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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1932-03-10, Page 3THE EXETER T1MES-ADV0CATE “The Silver Hawk BY WILLIAM BYRON MOWERY gsgiimiiiiiiiiill gmllllillllllhlll SYNOPSIS ( James Dorn, aerial map maker* as­ signed to a territory in the north­ ern Canadian Rookie^ lives alone in his camp 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 lie seen a girl come ent 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 ‘ Pere Bergelot, a trusty metis ar­ rived with the girj. The girl, Aurore McNain, asks Dorn to go to a lonely lake in ■earch of her father and she wish­ es to accompany him where she remains in hiding and Dorn car­ ries supplies to her by aeroplane, Carter-Snowdon arrives, and with the help of some ’breeds is trying to locate her. Luke, the trusty eld Indian, who knows her secret hiding place is captured and Dorn is trying to free him from Carter- Snowdon, Luke is rescued and finds that the, half-breeds are closing in on » Aurore’s hiding-place, Dorn stationed Luke near Aur­ ore’s cabin and as Joe Yoroslaf approaches he shot him. Aurore accompanied Dorn on his trip and they were attacked by 'Carter- Snowdon’s men buit escaped the time, III l»r, for CHAPTER XXIV the point The spirit thermometer of cockpit dropped to freezing when he was level with the snow­ fields, and to zero when he was sev­ en thousand feet higher, and kept dropping, dropping on below to Arc­ tic coldness as he climbed aloft. The Bighorn’s Looking Glass speedily dwindled to a mere splash of blue, and the lordly mountain cradling it shrank to a small foothill under the keel. With every rising spiral of the Silver Hawk the horizon unfold­ ed a more distant vision, disclosing new faraway ranges—range upon range standing above the aerial haze and stretching out of sight in the miniature of immense distance. But be went cn up, up, up, sweeping the heavens in great circles, as though lie meant to climb to the roof of the world. Far westward toward the Pacific, Aurore and he could see a dozen black thundertsorms, their lightning flashes jabbing like white snakes at the mountains. Eastward over the foothill country hung the pearl-grey haze of forest fires. North and the limit of vision mighty Rockies, the the North American .south beyond stretched the backbone of Continent. The-gky gradually became a deep­ er, darker blue. The sun’s halo dis­ appeared, and’ the sun itself Avas ___—ig cop- In that lifeless re­ ts rays had cheerfulness. An in­ thin flakes wind—stung merely "a bright,.. d.igd‘b’f dazzlin; perisli^uibur. W'idn of the upper air 3io warmth or visible ice—incredibly Tiding level on the him like tiny daggers. At twenty thousand turned to Aurore. iShe was leaning forward close behind her windshield her breath had formed rime frost on the mask he had fashioned for her. But she freed her mouth for an instant and smiled back at him, knowing now what his adventure was; and he pursed lips answer­ ed his unspoken question: “Yes,’-.Tim’ Yes! On up, up . . .! Each thousand feet above twenty came slower, harder. Always Dorn kept an eye -on that dot of blue be­ low him, where he could glide down to a dead-stick landing in case the engine failed. And he kept strict watch over his body, his senses, His breathing was laboured, his limbs cramped and chilled to the bone; he bad to fight drowineSs stealing over But he had been aloft enough he the his feet Dorn him. 10 know the danger signals; meant to drop buck down at first imperative warning; and limit was not yet come. When he looked around now saw that AurOre’s eyelids heavy. She too was fighting drowsiness. World expected her to .stick it out J this long; 1 go to sleep lit the warm place lid' had fixed for her; but she was still awake, still alert, and ho climbed On aloft, In that thin air the Sliver Hawk Was now standing slightly on its tail for greater lifting power against the wings, and the tilt rapidly increas* od. At twenty-three thousand feet Dorn struck a steady wind blowing out of the northwest; a wind so ■strong that the Silver Hawk could he were the He had netdr in the rise against it hoverJy nearly still, with ground-speed almost nothing, With no more spiralling he held the plane head-on into the screaming gale and felt it bracing the wings, lifting th© Silver Hawk on higher and higher till his slow progress dwindled t-o nothing and he out upon his ceiling, thousand feet aloft; i there for half a minute while gestured for ten, million spread below, Then with singing came twenty-six and hovered he Aurora to look at the acres of wilderness the eastern habi- but unmistakably alien wilderness. the danger signals in his ears, Dorn turned the plane downward, back toward mother earth. When lie camo down from his ceiling Dorn headed for the Lost River Dutchman’s post to take on gas and oil, as he and Aurore had planned while in the Bighorn’s Looking-Glass. For the first forty miles to the vedette their flight lay over unglaciated spear-head moun­ tains with only deep canyons of per­ petual twilight in between. But the ranges then began to take on softer, rounder outlines; the valleys widen­ ed. They flew over muskeg swamps teeming with water-fowl rookeries, aver tamarack lowlands where moose and caribou yarded in winter, over beaver meadows where trapping must have a paradise. Nearing their goal they came, up­ on a sign of human life—an aban­ doned Indian, camp where teepee leather flapped idly on rotting poles. A little later they winged over a lake where a band of nomad “Smokies” were passing the summer at their fish weirs. On a spruce-buried river Dorn glimpsed a canoe with two scarlet dots in prow and stern, and facussing the glasses, saw it was a Police patrol on some wilder­ ness business—possibly to those same nomad Indians. Recognizing the insignia on his plane wings, they waved their paddles, and he leaned out to answer. The stream Dorn where located, and veered toward it. make sure neither of the planes was there, he circled once be­ fore alighting. The lonely vedette • stoed in a clearing on the river bank. It con­ sisted of a large squat building, a fur storage shed of heavy rocks and logs, a fur press, pole frames for stretching big peltry and drying fish and meat, a canoe landing, and an acre of quick-maturing vegetables It was rumour that the indefatig­ able Dutchman, bringing his seed potatoes from Fort Vermilion one winter, had kept them from freez­ ing by sleeping with them next to his body. No one knew where the Lost Riv­ er Dutchman and his wife had come from. Their names and identities were lost in the past of uprooted wanderers.- They had simply appear­ ed out of nowhere—city-bred cheeli jafros--in. va raw, savage wilderness and located thc-ir vedette on th lonely river. While Dorn was helping Aurore out of the blankets and canvas, she said to him: “Jim, my fatliei* told me a story of these folk here. Dad lent tli&m money and befriended them when they first came, and I believe he knew the truth about them. This is what he told me; he asked me never to repeat it, but I believe Dad know. “This man the Prussian officer with the most brilliant kind of prospects. This woman then was the wife of a general in the—I think Dad said French army* They met at a diplomatic affair, they liked each other, and they ran away to­ gether. They made aliens and ex­ iles of themselves, Jim. Europe wasn’t big enough to hold them. They had to forget their names and their identities. They came to the States; they were traced and would have been deported— but they es­ caped into Canada and found safety —here.” Aurore’s account sounded a trifle incredible to Dorn; but he had often thought there had to be some strange story in the lives of these two Strange people; and he did not reject Aurore’s explanation. When he took Aurore ashore tne Dutchman was in the storage shed making castoruih—a mixture of the a snarling dog, you got married word Aurore said. Though she now a woman of forty, Dorn thought she must have been beautiful in her halcyon days. Her black hair was still long and silken, there was a nameless grace in her carriage and manners, her French was not of the Strong-Woods nor tants of Canada, Parisian, In that lonely with hei' husband and herself the butt of coarse jokes, she had sunk to a pitiful level. She had no pride left, no desire to keep herself pretty even in the eyes -of her husband, Her clothes were greasy, hex’ features expressionless, her body as shapely as a bag of pemmican tied in the middle. “Veil, veil, Chim!” the Dutchman boomed, after he had shaken hands twice and kicked “Py golly I see vunce!” Aurore flushed and looked aside. Dorn winced at the unmeant irony of the remark. Married . . , the word stung. But he smiled, answer­ ed casually: “Oh no, we’re—Aurore’s my sis­ ter—Aurore Dorn. She just want­ ed to come along today and see what my work was like,” The Dutchman looked at Aurore’s flushed, averted face, at her trim- jacketed figure; compared the oval outline of her face, the delicate cast lean grin Dorn wide Chim handle You her silvery ribbon of a sizeable .swam in sight far ahead, spotted the river-widening the Dutchman’s vedette was To enemy would want you to here was an officer in army, Jim—a young ’ *v nianuig custuruni—a mixture 01 me he had expected her to female beaver scent beaten up with aspen buds; , but he dropped his work and trundled! down to the landing, and his wife came Out of the log dwelling to greet their visit* ors. It was with sharpened eyes that Born observed the pair now, There was nothing about tile Dutchman­ fat from spruce-beer and heavy meat-eating—tor suggest a former officer in the Imperial Army, but his wife whs startling proof of every of her features, with stern countenance. A spread; “Ya! I believe dass, bet. Didn't I saw yon into de canoe unt den handle het on­ to de landink? Ya! unt you—Ges- chwestern? Der Teufel! Geschwest- ern dey don’t act like dot! Congrat- ulaclians, Chim! Come up to the house. Ve vill do de honors. There was something pathetic in the way the Dutchman and liis wife craved talk with Dorn and Aurore that afternoon Something profound­ ly pitiful in. the way of his wife, hopeless and broken in spirit, kept looking wistfully at Aurore, envying a girlhood such as her own had been. Dorn thought: "She regretted a thousand times what she did—if only for his sake, that she ruined his career. And if 'he loves her at all or ever did, he must hate himself for dragging her down to this.” r The thought came to him, shock’* Ing and abhorrent, that her© was a forebodemeut of himself and Aur* ore, twenty years hence, if they too yielded to passion, Aurore had said to him: “Only by degrading your­ self and me, Jim, cap it ever be.”, And then Dorp realised why Aurore had repeated to him the story which her father had told her; 'and why, on the eyrie pinnacle of the moun­ tain-top, she had said, “I’ll show what your future—our future—-may be.” She had guessed, she had somehow become aware of the tem­ ptation he fought, to take her into his plane and be down across the Border with her in twelve hours. She had repeated that story in order that he could see a living picture of what might come to pass for him­ self and for her in the years: ahead. She had raised a mirror of the Fu­ ture to his eyes; and Dorn shrank back, appalled, from what he saw. CHAPTER XXV A Home Never To Be Built It was nearing midnight when Dorn and Aurore came back to the Lake of the Dawn. As they walk­ ed up the path together under the towering pines, Aurore said to him: •“Kansas told me, Jim, how you, and he have worked out plans to start an air line between .Seattle and Alaska. He wouldn’t tell me the cost of it, But won’t you?” ® Her question surprised and jarred Dorn. He wondered why Aurore wanted to now about that hopeless project, and liow she could mention so unimportant a thing now when a few more minutes together were all they had. He said. “It would cost more than’s in sight for Kan­ sas and me in ten years,” and thought to end the subject. But Aurore insisted: got to tell figures?” “We need flying-boats, sand apiece, drodromes, franchise. About a hun­ dred and sixty thousand—to start on,” Dorn remembered afterwards how hesitatingly Aurore made her mag­ nificent offer. “Jim, my father left most of his estate to me. mine, million, ing . . better could. Jim, you wouldn’t think I was try­ ing to re-pay kindness with dollars if I . , . I want to stake you’.It’s the -only gift in my power to make. Won’t you let me, dear?” Dorn was overwhelmed by an of­ fer so downright and unexpected. It “Jiini, you’ve me! How much — in three big, safe, cabined They’d cost forty thou- T'hen advertising, by- I’m of age now, its There must be over half a All to-day I’ve been tliink- . God. knows you’d make use of money than ever I You wouldn’t be offended, confused and bewildered him, and this was the first time Aurore bad allowed herself to use a word of pas- slop toward him Then he thought: “I can’t accept her money, She’d be a partner in everything; I could never plan or work but Td be re­ membering her.” Aurore did not wait for hie re­ fusal but went, on, a little breatlw lessly: “l‘m going to make you nc* cept it, jim! I’m going to put in on deposit for you.. You think now you’d never use it, but—hut after a time you’ll feel differently, and then it’ll be waiting for you. Don’t you see how I’d watch success,, jim, and of it?" Dorp could pot refusing directly. He tried not to bitter; “There’© a part of that plan, Aurore, which Kansas didn’t tell you about; I never told him but I’ll tell you now. Over there on the coast, where I could manage this air line and yet wouldn’t he living in a city, I’ve got a home. It’s on a mountain slope, with the sea in the [front of it and the mountains— nearly as mossy and wild as these ranges here—stretching It’s the kind of a home been hdngry for too, you can’t what the prord son like myself one, can know, and the air line and- —they all hang together; one with­ out the others would be intolerable. I’ve had that home for more than a year now, but the girl living there with me, my -wife------” He was checked by Aurora’s sharp, anguished cry. They had come to a pool of moonlight on the path, and Aurore stopped suddenly and confronted him, and she was trembling as though his words-, ’girl’ and ‘wife’ had truck ner a terrible blow. Dorn said quickly: ‘But Aur­ ore, wait; I’ll finish this absurdity of mine; the girl living there, my wife—she had never been more than a shadow to me—only the vag­ uest kind of an ideal of what I thought a girl should be. Then three and read of your how glad I'd be I wound Aurora by be back of it. I’ve always and Kansas understand only a per- never had •. You, possibly means; who’s With me that home ■other things WWW, WSW ISfflli ,UiW' weeks .ago . .. • 4>t’« j u»t three wM® almost this same hour,, isa’t H* Aw^ ore, that you came over to my is* land,? * . * J was studying one irisM and looked up, and she stood there under the torch of my tent-——” Aurore understood him, then, ad4 she crieff: "‘Your home isn’t hsisiM yet* Jim! That’s what you feant It’s only—what you hoped for.” “Then you understand, Aurore, why J can’t accept your offer. You’d be paying for the air line* for the home—and you would; not be there,. Could I stand that?” Aurore did not urge him, was thinking; “Next year at this time , I’ll write to him and tell him where the money is deposited.” And with that resolution made, she was face to face with the greater duty to Dorn, which all that day she had desperately staved off, They were still standing in the pool of moonlight. Out on the mo$v <om of the lake they heard the so- friable gabble o-f ducks feeding in deep water, and the sleepy koke* kake of a. pair of wild awaw. In the night silence arose the voice e£ the mountains—the chastened mur­ mur of yaterfallS’, the swelling whis­ per of avalanches, the dreamy rustle of pine boughs overhead, all blend­ ed into one endless slumber song, Aurore’© voice trembled when finally she said, ’‘Kansas promised he’d come—and look after me, Jim/ “Yon asked him to?” Aurora nodded; she could scares- ly trust her voice and she new that she had to be courageous now,. The moonlight was in her hair, and she saw Dorn was aware of it; she drew a little away into the shadow so that her features and the glow in her hair would not add more to his struggle. ' He said, not in his usual decisive way, but falteringly: “Then—you mean—I shouldn’t have coma here?’ “Jim, you must not! Jim, we’ve got to face the truth, human facts —truths as old and deep-rooted as these mountains. We can’t go on just liking each other. You’d want to possess—to possess completely/’- (Continued next week) SUFFERED FOR YEARS FROM CONSTIPATION Mrs. C. Rafuse, 28 Vernon St., Halifax, N.S., writes :~“1 had suffered for years from constipation. For several days at a time my bowels would not move and only when assisted ■ by laxatives, and after a while each kind or laxative I would take seemed to lose its effect until( finally, a friend advised, me to use Milburn’s Laxa-Liver W and sinco using same have had no troubled and I am greatly pleased with the reeulti I have had from these pills.” Prico 25c. a vial at all drug and general stores, or mailed direct on receipt of price by The T. Milburn Co,, Ltd., Toronto. 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