Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/90

72 "I said money," affirmed the Sergeant, "not dust."

The boy's shoulders straightened with interest. "You mean—treaty money?"

The older man shrugged: "It was paid on the first. Guess you an' me'd better jest slip up Cameron Creek an' have a look at them there aborigines."

Although Constable Morgan and Sergeant McKeever left the speed boat anchored in front of the little police cabin, crossed the river, and slipped down the ten intervening miles to the mouth of Cameron Creek in a canoe, under cover of darkness, they knew before they had proceeded five miles up the creek, that word of their coming had preceded them. A mile in advance, a couple of eagles rose in swift spirals, and numerous flocks of startled ducks whizzed past in their flight to the big river. Also, the path of a short portage across the neck of a horseshoe bend was wet, where a canoe had been dragged from the water, and the scar of its relaunching was plain in the clay of the upriver end.

"Moccasin telegraph!" growled McKeever, "can you beat it?"