Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/274

256 "I mean just what I say! Do what I tell you to and I'll give you the grub. And you'd better do it quick because I'm tired fooling with you. Stand in a row, the four of you."

The men looked at each other and slowly formed themselves into a row.

"Now, forward march!" cried the boy. "Toward the door."

The men advanced uncertainly.

"Go back and get your guns!" commanded Connie and the men obeyed. "Now march!"

When they were fifty yards from the cabin, he called halt. The men stopped.

"Stick your guns, muzzle down in the snow. All three of 'em. Now hang your cutlasses on 'em." Two of the men obeyed, jamming the rifles into the snow with the stocks in the air. The third was slower, evidently trying to dissuade the others. But presently he, too, stuck his rifle in the snow and took his place beside it.

"Hang your cutlasses on the butts!" called Connie. "Quick!" The men obeyed. "Now, turn around and walk the other way."

Three of them turned, but the man who had