Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/174

156 said, and followed closely as the two men headed for the river.

Connie's position was far from an enviable one. All the way down the trail he thought deeply. The actions of the men perplexed him: the ready submission of the "prospector" to arrest, and the puzzled exclamation of the other. "I've got to keep my eyes open," he muttered. "I can stand guard over 'em one night—maybe two," he decided, grimly, "but, after that. … Well, some of the boys better hike back over the divide. I've got to sleep, sometime. Gee! I wish I'd taken the bracelets out of my pack before I ditched it. I could have 'cross-toggled' 'em and slept like a log."

No matter with what suspicion Connie viewed the "prospector's" submission to arrest, his affection for his wife and children was genuinely unassumed, and as the boy noted the warmth of their reunion, a hope entered his mind that, out of gratitude for their deliverance, the man might consent to remain a willing prisoner until the return of the officers. He was evidently the leader of the gang; at least, he had spoken with authority when the other man had seemed on the point of resisting