He paused as his gaze wandered in the direction of the prisoners.
“Sufferin’ pole-cats! What’s all this scum?”
Malemute Slade’s critical eye ran over them, seeming to measure each in turn.
“Fine specimens, ain’t they?” he rumbled on, half to himself. “Looks like the scourings from Hades. There ain’t a single one o’ them I’d trust any further than I could see. But where did yuh get ’em all, sergeant? An’ why did yuh leave the hungriest wolf of ’em all scot free?”
“You mean Murky?”
“Yeh.”
Richardson smiled.
“As a matter of fact, Slade, we’re not quite ready for him yet. We haven’t a thing thus far we can use as evidence against him. We wouldn’t have taken these men here either, if there had been any way of getting around it. We won’t press charges against any of them until we have secured the fur which was cached over there at Settlement Mountain.”
“So yuh found the cache?”
“Yes,” answered Richardson. “I’ll tell you about it presently. But first, give me a hand to look after these men.”