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Show ' M Ya wheel Men M j l 11 By GEORGE MARSH U U INSTALLMENT THREE Finlay receives an anonymous letter suggesting that the six men were not drowned as reported. They question the reports from the north that the bodies of the men were found by Indians who declared that the men bad perished in pole slipped from his limp ringers. "Blaise is hit!" cried the desperate desper-ate Finlay. "Get him, Red, before he goes overboard! I'll hold her!" The kneeling Brassard moved his head from side to side as if to clear his brain as Red caught him and eased him to the floor of the canoe. The blue lips in the graying face framed the words: "Dey got us!" Then he lost consciousness. . As if it were a chip, a cross-current snatched the canoe from the control of the -straining sternman, blinded by bursting spray, and whirled her. Straddling Blaisels body Malone battled to head the boat back into the channel. . As he thrust with all his magnificent power his spruce pole slowly bowed into an arc, but. the river had its way. The boat did not swing. , The pole splintered in his hands and he lurched back to escape a headlong head-long plunge into the boiling water. Again the rifles roared on the shore. Garry felt a sting like the stab of hot iron as his right leg went limp. "They've got me!"- he muttered. mut-tered. Savagely clamping his teeth, he managed to brace himself and follow Red's lead. Finlay prayed that he might hold on until they reached the bend. The shots from the distant point grew fainter. The range was long and they were going wide. Finlay's leg was numb but, propped against the gunwale, it still wabbled under him. "Shooting men out of canoes," he panted, "even on the Nottaway! Worse than I guessed! Did Batoche pass us in the night on the lake or is it someone else?" He wondered THE STORY SO FAR: Bound for the Chibougamau gold country, six men lost their lives on the Nottaway river. Red Malone, Garrett Finlay, brother of one of the six, and Blaise, half-breed guide, arrive at Nottaway posing as surveyors. , Reflected in the mirror behind the counter Finlay saw a pair of sinister eyes watching the two through a window. He yawned, stretched and sauntered to the door. "Wait a minute, min-ute, Batoche!" he called to the man who was moving away. "What's your hurry?" The half-breed swung around and snarled: "You spik to me?" Reaching the waiting Batoche, he announced: "I've just had a wire from Ottawa. I'm ordered to map Waswanipi on my way to the bay." Finlay watched the astonishment on Batoche's scarred face shift to a covert look of satisfaction. "You go to Waswanipi, eh?" "Yes, and we'll need another man. I thought possibly you, yourself, would take the job if Isadore could spare you. How about it?" "I got damn good job!" snorted the furious half-breed. "Well, then," said Finlay, affably, affa-bly, "how about Tete-Blanche? He knows the lake and would make a good man for the survey." "You you know Tete-Blanche?" "Huh! know him? I knew him long before he went to work for Isadore! Isa-dore! If you see him before I do tell him his old friend Finlay asked about him." Leaving the dumbfounded dumb-founded Batoche working his jaw in a futile attempt to voice his thoughts, Garry turned and entered the store. "I guess that'll give M'sieu' Batoche something to chew on," he muttered. There was raw terror in Cotter's face as he whispered: "Tete-Blanche! "Tete-Blanche! Why, he's Isadore's " The storekeeper gaped at Finlay as if he thought him demented. "Isadore's what, Mr. Cotter?" Cotter shook his head, waving his hands aimlessly. "You're crazy, man plumb crazy!" he exploded. "Where did you ever hear of Tete-Blanche?" Tete-Blanche?" "Why, he's an old friend of mine." Finlay left Cotter mumbling, "Tete-Blanche a friend of yours!" and started for the station. McLeod sat at the telegraph key as Finlay entered the station. "Good morning, Mr. Finlay!" he greeted. "Off today?" the rapids of the Nottaway river. The name of Isadore, rich fur man, wben brought by Finlay, causes an Immediate Immedi-ate cessation of conversation. While questioning Cotter, the storekeeper, Finlay Fin-lay noticed someone watching them. . oiling of the action of his .45 and shoving it into the shoulder holster strapped under his left arm beneath his shirt, "three lads I know are go- ; ing to throw a little rough stuff ' themselves." "They -won't work in the open. Red.' It will all be Injun stuff, un- j der cover, with no surviving witnesses. wit-nesses. They're blocking the Chib-. ougamau Trail but they don't intend ' to hang for it.". . I "And I don't intend they shall, j Garry!" growled Red. I Garry loved Red's weakness for a I fight and his berserk courage when he was in one, but be cautioned: "Remember we're a peaceable survey sur-vey party interested in certain other oth-er matters on the side. We can't make the first move." "Sure, boss, but while we're running run-ning that compass survey of Waswanipi, Was-wanipi, I'm going to make a personal per-sonal survey of Mr. Jules Isadore. If I find what I think I will, it'll be a sweet job." "And a dangerous one, Red." "Uh-huh! And a dangerous one!" grunted Malone. In the morning Blaise was conscious. con-scious. Six days of rest and careful care-ful nursing put him on his feet and gave the clean flesh wound in Garry's Gar-ry's leg a chance to heal. In the meantime Malone had swum the river riv-er below the rapids and found in the mud at the foot of the old Indian portage the tracks oftwo men and freshly broken brush where a canoe ca-noe had been cached. At. the head of the carry, footprints indicated that the men had come downstream. Batoche and Flambeau must have passed their camp on the river in the night, ambushed them, and thinking that they had somehow run the rapids, gone on, searching for their supper fire. "Now, Blaise, what do you think of your friends who wanted to give you a job?" demanded Red. Blaise grimaced as he fingered his bandaged head. "I t'ink if I ambush cano' in dose rapids, I make bettair job. At less dan hunder yard dey start to fire at free men who got to stand up and make good target. Dey shoot eight-ten time and get two hit." "McLeod," returned Garry, "you may be surprised to hear that early this morning you handed me a wire from my department chief, at Ottawa, Ot-tawa, directing me to change my plans and first run a compass survey sur-vey of the Waswanipi chain of lakes i before proceeding to the Bay." j The Scotchman scowled. "Oh, I have, have I? Well, I haven't!" I "You can deny I got that wire, but I wouldn't if I were you!" "What did you do to him, Blaise?" 1 asked Garry, when he and Malone reached the river shore with their bags. "I tell dat Batoche he mus' be crazy. Flambeau navare talk wid me last night." "That must have pleased him!" chuckled Red. "First he was ver' cross. Den he offair me big pay." "What did you say?" "I say too small, I get t'ousand dollar a mont' wid you. He was like wild man. I laugh at him and he pull dat gun. But he was foolish. fool-ish. He stand too close." Blaise produced a snub-nosed automatic au-tomatic from his pocket. "Here's his gun!" Shortly, from the steel bridge, two men with heads together watched the canoe start down river and disappear disap-pear behind a bend. CHAPTER III For a hundred miles, after passing pass-ing through Lake Shabogama, the Nottaway thrashed itself to foam in rock-scarred reaches of broken water wa-ter or narrowed to slide past timbered tim-bered hills as it raced off the Height-of-Land. "Allons! We go!" Down the flume into the white chaos leaped the Peterboro. On either ei-ther side boulders pushed up their granite bulk where the river burst to fling spray high in air. Eddies and cross-currents sucked at her keel. Knife-edged ledges that would rip out her bottom snarled beneath the broken water. One mistake and canoe and men would be sucked into the maw of the thundering river to be spewed up and cast ashore, battered bat-tered and broken, miles below. Drenched to the bone, battling always al-ways for the safety of the black water, the crew ran the Peterboro to the first bend. "We're through the worst of it!" panted Red, as they snubbed the boat to study the river below. "Good channel ahead!" As he spoke the whip-lash crack of rillcs broke through the din of the rapids. "We're ambushed!" cried Red. "They're on that point! Come on!' Finlay caught the blue haze of smokeless powder hanging in the alders al-ders of the right shore. The canoe was trapped! Blaise lifted his pole with a shout. "Let her run!" Like a galloping horse the Peterboro Peter-boro plunged down the narrow channel. chan-nel. Again and again rifles exploded on the shore. Suddenly the bowman bow-man (figged to his knees while bis "They shot straight enough to satisfy sat-isfy me," said Finlay. "I thought we'd lost you when you went down. If they'd wiped us out, there'd have been three more reported accidentally acciden-tally drowned and no proof to the contrary." The half-breed's eyes blazed with uch fury that his friends gaped in surprise. "We head for plenty trou-bl'!" trou-bl'!" he bit off between his teeth. "Mebbe we navare come back! Who know? But wan t'ing you 'promise Blaise Brassard! You give dis Batoche Ba-toche to me! I take him in dese nan' so!" Brassard's thick "fingers reached into the air and clamped shut, as if on a throat. "He's yours, Blaise! But he's only a tool," said Garry. "What puzzles me is his boss. I can't make out Isadore's game. He must have brains to make such a success of the fur business and yet he's riding rid-ing straight for a fall with the authorities." au-thorities." "He's got a rich placer strike, somewhere, and to avoid a stampede stam-pede of prospectors won't register it until he's skimmed off the cream," insisted Red. "Wal, now we feel bettair, we go have look at M'sieu Isadore, grunted grunt-ed Blaise. He drew a villainous looking skinning knife from its sheath and tested its edge with a thick thumb, as he said: "Somebody "Some-body goin' to pay for my sore head, for sure!" j "I'm glad I'm not the fellow, you old wolverine!" laughed Garry. "When you take the war path, there's blood on the moon." CHAPTER IV Ten days later the Peterboro was approaching the head of Matagami Lake, flanked by black spruce ridges which rolled away to the horizon. hori-zon. Finlay had intended to stop at the Hudson's Bay post which his map showed was located somewhere on its irregular north shore. But, as it was hidden in a deep bay, the survey party had passed the fur post. "Do we go on up the inlet to this Lake Olga," asked Red, "or turn back to hunt for the Hudson's Eay outnt?" "We -must be pretty close to the thoroughfare, now," said Garry, examining ex-amining his map. "We've lost ten days already. According to the map . the post is thirty miles back of us behind a bunch of islands. We'll 1 keep going." "Good! Waswanipi and Isadore, or bust! is my motto," laughed Red. "Was that the flash of a paddle up there where the lake suddenly narrows?" demanded Garry. The three men stopped paddling to focus their eyes on the distant water. "Cano leave de inlet for sure!" announced Blaise, his black eyes narrowing to slits as he watched. "We make talk wid dem Injun. MeL be dey know somet'ing." i (TO BE CO TlMED) "You hit bard, Garry?" if they had lost Blaise, loyal old. Blaise, hunched mere in the bow. "Where was he hit?" called Garry, Gar-ry, fearful of the answer. "In the head!" came the sorrowful sorrow-ful reply. Garry's leg suddenly went limp. In spite of his efforts, he sagged to his knees. "They got me in the leg, Red," he called. "We've got to land!" "You hit hard, Garry?" "Through the thigh! No big arteries, ar-teries, I guess! Let's get Blaise ashore!" With fear in their hearts they examined ex-amined Blaise's blood-caked head. "Glory be!" cried the giant as he traced the course of the bullet. "They only creased him!" "Get some water. Red! His pulse is good. If he hadn't got a fracture, frac-ture, he'll be as right as rain in a few days. He's tough." j When they had washed and band-i band-i aged Brassard's head, Red inspect- ed Garry's leg? "Straight through I the thigh muscles clean as a whistle! whis-tle! Not an artery touched. That was a high-powered small bore. Pain any?" "Not much! It's just numb and weak." Shortly Red had his two wounded wound-ed friends on a spread blanket. Working like the moose he was, Malone soon had cargo and canoe through the alders and back in the bush. The hidden camp was now safe from searching eyes on the opposite op-posite shore. Then Garry and Red held a council of war. "What's your guess, Red?" There was an ugly glitter in the blue eyes as they shifted from Garry's Gar-ry's bandaged leg to the still unconscious un-conscious Blaise. "I don't think Batoche Ba-toche and Flambeau could have passed us last night and done this. It was someone else. How about Ibis Tete-Blanche? Do you suppose he's putting in the summer on the Nottaway?" "Who knows? All we have is the knowledge that someone tried to wipe out a government survey party. par-ty. That means they'll pay through the nose to Ottawa. After this thing today it's clc-4- what become of Bob and the rest who started for Chibougamau." "Well, as they've started the rough stuff," said Red, finishing the |