He,
Leclere, pitched into the bottom of the boat with a stinging
shoulder. He lay very quiet, peeping at the shore. After a time
two Indians stuck up their heads and came out to the water's edge,
carrying between them a birch-bark canoe. As they launched it,
Leclere let fly. He potted one, who went over the side after the
manner of Timothy Brown. The other dropped into the bottom of the
canoe, and then canoe and poling boat went down the stream in a
drifting battle. After that they hung up on a split current, and
the canoe passed on one side of an island, the poling boat on the
other. That was the last of the canoe, and he came on into
Sunrise. Yes, from the way the Indian in the canoe jumped, he was
sure he had potted him. That was all. This explanation was not
deemed adequate. They gave him ten hours' grace while the Lizzie
steamed down to investigate. Ten hours later she came wheezing
back to Sunrise. There had been nothing to investigate. No
evidence had been found to back up his statements. They told him
to make his will, for he possessed a fifty-thousand dollar Sunrise
claim, and they were a law-abiding as well as a law-giving breed.
Leclere shrugged his shoulders. "Bot one t'ing," he said; "a
leetle, w'at you call, favour--a leetle favour, dat is eet.
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