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Show By GEORGE MARSH Author of " Toilers of the Trail," " The Whelps of the Wolf" fW. W. U. Service.) ' (Copyright by the Penn Publlshlnr Co.) CHAPTER XVIII From the blackness of the clearing at Ogoke rose a low whistle, which j was answered from the gloom behind the trader's quarters, where the kitch en windows shone, yellow patches in the thick d:irk night. The whistle was repeated and, simultaneously, simul-taneously, swart faces appeared at the windows of both buildings. Eyes, glittering glit-tering with hate and the pent excitement excite-ment of the stalk, searched the rooms for signs of life. But they looked on emptiness on a table splashed with spilled liquor, a jug, an untouched glass of whisky; on a stove from which smoked a frying pan with Its burning bacon. "I knew you would stampede them, Michel," said Steele, looking quizzically quizzical-ly at the happy Iroquois. "They got out just ahead of us. You did that for David, you rascal !" The hour of the man from Nepigon had struck. Like a hound at leash he yearned for the Rouge river trail and the man who traveled it. Steele gripped the hard hand of his friend in silence. There was nothing to say no turning the Ojibway from his heart's desire. With a word to Michel, David left them tc get hl3 dogs. "What shall we do with last years hunt, if we find he hasn't shipped it?" queried Steele. "Give eet to de Indiaa. Dey trade eet at Wailing Riviere." "Yes, he got most of It with his whisky by fraud. It ought to go back to them." To the surprise of the men as they reached the fur-storing loft, the candle lighted row on row of otter and mink, lynx and fox, marten and fisher pelts, hanging from the rafters. "Here's his .whole last year's trade 1" cried Steele. "He's never shipped it I" The yellow light of his candle lit eyes snapping with delight, as Michel looked at his chief. "Much fur here for M'sieu St. Onge ! He be happy man, now. De pos' not close." "Yes, they will trade it at Wailing River, unless " The Indian waited, wondering at the qualification "unless Lascelles refuses to sign a certain paper." pa-per." "Ah-hah ! He not get her now 1" The grave eyes of the Iroquois questioned ques-tioned Steele's. "Not If I can help 3tT" Satisfied, the Indian turned to examine ex-amine the fur. Steele 'began counting the rows of rich pelts, in an endeavor to make a rough estimate of their value. He had reached the far end of the loft when the dim light of the candle fell on some bulky shapes on the floor in a corner. Curious, he bent over the lashed bundles. On the canvas can-vas covering of ithe nearest there was lettering. He lowered his candle to read it. "R F," he -said aloud ; then, with gasp, "Wailing TEiver!" "Michel !" he called, "Revillon f'rs-res, f'rs-res, Wailing iRlver! Well, I'll be The fur-paefc-s from the lost cancel Murdered ambushed, they were; for the fur !" Michel knelt beside Steele. "By gar! our fur!" he said, peering at the wrappings, wrap-pings, his voice hoarse with excitement. excite-ment. "Dey keel our men at de Devil's mile!" The nuuscles of his lean face knotted. "Bin Lailamme ees dead man now. Toriiglit Daveed take his trail." They rolled out the fur-packs with the eighteen thousand dollars in pelts, which had left the post in the spring only to vanish on the lower Wailing. "M'sieu St. Onge be happy man dis night, eef he :know dis." "He'll know it as soon as one of the boys can reucih him," replied Steele jubilantly. "We'll send him this present pres-ent in the morning." After the gray days- the sun was .indeed breaking through. She seemed nearer more possible of attainment, there in the dark fur-loft at Ogoke, than she had been for weeks, to the man who toiled for her. In the morning Steele gathered his red henchmen together in the trade-room trade-room and talked to them, through Michel. (TO BE CONTINUED.) CHAPTER XVI Continued 25 At length, by a supreme effort, the tinder man reached the knife beneath his back with the hand of a pinioned arm. With a heave the hand was free and the blade turned into the body above him. But in a flash the right hand of the Iroquois shifted from the throat to the menacing wrist. There - was a wrench a groan as the bone snapped, and the knife slipped to the snow. , Again, like the fangs of a wolf, the long fingers of Michel clamped on the throat of the man in whose bulging eyes shone the fear of the death which neared. "Dis ees for her!" snarled the headman, head-man, as he struck with his free hand the purpled face. "Dees ees for me!" and he struck again. Slowly the bloodshot eyes of the assassin, who had se confidently shot from the ambush, filmed ; for the last time his mouth gaped wide for the air denied him by the vise on his throat with a quiver he relaxed cn the snow. Picking up his rifle and slipping his hands into the rabbit-skin mittens which hung from his neck by thongs, Michel bent and closely scrutinized the knotted feature of his enemy. Satisfied with his work, he rasped : "Bo'-jo' ! Tete-Boule! You are poor shot 1 You mak' no more trouble een dis valley!" and started for camp. He found his friends at breakfast. Silently he accepted the dipper of steaming tea and the heaped plate of fried moose and beans, and began to eat. 1 "Well, what luck, Michel? , Are they still leaving?" asked Steele, when his eyes suddenly focused on the shoulder shoul-der of Michel's capote. "Where'd you get that tear?" The face of the Iroquois was wooden. wood-en. "I meet old frien' een de bush. Ah-hah " Curious, Steele rose and examined his friend's shoulder. "Why, there's caked blood here! You have been shot at !" he cried. "Take off that coat !" "W'en I feenish de moose and bean," laughed the' stoic. "Hees gun shake w'en he fire !" To his relief Steele found that the bullet had grazed the shoulder blade of his friend, barely breaking the skin. When the scratch was dressed, Michel gave him the story of the ambush. am-bush. With the sting of the bullet across his shoulder, the cool-headed Indian had sensed that he was not badly hurt, and made the only move that would cheek a swift second shot from a concealed foe dropped as if killed or mortally hurt. Sprawled on his face, a knee drawn up to give purchase pur-chase for a lunge, he had waited for the man in ambush to approach within reach. Had there been two, it would ' have been a knife fight, with the odds heavily against the man compelled to start from the soft snow. "Good old Michel !" applauded Steele, as the Iroquois finished. "They can't heat you ! He was scared when he fired. Had you ever seen this Indian before?" Michel's black eyes snapped tan-tulizingly, tan-tulizingly, as, he played on his chief's curiosity. ' 'Wal, he look lak' man I see one tarn." ' "Traded once at Wailing River, you mean?" "Ah-hah! he come to de post." "When?" "He was dere dis summer. He got leg lak' how ov snowshoe. Hees eye look lak' de mink. He " "You mean good Lord! It wasn't Tete-Boule?" cried the surprised American. Amer-ican. "Ah hah !" admitted the head-man, blowing a cloud of smoke from his mouth. 'ICet was Tete-Uoule. I fink Charlotte he happy squaw, now." "He found your trail leading to the hike and took a chance yon would backtrack which you did." Delightedly Delight-edly Steele shook the hand of the Indian In-dian until the sore shoulder protested. pro-tested. "Tomorrow night we go to de pos'." "Yes." agreed Steele, his eyes re-fleeting re-fleeting the joy of victory, hard won. "Send one of the boys for David r.t once." CHAPTER XVII Behind the slab counter in the trade-room trade-room at Ogoke a man sat at a 'table. On the table stood a glass and two ' bottles one empty. For hours the man had not moved, except to till and drain the gla.-'S. Although it was barely three o'clock, candle lanterns dimly lit the room, for t he sun had died in cloud hanks and the light had failed early. In the air outside there was snow and the night would be thick. The yelping of dogs aroused the man from his bitter thoughts. The door of the room opened and a bulky figure entered. The muscles of his hooded face, disfigured by n, long sear, twitched nervously. In his eyes was "ear. " found him," gasped the big man, In French, breathing hard, for he had raced the dusk to the post. "Choked! Not a mark on him his tongue out and his eyes bulging like a pike's you squeeze In your hand! Ambushed!" "So they got him, too?" nodded La-flamme, La-flamme, chin on chest. "It's no good, I tell you," whined Antoine, his voice vibrant with panic. "That makes nine nine who have gone out. It'll be our turn next. Tonight To-night I leave for the Rouge." The. hard eyes of the trader, lined by worry and red" from drink, lit with contempt. "You've gone like the rest. Why didn't you run away with Rose? Want to desert sixty thousand dollars' worth of fur, do you?" The heavy features of the other filled with blood at the taunt. He leaned and struck the table with his fist, overturning the bottles. "Soft, am I?" he snarled, "because I leave this hell before they close In and take us hang us from the rafters here or cut our throats, you call me soft! I tell you we're done! They caught Pierre and the whole valley's after us. They're out there now, waiting." wait-ing." He pointed a shaking finger toward to-ward the forest. "It may be tonight they come." Ruined by the mystery the menace of the inscrutable forest from which no man returned, which for weeks had ringed the post, sapping the nerve of his people until they fled in the night, Laflamme sat, numb with despair. Slowly the whisky from the overturned bottle dripped to the floor. Then he said : "That tale Tete-Boule brought from down-river was true. The men we sent to the Jackfish to stop him lied." Antoine nodded. "Steele got through and came bac' on the snow," continued the trader. "The police are not in this. They'd come straight here' "This Steele caught Pierre himself," added the other. "When the Indians learned how we had fooled them, they took the trail. The whole valley was ours until he got the Wmdigo." Suddenly Sud-denly the speaker faced the door, listening. lis-tening. "What's that?" As the two watched the door apprehensively, ap-prehensively, it opened to admit a half-breed with drink-sodden face. "What you eat tonight, m'sieu?" The dull eyes of the cook shifted uneasily un-easily from Antoine to his chief. "Y'on here still, Philippe?" sneered Laflamme. "T thought you and Jean would hit the Rouge river trail when it got dark. All the rats have left." "They'll hang on while the whisky lasts," muttered Antoine. "You find Tete-Boule?" The face of the cook, mottled-gray in the half light, turned to the man who had gone out that morning on the trail over which none had returned. "He found him with his tongue out." Laflamme laughed bitterly. "You'd make a pretty picture, Philippe, Phil-ippe, hanging from that hook, with your throat cut. You'd bleed straight Scotch ; you've lived on it for months." The stark terror in the-eyes of the half-breed seemed to appease his chief, who went on : "We'll have bacon and potatoes if they give us time to eat them. Bring that jug." The jug was placed on the table between be-tween the two men, and the cook, muttering mut-tering incoherently, shuffled to the door. "Two left, out of the lot ; and they stay for the whisky!" commented Laflamme, La-flamme, filling a glass and shoving the jug across the table. "My friend, I'll give you a toast," he added, as the nerve-shattered Antoine gulped down his drink. "May that d d American rot in h 1 !" Lallamme's glass was at- his lips when a chorus of howls rose from the clearing. The startled eyes of the men met across the table. "What's that?" demanded de-manded the trader, slowly lowering his glass, untouched "The dogs hear something out there!" The hoarse voice of the other quavered as he went to the door. From the murk, the whimpering of (he awed huskies reached the straining strain-ing ears of the two at the door, who stood, nerves strung with suspense one thought In their brains. Then from the invisible forest beyond be-yond rose a wail demon-like, blood-freezing, blood-freezing, the voice of no clawed creature crea-ture "f the night to die away, into silence. "Thy have come!" warned Antoine, seizing the arm of his chief. "Quick ! Harness the dogs while I get the fur and the grub!" was the low answer. The nerve of Laflamme had snapped. Racing desperately against '.he closing clos-ing in of a ring of ruthless toes. Antoine An-toine caught and harnessed the do-'s. At the trade-house door, grub-bag, robes, and the precious pack of black fox wore thrown on the sled. The whip cracked at the head of the lead-dog. lead-dog. "Marche. Pete!" ra.-ped the Frenchman, and the team plunged Into their collars at a gallop. Then the voice of a dog-driver out on the lake trail drifted back through the thick night. "There go the last of the rats!" muttered mut-tered I.allamme. "Now the ship can sink." And they lashed the swift, six-dog team out to the lake ice. and through the gloom that masked the Rouge river trail. |