The Exeter Times-Advocate, 1931-12-31, Page 7THE EXETER TIMES-ADVOCATE THURSDAY, JWMS Mi MM
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“The Silver Hawk
BY WIUUIAM BYRON MOWERY
lit.
SYNOPSIS
James Dorn, aerial map maKor? as
signed to a territory in the north-
ern Canadian Rockies lives alone
in his eamp on Titan Island,
Kansas Eby, his friend for the
past six years was stationed at
Eagle Nest, two hundred miles
east. Kansas came over one
night to a dance that the Indians
were having ;on the station
platform. When the midnight
train pulled in, he seen a girl
pome out and glance hurriedly
around and then disappear into
the darkness. Kansas followed
hurriedly but failed to find any
- trace of her, He told his friend
Dorn about it and the same night
Fere Bergelot, a trusty metis ar
rived with the girl. o
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.
Dorn goes to Edmonton for
supplies for Aurore and is inter
viewed by a private detective and
the police in his room.
to an actual and living enemy and
thereby caught a glimpse of the
host of others' he had to fight. Now,
in the light of what Aurore had
just told him, that encounter in Ed
monton was like handwriting on the
wall,
As he swathed the trout in leaves
and started up toward the cabin, he
thought: "The way things .stand
now, I wouldn’t have a ghist of a
chance in a set-to battle, I wouldn’t
be fighting one or two or five men
but a dozen or more. I’ve got to
even up those odds. I’ve got to be
ready.
Pass,
wire 1
gun.”
•, When. I get back to Titan
the first thing for me
to Edmonton for a
to do is
machine
CHAPTER XIV
The Mating Moon
breakfast Aurore
Dorn "portage” the
insisted
a couple feet,”
When Aurore
he drawled;
fine. But d’you
above you now
CHAPTER. XIII
"Then you’ll stay for breakfast—.
and awhile afterwards? There’s a
hundred, things on the island I want
to show you, and we can have, a
long talk.”
About herself? Would Aurore
explain away old Bergelot’s “Can
never,” and Soft-Shoe’s blunt
"That’s out”? Was she going to
tell him about that dreaded; spectre
she had fled out of the world of
■men to escape, and about this grim
hunt for her and1 what this man,
H. C.-S meant in her life?
Aurore said: "We’ll go and get
breakfast and then we’ll ‘portage’
the bundles to the cabin. 'Somehow
I was expecting you this morning. I
got up early and had caught seven
of the nicest half-pounders*------”
She stopped suddenly and glanced,
clown the shore-line at the jutting
Jboulder. "But my heavens! I—I—
__>>
"Now what?”
"I had them on a string and I
Wh’s standing on the end of it, and
•When I heard your plane . , . ”
Aurore checked herself again and
flushed under his gaze, and looking
steadfastly at a button on his wind
splitter, he tried to retrieve her
slip: “I-—you see, Jim, I needed
those things so badly and 1 was ex
cited about them—and goodness
knows where that string of trout are
mow!”
"We’ll find them, Aurore,” Dorn
managed to' say, but his heart was
pounding at the thought she had
been excited over, his coming. "Sevr
en trout on a line, trying to go sev
en directions at once—'they won’t
get farther than seven diplomats at
a conference.
He
some,
them
pole,
down
string of trout directly, and took
the fish a little aside from the
boulder where he and Aurore had
once sat. "No, don’t you help,”
he ‘bade her. "I’ll clean them.”
Aurore left him presently and
Tan up the path to the cabin to
start breakfast, and he was alon#
again with sober thoughts.
He tried to reagon down the un
easiness, the secret fears which had
croaked in his ears like a flock of
ill-omened ravens since that near-
<listaster.»' in Edmonton. Wasn’t he
free again, riding the swiftest plane
Ill three provinces, back ’ in his
inighty play-ground of ranges that
was known only to himself? Hadn’t
lie escaped clean-cut from Edmon
ton with his identity unknown? By
a secret automobile trip, by a reck
less air trail of four hundred miles,
hadn’t he out-manOeuVred Soft-
Shoe and that cohort of operatives?
But Dorn felt that his brush with
Soft-Shoe was only a skirmish of
the battle looming upon him. Strip
ped of all sophistries, it Was a
battle over the bodily possession of
a girl. The fear persisted that his
enemies would discover who he was.
if they did, the hunt for Aurore
would, narrow down, tighten down!
they would concentrate on him in
stead of flinging their search across
two
man
pack
who
high
in a, ___ _ .not entirely believed Aurore’s and
Mergelot’s warning-Hiil he ran in
slipped out of his cumber
leather cover-alls and hung
on a branch, and cut a long
and with Aurore he went
to the rock. He snagged the
After
on helping
bundles to the caibin, and when all
of them were piled on settee and
chair and bunk, she made a cere
mony of guessing what was in each
package before he untied it. She
did not suspect that those things
had cost Dorn a month’s salary, He,
would nevei’ hint' he had used his
own money; but as he watched her,
eagerly delighted over every pack
age, he thought: "I’ve bought
clothes for her. iSlie’ll !be wearing
clothes that I bought.”
When everything had been in
spected Aurore gathered up several
bundles in her arms and dis'apper-
ed into the tiny room, and her voice
came out to him:
please go away .
minutes , . .”
Dorn sauntered
knowing what she
his back to the cabin
against the mossy bole
and lit a pipe.
He could laugh now
bering those hours in
out
intended.
he
of
him, when he
after she fled:
only ten acres,
tains; and though he had returned
weeks ago, his work had engrossed
him, and it seemed to him that not
until thia morning, here in the
heart of this lonely wilderness, had
his old aching wish really come to
pass.
There was another and a subtler
reason why those hours were sunlit
to Jim Dorn—an influence which
Kansas Eby shrewdly had noticed.
It seemed to Dorn that whenever he
was with Aurore he caught her in
fectious sunniness. He liked Kan
sas Eiby for that same trait; but in
far more superlative
had power to charm
devils haunting hi&
ground. 'She was a
his hands at, In moments of intro
spection, he wondered- whether life
with Aurore McNain—intimate or
long-continued—would' change him
and teach, him happiness.
But old Bergeiox's "Can never”
rose between him and that prospect,
And other shadows walked with
Dorn that .morning. >He had taken
Aurore’s burden upon himself; she
could be happy because her fears
and trouble had shifted to, him. He
did not know who
for him at Titan
might lia ppen to
very evening fell,
Several times during their tramp
degree Aurora
away the blue
bleak back
fire to warm
might be waiting
Pass or what
Iliin before this
Dorn suspected that Aurore had a
secret purpose In leading lum on
and on through her wildwood. It
was true enough, plain enough, that
she found the most eager kih'd of
delight in. the little mysteries of her
island, and wanted to share them
with him; hut he wondered whether
she was not desperately trying, by
this means, to avoid the '‘Jong talk"
she had promised him,
When they started bach toward
the cabin, and when she said.
"There’s one thing more, Jim, I
want you to see,” he Knew that she
was staving him off, to the moment
of hi,s leaving, any talk about her
self, her trouble, and what she had
fled from.
Fifty paces inland on the west
side of the island a diminutive
spring welled up and cut a tliree-
inch channel down through the
moss to join the lake, It sparkled
and purled ovex* its granite pebbles
and cascaded down its four-inch wa
terfalls with a sound as sharp and
clear as the tinkle of glass oscilla.
From the lake edge Aurora led Porn
up toward the spring, making him
creep the last few yards on hands
and knees. He wondered what all
the caution was about. As they lay
on either side of the streamlet and
looked into the crystal basin, he
saw what.
he saw that.
ore's jittle finger, had iforged his
way "up-river” past all those tre
mendous waterfalls and* rapids, and
had preempted that spring as his
habitation, He saw an incautious
move -of porn's, and darted to oow
under a bracken frond. Presently
when they Jay very still he came out
again, lordly as a great bass in a
Jake, and sailed serenely around his
domain—master and over-lord of
ajj the wrigglers and poijywogs and
eft-things pf the tiny pools,
Aurore glanced across the basing
and her brown eyes were laughing.
‘‘Isn’t he cute, Jim? He's a baby
rainbow, I feed him a couple mon-
auitos every morning. Look at him
strutting, Jimi Majesty will be ma
jesty-even in a hatful of water!""
She added in a moment, "Shall wo
go on?”
"No. I’ve got tp be leaving in a
little while,"
(To be Continued)
Mr, and Mrs. Sidney Jacobs, of
Seaforth, celebrated their 59th wed
ding anniversary on Christmas Day,
A Boy ‘Scout troop has been form
ed in Lucan known as the 1st On
tario Lone Scout Troop under the
leadership of Patros Leader Frank
Zuiibrigg and Rev. L* <?. 'Harrison
as Scoutmaster.
That’s the Sonora battlecry in merchandising!
he commented awkwardly qomprojn.”
ising between clothes and girl.
Aurore laughed gaily, "Come, let’s
go tramping; I’ll be guide. I
oughtn’t to have strutted and made
you perjure yourself, iBut do you
think, 'they’ll do’?”
Her question was a thrust at him
for his callous remark down in his
tent that first night., She was
laughing at his embarrassment; she
thought she had scored,
In his deliberate way Dorn caught
her pointed arrow and returned it
to her. "Step back
he requested; and
obeyed, wondering,
"Yes, they’ll do—do
know, on that limb
—if that isn’t mistletoe I nevei’ saw
any, and you—girl, you’re standing
square under it!”
Aurore glanced up. Her pretty
lips parted in a gasp. She turned
in-confusion and' fled from him.
At* the south' end of the island
they sampled the white strawberries
but found them tart and unripe. In
the open plots, they tramped through
patches of bluebells and larkspur
‘and moccasin flower, and saw an
old lynx wallow in
smelling valerian.
Aurore had told
caught up with her
“This island covers
Jim, but it’s got marvels enough to
last a lifetime, and here you’ll find
our whole northland in miniature.”’
As she led him on and on through
the mossy wildwood Dorn was
amazed at her precise knowledge of
bird and animal and plant. She bent
down a branch to show him. the nest
of a rare warbler, and overhead
pointed out the two birds—a plain
female and gorgeous little male of
red and black and yellow, twirling
around a limb hunting scale insects.
‘That species winters in California,’
Aurore explained, with no air of
trying to appear wise, “but no one
ever knew where it breeds. Will
you bring me a small camera, Jim
—if you happen up this way again?
I want to take pictures, of it and
make notes on its nesting habits.”
Farther on he stood on a log and
peeped into a humming birds’s-
nest, no^arger than a quarter, with
eggs the size of buckshot. Then he
lifted Aurore up, his hands under
her arms, so that ' she could see;
and as he held her he recalled that
when he was matching wits with
Soft-Shoe in that hotel room lie
had intimated he would sell Aur
ore for a price.
The fox den that she took him to
was littered about with squirrel
tails, half-eaten lemmings, the
feathers of a luckless foolhen, and
a dozen carp. There last were a
puzzle to Dorn; he had seen foxes
flip trout out of mountain streams,
but for all his woods experience, he
was stumped to explain how
vixen could catch lake fish
Aurore explained: when the big
lake-bottom trout came up to feed
at night they chased the carp
schools close in shore and the vix
en caught them by wading into the
shallows, standing still, and grab
bing them as they nosed past her
legs. 4
Aurore added: ‘‘I watched her and
the cubs yesterday, Jim for the long
est time. S/he’s a vivid orange-red,
but she must have had a
prince for a-
obediently,
With
leaned
a pine
at i’ emern-
Edmonton
when he felt imprisoned and op
pressed. Here he was free again
in the largeness of a beautiful wil
derness. The downflow of air from
the snowfields had. not started yet;
the atmosphere, clear and sparkling,
was so still that one could hear the
whistling of hoary marmots across
on the mainland. Up oh the fie’ry
mesa a billy-oat and lady-goat and
little goatee were 'browsing in a
patch of aromatic mountain lettuce,
while the rest of the band were
cooling their flanks in a now ra
vine. High above a naked pin
nacle a golden eagle flew in and out
through wisps of cirrus cloud, and
faintly- Dorn heard its screaming
chak-chak-chalc. .Down in the cove
two harequin ducks swam round and
around liis plane, inspecting with
many a quack and abble-gabble this
curious intruder of their ancestral
solitude.
While he waited for Aurore. a
yellow-haired procupine or “Siwash
touch-me-not” came grunting past,
humped and surly, an ambulating
prickly pear, and turned its porcine
eyes upon him for a moment, and
then plodded phlegmatically on;
and long after it was out of sight
he heard in the padded silence its
ugh ugh ugh, regular and slow as
the adaigo beat of a metronome.
During the few days of his ab
sence a wonderful change had taken
place in the fathered kingdom. In
this northern habitat where seasons
were compressed into weeks, the
tempo of life beat swift, especially
swift
wyan
ing.
now,
building nests, and some of the very
earliest comers already were guard
ing their eggs against Wheeskee-
jaun, the robber jay.
When he heard a twig snap Dorn
turned round. Aurore had tiptoed
up Over the moss—so softly he had
not known she was about till she
Snapped: the twig. Ten feet away
in a splash of sun she stood looking
at him, very grave and demure; but
he knew she had deliberately stop
ped in that pool of sun and want
ed him to “admire hei’ in her new
clothes.
iShe was wearing the woods-suit
he hadbought her—trim-belted
jacket and short skirt of velvety
that
just
sock
hem
and
and strong during this Chipe-
Moon-of-the-Brown-Eagle Mat-
All the birds were paired
WOre mating and feverishly
» i
I
provinces. He would be one
against a silent, numerous
, lone-handed against an enemy
had money and influence in
places, and could move police
distant city to action. He had
the
But
That’s the reason for
■i
fcff
bbIIII
p
To'jbers—.Lr’s iVli’
Jobber s
portau°n-
Mil ‘
1
MiM w
■''CLEAR AS A BELL
if
coally-black little
asked: "You spied
foxes! Where did
that? And about
all those other
«o Overstaffed
rieVd.Vorce’
Thv Handsome New
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black
-a consort, this springj
because two of the cubs are crosses
and two are
things.”
Dorn suddenly
on a den of wild
you learn to do
these carp and
things you’ve been showing me—
that’s something you never got out
of a book; something no white man
ever taught you—• *
"Down at Titan Pass there’s an
old Indian, an old Mountain Beaver.
He was our guide when Dad and I
came here, He taught me.” She
Jim; I guess he wanted to
Dorn interrupted.
Old Few-of-
That’s who you mean?"
I guess he caught me
h
Costly Cow
venliolis‘
jacket and short skirt of
corduroy and dainty lace-boots
came nearly to her knees, with
an inch or two of brown wool
showing beneath them and tile
of her* skirt. Snug and warm
durable, the suit fitted Aurore’s
slender body perfectly, and! its col
our blended with the background of
pine and moss.
On her breast she had pinned a
nosegay of bog orchids and golden
avalanche lilies.
Dorn thought: "£he stopped in
that sun on purpose, I’ve got to say
something or she’ll think I’m a
stick. And if I tell her the truth,
she’ll think I’m a—wolf!"
He walked up close to
looking at her from head
"There awfully pretty-—and
Aurore.
to foot.
sweet/1
laughed,
young,
make me into a regular Indian—’
"Old Luke!"
"Luke IllewahWacet!
Words.
And when Aurore nodded, Dorn had
a sudden thought; "I can trust old
Luke with the secret of Aurore be
ing here again. If I need help I’ll
get him. He’ll be
a good one!” And
from the fox den,
Wonder you gave
plete slip that night
I used to be pretty
Stalking through the
made me feel like
crashing along beside you . . ,
Long afterward Dorn remember
ed that tramp with Aurora as the
four happiest hours of his life. This
was the season of the year—-this
Moon-of-the-Brown-Engle-Mating-—
which had been the most precious
memory of his long exile, During
those six years he had longed to see
another April in his native inoufc*
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a good ally. And
as they Weht out
he thought: "No
Kansas the com
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fair myself at
bush, but yoit
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