wrests control, hauls Yeyik back to safety, and waits as wolves arrive, signaling the migration’s end. With the danger passed, he reclaims the gun, disarms the prisoner, and marches him toward the post across the suddenly silent Barrens.