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Show .s . By GEORGE MARSH Copyright by The Penn Publishing Co. WNU Service. ture, what secret agony must have been his facing the world with a grimace ! How well he sensed the impotent im-potent fury the bitterness of this man, doomed to the pitiless stares the callous curiosity of the rabble. "I wonder what day that was," queried Guthrie, aloud, unaware that his fingers touched the cicatrix on his cheek. "If he'd only do something illegal," Cameron hastened to say, "the company com-pany could run him out of the bay." There was a glint, frankly combative, com-bative, in Go.rth Guthrie's eyes as he heard the future of a Canadian veteran vet-eran so cavalierly disposed of. "That might not be so easy. From what the Indians say, he carries Lewis guns. Do you know any of our people who would relish meeting Laughing McDonald at the butt end of a machine ma-chine gun?" "He wouldn't dare fight us shed blood on this bay !" "Cameron," said Guthrie, and the glitter returned to his eyes, "I'm inclined in-clined to think that the company had better avoid any attempt at force wltjj an overseas man with a mutilated mouth. - He's apt to run amuck to forget the war's over." As he studied Guthrie's brooding eyes, Cameron knotted his thick brows, vaguely aware that the scar on the face of the speaker had prompted the remark. "Well, however that may be, he's a dangerous competitor. After dropping that scared company Indian like a bag of salt, according to McMann, he I "Etienrie counts on the loyalty of the older hunters. We intend to keep in touch with them." "Keep in touch? How're you going to cross that strait before January? It'll be full of drifting ice." "The ice won't be set hard, but we Intend o make it with a canoe on our sled. We'll carry the sled in the canoe or the canoe on the sled, as the conditions con-ditions change." "Risky that's a bad piece of water. I've sei-n the ice set and break up again t-iree times before January. And when you get there, how're you going to keep them away from his schooner?" "We'll make a try, anyway," replied Guthrie. "Ktienne and I don't intend to let our share of the trade slip through our fingers by hugging the fire at Elkwan." "Well, good luck to you !" sighed the old trader. "Since the French company com-pany came to the bay, the Indians have forgotten the years we kept them from starving. They're out of hand now. Do what you can." For a space Cameron seemed to dream of the past glories of the company com-pany he served, then suddenly asked: "You know what he did in August?" "No." "Why, he sailed into Charlton island and tried to buy gas and flour at the depot. McMann laughed at him, of course; but that red-headed freebooter coolly announced that when'he needed it, he would come and take it said if we wouldn't sell it to him, he had government authority to seize it." "He was right there ; Ottawa's made that ruling, you know," suggested Blaikie, Cameron's clerk. "Yes, they've made the ruling," rasped Cameron, "but do you think he'd get supplies from me when he's come into the bay to rob us of the trade?" The columns of smoke that the factor blew from his mouth were the measure of his irritation. "Oh, by the way, Guthrie," asked Blaikie, with seeming innocence, "what was your trouble with this puffy old boy, Quarrier, you brought here today?" to-day?" Alive to the fact that the story of Ninda and his summary handling of the geologist had received due embellishment em-bellishment when Quarrier met Cameron Came-ron on the arrival of the York boat. Guthrie suspected the motives of the clerk, and he had no intention of discussing dis-cussing the Quarrier episode or of subjecting the memory o'f the dead girl to the comment of a stranger. "I've made my report to Mr. Cameron," Came-ron," he said with finality. "You heard Quarrier tell his story this afternoon. What are you after?" Blaikie choked with anger, but the scarred cheek and the war record which had followed Guthrie to James bay in a letter from the Montreal headquarters of the company had made its marked impression at Albany. Al-bany. The clerk retreated behind a cloud of pipe smoke. "Now, since that's settled," said Cameron, loudly clearing his throat and meeting Guthrie's look with a wink, "let's get back to business. Where do you suppose this McDonald gets his backing?" "There are plenty of people in Newfoundland New-foundland who'd back him after the haul he made last year on the east coast." "He's going to be a thorn in our side, Guthrie. He's no ordinary chap ; he's got nerve and ability. Queer thing happened when he came into Charlton. One of the half-breeds there stared at that face of his and laughed. McDonald grabbed the II-dian II-dian by the throat and shook him like a rabbit; then roared: 'Laugh, d n youl It's funny, is it? A thousand Canadians died the day I got that!" Profoundly stirred, Guthrie's sympathy sym-pathy went out to this stranger with the twisted mouth. What raw tor- I STORY FROM THE START Garth Guthrie, Canadian war , veteran, having to live in the I open on account of weakened lungs, is factor of a Hudson's Bay post at Elkwan. He came back from the conflict with a permanently scarred face, which he realizes cost him the love of his fiancee, Edith Falconer. Sir Charles Guthrie, his brother, Is a millionaire war profiteer. With Etlenne Savanne, halfbreed, his firm friend, Garth meets Doctor Quarrier, geologist, and his sister sis-ter Joan. Their schooner has drifted ashore. Quarrier complains com-plains he has been robbed by a mm known as "Laughing McDonald." Mc-Donald." At Elkwan an Indian girl, Ninoa, tuberculosis victim, whom Garth has befriended, is dying. Joan, trained war nurse, 1 cares for Ninda, but the girl dies, j Garth tells Joan part of the rea-sons rea-sons for his presence at Elkwan. He takes the Quarriers to Albany, Al-bany, from whence they can proceed pro-ceed to Montreal. CHAPTER III Continued 5 "And that is what keeps you here this winter," she hazarded, "when it might be Montreal ; your love of hunting hunt-ing the wilderness?" She is thinking of the pictures of Ethel, Guthrie surmised, and wonders why I stay. As the York boat tral eled, pushed by the following breeze, his gaze swept the shimmering waters of the gray strait to the sunlit barrens of the island. Then he faced her frankly. "I'm not sure what keeps me here. " It pulls me the country, this life. After the war, everything was changed. Montreal had grown callous. No one cared for anything but pleasure and money. It seemed as if the whole world had forgotten them the ones who 'went west,' and what they died for. I grew to hate it the office. My nerves were a bit jumpy from the gas, I suppose. I was off color, of course, but everybody who had been in it had a hard pull to readjust to settle into the grind again. It was all new to me business, the works, and I wished I was back with the battalion with the mud, and the rest of it." She nodded. "I know just how you felt. There were times after I returned re-turned when I was simply homesick for my wounded and the hospital life. I've really dreamed of it." "It gets you, doesn't it? although you curse it while you're in it?" His gray eyes lit with memory. She smiled In understanding. "It was hard, and awful yet it does get one, as you say. It was life in the raw, stripped of the veneer the shams. That is the reason, I suppose." sup-pose." "Yes, stripped of the shams that's It." He frowned, then went on. "Shot, here, misses it terribly the noise, and excitement, and the men. He fights it all over again in his dreams. I know when he hears the guns or sees a Fritz. He looks like a mad porcupine all quills, as he thrashes in his sleep. Eh, Shot? . . . Stand to!" With a low rumble in the hairy throat, the war dog leaped back, stiffening stif-fening from nose to cocked tail, ears pricked, quivering nostrils testing the air, as the hair lifted on mane and back. "Bravo, Shot!" she cried, reaching to pat the tense head of the dog. But the airedale ignored her, his small terrier eyes questioning Guthrie's face for the reason for the familiar "Alerte," which stirred wild memories of black nights shot with flashes of light; of noises great and small; of men crawling running; of men lying' still. Guthrie calmed the excited dog. "You see, like the rest of us, he hasn't forgotten." "Good old Shot!" And Joan Quarrier Quar-rier stroked the head of the dog who had returned to them. But her thoughts were of the girl In Montreal, and the riddle of Guthrie's exile. Through the September day the York boat followed the coast south. In mid-afternoon Guthrie anchored off the Big Willow river and going ashore In the canoe, made camp that Joan Quarrier might have hot tea and food, and sleep, while he and Etlenne, with the sailors, stayed with the boat. The following afternoon, on the high south shore of Albany island, they saw i he quaint, square roofs of the Oblate mission, and that night three men sat in the traderoom at historic Fort Albany, where each autumn, for two centuries, men had watched the last wedges of the gray geese fade Into the south; seen the coming of the long snows and the ice bridge the river channels; starved or feasted through the slow heat of the desolate days. Here, in the red years of the Seventeenth Seven-teenth century, the old log fort, built by the English, was stormed, retaken it itc stormed again, in the hitter war with the French for the fur trade. Here, generations of men had lived mid loved and died, marooned in the .James buy silences. The talk of the three men In the t raderoom centered on the meeting ..f the free-trader with Quarrier and the news that McDonald was to winter in the west coast. "Major," said Hugh Cameron, the factor, dubiously shaking a grizzled head, "this fellow's wintering ut Akl-mlhkl Akl-mlhkl will ruin our fox trade. He'll ,n n handy to their trapllnes that Itcy'll dribble In their pelts us fust as li"V eet 'em, for his trade goods and ''nrerieH " stainless escutcheon had sustained by Garth's inexplicable action. In the name of his proud war record, his honor as a gentleman, and his future participation in the councils and direction of Guthrie Steel, now almost al-most a household word in the Dominion, Domin-ion, Charles commanded his errant brother to return where love and duty called. Holding this intimate communication, communica-tion, which the busy Charles had seen fit to share with his secretary, over the flame of the candle, Garth grimly watched it burn. Clara, characteristically, had approached ap-proached from a different angle. Although Al-though his letters, she wrote, had not mentioned his health, she was confident confi-dent that he was still ill. He had tried that cold, cruel north. Why not give the country near home a chance, where his devoted family and a broken-hearted girl pined for him. If he could have seen how stanchly Ethel had taken the blow. She was showing a brave face to the gossips-was gossips-was going everywhere, hut hiding a wounded heart. They called her "The Widow," ana, of course, people were mystified, but she and Clara were only counting the days when dear old Garth would return to them. She finished with : "Ethel and I are like sisters, inseparable. And she's so proud of Charles' new honor. 'Think of it!' she said the other dayr 'to be the sister-in-law of the great Sir Charles Guthrie!' So you see, Garth, she is still the same old Ethel, loving you forgiving all." "Yes," the man who read agreed, a corner of the mouth lifting, "she's the old Ethel." And he blew out the candle. Earlier, at the Church of England mission, where Joan Quarrier and her brother were staying until Cameron could send them to Moose, he had said good-by, for at dawn he was to start for Elkwan. The manner of Reverend Swan, who opened the door to Garth's knock, was distinctly cool, but as he had avoided the missionary during his year at Albany, and developed de-veloped a warm friendship with Pere Rousseau, the Oblate, the inhospitable inhospit-able reception was anticipated and ignored. ig-nored. The little man with the pale hair and eyes, fidgeted with embarrassment embar-rassment at the appearance of Garth. "I am In doubt as to whether Miss Quarrier's brother would wish her to see you," said the clergyman, with as brave a show of dignity as his five-feet-four could command in the snubbing snub-bing of the man whose eyes twinkled In frank amusement at the effort Then, in a voice which Garth knew would be clearly audible to the girl ha wished to see, he said : "Miss Quarrier Quar-rier will decide without her brother's assistance whether she wishes to see me. Will you tell her I am here?" Holding his position in the doorway, undecided as to his next move, the missionary reddened with anger at the trick. Then footsteps sounded behind him and the low voice of Joan Quarrier Quar-rier nsked : "Is there someone to see me, Mr. Swan? Oh, it's Mr. Guthrie! Good evening." And she pushed past the disgruntled missionary to take Garth's extended hand. "Do you mind talking outside? Mr. Swan fears that your brother doesn't approve of me," Guthrie flung at the figure in the door as he moved away with the girl, who sensed what had passed. "You see, your good brother has already poisoned the clerical mind," laughed Garth as they walked slowly to the clearing. "I'm leaving early tomorrow and came to say good-by." The moon was up and Guthrie's sidelong side-long glance caught the sobering of her face. She was looking straight ahead and the light which drew a shimmering shimmer-ing trail over the quiet surface of the Albany brushed her heavy hair with silver. "Y'ou're worried about your geese it was fine of you to waste precious time bringing us here." "I am still in your debt, Miss Quarrier," Quar-rier," lie said, and as he watched the profile of the girl walking beside himlj with its straight nose and firm chin, the realization that she was passing out of his life this woman whom chance had thrown Into the tragedy at Elkwan came swift as a blow. The old sense of loss, felt so often in the days when a friend a comrade "went west," returned to him. The j vivid color and tang of her personality person-ality the splendid strength of. her I were Stirling him with un appeal hlth- 1 erto unsensed. Now that the brief days of their comradeship were over, the memory of Joan Quarrier's instant comprehension of the nature of the pity, approaching affection, which Ninda Nin-da Inspired In him of how the salve of her sympathy had eased the raw bltlet'iiess poignantly returned. And now this friendship born ol chance was to be cut short olT by the wall of a thousand miles of forest. She glanced curiously at the matt who walked beside her In silence. "I shall think of you often up therewith there-with Etlenne, and Shot, and old Anne," she hazarded. "1.1 seems so lonely and so unnecessary." But Guthrie avoided reference to the cause of his exile. "We shall re member you all of lis. Without you It would have been unthinkable." "It was si range I hut. storm, am' nieellng as we did. Poor little Nitt da I" she Haiti, dreamily watching the silhouette of a belated canoe from the wlillcllsh nets drift Into the path of moonlight. f TO UID CONTINUED.) "It Seems So Lonely and So Unnec-sa Unnec-sa ry." asked If there were any more slackers slack-ers who wanted to laugh at the kiss of a Hun shell There weren't any I" Guthrie smiled, his thoughts colored by memories. "Yes," continued Cameron with a sigh, aware that the man he addressed ad-dressed was not listening, "it looks bad for Kapiskau and Elkwan this year." Later, by the light of a candle In the small room assigned to him by the factor, Garth re-read two letters he had found waiting at the post The letter of his brother, dictated to his secretary, and typewritten, expressed extreme shock at the failure of the wanderer to return ; deplored his indifference in-difference to the future of the Guthrie Steel company and to his own; condemned con-demned his callous and shabby treatment treat-ment of the lovely girl who worshiped him; had grown floridly eloquent In its emphasis of the distinction lately conferred on the Guthrie family In Charles' knighthood, and resented profoundly pro-foundly the blot which its hitherto |