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Show ei: stnopsis en FAR: Bruce Har-en Har-en fnee' o- rr. visit ..rk to confer with heads of brilliant., in the mld-1. mld-1. venue. He is leaving the e L tte N.rU.. He trie, to find X for tte camp but none of Jrviewm wanted to go to 1 Tsn wer. an ""In, for .Lio-sUPl'- To hi. artaze. coue chum whom he knew a: ' unlce I. to be married to Ned 3 h but a bit too gay with the " 1 sni Nl Quarreled In an ' . .bout to leave but r mind. The slipper, however, J doff Bruce Impulsively ask. k off the marriage. But she Jon to talk of Alaska, liinue with the story. CHAPTER II t: ,d Janice meant by that? ,.ce kept blithely on. "I ;0 the breaking up of the , We've been building a ; spans a river which flows iving glaciers." fillip Your H house sounds marvelous. !es my teeth chatter. It ribly cold!" '11 say it was cold. Snow re continuous. But it isn't e that in winter. There 'jsdien the banks of streams t and misty with young i you can smell spring in Tie summers are glorious, jays. Birds singing. Long J Ferns and brilliant flow-i flow-i and vegetables, double those grown here." i i live in a tent when location?" i location do you mean at headquarters? A tentl use-owner. Three years ung architect joined the draftsman. Someone had into thinking that the ex-, ex-, n the frozen North would "I've got him, ba-gosh!" "Got who?" "Got who? Has your memory frozen fro-zen up? The secretary. An assist-ant assist-ant for myself, Theodore Grant Junior, Jun-ior, accountant extraordinary for this branch of the Alaskan Expeditionary Expedi-tionary Force to crack a way through the great Northwest" "How did you get him?" "From an agency in Seattle. They sent him on the first boat. I'll bet the old tub had to plow and crush its way through ice. And keep your shirt on, Bruce. I brought the Samp girls." "The Samp girls! Tubby! Have you gone plumb crazy?" "Now listen!" "Listen! Look here, does Hale know?" lance until another stood ready to go on with his Job. If he thought of anything but the bringing back of the bridge into place, Harcourt thanked God for the Samp sisters. They were indefatigable. indefat-igable. They made the men stop for hot coffee and waffles put together sandwich fashion with succulent brown sugar. Once he glimpsed a boy hovering in the background. The new secretary? Melting. Chopping. Coaxing. Melting. Melt-ing. Chopping. Coaxing. The hours dragged on. Inch by slow inch the span settled back on its concrete bed. Haggard, exhausted, with a two days' growth of beard on their faces the engi-neers engi-neers watched the last bolt driven in. From the distance came a faint rumble. It increased in volume. Grant clutched Harcourfs arm. "It's Comine!" he whisnprpd lis life. He came with an i ! ible for winter sports and l i pearl-handled revolvers, m cheerful and occupied I that be draw plans for a for me, he was not physi-. physi-. I r anything else." ' i it like? I'm all excited." led it an H house. It is ogs chinked with moss, long room in the middle ength of the rooms at ei-oing ei-oing the other way." With ie drew the letter on a ke that Stone chimneys id of the living-room pro-laces pro-laces for the other two e use those in summer; in d old Yukon stoves are the ;s which will keep us iving gone so far in our lost our heads, went i added a model kitchen-bath kitchen-bath for each bedroom, oodles of price-lists and of fittings. The boy ar-i ar-i I had the time of our ting them. I spent money iken sailor." i boy architect get well?" - as a tough break for him. he nephew of the Samp 1 house sounds marvel- "Hale! What's he got to say about it?" "Considering that he's chief of this outfit, considerable." "Chief! Who's had to take his place most of the time this winter? You. He opened up high, wide and handsome while you were away. He got the Indians on their ears, driving driv-ing them like slaves when he was sober and chucking their squaws under un-der the chin when he was plastered." "Just the same why the dickens did those two women leave the Waffle Waf-fle Shop at headquarters, which is remote enough, to come out here to this wilderness of snow and ice?" "That's what I asked them. Martha Mar-tha inveigled me into the shop to talk it over. Heaped my plate with the hottest, crispest waffles, dripping drip-ping with melting brown sugar and butter, Bruce butter; filled my cup with honest-to-goodness coffee and reminded: " 'Mary and I can't do missionary work with books, but we can with food. One of the biggest forces which prods men on to deviltry is the trash they put into their stomachs. stom-achs. That bridge you're building is a big thing for the country. I've been talking with the men who worked on it. They claim that 'twill stand or fall in the spring break- through stiff lips. The rumble increased to a roar. The river had broken loose. Carrying Carry-ing ice and timber before it it swept along on its mad rush to the sea. Rigid, tense, the two men watched the wreckage and ice sweep by. The bridge stood immovable against the onslaught. Grant's eyes were unashamedly un-ashamedly full of tears. "You've done the trick, Bruce. This day will mark a crisis in your life and Hale's." "What's the name of that secretary secre-tary of yours, Tubby?" "Jimmy Delevan." "Delevan? Did he help during the late excitement?" "Sure he did. He was everywhere. Perhaps not so helpful in some spots as in others. One of the men found him freeing a snowshoe rabbit which had been snared. When he explained that the rabbits were the chief source of feed for the dog-teams, Jimmy Delevan went quite white, walked off without answering, but with the rabbit clutched tight in his arms like a baby." Three shrieks of a small steam- up.' " "She's right." "She argued that we wouldn't be here long, that she and Mary would like to see the interior, and on and on ad lib., ad infinitum. That she wanted to keep our courage up with good food. She has the missionary spirit, all right." Waffles and brown sugar! Real coffee! Harcourfs opposition oozed. "Now that they are here, they will have to stay. I can't spare a man to take them out Got your secretary secre-tary located?" "The Samp girls have taken him under their wings. He's no caveman. cave-man. Even in his parka and muk-luks muk-luks he's as slim as a fishing-rod. He's got a little mustache like the down on a yellow chicken's back, black curly hair big crimson spots on his cheeks." "I get you. T.B. That's why he was willing to leave the land of lights and movies." A workman came running toward them. "Chester," he said, "sent me to tell you the false works has 3udden- 1w mnvprt!" at have believed it could mch to me. When I mush luarters behind my dog-an dog-an see, perhaps through w, smoke curling upward :himney. The glow from t mdows sets the icicles ge the eaves agleam. almost to the roof spar-n spar-n old-fashioned Christmas hough I know that only Tong, and my house-boy, 1 waiting for me, a sense Miing warms me to the silence which followed e voice of a tower clock, uickly. Pt you here talking and you don't hurry you will train I wish I wish I e you miss it." t the glint of tears In her laid the costly wrap shoulders. A tide of pas-we pas-we to pick her up in his away with her pos- he said unsteadily: given me a wonderful 1 rry back to Alaska." er's titanic siren echoed and re-I re-I echoed among the snow-tipped mountain tops. "B-o-a-t! B-o-a-t!" The cry set in motion Eskimos and Indians, countless uncanny echoes. ech-oes. Dogs responded with wolfish wails. "I never watch that boat come in but I wonder what turn old Fortune will give her wheel," observed Grant at his elbow. "Its arrival is packed with significance, signifi-cance, Tubby. So many on this last frontier have pasts." "I'll bet the wheel turns for Hale this time. He and the Mrs. are coming com-ing in on this boat. It's six weeks since we fought to save that bridge. He went off to Seattle before he knew that it would stand the breakup. break-up. I'm mighty sorry for his wife, but our reports went by air, must have reached the authorities weeks ago." "I made mine as charitable as possible, considering the fact that a flaw in construction imperils hundreds hun-dreds of lives and wastes thousands of dollars." .,rm u .rM, nut nn tho enft nprinl OI dollars. "I'll bet you put on the soft pedal, Bruce. In the interest of cool and impartial accuracy, Jimmy Chester ba-gosh, how he hates Joe Hale, if he is his brother-in-law and I didn't. In my capacity as accountant for the outfit I reported unvarnishsd facts. Here come the mail-bags and Stephen Mallory. It's good to see the Dominie again. I'm glad we're back on the coast, even if we are hundreds of miles from civilization. I wonder how long we'll have to stay in this raw place?" "Until we have developed a railroad rail-road terminal. The authorities have decided not only to extend the tracks north but to connect the Alaskan system with Seattle, San Francisco Francis-co and Los Angeles. That's what I've been doing these last six weeks. Even got a piece of track laid as an object lesson. Left Jimmy Chester in charge. He's a human dynamt,, in spite of the fact that he looks like a stage Romeo. Part of this outfit is to scout by plane and report bridge possibilities. That means that next winter we'll begin pier-setting again. How's the new secretary working out?" (TO BE CONTINUED) Harcourfs face whitened. The false works! The two thousand piles which had been driven forty feet into the bottom of the river! "How much! Quick!" "Fifteen inches! Sudden as the crack of doom!" "Where's Hale?" "Gone back to headquarters with his dog-team. Said everything was O.K. Didn't need him; he'd take the boat out to Seattle to get Mrs. Hale. Said you'd had your leave, he'd take his." "Gone! Without letting me know! Get every man out. Tubby!" Harcourt Har-court started on a run. In the prolonged nightmare which followed, Bruce Harcourt felt as though he were his own double looking look-ing at a great motion picture. Steam from every available engine was turned into every available feedpipe. feed-pipe. Men chopped seven-foot thick ice away from the piles. A stinging needle-pointed Arctic night settled down. The river rose. The forest quiet was broken by the chop, chop of picks. The piles must be kept free. Hundreds of cross pieces were unbolted. The shifting Into place began No man relaxed his vigi- almost frightened fingers touched his Dame. lari7 him, Jan. Don't" ed one hand free to press hi lips. "Don't say it 1 never be sorry. Good- h? u,m flnSers fervently, fervent-ly, he whispered. on aa Alaskan moun- Harcourt regarded y compieted bridge which Z r'ver. The breakup ? hour, any minute. be Jong now befQre we good we are," he told He tu at a hail. A irk. 88 lon hi" OS nf hUt,g d0Wn tO idt.' W- oBsaeekySo0u!0n? B0y' but L2T Junior' 8ren of' a KK ,ace was rou eau'if ,ave' but hi teeth eautifmiy whlte .. he |