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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1932-01-14, Page 3THE EXETER TIMES-ADVOCATE | “The Silver Hawk”j gf- BY WILLIAM BYRON MOWERY 3 sxxorsis James Dorn, aerial map maker, as* signed tQ a territory in the north­ ern Canadian Rockies lives alone In his eamp on Titan island. JKansas Eby, his friend for the past six years -was stationed at Eagle Nest, two hundred miles east. Kansas came over one jaight to a dfince that the Indians were having on the station platform. When the midnight train pulled in he seen a girl <?ome out and glance hurriedly around and then disappear into the darkness, Kansas followed hurriedly hut failed to find any trace of her. He told his friend ’ Corn about it and the same night Pere Bergelot, a trusty metis ar­ rived with the girl, 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 1 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. ■ Carter-Snowdon arrives in search ■of Aurore, CHAPTER XV ** You say she’s your ward . Then you can explain what made her pitch off as she did.” Carter-Snowdon thought for a moment, Dorn watching him. “I rather believe it is just a cheap bid for notoriety, She plans to .stay out of sight awhile, then come back with some sensational story: kid­ napped by the Indians—some nar­ rative of that sort. It’s been done before. (She’s young, * .flighty; ijii- clined to. ape others. ‘You under­ stand I don’t want anything like this connected with my name.” Dorn knew the explanation was a lie from start to finish. Vividly he remembered Aurore’s fear when .she -stood, under the electric torch of his '■tent. That terror was real; it had shaken her like an aspen leaf. And she had been glad that her trouble was not mentioned in the papers he 'brought her! Even weightier proof with him, when, he recalled their tramp a few hours ago—how she had showed him no.t the sensational but the quiet, unob­ trusive secrets of her island—he knew a notoriety stunt would be ab­ horrent to hei' very nature. He demanded: “I asked, what's she done? I don’t care to listen to falsehoods about her. .Have you got any right to know where she is?” Carter-Snowdon reddened at Dorn’s mailing his lies, and unthinkingly admitted his lie ,by snapping, “I ■don’t consider it’s any of your af­ fair, . my man.” The domineering toile angered Dorn. He knew now that Carter- Snowdon’s apparent friendliness at first was based on. the belief that the .mere utterance of his name would overawe a cartographer, and that a good-sized briibe in addition would settle the matter quickly and discreetly. It was Dorn who flung down the ■gage of battle. “In that case, it’s none of your affair where she is. You’ve got some reason for wanting to find her, but It’s the kind or reason that you’re ashamed to tell a man face- to-face. Ashamed toilet it be known. Whatever it is, you’re a jim-dandy —■hounding a girl with your money and your hired snoopers till she's fear-stricken and near driven crazy. You’re wasting your time here. If you won’t come ’clean, I don’t tell where she is; and you’re going to have one heap-hell time finding out.” Soft-Shoe produced an automatic, stepped back a couple paces out of reach of a lunge, and covered Dorn- Dorn was rather amused at this move. In a city alley Soft-Shoe might be a capable person, but in the bush he was a babe in the woods With his own hidden automatic, shot from the hip, Dorn could have cut him down. But that was not at all necessary. He considered ’Cosily: “When the time comes. I’ll take that gun away from him and slap his jaw. But first—maybe here I oan find out something about Aur­ ore’s trouble.” “Now, fellow,” Carter-Snowdon demanded, “you’re going to tell where she is, I’ve wasted five days in these damned mountains already, If you won’t talk, we’ll take steps to make you talk, You had your choice to get a handsome sum, but you piayed the fool—the fool over her, I suppose it was a nice pros­ pect—to have her somewhere and go visting," In the man’s tone, more than by wlmt he said, Dorn detected some­ thing new and startling—a smould­ ering, primitive jealousy, Unmistak­ able; it was stamped on his pond­ erous face and thick lips and on his cheeks minutely viened with red. Dorn perceived, he was forced to the conclusion, that the relation' be­ tween Carter-Snowdon and Aurore was a personal one. Whatever other factors entered in, the man loved her, with a jealous, sensual love; for the mere thought of another man having her in his keeping un­ leashed the primitive brute. What was that relation? Had Aur- ore been engaged to lpm and. jump­ ed the engagement? It would ex­ plain his jealousy, It might pos­ sibly explain her flight and his search for her. But it was repug­ nant to think of, and incredible; and more than that, it was flatly impossible. For Carter-Snowdon was married. In a batch of papers sent to him when he was abroad Dorn remembered reading about that marriage. And Aurore was not his wife. His wife was. a girl from the Maritime Provinces, the daugh­ ter of a cabinet minister. An Ed­ monton paper had run a scorching editorial on making political capital out of sacred matrimony. In his aching desire to i’nd out what that relationship was, Dorn deliberately played upon the man’s jealousy. With studied provocation. “Yes, it is a nice prospect-—with her You said it.” ’Carter-Snowdon flushed down to his collar. 'You—d’you think she’d have a nobody like you—even if she could? You damned fool, she’s "rich, well born, out of your class. She’s us­ ing you. When she gets through with you she’ll throw you out of the window like a banana skin!” Even if she could. For a third time, that warning, that ‘blunt state­ ment! Dorn felt himself very near to Aurore’s secret. Enraged a little more, Carter-Snowdon would blare it out. “You may be hog-plastered with money and own half the province,” Dorn, thrust .another javelin into him, “b.ut as a man yom-don’.t stack up so very high in hei’ estimation.” Carter-Snowdon’s fists clenched and unclenched. In liis whole life he had never been spoken to with such studied insolence, with such presumption of equality. All h's baffled and pent-up anger of the last five days broke out, as though Dorn had pulled the key-log in a jam. It was Soft-Shoe, watching the drama with liis fish-cold eyes, who saw Dorn’s purpose and checked Carter-Snowdon from blurting out the ugly fact. “.Sir,” he spoke up respectfully, “you shouldn't answer him. He’s trying to learn from you what she’s afraid to tell him. No. use letting him know anything about it, sir. If you please, I’ll take him in hand and he’ll talk for me.” It blasted Dorn’s plan. Carter- Snowdon drew back from the trap into yvhich Dorn had nearly led him, and swallowing his anger, lie snap­ ped at the detective: “You said you would make him talk. Well, get busy on him!” With no hope of getting any in­ formation from thes» men, Dorn no longer cared to bandy words with them. But before driving' them away he proposed to put a little fear of the Lord into this pair. Tlis blood was running hot. That re­ mark about Aurore—his visits to her, the nature of his. intimacy with her—-burned his ears. Tie proposed to have satisfaction for that insult to Aurore. But first the detective had to be disarmed. That looked like a sui­ cidal attempt; the man was fully twelve feet away, where he could several times before Dorn could reach him, and his heavy automatic, covering Dorn, did not waver. Dorn looked at him fixedly for a moment. Then his eyes travelled to the bush behind the detective and lie made a slight motion with .his hands, as though gesturing to some ally of his who was creeping up to get the drop. ’Soft-Shoe saw the gesture and whirled around to- face this suppos­ ed enemy. Dorn stooped, picked up a broken tent peg, fuhg it with all the power of his arm, and then lunged. I’ll© hurtling missila caught Soft- Shoe across the chest. It staggered him, knocked the breath out of him. Yho next moment Dorn closed in, clutched his gun hand, held it up, and his right fist smashed into th© detective’s midriff with a sickening thud, Soft-Shoe slumped against a sab- ling and doubled up on tne ground. Kicking the automatic aside, Dorn turned on Carter-Snowdon. He sized up his bigger enemy like a woodman the tree he intends to chop down. Those lianas were big and meaty, those shoulders power­ ful; Carter-Snowdon was two inches taller and forty pounas Heavier; but he carried an inch or two of fat un­ der his belt, and he had the white skin of a person who takes liis out­ door life with gloves, on. Dorn slanted up to him, blocked a furious, clumsy swjng, and drove ip that right of his hard to the jaw. Carter-Snowdon was too bi.g< too ponderous, to be knocked down by a single punch, but it took all the starch and pomposity out of him, and for once he was a plain human being in fear of his. Kre, An ashy- gray pallor spread over his face. He 'backed up, Dorn following, try­ ing to get close for a second, blow, In liis retreat lie stumbled over Dorn’s wood-pile and sprawled on the ground. Dorn took that mom­ ent to glance around at Soft-Shoe, who was trying to pail himself up by the sapling and recover his au­ tomatic When he wnrried tn Car­ ter-Snowdon he saw nis enemy scrambling up with the doulble-bit axe in liis hands, Dorn whipped out his revolver, made him throw the axe aside He was thoroughly mad this, time when he closed in again; coldly fur­ ious at the attempt to brain him with an axe when lie had given a man a square chance to get up. He took a solid blow tp the face, but his right went smashing home to the jaw. It snapped back his enemy’s head; dazed him. A left stab knocked Carter-Snowdon to his knees. With that remark still burning his ears Dorn struck him once more .... a. long-swinging right ... He stepped over, picked; up the detective’s automatic and came back. Carter-Snowdon was still lying senseless on the moss. CHAPTER XVI The Ancient Oath For several minutes Dorn and the detective worked with Carter-Sinow- don before they 'brought him around. When his eyes did flicker open, Soft-Shoe plucked at Dorn’s gleevp, and walked aside, ' Curious, DdTn followed him. “I’m fading out of this trick',” the detective said curtly. “Don’t cot­ ton to it. I'm handling his men and drawing some- royal long-green, but I don’t give a gin-damn how much money’s in it. I'm done.” “What do you mean—you’re done?” “Quitting .cold On the job. I draw a line. This trick is a little on the off side. I’ll keei) tab ca husbands for the alimony sisters, but damned fi’ll help hunt down Miss McNain. I can’t dope out why she done what she done, but she’s a plucky little skirt Everything he said against her, that was all’ hooey. I was about sick of the job before you put up that scrap. Now I’m burned out complete.” The man sounded sincere. There might be a human soui Dehind those Cold hazel eyes; he might have ex­ perienced a sudden revulsion for his job. But Dorn was wary, and scented a trap. * He demanded: “Just what did McNain do? What’s bar connection with this man?” “That’s her story and his. She’s afraid to tell you and- he dOn’.t want, it known. I don’t double-cross any­ body. But I want to give you some advice if you’ll take it. I said once, if you don’t pull out of this affair the Dominion isn’t big enough to hold you'^ That’s what I mean. You don’t know what you’re, up against.. Don’t think she knows all she stir­ red up either. You got a battle right ahead of you, and you’re -go­ ing down and out, D’you know how many men lie’s got on this job?” “A couple ddzen, likely,” “Couple dozen—hell! Fifty! And some of ’em are just as good at this bush-work as you are. How do you expect to hold out against all them? How do you expect to save her—with all them out to get you?” “Now listen. You called me your Christian friend once, and that’s what I am now. I want to give you a right steer. 'There’s only ohe thing Miss McNain can do, I know what it is. I want you to take hei* a letter from me, She’ll understand what I say. 'Take it to her right off—don’t waste time—to-morrow, at the latest,” Dorn suddenly saw through the detective’s scheme, His hands itch­ ed to wring the fellows neck andj throw big carcass into the lakq. open hostility lie could pardon. But uii* dor cover of friendliness soft-Slwe had tried to stab him. In tones of human sincerity ho had masked a fiendish trick, Dorn dhl not betray that he’ guess­ ed the plan, Quite as poker-face as the detective, he agreed: “AU right, I’ll take her the message,” .Soft-Shoe held ent his hhhd» ’You tell her to do just as I say, H’s the only way she can save herself. If you’ve got any doubts about this, between you and me, I’ll give you my word of-. “Don’t bother,” Dorn hade him, He appeared not to notice’s the de­ tective’s hand, “Go in my tent and write your letter,” He turned away and helped Car­ ter-Snowdon to his feet. It occur­ red to him that now while he held the power of life and death over his chief enemy, he perhaps should make the man swear he would abandon this hunt for Aurore Mc-; Nain and never molest her, “But what would an oath mean with him? . Dorn reflected, “He’d break it the minute he’s out of gun range.” Soft-iShoe came out and slipped him the letter. Watching liis two enemies shuffle down through the spruces to the boat they had come in, Dorn tore the envelope to bits and laughed sardonically. The de­ tective had given himself away; had spiked his own plan, Dorn knew that Soft-Shoe was expecting to trail him to-morpow, Expecting to dog him on liis airy path and discover Away with Waste! That’s the Sonora battlecry in merchandising! That’s the reason for Sobbera— ® Jobber s V s„ housing- , Doubled portatio«- o 0versta®e^ field l?orcS- Unnecessary Selling CoSls- SONORA DEMONSTRATING CENTRE HOPPER’S FURNITURE STORE Aurore’s hiding place, The letter was a decoy. His enemies were after him in an airplane, ; Late that evening, when porn had shaved, and dressed his battered knuckles, and eaten supper—a lone­ ly meal after his. pjeawast with Aurore—he hailed a meti passing in a canoe and sent word for old Duke to come over and see him. It was no comfort to remember he had whipped and humiliated those two men that afternoon. His triumph was a barren one, with no consequences except Indeed that now Carter-Snowdon’bore Mm a person* al enmity, Henry Carter-Snowdon had been knocked down, knocked out, by a mdn’s fist, and the devil would be to pay fop that, Looking at the whole situation Dorn reflected: “At first they were hunting all over two provinces for Aurore; now it’s narrowed flown to: my cartogrphing territory, .For a while at first they hadn’t the faintest clue to her; now they knew I’ve got her somewhere and they’ve tracked me down and it’s a ques­ tion of days or maybe hours till they train their guns on me," He thought grimly, “They're an effi­ cient outfit—nailing me there in Edmonton, waiting for me here,” This search remindea him' of a T&# MfmiJsome New Pentotlyne Radio SIMCOE MODEL A 7-tuibe Super-Heteroclyne set employing all the latest developments of this circuit—all parts the best obtainable—'precision built to give the maximum quality in tone- and selectiv­ ity—encased in cabinet of artistic design, With front of Italian Laurel Wood and California Walnut, ■ . • . With 7 tubes $67.50 5 tube <1*Set 'P O & .hunting -eagle spiralling in narrowing circles, closing in relate lessly, till its wings, folded and it shot down upon its prey.. Their next stop would he an at­ tempt to capture him. He was quite safe' from a bullet n the ba.cikf, be­ cause he was the only mortal who knew where- Aurore was, and they had to have that information, Soft-* Shoe’s words, “He'll talk for me,” wore ominous warning. That alley­ wolf probably knew methods to loosen the tongue of any man. With a threat of torture facing him now, Dorn reasoned in hard, practical fashion; “By day, in the Silver Hawk, I can take care of my- sold. But I can’t fly in the daytime and sit up with a rifle across my knees at night. I’ve got to sleep* anfl sleep relaxed. If old Duke is on guard out in the spruce shadows, they won’t sneak past him; and I’ll be safe at night. With a rifle and automatic apiece he and I could Put up a'wonderful argument, A Ayna* mite fence—wires- strung under the moss, this whole area around camp- mined—that would: help out wonder­ ful too,” (Continued next week) If you seek a change of scenery you can stay at home and watch the bill boards.