Part 1 (2/2)

”You can't catch him--an' if you could, you couldn't handle him.”

”I'll tell you more about that after I've had a try at him,” grinned the boy.

”Who's going along?”

”No one. I don't want to divide him up with anyone, and anyone I could hire wouldn't be worth taking along.”

”He'll eat you up.”

”I hope he tries it! If he ever gets that close to me--he's mine!”

”Or yo'll be his'n,” drawled Waseche Bill. ”Howeveh, if I was bettin'

I'd take yo' end of it, at that.”

Connie rose, laid the rifle upon the table, and began to overhaul his gear. Waseche watched him for a few moments, and blew a cloud of blue smoke ceilingward: ”Seems like yo' jest nach'lly cain't set by an' take things easy,” he said; ”heah's yo', with mo' money than yo' kin eveh spend, gittin' ready to hike out an' live like a Siwash in the bush when yo' c'd go outside fer the winteh, an' live in some swell _hotel_ an'

nothin' to do but r'ar back in one of them big leatheh chairs with yo'

feet in the window an' watch the folks go by.”

Connie flashed him a grin: ”You've got as much as I have--and I don't notice you sitting around any swell hotels watching the folks go by.”

Waseche's eyes twinkled: and he glanced affectionately at the boy: ”No, son. This heah suits me betteh. But, yo' ain't even satisfied to stay heah in the cabin. When my laig went bad on me an' I had to go outside, you hit out an' put in the time with the Mounted, then last winteh, 'stead of taking it easy, you hit out fo' Minnesota an' handed that timbeh thievin' bunch what was comin' to 'em.”

”Well, it paid, didn't it?”

”Sho' it paid--an' the work with the Mounted paid--not in money, but in what yo' learnt. But you don't neveh take things easy. Yo' pa was like that. I reckon it's bred in the bone.”

Connie nodded: ”Yes, and this winter I've got a trip planned out that will make all the others look piking. I'm going over and have a look at the Coppermine River country--over beyond the Mackenzie.”

Waseche Bill stared at the boy in astonishment: ”Beyond the Mackenzie!”

he exclaimed, then his voice dropped into a tone softly sarcastic. ”Yo'

ought to have a right pleasant trip. It ain't oveh a thousan' miles oah so, an' only about fifteen er twenty mountain ranges to cross. The trail ought to be right nice an' smooth an' plain marked. An' when yo' git theah yo' sho' ought to enjoy yo'self. I caint' think of no place in the world a man had ought to keep away from worse than right theah. Why, son, they tell me that beyond the Mackenzie they ain't _nothin'_!”

”There's gold--and copper,” defended the boy.

”Did Dutch Henry an' Black Jack Demeree tell yo' that, too?”

Connie laughed: ”No, I read about it in a book.”

Waseche snorted contemptuously, ”Read it in a book! Look a heah, son, it don't stand to reason that if anyone know'd they was gold an' coppeh up theah they'd be foolin' away theah time writin' books about it, does it? No suh, they'd be be right up amongst it scoopin' it out of the gravel, that's wheah they'd be! Books is redic'lus.”

”But the man that wrote the book didn't know where the gold is----”

”You bet he didn't! That's the way with these heah fellows that writes books. They don't know enough about gold to make 'em a livin' diggin'

it--so they write a book about it. They's mo' ways than one to make a livin' out of gold--like sellin' fake claims, an' writin' books.”

”I'm going to roll in, now, because I want to get an early start. It's that book up there on the shelf with the green cover. You read it, and when I come back with Big Ruff, we'll talk it over.”

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