Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/258

240 "Yeh," admitted Rickey. "But they was only one of him, an' anyway he just come along."

Connie laughed. "Maybe these fellows will come along, too. Anyway Notorious was smart, and these fellows are fools or they wouldn't have busted the cache."

"Looks like a fool trick fer one kid to go after a hull gang."

"Four fools are four times as foolish as one fool," retorted the boy. "Anyway, you've got to let me try!"

Rickey's further objections were promptly met, and the boy obtained reluctant consent to be allowed to slip over and "have a look at 'em." After that the two redressed Rickey's wound and rolled into their blankets.

The stars were beginning to pale in the night sky when Connie's ten great malamutes shot out upon the trail of the four marauders. The boy was travelling light. A half-pound of tea, five pounds of pemmican, and a hundred pounds of dry fish, together with his bed-roll and carbine, made up his entire load. And on the tail of the sled the boy bent low to the sweep of the wind as the runner slipped smoothly over the wind-packed, cold-