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Show f K 'iV, QjDfS&r&jgl Service. j Att&3i$& V fufllfir iftfL:-4laF? sssamas'su! &ififik-fc&l seenHrg0hUostntered" "Wbat,i " TU ,0k " though oa had TrS Trent iTl! wetflsi Ned Paxton, Made By deVice' Sh9 y list a wilderness camp Bruc. Harcourt, newly '.Tw.know""" 'nce Jthi t sVare ot It till later. " of the deposed chief u attracted to Harcourt. t T badiy- Hal' '1, lelgn. one. The de-f? de-f? Hales trom Alaska Is tX llevedtohave an . , m. s Indian girl. Her CamaNesents It. Hal. K "b-w of Mllllcent l j dictation, a codicil to 'cent .ugsest. going with , assistant. Tubby Grant, in the meantime, Janice , (,, belonging to the Samp k, rus the Waffle Shop, from rfTuskiei. Kadyama threw : to dogs. The Indians . a bad omen. The docs 1B)C, and Bruce rescues her. m Witt" her. potions with the story. CHAPTER VII Meting the black cat who ling to her arms, Janice i the matter with the sar-ect' sar-ect' Those dogs nearly ate id you stand there glowering because I'm not properly if i furious lunge for freedom :l up i spiked paw, clawed ik from brow to chin. With pain Janice dropped him. 3n! You ungrateful" at flung an arm about her e shoulders. "Jan! Jan, at infernal cat!" His voice He pulled forward a chair, re. Don't touch it, dear, ich it I'll bring something !he pain." :ice was shaken, his face briess. irt entered with a bowl In i scissors and gauze in the J." He drew up a chair, bowl on it, dipped a piece t in the liquid it contained, ;r her. "This will make It it the dickens at first." the dickens" was express-Mjr. express-Mjr. ;tire that Kadyama was the ." She put her hand to her id winced. "Perhaps Blot red him." ibt it The natives regard i eat with malevolent super-Kadyama super-Kadyama may have been it them. Forgive me for it you about your clothes, :ej were an excuse to blow i Looking out of the office I saw you in the kennel thought I'd never get to e cleared his voice. His ! eyes met hers. "You were 111 not threaten again to u home. I'll try another care of that scratch, later." i the door behind him. y another plan." The words a undertone through her could Bruce have meant? "ined her reflection in the Two red, angry scratches her cheek from brow to twas a sight, and the black ;ai as peacefully in the fire-'tough fire-'tough he never had done more harmful than lick ram a saucer. Her anger ! she looked at Miss Martha ' later beside the table Pen Bible. Her gnarled, .' hands gripped a news-e news-e seemed tired. She was 1,1 a murder case, of take his cap. Miss Martha patted a chair invitingly. "Sit here, Mr. Bruce. My, I'm all flustered havin' you back again." Tubby Grant drew his hand across the strings of his uke. Struck into "Hail to the Chief-Janice Chief-Janice turned her back on Harcourt Har-court and bent over her papers. "Give these to the lady who turned her back on us, Tubby." There was laughter in Harcourfs voice. Beginning to be friendly, was he? A trifle late in the day, Janice resented Indignantly. "Thank you, I don't eat nuts." Grant paused in the act of setting set-ting down a saucer full of meats. "Says you! Who gobbled all that walnut fudge Miss Mary made for me? All right. We'll keep these for them as likes 'em, eh, Chief?" Harcourt laid down his hammer and rose. He crossed to the desk, gently lifted Janice's chin. - "How's the scratch, dear?" The color flamed to the girl's hair. Her heart seemed to stop. What did he mean by speaking to her in that possessive voice, touching her with fingers that sent a tingling warmth from feet to head. The room was so still she could hear furtive fur-tive rustling in the moss chinking. Were they all as paralyzed with surprise as she? Chester, face white, took an impetuous step toward her. Grant caught his arm, laughed, an embarrassed, shaky laugh. "Come on, Jimmy. We're 'de trop.' Nighty-night, Miss Martha, Miss Mary." The door closed. With an inarticulate inartic-ulate word or two about lights in the Waffle Shop, the Samp sisters hurriedly departed. Janice roused from her stupefaction. Hands gripping grip-ping the back of the chair behind her, she faced Harcourfs indomitable indomita-ble eyes. "What did you mean, speaking to me like that, before before everyone. every-one. I felt as though I'd been tagged or or posted 'No Trespassing.' " She stopped for breath. "Glad I got the idea across. Good night, Jan. We start at sun-up, remember." re-member." A faint pink glow was brightening the east as Janice stepped from her cabin attired in a one-piece flying-suit flying-suit of weather-proof gabardine over her blue wool sports suit. She gripped the handle of the gay Indian basket which the Samp sisters, sis-ters, always mindful of the paramount para-mount importance of provisioning an expedition, had packed to the brim. Janice sternly controlled a frantic desire to jump out Assented breathlessly: breath-lessly: "Yes! If I won't be in the way." Grant dropped into the seat beside be-side her. Harcourt adjusted his goggles, gog-gles, secured the flaps of his helmet, fastened his sheepie coat, climbed Into the cockpit. "Turn her over." "Bruce is feeling perky," Grant shouted. Janice caught her breath In Bn un-steady un-steady gasp, shut her eyes tight, opened them, cautiously looked down. The plane wasn't moving. The earth, all blurry patches of color, was falling away. Ground mists were pelting after one another like a flock of white sheep in a Gargantuan pasture. Toward the horizon, the sun, a disc of flame, tipped mountain-tops with scarlet, gold or blinding blind-ing white. Heaps of cumulus clouds were piled against the hazy skyline like mounds of whipped cream. Far away green glaciers glinted through shimmering mist. She tried to speak. Grant grinned and advised through the earphone. "Better talk in this till you get your air-lungs." The sun rose clear and ruddy. Lakes and streams which had seemed opalescent silver warmed to molten gold. Harcourt throttled to a speed to maintain altitude. Grant prepared his camera. Breathless with interest, Janice watched him as he made an exposure ex-posure every twenty-two seconds. After a while she looked down upon a panorama of forests, spruce and cotton woods; lakes and rivers; barren bar-ren uplands; plateaus connecting mountains, like jade links in a mammoth mam-moth necklace; fields of seed grass cut by bear-trails, like lines of experience ex-perience worn deep in the face of an elderly giant. No sign of habitation habi-tation save an occasional shack of a wood-chopper or fish-wheels set in a river. She could see miles of glaciers, gu'leys, rounded knolls, iridescent ir-idescent flashes of color, wagon roads, like threads crossing and crisscrossing. A railroad, looking in the vast stretch of world like a toy abandoned by a boy called away from play, twisted and turned like a glittering serpent, sometimes by caverns which were abandoned gold mines or gold-producing creeks. Far below, ethereal as a spider's web, unreal in that wilderness as a castle in the air, a trestle spanned a frothing river. Janice pointed eagerly, ea-gerly, a question in her eyes. Grant nodded. Said through the phone: "That's it. Our Hero's bridge." Skimming, racing, scudding, the plane flew on. Grant took innumerable innumera-ble pictures at the direction of the pilot. They left the wilderness. Houses and farms increased in number. num-ber. They hovered over a city, a city laid out like one half of a wheel, its spokes converging toward a lovely love-ly sweep of river. Harcourt thrust out an arm to indicate in-dicate a left curve. Pointed earthward. earth-ward. Made an easy turn. "Going to land," Tubby Grant interpreted. in-terpreted. Janice looked down upon a field dotted with lethargic flies. The plane circled, losing altitude. The flies swelled to bumble-bee proportions. propor-tions. People? People moving. The ground rose. In one corner lay a twisted, smoking mass of framework. frame-work. A little bounce, another. The plane taxied to a stop. The two men stood up and stretched, pushed back their goggles, gog-gles, peeled off their jumpers. Harcourt Har-court was on the ground first He held out his arms. "Come." As Janice stole a surreptitious glance at the smoking embers he pressed her face against his shoul-der. shoul-der. "Don't look at that Someone trying try-ing a crazy stunt probably. Wonders Won-ders have been achieved in plane building, but no genius has yet designed de-signed one warranted fool-proof. Better leave your flying-suit in the bus. Get a taxi. Tubby, while I see if I can help." Grant deposited Janice in a cab and disappeared. It seemed as though she waited hours before Zy joined her. The lips were com-Dressed, com-Dressed, the blood seemed to have been drained away from under Sfeir bronzed skin. Harcourt gave If curt direction to the driver and the utomobile shot along the street (TOBECOSTLWED) accounts were meat and 6et' Her white-stockinged stretched at ease, her ' were beside her chair. Miss Mary was ab- ' copy of Vogue. She Raskin a thrilled voice: fiyon notice this dress M cai't pronounce her wearing?" Waked a mist from her tSu" Mary' Starved t M1SS Martha called le of life. Janice and her fash-2" fash-2" have started a m in this camp. sending for a free gta of tissue cream Tatima spends JWnute with her nose ZtoS0" With 8 5M. Martha re- ta gainst the iJftw Grant iS? ' crooned 80fy SiA' er- loungin jpuUed at his short fitaoS!06 finger- ton . 0Ck Wa f0l- i,Peen'ng of the doon gho,?.0kaslhoyou arS wt- Her ;uCMr0lVyes ;Wln i BPUCe- YOU since '5WIcnie to 8 out thl h ,Ce "me. we ve been savin lip Cutter--! , lra forward to In the other hand she carried her camera. Under one arm she had tucked a soft felt hat to wear when she reached the city. City. The mere word had her all excited. Harcourt nodded and called a greeting as she approached the plane, which looked like nothing so much as a mammoth darning-needle observing her approach with two calculating, sinister eyes. He seemed taller and sterner in his flying-clothes. There was no hint of his manner of last night. Grant came puffing up. "Good morning, little Bright-eyes. It's a wow of a day. Ba-gosh, he's taking the new Tanager. It's a humdinger. hum-dinger. Jump in. Done much flying?" fly-ing?" "No. This is my pos-itively first experience. My friends happened to prefer boats and cars." Harcourt approached, eyes on his wrist-watch. He glanced at the girl. "Sure you want to go?" Janice nodded assent. Her voice wouldn't come. "You will be perfectly safe and comfortable. Almost no bumps or air-pockets In the early morning. I'll see to her straps, Tubby. Toddle over to the Hale cabin and hurry up Millicent. She's always late. He appeared as cool and impersonal imper-sonal as might a hired pilot as he explained the mechanism of the plane. Janice's mind was a jumble of cockpit, rudder bars, clips and control-sticks. Grant returned. "She was watching for me. Can t come If you ask me. that woman has about reached the limit of en-durance. en-durance. Joe made a row last night somehow he'd heard of her plan she didn't dare cross him for fear of consequences. The sooner a man like that is kissed good-bye the better. bet-ter. She gave me a list of things to get for her in the big city. "Will you go, Jan?" |