Show TOE STORY SO To keep Norland Airways In business Alan agrees to fly a so-called scientist named and his to the river in search of the trumpeter With the proceeds buys a Lockheed which is When he returns from the starts out to recover the In this he Is being helped by an named and by his old prospector and Acting on a hunch Slade has gone to Frayne's camp and has discovered that the missing plane is hidden Slim a flyer who has lost his license for drinking and is little more than an has been flying It for nut when Slade attempts to examine the plane's cargo he Is knocked unconscious by saves him from being killed by only to abandon him later on a deserted Island because he too has Just taken off after leaving Slade with only a a pound of German army a can of beef and what looks like an empty Now continue with the CHAPTER XIV He placed the knife on the shore Beside it he placed the pound of German and beside that again the tin of After studying them for a long time he reached for the tobacco when he opened proved not to be entirely In to his he found half a dozen steel He stared at them for a full remembering how more than one bush pilot had the habit of carrying such things in his emergency They gave a promise of in case of a forced landing in a wilderness threaded with with a gasp of he crawled about the carefully retrieving the scattered lengths of cord that had been cut from his wrists and The best of them were only a few feet in But he had proof enough of their And when knotted together they would provide him with a fish line that might land anything from an inconnu to a five-pound That gave him the courage to climb the rocky ledge behind him and examine his There was growth enough about he to make a shelter of some growth enough for firewood and the smoking of And along the westerly shore where the slopes ended in meadows his gaze came to rest on a wide field of That gave him new He was alone in an empty But as he stood straight on his lonely ridge of rock he told himself that he hadn't yet reached the end of his Two embattled and odd-looking figures groped their way northward between the muskegs and the rocky hogbacks that stretched out to the skyline beyond Lake Each man carried a rifle and a cartridge belt that bristled with Each was further burdened down with a blanket roll and a grub From the waist of one dangled a from the waist of the other swung a skillet and tea They went stoically slapping at black-flics and until weariness overtook them and a lowering sun told them it was time to call it a Then they made cooked their and adjusted their mosquito and rolled up in their worn and smoke-stained When morning came they broke camp and once more hit the They saw the sun climb higher in the heavens and the muskegs become fewer as they advanced into a country ot bolder rock ridges with a scattering of tamarack along their southern They saw the shadows lengthen and the light once more thin And once more they made and and pushed on on the proper trail all observed Minty as he mounted a knoll and surveyed the surrounding the black-water lake I skirted on my way been folks here before asserted pointing to where scrub spruce had been cut along the hill the first crack out the said had a queer about that two-eyed I knew he wasn't edgin up into this district of ours for any why's he what I'm to find retorted the grizzled old he gits another shot at my It was as they were circling cautiously along the westerly arm of the lake that Zeke stopped short on a ridge crest that ended in a deep-water For moored close in under a there he saw the scarred and sun-bleached wings of a the Snow-Ball sudden LIndy's old crate all agreed the perplexed where's our They still hesitated in their But curiosity finally overcame When they found no pilot after Invading its they regarded each other for a moment of 14 they want to do it said okay with don't like the look Zeke finally are he's round on maintained Minty as he clambered But who remained to assess the cabin's shook a dubious grub and extra gas in he reported when he rejoined his even blankets and fly nets and one V them air you'll see him back here Minty But at the end of an hour's wait the azure of his optimism was shadowed by a cloud or happened to that averred Zeke as his old eyes once more swept the silent rock it's up to us to roost here and keep an eye on his was Minty's don't like the idee o that ship anchored close in here where any outsider could climb said she ought to be is out in the middle o that lake with a quarter-mile water between her and you git her asked as he studied the always had a for how to handle one them And right now that is But Zeke had his own ideas about the could float her out and anchor her there with a couple rock-slabs tied to her he she'd be where no one could sneak up on how'd you git demanded blow up that air mattress of Lindy's and paddle And when our bush hawk shows back he can sail out to her in same he don't show it's up to said find out what's keepin him away from a ship he'd never desert of own free But the shifting of the Snow-Ball to its new berth was no easy And even with the plane safely anchored in mid-lake Zeke's troubles were not The inflated air from the proved a precarious When halfway to in Zeke lost his balance and went with Minty's anxious eyes watching his struggles as he floundered about and finally resumed his perch on the little raft of standing guard on his rock knew what would be and needed at He dropped his rifle and lost no time in gathering wood and starting a The flames were roaring by the time the wet and bedraggled Zeke crawled up the shore His teeth were chattering and his language was admonished git out them clothes before they chill you to the Zeke's shirt was dry by the time he was ready drink his And his ill temper had departed by the time the dignity of clothing was restored to his sinewy old can't squat round these embers no he we've got do is sleuth out them white skinned who're in on our me to said Minty as he shouldered his pack and took up his But at the was busy mounting a near-by He stood scanning the blue-misted slopes between him and the lowering He squinted long and closely at the wooded crest across a wide valley studded with glacial And as he looked he saw a puff of smoke bloom for a moment against the hill-top spruce gloom at the same time a bullet whined over his His reaction to that was He dropped to the far side of the where he lay shouting for Minty to get under But Minty disregarded that He stood with his rifle at studying the wooded crest across the But the whine of a second bullet sent him ducking behind the shelter of a want he cried as he leveled his rifle along the stone I they'll git it after a two-man council of they realized that closing in on the enemy was not so simple as it might they want to do it said okay with There's no reason why two can't play at that dodgin round rock corners to find Zeke our first job is to git trace that If they declined to they made their advance a more circuitous When nightfall came they quartered off at an advancing craftily from rock shadow to rock their old eyes searching every ridge slope and But they encountered no sign of When weariness overtook them one would sleep for two hours while the other kept don't like this lull in observed Zeke as he blinked about the silent me suspicion them swan-hunters might be something over on try barked Minty after a look into his cartridge Zeke's weathered old face remained while we're through these empty pine woods and our personal appetite for they be to Alan's Snow-Ball And I don't want see anything happen to that boy's averred I've still got a trigger to my said to back to that plane and watch there until Alan shows Minty adjusted his blanket roll and tightened his reckon you're right for he Seated on the barren shore of his sub-arctic Alan knew a recurring pang of despair much sharper than any pain in his abused His first he told was to take in the circle of his the only world that remained to His steps grew steadier as he mounted the shore slope and worked his way up to one of the bolder ridge From that vantage point he carefully studied his That he was not so large as it had first So far as he could see it was empty of animal And this seemed confirmed as he explored its irregular Along the rockier shore to the where he had hoped to stumble on he found nothing beyond a tangle of bleached boles and the best of them little thicker than a They were useful only as a reserve of The thought of a fire reminded him that one of his first needs was a shelter of some He knew the north too to nurse much fear of marauding More than wandering bear or his enemies there would be the voracious arctic mosquito and the black-fly that left a burning ring of poison about its Under one of the higher crests he found a rock-jut with an over-hanging lip that made a shallow The floor of that he he could bed with dried moss and sedge The face of it he could close in with loose rocks and a matrix of scrub-timber branches from the near-by It would not only protect him from wind and rain but with a smudge fire going in its entrance it would be a defense against mosquitoes and It for the time be his To it he carried his beef-tin and his his sheath knife and his precious little can of together with every carefully salvaged foot of the equally precious cord that had been cut from his wrists and For on those strands of he might yet hang his hope of With the evening coolness deepening around him he felt the need of a He regretted not having an BE |