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Show rri Knoltcn's fri! Case Tift L-i.. J By Richard Hill Wilkinson KNOLTON'S CT was the result of two ar's of planning. There was little chance that anything any-thing would go wrong. He had served as clerk at the lumber camp for two long years. And from the moment he first saw the payroll left unguarded in the office of-fice while the bank guard went out and a camp paymaster came in from that moment Knolton knew that some day he'd steal that payroll pay-roll and make a get-away. The day that Knolton had chosen for the robbery was not unlike a thousand others. At exactly noon the payroll car I drove up. A guard 3 -Minute stepped into the Fiction f6 ,ahnd dhepos" ited the heavy bag by Knolton's chair. Knolton greeted him carelessly, care-lessly, nodded at the bag and bent to his work. The guard went out. The moment the door closed Knolton's head came up. He listened lis-tened intently. Outside he could hear the bank guard in conversation conversa-tion with Raymond, the camp paymaster. pay-master. There wasn't a moment to lose. Quickly Knolton lifted up the cover of his desk, removed from inside a bag almost identical to the one on the floor and equally as heavy. He made the transfer deftly, deft-ly, unhurriedly. The door opened and Raymond Ray-mond came inside. He nodded briefly to Knolton, picked up the decoy bag and went out again. Knolton stepped outside and walked leisurely toward the river. Unobserved he climbed into the canoe which was hidden there, and pushed off. By mid-a fternoon Knolton reached a tributary and turned off the main stream. He paddled up this smaller waterway for more than a mile. He set the canoe adrift and headed inland, swinging southward. By dusk he had come to a virgin stand of timber, mighty monarchs of the forest as yet unscathed by the lumberman's axe. His steps led him to a huge pine, larger than the rest with thick undergrowth at the base. He parted the growth, pulled at a tuft of dirt. The tuft came away, revealing a shallow hole. Knolton had dug the hole months before, allowed the under growth to grow over it so that no trace of his recent visit would be In evidence. He deposited the bag in the hole and carefully replaced the dirt. TT WAS A MONTH before Knolton reached his destination; a tiny village hundreds of miles south of the lumber camp. Here he paused to rest with a friend. By now he had grown a beard. The friend provided pro-vided dye, and Knolton changed By now le had grown a beara. the color of his hair from light brown xo black. BJx months later Knolton, now known as Carl Hedman, with no trace of the one-time clerk showing beneath his perfect per-fect disguise, rode leisurely back toward the scene of his crime. The lumbermen gave him no more than a passing glance. Satisfied that he had nt been recognized, Knolton followed the river to the mouth of the tributary. With pounding heart he mounted the ridge and paused to look. It was as if a hand had suddenly reached out and was squeezing him in a powerful grip. He stood rooted, mouth ajar, staring in stupified incredulity at the country below. With, a sense of horror he realized what had happened. The entire area had been logged by the lumber lum-ber company, swept bare of every standing tree and piece of timber. Every tree stump looked alike; none was larger or different from its neighbor. He surmounted great piles of slash, tearing at them frantically, fran-tically, hunting for the stump, the stump of the great pine tree. Thus unmindful of his direction he came again to the river bank. And when at length he reached the top of another hill he paused to rest, overcome by fatigue. Too late he felt the slash pile beneath him slipping away. Too late he realized that the slash had been thrown on the brink of a precipice overhanging the river. Knolton, with a pitiful cry on his lips, went over the brink. Far, far below he lay, a broken human body on the jagged rocks. |