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Show Vl'-" By ARTHUR STRINGER w.n.u.ses.v,c. h' CHAPTER I "Lindy's in!" Cruger, at his desk, heard that cry from a ground-worker passing the open window. He smiled as he looked up from his time sheet. There was always a note of triumph in the call of the port boys when Lindy came in. Cruger got up from his chair and crossed to the doorway, where the sunlight fell flat against the river slopes and proclaimed that spring had come again to the North Country. Coun-try. He stood there until he caught sight of his long-legged bush pilot swinging up from the landing dock. Cruger went back to his desk and his figure-stippled time sheets as the long legs strode into what was over-generously over-generously known as the Administration Adminis-tration Building of Norland Airways. It was a place of plain boards and tar paper, with only the two poles of Its radio antennae to crown it with any passing sense of dignity. Slade, when he stepped into the map-hung office, again made Cruger Cru-ger think of a panther, but this time It was a panther in a cage. He seemed too big for the room. "I'm glad yon swung back early," said Cruger. "And I want to tell you, first crack out of the box, that we're going to take the crepe off the door." "What does that mean?" ques- uonea Maae. Cruger, instead of answering, took up an official-looking envelope. "Before we begin," he casually observed, "you'd better give this the 1 "I'm glad you swung back early," said Cruger, "We're going to take the crepe off the door." "But the Anawotto's as empty as Sahara. Why, the only human beings be-ings north of the Kasakana are two frost-bitten old quartz-pounders, two hall-demented old derelicts who've been bushed for three years and would bump off If I didn't tote 'em in their flour and sowbelly." "You're going well past the Kasakana Kasa-kana this time," Cruger announced. "Into country you've never seen before." be-fore." "For what?" asked Slade. Cruger took his time about answering. an-swering. "For swans' eggs, I understand." Slade's sun-bleached brows came a little closer together. "Just what does that mean?" Again Cruger took his time. "It means we've got a simple-minded simple-minded naturalist out there, an ornithologist or-nithologist answering to the came of Frayne, who wants to be flown north so he can find the breeding ground of the trumpeter swan. I never saw a trumpeter swan. Did you?" Slade stood thoughtful a moment, "Yes, I saw a trumpeter, only last spring. I played tag with him over Lac la Martre. He must have had a wing-stretch of nine or ten feet." "I'd call that quite a stretch," said the man at the desk. "You're telling me?" "They may be Impressive," said Cruger, as he opened a desk drawer, draw-er, "but from what I can gather they're dying oft. And this man Frayne wants to sleuth out their nesting quarters before they follow But what held his eye the longest was the smaller blue monoplane that looked faded and weathered and sadly the worse for wear. That, he knew, was the plane of the Flying Fly-ing Padre, the mercy-flighter and man of medicine who was sometimes some-times known as the Grenfell of the Outer Gulf. And in it the Padre's daughter had gone along as pilot and helper. But never again, Slade remembered, would the clear-eyed Lynn Morlock take over the controls con-trols while her tired father held back the hand of Death two thousand thou-sand feet above the lake-spangled Barrens. That, he surmised, was already a thing of the past. Cruger, as he hung up his receiver, receiv-er, caught the passing look of rapt-ness rapt-ness in the Viking blue eye. "It's just about as big a game, Lindy, as a man could get into," he said out of the silence. "It's still as good as dog-fighting Messer-schmitts. Messer-schmitts. And we're both going to stay in it." Slade swung about and faced his partner. "That wasn't the tune you were singing two weeks ago." Cruger's laugh was slightly defiant. de-fiant. "They had us backed against the wall two weeks ago. I told you our shoestring was wearing thin and we couldn't buck the big companies another an-other month. But Norland Airways is going to stay on the map." Slade's face lost its diffidence. "What's changed the picture?" Cruger's answer to that was not a direct one. once-over." He surrendered the envelope. en-velope. "You know what it is?" "I've an idea," said Slade, after Inspecting the insignia. "You're a quick jumper, aren't you?" retorted Cruger, his eye on the weathered young face that held a touch of discontent somewhere. Slade's smile was wide yet noncommittal. non-committal. "They yelp for flyers," he said, "and while they're yelping they turn me down." He got up from the safe and paced the narrow floor. "I must be bad." Cruger's shrug was a condoning one. "I'd say it's because you're good," he parried. "Good enough to be needed right here on this northern run. And those tin hats happen to know you hold a key position." Slade turned on him. "Did anyone in this outfit broadcast broad-cast that, just to block my enlistment?" enlist-ment?" was his indignant demand. Again Cruger shrugged. "Who are we to interfere with the War Office? It ought to be big enough to make its own decisions." But Slade didn't seem to hear him. "They hot-air about wanting men who're hard-trained and resourceful. Well, I ought to ring in on that, I've kept more than one lemon-crate up when every law of aeronautics said It ought to be down." "You're resourceful, ail right," acceded Cruger, "but you'd be in ) clink with a broken heart after two "l weeks of army rules." "I'd learn," said Slade, "along with the other leathernecks." "But they'd all move too slow for the dodo and disappear for good." "And he's going in to the Ana-wotto Ana-wotto alone?" Slade's brow-pucker seemed one of incredulity. "No, he's taking an over-sized blond named Karnell along with him." "A blond?" croaked Slade. "You don't mean a skirt?" "Anything but. This blond is all male. He's square-headed and gorilla-jawed and looks 'like something that's been worked on by a snarling snarl-ing iron." Slade found the picture unpalatable. unpalata-ble. "But who's your friend Frayne?" he persisted with a shrug of distaste. dis-taste. "Where does he come from? And why does he pick on us?" "That's neither your problem nor mine. But he's the Norland's friend, all right He may be a simple-minded simple-minded crank. But he's so well heeled that money doesn't seem to mean much. And at this stage ot the game we're going to handle a Christmas present like that with care." Slade nodded bis understanding. "But he must have a screw loose somewhere," maintained the younger young-er man, "or he wouldn't be heading head-ing for what he's sure to get in that Anawotto country." "You needn't lose sleep over that," contended Cruger. "He may be after birds' eggs, but he seems to have a working knowledge of subarctic sub-arctic conditions. I didn't And him much of a talker, but I stumbled on the fact he'd been trophy-hunting in the Himalayas last winter. And the winter before he hunted the snow leopard in Siberia and Tibet." "Then I suppose he's English," said Slade. "One of those English big-game guys who go around with a monocle and a tin bathtub." "He's got equipment, all right," conceded Cruger. "And he's paying pay-ing us quite handsomely for flying it in." (TO BE COmCEDJ "We ve both got all we own in this one-horse outfit and we can't afford to see it fold up. While you were out fighting head winds I've been in here doing a little fighting of my own. And I've just got my hands on a reconditioned Lockheed that'll give us a second air truck and release re-lease Abbott and his Postcraft for Winnipeg and Toronto passenger traffic. You'll like that Lockheed. They've slapped a fresh coat of aluminum alu-minum paint on her." "What'll she carry?" asked the flyer. "A pay load of thirty thousand pounds a trip if she has to." "Where'Il you get your pay loads?" exacted Slade, remembering remember-ing how war conditions had put a sag in sub-arctic mine work. "I'm coming to that, stick-jiggler. The traffic's still there, if you're willing to go after it. And I've gone after it. I've under-bid the big outfits out-fits and corraled enough business to keep us busy till freeze-up. I've got Fort Norman oil and a new slice of the Yellowknife stuff for you. I've got a renewal of the Coppermine Copper-mine contract. And what's more, I've got a Santa Claus in spectacles who's handing over enough ready dough to keep our cash tank from running dry." The Viking blue eye became more alert. "Who's your Santa Claus?" "He's a passenger," said Cruger, "you're going to fly into territory that'll make London look like a tearoom tea-room on a rainy afternoon. Cruger sat back, apparently waiting wait-ing for a question. But Slade, with his world to reorganize, merely walked to the window and looked out. "You're flying," Cruger was saying, say-ing, "into the Anawotto country." Slade's turn, at that information, was quick. "What nut's going into that wilderness?" wil-derness?" he demanded. "They go into some queer places, these days," observed the older man. you," contended Cruger. "That fight doesn't look slow to me. And I ought to be over there while the show's still on." Cruger smiled the smile of a man with an extra shot in bis locker. "There was a time," he observed, "when bush flying seemed to stack pretty high with you." "But if you can't get a little excitement ex-citement in your day's work," Slade was saying, "you may as weD give up. And you said, two weeks ago, we'd have to." "Before we go into that," retorted Cruger, "we ought to check up on the all-round dullness of this bush run of ours. I s'pose there was no excitement in that mercy flight of yours to Murray Bay when you picked up those two frozen huskies? Or in finding your Flying Padre when he was stymied on Lac de Gras last winter with a busted propeller pro-peller and a factor's wife in labor and delirious with flu all at once?" Slade bad his own memories of that event. But his smile remained morose. "She had her baby in the plane, four feet behind me high-tailing it for the Fort Smith hospital," he acknowledged. "The nose-over on the lake ice gave Doc Morlock a bad arm, so his girl Lynn had to get busy." The softened note on the name did not escape Cruger. But he let Slade go on. "She knew what was needed, all right. When we were swinging over Lesser Slave Lake I heard that baby give its first squawk." "But you saved two lives, didn't you? I suppose there wasn't any excitement ex-citement in that?" The shrill of the desk 'phone cut off Slade's impending response. And while Cruger answered the 'phone the man in the flyer's jacket walked to the window and looked out Beyond Be-yond the rough-boarded hangar and the landing docks he could see the friendly cluster of planes on the Snya. |