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Show : .;.y-;v: vjIaa - a I CHAPTER VII Continued 4 12 iijl The girl quivered, tensed, and ' bounded sideways. The belt-ax was lying near the knife. She clutched y one In each hand and straightened jfj erect, her eyes ablaze. Jj "You beast!" she cried. "Go! Go, or I'll kill you !" He smiled with cool Irony. "Why eo theatrical? Hysterics are not In J your line, my dear Lllith." That lowered her voice, but not the knife and ax. She began to edge towards him, with the blades it raised ready to strike. Her voice T came from her stiffened lips, low rt and hoarse and deathly calm: Xl "If you do not go, I will kill you, ic- unless you first kill me." Ha The smile left his lips. His eyes ""i narrowed. He replied no less qul- i etly: Tjjj? "You are stark crazy. I'm going. Id bt It may be two or three weeks before j; I can come back. That should be long enough for you to starve Into sanity. You'll be glad to welcome me then. Only, how about your k1 father? Does It not sober you to realize It will be your fault If he dies?" ' . For answer, she took a full step SI nearer. The look In her eyes daunted daunt-ed him. He slanted sideways, caught " up Garth's rifle, and ran across to the bank above the canoe. When, more slowly, she came to the top of aot the bank, he had the canoe launched y and was heaving In the wolfskin . knapsack. He jumped aboard with the rifle and one paddle. As he backed offshore, off-shore, she ran down to the water's edge and flung his engagement ring fj at his face. It struck his upjerked forearm and glanced outboard and J Its flash was instantly quenched In the wa ter. CHAPTER VIII Voodcraft." OUT of the pit of blackness, Garth's first dimly conscious I'i thoughts were of water. He was If still In swimming. . . No, the wail wa-il ter was only on his face. Not rain, ff Dor poured water something wet II sopping his forehead. I He opened his eyes, blinked the laze from them, and found himself razing up Into a pair of sunken blue A syes. They were clouded and dark , vlth misery. Yet with strange sud-lenness sud-lenness they brightened. At that je realized they were the eyes of Ullth Ramill. 'What's happened?" he muttered. Even as his lips moved, he remem-jered. remem-jered. "Huxby his pistol. Must : lave shot me." "Yes. Dad also." Garth sought to tense his flaccid j liuscles, ready to bound up. She aid a restraining hand on his fore-T fore-T lead. "Lie still. He went" II "Went?" I "Illght after It. Be quiet, else you U nav BO unconscious again. The bul- et cut across the back of your lead. All these two days you've ' ain there In that frightful stupor. I . xuld not wake you up. I felt sure 'ou'd die." 'y "Stupor two days?" he muttered. 'Concussion brain." , 3f He made deliberate trial, and bund he could move his legs and )y irms. "Luck no paralysis. Soon be ill right. But your father? You aid 'father also.' Can't see why. Volf was rabid ouly for uy claim lot blood mad." "Of course I The cowardly beast ff,', Qennt only to murder you. But Zj fhon he tired again, Dad Jumped ip between." f ' "Bad?" j "Xot If there was a doctor. It's -, hrough the shoulder. The cciward - o run off with the canoe, Instead of hooting himself like a man!" "Ran off, did he? Thought he ad killed your lather?" "No, he said It wasn't serious. All te needed was t" take Dad In the anoe and get that man Tobin's aedlcal kit." "Yet he ran off without you?" "I made him go. I drove him off, I he beastly sneaking coward!" ; Garth stared, perplexed. "You d'- ; iat? Yet he wanted to tnfcp ;. ;r i I 'athor where he could rcc v ' i JnpnL" : She frowned. "Me i.r'-! :,oil lead. But .iu-r I ru :v . ,1, I wshert ncidn yon ' s i 'n- I e't y, u !" i t. i r.-ps n'l.ild ? '-. ' -? ' 1 ; .nove. He J 1 I , :-.t jOU. SO I - S yourself and your fa- ' N - oonod here." f girl stiffened. Her mouth . I fcer.i hard. "Don't fancy I did It for J a rou! It was It was because I was -: 8 0t going to lot him finish his sneak A Border. It onld have been tlie 'Jp 'nine If rd gone o(T and let you die. ' Eju can see that. You must!" I 1 ' He smiled up at her frown. "All the more sporting of you. Not half bad, I'd say." "Oh, but It Is bad frightfully bad ! No food not a thing to give Dad all this time. No chance of getting any for either of you. And now his fever, too. No medicine for It!" A sudden thought Jerked Garth up to a sitting position. He swayed from dizziness. Then his ' head cleared. He was only rather weak from blood-loss and sore about the back of his head. An exploring hand found a wad of moss, tied upon his wound with a band of plaited grass. He heard the girl murmur: "I fixed Dad's the same way ashes and the moss to hold It on. Ashes or soot I once heard about something like that for cuts." He pointed to the scattered ashes of the dead fires. "Be quick. Build a big blaze and throw on green wood. That southbound plane! Must signal It Even If he's aboard, he can't keep the pilot from coming com-ing down." Lllith Ramill's head drooped despondently. de-spondently. "I saw It this morning way out across the sky. First there was the drone of the motor. Then I saw It way off. Only, I could do nothing. Yesterday I used your last match. I wanted to boll for Dad the one pinch of tea that's left. A puff of wind blew out the flame. Now there's no hope. He took your rifle too. No fire or food or gun, or any chance of rescue!" Garth looked around and saw her father tossing In feverish sleep under un-der the shade of a slight brush canopy. He gave the overwrought girl a bantering smile. "What, merely a matter of fire, medicine, food, and escape? If only you were a Boy Scout! How about becoming a Campfire Girl? Fetch me a two-foot willow branch the size of your forefinger, a thong, one straight dry stick, and that chunk of dead birch trunk." A little sand Increased the friction fric-tion of the fire-drill point at the bottom of the shallow hole he made In the block of wood. The dry birch soon began to smoke. Lllith had gathered tinder of dead Inner bark. In wide-eyed wonderment, she wratched the simple primitive method meth-od of firemaking. "Now, we're under way," he said. "Next comes medicine. By using the ashes, you gave our wounds sterile dressings. Your father was tuned up to the pink of condition. HIS wound will heal as rapidly as mine. What little fever he has means nothing. To cool It, crush In his drinking water some of the cranberries from over there- along the edge of the muskeg. You might boll willow bark and add a little of the bitter decoction to the cranberry cran-berry juice." "Oh, It's good to know he's not sick. But to starve to death !" Garth pointed to the wild fowl out In the swamp. They were beginning to flock together with the approach of autumn. "How would you like canvasback or mallard for dinner?" Her eyes brightened, only to cloud again. "You have no gun." After looping some thongs to his belt, he went to stack a hollow pile of brush on a forked stub that had broken off from a fallen beech tree. Out In the water, he bobbed under and came up with his head between the forks of the float. The leaves and twigs made a blind from which he could see out without being seen. He waded, neck deep, up the muskeg mus-keg stream so slowly that the stub and branches appeared to be an ordinary or-dinary bunch of driftwood. When he stepped off over his depth, he began to tread water. By a quiet movement of his hands under un-der the surface, he glided the blind Into the midst of a mallard flock. The trick was to grasp a duck's feet and jerk the bird under before It could squawk. He waded back to shore with five dead mallards tied to his bolt. After the meal on roast duck, he sot some rabbit snares. He then showed T.I li tli how to make cords !. splitting off strands from peeled ;r',Ke roots. While she worked Ht this, collected more ducks .v.i.i hung them over a smudge for smoke curing. Next came the carving of Eskimo hooks from duck bones. With bait, a catgut leader and a spruce-root line, he bczan to catch Mackenzie whitelish. Lllith had never seen so beautiful a fresh-water fish. The newly caught fish proved far better eating than even the best of trout. Mr. Ramill's slight fever gave him a distaste for duck meat and the rabbits that were snared. But he ate his full share and more of the delicious fish. Besides the cranberries, Lllith ; gathered black currants and blue- ' berries and mushrooms. More fish were caught than could be eaten fresh. A number were soon on the smoke rack, along with ducks and rabbits. For ttie present and near future, the question of food had been met. A cold sleety rainstorm drenched the camp. It brought only temporary tempo-rary discomfort, for Garth kept the fire alive under a slanted heap of spruce houghs. None the less, the storm spurred him to redoubled activity. ac-tivity. He knew It to be the forerunner fore-runner of the autumn blizzards that might now howl down off the snow-clad snow-clad Selwyns at any time. While Mr. Ramill's slight fever remained, he said little and seemed to take everything as a matter of course. He had fully recovered from the effects of shock even before be-fore the fifth day when the bullet wound through his upper chest began be-gan to heal. But with the passing pass-ing of his feverish condition the Irritability of convalescence jabbed him out of his placid contentment. "Why are you loafing around here, Garth?" he rasped. "Instead of wasting all this time piling up food, you could have made a canoe and run us down across to that refueling re-fueling post days ago." Garth swept his right hand edgewise edge-wise out across his uplifted empty left palm. "No gun no hides. Dead birch no bark. No hides, no bark no canoe." "Huh ! Do you mean to say we'll have to stick here and freeze In your d d Arctic winter?" "Growl away, sir," Garth approved. ap-proved. "Sounds good. It means you'll soon be In shape for rafting. raft-ing. As for your question, perhaps you imagine Miss Ramill and I have been heaving that down timber over the bank Just for sport." - The millionaire staggered to his feet unaided for the first time since Huxby had shot him down. "A raft! How the devil can you make one If you can't make a canoe? No rope or rawhide thongs to tie the logs together." Garth supported him over through the spruce thicket to the drop-off of the bank. The wobbly Invalid squatted on the brink and stared In surprise. Down the beach, close beside the water, his daughter sat plaiting a great pile of willow withes into a thick line. Before her A'' itiih, , ..,-"J M;' . ' 1 w4fe 'fa i "You'll Not Have Much Longer to Insult Me." floated a partly built raft of dead birch tree trunks. The shorter, smaller cross logs were lashed on with spruce roots and plaited-willow tie-lines. Mr. Ramill's gaze passed over the raft, to peer out across the Immense lake-like expanse of the great river. The water was covered with white-caps, white-caps, whipped up by the chill northerly north-erly wind. "Raft I Ugh! It's worse out there than the white water when we shot those rapids." "There'll be plenty of free bathing bath-ing for us, but no danger of drowning," drown-ing," Garth replied. "Only trouble, this wind would blow us upstream. We'll have to wait for a shift. The only other chance Is that one of the boats may be coming out" "Boats?" "The supply steamers of the Hudson's Hud-son's Bay company and other traders, taking out the season's cargoes of furs." The millionaire grunted his relief: "Ugh steamers I Almost good as a plane," "If one comes along, and If we see It In time," Garth qualified. "Yon are rather farslghted. You might watch for smoke downriver." "I'll do that. D n your diddling with any raft! Ten to one, you've already let every steamer slip past All this time with your nose rubbing those d d logs!" Garth went down to tell Lllith that her father was by way of being a well man. He sent her to move the camp to a small opening In the thicket, close behind the grumbler. Fuel for a bonfire had already been heaped up on the beach. But Garth did not count strongly on sighting any steamer. The boats might have lingered at the far-away Arctic trading posts. Delays meant danger of an early blizzard. He rushed his work on the raft When dusk came. Lilith went on watch, In place of her father. Garth relieved re-lieved her at midnight. But neither neith-er of them saw any light out on the vast expanse of ghostly gleaming gleam-ing whiternps. i By another stinsot Garth had the j raft completed to his satisfaction He had built a superstructure that raised the footing well above the waterline. Rails guarded against the risk of squall waves washing the still weak millionaire overboard. over-board. For sweeps, Garth lashed the paddles to poles made of spruce saplings. He rigged other saplings for mast and yardarm, ready to hoist the blanket as a sail In case of a favorable change In the wind. "Shift or calm, we'll put off at sunrise," he announced. Though Mr. Ramill grumbled, he ate his fill of broiled whltefish, and rolled up for the night to fall Into the healthy heavy sleep of a convalescent con-valescent Lllith again took the first watch. In the midst of his first sleep, Garth opened his eyes with the instant in-stant alert wakefulness of a hunter. hunt-er. The girl's hand was on his forehead. fore-head. "Yes?" he asked. "I I'm not sure," she murmured. mur-mured. "The wind has gone down ... It looks like a star. But It Is so low on the water, I thought I'd better call you." He rolled from the bed of spruce tips and dry moss. A single glance downriver was enough. He jumped to light the prepared bundle of brush at the smudge-fire and leap with It down the bank. As the heap of fuel on the beach burst Into flame he heard the girl's gasping murmur, close behind his shoulder: "It can't be a mistake? You're certain certain that It's really " "A steamer," he replied. "But what If If they don't see us? It's night." "Darker the better, If no fog. They can't miss seeing this fire." Garth turned to eye her In the glare of the upflarlng fire. He looked at her worn moccasins and lynxskln leggings, at the crude skirt of moose-calf skin and the tattered upper part of the sports dress. He looked at the girl's dope-smeared face and at the tight pigtails of the semi-bobbed hair that had once been so frozen in that modish permanent wave. His gray eyes twinkled In the firelight "Well, Td say you're less a sight than when I first met you." Her eyes did not twinkle. They flashed. "You'll not have much longer to Insult me!" "I may If you don't fetch the blanket," he said. "A fire on the shore means nothing of itself. Just an Indian camp John Buck and his squaw. We'll have to signal." The word sent her bounding up the bank. She came flying back with the blanket. Garth ordered her to hold one corner. He took another. anoth-er. They stood In front of the fire, with the big blanket stretched between be-tween them. Mr. Ramill called irritably ir-ritably from the top of the bank. What did they mean, wakening him and taking away his bedding? Lilith cried out the glad news. Garth gave her a curt order to pay attention. At his commands, she began to stoop and rise In unison with him, lowering the blanket to the sand and jerking It up again in front of the fire, at irregular Intervals. After some time he ordered a halt, with the blanket on the ground. He added an explanation : "Those were dots and dashes. We've given the SOS and my name. They may not have made it out That light Is nearer, but It has not turned. Ready now. We'll repeat" Above the low-hung star another anoth-er star flashed on and off. Across the silent, glimmering flood of the river came the hoarse blasts of a steamer's whistle, muffled by distance dis-tance yet unmistakable. "All right, Miss Ramill," Garth said. "Tell your maid to pack your luggage." She asked In a low voice: "Haven't I tried to play up? Is it sporting of you to mock me?" Her face was shadowed. He could not see the look that went with the questions. After a moment, he answered an-swered soberly. "It Is not, and yon have. Permit me to apologize." "Is that all?" "What else?" he replied. "Yon are of course relieved and pleased to be rid of a man you so thoroughly thorough-ly hate. You may rest assured I will not Intrude, once you're aboard ship." "Yes," she murmured, "when Dad and I no longer have any need of you to " Her father came staggering down the bank to thrust In between them. "I say, Garth ! don't He. Is it true the steamer Is putting in for us?" Doubtful of a safe night landing at this unused beach, the steamer captain lay off-shore and sent In a canoe. Garth steadied Mr. Ramill into the birchbark. At the same time Lllith stepped In ahead of her father. She repeated the maneuver when the two Indian paddlers drove the canoe out alongside the little river steamer. Garth saw no more of the girl until un-til after the steamer tied up at Fort Simpson, the trading post at the mouth of the Llard river. Taken Into a stateroom by the wife of a missionary from Fort Norman, she remained In complete seclusion. Her father kept almost equally close In the skipper's own room. The canny Scot had welcomed the American millionaire to his bunk for a consideration. The cabin was Jammed with fur traders and Fort Norman oil-field officials, who were going outside for the winter. Garth messed and berthed forv-an with the crew. (TO CE COATLVL'C.)' |