“Great Scott—nothing but kids! Search me if I ever saw anything to beat it. Where on earth did you drop from?” asked the other.
“We rolled down the hill,” answered Tom Clifton, upon whose sensibilities the word “kids,” and, especially, uttered by one who did not appear to be so very much older than themselves, had a most irritating effect.
“Lost—probably!”
This incautious remark further increased Tom’s poor impression of Trooper Billy Ashe.
“Lost?” he snorted, his eyes flashing with indignation. “Well, I rather guess not.”
“What in the world are you doing here, then? How did you happen to run into Teddy Banes?”
In a few words Bob Somers enlightened the surprised trooper of the Northwest Mounted Police; and Tom obligingly added a few words to the effect that the crowd had no intention of leaving the country until Jed Warren was found.
“Jed Warren!” exclaimed Billy Ashe. “You won’t find him in the Northwest Territories.”
“Why not?” asked Bob Somers.
“Because he’s deserted—that’s why,” answered Ashe, bluntly.