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Show "I should have tbe gun to protect Miss Ramlll." "There's nothing her to attack yon," Garth replied. "Just possibly, I may find game at the stream. "Could another pair of hands be helpful In making the canoe J" Lll-lth Lll-lth asked. "Well yes." The girl looked at nuxby. ne did not speak or move. She stood up. "Dad, you'll be all right with Vivian. I am going to help Alan." Her father shook his head. "Yon should stay here with me. Let Vivian Viv-ian go." Iluxby rose, frowning, ne looked at Garth with cold rancor. "I Bee no need for anyone to go. I certainly cer-tainly cannot permit my fiancee to accompany you." "She might have helped. You'd be only a hindrance," Garth replied. Hozby and Mr. Ramlll. Llllth was sprinkling salt on slices of the raw meat The pass was barren even of caribou moss. Tbe meat had to be eaten cold or uncooked, or not at alL Six hours had passed since the party left the camp In the valley bottom. After the long, bard climb, even the girl was hungry enough to have eaten rawhide. Less than half of the 20-pound chunk of caribou remained by the time even Mr. Ramlll , found he could eat no more. All were so refreshed by the food and rest that no one objected when Garth gave the word to start on. There would be no more slogging slog-ging up hill, with lungs bellowslng for air. One would only have to bold back. But that was the rub the bold- He swung away at a rapid pace. Dut behind him he heard the girl speak shurply: "Don't be silly, Vivian. Viv-ian. Get out of my way." After that came a quick patter of moccnslus. Garth kept on for some distance as If he did not hear the sound. Then he halted behind an alder thicket to face the girl. She was so close behind that she almost ran Into him. He smiled Into her eager eyes. "This Is a happy surprise, Lilith." Her eyelids sank, and her cheeks crimsoned under their coat of pitch-and-grense mosquito dope. "You needn't fancy I'm running after you. It's It's only because I want to get out of this beastly North country of yours and be rid of vou. tool" Lilith made the last climb to Garth without effort But Iluxby plodded up almost as winded as Mr. Ramlll. He lowered from his shoulders the small but heavy load In his wolfskin knapsack. The chunks of frozen caribou meat beside be-side the bulky blanket-wrapped bundle on Garth's packboard drew his displeased attention. "You can't expect me to carry any of that venison. Tra no pack Jack of the woods. Forty pounds Is quite enough to suit me." Garth hefted the wolfskin sack. "My guess Is forty-five. Figuring roughly, that makes forty-one troy pounds, or four, ninety-two troy ounces. Call it five hundred even. nioHmtm (a armtn A utrtv dollars an lng back. The south side of the pass was far steeper than the north, and there was no glacier to offer stretches of smooth footing. foot-ing. The bed of the sharply tilted cieft frequently dropped over small cliffs. Retween these high ledges were slides of frost-shattered rocks. Patches of Ice here and there made the footing doubly treacherous. Garth himself was ready to quit when, In the twilight they came down to where the steep pitch eased off on a small patch of tundra. He opened his pack and spread the blanket on the dry gravel In hole under a pile of boulders. At sight of the fat with the frozen caribou and smoked moose mont in thn nnck. Lilith at once SYNOPSIS As Alan Garth, prospector, Is pr- ?iartns to leave (or his mining- claim n the Far North, a plan lands at the airway emergency atatlon. In it are Burton Ramlll, millionaire mining- magnata; hla daughter, Llllth; Lll-lth; and Vivian Huxby, pilot and mining engineer. Believing him to t only an Ignorant prospector, the men offer to make an air trip to Garth's claim, although they refer to bla samples of platinum-bearing or a nearly "worthies!." Llllth Jtamlll, product of the Jan age, plainly ahowa her contempt for Garth. Through Garth's guldanca the plane aoon reachea the claim alt. Huxby, and Ramlll, after making everal tests, assure Garth hla claim 1 nearly valueless, but to "encourage" "encour-age" young prospectors they are Willing to take a chanc In "nvestlng . small amount. Sensing treachery ahead, Garth secretly removes . part from the plane'e motor. Huxby and - Llllth taunt Garth with his "gullibility," "gulli-bility," but their tone changes when they try to start the crippled plane. Returning to shore they try to force Garth to give up the missing part. Garth manages to set the monoplane - adrift and the current carries It over the falls. He points out to the enraged en-raged trio that he Is their only hope tn guiding them out of the wilderness. wilder-ness. Garth begins the work of preparing pre-paring for th long Journey. He Insists In-sists that th others help. Ramlll and his daughter must be hardened for the hardships ahead In their toilsome toil-some trek to the jutpost on the Mackenzie. Returning from long sleep In the woods. Garth finds the party has stolen the tea and sugar he has been saving for emergencies, lie makes no objection, simply pointing point-ing out that he Is accustomed to ai strict meat diet, and that they are hurting- only themselves. The work of getting ready for th trip continues. con-tinues. Huxby refuses to help, and works on the mining claim. The long Journey begins. They reach the wamp, where a halt Is called. I iniiuviiu a -f ounce troy. The values of the alloy will average at least thirty. That gives us a total of sny, fifteen thousand thou-sand dollars. Not so bad for a few days' panning." Huxby's face showed that this was no news to hlra. For all his cool self-control, his fingers clutched tight hold of the wolfsi-ln as be drew It out of Garth's careless grasp. Though Garth smiled at the engineer's engi-neer's betrayal of cupidity, he took note of It as an additional warning. Garth's sideward glance caught an amused twinkle In Mr. Ramlll's shrewd eyes. The hard training had put the millionaire In better health than he probably had enjoyed for many years. Also, his mind was bigger and better poised than that of his prospective son-in-law. He could smile with Garth over Iluxby's obsession smile and put aside all thought of the placer until In a po- "So, that's It Well, you're a good hater, but you're a real sport You're game. Tag along, If you wish." At the edge of the swamp he stopped beside a game trail. Llllth came op beside him, breathing deeply deep-ly from the long and rapid walk. He pointed to the big water-filled hoof prints In the mud. "We may be In luck. Moose passed here yesterday the water Is clear In the tracks. They may not have -gone too far. Stay here, or be quiet" An uptossed leaf showed that the wind was In bis favor. He started along the trail. The tracks were still a day old when they turned out Into the muskeg toward a lily pool Gnrth skirted on along the border of the swamp to where a bend of the stream twisted In close to dry ground. Here was the grove of birch of which he had spoken. He pointed to the fringe of willows below be-low the birch. Those bitten twigs still white. They've been eaten off less than an hour ago. Stay here." After another test of the wind. gathered dry moss. This time the raw caribou flesh was seared over a fat-fed fire of the moss before being eaten. After the meal, Garth opened the gold-mounted cigar case and handed one of the Uavanas to Its owner. Mr. Ramlll hastily bit off the end and lighted the cigar In the flame of the fat and moss fire. As he put It to his lips he hesitated, then, with a perceptible effort he turned to offer It to his daughter. "Uh ladles first my dear." Lilith started to thrust out her hand. Something seemed to catch It She glanced at Garth and stood up. "You need It more than I do, Dad. Good night, everybody. I'm dog tired." Her father and Huxby looked at each other In astonishment Garth was less surprised. He smiled to himself as he put more moss and fat on the fire and colled up beside be-side It Before sunrise. Garth was again awake. He filled the little pot with ice and set it In the edge of the rebuilt fire, then began cooking PllilPil CHAPTER VI Continued 9 The girl showed the whisky flask that he had left In her father's care. It was full of fly dope spruce pitch mixed with caribou tallow. She put the flask Into her foxskln bag, along with the pouches of tea and Bait. ; Mr. Ramlll was already walking off. Garth had made a tump-line for bis pack. As he fitted the band serosa his forehead and stood up, rifle In hand, he glanced over his shoulder at the girL She turned and met his glance. Her lips curled In their old scornful scorn-ful smile. "What are you waiting for? Aren't we ever to get out of this beastly valley?" He started off without any reply re-ply but with a glow of exultance under his outward show of Indifference. Indiffer-ence. Llllth Ramlll thought she was sbout to escape from the Wild. He had promised to guide them all to the Mackenzie. The probabilities proba-bilities were now In favor of even her father making It The girl would go back to what she called civilization to luxury and self-indulgence, to Jazz and nightclubs the vapid pursuit of sensation. Yet a part of her would linger behind In this lost valley of the desolate subarctic Rockies. She bad eaten of wild ment; she had smelted the tang of smoke from man's first friend, the camp fire. She had come face to face with the Primitive and had lived It Fortunately, she had already been hard. Now she was fit. Under tbe smear of mosquito dope, the lines had smoothed from her face. .' The drawn look had disappeared. Instead of the scarlet of rouge, her ; lips were cherry red with healthy natural color. She had gained weight Her body now looked lean 4 rather than emaciated. As Garth overtook the girl's fa ther, he eyed him with a smaller yet I no less genuine satisfaction. For . every pound gained by the daugh-s daugh-s ter, the father had been rid of three or more. Garth himself swung briskly . ahead. So far, nothing had been i- said to Huxby about the cache cave In the Ice tunnel of the glacier stream. He knew only that the caribou cari-bou carcasses had been put on Ice. The one thing of which Garth felt most certain regarding the engineer en-gineer was that he would never give over trying to get the platinum placer until every possible scheme bad been balked. Mr. Ramlll might quit. He already possessed a fortune. for-tune. Dut Iluxby was still a relatively poor man, and he bad now made - certain that the placer was worth at least a million dollars. Behind his polished front he was no less h unscrupulous than his millionaire partner, and he was absolutely j coldblooded. Among the cards that the future was to deal In tne game, the Ice i cave alht prove to be anything J from a two-spot, to an ace. If the play should shift back to the val-; val-; ley, a cache full of meat would most benefit the player who knew bout it ' "I 1 sitlon to take It from its discoverer. Llllth saw the situation from a still different angle. She opened the wolfskin sack to peer Inside. At sight of the nodules, she dropped the flap, with a look of disgust "Worth only fifteen thousand dollars," dol-lars," she bantered her fiance. "You've dug dirt all this time for a trifle like that and lugged It all the way up here. Don't tell me you're so dumb that you plan to pack It for the weeks Alan says we'll need to get back to the Mackenzie I" "With my ' blanket and the meat that's In It I'm starting off with something like two hundred pounds," Garth said. "Game was scarce on the other side of the pass when I went out the other time. The weight of our metal In meat may be worth more than the fifteen thousand dollars. Let Huxby choose which he prefers to pack." The engineer compromised by shoving one of the twenty-pound chunks of caribou meat In the sack, on tap of the metal. Garth backed up to his boulder-perched boulder-perched pack, slipped the tump-line over his forehead, and started up the great cleft as If his 200-pound pack weighed no more than nux-by's nux-by's 65 pounds of meat and metal. He halted only when the other men were compelled to stop for breath. Huxby, though carrying a load only a third the weight of Garth's, had soon begun to strain and puff as hard as Mr. Ramlll. In places the pitch of the glacier became too steep for ordinary climbing. Garth had to draw his belt-ax and chop foot holds, The last of these steep rises was far up towards the head of the pass. The remaining distance to the summit was not so steep, and there were no dangerous crevasses. Garth made the climb at a swinging pace. He was halfway down before he met Huxby plodding again upwards with Mr. Ramlll. The engineer looked at him with cold-eyed rancor. ran-cor. Mr. Ramlll panted a wistful question: ques-tion: "Wh-when do we eat?" "At the top. Take your time." LBIth had chosen to wait for Garth down where he had left them all. His pack lay on the snow below be-low the boulder upon which he had set it She pointed her slender finger fin-ger at the fallen bundle. "I tried to find out If you were lying about the weight I couldn't even lift one end. Cut you see how the top of the stone slopes. The beastly thing slid off." "That's all right Miss Ramlll. Easy enough to up-end It again." "Easy!" Her blue eyes glowed with an odd light "You carried Dad back to camp that day. But It was down hill. Now to pack this frightful load all the way up here! Alan Garth, you're a manl" -Well, It's a bit of a stiff pull-up," he admitted. "But we'll soon make the downslope, I left the knife on tbe knapsack. Go up and slice that caribou meat." The girl whom her own father could not command met the order with a cheerful nod. She started briskly off up tbe gap. Garth's steady climbing brought him to the top of the pass a few paces behind he went ahead alone, silent as a lynx. Luck was with him. As he rounded the bend he saw the Immense Im-mense antlers of an old bull moose rise above the willows on the bank. Before tbe startled beast could plunge Into the water Garth dropped him with a bullet through the brain. At the crash of the shot, three moose cows with calves broke cover beyond the bull. The distance was considerable and brush obscured Garth's aim. He had to shoot four times to bring down one cow and ber calf. But that was enough. nis shout brought Llllth on the run. She looked delightedly at the bull. "Oh, no chance now of starving!" starv-ing!" "That's not all," he said. "I can build a hide canoe In two days; a better one than can be made from those small birches." When, a day later, Mr. Ramlll came limping after Huxby to the smoke-marked camp, Llllth was still hanging moose meat on alder poles over the smudge-flre. Huxby dropped his full-stuffed knapsack and wiped his sweaty forehead fore-head with the back of bis hand. "Pah! To think I've lugged all that old meat, and he's killed again. Why didn't he come back and tell me?" Tbe girl gave him an odd glance. "We've been too busy, old dear. Where's the blanket?" -I couldn't pack everything. If I'd known, I could have left this confounded smoked moose and brought the blanket Instead." "Why not have left your load of metal? Didn't you consider that Dad and I will get far more than fifteen thousand dollars worth of comfort out of that blanket?" His lips tightened. "Sorry, darling. dar-ling. The thought of a common dirty blanket as against all the platinum I did not even think of It Now of course I realize. But lt'a too late." "Yes," she agreed, "It's too late. Dad, you were a real sport not to wait for Alan to come back and carry you." Tbe millionaire had slumped down to rub his swollen ankle. He looked up at Huxby, with a bantering banter-ing smile. "We couldn't permit our girl to elope with a wooda vagabond, vaga-bond, could we, Vivian?" The engineer did not smile. His face went blank. "Where is that roughneck, Llllth?" "Down in the willows, working hard for os. Won't you be glad when we're rid of him?" "Won't you?" -Well, I'm not so sure as I was. At present he Is far more agreeable company than you are." Huxby stiffened and went off towards to-wards the willows without any reply. re-ply. Mr. Ramlll peered up shrewdly shrewd-ly at his daughter. "That was pretty hard even from you, Lilith. Try to keep In mind how matters will stand as soon as we get out of this damnable mess." fTO BE CUTLUED) -Alan Garth, You're a Man." caribou meat The others wakened almost too stiff to move. But all managed another big meal of the meat To top it off, Garth had Lilith boll a little tea in the water from the melted ice. After the hot drink, even Mr. Ramlll managed to hobble down the now fairly easy slope. The exercise gradually warmed and relaxed stiffened stiff-ened muscles. The end of e long day's hike at last brought the party down the miles of tundra slopes to the edge of tlmberllue. Garth predicted they would reach canoe water on the seventh day. But during that morning Mr. Ramlll Ra-mlll turned an ankle. Even after much soaking In a cold spring and tight bandaging by Garth, the sprain held the millionaire down to a slow hobble. An aspen staff enabled him to travel slowly until the noon ineal After that the pain overcame him. He refused to move. Garth looked doubtfully at the none too large supply of food that was left His pack now weighed little more than the platinum alloy In Huxby'a wolfskin knapsack. He bad allowed everyone to eat without stint That had been necessary neces-sary in order to keep up the strength of the chechahcos. But as he bad foretold, the country was barren of game. There was none too much meat left in bis pack. "If you can't carry on, Mr. Ramlll, you'll have to stay here and keep bathing your ankle in this rill," he said. "We're too short of food, though, to lose any time. The stand of birch at the stream ia so small that I'll need a full three days to build our canoe. The three of you follow down- this brook as soon as you can." When he picked up a few pieces of meat and his rifle, Huxby spoke: |