CHAPTER VII
ON THE TRAIL OF THE WAR BAND
Connie Morgan and Ick Far were on special patrol, the object of which was to thread certain rivers and creeks to their sources in hope of finding a pass between some tributary of upper Stewart River and a tributary of Wind River. The wilderness mail route between Dawson and far-off Fort McPherson, way up near the shore of the Arctic, was both devious and dangerous, and had already been responsible for one terrible tragedy of the wilds. Therefore, the department desired a more direct and a safer route; and Special Constable Connie Morgan and Ick Far, the weather-hardened Indian scout, after twenty days of fruitless search among the high-flung peaks of the continental backbone, stood at the head of a little valley and gazed at a rough mountain wall down which a tiny stream cascaded from ledge to ledge to
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