Show i 35 Vanished Men M m ly GEORGE MARSH Ca I I THE STORY SO for the Chibougamau told six men lost their on the Red Garrett brother of one of the and half-breed arrive at posing as Reflected In the mirror behind the counter Finlay saw a pair of sinister eyes watching the two through a He stretched and sauntered to the a he called to the man who was moving your The half-breed swung around and spik to Reaching the waiting he just had a wire from I'm ordered to map Waswanipi on my way to the Finlay watched the astonishment on Batoche's scarred face shift to a covert look of go to and we'll need another I thought possibly would take the job if Isadore could spare How about got damn good snorted the furious said about He knows the lake and would make a good man for the you know know I knew him long before he went to work for If you see him before I do tell him his old friend Finlay asked about Leaving the dumbfounded Batoche working his jaw in a futile attempt to voice his Garry turned and entered the guess that'll give Batoche something to chew he There was raw terror In Cotter's face as he he's Isadore's The storekeeper gaped at Finlay as if he thought him Cotter shook his waving his hands man plumb he did you ever hear of he's an old friend of Finlay left Cotter a friend of and started for the McLeod sat at the telegraph key as Finlay entered the he returned may be surprised to hear that early this morning you handed me a wire from my department at directing me to change my plans and first run a compass survey of the Waswanipi chain of lakes before proceeding to the The Scotchman I have I can deny I got that but I wouldn't if I were did you do to asked when he and Malone reached the river shore with their tell dat Batoche he mus' be Flambeau talk wid me last must have pleased chuckled he was Den he me big did you say too I get dollar a wid He was like wild I laugh at him and he pull dat But he was He stand too Blaise produced a snub-nosed automatic from his bis from the steel two men with heads together watched the canoe start down river and disappear behind a CHAPTER III For a hundred after passing through Lake the thrashed itself to foam in rock-scarred reaches of broken water or narrowed to slide past timbered hills as it raced off the We Down the flume into the white chaos leaped the On either side boulders pushed up their granite bulk where the river burst to fling spray high in Eddies and cross-currents sucked at her Knife-edged ledges that would rip out her bottom snarled beneath the broken One mistake and canoe and men would be sucked into the maw of the thundering river to be spewed up and cast battered and miles Drenched to the battling always for the safety of the black the crew ran the Peterboro to the first through the worst of panted as they snubbed the boat to study the river channel As he spoke the whip-lash crack of rifles broke through the din of the cried on that Come Finlay caught the blue haze of smokeless powder hanging In the alders of the right The canoe was Blaise lifted his pole with o her Like n galloping horse the Peterboro plunged down the narrow Again and again rifles exploded on the Suddenly the bowman sagged to his knees while his INSTALLMENT THREE Finlay receives an anonymous tetter suggesting that the six men were not drowned as They question the reports from the north that the bodies of the men were found by Indians who declared that the men had perished In pole slipped from his limp is cried the desperate before he goes I'll hold The kneeling Brassard moved his head from side to side as If to clear his brain as Red caught him and eased him to the floor of the The blue lips in the graying face framed the got Then he lost As if it were a a cross-current snatched the canoe from the control of the straining blinded by bursting and whirled Straddling Blaise's body Malone battled to head the boat back into the As he thrust with all his magnificent power his spruce pole slowly bowed Into an but the river had its The boat did not The pole splintered in his hands and he lurched back to escape a headlong plunge into the boiling Again the rifles roared on the Garry felt a sting like the stab of hot iron as his right leg went got he Savagely clamping his he managed to brace himself and follow Red's Finlay prayed that he might hold on until they reached the The shots from the distant point grew The range was long and they were going Finlay's leg was numb propped against the it still under men out of he on the Worse than I Did Batoche pass us in the night on the lake or is it someone He wondered hit if they had lost loyal old hunched there in the was he called fearful of the the came the sorrowful Garry's leg suddenly went In spite of his he sagged to his got me in the be got to hit the No big I Let's get Blaise With fear in their hearts they examined Blaise's blood-caked cried the giant as he traced the course of the only creased some His pulse as If he hadn't got a he'll be as right as rain in a few He's When they had washed and bandaged Brassard's Red inspected Garry's through the thigh muscles clean as a Not an artery That was a high-powered small Pain It's just numb and Shortly Red had his two wounded friends on a spread Working like the moose he Malone soon had cargo and canoe through the alders and back In the The hidden camp was now safe from searching eyes on the opposite Then Garry and Red held a council of your There was an ugly glitter in the blue eyes as they shifted from Garry's bandaged leg to the still unconscious don't think Batoche and Flambeau could have passed us last night and done It was someone How about this Do you suppose he's putting in the summer on the All we have is the knowledge that someone to wipe out a government survey That means they'll pay through the nose to After this thing today it's clef- what become of Bob and the rest who started for as they've started the rough said finishing the- the rapids of the The name of rich fur when brought by causes an Immediate cessation of While the Finlay someone watching oiling of the action of his and shoving it into the shoulder holster strapped under his left arm beneath his lads I know are going to throw a little rough stuff won't work in the It will all be Injun under with no surviving They're blocking the Chibougamau Trail but they don't intend to hang for I don't intend they growled Garry loved Red's weakness for a fight and his berserk courage when he was in but he we're a peaceable sur- i vey party interested In certain other matters on the We can't make the first but while we're running that compass survey of I'm going to make a per- I survey of Jules If I find what I think I it'll be a sweet a dangerous And a dangerous grunted In the morning Blaise was Six days of rest and careful nursing put him on his feet and gave the clean flesh wound in Garry's leg a chance to In the meantime Malone had swum the river below the rapids and found in the mud at the foot of the old Indian portage the tracks of two men and freshly broken brush where a canoe had been At the head of the footprints indicated that the men had come Batoche and Flambeau must have passed their camp on the river in the ambushed and thinking that they had somehow run the gone searching for their supper what do you think of your friends who wanted to give you a demanded Blaise grimaced as he fingered his bandaged if I ambush in dose I make At less dan hunder yard dey start to fire at free men who got to stand up and make good Dey shoot eight-ten time and get two shot straight enough to satisfy said thought we'd lost you when you went down If they'd wiped us there'd have been three more reported accidentally drowned and no proof to the The half-breed's eyes blazed with such fury that his friends gaped in head for plenty he bit off between his we come Who But wan you promise Blaise You give dis Batoche to I take him in dese Brassard's thick fingers reached into the air and clamped as if on a throat But he's only a said puzzles me is his I can't make out Isadore's He must have brains to make such a success of the fur business and yet he's riding straight for a fall with the got a rich placer and to avoid a stampede of prospectors won't register it until he's skimmed off the insisted now we feel we go have look at grunted He drew a villainous looking skinning knife from its sheath and tested its edge with a thick as he to pay for my sore for glad I'm not the old laughed you take the war there's blood on the CHAPTER IV Ten days later the Peterboro was approaching the head of Matagami flanked by black spruce ridges which rolled away to the Finlay had intended to stop at the Hudson's Bay post which his map showed was somewhere on its irregular north as it was hidden in a deep the survey party had passed the fur we go on up the inlet to this Lake asked turn back to hunt for the Hudson's Bay must be pretty close to the said examining his lost ten days According to the map the post is thirty miles' back of us behind a bunch of We'll keep Waswanipi and or is my laughed that the flash of a paddle up there where the lake suddenly demanded The three men stopped paddling to focus their eyes on the distant leave de inlet for announced his black eyes narrowing to slits as he watched make talk wid dem dey know BR |