Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/56

38 come down the McQuesten—see that yaller mud? That’s McQuesten River mud, an’ the McQuesten comes out of the north-east. He ain’t wintered none too good an’ for some reason he’s come acrost to the Yukon, ’stead of tradin’ where he used to. They must of be’n two of ’em”

“How do you know?” interrupted Connie, who had followed every word.

“’Cause no Injun never died of smallpox in no canoe—they’d of died on shore—which he done an’ was put in the canoe. Didn’t you see how he was layin’? An’ look there where his hide come against them canoe ribs. If he’d of died there, he’d of be’n warm when he died an’ them ribs would of be’n dented way into his flesh—but they ain’t. He was cold when he was put in. His flesh had set, an’ you can’t hardly see the marks of the canoe ribs. Likewise, no canoe couldn’t of come down them white-water rivers without they was a good man at the paddle. An’ this other must of be’n an Injun, too, ’cause no white man would turn a canoe-load of smallpox loose to pestelize the whole country.”

“What’s this!” exclaimed Connie, as he drew from the moss bag a tightly rolled cylinder of