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Show Ike Lamp &Vafle$ BY ARTHUR STRINGER jL W. N, U. Service Sidney Lander, Alaska mining engineer, engi-neer, is engaged to Barbara Trumbull, whose father is contesting the mining claim of Carol Cobum, teacher at Mata-nuska. Mata-nuska. Lander breaks with Trumbull. Salaria Bryson also loves Lander. She CHAPTER XXlfl When I wakened, the next morning, morn-ing, I was puzzled by the scent of balsam close about me. I was-equal-ly puzzled by the scolding of two Canada jays that hopped about a dwindled campfire beside which stood a skillet and a coffeepot. Then I looked at the shoulder pack leaning lean-ing companionably against the balsam bal-sam bed on which I lay, and then out at the panorama of the snow-clad snow-clad mountain peaks that sparkled in the morning sunlight. It wasn't until I studied and recognized rec-ognized the second blanket that covered cov-ered me against the morning chill that I was able to orient myself. And then I remembered. That tarpaulined tar-paulined lean-to belonged to Sock-Eye. Sock-Eye. And that second blanket belonged be-longed to Sidney Lander. And that stream which raced down between the gravel bars and silt beds of the valley bottom was Big Squaw Creek. It was running strong, at the height of the summer thaw, and as it tumbled tum-bled over bar and boulder I could hear the noise of its hurrying in the clear mountain air. Then a second sound intruded on the morning quietness. It was a faint and far-off drone that grew stronger as it rose and fell with the vagaries of the breeze. It became a throb of power, a purposeful and electrifying throb that promptly took me out from beneath my blankets. It took me scurrying down to the open cliff edge that overlooked the Big Squaw where the racing waters tore at the base of a cut bank! There, between the towering peaks, I could see the small and toylike plane that grew bigger as it came nearer, sometimes dark and sdine-times sdine-times bright in the crystalline sunlight sun-light through which it arrowed. I shouted and waved, as it throbbed overhead, for I knew it was Slim Downey and his ship. The solitude, of a sudden, seemed less oppressive. I no longer worried wor-ried as to the whereabouts of my two camp mates. For there above me, defying time and space, was an engined shuttle that could weave mountains and rivers together and carry us out of the wilderness. But the plane went on, without sign or signal. And, for a moment, my heart sank. Then I gave a little lit-tle cry of relief. For I saw how the tilted wings were dropping lower, banking and heading back into the breeze over the irregular silver expanse ex-panse of Cranberry Lake. And even before its pontoons heeled down on that surface of ruffled ruf-fled silver I remembered that Slim could come to a landing only on water. wa-ter. And Cranberry Lake was the water that lay nearest the Chaki-tana Chaki-tana claim and the Big Squaw. My first impulse, at that happy discovery, was to find Sidney and shout the good news to him. He and Sock-Eye, I assumed, were somewhere down along the claim limits, probably checking up on measurements and monuments. So I moved out to the cliff edge, scanning scan-ning the valley for some sign of life. I even gave a gulp of gratitude at the thought that noonday would see us joining Slim and his waitihg plane and night would see us whisked back to a world of men and women and orderly life. My searching gaze coasted the valley bottom, and then the opposing oppos-ing hill slopes, and then the nearer broken ground through which the Big Squaw twined. But I saw nothing. noth-ing. I saw nothing until some obscur sixth sense prompted me to turn and study the rock ridge along which I had edged my way out to the cliff front. Slowly over the dark curve of that ridge I saw a hand appear, and groping fingers feel for a hold there. Then another hand showed itself, followed by a body that quietly wormed its way up over the ridge crown. I thought, at first, it was Sock-Eye. Sock-Eye. But in that, I soon knew, I was mistaken. For there was something some-thing so malignant and reptilelike in that crawling advance I felt it must be the movement of an enemy, ene-my, even before I caught sight of the short-barreled rifle trailing beside be-side the flattened body. At my instinctive cry of alarm that flattened figure abruptly lost its stealthiness. It dropped over the ridge wall, caught up the rifle and stood foursquare in front of me, with a low laugh of derision. I knew then it was Ericson. And my blood chilled as I fell back step by step as he advanced. He laughed again when he saw me come to the cliff edge, where I could go no farther. far-ther. He looked gaunt and harried and a little mad. But what troubled me most was a snakelike air of fortitude about him, the careless persistent persist-ent knowledge of some venomous power in reserve. "You can't get all the breaks, bright eyes." he said as he confronted confront-ed me with his crooked smile. And the mockery in it, the familiar old tone of llippancy, still had the power pow-er of sending a wave of nausea through ny body. "What are you going to do?" I THE STORY SO FAR disappears. Lander finds Salaria. She had Injured her leg while hunting. Barbara Bar-bara misinterprets the rescue and flings away her engagement ring. Lander and Carol fly to Chakitana. scene of her claim. Someone shoots at the plane. INSTALLMENT XIX said, ashamed of the quaver in my voice. Still again Ericson laughed. Solitude, I felt, had played tricks with his mind. "I'm going to get what's coming to me," he proclaimed, after a quick but pointed survey of the valley below be-low us. "And you're it" "I've done nothing to you," I cried, trying to keep my hands from shaking. "Oh, yes, you have," was his hate-embittered hate-embittered answer. "And more than once. But I told you I wouldn't always al-ways be the underdog. And this deal I'm not," His movement was quietly deliberate delib-erate as he pumped his rifle. "You're not going to kill me?" I gasped. "That'd be too easy," he announced. an-nounced. "But it's wise, my dear, to be ready for the unexpected. Come here." "But this isn't human," I cried. "It can't do you any good. It can't get you anywhere." He cut those cries of protest short. "Come here," he commanded, with a new and deadlier sort of in-tentness. in-tentness. I could feel my brain telling my. feet to obey, to take the steps demanded de-manded before that menacing small "O" at the end of a rifle barrel could spit, death in my face. But my feet refused to move. "Come here," repeated my enemy, ene-my, with a note of wildness in his voice. "Wait!" I called out, foolishly. I even more foolishly fell back a step or two, in an instinctive retreat of fear. And that, my brain told me, was a mistake. For I could see the barrel end steady and the hate-twisted face press closer to the balanced gunstock. I knew what was coming; and I cried out, without willing that cry, as my body forlornly stiffened to receive re-ceive its shock. But through that call of helplessness helpless-ness came a sharper sound, a sharp bark that produced an incredibly abrupt change in the poised figure confronting me. I saw the rifle fall, I saw Ericson throw up his hands and suddenly twist about in a ludicrously ludi-crously frantic half-circle. His hands were still above his head as his legs orumpled under him. And for one uncertain second he bal anced on the cliff edge, like a tightrope-walker fighting for equilibrium on some fragile footway. Then I saw the collapsed body tumble over the cliff edge. It went sprawling and rolling along the steep cut bank until it struck the waters of the Big Squaw, where the current caught it up and churned and tossed it, with now an arm showing and now a leg, along the white-water course that twisted between its shouldering banks. I was conscious of Sock-Eye standing stand-ing at my side, leaning almost nonchalantly non-chalantly on- his long-barreled rifle. "He's dead," I gasped, staring at the churning water-course that had swallowed up that receding tangle of limbs "I had t' git him," announced Sock-Eye, "or he'd a-got you." "But you'd no right to shoot a man," I cried, still shaking from shock, scarcely knowing what I was saying. Sock-Eye reached out and quietly pulled me back from the cliff edge. "There's times, girlie, when a hombre's got t' make his own laws out here in the hills. And this was , Sock-Eye Schlupp, old sourdough friend of the Coburns, did the shooting. Ha thought It was a Trumbull plane. Trumbull Trum-bull had planted Eric, the Red, at the scene, for dirty work. Sock-Eye informs them warninelv. one 6' them times, I'm thinking." "But you killed him," I repeated, leaning on the shaggy old shoulder beside me. Sock-Eye's laugh was low and mirthless but altogether untroubled. "That ain't botherin' me none," he said. "Any jury north o' Fifty-Six'd Fifty-Six'd say that snake killed hisself." My earlier sense of homelessness and helplessness swept back on me. I knew a craving for security where no security was to be found. "Where's Sidney?" I cried out in that tightening clutch of desolation. "I want Sidney." "I'm here," called Sidney's voice, close behind me. He was out of breath from his hurried climb up the hillside. But there was steadiness steadi-ness in the arms which he clasped about my swaying body. I could feel the throb of his heart and the subsiding panting of his lungs as he held me close to him. And those quieting hammer throbs of strength slowly beat the terror of homelessness out of my own hammering ham-mering heart. "Don't leave me," I said as my arms tightened about him. "We'll always be together, after this," he said. His arms closed about me again and I shut my eyes as I felt his lips on my lips. It was Sock-Eye's voice that brought time and the world back to me again. "I reckon it's a pot o' coffee you two cheechakos need t' steady you down a bit," he observed. "And while I'm" wrastlin' that, jus' kind o' remember there's a bush hawk's still waitin' for you over t' Cranberry Cran-berry Lake." It took Sidney a little time to come back to earth. But he still clung to my hand. "And what'll you do?" he questioned ques-tioned the old-timer. "Head back to Matanuska?" "Back t' that mess o' misfits?" was Sock-Eye's answer. "Not on your life. I've got me two burros outspanned over in the next valley bottom and I'm a-goin' t' mosey out t' the open hills where I belong." "But you can't do that, Sock-Eye," Sock-Eye," Sidney objected. "You're going go-ing to be needed before this is cleared up." Sock-Eye reached for his chewing plug. "She's plumb cleared up a'ready," he maintained. "And since you two dunderheads' ve finally made sure where your pay dirt lies and discovered dis-covered how you was kind o' made for each other, from the first crack out'n the box, I don't see no call . for me lingerin' around this neck o' the woods. No, sir. I'm goin' t' tote me and my stuff back into them hills where a man kin work a tom-myrocker tom-myrocker in peace." I felt he was too old and spent for that sort of lone-fire adventuring through the valley bottoms of the North. But there was something still gallant and intrepid about the shaggy figure as he stepped over to the taller man and placed a hand on the shoulder that stood almost as high as his own head. "You've got a straight-shooter in this gal of ol' Klondike Coburn's," he solemnly asserted. "She's a danged sight finer'n you deserve. And if you don't treat her right, down the years that's left f you, I'll sure amble out'n these hills and fill your carcass so full o' lead they'll be usin' you for a plumb bob." ITHE END |