The evening world. Newspaper, May 18, 1916, Page 17

ae » Awain. Coprright, the Frank A, Munsey Co, SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS. Separated from his trend, Lawrie Salter, and Mative guides, Merton Boyd finde himself lost tn the qilderness on his way back from a trip into the He ts balf-etarved and CHAPTER VIII. (Continued) The Storm. OR a time the spirit which had prompted his action drove Merton on oblivious of the storm, Before it the two men and the dogs travelled in the steady, endless dogtrot of the north. ‘The wind and cold had packed the snow in rough, wavelike ridges, and though the snow was continually fall- ing, the surface was always hard and bare bencath the feet. After an hour the pace began to tell, Despite their exertions, the cold drove through and sapped_ their energy more than did the heavy labor. ‘The wind searched out each crevice n their clothing, and it was like @ red-hot iron when it struck. After half hour their faces began to freeze-their noses, chins, cheeks and foreheads. Merton did not know it, and kept on, while MeGirr, who recognized the signs, continually rubbed back the blood to the whit- ened spots, At last the woodsman stopped, and Merton went “We should have struck the De Islands by shouted MeGirr “We've travelled far enough!” McGirr started again, though now he walked. Merton kept a close look- out on elther side, but nothing showed in the wall of gray darkness around them. After half an hour McGirr stopped an shead totearn the cause. now!” “There’e no use,” he said when Merton reached his side. “We've missed them. They string out in a Yime morth and south. The wind's @anged, and we've gone to ono sido @ the other. We'd better go back wow before it 1s too late.” “We'll not go back,” replied Mer- ton, “If we don’t find the isiands we'll find tho shore on the south sido of the lake.” “But maybe she's on one of the isl- emda, The dogs probably turned her om tn this rough going and ran on ané Meft her. We might have passed her as it Is.” The vision of what might be at the end of their search unnerved Merton for an instant, and he turned and stood, shoulders stooped, the fire gone from his eyes. McGirr saw this and turned to the dogs, "Gee!" he cried, “Gee, Mush!” “Btop!" called Merton, ,‘Don't turn that team! Keep goin, He grasped the sleeve of McGirr's coat and whirled him around, “Keep going,” he repeated, don't stop until I tell you!” “and Again they drifted on before the storm, Merton now felt the cold piercing through his body, In the brief halt he had begun to shiver, and the return to the dogtrot did not wari him as it had before. And as the cold bit through his spirits went down, Somewhere out » the storm Lura was wandering as hey were, Wandering aimlessly, ov, aiready beaten down, crouching in a drift waiting for theend, ‘The thought of it spurred him to a fresh burst of and he shouted to MeGirr and to move faster. MeGirr was the first to see the island loom up Like a gray phantom off to their right, Instantly he turned, and ina few ininutes had halted the dogs in the shelter of the thick spruce at the south end, “Wait here," he sald when Merton came up from the rear of the cariole. Vi see which island this is, Tf it's the one L think it is, we ‘© about the tuddle of the dozen, Til go round," He went on across the south end vf the island, turned north and disap- peared, For a while Merton waited patiently. He tired, and he eat down on the cariole. The cold soon drove him to pacing up and down Lura of the Northland A Springtime Romance of the Big Outdoors » Merton ran out to the west side of * country and its ways, could escape, « ance, faced certain death. asset L? CIDER IA oP aro mal The Evening World Daily Magazine, Thursday: May ; 4 beside the dogs, which, as soon as they had been stopped curled up and lay shivering in the snow. The minutes passed and McGirr did not return. A half hour, and nothing came out of the snow whirl. Merton moved the dogs off the ico into the shelter of the spruce on the shore and built a fire to warm his fast freesing body. Another hour passed and McGirr aid not return, The early December night began to darken the gray wall of snow that was all about. Once the tsland to eee where MoGirr's tracks might lead. But the wind ha wiped everythig clean, and as he re- turned he saw his own tracks rapidly filling. Two hours after McGirr had g6ne night had come. The storm gained in intensity and the cold became greater. And then Merton realized what had happened. It had not been neces- sary for McGirr to leave him there while he looked at the other side of the island. It was only a trick, a trick to desert him, to leave him on the lake to pérish. The young woods- man, with his knowledge of the north while the other, helpless in his ignor- For a moment Merton sat beside the fire completely crushed. He had brought MoGirr because McGirr knew how to travel, how to drive dogs, how to protect himself from the storm. Without McGirr he knew himself helpless. And then he thought of Lura, of the girl who had brought him out on to the lake, who might at tbat moment be waiting for the help that would never come, Instantly Merton was on his feet, The cold, the wind, the darkness were forgotten, Blindly he would push on. Blindly he might run into her, might yet save her, And if he did not, it would be better that he keep on until he, too, sank into a drift and let the wind lay @ cold blanket of snow over him, Without Lura he would rather that it would be so. “Musht!" he cried to the dogs, kick- ing them to their feet. “Mush!” he cried when they were ready, and, the storm at his back, he started out on to the ice, the dogs trotting behind, the storm and the darkness all about. CHAPTER IX. The Search, ERTON kept on, with the wind squarely at his back. the wind alone could he p travelling in a straight But by the wind would he also dic, The temperature was not low, no more than twenty below zero. lie wind, however, was blowing fully fifty miles an hour, more when it had full sweep on the open lake, and it searched with steel-like knives for the very vitals of man and dogs, Stumbling over the rough ridges, weary and numb, Merton kept on nead of the team, Only the object of his search enabled him to main- tain the dog trot, to which he ad- hered even when his knees trembled ath him, an hour there was after leaving the is- nothing except the him, By the wind aione did he know that he was head- ed south, After a time to ke became his only object. realized that to wander about, search for signs on the frozen surface of the snow, was useless, In such a storm only chance could lead him to the object of his Journey. As the miles passed and the lake seemed limitless his spirits became more and more depressed, The one chance that he took seemed to have odds of millions to one against It, He might pass within a few yards of Lura’s body, but It would be cov- ered by the snow. Even if the mount of white were discernible in daylight, it would be hidden by this darkness, He might pass within hailing dis- tance of an island in which sho had huddled in a drift to escape the wind, to await the end, and he would never know it. But still though s9 blindly, that he stumbled and staggered when at last he struck the deep rifts piled up on An exposed shore line--whether island uainland he did not know. It was merely a shore to him, and he turned obliquely and pressed on down the lake, the land on his left, the wind striking in at hie right side, Gradually the shore line turned back toward the south, and then, be- fore he realized it, he was again on the open lake, surrounded only by the black wall of night and the storm For a short distance he kept on, and then he realized that the doga were not behind him. ‘The swish of their feet on the snow, the jingle of the leader's bells, had stopped, Merton turned to see the dogs twen- ty-five yards behind. He called to them, but they would not come, He ran back, to find them paying no at- tention to him. Noses sniffing eager- ly, they were looking back in the di- rection of the land they had juat left “Come op, you brute! shouted land darkness about he kept on unconsciously, Give NE BACK THAT OVERCOAT | MADE A MISTAKE ~ HERE ARE YouR. Two DOLLARS Merton as he gasped the tug of the leader and pulled him around. But the dogs would not start. “Come on!" he shouted. “Mush!” lead dog leaped away and Merton reached for him and staring straight into his nostrils distended, sniffing the air into his lungs. He had caught the odor of emoke, of burning wood. Again the lead dog whined, This time he turned and, the others leap- ing behind him, started back almost squarely into the wind. In an in- stant the team had been engulfed by the storm. Shouting, plunging on, Merton ran after them. Suddenly the snow ridges vanished, the ice became smooth be- neath his feet, A few yards more and he was plowing through soft, fine snow, And then he sprawled headlong into a drift, when bis feet rock on a boulder-strewn whined. then stooped, the blizzard, struck a shore. As Merton struggled to his feet he caught again the odor of smoke, Out on the ice the wind had thrown @ single whiff ross his face, Now the smell was steady, stronger He plunged on, stumbling over boulders, ploughing through deepen- ing drifts to a fringe of spruce that showed blackly before him. He climbed a bank, pushed aside the brush. The wind no longer burned his skin, the snowflakes no longer drove straight past him. The air seemed warm. He was in the ehelter of the forest. ‘The odor of smoke led Merton on. Through more brush he forced his way and then, straight before him, he caught the flicker of a fire, “Heigh-o!" he called, rushing on, The next moment he stumbled through another barrier of brush to the side of a blazing fire. On one side he saw the grinning, happy head of the lead dog of the team, and across it, smiling, sat the object of his search. “Lurat" cried around the fire, alive, safe.” ‘The light in his eyes was answered in those of the girl, She rose to meet him, held out her hands. Had Merton, “Lure! stumbling You are he seen her, he would have known that his quest had been doubly crowned But the storm had done its work, Straight across the fire he plunged, to roll unconsclous at her feet. Lura Herson knew exactly what to do, Her life had been crowded with the perils of the north, She had known since childhood the dangers of the wilderness and how to meet them, When her dogs, dashing homeward after her visit to the sick squaw, had turned over the cariole on the rough going near the south shore of the lake, she had not attempted to fol- low them out on the storm-swept ice. They had gone on, ignorant that they were driveriess, and in less than a minute had been lost in the storm. Lura turned back without hesita- tion to the shore she had just left. There, in the warm shelter of the spruce in a little bay, she had built a fire, gathered all the wood she could drag to the camp-site and sat down to wait as comfortably as cireum- stances permitted until some one came for her or the storm blew out. And Lura knew exactly what to do for Merton Boyd as he lay beside the fire, She had seen frozen faces be- fore, but a little exclamation of pity burst from her lips as she saw the whitened face of the young man in the snow. Quickly she dragged him to the bourhs she had placed beside the fire for her couch. Then from the carlole she brought the blanket and the food Mrs, Lochrie had pro- vided and filled the tea pail with snow. Half an hour later, a@ cup of hot tea in his hands, Merton sat beside the fire while Lara toasted bread and thawed meat, Forgetful of his #ting- ing face, of his weariness, of the storm which still roared overhead, he was thoroughly happy. He'had won in his second fight. He had conquered the wilderness as he had conquered McGirr, He was @ man, and his woman sat beside him, Life held nothing more. But Merton 4id not voice his thoughts, He had been about to speak when he had tumbled into the fire, Now, with the excitement past, he was glad that nothing had been sald, He had not seen the answering desire flash from her eyes, and he felt that to speak would be to press @n advantage to which he was not entitled, Though he knew himself that he was innocent of any designs against Lura and her father, or against Her- son's people, there atill remained the suspicion on their part, Until he had cleared himself of that he had no right to speak, When they returned, when he could speak with Herson, when he had established himself for what he was, then there would be time. This eettied, Merton banished tt from his mind, There was enough Joy In the present, ‘The fire crackling before them, the storm lost in the darkness overhead, they were like two children at @ picnic, Youth ts scar- proof to danger and trouble, They laughed at foolish things, giggled when Merton's numb fingers spilled the precious tea, smiled when the edge dogs slyly manoeuvered for warm positions near the fire, Recause of the cold it was necessary tokeepa fire going all night, Lura in sisted upon taking the first turn a tending the blaze while Merton slept. She heaped on the fuel until early morning, when she called him, Then she slept while Merten gathered upre 1 CAME BACK T GET MY OVERCOAT. WINTER IS COMING BACK CAN‘T TAKE A CENT 18) 1916 Ut TUST SOLO IT ANINUTE LOIN T THINK You'd EVER NEEO IT AGAIN LESS THAN Bucks ESS THAN TWENTY, DARN GOOD, COAT ‘wood, and it was after daylight before she wakened. All that day the storm raged. While Lura heated food, Merton foraged for wood so that by evening there was an abundant supply for the night. When the early darkness came, and they sat side by side on the balsam couch, Merton wondered {f It were posstble that the girl who had laughed through the day with him could be the same who had left him to die only a short time before, ‘The whole problem came to him again in all its phases, as did) the more recent action of McGtrr in deserting him on the ice. He spoke of MeGirr, though careful to hide his real thoughts of the man’s latest attempt to end his Itfe, and ven- tured the suggestion that they #hould make an attempt to find him, “He'll take care of himself,” an- awered Lura, and for the first time since Me 1 found her verted to the cold, he had first known, “But he may need help,” he per- sisted. “If he drifted before the storm he may be near here.” “He doesn't deserve It,” was the bit. ter reply, “You should not worry about him, He has tried twice to kill you, and that was probably his {dea when he left you on the ive “Why does be want to put me out of the way?” demanded Merton sud: denly. Lura looked squarely at him for @ moment. Then she answered calmly. “MoGirr is the only one left who ts not related to father and me.” “Not related! What has that to do with his attitude toward me?” “So tar we have never had a re- crult from the outside, and leade ship has always been hereditary, she answered simply, “McGirr is afraid of you.” “But surely,” don’t mean—you would not man?” she re- which tone tense cried Merton, “you not that “There has never been any and we must go on, Nothing been said, but MeGirr knows it, all know it.” one else, has we Merton was too stunned to speak again, In alience the two sat and stared into the crackling, leaping fire, At last Lura arose, brushed the snow from her clothing and shook out the blanket "If you don't mind, I'll take the first sleep-time,” she said, "L think this storm will blow out to-night Then we can got back in the morn ing.” ‘i CHAPTER X. Againa Prisoner. HAT night the storm did blow out, ‘The sky ¢ The wind died Vrom the stare the cold struck down until the temperature was lower than Merton had ever known, But {t waa a good travelling day in the north, and at daylight they were on their way, Lura in the cartole, Merton alternately running and rid- ing. In three hours they pulled up the bank at headquarters. Only Mrs. Lochrie met them as they halted before the door of the cook camp. “And you found her, lad!" she erled ag sho helped Lura to disentangle f from the blankets. "I ne ted to sce either of you aguin, r got in yesterday morning arly dead, He said you had wan- dered off in the storm and he couldn't find you. Come in, I've dinner all ready.” McGirr waa sitting by the stove when they entered, He did not look up, and the others did not speak to him, After dinner, when Merton and Luva sat alone by the fire, the young man made the first move in the cain- paign he had outlined while tending the blaze the night before. He must establish himeelf, must go to the bot- tom of this mystery, and then plead his cause with Lura and with Her- son, That he would succeed he did not doubt for a minute, He had beaten McGirr, he had beaten the wild, and he would win again. His first step must be to learn the charge against him, and he asked Lara If she would tell him. “I would like to tell you,” she an- swered gently. “I think we should tell what we suspected you of. But T cannot until I see father, It 1s for him to decide, When he comes I'l speak to him.” It was all he had hoped for then, and the next morning when he re turned to his work in the woods he went with the faith that Lura’s de- fense of him before her father would be backed by her desire, that his caso waa safe in her hands, As for what @he told him of Me Girr, he thought of it only as some thing that could not be true, some- thing that never would be permitted, He swung his axe viciously stopped suddenly to stare help! at the tree he had just felled what he had seen of Lura, from what he had seen of Herson, he knew that these people always placed something else before themaelves—that their band and their duty to tt always came firat But there was a way out, and Mer ton gripped his axe as he thought of it. He oould deal with MeGirr him- erlf, if necessary, and he would, I mess as did the hero of Zenda. “Come here,” the man called softly, and Merton, etill carrying tia axe, walked back to the brush. ‘The otranger, evidently a woode- man, walked farther back into the thicket as Merton approached. When he stopped and turned Merton saw & man of middie age, his face weather- scarred, firm, unrelenting. “Is your name Boyd?” he demanded as Merton stopped before him. ‘os, How did you know? Who are you?” “Were you ona trip with a man named Sultar?” went on the stranger, lgnoring Merton's questions, Ms cried =Merton “Have you seen him?” “T saw him at the Junction, He got in there three weeks ago after looking for you untt! his grub ran out, He said he was going to start out again as soon as he could get men and dogs, though every one told him there was no use In looking for you.” “Good old Lawrie!” exclaimed Mer- ton, “He's that sort.” “Why didn't you get out when the ice came?" asked the stranger, Merton looked up quickly. There was something In the man’s tone that indicated a question within a ques- tion, a deeper understanding than his words might indicate. “I—I was waiting for eome one to go out,” stammered Merton, “I ex- pected to got out by Christmas.” “If Herson would let you, 6h?” He looked searchingly at Merton. “T guess [ understand, f thought you had starved to death, but when I saw how you handled an axe, and re- membered the description I had heard ‘at the Junction, I knew you had struck ‘this place.” “Merton was about to speak, to ask ithe question that had been pressing to get out since Herson’s name was ‘mentioned, when the other went on: | “Now Ilsten! 1 don't want you to |say a word about seeing me here, | Understand? Not a word. I'l know, tand it won't go easy with you if you do. Never mind who I am, but whet I say gocs. If you keep quict ru promise that you get to the railroad Inside of a week. I guess that’s some inducement, eh?” “But tell me"—— Merton began. haven't time now. I'll answer your questions later. I can see that you have some to ask. Remember, not a word about my being here, and I'll see you here to-morrow.” fe turned at once and pushed through the brush. “Wait!” called Merton, but the man only stopped to aay, “Keep aut Go back to work." For a moment Merton stood debat- ing whether he should follow this man or do as he had been ordered. There had been a certain calm au- thority in his tone that carried welght, however, and the woodchop- per returned to his task. A half hour later, when still won- dering at his next twist tn events, Merton was startled by a voice behind him, Drop that axe and throw up your hands\" He whirled instantly, for he had recognized Herson's voice. Before him on the trail stood Her- son, Lochrie and McGirr, each armed with @ rifle, McGirr was grinning evilly, but in Herson’s face was anger greater than Merton had ever seen before. “Take tim back, Jimmie,” he satd to Lochrie, “Lock him up. Shoot him if he makes a move.” Without another look at Merton h passed on, going toward the brush where the stranger had disappeared “Come on, Charle he called. “Show me where you saw them.” McGirr, with an oath as he passed Merton, pressed on through the snow, “Here's this fellow’s tracks where he went to the brush,” he said “You'll see the other'a just inside there.” excitedly. re." They ton turned t entered the thicket and Mer- Lochrie, The friendly der was gone and tn ils place was a set pure pose which told Merton that argu- ment or questions would be unavatl- ing. “Come on,” he ordered “You can drop your hands, but don’t try any- thing funny.” Merton turned to the trall and went on to the post, his grim guardian a few p s behind, As they reached the cook camp the door opened and Lura came out Merton started to speak, but one glance told him that le on th man's face Tt was in the middie of the after- !t would be useless. With eyes tn noon that Merton looked up quickly Which anger blazed to tncandascence when he heard a low whistle from a sie looked at him for an Inatant sprace thicket behind him, No one ‘Then she turned and went on toward wan in sight, For a moment he her own cabin looked round and then resumed his What have I done, Lochrte?” erted work. Again came the whisiic, and Merton, turning to face his guard, he looked back to see the brush par “You've done enough,” waa the bit- and a man's face appear, ter reply, “and you don’t want to do ahaa F a beautiful opera singer were in love with you, if you had all the funds of a bank at your disposal, if the President of a republic were your chum— You might or might not let yourself get into such a A Man of Mark BY ANTHONY HOPE Next Week’s Complete Novel in The Evening World It is a story that will set your heart to beating faster; and it is by the man who wrote “The Prisoner of any more. Go on to the bunk house there.” Merton, too dumfounded to seek further information, or to resist, turned and scrambled Into the build- ing where he had slept since arriv- ing at the headquarters post. Loch- rie pulled the door shut and dropped a big bar Into place. Utterly at a loss to axplain the strange proceedings of the afternoon, Merton paced from window to win- dow. He knew only that that atran- ger who had spoken to him tn the woods, the man who had cautioned him to keep quiet about his presence, had something to do with the audden action of Herson and his followers. ‘That it was something to do with the mystery of these people which he had come to accept was also evident. But now he refused to remain quiescent, Horson may have been justified in his first suspicions. Now there could be no grounds for such action. He would demand an explanation, even compel it. To clear himself before Lura he would dare anything. ‘tot an hour after his tmprison- ment he saw Lura coming from her cabin. He ran to the window and tried to open tt. Tt was nailed, and with a qutck thrust of his heavily. shirted elbow he broke a pane. “Laura!” he called through the open- ing. “Tell me what this means? “It means,” he anawered with a votce which she controlled with dif- flculty, “that we know you at last. You and the other sneaking spies think you have beaten us, but you haven't. To-morrow you will start on the ‘longue traverse,’ and” tle wolves will get their poison.” ‘The girl's emotion was so great, thp repression #0 evident, that Merton started back. “Laure,” he cried. ‘There is some mistake! I don’t know what I am accused of, but I haven't done it. At least give me a chance to explain. “There le nothing for you to ex- plain. We understand everything you have done. For # hundred years you have been trying to ruin us, you and the others like you. You have tried every trick known to the north coun- try. You have called yourselves men when you have been trying to kill innocent women and children. You burned one of our posts in the winter of ‘forty-three and Andy McLure and his wife and five children starved to death as a result. You hired a drunken half-breed to kill my grand- father. You have poisoned our dogs and destroyed our caches and tried to buy our Indians, and now you have come in a final effort to wipe out the fow of us who remain.” “Lura, are you mad?’ demanded Merton. “I don't know what you are talking about. I never heard of these thin, “No, perhaps you never 414. T don't imagine even your men would brag of such things. But you did not hesi- tate to come to try the eame tricks. Only you are caught, and now you squeal when the trap closes. You were clever, and you fooled us for a time, but*— Suddenly she covered her face with her hands and Merton heard her eobs. ‘Then, her eyes blazing through her ears, her little hands clenched in her fury, she looked up at the win- dow, “II hate you, hate you!" #he cried and turned and ran on around the corner, CHAPTER XI. The Longue Traverse. Y thease new complications, and by the complete change in Lura’a attitude toward him, Merton was only stunned. Hoe realized that, in some way, he was accused of com- plieity with the stranger who had apoken to him tn the woods. He knew that MeGirr had informed Herson, who had just returned, and that Mc- Girr must have been watching him Lura, in her denuneiation, had called him a spy, had cited a@ list of crimes of which he was accused, but in all that she had told him there was not one thing that threw light on the mystery. ‘Phe room becasne cold and Merton stuffed a blanket in the pane he had broken and filled up the stove, Dusk came, and then he heard men’s votcea outside. He ran to the window to see McGirr and Herson coming, Each carried his rifle ready, and before them walked the man he had seen in the woods, To Merton both Herson and the stranger seemed to be men of more than usual foree of character, and in the face of eac’ . there was Indicated an allegiance to , duty before all else, But McGirr's features were lighted with crafty Joy. (Te Be Continued.) \ 4 ' } j i i / i i ; | 4