OCR Text |
Show , The Valley of Voices By GEORGE MARSH A uthor of "Toners of the Trail" "Thn W helps of the Wolf (Copyrlcht by the Penn Publishing; CO (W. N. U. Service.) The dazed Frenchman, stopped short In his rush, rocked on his feet then stumbled forward, grasping his knife. As he hurled himself, with a downward lash, on the heap in the snow, he met an upward thrust which buried the blade of VVagosh In his body. Then on the white floor of the forest, for-est, a man blinded by flame and powder, pow-der, and one mortally hurt struck and slashed until strength left their arms and they lay together, hunter and hunted, motionless, on the crimsoned snow. There Steele and Michel found them. "Knife fight!" cried the Iroquois. "What happen to Wagosh gun?" lie picked up the cheap trade-gun with its burst breech. "Ah-hah ! He get snow een de muzzle an' she bust w'en he shoot." "Too bad, poor old man! He could have shot Baptiste at the ambush, but he wanted to settle It alone tell him who he was, I suppose." "Yes, he mak' dis feller drop hees gun den he stop heem for to talk," said Michel, examining the trail of Baptiste. "W'en Wagosh shoot an' de gun bust, de Frenchman jump on heem wid de knife." Michel gently turned over the frozen body of the old Indian, expos- , Rising, the factor faced the girl, the hand holding the letter shaking from his emotion. "And you believed this woman took her word against his?" "Why not? He admitted that La-flamme La-flamme surprised them," she answered in a strained voice, avoiding her father's fa-ther's eyes. "What does It matter now? I have given my word." "Will you tell me this?" he demanded. de-manded. "You loved this man when he left for home In September? I know, for you were happy." Her black eyes met his bravely. "When he left here I believed in a beautiful thing but that, somehow, has died." "If it died," he answered, "why, when you thought liiui dead, did you cry night after night I heard you In your room ; I knew from your playing why was the shock the joy, so great when he returned to fight for us?" She did not answer. "I believe you love him still, In spite of wha you say. He has loved you from the first ; I could see It. He Is sacrificing much for us proving his love for you every day, and yet you allow this lie of a low woman to poison your mind." With a gesture of hopelessness, she rose to leave the room, avoiding his eyes. "I do not know if they can save the post," said St. Onge. "I may have to leave the company a ruined man. But I tell you this, that the woman who throws away the love of Monsieur Mon-sieur Steele will live to be haunted by regret." She turned a white face at the door, as she said: "You forget that I have given Monsieur Lascelles my promise." . It was a "poudre day" at Ogoke. In the gray dawn a tall figure had left the scrub of the shore, miles below be-low and out of sight of the post, to examine the trail on the lake ice, which led south to the Rouge and the Jackfish. Michel -had smiled with satisfaction to find that a sled had passed since the fall of snow two nights before. The mystery which ringed the doomed post, as the forest rings a clearing, was doing its work. Unnerved by the fate of those who had gone downriver and into the hunting hunt-ing country, never to return, the people peo-ple were slipping away from Ogoke in the night as" from a spot plague-ridden. plague-ridden. The day of Laflamme was nearing its sunset. There could be few left, now, to drink his whisky. He was finished. The moment for walking walk-ing in on the trader and Big Antoine was at hand. As he backtracked to the camp, the bold features of the Iroquois, In his fur hood, lit with joy as he gloated over the victory they had won won with the toil and sweat of two months' ceaseless effort. He smacked his lips at the thought of meeting Laflamme the man who had murdered in cold blood planned the ruin of Wailing River who had dared insult Denise. It would be a sweet moment, that, when he looked Into the faces of the pair of cutthroats, Laflamme and Big Antoine. He swung along over his backtracks, his snowshoes raising the powdery snow like dust, engrossed in plans for the future. As he entered some timber, tim-ber, thick with young growth, a rifle flashed on his flank ! The man in the i trail took a step forward swayed, as ! his gun slipped from his hands then lunged headlong to the snow and lay j motionless. For a space, in the windless morn-! ing, the forest was without sound. Then a chickadee called, and curious, sailed down to inspect the still shape In the trail. Presently a moose-bird croaked. Again silence shut in. After an interval there was a movement in the thicket of young spruce. Branches were parted, to make way for a swart face from which sinister eyes gloated on the stricken thing in the snow. Gun thrust forward, hammer cocked, the assassin cautiously left his ambush. Standing over the still body, face down, with a knee curious- i ly bent under, he laughed in triumph, I as he kicked viciously with the toe of his snowslioe at the back of the hood-ed hood-ed head. But at the movement, the lifted foot In Its snowslioe was gripped and held, while the head and shoulders shoul-ders of the man at his feet lunged into his legs, currying him with a cry of surprise backward to the snow. Hampered by the shoes which : trapped and anchored their feet, the two fought ; one, desperately for his life; the other, for the settlement of j old scores and this shot from the 1 spruce. But the strength and fury of the raw-boned Iroquois soon wore down the man beneath him who fran- . tically strained and twisted to break the grip on his throat. (TO BE CONTINUED.) s CHAPTER XVI 24 For two days the watchers of the trail waited In their ambush, but no hunters or search party left the post. IThen, one morning, at daylight, from the thick scrub of the shore south of Ogoke. two men looked long through binoculars at the chimneys of the enow-blanketed cabins, and smiled into each other's wind-burned faces hen they saw that from more than half there rose no smoke of cooking fires. Of the group of tlpls of bush Indians which had dotted the clearing In October, but two now remained. It was the turn of the old OJibway and two young Indians to stand guard on the trail to the game country. Michel and Steel were too far to the nouth to overtake Laflamme's men, so they struck straight back to camp, confident of the outcome for old Wagosh Wa-gosh guarded the trail. That morning, as the stars faded and dawn broke blue and bitter over the eastern ridges, an old man with hate In his heart prayed for the coming com-ing of one for whom he had waited long. With hoods pulled over frost-blackened frost-blackened faces from which rose the steaming columns of their breath, Wagosh Wa-gosh and his two companions shuffled back and forth on their snowshoes, beating their shoulders with mlttened hands, for the stinging cold pierced their caribou capotes. "It may not be that he will come today," said the old Indian in his native tongue, "but if a Frenchman, French-man, short, with legs that curve like a bow, comes with others, they pass and we follow, until they separate to hunt. Then you will take the others, while I follow him alone for he is mine. Wagosh, the fox, will know what to do." The Indians nodded. They had heard his story. But this morning the watchers of the trail had not long to wait. As the lifting sun filtered through the forest, stabbing the blue shadows with lances of light, Wagosh suddenly topped the whispered conversation with : "Bisan ! shish !" Crouched in a thicket of young fir, their guns stripped of their skin cases, the three stiffened, listening. Presently Pres-ently to their straining ears drifted the faint elickxof snowshoes. Pushing Push-ing aside some low branches the Ojib-way Ojib-way peered down the trail in the direction di-rection of the sound. After a space of breathless waiting, his companions saw his arm tremble. Then, shivering like a man chilled to the bone, the old Indian turned a face fierce with passion, and whispered : "Let them pass. He has come !" Swinging rapidly up the trail moved the stocky figure of Black Baptiste followed by an Indian whose eyes shifted furtively to right and left as he walked. When the two had passed from sight, three shapes, leaving leav-ing the trail, followed like shadows, on muffled shoes. Two miles beyond, where the fresh tracks of a moose crossed the path In the snow, and the hunters from Ogoke separated, Wagosh Wa-gosh left his friends, to pick up the webbed imprints of the larger shoes of his man. Then two still hunts started through the soundless forest the stalk of moose, and of man. Over the new snow, as swift and as noiseless noise-less as a wolf after ptarmigan, the hunter of Black Baptiste closed In. Evidently in doubt of the direction of the movement of the air, the Frenchman French-man stopped to test it with his bare hand. Then he went on, until the sudden lengthening of the stride in the snow indicated that the moose had scented danger and started to travel. With a curse the hunter lifted both shoulders In a gesture of defeat. The shifting air had betrayed him. He turned from the trail he had followed fol-lowed and struck out in a new direction. direc-tion. Shortly, as he stopped and knelt on a knee to tighten the thongs of a shoe, a voice straightened him to his feet with a jerk, nervously fingering fing-ering the trigger of ills gun. His shifting eyes searched the inscrutable 6pruce that walled him in. Trapped, m helpless, he flinched from the expected expect-ed flash of the hidden rifle. "Drop the gun !" The fingers of the Frenches relaxed. re-laxed. The gun slipped to the snow at his feet. "Marche !" The command snapped on tlie frosty air like a whiplash. Slowly the henchman of Laflamme obeyed the order of his concealed enemy. ene-my. Then a crouching figure, with half-raised rifle, stole from a clump ef young growth and followed. A hundred feet from the gun, Baptiste, Bap-tiste, sliaUIng with fear and rage, turned desperately on his captor. "What do you want?" he demanded In Ojlbway. The black eyes of Wagosh blazed with exultation. The lean face In the hood was pitiless. At last he looked Into the face of his man. "You know me Wagosh from Woman river?" He bit off the words as a drill bites steel. The swart features of Black Bap tlste went yellow at the words. He remembered the father of the girl at his cabin. Stiff w'th fear, his staring eyes watched toe black muzzle of the moving mov-ing death slowly sighted on his heart. Then, as his nerves snapped and he Vaped In desperation toward the crouched figure, there was a loud explosion. ex-plosion. With a groan the OJibway rumpled to the snow. The Dazed Frenchman Stopped Short In His Rush. Ing the face, powder-burned and torn, beyond recognition. "By gar I He fight heem widout hees eyes !" 'Brave old Wagosh !" Steele looked, and turned away, sick at heart. He had liked the simple-hearted Ojibway. "I tell you dat eet was all right. Old Wagosh watch de trail." "Yes, the trail was safe with Wagosh. Wa-gosh. Now he can rest In peace. He did what he came to do." "I wish heem moch game een de Happy Huntin' Groun',", added Michel. And the two returned to their camp and sent a sled to bring in the body to be cached under logs until spring, when it could be buried. Robbed' of the joy and solace of her beloved violin; too restless to read, Denise St. Onge sat one evening with her father, her head resting on the back of her chair, her eyes closed. For a half hour the factor had brooded brood-ed over his future, oblivious of her presence. Then, suddenly aware of her silence, he glanced curiously at the girl's averted face. From tli e closed eyes tears traced their way down her cheeks while the sensitive mouth quivered with tho misery of her thoughts. "Denise! You poor child!" "You must not mind foolish tears," she said. "I miss my .violin so." He shook his head at the subterfuge, subter-fuge, then voiced the course of his thoughts. "If only they win at Ogoke and rid the country of that scoundrel, this win be a strong post. He will not dare to ctose It I will defy him to. Steele has told them In Montreal." "Yes, but what of me?" she groaned. "I have given him my promise." prom-ise." The face of St. Onge flushed with passion. "The day you married that man I would shoot him and then myself." my-self." She went to the factor and sitting on the arm of his chair, stroked his towed head. "No, no; not that, not that, dear," she soothed. "I am not worth It." He suddenly straightened, and asked: "You will show me that letter?" let-ter?" "Y'es, If yon wish it." Denise took an envelope from her desk and handed hand-ed It to her father, who opened the letter and read: "Mademoiselle St. Onge: "You may be Interested to know that the American. Monsieur Steele, honored us with his presence on hjs way home to. Nepigon In October. As he was drowned In the Jackfish rapids, rap-ids, I am nt liberty to say that I found him irresistible and was preparing to accompany him to the railroad, when Monsieur Laflamme surprised us In his cabin. Itose F.ern-ird." I |