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Show J Copyright by W. G. Chapman. WNU Service. "I'M JOYCE PELLY!" SYNOPSIS. Lee Anderson, Royal Roy-al Canadian Mounted Police sergeant, ser-geant, is sent to Stony Kange to arrest a man named Pelly for murder. He is also instructed to look after Jim Kathway, reputed head of the "Free Traders," illicit liquor runners. At Little Falls he finds Pelly is credited with having found a gold mine, and is missing. At the hotel appears a girl, obviously out of place in the rough surroundings. A half-breed, half-breed, Pierre, and a companion, "Shorty," annoy the girl. Anderson An-derson interferes in her behalf. The girl sets out for Siston Lake, which is also Anderson's objective. objec-tive. He overtakes her and the two men with whom he had trouble trou-ble the night before. She is suspicious sus-picious of him and the two men are hostile. Pierre and Shorty ride on, Anderson and the girl following. In the hills the road is blown up. before and behind the two. Anderson, with his horse, is hurled down the mountain moun-tain side, senseless. Recovering consciousness. Anderson finds the girl has disappeared, but he concludes she Is alive and probably prob-ably In the power of Pierre and Shorty. On foot he makes his way to Siston Lake. There he finds his companion of the day before, and Rathway, with a girl, Estelle, a former sweetheart of Anderson's, who had abused his confidence and almost wrecked his life. Rathway strikes Estelle, and after a fight Anderson, with Estelle's help, escapes with the girl. Anderson's companion's mind is clouded and she is suffering suf-fering with a dislocated knee. Anderson sets the knee and : makes the girl as comfortable as possible. He has a broken rib. The two plan to make their way to a Moravian mission, of which Father McGrath has charge. Theiir acquaintance ripens into love. CHAPTER IX Continued Lee did not push his inquiries. On the whole he felt it would be preferable prefer-able that her memory should return to her while she was at the mission. The next morning broke cloudy, the snow was frozen hard, and bunks of heavy snow clouds were piling up in the north. The girl's knee had still not troubled her, and they made even faster progress. Early in the afternoon after-noon the prospects of a storm became so threatening that Lee proposed they should encamp on a ridge of land some half a mile in front of them. "We can find a safe nook in there," he suggested. "Oh, no," answered the girl, "there's a large' log house about half a mile beyond that, and we'll be much more comfortable there." As Lee loolced at her, he realized that she had been speaking without realizing what she had been saying. Suddenly she realized it too. "Now what inside me say that?" she asked. "But I'm sure somehow that there Is a cabin there. I know this place quite well, only it's as If I'd Been It in a dream. Oh, Lee, what if I should remember? I don't want to never, never! I want our new life and our love I" lie put his arm about her and tried to comfort her, but the lonk of sadness sad-ness lingered on her face, end every now and then, covertly wBtohing her, Lee would see that same perplexed knitting of her brows. They passed the ridge, the trail ran around t lie bend of the lake and suddenly sud-denly they saw the log building in front of them. Lee looked at the house in surprise, for it was built in the most substantial substan-tial way, and contained apparently five or six rooms. The settler who had constructed It must have meant to make it his permanent home, for the ground around it had been cleared for an acre or more; but it seemed to have been rmciirccl for for several years, for the land was overgrown with brambles and spindly birch, into the thick of which serried cohorts of young spruce trees were advancing in ranks, like the vanguard of an army. The door was unbolted, and when they went in they were startled at the aspect of the Interior. The rooms were filled with furniture, nearly all of it made by the settler, hut extraordinarily extraordinar-ily well done. There were mildewed and faded but substantial carpets or, the floors. There were fungous growths on the walls; but in spite of all the evidences of decay, the interior looked the habitation of a prosperous settler. They went from room to room. The contents of the kitchen had been scrupulously respected. In accordance with trappers' law. There were porcelain por-celain plates, cups and saucers, cooking cook-ing utensils, a large sheet-iron stove half full of charred logs. Lee went all over the place, calling to tha girl with the enthusiasm of a boy. "It's just the place for us!" lu-cned lu-cned "We'll rind out tvtio owns It and buy It from him, and spend our honeymoon honey-moon here." In his exuberance he failed to perceive per-ceive the depression that had settled upon her. They had only just arrived In time to escape the storm, for already the flakes were whirling down outside. "Well, you were right," said Lee. "It's lucky we're going to have a roof over us tonight. Look, here's firewood fire-wood piled I Now I wonder who's been living here!" The girl did not answer him. She was staring about her with the same look of bewilderment, and Lee saw that she was trembling. He drew her into his arms. "Dearest, you musn't let things trouble you," he said. "All will come right. And what can anything matter, so long as we have each other?" "It makes me afraid, Lee," she answered an-swered in a low tone. "Oh, Lee, I I seem to be nearer to remembering than ever before. There ought to be there used to be a table here, and a woman sat here sewing, a woman with fair hair, and her face bent over her work, and looking up sometimes to smile at a man a tall man, several years older than herself, with iron-gray hair, who never smiled, but was always kind to her. And then she would look down to smile at a child playing beside her. Was I that child, Lee?" "If you were, if this was your home, dearest, you should be happy here." "I don't know, Lee. I wish now that we'd camped on the ridge. I wish I'd never come here. I've the feeling that that it means the end." She began to cry softly. "It's not not just the fear, of remembering this place, but it's what Is associated with it something some-thing terrible " She ceased and looked out at the fast falling snow. It was still only the middle of the afternoon, but the wind was rising, whistling about the cabin, and everything was a desolate deso-late gray. Inside the log house it was half dark. Suddenly the girl uttered a cry and clutched at Lee's arm. "Lee! Did you see that? That shadow?" She was half hysterical, and her nervousness communicated itself to Lee, for he had had the confused impression im-pression that a shadow had glided across the room beyond, through the open door. Instantly he darted after It, but They Passed the Ridgo, the Trail Ran Around the Bend of the Lake and Suddenly They Saw the Log Building Build-ing in Front of Them. :here was nothing to be seen. He 1'iinie hack. "It wasn't anything. We're getting nervous." "I'm sure there was was something. !.ee." She clung to him. "Stay here, and I'll search the :dace." "No. don't leave me! Let me go w!:h you !" They went together, looking into all :he rooms and about the house, but I lie:-" 'as no sign of anyone. Lee weni to the hack door to look for foot-pric. foot-pric. hut if any had been made, they wcno.l have been obliterated in a mo-ini'in mo-ini'in by the wind that was driving the dry snow about the doorsill In little whirling clouds. "Ii was imagination," said Lee. Slie assented, and, going Into the kitchen, began to make the preparations prepara-tions for their meal, while Lee took the kettle down to the stream and tilled It with water. But when 1 ncsmed she had ceased to work and was sitting on a chair, her head bent down, her hands clasped on her knees, staring desolately deso-lately In front of her. Lee stood beside her. "Dearest, If I could do anything to help you " "You can't help me. I I don't know what to do." Her voice was strained, hard, almost al-most unrecognizable. Lee knelt at her feet conscious of a sense of utter helplessness. help-lessness. He took her hands In his, and found that they were as cold as Ice. Her body was strained Into unnatural un-natural rigidity. It was almost as If she were a prisoner on some torture table, so set were all her muscles, as though she were bracing herself against some unendurable pain. "Yes, you can help me!" The words came quickly from her lips, and, raising her head, she gave htm a strange, penetrating look. "You you haven't been frank with me, Lee. "You know all that there is to know about me. But what do. I know about you? You say you love me, you won my love my love, that of the nameless name-less woman ; and you have my poor little two weeks' life story In your possession. You know everything that there Is of me -oh, you know It so Intimately. Inti-mately. Can you not see how It humiliates hu-miliates me, to think that I have no personality of my own at all, nothing to myself, no life, hardly a thought, even, that is not yours?" "Dearest " But she went on implacably: "What do I know of you? Who are you? Lee Anderson? That's only a name. You have your life, your past. How many women has it contained, women you perhaps think of regretfully, sometimes some-times even with tenderness ?" "I'd have told you that when the time came. I loved one woman 1 thought I did. She was well, I gave her my love foolishly, that's all. And it wasn't love. There is only you, has only been you " "How do I know you are telling me the truth, Lee Anderson?" "You don't mean that. dear. We've given our love to each other, with trust and faith. It's just the loneliness and the dreadl and the fear of remembering remember-ing the pnst that makes you doubt everything. Look into my eyes and see if you can doubt them." The hardness of her laugh surprised him. "I don't trust men, Lee Anderson." Lee felt stupefied. But deeper than the hurt was his pity for her, a soul cut off from the past, with only himself him-self to guide her. He could understand under-stand that the desire for a personality of her own might well inspire her bitterness. "I think the best way I can prove my love for you," he answered, "is just to say nothing till your mood has passed." "No, Lee, there is a better way than that, a much better way. Be frank with me. Let me share your life. Who are you? Lee Anderson? That's only a name to me. Tell me why you came into the range, and how you found me." He began to tell her; but, because it was impossible to speak of their experiences at Siston lake, he made it appear that he had. saved her as he had said before after the fall, and carried her into the woods. He omitted much, but he distorted nothing. "What were you doing in the range? What are you here for?" Her voice was breathless, her eyes seemed to burn into his face. "I think I know. You must tell me the truth. You came here to find someone. You are a member of the police. Whom have you come to find?" And as Lee remained silent, she continued : "It wasn't a man named Pelly, was it? An old man, an old friendless man, who had been betrayed, sold by someone some-one he trusted? A man who had done no wrong to anyone, but who, a whole generation before, had killed the scoundrel scoun-drel who tried to ruin his wife? Hadn't he atoned for that by a lifetime of exile?" "What do you know of him?" cried Lee. "He is my father ! This is our home ! Yes, I'm Joyce Pelly, his daughter, as you have always suspected. And I suspected you from the beginning. And you you forced your presence upon me under the guise of protecting me from my friends." "That is not so !" "To gain your wretched ends by winning win-ning a woman's confidence and then betraying her. And you dared yes, you dared " "I never dreamed who you were. Won't you believe my word of honor that I am incapable ?" But she went on, still implacable: "You dared to pretend you loved me, you traitor, in order to discover my father's hiding place when I I was coming up to him but why why? I can't remember all. I only know that I remember I'm his daughter. And I .tell you I hate you with a hate ten times as great as the love I thought 1 felt for you !" Lee stood up before her. "I only ask you to believe me." he began, "when I say that I didn't know, guess, dream who you were. How should I have known he had a daughter this man I'd never seen? I knew nothing noth-ing " Hut suddenly her Icy coldness seemed to dissolve in helpless misery. "Oh, leave me! Leave me for a little while, or I shall go mad!" she cried. And she put her hands over her face ;nd began weeping wildly. CHAPTER X The Tunnel Under the Rock Lee stumbled out of the cabin, lazed, stupefied by Joyce's revelation. The man he sought stood, an lnvln- ible hairier, between nimself and the woman he loved. Never. If he had any power to read the human heart, could Joyce I 'ell y look on him again with anything but hale and horror. Beneath her gentle nature there lay, he knew, a soul of steel, calm and resolved. re-solved. He could now look upon her only as a relentless enemy as long as her father lived. His little spell of happiness whs ended forever. And he groaned as he strode through the blasts, and beat his fists into the whirling snow. Then to the man there came temptation temp-tation fiercer than any he had known as he perceived the one way out, the only way. It was only necessary to find Pelly, to warn him out of the district forever, for-ever, to return to Manlstree, making a report that Pelly ms dead, In order to win Joyce, taking her away with him, earning her gratitude, her love But would she love him then? Could their happiness be based on that dishonor? Perhaps he could win her. And then? Resign from the police, of course, and bear the burden of the "To Gain Your Wretched Ends by Winning Win-ning a Woman's Confidence and Then Betraying Her, and You Dared Yes, You Dared" shame for the rest of his days, reading read-ing it in Joyce's eyes, their children reading it in their parents' eyes. No, even that was not possible. There was no escape for him. And he thanked God that he did not have to weigh those possibilities, though he would never have yielded. For stronger even than conscience was the thought of the force he was so proud to serve. Those dauntless guardians of the law had endured the Icy blasts of the treeless tundras, they had looked unflinchingly un-flinchingly into the face of death, death by violence, by cold, by hunger, and on the battlefield; it was all part cf the game whether one faced a moral enemy or a physical one. Even In thought there could be no tempering with dishonor. And it was only for a moment that Lee weighed these possibilities as he strode through the storm. Then he squared his shoulders resolutely and threw off the burden. He would take Joyce to the Moravian mission as he had planned, there hand her over to the priest, and leave her to go to his task, the apprehension of her father. The storm was growing fiercer. Lee, awakening to the realization of externals as the icy flakes whipped his face, discovered that he had left the clearing far behind him; he could no longer discern the cabin in the distance dis-tance through the whirling snow. He had been traveling across the ridges of the broken ground, apparently making unconsciously for the shelter of the friendly forest behind it, with the instinct of a wounded beast to take cover. Well, he must go back, and they two must face that night together, and the next day. There was no help for it. As he strode on, suddenly instinct pulled him up sharply. He had been trampling through a mass of withered undergrowth and bramble; and now, directly in front of him, he perceived a great gorge, so concealed in this growth that lie had all but stepped over the edge. He advanced cautiously and peered down into it. It was an extraordinary formation. He had seen such before, in that and other regions, where the limestone, pushed up through molten granite by volcanic action at some prehistoric pre-historic time, and then abraded by rain or torrent, left strange hollows and gullies. Hut he had never seen one on such a scale as this. He was looking into a natural fissure fis-sure in the ground, a long, irregular, winding chasm, extending indefinitely into the distance, but so narrow as to be merely a lip or crack in the rugged surface of the ground. It had not been worn by rains or water; it was too deep for that. Probably Prob-ably the limestone, thrust up originally from the earth's inner core, had been sucked down again in some final convulsion, con-vulsion, while the granite was still half molten, leaving the granite shell about the chasm. And in spite of its depth the cbnsm was so narrow that It almost looked us if a man could have leaped across it. This was undoubtedly incorrect, the distance between cliff and cliff being only apparently reduced by the dense underbrush that fringed the orifice ; liui the distance between the walls, which Inclined Inward toward the summit sum-mit was less than half that of the base. It was just such a chasm as a man might step into in a storm, to certain death. On the floor of this gorge Lee could see a few scrub birches standing primly erect, seeming to he hardly larger than tree seedlings In a horticultural horti-cultural nursery. The fissure extended diagonally of the cabin. Lee began to retrace his steps, following it along its edge, until he came to a place where it terminated termi-nated suddenly In a pile of great rocks of granite outcrop. Two of these rocks stood up, one on each side of the end of the chasm, like monoliths, although It was clear that they had not been fashioned by human hands. Between them was a third, like a monolith that had been flung down. Resting on this was an enormous rock and Lee, who had been walking Into the face of the wind, stopped and leaned against this stone for a few moments, in order to catch his breath. To his astonishment the massive boulder seemed about to topple backward back-ward under his weight. He felt himself him-self slipping. He turned 'round, clutched at the stone, and saw it heaving heav-ing under his gaze like a ship at sea. And then he realized what had happened. hap-pened. The stone was not collapsing, but the pressure of his body had set It In motion. It came slowly to a standstill. Lee pressed his hand against the boulder, and Immediately it was In movement again. It was a rocking stone, and probably one of the largest in the world. The least touch started it, so delicately deli-cately was it poised, but a team of horses could not have shifted It from its position. As the huge, overhanging side tilted, at Lee's touch, he saw a narrow opening open-ing underneath It. His' first thought was that It was that of some burrowing burrow-ing animal. Then he perceived that the sharp edges of the hole had undoubtedly un-doubtedly been made by a spade. Human hands had made it. Lea stared at it until the stone, returning, hid the opening from view. He swung the boulder again, and, ai It tilted, revealing the hole once more, he flattened himself, face downward, upon the ground underneath. The stone, in Its return, Just grazed his shoulders. Lee came to the conclusion tha the hole extended downward beneath the base of the great stone, and, lying flat on his face, he pushed it up with his shoulders. The light that came in as it rocked backward showed him a foothold tn the rrrnnlte beneath the strip of mould that covered it a rock ledge, with gaping blackness below. Then the stone came back Into position posi-tion again, and nothing was visible. Clinging in the darkness to the edges of the hole, Lee extended a foot downward. The toe of his boot struck a ledge of rock. Crawling down, Lee lowered himself until he felt a second foothold beneath. Below that was a third. He found himself descending a ladder lad-der of rock. And very carefully he began working work-ing his way downward. The granite wall was polished as smooth as glass, each foothold was precariously slippery, slip-pery, and he clung like a bat with hands and knees as he descended. But In a few minutes a dim light began to filter upward from below. Lee's head scraped against rock. The light grew stronger. Flakes of snow whirled in. Then he emerged into daylight, to find himself clinging to the interior lining of the great chasm, like a fly on a wall, three-fourths of the way down. The snow was whirling about him, but the wind had ceased, cut off by the precipitous walls of the chasm. Then Lee understood. He had found an entrance, probably the only one, into the gorge; but someone had preceded pre-ceded him, patiently assisting nature in the creation and enlargement of the steps of that rocky ladder, which had been eroded, during the course of millenniums, by the action of a now dried-up waterfall. Only water could have hollowed out that course by the play of the leaping, torrent on the projections of , the granite. Looking down from where he clung, Lee saw that a thin stream trickled over a sandy bed in the middle of the gorge below, issuing from one end, where it burst out of the granite, carrying with It the debris of the alluvial al-luvial land above mud, gravel, and sand. And suddenly the Idea occurred to him that in all probability he had stumbled upon old Polly's gold mine. In which event, what more natural than that Pelly was hiding in that Inaccessible In-accessible spot, where he would be absolutely ab-solutely secure against discovery un-less un-less he had incautiously permitted some one to share his secret? And perhaps Joyce knew, and had come up In order to be with him and to procure food supplies for him. Lee gnashed his teeth at the thought of it. Fortune had played into his hands. The course of true love never did run smooth. Is the break past mending? (TO UK roN'TINTED.) |
