Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/102



the faintest grey of approaching dawn, the boy rolled his blankets and, without stopping for breakfast, stole noiselessly away—intent only upon placing distance between himself and the cabin in the timber. He was fairly bursting with importance. Here was he, Connie Morgan, the youngest and newest of all the officers of the Royal North-west Mounted Police Force, in possession of the key to the Cameron Creek mystery! He had listened to the talk of the barracks, and knew that for years the men of the Mounted had been trying to "get something on" this gang of outlaws—and, always they had failed. But the Mounted never "quits"—not a man in the Service but knew that some day the gang would be bested—and not a man in the Service but longed to be the means of its undoing.

For two hours the boy plodded onward and then