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 out into the hall. Stumbling back to Bridger he whispered:

"It's derned queer. Overheard it by chance when two of the clerks got to cussing their luck. When McKenzie left you it was to tell the clerks to take men and ride up to the chantier and bring down two keelboats and leave them on the north bank of the river, five miles above here. They started at once.

"From another clerk I found out there were three boats there just as he said, but one's so smashed up it's beyond repair. It's the smashed-up one we'll find."

"Which is darned poor listening," growled Bridger. "We must start early in the morning. He told me to take my pick of the boats up there. I'll do it! An' he said he never lied to a man when he wanted him.

"One thing's sartain; if we don't git a keelboat we'll trust to luck with the bull-boats. If we have to do that I'll be mighty sorry we didn't make for the Platte an' its shallow water. But I did want to go this way so's I could turn the packs over to Prevost an' git back to the mountains. Mebbe our medicine will work for us. Who knows?"

Only the horse-herders were astir when