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Show Uy EIAEKOLE) TBTOS Copyright by Harold Titus WNU Servics because he had broken through the mantled top of a down tree and could find so little purchase among the dry, brittle branches, and because he was trembling with a fresh and greater fear. No trail leads across a down top. He had missed It again! "We're lost!" he cried. "Turned around, Stevie! We got to get back to the river, somehow !" Drake began circling, panic stricken. The hulking figure that, many minutes min-utes behind, followed this aimless and changing and rapidly fading trail was panic stricken, as well. Never In all his experience haj Jim Flynn been keyed up as he was now. He realized that Drake had lost his way before he had been a-top that ridge ten minutes, because Jim knew the country as he knew his own shanty, back yonder at headquarters. He saw where the other had doubled after first losing the way, saw where he had fallen twice, read in the signs Indications of panic. . . . Then a sort of fear shook Flynn. He read the story in the snow and roared out Into the hubbub of mad "My foots!" whimpered the child. "In here, Drake," said Flynn and shouldered the door open. The other staggered behind him, leaning against the cablD wall, panting through open lips. "Kick off your snow-shoes, you chump! Here hold th' laddy!" He thrust the boy into his father's arms. The ruin of a sheet iron stove was in one corner, with pipe rusted and askew but still jointed. A rude bunk held a deep thickness of balsam boughs, brown and brittle. Tearing off an armful of these, Flynn thrust them into the stove and struck a match. Soon the twigs Ignited and flames roared. Out came Flynn's belt-ax and crashed into the framework of the bunk. In mere minutes lengths of tinder-dry aspen were burning and then Jim stripped off his mackinaw, hung It over the window and shoved Drake away from the doorway. The drift about the entry was cleared, the door kicked into an approximation ap-proximation of Its place and then Jim turned to the other. ''Work up some more wood now. Your cheek's frosted but that don't count. . . . Here, Stevie, come to old Jim !" "Foots!" the boy walled. "My foots !" as his father surrendered him. "Hurt, do they? That's good; that's fine, Stevie! Hands hurt, too? Ain't that great? Nothin' frozen much about you, likely. . . . Not by a hair!" Off came the small mittens, exposing reddened hands. Then the rubbers and socks were stripped from his feet. They were blue, with the toes curled up and Jim, holding first one, then the other, In his cupped hands blew on the discolored flesh, alternating this with brisk chafing. "You missed freezing by a hair, sonny ! Gosh, ain't It a relief that they hurt, though?" He had seated himself on a worn bench and now swung the lad to his knees so that they faced one another. He fumbled at his shirt, opening the front, then ripped open his heavy undershirt, un-dershirt, exposing his great chest. "In they go, Stevie! Into old Jim's oven, now, where they'll warm up but not so fast as to make 'em hurt awful." aw-ful." He thrust the small feet In beneath be-neath his armpits, clamping down on them and holding them tight. "Now, tuck them cold hands down my back, Stevie. That's the lad! That's the little man ! Now, we're going to warm up in a hurry !" He wrapped his ponderous arms about the small body and rocked back and forth, crooning in a deep rumble. Drake, In the meantime, had knocked more of the bunk Into proper lengths, filled the stove and braced the pipe. Already the heat was penetrating their clothing, filling the room. They were sheltered from the wind, they had a fire, and although little Steve still sobbed with fright and pain, he was out of danger. Never so long as he lived would Steve Drake forget the deliciousness of that sensation. At first he tugged at his throbbing feet, tried to draw away from the clamp of those heavy arms because the sharp pains of restored re-stored circulation shot clear to his hips. But the big man only crooned the louder and held him closer and kept saying that the hurt would soon be over, now, and that it was a good sign. He was right. The throb and burn died out and a tremendously sweet warmth began to seep through the small body. ... Feeling so comfortable took all the child's attention. It made Mm heedless heed-less of the things his fathe and Jim said to each other most of the time but, of course, no boy who Is even half awake and not really hurting could be wholly heedless of the things that a boss as Important as Jim Flynn said to his father' a little later. Neither can a boy see his father cry and not remember It. Drake did just that. For a long time he cried, as a little boy might cry, as Stevie had never seen any man cry, and Jim did not look at him ; just looked other places and hummed some and seemed to be trying to think up something to say. After a while he appeared to think of things, and what he said was what any boy would remember. For instance : "You're a foci. Drake." "Yes. . . . What a fool! I thought 1 could get away with It and you might never do anything about It, and a thousand dollars " "Oh, that !" as If It didn't matter, and Jim cleared his throat with a great noise. "Wasn't thlnkin' about that, Drake. About Stevie, here, I mean. Bad enough for a grown man to monkey with weather and get froze up, but taklu' a fine little duffer like Stevie Into it. . . . That's what proves you a fool." "Sure. But I'm thinking about the money, Jim. . . . And that I'm a thief, now." "Never mind that, Drake. Nobody, much, knows but us. And a thousand's nothing." (TO BE CONTINUED.) V ) CHAPTER I The wind swept in long, savage blasts, driving Its cold through layers of wool, through a nuin's flesh, straight Into his bones. Snow came, fine snow, stinging bllz-tard bllz-tard snow; it clung to the man's clothing, cloth-ing, to his eyebrows and mantled the burden on his shoulders. Now and again he lifted his head from the bending which protected his face somewhat from the drive of the storm and spoke. "All right, Stevie?" he would ask. From the huddle up there, which j was a pack-sack with a blanket drawn I over the small boy riding In It, would ' come a whimper. "Foots are cold I" "Wiggle 'em, Stevie! Wiggle 'em fast!" the man would say and plunge 1 on, with something like desperation In 1 the grit of his snowshoes through the loose covering of old snow, pulling the ends of the blanket which he held In his hands a bit closer to keep the child's head and shoulders covered. The man was frightened. It showed In his pace, which was too swift for long Journeying, showed In his excited breathing, which the effort of even forced travel alone would not have produced ; showed, also, In the way he turned frequently to look backward, If fearful of pursuit. For the first hour It had not been bo bad. It was cold, yes, and blowing a bit, still, the conditions were not discouraging to a man with less than 5" forty pounds on his back and with only twenty miles to go; not discour-'e discour-'e aging when necessity seasoned with ' desperation occasioned the trek. Even If It had been storming at the start and had the burden been much heavier, the effort would have been as nothing to compared to the prospect of jail. . . . en But he had scarcely left behind the a" yellow squares of windows In Flynn's camp before the first outriders of snow iqualls struck, and before he had cov-nJ cov-nJ ered a third of the way the blizzard w roared down upon him. For Drake, a blizzard was nothing new. For Drake alone, that is. But with a four-year-old on his back a i a storm like this was something else er. again. rod And now the child "for the first time she Volunteered a complaint : "Daddy, my foots are cold !" "it "Won't be long, now, Stevie ; hang S-'' on ; we'll get Into a nice, warm place pretty quick, now !" j The little boy snuggled closer. The j mittened hands which had rested on j the man's shoulders under the pro- ' tecting blanket worked forward, half ikj ! embracing his father's neck. Drake's breath caught and he shook ' his head to clear away the mist which ricl1 ! formed In his eyes. Going back was ! out of the question. The thing which ' had driven him off would be discov- I ered by now. A stop to attempt to warm the child would have been risky, i even had he a belt-ax with which to knock up a shelter and fuel. But It was a dozen miles yet to the railroad ; a dozen miles, with the going getting rapidly worse and the cold Increasing In-creasing and his own strength, taxed by the demands of his physical necessity neces-sity and the sappings of twin fears, sg ebbing steadily. He edged to the left, now, watching ! the bank of the winter-locked stream, :ac j looking for an, opening in the timber. Taking it, he would be forced to cross ! a bald ridge and face an even more I intense sweep of the storm, but men !" & i said It saved three miles on the trip to town. Three miles, an hour's travel. st as j "Da-ddy!" The child whimpered a n be ; little for the first time. ie"a' j "All right, Stevie! Won't be long, 'iici now. . . . Here we are !" He saw the leaning cedar and the opening of I the trail and swung toward it. The going was more difficult because getting ooge gnow nacl fallen to shin depth ; and lay unpacked by the wind. The on the cover yielded a measure of protection i M1'1 ; from the blizzard and this was wel- come but the climb was a fresh de-i de-i mand on Drake's overworked lungs and heart and muscles. Breath began le of to sob in his throat and he staggered f." until the little boy clasped his neck stock- , in a hold that strangled. n't?11' ' "Don't, Stevie!" pushing the small jecoi ' hands away. "Can't breathe . . . when you . . . do that. . . ." The child began to cry softly and vQ tlle man stopped, panting and sway- Ing slightly. "Wiggle your toes, Stevie! Dad'U i fj take care of you. Hush now . . . I M Don't cry. . . . Please don't !" Drake bent lower and drew the a blanket tighter over his son's head. He began to exercise caution of a sort 'S In his progress so he might surely Jl mark the depression in the snow PS' which was the trail. He must not yjl leave that trail. He must not lose It jflA tor an Instant! He told himself that, yiM half aloud, between shut teeth and 'M held his pace to a cautious plodding. W A wind drove deeper than the mar- row of his bones, now; it seemed to ( thicken the very blood flow In his UT heart; It seemed to penetrate bis skull t and numb his brain. . . . l And then, suddenly, he stopped. Every trace of a trail suddenly was uM gone- p; i!e turned about and followed his 'jg-U 0wn tracks, filling so rapidly with 6nw. There it went! He had edged to the left when the trail went straight ahead. He pressed forward with a gn deling of relief and then fell sprawl- fj$p Ing. This caused Stevie to scream shrilly and commence to cry. t took minutes for Drake to get up Every Trace of a Trail Suddenly Was Gone. weather: "Drake! Hi, you, Drake I" A great, bellowing voice, his, but It was swallowed by the storm, reached nowhere, was as useless for its purpose pur-pose as a whisper. He traveled down-wind, now, running run-ning where sign showed clearly, most cautious In those places where It was faint. And then, through one of those brief lifts, he saw them, the man with his burden staggering along with a blanket trailing, and Flynn called out again with all the strength of lungs and throat. If Drake heard he did not stop. He kept on and, after him, through the snow which seemed to fly even thicker, went Jim Flynn, a moose of a man. "HI, you ! Come back from that, Drake! Keep away from that!" For such a heavy man he made tremendous tre-mendous speed, but It was a tremendous tre-mendous need that drove him, now. He had to keep going, he must stop that other before he reached the rim that lay before him. It broke off like the edge of a table, he knew; it went down a hundred feet of almost sheer drop, with rocks jutting out from the face of the cliff to catch and mash and maim a man. "Drake! You, Drake!" His bellow carried, then, and he saw Drake turn his face over his shoulder, but he did not halt. It was not until Flynn's great mittened mit-tened hand caught him by the shoulder and spun him about and hurled him backward into the snow that Drake's flight was checked. Two more of those crazy strides and man and little boy would have been over and down. . . . As he reeled backward, Drake cried, "Oh, Jim !" And then, as he cowered in the drift: "Oh, Jim! You found it out!" Stevie was crying, a muffled sound, and old Jim dropped to his knees and lifted the little boy. "CryinM" He said and choked a bit, as in relief. "Cryin', eh? Then It ain't too late!" He jerked open his thick mackinaw, gathered the child in his arms and holding the small body firmly against his breast folded the heavy jacket over It. "Put your face ag'ln' my neck. Stevie. And you, Drake, come on; follow me close !" The prostrate man made no move. "Get up !" Flynn cried angrily and kicked at him with his snow-shoe. "Get on your feet! There's a trappers' trap-pers' cabin' half mile yonder. . . . Get up, I say !" He stooped and grasped one of Drake's arms, dragging him to his laggard lag-gard legs. "You keep by me! Don't you dare try to quit, now, Drake! And come fast because ... A little kid . . . In this!" The pace he set was taxing out the trail he broke helped the exhausted man behind. They dropped down a steep slope and. beside a fold In the snow which was a tiny stream, came upon a small log cabin, window gone, door sagging on its hinges. "Here we are, Stevie!" The voice was hearty, almost laughing, now, hut the look in Flynn's eyes was harried. "Here we are !" |