Show I 1 v j CHAPTER X continued i 21 joyce hesitated she was aware that alan deeply wanted her company after all hed done for her it seemed crackly ungrateful to refuse and she herself wanted to go but bitter als conr whispered a warning since that morning whan she turned his letters and picture and gifts to ashes there had been no looking back there must be none now she had strength and courage to talk with him calmly and to act toward him as though they had never been more than good friends but she dared not presume too far on that new born to be alone with him two hours on a twilight river with their talk in drifting to former times it would be unbearable with gentle firmness she said I 1 d like to go alan but I 1 II 11 have to run back to the post there s so many things to do she tried to smile I 1 don t want to be a neglectful hostess to dill and mr As she started up the river trail her thoughts blooded brooded on several things alan had said in the course of his story especially on his occasional ref wences to elizabeth not that he had eald anything derogatory about eilza both but his tone his manner was he becoming a little disillusioned was he seeing elizabeth spaulddng not as the sister of his dead partner curt not as a girl to be cherished and shielded but as a selfish calculating person was he dimly foreseeing what his married life with her was goine to be joyce checked herself sharply from hoping or even thinking that alan might break off his engagement or from extending him anything more than grateful friendship she was glad profoundly glad that his words ahad caused no resurrection of hope no tremor of emotion the discovery of her strength suffused her with a kind of pride but tor nil that she felt a great sorrow for alan he was bitterly unhappy and she knew it what was his situation now police work his life in the north comradeship with his old friends everything that he had cherished was stripped away from him and he was going into a marriage reluctantly and forcing himself into a life that was alien to his whole nature when joyce thought of nil that her sympathy tender and compassionate went out to him wholeheartedly returning at deep twilight with the drums alan found buzzard cleaning fouled spark plugs on the plane en gine candles were already lit in the trading store alan looked up the path expecting to see joycea joyces figure in the lighted doorway he hoped to have an hour or two alone with her this evening but all day the conviction had grown upon him that a talk would be worse than useless if only god s truth dlan t cound so preposterous if only he could tell joyce that he had become engaged to elizabeth had ex pecked to marry elizabeth and yet all the time in his deepest longing had wanted not elizabeth but her if were going to get away from here first thing in the morning buz zard broke into his thoughts we ought to put in a couple hours work after supper on these aileron leads pretty bad frayed around the pulleys alan knew that buzzard was asking him to help with that job but he did not answer he wanted this evening with joyce unless he took circumstances cum stances into his own hands to night he and joyce would arft across a continent from each other in a few days more torn with uncertainty of her affections for him he was debat ins about this evening after the in clients of today his picture gone her coldness her refusal to go with him he was wavering undecided aig tossed bis cigarette out on the water maybe wed better go up and help toyce what w e can did not stir for several minutes he had been glancing uneasily at alan finally he screwed up courage to speak its strictly none of my business alan but but youre to a girl there at endurance but you boucht miss eliat ecard with your last dollar and you talked a lot about getting back here and helping her alan was loath to speak of joyce even with a partner lie tried to say quietly weve been good friends for several years one of the sweetest girls I 1 ever 1 new louie met her now naturally want to help her of course but but see here I 1 may be imagining things you can tell me to shut up if you want to but it seems to me there s something wrong between you and her alan repeated rather shortly were good friends there s nothing more than that buzzard knew different he had had a vague suspicion of it ever since aann first mentioned loyce macmillan s name at the cafe in edmonton As lie remembered the incident of this noon he wondered at the spartan courage locce and shown and at the passion such in act surely some bitter unhappiness lay between her and baler he fald reluctantly if true it you re merely friends am nothing mire wl at mad her burn ur tant scarf you iipp aann on him gasp by william byron mowery by byron mowery ue half rose yon say what she did you re sure about that you dlan t make a mistake for a moment groping about to retrieve his blunder buzzard hardly knew what to say or do there had been no mistake he had seen that incident with his own eyes when he glanced through the window to find where alan was ue debated whether to draw back from his statement or to plunge abend and tell the rest of it joycea joyces momentary battle the shudder that swept her whole body when she put the scarf into the stove and the quick blinding tears that she dashed away lie thought better not get any deeper into this I 1 d only blunder again better back out entirely he stammered I 1 might have made a mistake I 1 might uh it might have been the wrapping paper I 1 just merely saw her put uh something into and I 1 jumped to conclusions must have been the wrapper why would any person want to burn up a gift like that let s forget it his tones carried no conviction lie realized it himself alan disbelieved him alan knew joyce had burned the scarf he gave her cursing himself hotly buzzard looked out across the purpling river he had meant only the best and he had dealt alan a savage pitiless blow after a little time alan said to him better go up buzzard she may be waiting for us arent you going no not now I 1 don t much care I 1 dont want supper something in his voice warned buz zard not to urge him As he turned away alan said in the tones of a man who has made some hard and abiding decision when youve had supper come back down here help you with that w ork we 11 do it now so we can alan whirled on him gasping burn up that cean tur flechel chee get away early I 1 was thinking for this evening something else but out now at three the next morning buzzard lifted the plane out of ahe big a with alan directing him he headed due north one hundred and thirty miles away nearly four hundred miles from fort endurance a small tribe of lived along the western fringe of the thai they were a timid skulking inoffensive band shouldered into a region where other tribes scorned to live dave macmillian had been their friend and they brought him their furs and alin during his years at endurance had sent a protective patrol to them twice a year joice had found out where they were spending this summer and alan had a mission with their old heidman fithen when the timbered country began yielding to lacca and semi muskeg tie got out his glasses and started searching ahead for their camp at a height of five thousand feet he could sweep a region of more than two hundred thousand acres ahe eyes of an eagle the wings of a bullet swift curlew and that big browning gun through luck and driving pur pose and a faith in his dubious plan he hid smashed through obstacles till now he held the power and heavy odds over those bandits ts the sure knowledge of this was about all that was left to him ills work in the mounted his life here in the north were both gone and buz cataclysmic words last evening had showed him that alg secret hope towards joyce had been a fool s hope a fools wishful thinking how low he must have fallen in her esteem tint slie should burn hla gift to herl at first it had seemed a little cruel of joyce to do that but then he looked at the incident with relentless honesty and he could not blame her once he and she bad planned to marry keople had spoken of it it had been generally accepted along the aher she bad liked him loved him what must her feelings have been as she watched his relations with llla beth and saw him engaged to another girl and coming no more to the big AIo oska she must have felt shame a burning shame at being jilted month after lonely month of that it biad been an outrage to her girlhood nothing she could do to him could be so heartless as what he had done to her through the propeller disk he at last sighted the indian camp a cluster of brown leather tents beside a lake where the band was passing the buiu mer near their fish weirs buzzard roared over the camp and baal ed to alight old mugia eathen a gnarled and wrinkled old savage stalked up and ravely bade them welcome after this flood season of heavy rains alan knew there were a few areas in the watery wilderness of the thai arzah ahei e a party of men could camp he himself had only a hazy idea where those areas lay but this old headman mugia eathen who follows the had lived his life along the border of that greit marsh and knew it better than any man alive and could probably give him a pretty definite idea where to look very wisely joyce had kept from letting the nomad bands know any thing about the police defeat the Sha galasha maintained order in so huge a territory largely through their reputation of never falling and alie news of their stinging deceit would do incalculable harm joyce had not even told old mugia lathen after pledging the headman to sl lence in guttural alan began sketching the story of the robbery and battle As he told of the bandits es capling up the aloiska he noticed that the old chief suddenly became all interested alan looked at him keenly something s up he thought I 1 ve bled onto something he demanded when I 1 wa wa two three breaths ago you start like hit buck drawing a crude map of the thai amzah with his bony forefinger the old headman sprang bis astounding news ten suns ago he said and another young buck had gone westward into the land of many waters to locate rat colonies for autumn trapping one evening they heard the boom boom of fire sticks far away southwest slipping up timid cau alous they saw some strange men shooting for food they saw a tent a camp on an island for several minutes fighting down a wild elation alan forced himself to crouch there asking questions fixing that map and that spot unforgettably in his mind at the wigwams he rejoined bill come on 1 let s be getting into the aarl an hour and a half from now well be saying it with a machine gun when we lew up here we brought our luck along 1 from his height of three thousand feet reading the country spread below him alan could follow the crude finder map without once being in doubt that should be the great bluewater blue water lake which bughi lathen had described it should have islands in the center of it on one of the islands near the north edge of the cluster the bandits should be camped if they had not moved on S ving north he shouted at buz zard chose islets there to them selves the machine swerved and thundered closer one by one alan started to se arch the five on the first one nothing on the second nothing but on the third he started suddenly lv as he caught that center oce in clear focus below them on that center island conspicuous to their sl v patrol stood a solitary dirty white tent after a few moments ala had presence of mind again lie leaned forward and shouted instruction drop down to a thousand feet fly over that island again slow want to study t carefully before we start things TO BE CONTINUED |