The evening world. Newspaper, February 17, 1916, Page 15

The Evening World Daily Magazine, T t OOOO NON OONNOONOODOL POONDOOONE YONOD A Love-and-Mystery Romance : + of the Frozen North : By Bertrand W. Sinclair ” ™ pusner at “NORTH OF ISSO 3 (Copsright, Street & Smith.) and when the first BN ts or PREC MNG, CHAPTERS, eeu ie a ars hah! hag ls ptton 4 Tom, 1 enoug! meat for ir inner jun{ A A E- “! upon our backs, Howe took the lea Hii fs pref +m as ie 5 as a was his Pei ita me WP nig | . - jo! southwest to strike the eo ore on git te a arte Hoe eet an angle, When I saw that he was 4 bound to break trail I yy him my 4 Matis Snowshoes, and thereafter wo pro lehes" Later wilderness camp. i either of them, CHAPTER IX. (Continued) The Disembodied Voice. LAVE LAKE!" he mut- tered incredulously. ‘No, no, that can’t be!" “It is right,” I asserted stubbornly, hoping to stir his dormant recollection. Slave Lake at the & week ago. We haven't time to get far from the e shore. You know where The Neck Is, don't you?” I asked insinuatingly, but be gave no heed to my question, For @ minute or two he seemed to , be studying deeply, making little dia~ @rams with a bit of stick ta the ashes a@bout the fire. ‘m not quite los he declared hesitatingly, “but I'm away out in my reckoning. Now, I thought I was in “ not bad the Peace River country, somewhere > to the north of St. Anne's, and 1 can’t figure out how the biue blazes Ll got here. There is something the matter with my head; [ don't seem to get things right. If I could get a whack at the dirty scut that put me in this ell, never mind. Slave ay?” ‘That name sounded fa. miliar, Ab—now I had it! I remem- bered the story Howe had told me on the river bank at Edmonton, of his grandfather's wanderings in the North sixty years before, But how— well, I gave It up. It was Incompre- hensible. Personalities don't shuffle themselves about to sult the need. ‘We ceased trying to impress upon him that we were his friends, that we had ever met before. It seemed to an- r him and rouse suspicion of us, is mind was a blank, so far as every~ thing up to and including our trip from Seattle to the musk ox country was concerned. Somehow he had aiipped the leash of his identity, and if he was groping after it he gave no a ba ae he'd managed to adjust him- self to his environment is not for me vo say, but he appeared to accept his pfesent position as perfectly natural— as if he had faced the wilderness be- fore, snaring rabbits with a string and building fires in the manner of a hundred years ago; striking a spark from the back of his knife blade with ‘@ fiinty piece of stone—he had no matches. It was some time before he spoke again; not till Dick had unfolded our plans. “You see,” Dick finished, “our only show is to make Fort Resolution, We can't live out here without grub or elter, and if one of us should freeze e@ hand or foot, why, that would be last of him.” evort Resolution, eh?" he nodded reflectively. ‘Yes, I've heard of It, from traders or somobody. And It's away to tho south of here—it beats me, it beats me We might as well strike for there. The company drives hard bargain, but regret 4 te hungry man, If I had an ax pen fe un, Fould live like a fighting cock in the woods; but you fellows— well, you're a helpless lot!” be broke off explosively. “We are, when we get down to noth- ing but our hands,” Dick agreed, to humor him, “But you can gamble all your spare pennies that if we get out of this deep snow country once, we won't be in a hurry to come back. “Well, it's no trick to get ou Howe ¢runted. “Just a matter of travelling. We'll tackle it together, it gay 60. ‘We agreed to that heartily enough, you may be sure, It was what we hhad been fishing for, an. feared to propose lest he take it amiss, Howe's brain had taken a queer turn, and dared not risk antagonizing him, Hav- ing found him alive we meant to stay by him, and it would have been mighty awkward if he had taken a notion to quit us and go it single- handed, We would have had a pretty peck of trouble, for he was big and & hard fighter, armed with a keen-edgod K-knife and full of a new, acute cunning ‘On the strength of our compact of trail friendship 1 got him to Jook at his head, and gashes 1 there fairly gave me the cree he managed to travel ts bey: His scalp in half a dozen places was laid open to the bone, and across his face was a long gash stretching from gdove one eye to below his cheek- bone, I melted some snow in the tin cup and washed clean the cuts and ruiscs as best I could, and tore off a pleco of my shirt to bandage his head afr th. ; When I'd finished my clumsy minis- trations he showed us how to build a wind-break of brush, ban the outside with snow, on thr the fire. It turned what there was, and the brush held a bit of the heat, He about emphatically and sometimes pro- fanely, so that when it was done, and he commanded us to lie down and sleep while he stood first “watch,” as he phrased it, we obeyed without a murmur, Tt wasn't exactly to be compared to a hair mattress and a dozen pair of blankets for either warmth or soft. ness, that bed of spruce boughs, but T managed to get a fair amount of sleep. When the side of me that was from the fire grew unbearably cold 1 would wake up, turn over and drop off ing of luxuriously furnished apart- ments, steam heat and all the comforts me of home, when Howe wakenvd with a light touch on my shoul He pointed to the Big Dipper, swing ing on its eternal clrele in the flecked sky, just above the g Northern Lights. “Lookee,” he said briefly, “when the handle points down and u little t> the east, you call the other fellow.” ‘Then he stretched himself in the place I had vacated, and in two minutes was sound asleop. His had not been an idly wateh I shortly discovered. Four cotton-tails hung stark from a near-by lim», . Lang before sunrise we bree \fasted, \emeee t about half the time it would have again. I was dead to the world, dreain- | ceeded Indian file, stepping each in the track of the othe! It must have been killing work for Howe the two days he stalked through the woods alone, for a man in moc- casins would sink to the knees in the ry, saltlike snow that blanketed the d. For me it was not so bad; two pairs of snow-shoes camping vefore packed the white quicksand down 60 that it was fairly good footing In tae rear, but I was tired enough when tho weary day drew to a close, and wo began to keep lookout for a good place to camp. When we did at last come to a like- ly looking spot, Dick and I set about wood getting, while Howe built a fire —a task he performed With ease in aken me. He had picked for our stopping place @ great snow bank, ly- ing In a narrow, treeless depression that ran east and west; white path through the forest. our webbed shoes we dug to earth level in snow that had drifted and settled till it was firm enough to bear the welght of a heavy man, scoop- ing out a circular hole nearly five fe Into this we transferred ruce boughs; and when It’ was done we had @ house, Jacking only the roof. It was Howe's idea, wherover he got it, and it was a good one, for it neld the heat and shut off an insidious night breeze that cut through our clothing and chilled the very marrow in our bones. We had cach got a parka—a sort of shirt garment, fur- Mined, made to slip on over the head, and with a hood attached—at Fort Resolution, on our way north. But for those [ think we'd have frozen stiff, Cloth ig unavailing; it takes buckskin and fur to turn that North- land cold. We'd fixed things the best we could for the night, Howe had set his snares in the brush close at hand, and stern- ly enjoined silence upon us, that the rabbits puttering along their run- ways might not take alarm at the sound of voices and hie them to a more secluded spot. His caution was duly observed, for we had no mind to scare away our supper, and in an in. crediby short time our stiline: rewarded by a long-eared pri Before we'd finished him, another came our way, and in a little while we were basking in the cheery fire- glow, our hunger appeased, 60 far forgetting the dirgness of our strait as to tell each other that the world would naturally look bright if we only had tobacco, Howe sat humped up, his hands clasped over his kni thinking—the Lord knows wha “Oh, there, O-0-oh, there, Seattle: We jumped to our feet at that strange call, and in the dead, cold bush I could hear my heart pound savagely against my ribs. “Seattle was the name Buck had always Wied me in his quaint, uncon. entional way. But that could not be Buck speaking. Yet it had come unmistakably distinct; a tone- less disembodied voice, ‘bubbling eerily out of the drifted snow. Howe craned his head forward, straining every nerve to hear. Back of us the dark spruce trees limned thelr bushy crests against the flam- ing Aurora and the ngled blue above; before us spread the glitter- ing, white enow path, whence the words had seemed to come. In moment the svoice uprose again, aa before, toneless and muffled, and so close that involuntarily I shrank back at the ghostly sound. But it was speaking my name, ae Buck of old had spoken it, and I mastered the leaven of superstition that was working within me, and hoarsely al swered the call, “Don't talk go blame’ le tones went on, “Sit down and natural, or we'll all be in tho soup again,.'There may be somebody in that timber watchin’ yuh right now, for all I know. Sit down, and I'll crawl into your hole and tell yuh all about. U'm right close—I've bur- rowed under these snowdrifts like a badger for four hundred yards!" CHAPTER X. Buck Takes a Hand. BREATHED a lot easier, I can tell you, after those few explanatory words. It was good to know that Buck was alive and near us, though how he'd managed it was a mystery, When you see a man shot, and sup- pose that he is dead, it's rather start- ling to hear his voloe unexpectedly float out of a snowbank, I wondered if Jule also had escaped, but felt little ope of that; he'd fallen near me, and I'd seen too plainly, There's no chance to mistake the gray look that comes over a man's face when he has topped the big divide, Of course, Buck's stealthy approach and his warning to us were Greek to Howe, in his unaccountable state of mind, and [ caught him eying us with an expression of extreme distrust “Who was that?" he demanded, when we squatted down as Buck had requested “Bu who we loud!” the ee Harrigon; one of our friends thought had been killed,” I hastened to explain, ‘That seemed to satisfy him. He nodded understand- ingly, and we feM to listening and watching for Buck to appear. In a minute or so came a faint scut- filing. Shortly a mittened hand was thrust through the snow wall, and Huck's face, wet and glistening, fol- od after, Puffing, he crawled from the mouth of the burrow and grinned ully at us three, Sufferin’ cats, old feller!” be whi observing Howe's wounded they pretty near put yuh out ness for keops, didn't they “They did,” Howe answered brief! “We'll have to talk mighty low Buck warned, “It wouldn't be a ba idea for one uh yuh to peek over to- ‘d the timber every minute or two, hoy know where yuh are, and, while I don’t suppose they'd bother watchin’ yuh nights, it won't hurt to keep your eye peeled. Say, I'm hungry! If you'll stake me to some uh that rabbit yonder, I'll eat while yub tell me what Rs NUTT - WE ASK > “THINK THEY ARE RELATED BY WE HAVE alae THe PRUDES For / DINNER INSTEAD OF THE NUTTS _ WHO SHALL AT WON'T 00 EITHER . | Dan'T THEY ARE Good FRIENDS MARRIAGE . ’ hursday., February 17; 1916 You Never Can Tell a Tae ~ UBBS Rut SASK THE pF UES HEY Have in TOWN Nowovy KNOWS Then ureiatikes, By Maurice Ketten “TODO! TAM AFRAID WOMEN ARE NOT ON SPEAKING TERNS, THEY BELONG To THE SANE CLUB INE, fe CAN BE NO OBJECTION To PHONE RIGHT AWAY OND NUSB ANY ae ptie MARRIED MY THIRD WIFE j WE CAN'T STAY —. ‘ co ASK THe STUCKUPPS q THey Have NEVER HE: eM) ( Least THEY wil Be ON SPEAKING TERMS| { tear OTHER So AT ( LUGE } ( —— happened, and how yuh panned out after I fell into the coulee.” Howe handed over the remains of our supper without comment, When I asked about Jule, Buck auswered with a gesture that was moro ex- pressive than words. While he ate I told him how we'd fared, down to the smallest detail, and bis biue e)¢s snapped at the telling. ‘Just a little game, eh?” he growled “Well, we'll play the Little game out with ‘em, all right, but we'll stack the cards to suit ourselves from now on. “Yuh remember I dropped and rolled into that canyon at the firet shots. Well, they didn’t hit me, which I don’t understand, I just natural); ducked, my foot slipped, and I was rollin’ downhill before I knew It, and no way to stop. It’s a steep hill and a long one, and there was rocke and tree roots and things piled along the bot- tom tn the loo fnow, IJ landed on something hard, and for a minute I was plumb knocked out. When I got my senses again and looked up, thery was about a dozen buck —Injuns standin’ on the bank lookin’ as ‘f they had half a mind to come dowa and hold a Coroner’s inquest on the When I sees that T says to t un And I laid mighty still, for T knowed that if they started to pepper me from the bank it was all day with Buck, If they took a no- tion to come down, I aimed to get some uh them-—I put my aix-shooter and belt on that mornin’, yuh re- member; and the old gun_atayed tn the scabbard all the way Gown that hill, for which ¥ was sure grateful to Providence. But they didn’t come; hil! was too hard a climb for the lazy devils, I guess. Anyway, 1 was supposed to be plumb dead. “I laid there till dusk, and come darned near freezin’ to death, for all I was near buried in the snow, Then IT gets up the bank and goes to lookin’ around for dead men, but I didn't find any but poor old Jul I figured that they'd taken the rest uh yuh to their camp—but [ couldn't sabe why they'd do that, either, So 1 hauled Jule off through the brush till 1 come to a place where there wus some loose rocks, and I covered him up with a lot uh rocks and brush to keep off the wolves, It was moonlight then, and 1 Was pretty near starved, so [ takes a long chance on ‘em hearin’ my gun and shoots a rabbit for supper. When I'd eaten, 1 makes tracks for the Injun camp, to see if I couldn't do some- thing to square the account. Yuh bet I was sure sore at that bunch uh savages. Say"—Buck broke off apo}. opetically--"I guess you fellers could da smoke, couldn't yuh? I know want one pretty bad, Oh, I'm a cky cuss, I guess; born lucky, and got over St. I put a full four. ounce kK uh Durham and a book ub papers in my pocket that mornin’, I've been goin’ light on It too, I plumb forgot about yuh not havin’ anything to smoke till Just now, Fly ati We did fly at it--the phrase fits ex- actly, And it waa certainly good to wet a whiff of that blue simoke in our siarved nostrils; how good only men in our circumstances can ever know, Many and many an aromatic perfecto I've puffed that didn't bring a tithe of the Joy to my soul as did the etuff in the muslin bag that Huck handed over to us that night, You've got to be ruthlessly deprived of the things that help to make life smooth in order to appreciate their true worth, When we'd rolied and lighted a cigarette apiece, Howe so far relaxed from his Gtoical attitude as to regard with a leased smile the amoke that curled rom his HMps—he'd lost track of his identity, but by all the signs and tokens he hadn't lost his passion for cigarettes, Buck made one himself and continued his story. “{ got in sight uh their camp that night, but there was nothin’ doing, When it begun to get Nght I had to back off, ‘cause 1 dassen’t risk ‘em seein’ me, They started you fellers out when it was pretty gray; that was how it come | missed yuh, and maybe it's just as well. Ul hung around that day, seein’ nothin’, That night L holed up in a coulee and built a fire—pretty risky business, but [ had to do it or freeze, Next mornin’ they sent out some Jnjun runners, They begin to ¢ome in before noon, and right away the whole outfit picks up thelr lodges and swings off en a siant toward the lake. [ watched them right along. When the Ape and Frenchy strikes out by themselves [ follows; and in that way [ rua onto your tral! to-day, and sabed wher@ yuh was makin’ for, “E swung away to the south, so they wouldn't be likely to strike my trail, and to-night I headed into this draw and got sight uh your camp- fire, 1 come in by woy uh the tunnel for fear some uh them Jaspers might be keepin’ an eye on yuh, Gee! but it was hot work diggin’ throurh that snow. I sweat like I was perform!n’ at a Fourth uh July dance,’ “So they're following w Dick, “Why, T wonder?” “Why?" Buvk echoed, “To play their game out, yuh can gamble. Dye s'pose they aimed to let yuh met anywhere when they turned yuh loose? Not by a jugful! They knew yuh wasn’t next to this country, and didn't stand a ghost of o show to got out of it alive with what stuff they give yuh——that's an Injun's idea of @ joke; and them two put ‘em up to it, just as sure as I'm sittin’ here, If the cold and no grub don’t do the trick, they will, They're playin’ with yuh, cat-fashion—but yuh watch me; T'll spoll the play. “It's just like this,’ earnestiy, “If them as alive and progn¢ Buck went on fellers knew | tieatin’ round here, they'd lay for us and put our Nght out too quick for anything. go a while, They'd probably let yuh ju o hang around and yuh suf. fer, They dassen't let yuh get to Resolution now; they've robbed and murdered a good man, and they know blamed wel! that if it gets out, the Hudson's Bay Company or t Government'll get ‘em, if they have to foller ‘em to the North Pole. “They feel pretty tolerable sure that yuh can't get very far, and if yuh show signs uh pullin’ through they can easy kill yuh off, 60 they ain't worryin’ none, But if they get wise to the fest that I'm alive and buttin into thé game with « gun and a belt full uh cartridge: ny, they're goin to stop us mht away, quick, ur thermore, they'll get next before long: I make ‘tracks when I travel, and some one wh that bunch is goin’ to see ‘erm and follow me up. “So before we wo any farther we've got to round up the Ape and his part- ner and make a yun for it, We could put up a pretty hard fight with the guna them two Jaspers carry, and, anyway I don't think the [njugs would bother us much if them tWo wasn't uround. Now, I'm going to take a lon# chance und get them be- fore they get Us. ‘Their camp is about five miles from here. In the mornin’ you stay heve till good, plain day, and when yuh start go slow, like yuh was about all in, leave early and swing back to where I can watch the Injun camp, and if them he-devile follow yuh to ave how yuh stack up, why, I'll follow them, and whenever they get close to yuh, and I get @ show, Vil hold them up. “ET never did kill a man, owned, “I've rambled through this Western country ever siifee Twas 4 kid, among all Kinds uh tough people, and, while I've been in trouble inore than once, I've never had to burn powder under u man’s nose to make him see things my way. I don't be- Heve in killin’ if ff can be helped, But I'm misshty handy with a six-gun just the sume, and I'll go through with the play if have to throw lead into both of ‘em, I don't know as I'd lose any sleep over it, but I'd a heap rathe geo them hung, We can take the dirty skunks to Fort Resolution, and ‘old MacDonough'!! do the rest.” Having unfolled his plan, Buck again bade us keep an eye on the timber, and curled himself up on our primitve bed, He had tramped many a mile that day and slept little the past three nights. He needed clear eyes and steady nerves to pit himself against those two degenerates. There was nothing we could do, unarmed and unskilled in bushwhacking as we were, beyond Insuring him a good night's rest without the risk of death by freeaing. Either Dick or I would giadly have gone with him, but, as Buck sensibly pointed out, that would only double the danger of discovery, without helping him @ particle, Until ne held the Ape and his companion under the muzale of his gun we were only pawns in the same. Howe listened, but took no part in the conversation. Most of the time, when he wasn't making trips to lls rabbit snares, he sat tinkering with the fire, as though the Athabas Ape and his hook nosed partner and our once more getting south of lutt- tude 49 were no concern of its. U'd have given a lot to know just what sort of thought process “went on those days Within that sudly battered skull. Of course guard Buck's 3 was due warning of Buck all sit up to All he needed any one spying on our camp, 80 he could the snow tunnel and escape unseen Howe was even more capable of observing any suspicious move than Dick or I~-nothing escaped hia notice, and nothing, apparently, could alarm him-—and when he pointedly told us to lie down so that we could stay awake when it came our turn to stand watch, we obeyed meekly, more to humor him than because we were drowsy. I don't think Dick slept much that night; I only dozed, Buck snored comfortably, without ever turning over, So did Howe, after he called me, That was one strong point of re- semblance between the two—they had nothing you could call “nerves”; peril sat lightly on their shoulders 1? they were physically comfortable. It was natural enough in Buck He'd. grown to manhood among a@ breed of men whose philosophy of lite Is simple and direct; men to whom danger in the abstract {4 @ negligible quantity, and Buck had the cool cours that takes desperate chances Withoul hesitation, a buoyant spirit that refused to be cust down But Howe--the Howe of old had a luxury-loving soul, and from child hood no wish of his had gone ungrati- fied, He had courage enough of the high-tempered, reckless kind, but in his life there had been nothing to de- yp sr nero eS steacelem—l velop either resource or self control, And now to sce him, with all the past either a blank wall or an unmeaning jumble of scenes, suddenly cupable, not only of holding his own with the wild, but of alding Dick and me, and schooling us in the ways of the woods—well, I'm like Buck, 1 couldn't sabe the thing. Dick got up long before his time. We piled the fire, talking in whispers from then until Buck turned over and Dlinked up at the stars, He sat up with a prodigious yawn and dug his knuckles Into sleep-heavy eyes. "he sald cheertly, looking at his watch, “secordin’ to this turnip uh mine, which regulates the sun, moon and stars, It's time for me to vamos.” Howe wakened at the sound of our ices, and we breakfasted on brolled bbit, You might think that a steady diet of rabbit-meat would grow mo- notonous; but It didn’t. T can't vouch for the others; personally, T had an ever-present vacuum in the region of my stomach; a vacuum that instst- ently demanded to be filled with food, any sort of food. My only trouble was a pessimistic conviction~-the af- termath of the first, luckless twenty~ four hours, T suppose-—that the sup- ply of rabbits would cease, U think that the cravings of hunger would have made boiled moccasins palatable those days. So we ate our rabbit meal thankfully-—even greedily—and thankfully we rolled a clrarette ench for dessert; and when that s done we shook hands with Buck and watched him vanish the way he had come. When the faint, scuffing noise could no longer be heard tn the bur- row, Dick looked off in the dirsotton of the Indian cainp, and delivered Idmseif of a torrent of language good, old-fashioned swear words, to which [ added a fervent “Amen,” Howe, as Was his custom, kept his thougnts to himself; but his bratn, or whatever one chose to bellave guliled hin actions, was keenly alert, for he trampled down the snow over the gaping mouth of Buck's burrow, and covered the trodden place with a masa of spruce boughs, Then we sat down by the fire to wait for dawn and what the dawn might bring CHAPTER XI. The Turning of the Tables. HEN the sun was well clear of the eastern sky-line we left camp. It wae one of those still, stinging morn- ings when one’s voice rings out through the thin atmosphere like @ hammered anvil, and the air was filled with a milion dancing atoms of diamond frost. Under foot the enow crunched harshly at every step, We were a wordless trio thatmorn- | plodding mechanically through the unbroken white that floored the quiet woods, Already the wilderness was beginning to set ity mark upon We were silent, but not morose; patient—-the long-suffering ing, but was frostbitten, Our fin- gers and toes had paid tol! to thy north until the skin was black and and the first mile was an Howe was truly in fu et, despite our protes Dick's snow-shoes and broke ee hours or more we kept on, weeing nothing, the stillness that Dung ike @ pall over that wooded The Golden waste broken only by the monoton- ous ek of our footsteps in the snow. I began to wonder what would be the outcome should Buck fall in his mission. It was an ugiy thought; one that made me more than once giance apprehensively over my shoul- der, It would be so easy, with Buck eliminated, for the Ape and Francoi to pot us if tt neamed that we might make Fort Resolution, I hadn't thought of {t in that light before, Of course it would be the height of folly for them to allow us to reach a Hudson's Bay post—or any white man’s abiding place, for that matter ~after robbing us, and, as they thought, murdering both our guides. There Is a law in the North, new and onked as it is-and dead men, &c. Far in our rear came a sharp crack. Howe whirled about short, and the three of us listened breath- Tesely, bands cupped behind our ears. 1f we had not known and had been waiting for something of the sort, I might have taken it for the break- ing of a frosty, snow-laden limb. But We know It was a gun, whothor the rife of some hunting Indian or the firat note in another tragedy we had yet to learn, For @ time we watted moveiesa, fearful; @ waiting fraught with suspense, my over- strained nerves could bear no more, id I turned to Howe. back, for heaven's sa Terted, “If Buck has won out it's all right. If be hasn't, {t's only @ mat- ter of time till they got us, too, I can't stand bere and walt and walt.” ‘Come on, then," he returned. “I'd like to know—well, never mind, Come on,” We didn’t have far to go, after al not more than half a mile, Two ures appeared, following swiftly our trail, and I barely repressed a yell of pure joy when I recognized Buck, one rifle slung across bis square should- ers and another tn his hands, driving “Let |relentiessly before him our baboon- faced enemy, the Apo. A moment later they wore up to us, the Ape scared and sullen, Buck cool and watchful, “What of thy Frenchman?’ I asked, for it seemed hardly possible that the |Ape would follow us alone, I was a bit excited, I or I'd have known without being told, that the extra rifle accounted for eltber the Frenchman or an Indian. Buck shrugged his should “He | wouldn't stand for @ hold-up," he ai swered, nd #o I let him have it. He had it coming to him, anyway, And I want to warn yuh all, right now, not to take any chances with this square- faced critter, If he makes a break, don't stop to see what he's tryin’ to |do; shoot first and ask all the ques- tions yuh want to afterward. Buck gave Dick the rifle-which happened to be Howe's pet gun; « 20-30 Savage he had prized above all the others—he had taken from the jad Frenchman, It had fallen to auncois, | suppose, in the division of nder, Me he armed with hia own six-shooter, and for himself kept the Ape's gun and belt, (Howe showed no devire for a weapon; all his at- tention was centred on the Ape.) Then he sturted us on again, trailing far in the rear himself, to guard against surprise by the Indians ehould they find the body of Francois and follow our tratl, A little halted for dinner, and filled our empty somacis With the wholesome meat. Our dinner over, we loaded ono hind- quarter on the Ape's massive back, and drove him before us Ike a beast of burden the reat of the day, And. as wo plodded, Howe's eyes followed tie Ape with a queer, puzzled expres~ sion that sharpened at times to a baieful, matignant glare, At dusk samped for the night in the heart of a thick-grown grove of spruce. Before our fire was well un- der way a droning wind crept out of une northeast, where lie the Barren Grounds, and in an hour the crisp, powdered snow was whirling about the quivering tree tops and settling on the forest floor, as though the banked clouds above were in inad haste to Dury us before our time. "Maybe Lain't glad this old storm is doin’ business in slnp-bang style!" Buck remarked, when we'd fixed our ehelter for the night aud were hud- dling close to a roaring blaze—cven the Ape seemed. to reclate the comfort of the fire. m Injuna couldn't foller us now if they was or so anxious for our gore. [don't expect ‘em to ever plek up the trail after this, Chances axe they wouldn think about gettin’ out to look fi their two big chietw till it was Inte, ‘This anow'll bury Frenchy 6: the wolves couldn't fnd him, let alor an Injun; and you'll a. lution, and the Hudson's Bay pany'll see that yuh decorate the end of a good stout ro uh cald-blood- thievin’ murderer” 4 last to » Ape But he only buried lis chin deeper in the fur collar of his coat, and made no reply. We slept little that might, It was too cold, The wind whistled through the woods with a melancholy whine, and pelted us with steadily, down- driving masses of snow. There was no escape from the combined on- slaught; nothing to do but bear it and ply the fire. That night, the next day, and the following night the storm raged. Forty hours that stick in my mem- ory as a temo of slithering snow, of i and untempered mis- over our sputtering man, We raved against inaction, but there was no hel it; a tan would only was strength, Buck said, wandering in such a biizzard, Till the storm broke we dozed ft. fully, rustied wood by turns, and kept close watch on our prisone The rabbits snuggled away In their anow- burrows, beyond reach of snare or min: only the quarter of moose-meat kept life in our bodies and hope tn our souls, Tcan tell you that Twas frank- ly glad when it was over and we were ready to hit the trail The storm Wadn't all to do with It was parcy last night of that loi camp he got thoroughly on my nerv@e. It wasn't 90 bad the first day or @o If You Could Get Your Hands om $30,000 You Might Find Yourself in the Same Queer Plight as the People in Greyhounc By DWIGHT TILTON This Will Be tt ie the atery of several men and a girl aboard an essan liner that was carrying tenes of geld frem New York te Engla TREASURE, BAFFLING MYSTERY and an ABSOLUTELY UN- FORESEEN CLIMAX—these are the salient points of “THE GOLDEN GREYHOUND!” that Dick and I were with him, . would talk thon, more or less, though his speech wasn't al rational at times he seemed cl enough for a man who could remember who he was nor where be came from. But with the Ape’s advent Howe rolapsed into sullen brooding. He re- tyaea to talk, saswereg emer fe s grow! or not at are 68. sae, fut taring’ at the ‘Apo, and T-notieed pat ing at t wi the ne ar juick move his 4 \pped suggestivel: pooket where rested his knife, Tt got on the Ape’s nerves as well as that of Howe's gray eyes. ink as much as anything he expected at the hands of justice, put the ohill of fear into the Ape'’s hardened soul. The Ape was no coward—IM"i give the devil bis due—but the cold malevotence of Howe's manner was enough to make backbone buckle. It was a ton the trail again, if only to be rid of the sight of a man giaring premeditated murder across the fiut- tering blaze and the other squirming under the look. ‘The next march brought us to the white, glittering reaches of Slave Lake, and on its forbidding shore came our first trouble, with Howe. We were {breaking twigs for kind- ling, and for just a moment our vigilant watch of the rie 1 don’ know what he did; nono of us knew, for that matter. It happened to be an instant wheo our attention bad wan- dered. As I broke a dry willow across imy iq ‘ul knee there mingled with the snap of t @ sound that was part bellow and part snarl, and when I turned the Ape was kicking in the snow, and over him stood Howe, a look of unholy joy en his face, and in bis hands an up- wieldy billet of wood that one us Dad rustled from the beach. swung it back, and if he'd got @ fatr biow, he'd have mashed ¢t head flat, but Buck nailed one and I the other, and between us we stopped the blow. Howe made no explanation of his attack, When we released him coolly set about helping Dick Pere Of fire and fix a windbreak, as if nothing out of the ordinary had oc ‘The Ape was clean knocked out; it took = good deal of snow, Vigor wany, applied to his temples, to rouse him, and when he did become conscious he was fairly gibbering with fear and help- less wrath. CHAPTER XII. The Price of a Minute’s Sleep. F ROM that time on a terror of Howe's presence took possession of the Ape. Though he spoke only In the curtest of monosylla- bles, his way of fixedly regarding the Ape meant volumes. It may bave been that Howe's muddled brain re- tained some slight impression of @ previous encounter; a misty recollec- tion of the Ape’s repulsive face, At any rate, It was patent to us all that he only lacked an opportunity to send the renegade Ape out the sime bloody traf! that poor Jule had talen with such scant warning. Even Buck, nervy as he was, viewed with apprehension the col blooded matice of How part of our plan to murder the red- handed monster, richly as he de served it; nor did we desire *hat Howe should enact the part of exeou- tioner. And far more than the ergo! hardships that were our dally lot, far more than the law of the North, be- fore which he knew we meant that he should answer for his erimes, did the Ape fear the silent man who: burning eyes were fixed steadily upon him throughout his waking hours, Day by day we forged to the south, a single file of desperate, fast-weak- ening men, tratil-weary and bitten deep by the frost. On our lett loomed high the tree-crowned banks at lined the east shore, under the shel- tering helghts of which we camped those dreary nights; and for seventy miles to our right stretched the eei tillating levels of the ice-bound lak Day by day, as we tramped that glit tering nket of ‘white, the sun d down upon our weak. truggle with the strength-sapping miles, It is a land of strange sights, the North, By night the dancing flare of the Aurora dimmed the stars; above the pole tt spread its sinuous length, a banner of colored flame flung across the sky and rippled by the breata of the gods. And at dawn the sun 4 glistening mockery of @ sun that brought no warmth to our bodies and little cheer to our hearts—would mount the tree tops for ite short journey, flanked by circles and cres- vents and cross-bars of hard light that oytdid the sun itself in bri! Hancy. "Those were sun-dogs, Bu told me, and while they foilowed the sun there would be no abatement of the cold Nor was there any break in that nightinare of crisp, saltlike snow Up der foo! i floating diamond frost in the air about us, and bitter, bitter cold tugging at our heart strings in the twenty-odd days of our passage through the wilderness, In each of us the vital spark Alckered fainter as the days wore on. Came a day when How great heart failed him, ‘The blood he had lost had weakened his iron frame, and his wounded head aggra) the drain, Only his nerve had cari him so fur, and sheer will power can’), keep @ man on his feet forever if the stream of life is near exhausted, He sank unconsolous in the enow, and the frosts of the North came near claim ing another victim before we could get him to where was dry wood to build @ fre, But we chated falth: his hands and breast und kept weak pulse flutterin heat of the snapping b! vived, ‘Well, he grunted, “I guess ve gone as far as I'm going.” (To Be Continued.) th e@ he soon re- sees — se: sa g —