Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/161

Rh night before reposing behind the door of the prospector's" cabin.

"It's too bad," Connie muttered, "that the woman and kids have got to be mixed up in this. He's a fool to think he can get away with it. We've got him—sure as shooting!" He remembered the peculiar look that had leaped into the woman's eyes at the sight of his uniform and the unguarded admission that they traded on the other side. Remembered, too, that she had said the man "had done pretty well, so far," when any one ought to know that the rock on that creek wasn't right for colour. And, at the thought of the man's sluice box, the boy grinned. "She knows what his game is, all right, and she's trying to shield him. … But, all the same, I wish I didn't know about those kids." He set his lips resolutely. "Duty is duty, though," he muttered, "and it's dirty business selling booze to the Indians." But, try as he would, the picture of a golden-haired little girl and a sturdy, blue-eyed boy kept recurring to his mind as he toiled up the steep trail.

The day was terrifically hot. The season had been an unusually dry one, and the August sun beat down mercilessly as the boy paused for breath