Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/145

Rh sented, but it would only stave off the inevitable for one day.

"They'll try to starve us out," Connie said. "We've got to get word to Mayo—Dan McKeever's there, and Rickey."

"Me go!" cried Ick Far. "Me ketch um help. Seex sleeps, an' dem Moosehead, she weesh she stay on de black montaine."

"We c'n hold out six days—eight, on a pinch— — can't we, kid?" said Tex Gordon, as he reached over and shook the scout's hand in a mighty grip. "Y'u're a man! Doggone my buttons! Y'u might be a Injun, but y'u're white—clean through to y'ur gizzard! Good-bye an' good luck to y'u—an' if ever any one tries to tell me they ain't no good Injuns, y'u bet I'll go to the floor with him till he yelps they're all good! An', jes' betwixt me an' y'u, they're th' orneriest sect they is—an' we know it, " he added with a grin.

Connie also grasped the old scout's hand as he stepped onto the narrow foot trail and, although no word passed between them, each knew what was in the mind of the other.

Ick Far knew the mountains as few men ever know them. While he had never been there