"They said they——"
"I don't care what they said. Hurley's down in the office, right now. Come on, and when we put a few miles behind us, I'll tell you all you want to know."
"You'll tell a-plenty, then," growled Saginaw, only half convinced. "An' here's another thing—if you're double crossin' me, you're a-goin' to wish you never seen the woods."
The boy's only answer was a laugh, and he led, swiftly as the intense darkness would permit, into the woods. They had gone but a short distance when he stopped and put on his rackets. After that progress was faster, and Saginaw Ed, mushing along behind, wondered at the accuracy with which the boy held his course in the blackness and the whirling snow. A couple of hours later, Connie halted in the shelter of a thick windfall. "We can rest up for a while, now," he said, "and I'll tell you some of things you want to know."
"Where do you figger we're at?" asked Saginaw, regarding the boy shrewdly.
"We're just off the tote road between the two camps," answered the boy without hesitation.
A moment of silence followed the words and when he spoke the voice of Saginaw sounded hard: "I've be'n in the woods all my life, an' it would of bothered me to hit straight fer camp on a night like this. They's somethin' wrong here somewheres, kid—an' the time's come fer a showdown. I don't git you, at all! You be'n passin' yerself off fer a greener. Ever sence you went out an' got that deer I've know'd you wasn't—but I figgered it worn't none of my business. Then when you out-figgered them hounds—that worn't no greener's job, an' I know'd that—but, I figgered you was all to the good. But things has happened sence, that ain't all to the good—by a long shot. You've got some explainin' to do, an' seein' we're so clost to camp, we better go on to the office an' do it around the stove."
"We wouldn't get much chance to powwow in the office tonight. Hurley's there, and the doctor, and Steve, and Lon Camden."
"The doctor?"