Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/38

20 the big man shook, and so did Rip Wade. And the three crawled between their blankets and slept.

“Hey! Wake up! Wake up, Dan! The scow’s gone!” Rip Wade rushed up from the bank of the river to the little camp where he had already kindled the fire. At the first sound of the voice, Sergeant McKeever and Connie Morgan threw back their blankets and fumbled at their boots.

“Gone?” asked McKeever, gazing sleepily toward the river. “What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

“Why, gone! Stole! Wha’ d’ye think I mean?”

The two followed Wade to the river and stared at the spot where, the previous evening, they had drawn the scow up on the bank and secured it to a snaggy tree-stub.

“Squigg,” grunted McKeever. “He cert’nly had his nerve! Ain’t be’n gone so long, neither,” he added, as he stooped to examine the tracks at the water’s edge. “He sure has put us in a hole, but—come on, le’s eat.”

“Ye don’t seem to be in no great hurry,” grumbled Rip. Sergeant McKeever grinned.

“The Dawson trail ain’t so far back,” he