Show TOE STORY SO To help save Alan agrees to By a supposed named Frayne and his to the river In search of the trumpeter With the proceeds bays a new which Is When Slade returns from the be starts out to find the aided by an named Uma-nak and by his old prospector Zeke and Slade goes to Frayne's where be learns that the missing plane Is being used by Frayne to take something out of the Slim a no-good Oyer who has lost bis is Frayne's When Slade attempts to Investigate the plane's cargo ho is knocked unconscious by lie Is by only to be abandoned by him on a deserted Zeke and find Slade's plane and stay to guard Slade escapes to the Is by and bis and be teUs them he has found the missing Qc has also brought a sample of the plane's which turns out to be source of a new kind of They decide to take home and then look for Now continue with the CHAPTER XVI But taking home had Its like was his stubborn But the Flying Padre was insistent And after much talk and finally persuaded the old to climb into the There he crouched down in a with his hands covering his He moaned aloud as the plane took He continued to sweat and shiver on the trip back to Ance once disdaining Lynn's he disembarked with unexpected to be surrounded by an admiring group of natives whose exclamations of envy did much to restore the old man's But Lynn's father was no longer Interested in next he to get in touch with Corporal McGarry at Great This begins to look like a case where the territorial authorities ought to get Lynn showed no active interest in that first she to find Some unlooked-for timbre of determination in her voice brought the Flying Padre's glance about to her I feel we ought to swing over to Echo Harbor an and you of discount his story a But if he's found what he says there it ought to be can said Lynn studied the country over which the faded blue wings of the Flying Padre's plane drifted like a It was country that was new to yet in its general aspects it was oddly She sighed as the Flying Padre banked and turned and settled down on a blue-watered lake where the wild fowl scuttled away at their She remained silent as the pontoons moved slowly in toward n pebbled shore fringed by a scattering of all for said the man at the He sat for a moment in His face looked tired and But when he glanced at Lynn's equally dispirited face he roused is' exactly what we're looking he said with a forced waiting for us and a clean shoreline without we haven't found said the still motionless find was the other's quietly assured response to After getting out his mooring line he rummaged through his cabin equipment for a jointed rod which he kept He ignored Lynn's clouded eyes as she sat watching him make ready his rod and fish in these he if you'll get things ready we'll have a beauty or two for we haven't found she repeated to herself as she mechanically set about her The question of Alan's whereabouts was still in her mind as they took the next and headed deeper into the land of stunted spruce boles and empty A sense of crept her as they flew Then she saw how the plane was veering eastward and her father was leaning forward to study the course of a river that wound sullenly in and out between the shadowy must be he called She took her turn at studying the terrain over which they were The to looked like a She found so little that was consoling in its aspects that she was glad when they temporarily swerved away from its ever-changing course and headed for a district of bolder ridges Interspersed with lakes that lay like pools silver in the morning Some of them were small and some of them were But the heavier tree-growth along their shores told her they had left the Land of Little Sticks behind Some of she also were studded with conical small One larger lake held the ghost of an islet in iti very like a tiny pupil at the center of m iris of you who mustn't take she reminded Lynn's eyes were on that Island as they bore down on It lost its as they drew and took on a new irregularity of Then she saw it was not a dot of It was a gray-winged plane floating there in its bath of She could feel her heart come up in her ghost she cried But the Flying had also sighted the gray wings against the blue of unruffled northern He turned and circled the dropping lower as he Alan's he shouted as his pontoons took the the Snow-Ball Lynn could feel her heart pound as they drifted But no sign of life came from the plane so lazily dragging at its mooring he edge closer and climb But an abrupt interruption came to that movement A rifle barked from the lake bank and a bullet went whining over his As he looked a second detonation echoed out over the lake water and a second bullet whined perilously close to his Then a husky but called across the off that it I'll drop you where you The Flying Padre's searching the made out an unkempt and ragged old figure with a leveled On a rock point behind a moment he detected a second bewhiskered old also with a leveled was the Padre's warning cry to the girl in the fools are firing at Then he turned to the threatening figures on the you on your was the huskily shouted back away from that plane and taxi in here or we'll blow you out o the The indignant man of medicine considered that threat But it failed to stir him into Alan he that to was the shouted called back the want to And He could see the at waver and you'd best swing in here and prove was the call came back to all Lynn was saying from the cabin must be Alan's old miners from the She dropped into the pilot's seat and started the her still indignant father balanced on one of the floats as she veered about and taxied in to the shore as he waded the old man with the rifle regarded him with a skeptical who're was that old man's prompt not announced the Flying rather know who you a couple peace-lovin who've been back on the I answer to the name Zeke Pratt And this is my you know Alan cried we know conceded the embattled that boy's a bit of all right But what's worry-In us is why he back here with his She's there day after and I don't like the looks why we're concurred questioned the them damned swan-hunters who're up to some devilment round here we can't figger They've got a dock and a plane their own hidden under a pile brush over the hills And when we tried to sleuth out they started lead like a bunch of The Flying Padre's face remained thoughtful a moment you take me to the camp of these people with the said you're ready to dodge bullets on the you have no idea why those people are in this pursued the the way they've been and and the ridges I out they was after But they in the right rock for said the were after That failed to impress the two old pitchblende in this neck o the woods all conceded what in heck would they be with it out The Flying Padre had his own ideas about that A plane ferrying a ton a trip could carry a amount of from that uninhabited interior to what good would that do asked any other country on the other side of the From an unmolested port like Echo the Padre pointed a disguised Japanese whaler or even a furtive Russian freighter could pick up the cargo and quietly carry it on to Yokohama or to where it could be transshipped and hurried on to the reducing plants north of the thing goes a trifle wider than you proclaimed the Padre as his gaze went from the two empty-eyed old sourdoughs to the disappointingly unresponsive face of bis this isn't helping us to find she The Padre studied the deepened hollow in her cheek and the sharpened line of the valorously poised know he one seems to weave in with the And I'm wondering which approach will bring the best you take the one we interposed git results all right You'll git in the shape o four-ounce slugs o we'll look over from the air said the Flying He turned to the two ragged figures beside you old-timers ever was the prompt But again Lynn what we should both be she you take Alan's ship I could take ours and be looking for will you asked her can't be sure was her none too satisfactory he wouldn't be away from his ship without some good She stared out over the lonely spruce he'd come back to it if he That means he's somewhere out there waiting for The Padre stood silent a moment She as a been singularly And the best antidote for he had was he can't stand around idle at a time like any more than I But keep some system in your He smiled at her prompt nod of no overnight if I can help got to help said Lynn's can't afford a second searching party in these Mark this as your base and keep a close check on your And If the weather gets head back One of these men will be keeping a signal-Are But the important is to spot your landmarks and know your He found some tiling reassuring in the girl's quiet you who mustn't take she reminded For just a moment the firm young jaw quivered with some darker all I have left if any-thing's happened to The Flying Padre forced a still betting on that bush he stoutly comes out of too hard a school not to know how to take care of And is the-tomorrow we worried about yester BE CONTINUED |