Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/146

128 before, he knew instinctively that the steep divide at whose base he and Connie Morgan had stood in their search for a mail-route pass, would let him through somewhere in the vicinity of the village of the Yellow Knives—the Indians whose old chief, White Eagle, had sworn eternal friendship for the Kloshe Tenas Tyee, the good little chief whose medicine arrows had delivered his tribe from the hand of the Red Death.

The scout knew, also, that to undertake the trip to Mayo station would mean ten days at the very least before help could reach the besieged village. He knew that only two officers of the Mounted would be found at the station, and that the Moose- heads, crazy with drink and blood-lust, would stand under no authority, but would murder the uniformed officers as they would murder an obscure Indian. Of course, later, the tribe would suffer the consequences, but—later—well, Ick Far formed his own plan.

And, as the scout knew the mountains, he knew Indians. He knew that not only White Eagle, but every buck in the Yellow Knife village would welcome gladly the chance to show the Kloshe Tenas Tyee that they were his friends. He