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"These confounded feet of eant "Were you asleep, Kent?"

"Wide-awake as those owls," assured Kent

O'Connor drew up to the"I saw your light and thought you were awake," he said "I wanted to an wasn't with you I don't want him to know I aht? Kedsty is awake, too--as wide-awake as the owls"

Kent reached out a hand, and his roolow of moon and stars O'Connor's bulk at theshut out a part of this His face was half in gloom

"It's a cri voice down to a whisper "But I had to It'sKedsty is getting irl over in the poplar bush I'm detailed on special duty up at Fort Simpson, two thousand miles by water if it's a foot! It means six months or a year We leave in the motor boat at dawn to overtake Rossand and his outfit, so I had to take this chance of seeing you I hesitated until I knew that solad you cao with you, Bucky! If it wasn't for this thing in oing," interrupted O'Connor in a low voice "If you were on your feet, Kent, there are a nuhty queer has co He isn't the Kedsty you knew yesterday or for the last ten years He's nervous, and I uess if he isn't constantly on the watch for some one And he's afraid of o to pieces when he etby pro me an inspectorship within the year That was this afternoon, just before the storht for a irl and Sandy McTrigger," he added "And they've disappeared, Kent I guess McTrigger just irl that puzzlesI've investigated every place where she , and I bribed Mooie, the old trailer, to search the near-by timber The unbelievable part of it isn't her disappearance It's the fact that not a soul in Athabasca Landing has seen her! Sounds incredible, doesn't it? And then, Kent, the big hunch ca hunch? And this one struck irl is"