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Show I THE BIGMUSKEg! By : VICTOR ROUSSEAU j Coayrl jt br I ITEWART KIDD COMFAKT I" - 'when nature frowns. Nature Is not a gonial old dame, nature writers and poets to the contrary notwithstanding. Go at her with a club and she will give freely. Bui ehe always watches for a chance to get even. Beg of her and she ia cruel as the grave. She pardons no mistakes, and always she resent man's Intrusion into her wild places. Muskeg Is North American Indian In-dian for a marsh, swamp, tussocky bog. It's generally a bad place for travel. This Big Muskeg was crossed here and there by trails, but was never stable, contained a river of oose and had unsounded depths. Nature had apparently stuck It right there to stop the Mls-satlbl Mls-satlbl Extension from going; farther. far-ther. So around the Big Muskeg revolves re-volves a thrilling story of Canadian railroad building a fight agRlnst the hostile forces of nature. Extremely Ex-tremely interesting are the side lights on the life of the North. Best of all there's a fascinating story of the loves and passions of the strong men and women who are conquering the wilderness. Victor Housseau knows life from experience. He has been a student In England, a fighter In South Africa, Af-rica, a newspaper man tn the United Unit-ed States. He is the author of many novels and his public is large. CHAPTER I. A Bolt From the Blue. Eighteen below; fair weather for December In New Manitoba, where the forest, though it chills the soil till midsummer, yet shuts out the razor-edge razor-edge of the winds that make the prairies, prai-ries, farther south, an Icy inferno. Here the bush, which had seemed to stretch out inimitably, thinned Into bedraggled patches among the up-cropping up-cropping rocks. A little farther and It began once more; the break was like a great, curving arm thrust Into the heart of It, as If some giant fingers had plucked up the trees in handsful and scooped the foundation from the frozen soil, and then had been withdrawn, with-drawn, leaving the . Imprints of the great finger-tips. These finger-tips were huge sinkholes, sink-holes, sometimes filled with water, so that they formed clear lakes; more often sodden sponges of decayed vegetable veg-etable matter, oozy, treacherous and unstable. The finger-lines were the circular ridges marking the subsidence of the mud. The thumb was Big Muskeg, Mus-keg, which the two men who stood on the top of $he humpbacked ridge could see extended beneath them. Big Muskeg, at this point less than half a mile across, was everywhere of unsounded depth. It curved and wound, a river of ooze, now broadening Into chains of lakes, now narrowing into gullies; here and there crossed by trails, but never stable, nowhere offering of-fering firm foundation for the permanent perma-nent way of the Missatibi railroad. The Missatibi was a branch line, feeding the new road that was pushing push-ing northward toward the ports-to-be on Hudson bay.- It linked with it at Clayton, whence it was being extended eastward Into a virgin wilderness. Even In the days when half a dozen companies were pegging out ways for lines I hat were to divert the wheat north, Joe Rostock's line had been the joke of legislatures and financiers. Those other lines that were being built Into Clayton passed through the wheat-lands; Joe's line ran east out of Clayton Into a wilderness. Joe Rostock had secured his capital, but he had no competitors And slowly Missatibi, with its small shareholders and limited means, had gone ahead. The first location parties' par-ties' had cleared a road to Big Muskeg. Mus-keg. The rails had been laid halfway. half-way. Rut that was all. stive for the partly constructed shacks and buildings build-ings for the workmen there, and the sheds for the construction material that had not yet been freighted In. Joe, standing wllh legs straddling the top of the ridge, turned to Wilton Carruthers, the chief engineer of I he company, with eyebrows arched and humorous Inquiry on his weather-beaten weather-beaten old face. There was no need for speech at that moment, because the mind of each man dwelt on the Identical problem. The two men had come east by dog-sleigh, dog-sleigh, accompanied by two half-breeds, half-breeds, Jean Passepartout and Papil-lon. Papil-lon. the one in charge of the dogs, the oilier carrying the transit-compass. They had camped seven miles back on the preceding evening, and had set out at daybreak to survey the swamplands swamp-lands from the ridge. For the problem prob-lem which had suddenly rien up to confront them clamored for solution Defore construction could be carried forward, and on its solution depended the future of the Missatibi. With the physical eye neither Joe nor Carruthers could hope to accomplish accom-plish anything. Wilton was seeking inspiration, though lie did not know It. Theoretically he was endeavoring to discern some place where a foundation might be coaxed above the unstable, quailing surface with" trestllng and lib-work, a crossing thut combined 'ie least i-sible deviation of route h do more than four-flfths of oua per cent of grade and four degrees of curve. Actually and unconsciously he was seeking to interpret the natural convulsion con-vulsion which had, in time immeasurably immeasur-ably remote, cloven the ridge of the land and set the swamp seeping into the fissure. If he could read the meaning of that convulsion, understand the mind and mood of the great Architect, he could see, as If clairvoyantly, just where the Muskeg lay thinnest on the roots of the hills, where ballast would appear the soonest above the sticking swamp. But he could read nothing. Joe Bostock wrinkled his eyes against the sunlight. "That's what I was thinking, Wilton," Wil-ton," he said. "But it's sot to be done. Somebody'll build It some day if the Missatibi doesn't." That was the nearest speech to despair de-spair that Joe, Invincible, exuberant optimist that he was,' had ever made. Weeks. month3 of resurvey must ensue, en-sue, with work halted, and the Missa-tibl's Missa-tibl's precarious capital diminishing to vanishing point, while the story of the great blunder percolated through the lobbies of the provincial legislature, filled with bland, jeering, Ill-conditioned men to whom one day's tramp such as their laborers performed would mean apoplexy. Their faces haunted Wilton. He remembered re-membered half a dozen whom he had approached when the Missatibi scheme was first bruited abroad. There was, In particular, Tom Bowyer, of the New Northern line, his many Interests entrenched en-trenched behind the bulwarks of political po-litical Influence. Joe Bostock had suggested sug-gested an amalgamation In the belief that Torn Bowyer could wreck the bill in the legislature. But Tom had laughed In Joe's face, and had not even opposed the measure. "Go ahead with your muslcrat line, Joe!" he had said. "I won't hinder you.". The surveyors who made the preliminary pre-liminary reconnoissance 'had shirked their work and lied. Wilton suspected suspect-ed that most of them had been In Bow- Joe Boctock Laid His Hands on the Other Man's Shoulders. yer's pay. Bowyer and Bostock were old, rivals. They had reported Big Muskeg Mus-keg to be an Insignificant swamp with a firm underbed about the portage. It could be crossed, of course, in the end, since nature always yielded to man. Rut the Missatibi must either swing a huge loop around it, through territory unsurveyed, or set to Itself ibe task of filling those unsounded depths with thousands of tons of rock. "D n you!" said Wilton, shaking his fist toward the valley. "We'll beat you yet. We've made a bad blunder, Joe. Crooked work, without doubt-though doubt-though I can't Imagine why Bowyer's gang should take the trouble to hurt us unless, of course, they guess " Joe Rostock shook his head. "No. they haven't guessed that, Wilton," be answered. "I'll stake my hat on that. There ain't nobody except me and you and Kitty knows. It's jest bad luck, Wilton" Joe could never Sense treachery nor bring himself to believe In its possibility; possi-bility; and If that weakness had kepi him. In the main, a poor man,' It bad hound his friends to hhn with unhreak-' able bonds. "At the best it's gross negligence," said Wilton. "Those surveyors scamped their work. I accepted their reports. I couldn't go out with the transit and aneroid and follow them all up to check their results. But 1 might have sounded Iiig Muskeg. I didn't." Ills voice choked. "Joe, If you have any sense, you'll fire me first," he said. Joe Bostock laid his hands on the other man's shot:!.lr-s ,f(1 ,,lmM ' ous smile came im his race. "Well I guess not, Wilton." he said. ..-y',,,, ain't to bluine.. You've done all thu mortal man could do. The Mlssatii. couldn't have been built at all without with-out you. Fire you? Why, Kltty'd have my life If I dared suggest such a thing." Wilton frowned Involuntarily at the reference to the pretty young wife whom Joe Bostock had married in Winnipeg the year before. Joe's first marriage had been unhappy; It had been loug ago, and Wilton knew there had been a separation, though Joe was always reticent about that. Kitty was five and thirty years younger than Joe, and she had intervened inter-vened into a fast friendship of more than a decade between Joe and Wilton. Wil-ton. It made a difference, as It always does, though Joe had sworn It should not, and Kitty thought the world of Wilton. Wilton could never understand his secret feeling about Kitty. She was devoted to Joe. Perhaps that was what lay beneath his latent antagonism antago-nism toward her. He was Jealous of her. He was Jealous of a woman's love for 'Joe. "I guess not I" said Joe Bostock again, pressing his hand hard down on Wilton's shoulder. And, in that instant, Wilton heard the crack of a rifle, and felt a violent blow on the upper part of the left arm, which knocked him to the ground. As he fell, Joe Bostock pitched forward upon him. Twice Joe's Hps quivered, as If he was trying to speak. Then the lower, jaw dropped and the eyes rolled upward. up-ward. A grayish pallor crept over the face. Wilton saw that Joe's mackinaw had a tiny tear In It, over the breast, A trickle' of blood seeped through the cloth. He wrenched the garment open with his right hand, pulled up the sweater, and tore the shirt apart. The heart, fluttering like a wounded bird, stopped under his hand. Joe sighed once, but he never stirred again. The bullet had passed clean through Joe Bostock's heart from the back. And, as he tried to raise Joe's body, Wilton realized that the same bullet had broken his left arm, which hung limp from the shoulder. He sprang to his feet, a mad wrath giving back to him his ebbing strength. He glared about him, but It was impossible to ascertain from where the shot had come. He could not even locate the direction within a hundred degrees, for Joe had been in the act of turning. Nobody was In sight, and the woods were silent. His bellowing call of fury that went echoing through the trees elicited no answer. He tore strips from his handkerchief, hand-kerchief, holding it between his teeth, and, with his left hand on his knee, knotted them about a stick and improvised im-provised a tourniquet. The blood was spurting down his sleeve in jets, the pain was intense, and it was impossible impos-sible to take off the mackinaw and hope to replace his arms in it; but he twisted with all his force until the diminishing flow showed that he had compressed the artery. Thrusting the longer end of the stick beneath his armpit, he passed the other through the buttonhole of the garment, and, stooping, managed to get Joe's body upon his shoulder and to hold it with his right arm. His impulse was to carry Joe's body back to the camp, but he knew that it would be impossible to make the distance dis-tance Yet to leave it would mean the certainty of mutilation by bears or timber-wolves unless he could build a cairn of stones. And of that he was equally incapable. He set Joe's body down, and, In the first full realization of his loss and his predicament, predica-ment, he shouted curses to the sky. That murder had been intended he did not believe; no doubt the shot had been a bullet fired at some nearer mark, perhaps a hare, and by one of the half-breeds. He suspected that the transit-bearer, following them up, had fired the shot, and, seeing the fa-, fa-, tality, had fled. But the thought that this might he the explanation was only a fleeting one. Joe was dead, and his body mus't he cared for, just as if he were alive-taken alive-taken buck to the camp and thence out of the woods. There was no possibility pos-sibility of leaving Joe's hodv there Yet it seemed to him that he could not hope to reach the camp. And now another idea came to him ; It was seven miles back to the camp but only five to the portage over the frozen swamp. Upon the other side of the portage was a trail that came out of the prairie southward and wound Into the unknown norih Along this Indians brought their winter win-ter catches to the trading-store of McDonald, (he factor of the Hudson's hay company. Traveling was hard along the shore 'f I lie great Muskeg, but It would ean two miles less, and It was j possible to make the store. MoDon-aid MoDon-aid xw,s a queer, taciturn, sometimes venomous oh man, and had evinced a strong dislike of wilion on (ho occa-sl"n occa-sl"n of their last meeting. Yet Mc-'onald Mc-'onald would shelter bl, n(i rvvp "'s l.odv. And then there was Molly 'I ilatuliter. ' vvl!t"ii. having made bin ,-bolre, net- I "l it at on-e. with a great effort ,','''x HtlnYnlim f..ni utKn h s shoulder; anTT his awful journey, hl, K ing the dead man hi. k ,tlai hugging the tournlnue L his side. et-Mlct ,t He stumbled over the r until he reached th i"5 through the trees. Her. easier, but the I burden 8"'!i 1 right hand and shoulder ti ! pain In his lft seemed ioU' his footsteps, and the . T ,fci cramping muscles Increases ! 01 of his wound and w N down his body. k n ,0 A wind sprang up ir , whirling snow Into his eves f '1 lethargy wag creeping 0T" presently, turning hi, h . '1 bis eyes from the beaZ b saw a trickle of CrO, behind him. 00 The tourniquet had looser was bleeding his life away Z f, was gushing down his fliiirJ ton set Joe's body down and ,;J in tightening the compre was only after an almost mt struggle that he could get Jw his shoulder. He knew that Hi forced to: set the body down al could never lift It. With knees bent, tripping 0Vil roots of the trees, and fr through a swimming world be gered on and on and on. And B-hls B-hls anger nor the thought o(' could have kept his resolution ik that nightmare of pain. It was i! now, the memory of Joe, his loij him, and his resolve that his fr;. remains should not be torn by the" ber-wolves. Joe had befriended him jean fore, when he had drifted, pent: Into Winnipeg. Joe's faith had i his own, and the secret of theM bi theirs. So the miles reeled off behind! while the wind Increased and tie? fell thicker along the way. At lis trees opened, and the bleak ste Big Muskeg lay before him, 1 1 of ice and snow, with the bluffs site, and beyond them the treai more. At once the fierce swirl of ttei ' caught him, whistling like sirens ing into his face like rife probes. The Ice that fringed lashes blinded him and pulled ti from the lids when he tried to-his to-his eyes. He reeled on, clutching; body, and heard his own vols from him in shouts of despair.; rolled across the snow, and the ti came in faint, mimicking answer: the distant cliffs. , Wilton retained sufficient con: ness of his surroundings to nab way along the shore toward tie: age. He might have shortens route to McDonald's store a litis risking a direct crossing; but fci face of a muskeg is always dan?" even In midwinter, when the i: ently solid ice conceals sink-iei slush, which, mixed with pan ooze, does not congeal firmly, i;; traps the unwary traveler, a f mud from which. escape is next:: possible. "And somehow, breaking s rotten Ice in front of her bS: the girl succeeded in Jt'" Wilton to the shore." (TO BE CONTINUED.) |