Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/243

Rh between them. "We lived over near the divide in the Bonnet Plume Pass country. My husband was a prospector and trapper, and one day a man met him near the cabin. He seemed very nervous and, thrusting the packet into my husband's hand, asked him to keep it. And the next moment he was gone.

"Several days passed and the man did not return. And then, one night, my husband opened the packet. I did not know it, then, but afterwards he told me. But he would not tell me what it contained. After that he was never the same. We left the cabin and came to Red Tail Lake, and built a new cabin. All during our journey we avoided the trading posts, and we even avoided the Indians. Always my husband seemed fearful of pursuit. I asked him what was in the packet, but he never would tell me. One day he came tearing into the cabin and seized the packet, tore the blankets from the bed, and ordered me to throw some food into the canoe. And then we paddled as fast as we could to the end of the lake and headed down the river. But just as we got into the current the canoe struck a rock that ripped her whole bottom out. I am a good swimmer, and easily