Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/273

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The "Hard Guys"
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"I mean, it's murder!" yelled the man.

"Oh, don't let a little thing like that worry you," mocked Connie. "You're hard!"

"We'll burn ye out!" threatened another.

Connie laughed. "How you going to do it?" he asked. "Hold a match against the logs 'til they catch?"

"Hey, w'at be ye goin' to do?" roared the first speaker.

"Who? Me?" asked Connie. "Well, after a while I'm going to have some more nice bacon, and some nice hot bean soup, and some tea, and make me up a batch of biscuits. What you going to do?"

"Come out here an' we'll show ye."

"Hey!" called the man whose gun Connie had taken away in the morning. "It'll go sixty below tonight an' we'll freeze. An' we hain't got no grub. Hain't ye goin' to give us no grub?"

"Sure," answered the boy.

"Well, give it here, then. We're hungry."

"All right, come and get it."

The man turned to his companions and there followed a short colloquy. "W'at d'ye mean, come an' git it?" he asked.