"Y' can't kill this bird with no thirty-two," he grinned. "He'll be around after a bit, cussin' a blue streak. The bullet bumped him on the bean an' glanced off like it was solid ivory. I slips the bracelets on him, see, an' we takes him along with us. I miss my guess if he aint wanted bad in 'bout every place he's been."
It was an odd procession which filed out on the riverbank twenty minutes later. First came Svenson, carrying across his great shoulder the still unconscious form of the bootlegger. Behind him walked Jimmy Stiles, supported by Kendrick. McCorquodale brought up the rear, loaded down with confiscated rifles.
They found Svenson's big canoe unharmed. The small canoe was gone from its place in the bushes beside the flat rock. In the soft earth at the water's edge they discovered a spare paddle stuck upright and to it was tied a bit of cambric, her handkerchief.
Phil struck a match and examined it carefully, making out a dim "O.K." which she had marked on it with a lead-pencil.
He heaved a breath of relief and smiled as he wrapped it carefully about a dollar bill and tucked it away in his card-case.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE RACE BEGINS
It was just a few minutes past eleven o'clock when Cristy Lawson climbed to the railroad track out of breath and hurried towards the section shanty. She had made good time in the canoe with the swift current of the Wolverine in her favor, and she was elated at her progress. The remaining stage of the journey should not present much difficulty, once she had persuaded Thorlakson of the urgency of her mission.
The place was in darkness and she tapped loudly on the window-pane of Mrs. Thorlakson's bedroom. After a little while she heard the woman stir and call out. Cristy shouted in to her and with many strange Icelandic expressions of astonishment Mrs. Thorlakson came to the door and let her in.
The kind-hearted woman's appearance in a flaming red canton-flannel nightgown, her hair comically "done up" for the night, was grotesque. But Cristy did not laugh. Instead, she asked for Thorlakson and cried out in dismay to learn that he was not there—that he had taken the handcar and had gone off with the two Norwegians to visit Bilodeau, the foreman on the section below.