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Show M. Vanished . Men &5 j d il By CECRCE MARSH Wsife Ca ft & THE STORY SO FAR: Six men traveled trav-eled the Chibougamau trail and six men died. Later they were reported report-ed drowned. Murder Is suspected. Garry FinJay, brother of one of the six; Red Malone, Mounted Police ofllcers, . INSTALLMENT NINETEEN and Blaise, half-breed guide, posing as surveyors, arrive at Nottaway to investigate, inves-tigate, lsadore, rich fur man, Is thought to have made a gold strike and aims to, keep prospectors out. They visit lsadore at his magnificent home and meet Llse, his stepdaughter. Finlay qulcltly falls In love with her. Later they are attacked by Indians. Escaping they make preparations prep-arations to seize a mysterious seaplane which is expected to arrive on the lake. Meanwhile Lise Joins them for safety. or as his dulled eyes stared at the sprawled heap on the hearth. Then he slowly nodded as he muttered: "Yes, there he is! There he is! A'voir, good and faithful servant!" With a quick movement his hand shot to the desk drawer, fumbled, then found his mouth before the surprised Finlay seized him. He swallowed twice then sneered into Finlay's face: "No rope for Jules lsadore! I prefer prussic to hemp! Good-night, gentlemen!" "Tie the hands of that lump of flesh in the chair by the name of Blondell and we'll find Blaise. We must work fast or we'll be caught." Finlay hurried to the shore where he found Wabistan at the boats, with the prisoners and coughing women, their heads swathed in wet cloths. Corinne rushed to him. "Lise!" she cried. "Is she safe?" "Yes, she swam to the island! I'll take you to her!" Garry turned to Red. "Quick! Hop into that ship and see that the pilot taxies her to the island!" In the morning the hum of an engine en-gine drew Garry and Blaise to the shore. "Who can it be, Red? lsadore wasn't expecting another plane." Red grinned. "Not that I know of!" conscious of the two watching in the doorway. "Jules, this place is doomed! Look at the smoke outside!" out-side!" lsadore, who sat with back to the doorway, sneered: "That's from the back-fire Tete-Blanche started! Felix, Fe-lix, you're yellow! It won't reach us! We'll stop it on the ridge." "I'm going to get out, I tell youl" whined Blondell. "You're drunk!" snarled lsadore. Then, catching the raw terror in Blondell's stare, he wheeled in his chair to meet Finlay's stone-hard face. "Good afternoon, gentlemen!" lsadore sat frozen. "Mounted Police! Po-lice! So this is what you were? Damn me for a fool!" "Okay!" snapped Malone. The police approached the two waiting men. "Keep your hands still, lsadore!" snarled Red. "We've got your plane from the Bay!" Finlay bit off. "That gives us our motive. Didn't want it known in Montreal that plane from the north! Don't blame youl They've been wondering where that dope came from! Well, you're going to hang for those six men!" lsadore shook his head as he met the stab of Finlay's pitiless eyes. "No, Jules lsadore will never hang!" They stood on the gravel! beach and Blaise pointed across the lake to the western hills where a dull glow streaked the violet sky. "Why, it's a forest fire!" exclaimed ex-claimed Finlay. "You suppose Wabistan's behind this?" "That's just what I suppose, Red!" On the second day the yellow smudge of sun glowed dully through a shroud of smoke. Leaving Lise in camp, the three men, with Pata-mish, Pata-mish, started in the Peterboro for Isadore's. They landed below the post and put Patamish ashore to rind Lise's hidden clothes bag, learn what he could and return at once. "What's that, Garry?" "It's that overdue plane! Come on! He's caught and can't see where to set her down!" "Give him three shots, Red! He could circle and set her down south of us if this breeze would only stiffen!" stiff-en!" The Lee-Enfield crashed three times. "He heard our shots!" He's circling!" cir-cling!" With the rush of a great bird the plane shot past the canoe, caught the water with a splash and bobbed on ahead to disappear into the smoke haze. Finlay shook his lifted paddle. "We've got him! Come on! They may start hunting him from Isadore's." Finlay scratched his head, then turned to Blaise: "I forgot to ask you. What became of Batoche? I asked Wabistan but none of his men had seen him." Blaise slowly traced the white scar across his temple with a thick finger. fin-ger. "Batoche, he come and crawl aroun' to look in front window. Den I reach him!" "Where are your glasses, Red?" His eyes snapping with amusement amuse-ment Malone handed his glasses to his chief. "Blue body! Yellow wings! Why, it's one of ours, Red! It's a police plane! The Mounties are here!" The plane was set down and taxied tax-ied up to the waiting canoe. The cabin door opened and a red-jacketed red-jacketed man with a grizzled moustache mous-tache leaned out and waved. "Hi, Sergeant Finlay! Are you all right?" Garry Finlay thrilled with pride as he replied: . "Everything okay, Inspector Haldane!" Shortly Finlay was telling his story sto-ry to the inspector and the four men of the rescue party. When he finished, Haldane enthusiastically reached and clapped him on the back. "Do you realize what you've done against what looked like hopeless odds? You two men have broken the biggest ring of opium smugglers the Canadian police have ever had to deal with!" Later, when good-bys had been said, Wabistan sat in the Peterboro loaded with supplies which Finlay had given him. With Mikisis and Patamish, he waved to the climbing climb-ing plane carrying Garry, Lise and Corinne. Followed by the two planes carrying carry-ing Red, Blaise and the prisoners, bound for Matagami to take the depositions of McNab and his head man, the police plane circled into the west. For a space in silence Finlay gazed back into the northeast north-east where dim, blue hills marked the Waswanipi valley. Lise watched him curiously as he stiffened, lifted his hand in salute and said: "Good-by, Bob! The Chibougamau Trail is clear!" THE FJTO The sound of voices in the rear of the house put the police on their guard. "Watch this door!" warned Malone as he flattened against the wall beside the closed door. The door was swung wide and, covered with char and soot, the panting Tete-Blanche stared into the room. His smudged face flamed as his bloodshot eyes marked Finlay standing stand-ing over the two men. Ignoring the .45, with a lightning movement the half-breed reached behind his back and flung his hand forward with a grunt. The knife sang like an arrow past the chest of the dodging Finlay, Fin-lay, who held his fire, and stuck quivering in the wall beyond. "The white-haired boy, at last!" With a roar Red dove from the side at the surprised breed, hurling him headlong into the room. Like a cat Tete-Blanche gained his feet and closed with the trooper. "Don't move!" bit off Finlay, covering cov-ering lsadore with his .45 as the two fought across the room. The killer was powerful ana slippery slip-pery as a snake. Winding his legs around Malone's, they went to the floor with a crash. Fighting with the strength of despair again and again Tete-Blanche wriggled out of the jiu-jitsu grips Red started to put on him. Then the enraged Malone Ma-lone wrenched his right hand free and hunched his fist into Tete-Blanche's Tete-Blanche's jaw. But the panting killer kill-er only snarled and redoubled his efforts ef-forts to break the trooper's hold. By sheer strength the infuriated Mountie pinned his man to the floor, forced back his chin and jammed his thumbs deep into the vital pneu-mo-gastric nerves under the jaw. A shudder ran through the half-breed and he lay helpless from the shock. Malone lifted him, rose, and hurled him headlong into the stone fireplace. fire-place. "There's your killer, lsadore! He'll shoot no more boys from ambush! am-bush! Take him! He's yours!" Isadore's face was drained of col- As the boat moved up to a pontoon pon-toon a voice called from the open door of the cabin fuselage: "That you, lsadore? I've been lost two hours hunting " "Don't move a hand!" Red rasped. 'Come out on the pontoon, one hand in the air!" "What the what's wrong here!" objected the astonished pilot. "This is Waswanipi, ain't it? Where's lsadore?" ls-adore?" "Come out on that pontoon or " "Say, what's this, a case of highjack? high-jack? Who are you birds? Where's lsadore?" Finlay flung back from the door of the fuselage: "We're Mounted Police Po-lice and you're under arrest!" "Good Gawd!" The pilot's face dropped into his hands. Finlay peered into the freight compartment of the plane. "Look, Red! She's loaded with cases." "Now what in the devil's this stuff?" "Red," announced Garry, opening the tinfoil wrapper of the package in his hand, "these are nothing else than bricks of opium, worth one hundred and fifty dollars apiece in Amsterdam. What lsadore gets for them, God only knows! We've struck Isadore's gold, Red! And what a strike!" Red's blue eyes bulged as he stared at the opium brick in Finlay's Fin-lay's hand. "Well, I'll be hamstrung! ham-strung! Faking a gold strike on the river to cover his smuggling dope from a ship on the Bay. That clears up a heap!" "It does more. We've solved by accident the most baffling case of narcotic smuggling in the history of the Dominion police. They've been watching the seaports for years for this stuff. It was sent from Europe by a schooner to Hudson's Hud-son's Bay, flown here and then south. Don't you realize that this means a citation and promotion for us both?" Garry's face sobered with mock gravity. "You will remember, Constable Con-stable Malone, that we have suspected suspect-ed this from the day we reached Waswanipi and have hung on by our teeth for the sole purpose of capturing this shipment and breaking break-ing up this ring of smugglers." "In a bear's left eye I will! We've been after lsadore for murder and still are. But chief, Mrs. Thistle Malone will never know that her red-headed husband isn't as clever as he looks. Towing the plane, they groped their way into a cove and anchored it to makeshift buoys. At the camp . on the mainland Wabistan was wait-1 wait-1 ing. "If the wind holds, the fire will reach Isadore's," said Finlay. J Wabistan's face wore the innocent ' look of a child. "Yes, lsadore will burn." "You set that fire, chief!" A pained expression spread over the gnarled features of the old man. He shook his head in dissent Finlay's eyes twinkled. "Whoever "Whoev-er did it, chief, was a personal friend of mine. The fire will take most of Isadore's men into the bush, today, and give us our chance. Now, let's move." Finlay and Red, wearing service blouses, belts and Stetson hats, hurried hur-ried with Blaise to the living quarters. quar-ters. They stood in the doorway of the large living room. At a table on which stood bottles and glasses, two men sat arguing with voices hoarse from prolonged drinking. "We've got to get out of here, right away!" A large man with a soft face, white from indoor living, pounded his fist on the table, un- |