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Show ' ' ..,. ...nru ' Penn. PuWisMns Cft ' j Li Li By GEORGE MARSH W.N.U. Service3 U TIIE STOUY SO FAR: Bound for the Chibougamau (jold'country, six men lost their lives on the Nottaway river. Red Malone. Garrett Finlay, brother ol one ot the six, and Blaise, half-breed guide, arrive at Nottaway posing as surveyors INSTALLMENT FOURTEEN to Investigate. Murder Is suspected. It Is thought that Isadore, rich fur man, has made a gold strike and aims to keep prospectors out. On the way to the Hudson's Bay post they visit Isadore Isa-dore In his palatial home, and meet Lise, his stepdaughter. Answering an appeal ap-peal from Lise, Finlay Is ambushed. It develops that they are Mounted Police onlcers. The parly visits McNab. Hudson's Hud-son's Bay trader. Red falls In love with Thistle, McNab's daughter. lancing the undergrowth, found no target. Then, from deep in the forest drifted the familiar yelp of the aire-dale aire-dale on a rabbit trail. Flame and Garry! Sweat burst from Red's brow. They must be warned! There was a sudden movement in the bush. Red lifted his head to catch the fluttering of young fir tops as a dark shape moved through. Once, twice, the .45 roared. Two rifles crashed back in reply. Twigs flew from the saplings where Malone had knelt. But he was already yards away under new cover. w-bush w-bush the next man over the trail. Patamish had no gun. They had brought him to help carry the meat and the canoe. He had nothing against these white men and wanted to run away. But his companions had threatened to shoot him il he didn't stay. When the firing began he had started to run but the dog had pulled him down. "Ask him if he believes we've sickened the children with the evil eye as Kinebik says," suggested Garry. The boy's black eyes glanced at his carefully bandaged arm, then "I don't think you'll come back, Constable Malone, good man as you are! It's too bad too bad! Poor Thistle," McNab said. "I wanted to be honest with you and tell you, myself." Isadore's canoe was out of sight when Blaise and the fretting dog stood beside the loaded Peterboro. Near them Finlay talked with McNab Mc-Nab of the message leaving for the steel in the morning. Then the stockade stock-ade gate opened and Red and Thistle walked slowly toward the shore. McNab Mc-Nab turned his head winking hard at the sudden moisture in his eyes. "What a pair!" said Garry. "She's a lovely girl, McNab. I've worked with him for five years, now, and he's a man, every inch of that six feet three." "What a pity, Sergeant! If you'd only wait for help only wait!" Finlay smiled and shook his head. Walking slowly Red and Thistle ap. proached. She was laughing now, laughing up at him through misty eyes. "Just like him!" thought Finlay. They stopped near the canoe and Red had her two hands. She flung back her red-gold head and gazed hungrily into his face while he talked. "Come now!" they heard him say. "Chase the clouds out of those blue eyes! I want to see you smile again before I go. Show your dimples, Lady! Laugh just once more for Red!" She caueht her breath as she "Thank God! That will stop Garry!" Gar-ry!" he panted. "There're three of them, at least, but they're worried. When Flame shows up there'll be a circus." Again the "craack-craack!" of the raven bludgeoned the silence. Nearer Near-er now. For a space the stillness beat painfully on Malone's eardrums as he lay nursing his pistol. Then, in the soundless forest lifted a scream that was cut off short as if steel jaws had clamped on a throat. Red heard a movement in the brush and, rising, saw a disappearing disappear-ing shape. He fired; fired again. There was the "b'rang!" of a Lee-Enfield, Lee-Enfield, the savage challenge of Flame, then the muffled snarls of a dog closing with his enemy; Tightened Tight-ened cries mingling with Garry's commands: "No, Flame! Let him up Let go, Flame!" ' Malone thrashed back into the bush to find Finlay holding the mad- lifted to the faces of the white men and his keen face lighted in a smile. "No," he said to Blaise, "this white man saved me from his j dog and bound my arm. He would ; not sicken children." . j "That's the lad, Joe Patamish!" applauded Finlay. "There are brains under that mop of hair. Tell him, Blaise, he's going with us but ; until we're sure he won't run away, i we'll have to tie him up. This kid is going to be useful." "He'll be very useful," he added. "Now let's get the canoe and the rest of our stuff across this carry." But the boy had not finished his story. As he talked the furrows , cut deep into Blaise's face. He made a clicking sound with his ! tongue as he gravely shook his head. "What does he say?" demanded Garry. "Dere was big fight at de islan'! Chief Wabistan kech Kinebik and "I can't let you go, Red!" Tete-Blanche wid whiskey for Mon-tagnais. Mon-tagnais. Michel Wabistan and two odders was shot. Der is moch trou-bl trou-bl for Chief Wabistan."-, "Poor Michel!" said Finlay. '.'He was a good boy! Well, Mr. Isadore, you're rolling up the score against yourself!" "Joe Patamish say, al-so," continued con-tinued Blaise, "dat Kinebik make big medicine w'en de August moon is round." "Red, we'll be there! Now, men, let's get going!" Through the following night three silent men pushed the Peterboro up Waswanipi bound for' their rendezvous rendez-vous with Chief Wabistan. Malone, whose invincible optimism opti-mism tolerated no thought ofdefeat, was deep in dreams of a red-gold head and a pair of laughing eyes back at Matagami. . But as their maple blades put' mile after mile of the sleeping lake behind them, in the harassed brains of Finlay and Blaise there was sma.ll hope of winning out as only through some miracle of chance could they hope to checkmate the red hunters inflamed by Tete-Blanche's whiskey and Kinebik's magic. Joe Patamish had told them that most of the young men had left the smiled up at him, oblivious of them all, then flung her arms about his neck. "I can't let you go, Red!" she sobbed. "You'll never come back! They'll never let you come back to me!" The others turned away as she clung to him. Later, until the post buildings faded from the sight of those in the canoe, a flutter of white in the clearing marked where a girl waved her farewell.'. CHAPTER XIV r- Two days later the canoe had passed through Lake Olga of the chain of large lakes and was on the Quiet Water below the Montagnais camp on the island. "There's' the lop-stick spruce David Da-vid told us to look for!" announced Finlay. "Ah-hah! David say dat chain of lake lie a mile souf of here," said Blaise. "We portage to de lake and pass round de Indian waitin' on de riviere, den follow outlet of las' lake to Waswanipi." In the morning they started packing pack-ing the canoe and provisions through the spruce, tamarack and Jack-pine, spotted with hardwood,- to David's chain of lakes. Blazing a trail as he traveled, Blaise had reached the first lake I with a backload and was returning to pack the canoe through with Finlay when he met the sweating Red bowed under three bags of flour. Red went on and shortly saw water wa-ter shimmering through the trees. He was close to the shore when he heard a movement ahead of him in hardwood scrub. Porcupine, likely, he thought, and kept on. Then dry twigs snapped in front of him. He lifted his head and looked. Taking deliberate aim with his rifle stood an Indian. Malone pivoted on his heels. With a twist of his head and lift of his shoulders he dropped his backload as the Indian In-dian fired. There was a thud as the bullet struck the rolling top bag. With a lunge Red was buried deep in a clump of small fir. The windless forest vibrated with silence. The Indian who had fired on him could not be far but the brush was so thick he could see nothing. So Red decided to stalk him. With his heavy pistol in his teeth he hunched foot by foot on his elbows until his range of vision had increased to twenty yards. dened airedale away from a young Indian sprawled on the ground. "You're all right, Red? They didn't hit you?" cried Garry. "Flame had this boy down when I reached him!" Nursing his bitten arm, the young Montagnais lifted frightened eyes to the giant who glared down at him. "It's all right!" soothed Garry. "We won't hurt you!" "Where's Blaise?" demanded Red. "I didn't get a clean shot but I was afraid you'd walk into them, so fired anyway to warn you. How many were there?" "This one and two others, I think," replied Finlay, lashing Flame to a tree and starting to examine ex-amine the shaking boy who watched him with the eyes of a dog. "Where are you, Blaise?" called Malone. "What was that yell?" Red found Blaise beside a limp shape in the brush. "Ah-hah!" Brassard was studying study-ing the grimasing face from which glazed eyes stared at the sunlit tree tops. "Recognize him?" "Ah-hah! We see heem at de islan' is-lan' at head of lake." fishing camps and joined Kinebik s crusade to save the children. Only a handful of Wabistan's relatives and friends had rallied around the chief. And Finlay realized, bitterly, that if he should manage to hang on until the arrival of the police plane, he would be no nearer his goal. He had come to find the men responsible responsi-ble for the disappearance of Bob Finlay and the others. He had found them but he still had no legal proof of their guilt. And how, with the Montagnais out of control, could he hope to arrest and hold Isadore and Tete-Blanche even for breach of the Indian whiskey law? They'd laugh at him, wipe out his party and disappear, dis-appear, as McNab said, into the muskeg of the Bitter Water. In his message to headquarters he had asked for a police plane by September Septem-ber first to carry his prisoners south. That plane would arrive too latt. Sergeant Garrett Finlay and Constable Consta-ble Malone would then be beyond need of help. And Lise! What would happen to the girl he had promised to see safe at Matagami who had stormed into his heart that day on the beach? He choked back a groan as he thought of the love that had come so strangely into his life. What would become of Lise? Around him lances of sunlight thrust through the treetops splashing splash-ing the underbrush with gold. Still the bush was as soundless as a vacuum. Then a squirrel chattered from somewhere in front and Red smiled. "Ah, there you are!" He wormed along in the direction of the sound. Then he stiffened sud-4 sud-4 denly where he lay. Back in the . forest rose the guttural "craack-craack!" "craack-craack!" of the northern raven. Red's eyes snapped as he nodded his head. Shortly the croaking was followed fol-lowed by a dismal "kooer-kooei !" "Montagnais, say your prayers!" chuckled Malone! "There's a cara-jou cara-jou hunting you! That was no raven! That was Blaise's signal!" Again Red inched his way through young fir and hardwood. But he saw nothing. Once more the "kooer-kooer!" of the raven startled the forest much nearer now and followed by a me-tallic me-tallic "klunk!" But Red could not answer. He w i-as too close to deceive Indian ears. "They're growing nervous! They don't like that old raven moving in on their rear. He's got them gupss-ing. gupss-ing. If I could only get a shot. I'd 6lort a stampede." .But Red's eyes, "He'll drink no more of Tete-Blanche's Tete-Blanche's whiskey. What was that scream?" Brassard opened and closed his steel fingers in a significant gesture. ges-ture. "Dat fallar run into de old raven." The slits of eyes in his granite face glittered. "De raven squeeze him wid his claw." "Pity it wasn't Batoche or Tete-Blanche!" Tete-Blanche!" Garry bandaged the boy's lacerated lacerat-ed arm while Blaise assured him in Cree that he was safe. Slowly recovering re-covering from his terror the fifteen year old lad told Brassard his story in Montagnais. He had been forced by his older brothers to join the party Tete-Blanche had sent to block the Quiet Water. They had decided that it was a bank beaver they had heard the night they fired on the Peterboro but Isadore had returned from Matagami the day before and had doubled the night guard on the river. He, Joe Patamish. Pa-tamish. and the two men lying there in tile scrub had packed the canoe to the lake that morning to hunt moose. When they saw freshly cut birch on the shore, they had landed and found Brassard's bags and footprints. foot-prints. So they had decided to am- They slept all day hidden in the timber of the point where Wabistan Wabi-stan was to meet them. That night a canoe slid into the beach. Finlay took the old man's bony hand. "You have lost your son. I am sad." Garry said. "My son and my people have left me! The heart of Wabistan is sick. Now his knife is sharp like an eagle's ea-gle's beak. His gun is loaded." "You must eat first," said Finlay, Fin-lay, "then let us talk over our pipes beside the fire which is hidden from the lake." As they ate Moise Wabistan and his father gave to Blaise in their native tongue the story of their finding find-ing Tete-Blanche and Kinebik at a Montagnais camp and of the fight that followed. "Dey say," interpreted Blaise, "de Montagnais was drunk and would not listen w'en dey tell dem Kinebik was a false shaman and work for Isadore. De ole chief start for Kinebik wid his knife! Tete-Blanche Tete-Blanche shoot Michel and dere was ver' bad time. Dere was too man) man for Wabistan and his fre'n ' to fight and dey leave." j no ni: coriL i d |