Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/263

Rh way the man paused to toss something into the snow.

"Fur poisoner!" muttered Connie between clenched teeth. "Gee whiz! You fellows'll have a lot to answer for! Guess they're whalers, all right," he added as he studied the man who was garbed from head to foot in sealskin. "Anyway, they've come down from the Eskimo country. And before I get through with 'em I'll bet they'll wish they'd stayed there!"

The man was nearing the scrub. Drawing back the hammer of his carbine, Connie levelled it between the branches of his bush. Not ten yards away at the edge of the scrub the man paused and the boy followed his glance as it swept the wide basin. The other three figures showed like little black bugs at widely separated points almost upon the rim of the basin. Dropping the butt of his rifle into the snow, the man reached into a pouch, produced a small ball of suet which he rolled for a moment between his mittens, and tossed onto the crust. Then gripping his rifle by the barrel, he turned and abruptly entered the scrub. Connie crouched until the man was within six feet of him:

"Hands up!" The words snapped short, and