Loading...
The Exeter Times-Advocate, 1932-01-21, Page 7THE EXETER TIMES-APVOCATE THVJWAK, JANUAKY Si, 1088 The Silver Hawk” BY WILLIAM BYRON MOWERY SYNOPSIS James Dorn, aerial map maker, as­ signed to a territory in the north­ ern Canadian Rockies lives alone , in his camp, on Titan Island. • Kansas Eby, his friend for the ^yrfepast six years was stationed at tJB 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 come out and glance hurriedly around and then disappear into the darkness, hurriedly but trace Dorn JPere Jived The girl, Aurore McNain, asks Dorn to £0 to a lonely lake in Bearch ,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. * Carter-Snowdon arrives in search pf Aurore. of her, about it Bergelot, with the girl, Kansas followed failed to find any He told his friend and the same night a trusty metis ar- A a CHAPTER XVI Old Luke capie, much the better for a few hours’ sleep. In the twi­ light the two of them sat down on the moss in front of the tent. Dorn was aware that he was taking- a decisive step. To no other man on earth, excepting Kansas Eby, would lie have entrusted the secret of Aurore McNuin’s whereabouts, He said in the Jargon; “Luke, I LJpn in trouble, I have many enemies; Yneed, your help, thing; then you whether want t'o help me. wawa that I tell you now is precious It- must never be whispered. 'Be­ fore I tell you . . . •With those glittering black ' e’yes watching him Dorn took out pipe- and tobacco, put a mere pinch in the bowl, lighted it and passed the pipe to the old Beaver. Luke took it and puffed smoke solemnly to the four directions, and handed, the-pipe back. Dorn knocked the ashes’ in­ to liis palm, scooped- a tiny hole at his feet and buried- them ill Mother Earth; and so between him and the old Beaver Indian stood the ancient oath of secrecy, of good faith. As he performed the primitive rit­ ual Dorn thought it a strange com­ mentary on white man’s honor that, this old Indian, who lived in a shack beneath the railroad grace and pos­ sessed little oil earth save the blan- 'ket he wore', would keep his promise inviolate where one white man spoke with a double tongue and an­ other, the richest man in three provinces, would make and break a pledge in the same breath. He said: ‘Luke, up north hundred miles on old Carrier is lake. Seven islands in that and up above it is meadow ‘Where- the foolish-bears” (mountain goats) “come to pasture.” Drawing an imaginary map on the moss, he pointed out where wilderness lake and island .cabin were. “You kumtux place I mean, huh?”. . “Before you born,” old Luke said gravely, “J pitch teepee on island of big pines; hunt siam-siam the grizzly in those mountains.” “Kloshe, you know, Luke, you once took, white man and young white girl to lake of seveii islands,” You remember girl, hull?” “What name, her? In Bergelot’s wawa it nioaii sunrise, huh?” “Yes, Adrore-—Aurore - MCNain.” “Do I remember young sqaw- siche and her father? .... Five Summers I g-o with them north to lake, be hunter, guide. I know her when she only this so-liigh; when she make pies out of mud and pa- poose-doll out of pine-cone and, rag. Over danger places on. trial I carry her in those arms.’0 Dorn thought that surely the old Indian who had known Aurore so well in years past would know some­ thing to light up her present trouble. Ho asked; “You go noi'tli with them five summers, huh? How long ago last time?” “Four Great Suns.” Four years, .'The signs at the ca­ bin hud told him substantially that. Jj’ottr years since Aurore had gone outside. He asked; “You hear, know, anything about her since last trip, huh—-where she go, what she do, what happen to her*” Her father had died, Luke said. Did Bergelot had read- that news to him out of a papers and, they had often talked of Aurore. But since that last trip they lost track of her, I tell you every- can yes or no This two trial lake, Every Christmas time she sent them both a present-—from victoria, from Montreal, from New York, Beyond that she had dropped out of sight. Dorn said ore is living up at that Lake now,” The old Indian started like a hit buck. ’ Huh!” Dorn brought the night she fled from the Trans­ continental, and how he had flown her north to the lake, and a'bout his Edmonton trip, and aibout her en­ emies who were -closing in upon her. When lie finished, chewing meditatively bircli twig. When he lie talked at greater Dorn had ever before known him to. His former guardianship over Aurore, her return now after these years, seemed to have loosened: the strings of his tongue. He ventured, an explanation of her flight—-an echo of tlie vague guess Dorn him­ self had made. He mused; “She mountain-born, When she very little girl, hair pig­ tails, she lope bush like Indian and climb trees like lynx swim like little brown teach her see things eyes never see. And hunt, fish, shoot bow and walk still over forest leaves. “Then she go away. But always mountain-born, always love bush. I think 'Outside in white man’s 'big cities she get caught up like leaf in skookum chuck and whirled alongbut always she hear voice of the mountains; and in end, when she get in some terrible trouble, when .she have sickness no root or herb can cure, then she flee -back— home.” More definitely than that old Luke could not even speculate. Then Dorn asked him; -“You know not what my trouble is, why I can­ not fight these hiyu enemies alone; will you help me protect her?” The old Indian deliberated, like one who dees not enter, .a thing lightly. If he -promised, the. oath would bind him; there would be no drawing• back when, .danger loomed in the 'made a ing his thought in croaking guttural: “I help. What matter I get kill­ ed? We are together in this fight.’ They sat till late, Dorn and the old Beaver, talking across a hand­ ful of fire; and while the wolf howl quavered down front Titan Range and the song of the mountains arose in the night silence, they laid their plans for the struggle that was tightening down to battle. When he awoke the next morning Dc-rn found the air too thick and hazy for cartographing. After mak­ ing old Luke go to sleep, lie wrote up his log, boxed his precious films for shipment, and went over to the station. There we wired to Edmon­ ton for a machine gun, and procur­ ed a box of gelatin dynamite from a meti prospector; and back at camp he fixed brackets in the plane cockpit to mount his gun, and planted a neat dynamite mine around his tent. At noon he roused old Luke and said: “I fly away now six, seven hours-. S’pose you go scouting, find enemy camp, how many men.” After Luke had gone, Dorn made up a bundle of things—the- camera Aurore had asked tor, a few camp articles she had, overlooked, a moth- eaten couple —and Pass. He had a double- purpose in his flight that day: to make his enem­ ies believe that Aurore was hiding somewhere in the western ranges; and after he had led them astray, to fly backi east to her and visit her and learn definitely from her lips whether old Bergelot’s “Cail never’ was true or false. He thought; “I enough‘’’now to ash she’ll won’t She’ll He tell him somethng„. abouti herself. During the hours of their tramp she had about his babyhood, years, lus flying career way of deepening their friendship; she was preparing trouble. Sailing along at he noticed, far away in the north, a heavy thunderstorm covering sev­ eral hundred, square miles and creeping eastward. Underneath Ms ship a lighter cumulus lay in great lakes and pools, slowly gath­ ering# taking on a darker hue. Sixty miles west of Titan Pass he completely ‘Luke, this girl Auf 'lyhat? Living at lake? related Aurore old Luke sat on a sweet- f inally spoke, length than kitten and mink: and I white man’s I teach her days ahead.*. Finally lie decision, and Without reach­ hand to Dorn and with no of money payment, he said bathing suit of his own, a of extra bankets for Aurore started Westward from Titan know her her that, it’s true,tell me. If let a man go on with want me to know,” know also that Aurore w asked him many questions liis wander- , it was her and broadening and' Dorn felt to tell him her moderate speed let the silver Hawk fly itself and turned and gazed back along his airy trial, In a moment or two he spotted a small tiny speck hanging in the sky, It grew no bigger, no smaller; but maintained a 'steady distance, A thousand feet lower than he, it kept dodging in and out of the clouds, taking advantage of them and of the from him, Reaching out drew the enemy machine was a big biplane equipped with pontoons-—a slow and heavy craft. It might carry a couple of machine guns, but it could not -get in range of his swift Silver Hawk. When Dorn judged he had led his enemy far enough astray, he settled down to the job of shaking them off. Twenty minutes after he push­ ed the throttle wide open, the shin­ ing speck behind him dwindled to a pinpoint and vanished. To make a sure job of abruptly north, saw-tooth range valley, got down cloud stretching peak-line, hummed north thirty miles into the oblivion of the thun­ derstorm area, and whirled (back east. Two hours later he sighted the huge star-shaped glacier overlook­ ing the Lake of the Dawn. CHAPTER XVII “Can Never” . While Dorn was speeding his landmark the glacier, . McNain was sitting on a rock west side of her island where the sun beat down warm and golden and life-giving. With thunderstorms humlbling in the nioutains like distant battles drawing near, the afternoon was hot and sultry; and Aurore had been swimming in the cool water of the lake. Her hair floated down from her shoulders and spread on the moss behind her; .she was sitting pensive, her arms about her knees, watching out over the lake where a pair of band-tailed pigeons, graceful and rhythmic as a poem in motion, tilted- and volleyed( in‘"tne-lr. airy mating dance. , Aurore was thinking very earn­ estly, not of what lay between her and Henry Carter-Snowdon, for the mountains to hide his binoculars, he ship up close, The it, he cut over a mountain whipped into a under a blanket of from peak-line to toward Aurore : at the past was irrevocable now, and she considered herself safe at present from pursuit, but of a- new crisis, come upon her all suddenly—-het relation with Jim Dorn, Since yes­ terday, when she saw unmistakably that Dorn wanted her, he had been trying to force herself to a decis­ ion which dismayed ner oand from which she shrank!, hut which she felt driven to 'by all Jim Dorn had done for her and by a tender sym­ pathy for his happiness. $he thought; “I must shield Jim. Whatever i do I've got to spare Jim. When he speaks of a terrible wreck he calls it a ‘crack-up,’ and that’s what this will be to him if I let it drift on and he conies more than At first of Dorn, Very stern Pad Bergelot had called him, and prdbably he was a sword to other people. She still trembled to think how severe his standards were and how terrible his judgment of her would be, afraid of knew that but hers, herself, and puzzled by her It bewildered her, he does.” Aurora had, because he and strong, :o like me* been afraid seemed so A sword, she was no longer personally, for she power was not his, was more afraid of own feelings, It bewildered her, it was a new and startling experience, to remember that yesterday, when she realized that he wanted; her, she was not frightened, as she should have been, and did not think the less of him for it, and did not want to send him away, * Certain incidents between them lingered in Aurore’s memory with an intensity -out of all proportion to their significance. She kept re-liv­ ing those moments when Dorn had lifted lief with one ami into the Silver Hawk that first night had raised her so lightly and to peer into a huniming.,bird,,s She thought:- “But if’s^hot strength; it’s his character, that’s why—because :ie*s got char­ acter, and would never let himself want a girl unless lie loved her— that’s drift.” (She ward, yesterday. I did hint te- him; I said I wanted to keep his respect as long as I could; and he wouldn’t believe me.” “ But Aurore’s reluctance did hot spring from any cowardice.. (She reasoned; “He would never come here again. He’d send that partner of his—Kansas—to take care of me.” .She could not bear to think of living alone there without the prospect of Jim Dorn*c company, or of 'cutting herself, off from him and new seeing 'him again, She would say^T hope he won’t visit me again for 'three or four weeks’ ; but while she sat there oil the rock she- fre- hut him the She and eaily nest, his And why I mustn’t allow this to accusea nerself: “I’m a co- I ought to have told him I did hint to him; I quently turned her head to look at the south#pass, where sue expected him te appeal’ out of the when he did come. Aurore could remember the exact words in which told her about his lite set her to thinking she was alto­ gether a worthless creature compar­ ed to jflm Dorn, She thought: “I had every chance, and now see what I’ve come to; while Jim—Jim didn't have a chance in the world. He was robbed of everything when he was a baby three years old.” Last night she had lain awake, watching a star through her' window, and remem­ bered about that big man his father and the wild-flower garden and the blue-eyed girl who told his- elfin stories, and that autumn day at the first fall of snow; and Aurora had cried a bit a'bout that. Dorn had spoken carelessly of his early hardships,, but he knew what it meant for a boy in his ’teens to work and live with tee rough men of a timber crew, and live ah in a Ifnely trapping shack, been terribly bleak and cold, had built character, Sue .clouds almost he had and that winter It had but it could imagine him going Out, purposive, with no softness or idleness about him, and joining that picked body of men who flew, and becoming one of them and one of the best of them. Those early years had built char­ acter, but Aurore knew they been too bleak and too hard, could see the effects of them Jim Dorn. At times she did not think of him as a man who -could lift her with one arm, but as a per­ son who needed her care. In her thoughts of him at such times there was a good deal of maternal tender­ ness. She wished; “I’d- like to take him and—and see if I could make him happier and make amends for those early years. But instead of that, I’ve got to . . . and she went back to her fight with herself whether or not -to tell him, and she had made no decision when Dorn came. She first heard a singing whine which seemed to come from nowhere and which grew steadily louder un­ til, high above the glacier, she Saw the Silver Hawk wing m between two heavy white cloud’s and then sail out into the unbroken blue above As down Stood thousand feet the machine levelled ojf and flew in circles; and after a few moments, of wonder Aurore understood that Dorn had seen, her, in bathing suit#., and was giving her a chance to change clothes if she wanted' to; She' hesitated* a little till she remembered he lia-d .said something about fetching a bathing suit,, and guessed he had brought it this time and. might like to go swim­ ming. Hurrying across the island, she got a 'blanket at the cabin by way of dressing robe, and ran to the cove. Dorn dropped down, taxied close in, and paddled ashore with a pack. As they shook hands Aurora saw Dorn’s quick, disciplined glance at her throat and loosened bait, noticed how be made himself then at her eyes. He stopped unbuckled the pack to show what he had brought. She thought: “He knew I didn’t need them so- his work took him up near here,”' She saw his bathing suit and said: “If you’ll go up to the cabin, Jim, I’ll wait for you.” -She watched till he had entered the door; then turning, she looked at the Silver Hawk, wondering why Jim Dorn had come; and ally, slipping the blanket from shoulders, she swam out to the plane. Standing on a pontoon, peeped into the cockpit, She some new brackets which Dorp lately fixed against the sides some purpose, but his big aerial camera’"was not there. (Continued next week) * and look and her just tin­ ker air- she saw had for had She on LEG BROKEN BY BUS While Mr. C. Howard, driver Of the Exeter to London bus, was pro­ ceeding north towards Exeter from London he had the misfortune to run into Mr. R. England’s daughter, Beatrice, and break her leg. For­ tunately the back wheels of the ve­ hicle did not pass over -her or it might have .been -more serious. -Dr, ■Scott, of Lucan, was called and had her taken to London, where her leg was set and at present she is doing nicely. .JAMES O'SHEA her. the airplane came spiralling toward the island, Aurore up and wavea. At three The funeral of James O’Shea, of Lucan, Look place to St. Patrick’s Church and cemetery, Rev. Father Lucer officiating. Deceased-, who was in his 73rd year, was [born in Biddulph Township but, had resided in Lucan for over 44 years, during which time he carried on a shoe re­ pair business. Though in ill-health for several years deceased was not taken seriously ill until six weeks ago. Mr. -O’Shea was twice married, his first wife being Ann Casey,, who died li5 years ago. His second wife, formerly Margaret McCaffrey, survives. He leaves also two daugh­ ters, Mrs. Cronyn, of Walkerville, and Mrs. Klemm, of Chicago; 'two- brothers, Michael and Daniel, this village. well And 1932 ould Roadster • All prices at P R O D U G ED IN CANADA Standard Phaeton, $735 Special All-Weather Phaeton $895 I MOTO** IrwWCTS Standard Sedan $845 Business Coupe $725 . Standard Coach Special 5-Passenger Coupe $825 ' Special Convertible Cabriolet THE Great Canadian Value for 1932 is available in a model for everyone! Thirteen different models comprise the complete new Chevrolet Six line . . . Styled and appointed in ultra-modern manner by Fisher craftsmen . . . With the roomy comfort typical of Fisher Body design ♦ . . And strikingly arrayed in the new year’s happiest color harmonies. Each of these fine cars gives you the thrill of Silent Syncro- Mesh gear shifting combined with free wheel­ ing. Each is a smooth, modern 60-horsepower Six. Each has Chevrolet’s famous economy and dependability. Before you buy any low-priced car—come in and learn how little it costs to have a new Chevrolet Six. Ask about the easy GM AC terms. And the lasting satisfaction assured by the General Motors Owner Service Policy. factory, Osbawa — Taxes extra. Special Coupe (Rumble seat) $800 Standard 5«Window Coupe, $745 Standard Roadster, $635 SNELL BROS., EXETER, ONT. HEAI.EKS — JOHN PASSMORE, HENSALL, ONT — ASSOCIATE C. FRITZ & SON, ZURICH, ONT. tlsteft to General Motoi-s’ ln-Oatosls ot all Maple Lost Hockey team’s home, games from CFllii of CFCA at » p.m.