| Show 4 COURTNEY 4 19 RYLEY c 0 P eft R RYLEY COOPER 5 ERVICK APT n n continued 8 thought of bruce I 1 00 I 1 londs eyes widened 1 dadiw ha dat dIW anther him tor for years nit mt sorry ile he did all that wn and bolivia Doll vla ed cd we wa aless now if he had listened t 11 again there was silence kay clenched hor hands led bcd to the edge of the ledge back ack followed entranced by ire of hir her ln in the moonlight il 1 I could talk to that part bours ours 1 11 1 change your mind when him might as well argue aea co stump 1 ak hy bother with him het my partner artner 0 mean ran that why not aad know where jing instead of 0 staggering dag gering olind blindly ly nt it amount cat at a t ma ims gut ance would help you tou A geologist could figie ie ahat ran a thou 1 I I 1 1 inias leidt ape e oslo aly maybe i idea kay biou cantrist can trust bruce to the did As for tho the fee amilie charge you until afeei 1 everything Is 4 t 1 aughee billed hod know adlay him if he put in ny le jpe would have to 0 dark hed kick over i anything iny thing look now at ran out W v u you jus accident 41 U t told you to yV AXiA ax 2 1 tool hy dont you you owe it ilaf PI anatoe And Toe too hed muchal enuch mU chaa as you b 0 floi U little except firdia close clo ietti to him vibrant hit fiji fiihr brushed his hind stroked his sef T c e ta 1 quiet ba at last maybe ua sort of pave ont kenning bont tell him lust enough so that hell Im talking about when I 1 ato dear eai bald aad kay joyce a long time ed esoto clo seito him then I 1 drew away at last to tary lonely as bout uti 1 py OY er ertho valley 1 earter a long time 1 then with tn KWa cant be blet ant ine a lot of nv E t not loving L avi aply 1 I cant il TW P 1 f A 40 IN ss W a 11 ade eside her er afy air eto say saya JI 1 bence rm im smal i ase 40 jack ja ck oft A iou re crazy six I 1 worship iS incomes ka comeS V you kay ht in seat 41 adt mother 46 17 sit ively flat pi had a loose 2 ar enough for reent ent on bit ragged ged poor teck ec almost been a saint 16 ne a alive dut but act ct remains ick ack demand tot money ISO im M adough rou gh life agger gera Is s absolute 11 1 was the aughter I 1 to do with aveni any a lot so I 1 anaw answer r to ill 1111 marry go you or were I 1 ply at the tha touch rie want to me 3 eskimo ap mt A but that aare a are to be a pui ourselves ur selves to deskit work 0 brt b rt C 9 47 I 1 r is ge a idea that I 1 was desperate and grabbed you because you had money you know Ild nover do that what they nil all say jack why weve got to wait waft ile he caught her eagerly tight to him then this a turndown turn down of course not silly she answered in a smothered vo voice c a weve simply got to wait all how long her lips were close to his until I 1 make some money out of that placer oh its a subterfuge I 1 know but at least ill bring you something besides myself iome something thing ive earned but you cant cani work that claim with your own hands you said get me bome men that takes money ive got a little A few h hundred tin dollars that will be enough bruce gives mother a little to live on because ot of father but suppose you dont hit it she raised her head chin high in the moonlight ivo ive got to hit it I 1 cant have you until I 1 do it will be my dowry jack hammond went down the hill that night with the feeling of having kissed the lips of nobility A modest man it had been inevitable that he should have faced moments of doubt all that now was dispelled A few nights later as mckenzie Mc Kenzle joe scraped the sandy mud off his boots and prepared to start for geannes Je annes store and a new tin of oc tobacco jack hammond came out of the semidarkness semi darkness of the cabin and leaned against the doorway listen joe ho he began ive been thinking about something ach the old prospector tossed aside the mud smeared stick and stood waiting weve been looking for that old river bed in pretty haphazard fashion have we asked joe well we we dig a hole here and a hole there just stabbing blind in the dark ive been thinking that we ought to map out a campaign suppose we swing away over to tho the right almost to the end of our holdings on that number 5 lease and start putting down a series of test pits then if 1 those dont work out wo we can start slowly lowly across the valley the coldly appraising look in me mc kenzie joes eyes halted him what crooked mining shark has been telling you the wrong place to dig he asked bluffly and walked on toward jeanne jeanna towers cabin CHAPTER VI all in less than two weeks the little settlement of sapphire lake had become a village and was robustly looking forward to the day da 7 when it would be a town timmy moons airplane had caused it not that he any longer held the monopoly moro poly two days after his first trip into wrangell ell another gypsy had flown in from the alaskan coast and begun a canvass ot of the town for business then a third had found foun d his way up from vancouver F for or days timmy moon had been chartered by around the world annie feverish for artisans wood workers glaziers glaz lers and their supplies olsons discovery of gold had done great things tor for the morale of the camp other placer miners who had been content with mere panning now were building rockers or going in for greater sluicing operations the whole psychology of the camp had changed while hardware and furnishing stores in wrangell sold out th their air supplies and the hurrying airplanes roared onward to juneau and sitka there to load up from new sources and rush back to the mining camp yeh said mckenzie Mc Kenzle joe as he watched a ship drop to the lake and taxi to a landing in a hurry they could go for months without glass in their windows but now got to have it by the next plane the trouble with a now new gold diggins nobody wants to let it stay the way you found it then suddenly he asked hammond you going to work with me today on that upper shaft or a are r e you still sticking to loon creek hammond began to file ale the ragged edge of a long handled shovel dont you think its up to us to got get as much gold out of that creek placer as we can well have to be hiring men soon the older man shot him a quick glance the fourth or filth fifth time youve brought that up he be said well asked hammond we talk it over tho other night we come to wiy decision 1 I did that make two of us A certain asperity had grown up between the two looking back hammond ammond ll felt that mckenzie Mc Kenzle joes nature had become steadily sourer ever since uie the first ot of timmy moons moona airplane and its pas seng cra jock jack had resented that BS as though it were an implied insult to the girl he loved I 1 look here joe weve got to get our money out ot of this discovery we cant stay here forever seems scorns to me mckenzie Mc Kenzle joe said os as he ha looked out over tho the v valley alley when wo we found this place we both figured it was where wo we were going to settle down that we had a life job were not going to have a years job it if wo we dont find that older bed rock that loon creek placer wont be enough tor for us 01 its enough tor for mo me tight right now tho the older man said 1 I aint ever seen that much money before hammond bent over the shovel blade our ideas are different there you mean youve youva let some body change em cm for you hammond throw threw down the chov el a 1 it clattered on the wooden floor tm im getting tired of that 11 youve got anything to say about kay joyce como come out and say ILI it the other oilier man anan glanced at him over his shoulder did I 1 mention any names ho he asked quietly and moved away toward too the upper diggings a now test somewhat distant from camp and rather deep in the forest by which they sought the bedrock hammond did not follow instead with tho the shovel over his shoulder he headed for the placer workings along the creek it was a rejuvenated camp through which he moved A roar sounded from the lake and timmy moons airplane took off tor for wrangell from far away came tho the sound of hammers wall aw we come to any do casion 11 over ove r at around the world annles annies on the alaskan side a tiny town had begun there she called it whoopee As hammond walked on ho he passed a squat squaw gleaming in ia a new shawl ot of wildly checkered design an importation by air then he became aware that someone was calling him it was jeanne towers waving excitedly from the doorway of her cabin store ive almost sold she exclaimed as g he approached im going to send in another order tomorrow larry baltic hes the one with the all metal junkers Is going to bring me back a whole list of stull stuff from Four cross the way a business grows hammond bantered two hundred dollars for a claim doubled all in a couple of weeks jeanne jeanna laughed tipping her homemade home made gold scales with a toy ing finger well nearly doubled I 1 hope I 1 do it again and a dozen times a after that then the gold mining business plays he went on then at last to reach loon creek kay was not yet there it was still breakfast time in most of the camp but bruce kenning was moving along the tream stream s toward one of his claims a quarter mue mile beyond A few hundred yards up the stream where the rawboned raw boned olson scooped the earth by great shovel fuls into his sluice was mrs joyce hammond saw her there often now and then he had found olson sitting on the veranda of the joyce cottage talking of wanderings in many lands in his search for gold while mrs joyce gave tar far more than her usual monosyllabic rejoinders rejo inders there was something about the man which seemed to fascinate her suddenly he ceased his musings bruce kenning had come beside him y J hows the work going with mckenzie joe he asked quietly hammond shrugged his shoulders 1 I been able to get anywhere ile he still wants to put down one hole at a time and give the t rest of ills hla wo life to it lK kenning enning frowned froy ned you cant have that im con vinced that tho the old river bed lies over toward the british columbia hills ile ho chuckled 1 I wish it were the other way around all my claims are arc in the other direction flammond Ha grinned well you cant say I 1 tell you oh youre talking about that stuff I 1 bought from jeanno jeanne towers ive added to that a grent great dealon the chance that somebody around here would want it dut but looking tho the other way just as well im obligated to turn over some omo worthless claims to an english syndicate beyond me something I 1 took over out of what was left when joyce died I 1 guess tho the house Is crooked they say frankly they probably wont develop tho the property they just want something cheap in a live mining camp A stock acting scheme probably 1 I much doubt ot of it bo be glad to have tho the thing over 01 so would 1 I 11 II ammond felt ho he could share kennings repugnance ile iio was fired these days with tho the thought of now new gold clean money tho the eagerness had been mounting over ever since that night when kay had told him her decision to got get gold for kay lils his hands clawed for gold his mind was centered upon little else illow how deep do you think well havo have to go to reach that old bedrock A lot deeper than imagine ninety to a hundred and twenty feet from my study ot of tho the strata I 1 cant seo see any other answer hammond ammond II whistled that means a lot of work you bet it means work and men and a concentrated campaign any other method will keep you here for tho the next fifty years youve got to spend money to make money in rn mining ining what ive been trying to tell mckenzie McK enzlo joe but he there ho he halted kay was coming down the trail bruce kenning called good morning and went up tho the stream hours later with kay and hammond ammond II watching intently the workmen began a cleanup clean up of tho tha sluice box on the joyce claim it only revealed tho the usual flour gold indications of something more to come but as yet nothing worth saving neither this flume nor the sluice Is long enough one of the workers complained me n jim waste an awful lot of time lust just Bt stand andIn ln around for fear of shovel ln in too much gravel then build em up now while youre dried out for the cleanup clean up hammond said im going past the sawmill ill tell em to send some lumber and nails called kay ill got get them hammond left the stream with its lines ot of eager workers at the sawmill he gave the lumber order then turned for geannes Je annos annes to get the nails she met him some fifty yards away returning from the delivery of a batch of darning sold oil all those nails he asked 1 I think there are some left theres been a run on them this morning everybody in ca camp gnp wants nalls nails or glass they reached tho the store and she peg hasp persons in sapphire lake even bothered to close their doors then pushing tho the door open she walked within the store suddenly to gasp and to hurry around the end of at the rough counter the crudely built money drawer stood open the girl wavered staring at it her hands half raised her jaw sagging then she said in a queerly dulled voice been in the had you left your money hero here hammond asked sharply yes all of it 1 I 1 I thought nobody ever bothers to lock up hammond stared about him it seemed inconceivable that crime should have entered this faraway far away place sergeant terry main work was growing a garden beside him jeanne towers continued to stare blankly it was as if they sought an explanation of the impossible the S supernatural but who would want to steal my M money oncy she asked dazedly they took everything the bills and my nuggets and a bottle of golddust goldlust gold dust hammond Hanu nond did not answer tho the door had begun to swing shut the faint breeze was bum clent to lift a bit 0 of paper hitherto unnoticed and whisk it to the floor jack moved for it but the girl with spilt intuition sped before him she grasped it turning it in her hand then with a spasmodic movement she crumpled it in a tightly clenched fist its nothing she said her face was bloodless TO DE BE CONTINUED |
