OCR Text |
Show J W ''ARTHUR STRINGER w..MtJ " JU, 1 lii desk, heard that Lund-worker passing ? C. He smiled as he ) Us ttae sheet. There 1 note of triumph in the art boyi when Lindy up from bis chair and ( e doorway, where the : flat against the river . roclaimed that spring ,in to the North Coun-l Coun-l I there until he caught lon-leged bush pilot torn the landing dock. 1 i back to his desk and I pled time sheets as the i. it Into what was over- m as the Admlnis-, Admlnis-, of Norland Airways, e of plain boards and tl) only the two poles ujtennae to crown it iiig sense of dignity, i be stepped into the ice, again made Cru-panther, Cru-panther, but this time other in a cage. He H for the room. ii you swung back I Crager. "And I ;ou, first crack out that we're going to fpe off the door." i that mean?" ques- "I'm glad yoa swung back early," said Cruger, "We're going to take the crepe off the door." Iead of answering, took looking envelope. ' i begin," he casually ' u'd better give this the e iiirrendered the en- ilmow what it is?" a," said Slade, after insignia, quick jumper, aren't i Cruger, his eye on young face that held :ontent somewhere, e was wide yet non-tor non-tor flyers," he said, y're yelping they turn got up from the safe "But the Anawotto's as empty as Sahara. Why, the only human beings be-ings north of the Kasakana are two frost-bitten old quartz-pounders, two half-demented old derelicts who've been bushed for three years and would bump off if I didn't tote 'em in their flour and sowbelly." "You're going well past the Kasakana Kasa-kana this time," Cruger announced. "Into country you've never seen before." But what held his eye the longest was the smaller blue monoplane that looked faded and weathered and sadly the worse for wear. That, he knew, was the plane of the Flying Fly-ing Padre, the mercy-flighter and man of medicine who was sometimes some-times known as the Grenfell of the Outer Gulf. And in it the Padre's daughter had gone along as pilot and helper. But never again, Slade remembered, would the clear-eyed Lynn Morlock take over the con- "For what?" asked Slade. Cruger took his time about answering. an-swering. "For swans' eggs, I understand." Slade's sun-bleached brows came a little closer together. "Just what does that mean?" Again Cruger took his time. "It means we've got a simple-minded simple-minded naturalist out there, an ornithologist or-nithologist answering to the name of Frayne, who wants to be Sown north so he can And the breeding ground of the trumpeter swan. I never saw a trumpeter swan. Did you?" Slade stood thoughtful a moment "Yes, I saw a trumpeter, only last spring. I played tag with him over Lac la Martre. He must have had a wing-stretch of nine or ten feet." "I'd call that quite a stretch," said the man at the desk. "You're telling me?" "They may be impressive," said Cruger, as he opened a desk drawer, draw-er, "but from what I can gather they're dying off. And this man Frayne wants to sleuth out their nesting quarters before they follow the dodo and disappear for good." "And he's going in to the Ana-wotto Ana-wotto alone?" Slade's brow-pucker seemed one of incredulity. "No, he's taking an over-sized blond named Karnell along with him." "A blond?" croaked Slade. "You don't mean a skirt?" AH..u:r Kut TVii'o KlnnH fa oil narrow floor. "I must nig was a condoning because you're good," "Good enough to be here on this northern se tin tats happen to i a key position." i on him. e In this outfit broad-t broad-t to block my enlist-:is enlist-:is indignant demand, er shrugged, e to interfere with the It ought to be big e its own decisions." p't seem to hear him. r about wanting men tained and resourceful. o ring in on that I've m one lemon-crate up r of aeronautics said down." sourceful, all right" er, "but you'd be in roken heart after two y rules." ' said Slade, "along : leathernecks." all move too slow for led Cruger. doesn't look slow to to be over there '' still on." the smile of a man 1 "hot in his locker. tone." he observed, !'g seemed to stack ij you." trols while her tired father held back the hand of Death two thousand thou-sand feet above the lake-spangled Barrens. That, he surmised, was already a thing of the past. . Cruger, as he hung up his receiver, receiv-er, caught the passing look of rapt-ness rapt-ness in the Viking, blue eye. "It's just about as big a game, Lindy, as a man could get into," he said out of the silence. "It's still as good as dog-fighting Messer-schmitts. Messer-schmitts. And we're both going to stay In it." Slade swung about and faced his partner. "That wasn't the tune you were singing two weeks ago." Cruger's laugh was slightly defiant de-fiant "They had us backed against the wall two weeks ago. I told you our shoestring was wearing thin and we couldn't buck the big companies another an-other month. But Norland Airways is going to stay on the map." Slade's face lost its diffidence. "What's changed the picture?" Cruger's answer to that was not a direct one. "We've both got all we own in this one-horse outfit and we can't afford to see it fold up. While you were out fighting head winds I've been in here doing a little fighting of my own. And I've just got my hands on a reconditioned Lockheed that'll give us a second air truck and release re-lease Abbott, and his Postcraft for Winnipeg and Toronto passenger "Anything but. This blond is all male. He's square-headed and gorilla-jawed and looks like sorsething that's been worked on by a snarling snarl-ing iron." Slade found the picture unpalatable. unpalata-ble. "But who's your friend Frayne?" he persisted with a shrug of distaste. dis-taste. "Where does he come from? And why does he pick on us?" "That's neither your problem nor mine. But he's the Norland's friend, all right He may be a simple-minded simple-minded crank. But he's so well heeled that money doesn't seem to mean much. And at this stage of the game we're going to handle a Christmas present like that with care." Slade nodded his understanding. "But he must have a screw loose somewhere," maintained the younger young-er man, "or he wouldn't be heading head-ing for what he's sure to get in that Anawotto country." "You needn't lose sleep over that" contended Cruger. "He may be after birds' eggs, but he seems to traffic. You'll like that Lockheed. They've slapped a fresh coat of aluminum alu-minum paint on her." "What'll she carry?" asked the flyer. "A pay load of thirty thousand pounds a trip if she has to." "Where'll you get your pay loads?" exacted Slade, remembering remember-ing how war conditions had put a sag in sub-arctic mine work. "I'm coming to that, stick-jiggler. The traffic's still there, if you're willing to go after it. And I've gone after it I've under-bid the big outfits out-fits and corraled enough business to keep us busy till freeze-up. I've got Fort Norman oil and a new slice of the Yellowknife stuff for you. I've got a renewal of the Coppermine Copper-mine contract And what's more, I've got a Santa Claus in spectacles who's handing over enough ready dough to keep our cash tank from running dry." The Viking blue eye became more alert. "Who's your Santa Claus?" "He's a passenger," said Cruger, i get a little ex-w ex-w day's work," Slade may as well give y, two weeks ago, f jnto that," retorted to check up on "wlness of this bush 'Pose there was" no S ercy uflight "ll Bay when you wo frozen huskies? our Flying Padre tymied on Lac de f with a busted pro- 52? we Iabor fl" all at once?" own memories of utNj smile remained J high-tailing it Sh hospital."8 he nni n nose-ver on Ml Lynn had to Cru8er. But he let have a working knowledge of subarctic sub-arctic conditions. I didn't find him much of a talker, but I stumbled on the fact he'd been trophy-hunting in the Himalayas last winter. And the winter before he hunted the snow leopard in Siberia and Tibet" , "Then I suppose he's English, said Slade. "One of those English big-game guys who go around with a monocle and a tin bathtub." "He's got equipment all right conceded Cruger. "And he's paying pay-ing us quite handsomely for flying it in." (TO BE CONTINUED) ' "you're going to fly Into territory that'll make London look like a tearoom tea-room on a rainy afternoon. Cruger sat back, apparently waiting wait-ing for a question. But Slade, with his world to reorganize, merely walked to the window and looked out "You're flying," Cruger was saying say-ing "into the Anawotto country." Slade's turn, at that information, was quick. - "What nut's going into that wu-derness?" wu-derness?" he demanded. "They go Into some- queer places, these days," observed th older man. fcaS Deeded' aU ,ardthatbaby fterlT !ives' didn't iatj.reasn't any ex- dineSk 'phone c" botl0oked "t. Be-X Be-X ha, and r the w P'anes on the |