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Show ByARTHUR STRINGER w.nsew.ce. THE STORY SO FAR: To help his partner, Crnger, keep Norland Airways In business, Alan Slade agrees to fly a "scientist" named Frayne and his as slstant, Karnell, to the Ana w otto river In search of the trumpeter swan. With the proceeds Crnger has bought a new plane, a Lockheed, which Is stolen while Slade Is away. The plane must be found, or Norland Airways is through. When he returns Slade starts out again, with only two meager clues, to recover the plane. The first clue is the "devil bird" the eskimo, Umanak, believes comes from Echo Harbor. The second j Is Blade's hunch that the lost plane and ; the swan-hunter, Frayne, are somehow : connected. He flies back to where he left Frayne, only to find that Frayne Is apparently Just hunting swans. There Is no sign of the lost plane. Now continue with the story. CHAPTER X He would be glad, he knew, to hear the roar of that engine again. Ee even quickened his pace as he recognized the cove where his ship was anchored. Then his gladness vanished and a tingle of apprehension went through his body. For as he glanced down A figure that hesitated for only a moment and then leaped into the shallow water. at the waterfront he saw that his mooring lines had been cast off and his plane was adrift. He could see It moving in the freshening breeze, circling slowly about until the pontoons pon-toons grounded on a gravel-bar. His response to that discovery was both immediate and unreasoned. He went sliding down the ridge side and plashing through the shallows as he rounded the cove end. The intruder intrud-er aboard the plane must have seen him as he went. Slade could make out a wide-shouldered wide-shouldered figure clambering , down to a float, a figure that hesitated for only a moment and then leaped Into the shallow water wa-ter and waded ashore. Once ashore he slipped away Into the spruce slopes and was lost to sight. Slade's first impulse was to race after him. But the most important thing, he remembered, was his plane. He went splashing out and climbed aboard. There his quick eye Inventoried his instrument board, assessed engine and controls, and discovered no damage to his ship. His smile was grim as he replaced the breaker assembly which was essential es-sential to the life of his motor. Its absence, he suspected, had kept that wide-shouldered intruder from taking off and disappearing into the unknown. And that wide-shouldered skulker, he had every reason to believe, was Frayne' s man Karnell. Kar-nell. Indignation was still burning through Slade's body as he gunned the motor and rose into the air. He circled twice over the lakeside spruce slopes, searching without reward re-ward for any sign of life there. Then he veered back and circled twice over the island-studded water where he knew Frayne's observation post to be. But the only sign of life he caught from that quarter was the sudden wing-flutter of a huge male-trnmneter. male-trnmneter. who interrupted his hostility went out of their faces. But Zeke's eyes remained troubled. "You mustn't do things like that, Lindy. I might've given you a air hole through the esophagus." "I'd rather you gave me a meal," said the new-comer, as they shook hands and headed toward the shack. "You're too old to keep to a sixteen-hour sixteen-hour day like this." Minty pointed an accusatory finger fin-ger at the flyer. "So you're givin' us the go-by these days?" he questioned. "What does that mean?" asked Slade as they trudged shackward. "Weren't you in this neighborhood two nights ago?" Slade stopped In his tracks. "Why do you ask that?" " 'Cause I heard you when you came down to pick up them gas drums. And I heard you the day before, over the hills," Minty asserted. "Wait a minute," cried Slade. "You don't mean my gas Is gone?" "You know it's gone, you night-prowlin' night-prowlin' puddle-jumper. But why in heck did you tote off them two dozen old ore bags?" Slade studied the two old faces so wrinkled with concern. "You say you heard a plane?" he questioned. "We sure did," said Minty. "And heard it more 'n once. What's more, I seen it. "This," said Slade, "is going to need a little looking into." Zeke agreed with him. "We don't want no strangers snoopin' round this territory," he proclaimed. "How about that nincompoop in specks who's nosin' out swans' nests?" questioned Minty. "He's the only outsider within a crow flight o' this camp." "But he has no plane," said Slade. "And no need for one." "Well, he'd better keep clear o' this claim," croaked the embattled us," said Cruger. "Every ship in this Dominion has to pass governmental govern-mental inspection and carry a license. li-cense. It can't make a move without with-out being checked and counter-checked. counter-checked. It couldn't land across the Line without customs permits and it couldn't stay there without being be-ing reported." "It's a pretty big country," was Slade's altogether unsatisfactory reply. re-ply. "Not to a cloud-dodger who can go from here to Aklavik in fourteen hours," contended Cruger, who added, add-ed, not without acerbity: "And keep his eyes open!" Slade was willing to let that pass. "Did you ever stop to think about motives," he asked, "in the swiping swip-ing of that Lockheed?" "I'm not a mind-reader," retorted the older man. "But I know this much: a crack-pot who'd high-jack a plane like that would always be ready to take chances in the air." "He must have known how to fly." Cruger's eye became meditative as it went up to the wall map. "You mentioned the Avikaka," he said. "That's well on toward the Anawotto, isn't it?" Slade acknowledged that it was. "About as ' empty country as you've got on your run?" "It's not on my run. But it's empty, all right Mostly bird life and barrens. It's the district I dropped your swan-hunter in." Cruger's gaze became reflective. "Oh, yes; the swan-hunter. He told us he wanted to stay anchored there until after the freeze-up." "And perhaps later," said Slade. "I saw him on my way south. All he seems to want just now is to be left alone." "It just doesn't add up," said Cruger. Slade tried to make his smile a casual one. "How about me trying to make it add up?" he suggested. He had, as he stood there, been doing a bit of rough and ready mathematics of his own. "What could you do?" "After dropping my pay load at Conjuror's Bay," Slade suggested, "I might scout around where I felt it would do the most good. I mean, scout around in earnest." Cruger's glance went up to the watchful driftings to lift his long neck and fling a cry of defiance up at the cloud-cleaving wings of his rival. Slade caught the sound of that trumpeted challenge, even through his engine roar, as he turned south and headed for the camp at the mouth of the Kasakana. Slade had the feeling of being in more friendly territory when he saw Lake Avikaka once more under his floats. But no welcoming figures emerged from the shack as he circled cir-cled over it in the evening light. No kindly old voice called out to him as he moored beside the landing land-ing stage. That left him both puzzled and depressed, de-pressed, -until his ear caught the sound of a distant detonation. He knew well enough the meaning of that blast. It meant that Zeke and Minty had foregone their usual supper sup-per hour to keep on with their mine work, delving like badgers along some new drift or pounding rock at the bottom of some new test pit. ci.A pfqnriinir hn rk hetween the Minty. "But two can play at that game, Minty," Slade pointed out "And there's something going on between here and Echo Harbor that needs a bit of looking into." "I seen a plane all right," maintained main-tained the scowling Minty. "But I can't flgger out why he'd be flyin' across empty country." "Or what in heck he'd swipe two dozen ore bags for," added Zeke. Minty's apprehensive eye rested on the young flyer. "Looks to me, son, as though you was the bird to do some needed scoutin' round here. That Snow-Ball Baby o' yours could cover the whole Barrens while Minty and me was footin' it through fifteen miles o' muskeg." "You're right, Zeke," Slade acknowledged. ac-knowledged. "And after I swing south tomorrow I'm coming back to do a little investigating along the Anawotto. Slade, hightailing it for his home tha Rnup hpaHpH southward wall map again. "The field's too big," he said, "no one man could fine-comb that territory. And in a couple of weeks we'd have you to look for." "I'd take a chance on that," said the man with the Viking eyes. "But you wouldn't even know what you were looking for." "Don't be too sure of that," was the delusively casual reply. "I've a hunch or two I'd rather like to sound out." "About what?" "First, about that Anawotto country." coun-try." "This company can't operate on hunches." Cruger averred in a voice shadowy ore piles, could see Zeke crimp a mercury cap with his teeth and stick it into a dynamite cartridge car-tridge before disappearing in the pit mouth. It was that old sourdough's fixed rule, he remembered, never to use powder until down to hard rock. Their methods may have been those of a passing generation, but they had found something worth while. For after a second detonation detona-tion and a second scrambling down the pit mouth Slade could hear Minty's Min-ty's cackle of triumph as he inspected inspect-ed a fragment of blue quartz which Zeke's tremulous fingers held just under his nose. "She's rich, all right," cried Minty. Min-ty. "You can see her with the naked eye." "She's the best yet," Zeke agreed as he continued to squint at the ragged quartz slab. "And now we know she's there, you old thimble-ribber, thimble-ribber, it's about time to call it a day." It was then that Slade called out to them. That call, through the long-houred evening light, caused Minty to wheel about with a startled star-tled grunt at the same moment Uiat Zeke's long arm swung out to catch up a rifle that had rested unseen against the windlass frame. "Put it down, you old quartz-chipper; put it down." was Slade's cry as he advanced toward them. The two taut figures relaxed. The yUl with a sense of something unfinished, un-finished, a contradiction unreconciled, unrecon-ciled, a problem unsolved. His first move, after landing and having a few hurried words with the redoubtable redoubt-able Cassidy, was to hurry over to Cruger and his plain-boarded administration ad-ministration building. "What held you up?" was that official's curt demand. "Stolen gas," said Slade. "There's somebody robbing our emergency caches." Cruger, at that announcement, wheeled about on him. "At what stations?" "At Wolf Lake. And later at Avikaka." Avi-kaka." The pilot could see his chiefs mouth harden with exasperation. "So we're getting it from all sides!" exclaimed Cruger. "You know, of course, we haven't spotted a trace of that lost Lockheed?" Slade nodded. "I talked with Cassidy, down at the dock. I'd a question or two I wanted to ask him. It didn't help much." "Nothing from Cassidy has helped much," said his partner. "Bui a plane can't be carried oil like a snatched pocketbook. It can't be hidden away and it can't be sold and it can't be passed on to others." "Then what's the answer?" asked Cruger. "That's something still anead of that was less friendly than his gaze. "And that's a fine country to get lost in." "I don't think I'd get lost" Slade said. "I know the lay-out there a little better than most bush hawks. And if I went in I'd go with camp equipment and extra fuel and rations." ra-tions." "And grow whiskers and go native," na-tive," observed Cruger, "and leave us with two planes out of service!" Slade ignored the note of mockery. mock-ery. "I usually get back," he announced. an-nounced. Cruger's face lost its frown. . "You do." he acknowledged. "But a trip like that would mean two-way two-way radio, to keep in touch with us." "I wouldn't want radio," said Slade. "That would be spilling the beans to everyone between Edmonton Edmon-ton and Point Barrow. What I'd rather have would be a belt ax and an air mattress, and perhaps a fish net And a magazine rifle. And an extra mosquito bar. The flies are bad in that section these days." "Sounds to me. Lindy. as though you wanted to follow up that looney-bird-lover and look for swans." "No, I won't be looking tor swans." said Slade. "It will be foi something bigger than trumpet ITO BE CO JXM h.D |