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The Exeter Times-Advocate, 1932-04-21, Page 6THVliSUAV, Al’Jtll. 21, 10S8 THE EXETER TIMES-ADVOCATE | “The Silver Hawk”| BY WIULIAM BYRON MOWFRY SYNOPSIS Jernes 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 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 come 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 } Pere Bergelot, a trusty metis ar- i 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 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. On account of the danger and mystery surrounding her he has promised not to see her any more. That day Carter-Snowdon located Aurore and demanded that she leave with hint for Quesual Lodge.; ed eyes fixed on the nose throttle wider and shot ahead. For three long weeks he had battled against Carter-Snowdon, and that battle now had sharpened down to the work of the next five minutes, and he wanted it over with, Half a mile in the load he made a neat hair-pin turn and swinging back, launched himself head-on, full throttle, straight as a levelled arrow at the heavy craft. At better than two hundred miles an hour the two planes rushed at one another, Quillan cam'e on, ex­ pecting Dorn every instant to veer aside. But down the airy straight-, away, aiming his swift plane square­ ly at the other machine, Dorn came roaring like a bolt of death. As the interval shrank to four hundred yards Kansas Eby stiffen­ ed and clutched the edges of the compartment, watching with bated breath that stark test of courage between the two pilots. Though he himself knew Dorn’s purpose, though he knew Dorn was one of the best flyers he had ever seen in air, yet the sickening thought of those two planes crashing head-on together jarred even liis callous nerve; and as the interval dwindled—three hundred yards, two hundred, one hundred and fifty—his face went white and he closed his eyes. Dorn sat rigid, tense, his narrow- of that biplane he was hurtling toward. His fingers tightened upon the stick like iron bars. He knew what would happen, if Quillan broke. The enemy craft, slow and heavy, could not lift up quickly. Quillan would dive—if he broke. If he did not, if lie had the red- blooded courage to come straight on, then Dorn himself would be forc­ ed to zoom up, and his whole strat­ egy would become merely a spectac­ ular, empty bluff; and thereafter Quillan, plucking up liis nerve again would disregard him and fly on be­ yond his reach to one of Carter- Snowdon’s.. camps. The first test of courage was all- vital. One tiny fraction .of a sec­ ond, that last split-second before a crash became inevitable—on that last instant hung the issue of the whole battle against CarteiMSnow- don. Coolly estimating distance, speed, the zooming power of his plane Dorn stiffened into readiness. The last instant came. But at the same moment that Dorn’s arm started to CHAPTER XXXII Aurore was sitting in one of the frear seats, committed to the custody ‘of that alley-wolf, Soft-Shoe. Sihei too was looking across at the Silver! Hawk. When she recognized Dorn she raised her arms in some gesture he did not fully understand—a ges­ ture like an inarticulate cry .of pray­ er; and the thought flashed across Dorn’s mind that she was pleading with him, if he could not save her, to send that biplane crashing down upon a mountain slope. In those few seconds that Dorn looked at Aurore he saw that--her wrists were bound together. And he saw another thing that roused all the flaming anger in his being. The three men each wore a pack-chute so that in case of accident their lives would be safe. But Aurore wore none. Not one of those val­ iant gentlemen had had the man­ hood, the faint chivalry enough to risk his neck and buckle his pack­ chute on a girl-prisoner. Carter-Snowdon suddenly jerked up his automatic "and emptied it. He anight as well have been shooting at a swift arrow. Dorn and Kansas laughed in his face—a derisive laugh like the snarling of two intent wolves who were quite sure of their kill and in no hurrv. With cold-blooded deliberateness, Kansas reloaded the machine in plain view, reached an extra drum of cartridges from the fuselage cubby and nodded to Dorn he was ready. Catching Quillan’s attention, Dorn ordered him with an imerative, curt gesture to swing the plane around and get back where he had come from—back to Aurore’s lake. Quillan turned a white face to Carter-Snowdon. Dorn knew what passed between them; understood it as clearly as though he had heard. Quillan begged to wheel about and fly back- before annihilation hit them like an avalanche. That stac­ cato-barking Lewis was tiled at a business-like- angle; he could see the gaping bullet holes in the Silver Ha'frk—battle wounds attesting the one victory; he had no heart for an argument with the two grim.visaged men who had already shot “Ace” McGregory and Clint Novak out of the air. In his mind they were an Unholy twain, with some superlative trick up their sleeve, and to defy them was sheer suicide. ■But Carter-Snowdon was not so easily stampeded. He* knew, as Quillan did not, that Dorn, would never jeopardize Aurore; and he kept jerking a thumb back at her and shouting that she was their pro­ tection, she was their guard. What he said was truth; Dorn would never imperil Aurore; but Harry Quillan was a man in fear of his life, and all his cold logic in the world could not entirely con- him that everything was safe and lovely. To him those snarling de­ vils looked like Nemesis and his sole thought was to' swing back to that lake and got out of this trouble while he was still alive. Carter-Snowdon argued and com­ manded, and after a minute of wav­ ering Quillan reluctantly nodded, and the biplane flew on. The test of Dorn’s plan had come. He knew beforehand he would win; he had seen that little tableau in the cockpit, he Rad taken the measure of his man, he knew ho could throw Quillan Into an abject funk and shoot his nerve and terrorise him to the point where Carter-Snowden’s orders would go unheeded. With no more ado he opened the jerk back the stick and lift liis plane over the enemy, Quillan sud­ denly broke. At seventy yards the nose of that biplane tilted, the ma­ chine dived out of annihilation's path; and thundering on down the straightaway, Dorn roared over his enemy, triumphant in courage, the master now! Giving Quillan no chance to re­cover his shattered nerve, Dorn| wheeled on vertical wing and shot down at him again in a steep dia­ gonal. This time Quillan broke and dived while the planes were yet two hundred yards apart. Again and again, stabbing at him from eweiw direction, missing him by only a rod or two, Dorn swooped and struck like a king bird throwing a lumber­ ing crow into panic-stricken flight. • In those brief glances each time he swept past, Dorn saw what was happening in the enemy cockpit. Frantically trying to dodge the Sil­ ver Hawk, pleading at* the same time pleading with Carter-Snowdon, Quillan seemed to be crying in a frenzy: “He’s going to crash us! He’s crazy, he’s gone crazy mad! That devil—my God, he’ll kill us!” A last superlative thrust, when the wind of the Silver Hawk’s rush wob­ bled the very wings of the biplane!— and Quillan, suddenly wheeling liis craft around, with Dorn riding his tail, driving him, herding him, back toward Aurore’s lake—a man broken . . . mastered . . . The fight had drifted more than ten miles down country. On that return trip to Goat Mesa. Dorn rode Quillan hard, keeping his wliiphand of terror. Aurore hair whipping in the slipstream. Her jacket was torn and muddied; a nosegay of of one in twenty; the biplane rose to it; Quillan was handling the con­ trols perfectly in face of a stiff wind sweeping over the mountain meadow, in three minutes more he would have cleared the tree-line pines and skimmed over the mesa and taken his craft safely to haven down in Aurore’s lake. But even as he had broken in the face of Dorn’s threat, so he broke now In the' face of another, and precipitat­ ed the final, crushing tragedy, All the way back to the mesa Car- ter-!Snowdon had argued, shouted, commanded, furiously trying to make him turn the biplane and dis­ regard Dorn and fly on south. And now, with that niesa almost under keel, Carter-Snowdon must have-re­ alized that if the ship ever skimmed over it and dropped down inside that mountain amphitheatre, his fight was utterly lost. For he drew his automatic again and pressed it, against Quillan’s heart and shouted an order at the pilot. Quillan’s hands spasmodically jerked above’his head, and he cring­ ed in fear of liis life. His plane, out of control, hit an air bump and wobbled and threatened to go into a fatal tail-spin. Carter-Snowdon lowered his weapon—for a few sec­ onds—till Quillan had grabbed the stick and speeded the engine and brought the machine out of its stall. Then, again, CarteiMSnowdon thrust the revolver against and and Dorn fairly read his shout: “You turn this plane around, you go where I tell you to go, or by God I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you.” ? Watching, unable to stir a hand and stop that ^ tragedy, Dorn saw Quillan half rise, take one glance over the edge, grab the rip-cord of his pack-chute, and fling himself bodily out of the cockpit. For a moment of stunned horror Dorn could not think or act. He saw the biplane tilt, wobble crazily, right itself magnficently and fly on. Caw Carter-Snowdon lurch into the pilot’s seat and start fumbling dis­ astrously with the controls. (Saw the plane start to buckle and stagger . After those few dazed moments a lightning plan volted into Dorirs mind. If Kansas could only get down into the cockpit of that bi­ plane, he could knock C'arter-Snow- don aside and pilot the craft to safe­ ty. But to get Kansas into that plane . . . Shooting the Silver Hawk ahead,’ Dorn caught up with the heavy ma­ chine and hovered a few. feet above it. He jerked his head around at Kansas, to shout, to gsture. But no need of that . . . Kansas already was overboard, clambering down to a pontoon, waiting his chance, val_ ant tO' attempt that suicidal leap to the biplane, willing to risk being swept off or mangled by the propel­ ler; courageous to gamble his life against the faint hope of getting down into that cockpit and piloting the ship to a landing. But the chance was never given him. In hs frantic, ignorant fumbling at the controls, Carter-Snowdon had laid hold of the stick and pushed it forward. The nose of the biplane tilted down in response; and before Kansas could leap, the machine haG dived beyond his reach . . . beyond all hope of being saved. Appalled, watching in the dreaa despair of helplessness, Dorn saw it lurch toward the fiery-colored mesa It careened into the tops of three Slender pines and shattered its pro­ peller and ploughed on tnrougli and hit the level tableland a hundred yards beyond smashing its pontoons, snapping a wing, and bounded into the air again from the force of its shivering impact, and then crashed head-on against a boulder .piling up in crushed and spintered wreckage. CHAPTER XXXIII The Flaming Mesa Even While the biplane was tear­ ing through those- pine-tops, Dorn had foreseen the envitable crash. At the same instant that tjie heavy ma­ chine hit the mesa and piled up against the boulder, he gave the Silver.Hawk the gun; and .with one swift, anguished glance at the' wreck lathered for her when they went. beneath him, he sent his plane Looking-; climbing in thundering spirals above L L— " primulas—flowers which Dorn had 8’ ashore in the Bighorn’s i Glass—’Were bedraggled on lie-r'the mountain nieadow—climbing to pack-chute height. In that handful of seconds while breast. Dorn motioned Soft-Shoe to cut tlie leather strap from her wrists, but th® detective did not un­ derstand, and before he could repeat the order, Dorn's attention was drawn to the cockpit, to Quillan and Carter-Snowdon, Quillan was flying mechanically, with telltale jerky motions of the controls, and hs face was white aiid contorted with fear; but he handled the sturdy craft expertly enough and he was going back faster than he had come. A thousand yards from the mesa he began climbing, tor in the manoeuvring he had lost altitude and dropped below the leve-l of the pass, It was a gentle climb ; the Silver Hawk was roaring aloft, 'Dorn clung with blind, stubborn faith to tliO conviction that Auroro might still be alive and that he might save her by a pack-chute jump; and he shut his mind against eVen the possibility of her being killed. That Aurore McNain could be lying dead there below him in that wreckage was a thing too ghast­ ly and cataclysmic to be true-—like the noonday sun turning'.black and cold and all light going out of the world. And as the human heart will, I Dorn snatched at flimsy reasons to bolster up his faith. Those- pine- tops had checked the headlong rush of the biplane; its first crash had been a slant blow; its pontoons and its rebound into the air had soften­ ed its final crack-up. His glance told him that the body of th® ma­ chine was not terribly crushed. There was no hope on earth for Carter-Snowdon, caught in the front seat where the heavy engine lunged back and splintered the cockpit in­ to tangled metal and matchstick wood; but Aurora and the- detective were in the rear seats, back at the third bay. Though the plane had tinned upside down and the debris of a wing hid his view of it, the fuselage did not s&em to be telescop­ ed, Dorn was thinking now of fire—- almost the inevitable aftermath of a crash like this; of a gasoline fire blazing up in that wreckage; of Aurora liellessly pinioned there— doubly helpless with her arms bound; of a gas tank exploding, wrapping that shattered plane in smoke and flame; and the grim picture of it checked him in his swift spiralling when he was only three hundred feet aloft, and made him decide to jump from that per­ ilously scant height. He jerked around to Kansas, Fully alive to the harrowing danger of fire and the need of quick action—- of a pack-chute jump—'Kansas him­ self was preparing to leap; but Dorn stopped him, gestured at him; to change places; and Kansas nod­ ded, for he knew that Dorn’s own bands must tear that wreckage apart and bring Aurore McNain out of it if she were alive, When the Silver Hawk flew on level wing, Kansas crawled forward, wedged himself into the cockpit and grabbed the controls, as Dorn let go and clambered out upon the fus­ elage. Knowing that a three hundred-foot jump in that wind might be fatal to his partner, Kansas- whirled the plane out over the lake, with no attention to Dorn’s pleading shouts, and thundered back over again four hundred, feet higher, to be safe. His hand on the rip-cord, Dorn leaped. For a second or two he whizzed downward and the mesa seemed rushing up to meet him. Then as his jerk the ’chute lined back and bellied out, and his body­ belts tugged at him, and he swayed in mid-air, no longer dropping gid­ dily, but gently rocking, floating. The wreck lay beneath him, con­ spicuous silver in the fiery tint of heather and sage grass sere and browrf mat of last year’s grass. Drifting in a strange quiet after these three roaring hours of flight and battle, Dorn looked down at. it and studied it and prayed for a sign of life. Before jumping he had calculated driftage of his pack-chute; and had leaped one hundred yards north of the wfreck, expecting to glide to earth very near it. But the wind pouring through- that pass proved stronger at a low level than it had been higher up. It caught his chute and swept it along, and Dorn realized he* would be carried south to tree-line or even into the pines down the slope below. He cursed liis tragic helplessness. He was suddenly sick of impotent watching, sick of the vagaries of wind and evil luck that tossed him willy-nilly, and a feeling which normally would have been sacrilege swept over him—a revulsion and a hatred of air work and of man’s newest toy, the airplane. He wanted his feet on solid ground again, on sturdy mother earth, instead of watching tragedies from afar, help­ less to prevent them. (Continued next week) SPRIXfi (Harry Holford, Clinton I took a notion to go strolling, 'Twas oiii a sunny April day;. So I wended my way toward the bush, To while some hours away.. The sun it was shining brightly, The atmosphere was quite warm; The sky was clear-—almost cloud­ less, It showed no sign of a storm, The birds were twittering and chirp- ing, Some were trying hard to sing; I supposed that toy were building nests, They seemed to know it was spring. I walked or sat down at my leisure, I went about here and there; I realized that winter was past, The ground it was dry and bare. As I moved to changing surround­ ings, All according to my will; I felt myself taking on new life With delight I seemed to thrill. The frogs they were making melody, The kind that they make in spring To me it sounded quite natural The warm weather coaxed them to sing. I wandered to a nearby river, I watched it flowing along; In the distance, the crows were cawing, I felt like singing a song. I thought of the seasons of the year. All coming around in turn; It did seem strange how things were arranged, I thought I had much to learn. I beheld all Nature about me, ' As t’wards home I onward went; J thought of the whole Creation, As a miraculous event. I’ oft wish I were a real poet, A beautiful poem I’d write; I would take as my theme, “The Springtime” My readers it would delight. The springtime is the planting time, The time for the farmers to sow; The time for early.flowers to bloom, And shrubs to bud and grow. ’Tis pleasure time for little children, I’ve noticed them skip and play; Oft about the middle of April, On a warm and sunny day. It is the'Time for decorating, When you want things to look ' neat; ’Tis the time to do the housecleaning And the carpets for to beat. The Sprng is the time that brings new life, When everything seems to charm; ’Tis the season of fascination, In the town or on the farm. ’Tis true I admire the summer, I like the Winter and the Fall; But of all the seasons of the year, I like the Spring the best of all. REPORT OF EDEN S. S. NO. 4 “Have any of your childhood hopes been realized'?” “Yes, When mother used to pull my hair I wish­ ed I didn’t have any.”—Exchange. Sr. IV—Beulah Skinner 7:5. Jr. IV—Everard Miller 65; Allen Bus-well 63; Elsie Reid 61. Sr. Ill—Harold- Kerslake 66; Blanche Whiting 63; Carroll Quin­ ton 54*. Jr. Ill—Fred Luxton 82; Marie' Buswell 67; Melville Buswell 55. Second—Greta Webber, 84; Al­ ma Skinner 70; Reg. Ford 66® Oh Whiting 48. First—-Donald Whiting 86; El- wyn Kerslake 80; Hazel Buswell 73; Donald Essery 41. Sr. Pr.—Edwin Miller 88; Glenn Hunter 85; Helen Essery 68. Jr. Pr.—-Junior Prout 88; Btob Prout 53. Elsie Gourlay, teacher Lloyds ( Investment Brokers BONDS INSURANCE SECURITIES We recommend the purchase of Continental Gas Corporation stock for a turn on the market starting next month. ( We also have a block of Goderich ElevatoV & Transit Company stock for sale to yield approximately eight per cent, this is a very good investment. BUY NOW price upon application. PHONE 246 GODERICH, ONTARIO Dr. Wood's Norway Pine Syrup Had a Severe Cold and Hacking Cough Mrs. M. K. MacNid, Iona. N.S., writes;-— U1 took a Were cold and developed ft hacking cough. I kept on neglecting it thinking it would leave me like some previous colds I had, but it got worse, I tried every Cough mediciho I could think of. A friend dropped in to. see me and advised me to take Dr. Wood’s Norway Tine Syrup. ( I purchased n bottlet and before I had mushed half pt it I was completely relieved?’ Price 35c. ft bottle; large family size 65c., at all drug and general stores; put up only by The T. Milburn Co­ Ltd., Toronto, Ont. Exrtrr Established 187/3 and 1887 Published every Thursday mornjnf at Exeter, Ontario SUBSCRIPTION—?2.00 per year iri advance, RATES—Farm dr Real Estate foM sale 50 c, each insertion for firat four insertions. 25c. each subse­ quent insertion. Miscellaneous ar­ ticles, To Rent, Wanted, Lost, or. Found 10c. per line of six worda^ Reading notices 10c, per line. Card of Thanks 50c, Legal ad­ vertising 12 and 8c. per line, Id Memoriam, with one verse 50ef extra verses 25 c. each. . Member of The Canadian Weekly . Nowsppiier Association Professional Cards ■* * *■* * y t MAiaajMr GLADMAN & STANBURY BARRISTERS, SOLICITORS, &c. Money to Loan, Investments Made Insurance Safe-deposit Vault for use of our Clients without charge EXETER LONDON HENSALK CARLING & MORLEY, BARRISTERS, SOLICITORS, &C LOANS, INVESTMENTS INSURANCE Office: Carling Block, Main Street* EXETER, ONT. At Lucan Monday and Thursday Dr. G. S. Atkinson, L.D.S.,D.D.S. DENTAL SURGEON Office opposite the New Post Office Main St., Exeter Telephones Office 34w House. S4J Closed Wednesday Afternoon Dr. G. F. Roulston, L.D.S.,D.D.S, DENTIST Office: Carling Block EXETER, ONT. Closed Wednesday Afternoon DR. E. S. STEINER VETERINARY SURGEON Graduate of the Ontario Veterinary College DAY AND NIGHT - CALLS PROMPTLY ATTENDED TO Office in the old McDonell Barn- Behind Jones & May’s Store EXETER, ONT. 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Telephone: Metcalf 2801W. -Sandy pulled out his. handerchief and a set of false teeth hit the deck “They’re the auld woman’s,” he ex­ plained, picking them up. I. caught her eating between meals,”