Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/202

184 "Ain't you the cock-sure little rookie?" he muttered. "'Sure I'd know him,' he says. Gee whiz! I'd like to whistle Yankee Doodle!" The next morning the camp was early astir and after breakfast while Connie was rolling his blankets, Notorious Bishop filled his pipe. "D'you say, Constable, that the last boat leaves for Alaska on the fifteenth?"

"Yes," answered the boy. "That's when she's due to leave. She always gets away by the seventeenth."

The man removed his Stetson, and thoughtfully scratched his head as his gaze travelled up and down the river. "Seems like a man can't do no good here," he mused. "You say you got room in your canoe?"

"Sure," answered Connie, "that is, if you don't pack too big an outfit."

Notorious Bishop laughed: "My outfit ain't hardly worth worryin' about. You see I hit the river a piece above here an' throwed together a raft, an' comin' around the bend yonder the raft run plumb square onto a rock. I managed to save my blankets an' one pack-sack an' the river took the rest. It's a lucky thing you happened along.