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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1931-12-03, Page 3£ THE O^T'Ir TIME^ADVOCMB Just 19 IIIa 4 fl $ fi .1 and Mirrors A d 4 GOODS DELIVERED ANY DISTANCE J Dorn of. her. about it i Bergelot, with the sumo , and her him her girl h ?i jjSS ■from Chilcotin than The Silver Hawk BY WILLIAM BYRON MOWERY niiniiiiiiiiiiii SYNOPSIS James Dorn, aerial map maker, as- . signed to a territory in the north­ ern Canadian Iloekies lives alone in his camp on Titan Island. . Kansas Eby, his friend fpr the past six years was stationed at Eagle Nest, two hundred miles past, Kansas came over one night to a dance tha£ the Indians were having on the station platform. When the midnight train pulled in he seen a girl come out and glance hurriedly around and then disappear into the darkness: . hurriedly but trace Dorn Pere rived The girl, Aurore McNain, asks Dorn to go to a lonely lake in ; search of her father and she wish­ es to accompany him. When they arrive at the cabin there is no sign of habitation. The girl, Aurore McNain, asks Dorn to take her to a lonely lake in search of her father. When they -arrive there is no sign Of habitation but she tells Dorn she, is going to live there alone.” Kansas followed failed to find any He told his friend and the same night a trusty metis ar- s girl, * e CHAPTER IX “I believe you can, at that! I’ll leave my rifle with you, aud we’ll fix up some rattle-bang contraption on the door for nights.” “You’re awfully kind. Then be­ sides, I know something still bet­ ter.” “What’s that?” * “I can draw a magic ring around • this cabin that no Indian or meti would ever, ever step across. Can you?” “A magic ring?” Dorn saw she was challenging him to guess her riddle, and he thought hard a few moments and finally the same idea came to him. He had guarded his trapping shadk that way one winter when a band of nomad Smokies were loping the bush around him in the Fire­ pans. “Yes, I can. La Mort Rouge. It’s splendid. We’ll do that, Aur­ ore.” Together they put up four red lags on the four sides of the cabin, and Dorn no longei' worried about Aurore’s safety. That sign w!as a symbol of the red death which made •clean sweep of Indian camps and metis settlements in the North. Al­ ways put up in a conspicuous place, the sign was a warning for the tra­ veller not to approach. Any person of depraved intentions, who happen­ ed to glimpse Aurore, would scout the island out carefully to make .sure no- man was there; and would see tlie.‘ grim warning, and that would be all he w-culd wait to see. Shortly afterwards Dorn decided to leave. He knew now that he would be welcome to stay a while longer—until evening if he wished; hut he had done-all to make Aur- ore comfortable, and had no excuse Tor staying the afternoon except to he with her. Though that was- reas- ' son enough for him, it might cause her uneasiness. Thinking only in terms of her happiness, he had at last erased himself from the equa­ tion. When he spoke of going, Aurore teok him- down to the island edge where a mossy boulder jutted out into the lake, and they' sat down • there to talk. Dorn held the paint­ er of his canoe. In the cove at his left his- plane lay waiting for him. With its two pontoons it loolked •like a silver eagle rising from the water with a fish in either ©law. ■ For several minutes Aurore gaz- td out across the water to the tower­ ing southeastern range." Her chin was cupped in one hand; she ,sat very still .and pensive. Dorn noted •the languid droofc lof her dreamy •eyelashes, as though she were look­ ing back across the years of her life. - His gaze followed hers to the • .mountainside opposite. A torrent stair-stepped down the steep slope from the fiery-coloured mesa three thousand feet above her lake, and its overfalls were misty ribbons swaying from side to side in the fit­ ful breeze a band of purest white bring patches of last winter's snow- ‘“You lived jip, wanting the past that was closed for him- to the present moment that he shared. “But why did you so especially want to come back here?” She was toying abstractedly with the laces of her small boots. “I wanted to be alone, Jim. I’Ve got tnuch to think about and get the straight of, And I was a girl here. Lx a way this is home to me.” “You went Outside to a different Irind of life?” he asked, thinking of Ilex* rich clothes and the odour of society which she swept into his lent with her, “You had money; On the high meadow goats were pasturing; they looked like ling- here before,” he spoke to draw Aurore out Of you must have had lots of friends and attention. But you didn’t find happiness. And when you were- in trouble you came home again. A person always turns home then. Did you live just her©?” “No, everywhere- to Dawson. But more here any other place.” “It’s funny—I roamed the territory. I went Outside too, here we are, both back. Our trails must have crossed in the old days. Where all did you go? Were you ever at Whit© Horse, Glen-ora, Cas- sair Bar—?” “You bet I was!” It was the tom­ boy speaking. “I cut my hair off at Cassair Bai" and dressed up like a b'oy, and that’s when I got a spank­ ing. Do you remember Factor Fuzzy Foot------” “I gave him a wonderful thrash­ ing once for cheating me on a tuck of furs ...” For Half an hour they sat talking of places and of people they knew in common, and recounting those queer stories and antedotes which had gathered like barnacles on this mining camp or,-that fur post, From hints that Aurore dropped, Dorn understood that her 'father had been an engineer or field scien­ tist, or engaged in some profession which would talk© him to various places throughout the Northwest. Aurore had been her father’s tom­ boy, and loped the bush with him, to. -Cliilcotin, Dawson, Telegraph Creek and 'Cassair • Ban where she got “a spanking” for cutting her hair off. In that incident could see that her father had been something of ,.a Victorian—a little stern with his girl, but loving so much that he took her with everywhere and personally gave an education such as no other of Dorn’s acquaintance possessed. Then Aurore had gone Outside, probably for a formal schooling, and there this trouble had come up­ on her. It was all the more un­ fathomable— this trouble— consid- ing what a wholesome and sensibly guided girlhood hers, must have 7/beeu, and what a comradely, .sweet girl Aurore was now. ( When Dorn rose and gave her his hand to rise, he asked, “Is there anything, besides bringing your -out­ fit, I can do?” , Aurore said thoughtfully: “Jim, I will ask a couple more favors of you. Won’t you bring me several newspapers, please? To-day’s, morrow’s the next day’s.” Nodding, he thought, “.She’s pectlng her trouble to be in newspapers.” He asked, “What’s other thing I can do?” “You’ll send a telegram for in Edmonton?” “Yes, certainly.” He gave her a pencil and paper again; and then, she had written, he put the message' into his -pocket. “I think' you’d better from some station and have collect, Jim, to avoid going sen to a telegraph office.” “What? Do you mean danger, even .in Edmonton? fax’ away?” “My telegram will be trace’s back. They must never establish any con­ nection betiweeix you and me. With your help I’ve dropped out of sight, here—they to- xne ’phone it it sent in per- there’s That the deeper things, the impulses and emotions that go clear down to the bottom of our lives . Isn’t there anything in your life that you can’t possibly justify to others? iSome thing that seems utterly unimagin able to any othex’ person but you?’ Dorn was thinking of the many lectures Kansas had given him about his melancholy outlook. In­ trospective, he knew the reason of it himself. The first twenty years of his existence—those formative and plastic years—had been bleak and pain-shot His background, his sum of life experience, that slow and unwieldy growth which psycholo­ gists call one’s “apperceptive mass” and which colours all a man’s thoughts and moods and his outlook, had been composed of experiences raw and savage enough to break a grown man. A score of times he had tried to explain this to Kansas, his best friend on earth, but had failed' miserably. So in a general vay he could understand what Aur­ ore meant; and Ife nodded. She added; “I suppose that after my thirsting myself upon you as I did, as I was forced to, you feel responsibility. You shouldn’t, but you do. And you’ll—you’ll come back here/ When you know me bet­ ter, when i know more about you— this is iny promise, Jim—I’ll tell you what I did and what I fled from. But now I’ve told you as much as I dare,” . “As you dare? You told Berge­ lot. Am I an -ogre compared to him?” i Her answer came in a torrent, like a flood-gate lossening: “He’s all compassion, all gentleness.- But you—I know what you’d say and feel and think if you knew. I’m a coward. I don’t want your opinion. It would cut—cut like a sword. You’d see only the bald facts and they’d make me look guilty. Will you take my promise, or do you want to know?” Her offer was straightforward; once again she was prepared to tell him. But Dorn felt her offer as a challenge and knew she was fight­ ing desperately against telling him; and he could not force himself to say, “I want t-o know.” He said: “I’ll taite your promise. If you care to tell me when I bring your outfit, all right. I’m not a bank demanding to know where you stand but a—a—” Aurore supplied the ward .that he hesitated to use. “A friend. Willing to give trust.” ■ They shook hands—upon the word “friend” it seemed; and Dorn said good-bye. Paddling cut to the Silver Hawk, he stowed the canoe in the fuselage and took off. Circling over the is­ land while he climbed for altitude, he1 looked down at the jutting boul­ der, there, looked back, flutter of a four -or five fore he saw brave little true enough—but lie hated to leave Ixer to i tude. standing south he the tiny would he Aurore was, still As he lined away and caught kerchief. It days, he thought, be- her again. She was a self-sufficient soul— this immense mountain Back and he was her trouble I’m being hunted; but ■will never find me!” “They?” Dorn echoed, gladdened to hear that was not with one particular per­ son He had thought all along that she had come upon some private tragedy, bjit “they” sounded as though she were involved in some­ thing bigger. Her next words left no doubt of that. “You’re my only link with the Outside, Jim, and you’ll walk care­ fully, I know. But I want to make you understand—back of there’s money and power lentless purpose—more dream about. There’ll flung out, watching along the Cana- diaiial National, from Hazelton clear to .Medicine Lodge. You’ll be care­ ful, Jim, very careful. One ungard- ed word, one misstep ...” For was in power, words Groping for some light upon her trouble, he asked her a question which sounded innocent and propel' but which she could not answer without giving him some clue. “Can’t you tell me whom -or - to be on my guard against?” Aurore thought a moment,, looked up at him frankly. “It wouldn’t help you any know, And if I told you, it would mean telling everything. If you in­ sist—and you’ve earned the right to—I will. But you wouldn’t un­ derstand, iOne person never can fully understand another. Our or­ dinary, daily acts—yes;‘they’re on the surface, they’re easy to see, But this and 'than bo hunt a re- you ■spies a moment that desperate fqar Aurore’s eyes again. “Money, relentless purpose” — the reechoed" in Dorn’s brain. then to Shopping Days Until Xmas GIVE FURNITURE and reap the benefit of the low prices We have a full stock of Xmas Goods End Tables, Chesterfield Tables, Ferneries, Secretaries, Tea Wagons, Smokers, ARE A FEW SUGGESTIONS. Furniture Dealer Phone 99, EXETER £S the chalet, a pretty mountain-inn of green and white, owned and run by the railroad for accommodation of its patrons who stopped off at Titan Pass to hunt or fish cr climib the neighboring gaints. For the alpine work the railroad had even brought out a Swiss guide. Several of the Indians and metis thereabouts, ac­ quainted with every noclk' and cranny of the ranges, could have beaten the Olberlander a dozen ways; but the poor, • homesick yodeller, be­ ing something foreign, was held in greater esteem by the trappers, and they seemed to think' ,hee gave them more for their money. At the station Dorn came upon a fat, nearly naked Indian squatting against the logs like a gingerbread statute, an immobile as Buddha con­ templating the nave*. “Kat mitlite nika tillicum oleman Luke Illewaswacet?” Dorn demand­ ed in the Chinook jargon. The Indian told hijm old Luke was at Bergelot’s cabin. Dorn strode on up. Behind the cabin old Bergelot sat smoking. His jaw dropped open when he saw who came; plainly he expected Dorn to scorch him with anger for being party to a deception' But Dorn could not think any act deception which had brought him lint-o the acquaintance and the friendship of Aurore McNain.- Old Luke Illewahacet, squatting on his haunches in the sun, was carving a horn spoon for his an­ cient squaw to sell. The aged Beaver was old cynic, a bush Cato, a orynist. In the spring oif manhood he had been hunter among his own people the Mountain Beavers, who had vanish­ ed before the white man’s sickness and bits still tors, over killed no’t by rifle but by ram’s-horn bow. The greasy narkliin or medi­ cine robe flung around his shoul­ ders was pictured with the salient exploits of his life. His ibrown skin was tough as leather, and his face—two beady eyes in a mass -of infolded wrinkles —was a gargoyle .for ugliness, Six­ ty odd Great Moons had not with­ ered him; he had merely dried up' and toughened, like moose rawhide,] like an aged lean panther. In win­ ter he trapped marten, wolverine, mink; in summer he fished and carved, and guided those sportsmen who were wise enough to choose him instead Of “Luke,” Jargon. ‘ You come island, camp in my tepee, yahkissilth so bad-egg Joe Yoroslaf no walk away with my stuff. Two dolla chickamin sun pay. You go, huh?” Old Luke nodded. “Kloshel” Dorn commented, go now get shootstick. I Bergelot two, three minutes, be along you down by ’boat.” When the old Beaver had stalked away, Dorn glanced around to be sure no one was within earshot, and lowered his voice and spoke in French to Bergelot. “Have you no­ ticed any strangers hanging around here? ' “There is a man, ou’. He came from the east on the morning train. He is down at the cabanes of metic, inquiring.” (Continued Next Week) the KILLED IN ACCIDENT Mrs. Matilda Maglearine, aged 83, of Baden, was instantly killed when an automobile driven by her daughter Miss Edith Maglearine, skidded on loose gravel and plung­ ed into the ditch and overturned on the highway near Ailsa Craig. They were on their way to Thedford to spend the week-end when the acci­ dent happened. “ I do secretarial work, and there­ fore lead a more or less sedentary life,” writes Miss L. M. A. “ I lind a small dose of Kruschen Salts every morning keeps me perfectly fit and in good condition. My normal weight is 116 lbs., and having taken Kruschen Salts regularly for three years, I never put on surplus weight.” . :‘eYou cannot put on superfluous flesh when you are as healthy and active as you must be if you take Kruschen Salts. Activity is the enemy of fat;' When you take vitalizing Kruschen Salts for a few days that old indolent arm-chair feeling deserts you — it doesn’t matter how fat you are—the urge for activity has got you—and you’re ‘"stepping lively.” And best, of all you like this activity —you walk a couple of miles and enjoy it—you thought you’d never dance again, but’you lind you’re getting as spry as ever—the old tingling, active feeling reaches even your feet-. One bottle is enough to prove to you that Kruschen will make you feel younger—spryer—more energetic— you’ll enjoy life—every minute of it. HORSE’S LEG BROKEN 31 and were want- en e in­ start- upon three dense CHAPTER X The Great Flight at Titan Pass, Dorn put his tent in order and then skirted across to the mainland in his canoe. A couple of minor details of guarding- h's camp had to be attended to be­ fore he flew oast to Eagle Nest and took the train on in to Edmonton, .but his main purpose was to find out whether there was any stir or whisper of trouble at the jump­ down. Aurore had told him that men would be silently hunting for her, that detectives would be mak­ ing inquiries, trying to pick Up her trail, at all the stations along the Canadian National. If spies searching at Titan Pass, Dorn ed to be warned, for once her ies found the clue of her and ed tracking her down, then he would have to take Aurore’s battle himself. He walked up the path hundred yards through a stand of cedar and yellow spruce to the five acre clearing. On the south side of the station in a drove of jack pine clustered the metis ca­ bins and Indian tepees. A wide sial# walk extended along the tracks where passengers could get off and gaze around at the majestic Titans, and buy trinkets from mans (Indian women) tod on the walk with baskets of berries ana trout in litfle cedar ’baskets. As Dorn camo to the clearing he glanced aside and saw the laurel bush where in the moon-shadows- of last, night Aurora had crouched to hide, and where Kansas had stood like a wooden iSiwash, North of the station wore the H. B. post and Bergelot’s snug cabin. On north nt the clearing edge stood the klooch- who squat­ curios and fresh-caught a lovable stern mis- his young a mighty fight-water. In dress and ha- of life and grave dignity Luke clung to the ways of his ances- His deer-liide skirt rattled all with grizzly claws—grizzlies HERON COENTY JVDOING TEAM COMPETES AT “ROYAL” Huron County was represented in the Inter-County Live Stock Judg­ ing Competitoix at tne Royal Winter Fair by a team composed of the following: Mervyn Cudmore, Hensail Clarence Down, Hensail Gordon Reynolds, Seaforth This team competed against other Counties from Ontario one team from the Province of Que­ bec. Competition was exceptionally keen and, with 33 teams competing, Huron County finished in 15th .place and, although not standing higher in the contest, they made a very creditable showing. In the individ­ ual standing Clarence Down stood in 16 th place and received a award of $10.00. The County will again he seated in the Inter-County Stock & Seed Judging Competitions at the Provincial Winter Fair, at Guelph, -on December 7th and Sth. The members of this team is as fol­ lows: Frank Wright, Kippen Walter Woods, Wingham John Fotheringliam, Brucefield Douglas Hemingway, Brussels The first three mentioned will probably be selected to judge in the Live Stock Judging Competition, while Mr. Hemingway will replace Mr. Fotheringham in the Seed Judg­ ing Contest. A team of horses owned and driv­ en by David Rogers, Huron Road, while being driven by their owner along the pavement, without vehicle or lights, last Friday evening, were crashed into by a motor car driven, by a man named Harmon,a car sales­ man of Stratford; One of the horses legs were broken and had to be de­ stroyed. oBert’s Desire cash repre- Live From a window in a little back street in an Ontario town, a small boy g-azed longingly on the “ball players" in an adjoining lot. A strange weakness kept him resting on a chair or in his cot, unable to join in the fun. When the doctor was called, a glance told him the story, and it was not long before little Bert was hurried off to the Queen Mary Hos­ pital for Consumptive Children. Here the great desire of his life seems likely to be granted. Bert has made wonderful progress, and the nurse says hopefully that in a few months more he will be able to try his prowess In the baseball nine —and what greater happiness could befall a little bed-ridden lad than this? To save many such as Bert from consumption, this great work must go on, helped by subscriptions upon which the hospital so largely de­pends. A gift from you will be gratefully appreciated. Please send it to Mr, A. E. Ames, 223 College St., Toronto. A a younger ibucl< Dovn spoke to l I go way four, back along me him in the , five sun. in boat to keep eyes breeds like Had Been Troubled With Constipation From Childhood Mr. R. D. Grant, King’s Head, N.S., Writes:-—“I had been troubled With con­ stipation from childhood, and nothing Seemed to help me for airy length of time until a doctor recommended Milburn’s Iiaxa-T.iver Pills. I found after taking them a short time that they had regu­ lated my bowels, toned up my liver and consequently benefited my general health in every way. They are something that no household can afford to be without.” each wawa then rt,. ET’m0..?.®8' a dll druft and fiehetftl stores, or luailod dircfct on receipt ot price byThe T, Milburn Co., Ltd., Toronto, Ont. « ..*)