Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/40

22 “Come alive, Pierre! Where’s your boat?” The Sergeant spoke sharply, and the half-breed stepped from the filthy interior.

“She bre’k oop. I got no boat.”

“No boat! Not even a canoe?”

“Canoe! Oui, canoe no good. She too mooch ice.”

“Never mind the ice—that’s our lookout! Show us where the canoe is, and hustle some paddles out here! Quick, now—or off comes your hind legs!”

The man led the way to a cache where the canoe had lain throughout the winter, protected from the weather by a clever thatching of spruce boughs.

“She too mooch leak,” opined the half-breed, “I got no pitch.”

“Fetch a pail, then!” called McKeever, as the man returned to the shack for the paddles.

“Here, kid, you bail!” The Sergeant tossed Connie the pail. “We’ll show that shrimp he can’t slip anything over on us—if we have to swim for it!”

They had proceeded but a short distance down stream when it became plainly evident that the