Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/300

282 "You haven't done any digging lately, I see. Your dump is pretty well snowed under."

The man shot him a sidewise glance: "Not fer quite a spell," he answered. "The gravel kind o' run out an' we figgered on seein' how she shows 'fore we go no deeper. Spring's so late, though, it looks like it never would git here."

"That meat smells good"; Connie eyed the thick moose steak that sizzled in the frying-pan. "I've been kind of low on fresh meat."

"Where ye headin', an' what might yer name be?" queried the man as he turned the steak in the pan.

"Connie Morgan, and I'm"

The fork clattered noisily upon the floor as the man regarded him with out-popping eyes: "Connie Morgan—Sam Morgan's boy, that's with the Mounted? That got the best of Bill Cosgrieve an' his Cameron Crickers, an' fetched in Notorious Bishop, an'"

Connie laughed: "That's me. And this time I'm after poachers. How's the hunting?"

Brek Wiley was a man schooled to emergency. Stooping, he recovered the fork from the floor and wiped it carefully upon the sleeve of his shirt.