Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/291

Rh how, I'd kind of like to handle this one myself. I've just got to know who that other man is. Maybe—By George! I'll do it! I haven't got any authority to, but they won't know my time's up. And if I can bring 'em in I'll take a chance on getting the authority afterwards.

"Wouldn't Dan roar if I should bring in Brek Wiley with a good clear case against him!" Avoiding Fortymile, Connie swung from the Yukon and headed up a small tributary that flows in from the north-east. The long winter was losing its grip on the hill country and the surface of the snow softened at mid-day. On the first day after leaving the big river the boy camped and made moccasins for his dogs. With their feet protected from the flinty-surface of the crust that formed as the sun sank low the big malamutes made good time, and noon of the third day off the river found him camped on a spruce-capped ridge of the Ogilvie Range with the deep-gored valleys of the feeders of Coal Creek spread out before him like giant fingers reaching into the hills.

"Somewhere in that tangle of ridges and canyons I'm going to find Brek Wiley and the kultus man," gritted the boy, as he boiled a pot of tea over a tiny