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Show m BEEP WFERS n BEN AMES WILLIAMS WILLIAMS W.N. U. FEATURES THE STOKY SO FAR: After a chance meeting and swift courtship, Will Mc-Phail Mc-Phail starts for Moose Bay, leaving Robin Dale to wonder how a career girl could be so completely swept off her feet. She knows little of Will, except that he Is an engineer and that he has a brother named Angus, a dour Scot who hates women. Tired of the city and eager for adventure, Robin decides to take the next steamer up the St. Lawrence to Moose Bay. Driving to the port where she Is to take the boat, she meets a strangely Interesting In-teresting man who tells her about salmon fishing. She nicknames him "the Salmon Sal-mon Man." On the road again, she comes face to face with another car. Now continue with the story. er at the harbor mouth, were hidden behind a white wall She laughed. "Mercy, there is now!" He said nothing; and she asked, making conversation: con-versation: "Do they have many accidents ac-cidents here?" It was a moment before he spoke. "They had the Empress of Ireland." Robin had never heard of the Empress Em-press of Ireland. She said so; and he looked at her briefly. "It was before you were born," he decided. The fog was tight about them. "We lived here in Rimouski. I was a boy. The Empress was out there off Father Point with about fourteen four-teen hundred people aboard, in a fog like this, and a freighter ran into her." "Did she sink?" . "She sank in fifteen minutes," the Salmon Man said in his quiet tones. Robin had a curious feeling that he had forgotten she was here. "It was about four o'clock in the morning. morn-ing. The water where she sank was shallow enough so that sometimes at low tide when the light was right you could see the tips of her masts, down in the water. But after aft-er a few weeks she tipped on her side. You can't see the masts now." "There must have been a lot of people drowned?" She felt inane and He chuckled. "They shut down from midnight to one, to let the babies go to sleep." A car came out along the dock and stopped near them, but no one got out. "More passengers?" she wondered. won-dered. Mr. Jenkins laughed. "I've seen four-five cars out here, a couple in each one, some nights," he said. "It's the sea air, I guess. Let's sit down. Cold? I've got a flask." "No, really, thank you," Robin told him. She wished desperately that someone would come. This was a lonesome place, with the foghorn blowing on Father Point, ha-rumph-ing so ominously; and this man so persistently friendly. She wished someone would come, and a taxi came bouncing out the long dock, the shafts of its headlights bobbing up and down. It stopped near them and the passenger alighted. It was too dark to see his face, but she recognized his hat. It was battered and old and shapeless, a hat unique and unmistakable. Robin knew it at once, knew him. He was the Salmon Man. She moved toward him gratefully. "Oh, hullo!" she said. "I saw you at the salmon pool at Gaspe." She felt hurried and breathless. CHAPTER II They stopped, almost touching. There was no chance to pass, either here on the trestle or along the narrow road in either direction, nearer than the spot where Robin had turned around. Just as Robin realized this, a man got carefully out of the other car. She recognized him by his shapeless hat. He was the Salmon Man. He came along the trestle to her side and said in a cold politeness: "Let me take the wheel. I'll back you up to the turn around." His tone was so polite it was al most profane. "Oh, I'll do it!" she told him icily. "I'm sorry to be in the way!" The Salmon Man said uncomfortably: uncomforta-bly: "If I'd known there was another an-other car up here, I wouldn't have come. You did that backing very well." young and stupid and in the way. His eyes touched hers. 'Four hundred bodies came ashore between be-tween this dock and Father Point in one day," he said. "And others later. They were stacked in piles in the shed back along this dock. Trains came loaded with empty coffins cof-fins and went back with every coffin cof-fin full." Memories in him seemed suddenly to demand release in words. "Over a thousand bodies came ashore, within a few miles." "Do you remember it?" "Yes, I remember it." She thought she could understand now that look in his eyes, so grave and stern and still. "It must have been terrible for you." "Yes," he assented. "It was. My father and mother were aboard her." He added: "I found mother, myself. They never found father." She wanted suddenly to take him in her arms. He was a little boy, running to and fro along this dreary shore, peering into dead faces, hurrying hur-rying on, crying out at last a dreadful dread-ful broken cry. Her eyes were streaming. The fog had thinned. They could see the blinker light at the harbor mouth; and the Salmon Man remarked: "That may be the White Queen coming now." She saw a ship's lights through a blur of tears; but she did not try to speak. She felt him watching her, and she knew suddenly that he was a little surprised and approving because be-cause she did not cry out in pitying She felt that was a great deal for him t-o say. He was nicer than she had thought. She left Madeleine next morning and reached Rimouski Rimou-ski at first dark, tired and hot and dusty from the road. The steamer would stop at Quai Rimouski about midnight; so' she went to the hotel " to change and dine and rest; and about eleven o'clock in the evening she checked out and arranged with a garage to house her car. The young Frenchman in charge of the garage drove her out to Quai Rimouski Ri-mouski to leave her there on the end of the dock with her baggage. She walked to and fro, looking here and there. Two Norwegian vessels ves-sels lay along the north side of the dock, one preparing to take on a deckload of lumber, the other a cargo car-go of coal. Except for the few men 4 visible on their decks, the dock was deserted. A blinker lighi at the entrance en-trance to the harbor winked reassuringly; re-assuringly; and the fog horn was blowing at Father Point, four or five miles away. Robin wondered why, for there was no fog here where she stood, and she could see the light at Father Point flashing in mo- notonous rhythm; but the great horn tooted insistently. She sat on the stringpiece beside her luggage and wished it were light enough so that she could use a pencil; and a car came bumping out the long dock and deposited a man and his bags a I few paces off. The car drove way; and Robin thought hopefully that here was company. She said, raising rais-ing her voice to be heard above the pile drivers: "Good evening. Going on the White Queen?" "Sure," the man assented. He wore a checked suit which she did not particularly approve; but he seemed friendly. "I'm crossing to Moose Bay." "Oh, so am I." He looked at her swiftly. "That so? Your menfolks there?" She smiled happily. Will McPhail . was certainly her menfolks, all of them; but not even Will knew she was coming, and it was certainly no affair of this man in the checked suit. "No, I'm just going to see the place," she said. "Are you working work-ing there?" Perhaps he knew Will. He shook his head. "No, I'm going go-ing on down to Labrador. My name's Jenkins?" he added enquiringly. empty words how sorry she was for him. Robin said carefully: "You'll enjoy your trip, won't you?" "Yes. My brother and I don't have much time together." He filled his pipe. He said: "We've been pretty close, since then." She knew what he meant by that final word. His tone was strangely gentle when he spoke of his brother. This quiet man had an eloquence in him, without with-out effort. Robin liked him tremendously. tre-mendously. "She's coming in," he said. The White Queen's lights, in fact, were nearer. Robin and the Salmon Man moved across the end of the dock toward their luggage. The foghorn fog-horn at Father Point ha-rumphed monotonously. The little steamer slid alongside, lines were made fast, the gangplank slid out, the purser came to meet them. He spoke to the Salmon Man. He said: "Hello, Mr. McPhail." Robin's pulse pounded in her throat. McPhail? The purser told one of the stewards her cabin number, num-ber, and , Robin mutely pointed to her bags and fled up the gangplank. He came along the trestle to her side. "And last night, up the Madeleine. Remember?" The Salmon Man did not speak, and Mr. Jenkins protested: "Now, sister, we were doing all right." Robin said quickly: "But this gentleman gen-tleman and I are old friends, you see." "He don't act it." The Salmon Man said quietly: "Old friends, yes, of course." He said no more than that, but it seemed to be enough. Mr. Jenkins looked at him for a moment, ap-praisingly. ap-praisingly. Then he muttered something some-thing and moved away to the other side of the dock. The Salmon Man seemed uneasily disposed to leave Robin too, and she said, almost pleadingly: "I'm afraid I'm a nuisance again. But please stay. You did tell me about the salmon, remember?" And she asked: "You know a lot about salmon, don't you?" "They're my business. I'm in the fisheries department, the Government." In her cabin a moment later, Robin Rob-in stared at herself in the small mirror above the washstand, and she said aloud: "Heavens to Betsy!" Bet-sy!" Her eyes were dancing. The Salmon Man was Will's brother! He must be. It seemed to her now that she might have guessed the truth; yet there was no physical likeness between him and Will. He was square and lean and tall. His cheek was bronzed, his hair brown; yet there was something gray and old about him. But Will was not gray! Will had brilliance and sparkle. Will's hair was black as coals, and so were his eyes that shone with youth and humor, hu-mor, and gay impudence. There was always laughter in his tones. He and the Salmon Man were as unlike as men well could be; so how could she have guessed? Will had never told her that his father and mother were lost on the Empress Em-press of Ireland. He had never told her that he had lived as a boy in Rimouski. He had never even told her that his brother was a fisheries man. She opened her bag and rummaged rum-maged out Will's letter, and reread what he said about his brother two or three times. "He's grand . . . he's been father and mother and brother to me ever since I was a baby . . It isn't his fault he . . . feels the way he does about girls. He was pretty shamefully treated by one . . It left scars on him i that are still rpen . . . Unless oo ' can he p hen! them ..." I "How do you do?" She was amused at herself for feeling that she was safer if he did not know her name. "You'll find Moose Bay quite a place," he told her. "Three thou-0 thou-0 sand men working there, and no women at all except a few wives." He said approvingly: "A girl as pretty as you will own the town." Robin had been told often enough that she was a pretty girl; but this was the first time she had ever been made uneasy by the telling. She decided to stand up, and did so; and she was relieved to find that she was almost as tall as he. "But Labrador's 'way beyond Moose Bay," she said at random. "Isn't it?" "Oh, sure. I'm picking up my , own boat at Moose Bay, going down along the coast in that, selling canned goods." "It must be interesting." "It's wild country, all right." He offered her a cigarette. She declined de-clined it, and he lighted one himself. him-self. "I'll bet you'd like it'," he said. "I've got a good boat, clean and roomy and dry. I always take a friend along." "I expect it's lonely if you go by yourself," she agreed, and wished the White Queen would come, or something. He said: "We might as well sit down." The pile drivers suddenly fell si-lent. si-lent. She exclaimed in an unreasonable unrea-sonable relief: "Thank goodness they've stopped. That noise is terrible! ter-rible! " "Oh, really?" She had to hold him somehow. "Are you going fishing now? You must be going on the White Queen?" "Yes. But not fishing as you think of it. My brother and I are going along the North Shore and down the Newfoundland coast, tagging salmon." sal-mon." "Tagging them? You mean, like ducks?" "Yes, to get data on their migration." migra-tion." "Oh!" She looked toward the man in the checked suit. "He's going the same way. It must be a wonderful trip. Is your brother meeting you here?" "No, he's at Moose Bay. Our boat is there." "Just you two?" "We have a cook and boatman." Robin tried to think of other questions. ques-tions. The Salmon Man was hard to talk to. He was courteous, but his answers had each a cold finality and completeness. "Why does the foghorn keep blowing?" blow-ing?" she wondered. "There's fog in the river." "Oh! Will that make the White Queen late?" The Salmon Man seemed to resign re-sign himself to conversation. "They might have to anchor." he admitted. admit-ted. "There's too much traffic in the river for them to go blind through fog." "But there's no fog here." she said, and as thoush to contradict her, mist came wreiitl irg arcunci them suddenly, damp cull Inc light of Father Toin' .-nd the blink |