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Show MM Men I iy GEORGE MARSH W&'iftjc ft fl INSTALLMENT THREE Finlay receives an anonymous letter suggesting that the sli 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 had perished In pole slipped from his limp fingers. "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 Blaise's 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 Nottawayl Worse than I guessed! Did Batoche pass us in the night on the lake or is it someone else?" He wondered . noun ff '".try iU men lost "brother of one , mirror behind the air of sinister .wung around and rBatochehe ?r just had a wire ,rm ordered to map way to the bay. a the astonishment alrred face shift to faction. "You rfB need another man ibiy yo yurse": fjob if Isadore could .boutitr ood lob!" snorted .,a-breed. . (aid Finlay, affa-J affa-J Tete-Blanche? He "to md would make a stheiurvey" WW Tete-Blanche?" him? I knew him i tent to work for Isa- bim before I do ,a friend Finlay asked Leaving the dumbed dumb-ed working his Jaw in wpt to voice his j turned and entered 1 guess that'll give .:he something to chew ?red. ,rw terror in Cotter's ( whispered: "Tete-By, "Tete-By, he's Isadore's " gaped at Finlay as :lim demented, that, Mr. Cotter?" ihij bead, waving his sly. "You're crazy, crazy!" he exploded, tou ever hear of Tete- i in old friend of mine." & Cotter mumbling, fripnrf nf vours!" Ue rapids ol the Nottaway river. Ths name of Iiadore, rich lur man, when brought by Finlay. cawe. an Immedl-ate Immedl-ate cessaUon of converiaUon. while quejUonlns Cotter, the itorekeeper, 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 going go-ing to throw a little rough stuff themselves." "They won't work in the open. Red. It wiil all be Injun stuff, under un-der cover, with no surviving witnesses. wit-nesses. They're blocking the Chib-ougamau Chib-ougamau Trail but they don't intend to hang for it" "And I don't intend they shall, Garry!" growled Red. Garry loved Red's weakness for a fight and his berserk courage when he was in one, but he 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 Was-wanipi, 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 of two 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 fink if I omnneh rann' tn rfncA raniris. I make lithe station. :t at the telegraph key :tred the station. "Good : Finlay!" he greeted. "returned Garry, "you M to hear that early you handed me a wire artment chief, at Ot-2g Ot-2g me to change my it run a compass sur-'iswanipi sur-'iswanipi chain of laKes eding to the Bay." sm scowled. "Oh, I I' Well, I haven't!" toy I got that wire, "t it I were you!" you do to him, Blaise?" when he and Malone river shore with their a Batoche he mus' be teau navare talk wid it" a have pleased him!" A m ver' cross. Den he I pay." :you say?" 'small, I get fousand wid you. He was a I laugh at him and fn. But he was fool-ad fool-ad too close." &ced a snub-nosed au-a au-a his pocket. "Here's "m the steel bridge, two is together watched the down river and disap- s bend. CHAPTER IU :1'ed miles, after pass-Lake pass-Lake Shabogama, the shed itself to foam in : reaches of broken wa-ed wa-ed to slide past tim-isi' tim-isi' faced off the Heightens! Height-ens! We go!" ' 'ume into the white -the Peterboro. On eiders ei-ders pushed up their 'where the river burst !' high in air. Eddies :irfents sucked at her ged ledges that would tottom snarled beneath ,ater. One mistake and ; would be sucked into e thundering river to ' and cast ashore, bat-;n, bat-;n, miles below. ,t0 e bone, battling al- wfety of the black few ran the Peterboro bend. gh the worst of it!" ; 's "ley snubbed the river below. ""el ahead!" .e whip-lash crack of "fough the din of the pushed!" cried Red. ;;iat p0inu Come onr- ' Eh' the blue haze of hanging tn the al-D8"1 al-D8"1 snre. The canoe .his pole with a shout. p,ng horse the Peter-:'6d0Wn Peter-:'6d0Wn lne narrow chan- again rifles exploded -' Suddenly the bow-10 bow-10 h knees while his 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." "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 such 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!" "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 Matagarm 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 t was hidden in a deep bay, the survey party had passed the fur P-Dowe go on up the inlet to this Lake Olga," asked Red. or turn back to hunt for the Hudson's Bay We must be pretty close to the thoroughfare, now." said Garry ex- Sv is ready. According to the map he p is thirty miles back of us behind a bunch of islands. We 11 ""Good? Waswanipi and Isadore. or u .i k my motto." laughed Red. bU.S Va That the flash of a paddle UD Sre where the lake suddenly Lows'" demanded Garry. C three men stopped paddling to c?,s;i "Tou hit hard, Garry?" if they had lost Blaise, loyal old Blaise, hunched there 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, la 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." When they had washed and bandaged band-aged Brassard's head. Red inspected inspect-ed Garry's leg. "Straight through 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, Maine soon had cargo and canoe trough the alders and back in the bush The hidden camp was now safe from searching eyes on the op-posite op-posite shore. Then Garry and Red held a council of war "What's your guess. Kea. There was an ugly glitter in the Je eyes as they C ry'8 idaBlte1Cg" doJ! think Ba-conscious Ba-conscious Blaise have he's putting in the summer on the knows? All we have is the e STlrE- tTTTa t "S STyH through ty. Tn31 After this thing thenosetoOtawa of Chibougamnu. tne ""U8" s K Red. Sng the rough stuff. saln neUl |