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Show 1$U By ARTHUR STRINGER wNu.sew.ct hW Two raffed old Bfnret emerf ed from the shack door and ran about. I THK STORY SO FAR! To keep Norland Nor-land Airways In btulneu, Alaa Blade has aireed to fly a lo-ealled iclentiat named Frayne and hli assistant, star-nell, star-nell, to the wild Anawotto country of northern Canada, where Frayne ezpecti to find the breeding ground ol the tram-peter tram-peter ewan. Blade tuipecU Frayne of having other plant than iwan-bontlng, bnt be bai paid them enough to enable Slade'i partner, Cruger, to buy a Lockheed Lock-heed they have been needing. Meanwhile, Mean-while, Alan goes with Lynn Morlock, daughter of the local doctor, to give Brit aid treatment to a flyer named 811m Tnmitead, who bai been burt In a light. He learnl that Tnmitead knows about the new plane and about Frayne. While glade If on his way north with Frayne and Karnell, someone holds op Cassldy, night watchman for Norland Airways, and steals the Lockheed. AU Casildy can tell Cruger Is that the thief wore a mask and that be beaded north in the plane. Now Blade and his passengers are flying Into a bead wind, and Frayne has Just complained that they art not making mak-ing good time. Now continue with the story. CHAPTER VI "It is very empty country," the wan-hunter observed. "Fine and empty," said Karnell, who looked up slightly startled by an admonishing elbow dig from his companion. "It'll be better In an hour or two," Slade told them. "We'll be coming out on scrub timber and heavier ridges. Then you'll see your last mine camp, or two along the Ashlbik." He went on for half an hour of silence, conscious of the two heads bent over the chart, the mumble of voices, and the repeated studious . peering through the poised binoculars. binocu-lars. "Weather's clearing," he cried , out, half an hour later, when he lighted blue through the torn wisps of gray. "That means less wind to buck." But a glance at his fuel-gauge suddenly lowered his spirits. "We can't make the Anawotto," be announced as he retarded his throttle to conserve fuel. "We'll have to land at Lake Avlkaka and fill up." Slade, pointing to his gauge, could ee Frayne's face tighten a little with annoyance. "What Is at Lake Avlkaka?" questioned ques-tioned his passenger. "Just two old sourdoughs who have a camp there on the fringe of Nowhere." "Sourdoughs? What are they?" "Just two runny old birds who happen to be friends of mine. I keep a gas cache in their back yard." He could hear the two voices conferring. con-ferring. It gave him the feeling of being excluded from something that might be of Importance to him. "That's the Kasakana there, Just ahead of us," Slade explained, "the stream that looks like a twisted wire. We'll have about sixty miles of it. Then we'll land Just where It empties into Lake Avikaka." Frayne, tight-lipped, inspected his chart Minty's saddened eye regarded the Instrument. "She's been dead for seven months now. Battery's plumb gone. And thls-here air-robber's freight-charges freight-charges 're so high we Jus' can'l see our way to a new one." Frayne, Slade thought, looked relieved. re-lieved. "You are very much alone here," he observed. "You're tellln' me," said Minty. "But we don't reckon that as a drawback," amended Zeke, "seein" the two of us have kind of a hanker-in' hanker-in' for elbow room. Only time 1 feel right lonesome is when there's folks around. Then I git a feelin' o beln hemmed In." Frayne's eye wandered to the shelf that held a pestle and mortar, a long-handled quartz-roaster, a dust-scales under a cracked canopy of glass, an assortment of variously mineralized rock of all colors and shapes. "How long," he inquired, "have you been here?" "Well over two years now," acknowledged ac-knowledged Minty. "Have your labors been rewarded?" reward-ed?" was the next casually put question. ques-tion. Slade could see the two pair oi crafty old eyes suddenly become expressionless. ex-pressionless. "Not by a long shot," protested Zeke. "I natcheraUy git a little out o' my winter trappin', and this shorthorn mate o' mine brings in enough game meat to keep us go-in. go-in. But we ain't had what you'd call a strike." "Reckon we never will," said Minty. "It's been hard goin'," chimed in his bunkhouse mate. "How do you do your mining," asked the man of science, "without power and machinery?" The two old sourdoughs exchanged glances again. "Oh, you'd scarce call it mlnin'," ventured Zeke. "Most we do is "But your friends," said Frayne, "are not my friends." "But come and meet 'em," said Slade, leaping ashore with his mooring moor-ing line. He was halfway up the bank when the two old sourdoughs descended on him. They circled about him and slapped his shoulders, shoul-ders, shouting with shrill and childlike child-like excitement at the unlooked-for break In their solitude. "How are you, puddle-Jumper 1 By crlckety, It's Lindyi" Slade knew, even before he felt their hearty handclasps, that he was among friends. They may have looked uncouth in their patched and ragged Macklnaws. But in the crow-footed crow-footed old eyes above the grizzled whiskers he could see open affection. affec-tion. , "Bring me them darnln' needles, son?" questioned Zeke when the body-slapping was over. "Sure thing," said Slade, producing produc-ing a package from his Jacket pocket pock-et "And that oilstone you've been hankering for." Then he lowered his voice. "How's the color been showing?" show-ing?" "Swell." said Minty. "We struck a vein that'll make your eyes bug out But keep it under your hat, son." Slade glanced toward his plane. "I've got a couple of visitors for you," he announced. The two old faces promptly hardened. hard-ened. "What're they after?" was Minty's quick inquiry. "They're after swans eggs," announced an-nounced Slade. "Swans' eggs?" said Zeke. "That don't sound natural." "I know it Zeke, but we've got to take their word for it. They're headed for the Anawotto to dig out the breeding ground of the trumpeter." trumpet-er." Zeke, from under his shaggy brows, inspected the strangers. "How'd you know they ain't field scouts?" strip a bit along the back slopes or hawk a speck 0' float gold from the Kasakana sandbars." "Then It's gold alone you are Interested In-terested In?" was the next question. "That's right stranger. And we've been that way for forty-odd years now," Zeke conceded. "All the way from the old Rio Grande up to the Porcupine," added the dreamy-eyed Minty, "not omit-tln' omit-tln' the Klondike. Now your main interest this young cloud-clipper tells me, is swans' nests." "My only interest," amended Frayne as he pushed back his chair. "I am an ornithologist" The word seemed to puzzle Minty. "Why, I seen a black-billed swan on the lake here three days ago," Zeke announced. "He sure was a beauty." "It is the trumpeter I am In search of," said the ornithologist Zeke scratched his head. "And what'll you do with him when you git him?" "It is my wish to obtain their eggs." said the other, "before they are extinct" Minty got up and crossed to his ore shelf. "Speakin" of eggs," he said, "could you be spottin' the bird laid this one?" His cackle was slightly derisive as he produced an ellipsoid mass of black and burnished material almost as big as an ostrich egg. The luster of the oblate spheroid with the feathering feath-ering of light streaks made it look as if it had been polished by hand. "It looks like tar," Frayne casually casu-ally observed. "Tar my eye!" croaked Minty as he placed the burnished spheroid on the scarred table end. "You're miss-in' miss-in' it by a mile." "Then what does it happen to be?" inquired the swan-seeker. "If you was more of a minin' man," Minty was saying, "you'd know it was pitchblende." Frayne shrugged and let bis wavering wa-vering glance come to rest on the pictured bathing beauties tacked above the wall bunks. "The eggs I am in search of," he finally observed, "are of another color." "But they won't hatch what this'll hatch," averred Zeke, bent over the table end. Frayne, almost reluctantly, let his gaze return to the black spheroid. (TO BE CONTINUED) Slade smiled at the concern on the seamed old face. "I'll bring 'em up," said Slade. Solitude, he had long since learned, always left a bush-worker morosely suspicious of unidentified intruders. He had even known some of those lone-fire gold-seekers to greet the casual prowler with a flurry of buckshot buck-shot Yet he himself was a little puzzled, puz-zled, when he reached the landing stage, to find that Frayne had decided de-cided to have his man Karnell remain re-main in the plane cabin. "You're the captain," said Slade. But his meditative eye passed casually casu-ally over the gas drums that stood on the spruce rack which made them so easy to roll aboard. And it was always better to be safe than sorry. He was whistling as he climbed into the cabin and busied himself for a minute or two with his instrument instru-ment board. Then, as his two passengers pas-sengers conferred at the water's edge, he quieUy abstracted the motor's mo-tor's breaker assembly and slipped it into his pocket. He felt that it was as well, all things considered, to know that his Snow-Ball Baby was definitely bedded down for the night "You'll like these two old codgers," codg-ers," Slade persisted as he followed the reluctant-footed Frayne up the shore slope. Frayne, however, remained silent and abstracted as he entered the shack where the smell of frying bacon ba-con mingled with the aroma of three sourdough bread-loaves Just turned out of their baking pans. He noted the glowing cookstove and the orderly or-derly dish shelves, the spring traps and the shooting irons in the shack corner, the wall bunks with their abraded Hudson Bay blankets, the floor rugs of wolfskin, the homemade home-made table and chairs darkened by time and smoke. Everything bore an air of frontier roughness, of ingenious in-genious expediencies in a land of strictly limited resources. But the general result was one of craftily-won craftily-won comfort of security obtained through toil and persistence. Even the meal the two old-timers prepared pre-pared for their guests was an ample am-ple one. But as the meal was made away with an odd constraint hung over the men seated about the rough table. ta-ble. "I see you have a radio," Frayne observed as he sipped at his second sec-ond cup of coffee. "Who are these these old sourdoughs sour-doughs as you term them?" he asked. "Just two old lone-fire prospectors prospec-tors who've panned gold and staked claims all the way from Arizona up to the Circle." Slade explained. "With an itch," he added, "to be always al-ways pushing out to what seems like , the last frontier. They're pretty good old scouts. You'll like 'em." Frayne's expression failed to confirm con-firm that claim. "For what do they prospect?" he exacted. "Gold, of course," answered Slade. "They won't interfere with your swan-hunting." Frayne's side-glance seemed In search of possible second meanings. Slade looked for some sign of life from the cabin between its sheltering shelter-ing rock shoulders. All he saw, as he nosed cautiously down to the lake end, was a gray plume of smoke from the shack chimney. It Impressed him, in the midst of the gloomy ridges furred with stunted timber, as a sort of pennon of valor, flag defying the forces of nature. It was a brave UtUe outpost the flyer repeated as he swung lower. But he could catch no glimpse of either Minty Buckman or Zeke Pratt And it was seldom he found them far from that cockeyed old windlass and hoist of theirs. Then his heart lightened. They must have heard him, after all. For two ragged old figures emerged from the shack door and ran about the rock slope in small circles, waving arms as they went. One figure wore an apron of butcher's butch-er's linen which he tore from his shoulders and whirled In the air while the other executed a creaky dance step about him. "Those old wilderness waifs are sure glad to see us," Slade observed as his ship landed and lost headway. Frayne did not share in his excitement. ex-citement. ( "We go on to the Anawotto," he suggested, "as soon as you have refueled?" re-fueled?" Slade, stiff and tired, rose from bis seat "Not on your life. We bunk with these bushwhackers tonight I want hot meal and seven hours of |