| Show heart ear of the t e north N 0 t 4 by william byron byton mowery by william mavety 1 WHAT BEFORE six bandits board the he steamer tt famer midnight sun on the mckenzie river hold up the tire passengers kill a former Moun tle jimmy mont blont comery gomery and escape with gold duit dual and ind fun furl new news ot of the crime I 1 li brought to fort endurance mounted police sergt alan baker dle with hie his detent superior inspector link ell about plan plans for or the capture ot ol the bandit bandits with nv five nun men alan ilan start starts out in the police hunch at the trading p at joyce M ici lillan to I 1 awaiting tie its return of her father she Is th by be the arrival of alan in the police launch she bad had ex pecked to marry alan and had been stunned at newe news that he was to marry elizabeth spaulding sto stolen 1 en fun furs are found on the mac ilac mil alllan ian place and suspicion points to macmillan alan leads lead b bla ex up the big and comes in light sight of the bandits bandl te CHAPTER IV Continued 6 it was a shrewd maneuver fro from nj the bandits a tentative shot to draw the fire of their stalkers and discover where hey they were alan was nas quick witted enough to see their mothe and to lie low but dill bill jerked bis his ride against his ills cheek and shot point blank at the spurt of fire A cry of pain went up ills bullet had scored but the shot gave gaie away their hiding aith ith all hope gone now of getting the drop alan scrambled behind cover of a muskrat house fairly dragging bill after him half a dozen rifles exploded in the file hags flags alan thrust his rifle over the top of the house and emptied it at the flashes A bullet from a savage a sharp cracking deadly savage hit lilt his weapon si smashed nashed the mechanism numbed his ills hind and drove jagged fiery bits of steel into his fingers I 1 lor or several minutes the bullets of the bandits beat a thudding tattoo against the mud mound As best they could alan and bill lift ed 0 their belt guns over the top of abo thier ir shelter and fired back they heird no more yelps of pain they were ere shooting wildly aimlessly idealizing realizing this believing the ban dih had crept into the run and were sheltered by its banks alan stopped shooting and checked bill I 1 under onder in the reeds the fire died away raggedly A silence fell A minute lengthened into two no three four alan heird beird or thought he heard a faint rustling a faint gurgling of water he ile listened in bently but did not hear bear it again th his plans all shattered with fill the twilight steadily deepen ing he was torn with alth desperation if he and bill moved it was mas sheer suicide if they crouched much longer where they were the ban aits would certainly slip avay an ay from them in the coming dark As he fought to think of a plan tint thit would break this deadlock lie heard a long uhl whistle tle a clear shrill v whistle from larrys larry 9 direction it was as larry signaling he ile sprang up backed away slipped us the they re breiung bre brcik ing for the lake lakel I 1 I 1 irry 0 alone IN eve ere got to help larry I 1 I 1 they splashed out of the pond and into the flags in a frantic effort to reach the lake edge the marsh reeds clutched at them tripped them dripped around their legs Saia savagely gely abe taci tore their way on through to get into file clear in time to help larry those bandits As he lie wung his clubbed rifle smashing a pathway in front of him alan heard a lone gun cr or aa an ck oven over the lie lake and heard the snarl of half a dozen repeating weapons answering it like an echo they drowned they overwhelmed it I 1 the lone gun did not speak again it seemed hours to him that he fought and tore through the dense flags to reach the open and help a cin comrade tade who nas as sr anding up na grinst six rifles before he broke tl rough to the clear he the uneven battle had ended As he burst oat to the lake edge be he had a glimpse cf the police pollee canoe drifting help lessly out in the middle and across at the far side he saw two long blurred objects just entering the deepwater deep water channel numbed and dazed at those six men escaping there was a moment when ullen alan could only realize that his ditrol had failed that those criminals had vanished into the twill glit and bere lost la in this wilderness with pursuit utterly hopel hopeless esq now in me onienta he heard a sound a it like a gro groaning anIn m voice olce calling his ills name it drew his eyes to the drifting police pollee craft chit hit was uns it doing out there lit e a flash lie understood what larry lad had done han the bandits started across the lake to escape larry forty must have haie seen he could never stop them in the semi darkness except at pointblank point blank range in the police canoe he must have come fearlessly out at them alone this first deadly vol ley had got him that groaning voice was larrye larrys bill came Lur bursting stIng through to the clear alan whirled on him I 1 bill I 1 they got larry hes iles wounded hard hit hil here tossing bill his beltrun belt gun and brok en on rifle rille he ran out into breast deep jeep and struck out power fully for hie the drifting canoe by a provident meny merty he lie reaca reached d it in n time 1 I ith half it doen clr ater into iti the b craft win was filling ailing tilting about to overturn lorry larry lay jay at tit the bottom of it in pain by heroic struggles feles swimming pushing a it ahead 0 of f him alan cot got IN craft into choal shoat water put M hand band under its keel then and ana kept it afloat lie ile dragged it to the billik just as bill came splashing around the lake edge to join him aloni aloof abat hat happened hered ed they gol they pot got an ay gone gone borget it help me bill with larri larr laro i I 1 lolether lo Ilo gether they lifted their stricken comrade ashore CHAPTER V the broken sword dr Y light of on an electric 0 torch alan cut away larrys clothing and examined his wounds lorry larry had been lot ot aulce and both wounds were fearsome feir some one bullet a ricocheting slug had truck struck him squarely in the knee cruelly shattering the bones the second had pierced ills chest high ip tp just beneath the shoulder and had passed entirely through tai body steeling himself to the or d til 1 alan worked deT with tourniquet ond and tiny tit kit till he bad stanched the bleed ing before he finished was rousing faintly from the bullet shock holt half an hour loter later when alan had done all he could and bill had managed to patch the canoe they A oo 00 they refused to stop or rest turned their faces toward home in III defeat in sorrow in to an anguish ang it I 1 sh our larry ahin alan picked dim him up in his arms gently and tenderly trying to keep keel that fatal bleeding from starting afresh lith bill following him staggering under the weight of ca noe guns and pack he headed back toward the Aloo ika branch for an hour they stumbled along plowed through Ii bog and dire groped through the tall im pending ending li flags it nas an hour of darkness of blind heroic struggle but lut they the aloiska branch at last and set the canoe to water nater and making larry a soft bed of flags the began their sor joudrey 11 fill no sleep in more than fifty hours with all that long hard chase behind them they were on the verge of exhaustion and could male make no tine ti ne hund s were raw with blisters from pad die work ork their faces were bleed ing from insect bites their whole bodies ached intolerably they were muddled wet gaunt with hunger heartsick from de flie dis rn graceful ful failure of thir th ir patr pati I but they refused to stori or rest larry md tid to be liken tilen hame home quick ly the hours were a milter of life or death to him with doged courage they drove then eles on with his spirits at si S low on an ebb the picture of that fur rack lack to in dave dai e macmillan a bed b ed rose before eyes and he foresaw the inevitable consequences to flow from that discovery in his exhaustion with all the bao buoyancy yancy of hope drained out of him he no longer could feel that somehow he be nas was going to get joyces father off lightly he ile must take dave into endurance and enter charge and cow now with trase bandits escaped dave would mould boar bear the whole bole brunt of the laws retribution he lie felt that all the rest of his life would be flasted by the memory of joyces pale pule face frightened fright eneil and anguished angul shed in the cold gray dawn of yesterday in this whole miserable business jimmy montgomery dead larry in the shadow of death that trag dy edy hovering over innocent jolce macmillan Vac MIllan the bandits escaped and the patrol ln in all this evil eill starred only one thought held any comfort for alan it was nas a vengeful thought born of a savage ond vengeful mood he ile held a sword now over inspector haskell haskell had ordered this to be split out of his ig arrance and jealous anger he lie had drued that crazy order ani it hid bid wrecked the patrol ills gross in competence chich heretofore had been only a angue charge hard to prove now stood out glaringly in all its inescapable guilt alan swore to wield ills sword la in bix hi lierl C by mid afternoon of that interminable day they came to tho first straggling trece trees nt at the tholan inh tall edge at deep twilight they reached the aloiska forks and the anchored launch had just returned from his ills useless trip up the south branch in a few words he understood nil all that had happened with one lance glance at his spent and stag gering partners he lie took their heavy heasy burden from their shoulders alan flung himself down beside driven to the limit of human endurance ills last ii waking liking thought was uns the grim satisfaction of knowing that he held a sword over his guilty arrogant officer and could tinni him to account at tit last in his cabin Inq inspector haskell sat belil behind tid his desk waiting for alan baker baler to come in and report he lie was as thinking thinking hard and for all his self control bis his nerves were jumpy over in a corner comer hippie sat at tho the table pretending to write but in reality malting there as haskell askell II had find bidden him something cold had gripped haskell half on an hour ago when he saw the patrol returning without the sli six bandits and alth ft ath constable younge desperately pera tely wounded he ile knew the details of that patrol already chippie had come up and fir private liate ly told him how the bandits had headed for or the thai azzab as baker had warned how baker had run those six to earth and cornered them now flow and the other two constables const aules had bawl a hundred and forty mij 01 away during that crucial hour I 1 As he knew this crime was the most spectacular in years along the three rivers the defeat ad ministered to the police was the most stinging in a decade this incident would have reverberations ot at headquarters superintendent amson would investigate the very first question of that veteran vetera old officer would be I 1 why in ha h 1 did you order da ba ker to divide that patrol split ting up his detail that way you realize that neither paty would be able to handle those criminals not deluding himself haskell knew he was caught ile knew he had made a cap VM mistake in a force where a mans first mistake Is usually his last insl in inse illse in se thirty minutes all his prospects of promotion in service of smashing alan bakr of sNi swinging nging elizabeth spaulding to himself had come tumbling down doun like a house of cards and he was thoroughly frightened it would spell finis to his ills career it if the facts of the patrol became known the blame of this shim ful defeat lay squarely squar elv at door balei surely re that baker surely was as going to ue that sword against him it was ins war nar now open and avowed armied wor between bet iTeen ta them step bv step loj logic e led him to the one and only recourse he lie had if ever found out he hid lind ordered that patrol split he was sunk therefore a m son must not fini out there u was as a nay to keep him from knowing the facts haskell askell II tried to still his con science by thinking that baker had wanted the ditrol to fall it that was fio go then this measure nas uns ex antly what that the sergeant had corn com ing to him he lie ought to be smashed and hard louve loure got to fight fire with fire 4 still in his muddied muddled and torn uniform alan came down doun the slope toward baskell Ilas kella s cabin in tending to bludgeon some hard and fast terms out of the guilty in or shoot a complaint over his head to superintendent wll wit alamson if II akell did not give 1 in 1 iu ilia his jew le lv ti to s sd nd a half breed runner to the roial signal corps station at resolution lution aid euid flash a message to the division commander that would rould start an avalanche over at mrs drummonds house where joyce had gone candles candies were gleaming in ln the windows across at bother lather Cla verlys tiny hospital lorry larry younge lay fight ing for his life up the slope at baracks bir br racks dave was locked in the police butter tub tul charged with being accomplice to robbery and murder toyce loyce had reported secretly alan I 1 with him film he lie guilty I 1 he ile never hail had h heard eard a whisper ild sper about these bandits till it I 1 told him he ile have deceived me I 1 I 1 that same impression had been alan s ue lie hai have e deceived me there was something behind that pack of furs which hadn haan t come it to light yet and which would explain 11 those damning cir cum it was his conict conviction lon that dave MacI macmillan fIllan was mas not guilty at all he ile meant t put up a fight for dave daie it was masv to resolve that but the actual lob job was the I 1 iiri cst est thing be ind attempted attempt eil in his whole hole life the only way under heaven hemen of clearing dave ins to capture the guilty tien men and either wring iring a confession cut ut of them or h hold 0 id 0 out ut kings evidence as a lure and get them started to talking ing each other chich iny would they try to es cape thead RO go cist wren they off the Tha lALih I 1 hey d go across the great barrens to hud had so i a bay and try to pick up pas ea on a fishing smack or go cast east und lind auth south toward the pa pas in mant toba there a as only one route rou 0 leading lending east out of the thalah tall end and have to take it III wag was an nit old lindich tra trade de route tho the inconnu river alan meant to lead a patrol to the inconnu As lio lie strode into the cabin be he paw haskell askell II waiting uniting for him coolly smoking a it cigarette it seemed to alan that the nan man actually did not realize that lile ills ignorant orders had wrecked the patrol and that the hole blame an and d shame of it lay at his ills door ahen lie finished his ills report haskell askell II made no comment pondering at his cool air alan was silent a few moments lie ile could not understand the mans nonchalance this was war betheen beti een them each knew know it 11 and yet haskell no fear no concern no conciliatory spirit whatsoever keeping back his heavy weidon alan ala took up his defense of joyces father about dave macmillan my opinion Is hes bes entirely innocent there a no call to send tend him out side alde to edmonton A traveling court la Is coming down the three ahers ali era in august and bis his case can wait for that he ile can be kept here or ed on ball half drum will put up ball III be personally responsible for him there theres another reason hes got some good friends among the dog ritia ribs it if hes released hell get busy and stir them up to help hunt these bandits haskel interposed was he doing last week here was us ila can he put up any alibi lie ile was in the candle ice lee lake country trying I 1 to locate little |
