Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/23

Rh while others ran frantically about, shouting and waving their caps.

Connie Morgan had rushed to the bank with the crowd. No sound had escaped his lips, and he took in all the details of the situation at a glance. He, too, saw the futility of the efforts of the men who ran out over the surface of the anchored floe.

“They can’t make it!” he muttered, and then, suddenly, while some stared and others shouted, the boy reached swiftly for his sheath knife and, turning, dashed straight toward the spot where the ten great malamutes stood harnessed. Stooping, he slashed the lashings of his sled-pack and, snatching up a coiled babiche line, knotted one end to the trace-line of a near-by toboggan and the other end to the rear of his own sled.

“''Get out of the way! Fall back, there! Gangway! Gangway!” The voice of the boy cut thin and clear, and as the men sprang aside, Connie cracked his whip, threw himself upon the sled, and the ten great malamutes'' leaped straight for the river. Down the steep bank they plunged and out onto the anchored floe, with the empty toboggan whipping along behind at the end of the sixty-foot line.