Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/102

 "Good riddance!" growled Prevost. Then he turned and beheld Lander staring wide-eyed on the scene.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Prevost roughly demanded, walking up to him and surveying him sharply. "You don't belong to this outfit."

"Mr. Bridger sent me here to join it," explained Lander. "Said I could go with the boat or with the land party at Lexington."

"Who are you?"

Lander told him and added that he had been employed by the A. F. C. until the day before.

"If Jim Bridger knew that he never would 'a' sent you. We don't want any A. F. C. spies with us."

The men began crowding forward ominously. One man suggested they duck him in the river. Another advised tying him to his mule and driving the animal into the river. Lander laid his rifle across the saddle and reaching down pulled his knife from his boot.

"I may not be very welcome here," he said. "But some one is going to get killed before I'm ducked or tied to any mule."

Porker, who now recovered something of his