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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1932-04-28, Page 2THVItSUAY, AVBII. 88, 15’32 THE EXETER TIMES-ADVOCATE III III iiiiiiui I’. “The Silver Hawk J? BY WILLIAM BYRON MOWERY SYNOPSIS Nest, two hundred miles Kansas came over one to a dance that the Indians having on the station When the midnight 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 past six years was stationed at • Eagle east, night were ; platform, * 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 I 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 sh© 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 <?f the danger and mystery surrounding ner he has ' promised not to see her any more. , That day Carter-Snowdon located , Aurore- and demanded that she leave with him for Quesnal Lodge. yards, till it seemed he would never light. Holding on with one hand, he unbuckled himself, thinklng'to drop into a pine-top; but below the ledge the breeze was shut off and fell rapidly and dragged against a min­ aret spruce foui’ hundred yards down the mountainside from the mesa. Clambering and sliding down the tree, Dorn leaped the last twenty feet to solid ground and started back up the slope. The ledge rose in front of him—thirty feet of perpen­ dicular rock, Turning, he stumbled out along the game trail at its foot till he came to a gentler slant where a man could scramble up. Above the ledge, between Man and the mesa, lay two hundred yards of down timber, the jumbled windfall of centuries—snarled and tangled with briar and buckbrush and mountain laurel. Leaping from log to log, crashing his way through the underbrush that clutched and tore at him, Dorn fought on up the slope still believing with a dogged, un­ reasoning faith that he could reach the plane and drag Aurore out of it before the flame crept to the- gas tank. But he was only halfway the windfall in the trees shaped burst feet up into slender and lovely boulder, casting tho and she would come in the to her white canoo little island, through the winter snows spring. “You’re thinking to find hex', frieiid,” ho intoned. “Thinking she'll be waiting for you down at the lake lint she was in that plane, And you­ ’re near the jumping-off place your­ self, You’ll find her quicker if you follow me.” He whirled toward tho cliff and tpolc a sudden lunge forward, Dorn sprang and grabbed for him, but he was too late. Dorn sat there a few minutes on the cliff-top. He thought the de­ tective’s death liad been some acci­ dent, and he blamed himself for let­ ting go of tho man. The loss of Ms friends saddened him;he felt lone­ ly and wanted company. Presently he got up and went on. Below the precipice where the moss began he Jost the dim old tote-patli in a deep Ored tain. His numb, more wanted to sleep; the lake edge and call Aurore -be­ fore evening. He cut a stick- to -help him, and went on; because all the game trails led eventually to the cool waters of the lake, he made progress down the mountainside. An hour before sunset the path Dorn followed led him hack into the old Carrier trail, down the mountain slanted down behind ranges, the twilight which (brought him safe through last ’hour a machjne-gun of his journey Aurora seem- Established 187/3 and 1887 chapter XXXIII storm­ candle- ropes, Though he had the strength and the will for this last frantic effort ,to save Aurore, Dorn was very near .the breaking point. Body and mind could stand little more. Climaxing three weeks crammed and jammed with the triple duty of cartograph- ing and fighting off Carter-Snowdon and protecting Aurore, had come the heavy strain of forty hours in­ cessant flying, three sleepless nights hand-run, this Sabbath morning of two air battles, and now this stun­ ning final catastrophe. At the limit of his endurance, he was nearly dazed with exhaustion. He was a man stumhling with his- last strength toward a vision that flick­ ered and seemed to go out and then flared up again in cruel alternation of hope and despair.—such a vision Us a starved and frozen wanderer might see in the light of a cabin window. As he worked the guide checking the driftage somewhat, Dorn was staring down at the plane —directly beneath him now; and he .suddenly was struck dumb by the glimpse- of some stir in that wreck half-way back along the fuselage. Anc! then, when he saw the man’s head and shoulders appear, heaving aside a piece of shattered’ wling; when he saw the detective, Soft- Shoe, drag himself out and try to rise and at a third attempt stagger to his feet and stand there rocking wide-legged, as though his senses reeled and all the world swam drttnkenly before him—then a cry burst from Dorn’s lips, inarticulate a cry of fervent, substantial hope. The detective had lived through that crash! Aurore, in the seat be­ side him—-Aurore must have been spared! she- was alive, there beneath him—alive! But then, sweeping over the bi­ plane, Dorn saw a wisp of darkish smoke begin to curl up1—the fire fiend kindling his holocaust It was several feet away from the gas tank a dozen feet away from the rear seats—up near the nose Of the plane where fabric and match-stick wood smouldered metal; the smoke paled to blue and a spurt of flame came to life leaped up, lie-king the canvas and dry spruce debris. Reeling and falling ling to his feet again, started away from the Ing aimlessly like a man with blind staggers. Dorn cupped; has hand,s and shouted down at his enemy, yelling sharply at him to go bac-k— go back and pull Aurore from be­ neath the fuselage. ’Soft-Shoe heard; he lifted his head and cried something in reply, and turned back, evidently realiz­ ing that this would be his guaran­ tee of life. But he seemed still daz­ ed from the erdih; he groped and stumbled, with his hands in front of Mm, and missed the plane; and though Dorn shouted orders- at him —shouted till Ms voice broke—tho man merely staggered tihis way and that, always with his of him- There was him- Because it would Dorn, crazy to' watch flame growing', he turned his face away from the mesa and forced himself not to glance hack, still fifty feet in air, he brushed just over tho tops of clutching futlley drifted over. The slope fell away steeply and the breeze swept him on down past a ledge, on two hundred against het engine but - even as Dorn watched, tiny and and strugg- the detective wreck, grop- hands in front no hope from have driven that spurt of the pine ti’ees, at them as he confusion of game trails cut into the sphagnum and wand- aimslessly out along the moun- body was He had frequently as “I go beginning to feel to stop more and to rest, and lie but he must reach As he. went and the across a rift a fan­ thirty when through ahead he saw of red flare the air, and heard a sudden, dull-muffled explosion froze him for a moment in tracks. When Dorn finally stumbled upon the open mesa, the centre of it where the wreckage lay, was a crawling lake of fire. The explo­ sion had flung the gas and flaming debris a score of yards around, and put the fire the and that his out torch to the sage grass. With brisk wind behind it,' a wall of and smoke was rolling across mountain meadow toward him; when a .heavy gust tore aside the curtain for an instant, he glimp­ sed the biplane itself wrapped'from end to end in flames and burning fiercely. Dimly he was aware of the Silver Hawk roaring low overhead and of Kansas leaning out, frantically yell­ ing, waving zhim to get back, stay back, and escape the path of the fire. But Dorn scarcely saw or heard. After the benumbing shock of the explosion he was no longer entirely clear of mind. He could not seem to realize that the tragedy .was complete and uttter, and that it was of no moral use now to fight his way out upon that mesa. He held to a blind and naive faith that i if he only would battle on he could „ I reach Aurore and lift her from that 1 flaming wreckage and carry her in his arms to safety. He hurried out into the open mea­ dow and ran to meet the flame. A moment latei’ he was' engulfed in a fiery wave. It blanketed him in a terible heat and sent him stagger­ ing to his knees; but in a second or two the worst of it was past and he stumbled on through lesser tor­ ture, chocked and suffocating, grop­ ing toward that wreck. The turf un­ derfoot was afire, smouldering deeply and sending up a stinging smoke. Denser clumps of bear grass and sage still crackled and burned. The fire-heated air scorched his nostrils, and he pressed bis gloves against his face and breathed through them. He lurched into boul­ ders laid bare by the gutting flames and stumbled and fell; but rose again each time, and fought on. In the whirling, flame-shot smoke he missed the wreck at first. Turn­ ing left lie came upon it at last by sheer chance. But the fierce, wither­ ing heat of it sent Dorn reeling back half-blinded, and he sobbed be­ cause lie could not force his body into it; and liis conscious mind gave way as he realized crushing moment, that the tangle of charred debris and white-hot metal could hold only death. CHAPTER XXXIV Those Thirty Pieces of Silver • It was then, when his tyrant will no longer drove him, that Dorn’s instinct of self-preservation rose up all-powerful and led him away from the wreck and guided him north to the unburned mesa and across' it to a little streamlet cascading from the snowfield above; and caused him to lie down in the icy waters of a tiny cauldron, where he drank and. laved his face and felt the cold caress against his parched body. After a space he got up and be­ gan wandering in search of the old Carrier ti'ail. He did hot know what he was doing* He could see liis hand or a tree or the blue sky above him and the blue of Aurore’s lake three thousand feet below—»mere physical facts and sensations, but beyond that liis mind was blank. It was memory, working unconsciously, that made bim look for the path. Ho seemed to think that if lie found it and followed it down the perdiptioua mountain slope to Aur* ore’s lake, he would see her stand* only com- look- ing again in beauty on the lures for trout; across to him and take him and they would live summer sunshine and and the glad burst of A little ahead he glimpsed a man with hands outstretched in front of him, grouping and fumlbling from tree to tree; and as he drew near he saw it was Soft-Shoe, the murderer, of old Dad Bergelot.. Dorn spoke, and at the sound of his voice the de­ tective turned to run and crashed against a pine. Dorn helped him to his.feet and steadied him with his hand. As the detective slowly up­ turned his face, Dor.n looked at the quivering features and saw that the man was blinded, Down in the darkened cabin at Titan Pass, Dorn had believed that the vengeance belonged to him, not to the law of man or to God. . The detective whimpered, though pleading -for his life: heard your shouts, I tried to back; she was caught fast, I felt her stir beside me. I wanted to save her, like your ordered; but I could­ n’t come- to see her, I couldn’t see.” The words were meaningless1 to Dorn. Defending itself by some la­ tent power, his mind had utterly cast out the memory of the biplane’s crash and his pack-chute jump and the mesa fire and blazing machine. In some vague fashion he recall­ ed that this detective had once been his enemy and Aurore’s; and -that for some reason he had once sworn to kill this man bare-handed, with­ out mercy or qualm of conscience. But his desire to -kill had vanished his enmity had gone, all hatred and passion had burned itself out in his soul. A strange peace had fallen up­ on him after that moment by the flaming wreckage. He wanted to be gentle and friendly. A great surge of pity and passion rose up in him as he ed at those sightless eyes. '“You’re hurt, poor fellow!” he said. “I-Iere-, take my hand. "I’m go­ ing down to her lake. If we shout lound enough she’ll come across and get us.” “She’ll come?” The detective started. “She-? You’re* not meaning? “Aurore. She’ll come and get us. We’d better go. She’s waiting for us. Soft-Shoe finally seemed to un­ derstand what had happened to Dorn. After a few moments he list­ lessly took Dorn’s arm and Dorn led him—the blind of .reason leading the blind of sight. It was a strange and crazy pilgrimage, toward a fan­ tastic goal; but they set out. A little farther on they came to the- ages-old Carrier trail and started down the mountainside. 'The path they followed was steei) and treacherous—a path where strong men needed to be wary and sure of foot. It went down through danger­ ous fissures and across thin-spun log bridges and led along the lip of bold-jutting ledges where the air soughed up in their faces and the big pines1 were mere shrubbery be­ low. In a low comfortless voice- Soft- Shoe kept complaining of tire pain and the dark. Frequently Dorn halt­ ed to let him rest and once made a cup of birch-paper and gave him to drink and bathed his face with a handerchief. •While cauldron fold four it for a slip in front of him, he turned Ms head toward Dorn. Listless dejection seemed to have suddenly dropped from him; he was courageous and . resolute now. He spoke more to himself than‘to his companion.in a black, | “Here’s thirty thousand dollars, friend. I jicked a man and I sold a girl to get it. I thought my life ’ud be all sunshine and roses—with that much money. But what is it worth,- what does it mean to me now It can't ever buy me one glimpse of light. I’m blind.” He repeated the word over and over again and his fingers twisted the check and slowly tore it to bits. He rose and shook himself and said. “Let’s go on. . . .” A little farther down the moun­ tainside, when Dorn was leading him alony the edge of a dizzy preci­ pice, Soft-Shoe stopped. “I feel the- air welling up. Is there a cliff “Yes, less Of mind to guess the man’s in­ tention. “Is it a high cliff?” “Yes, very high.” “Pick* up & rock and throw it down so I can hear if it is high enough,” Dorn let go of him and found a little boulder arid rolled it over the precipice/ Long seconds later they heard its thud, faint as a watch-tick on the rock below. A. shudder passed through Soft-. Shoe, but he conquered it. He turn­ ed to Dorn. sun the western ... in his mind grew apace with the purple shadows that thickened in the valley, In that fantastic borderland lying just the hither side of dark oblivion, the creations of his imagination were just as tangible and vivid to him as the trail underfoot or the colum­ nar pines around him or the lumber­ ing grizzly that snarled and gave the path to him. The real and the chim­ erical were hopelessly mixed and blurred. , I At times he believed he was tot­ ing Kansas on his shoulders down to the railroad, as lie had done that spring in the Lilloets when Kansas cracked-up on a mesa. His pack­ chute jump and his dragging Kansas from the- wreckage before it caught afire and their night-mare trip to the grade were burned into his memory; and that disaster was so like the one lie had just passed through that the two of tlie-m were confused in his mind. At other times Dorn /aw Aurore McNain gliding down the path ahead of him. When he tried to overtake her he would stumble and fall. He could not understand why she kept j flitting away from him, i out her arms . to him 1 vanishing when lie drew near. I The moonlight brightened into silver and filtered down through the pines to light liis way. Presently lie was catching-’ glimpses of a -lake (ahead, and he- hurried a little -fast­ er till at last he broke- out_of the dark woods and stood on a strip of moonlight sand. A fire, built there- on the beach earlier in the evening, had burned to xj’ed coals. Near it on the land­ wash a white canoe was up-turned Far out across the glistening waters Dorn saw the dark blur of an island Aurore’s island. A rod or two off­ shore a graceful -airplane lay sleep­ ing at anchor, and Dorn recognized the plane which he liad flown and they were resting at this pool, Soft-Shoe took ~a bill- his coat pocket and felt in slip of paper. Holding the here, friend?” Lorn- answered, too guilc- loved and that day battle. For the down the mountain, ed to have forsaken him; the appar- titlon of her had not entered into the misty pictures that shifted and merged and changed in his mind. But now when he came out of the woods Dorn .once mere saw Aurore. She was standing there ahead of him on the sand, waiting, her slen­ der body silhouetted against the glow of -the camp fire. She appear­ ed to him in some way different from the figure which flitted in front of. him on his trip down to the. lake; her hair was disheveled and her jacket torn and muddied and in­ stead of the laughing, iiauntingly elusive girl she had been all after­ noon she seemed utterly dejected and crushed with sorrow now. And when he stepped out of shadows and spoke her name, did not vanish as she had done-, whirled toward him and stood a moment transfixed; and then came in wild joy, crying his name flung herself into his arms. (Continued next week) Published every Thursday morning at Exeter, Ontario SUBSCRIPTION— $2.00 per year Jrt advance. RATES—Farm or sale 50c. each four insertions, quent insertion, tides, To Rent, Found 10c. per Reading notices Card,of Thanks vertising 12 and Memoriam, with extra verses 25 c. Real Estate fo» insertion for fir»t 25 c, each' subse- Miscellaneous ar- Wauted, Lost, ojt line of six worda. 10c. per line; 50c. Legal ad- 8c. per line. In one. verse 5Op. each. Member of The Canadian Weekly Newspaper Association the she but Professional Cards and BRIDE ELECT HONORED On Monday (evening of last week a number of girls gathered at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Ben Taylor, Blytli, when a miscellaneous, shower was tendered their only daughter, •Lily Adela whose marriage took place on the following Wednesday at Rockwood. The Sunday ISchool of Queen Street United Church also .-remembered he'r as their faithful Librarian and presented her with two occasional chairs. GLADMAN & STANBURY BARRISTERS, SOLICITORS, &e. Money to Loan, Investments Made Insurance Safe-deposit Vault for use of our Clients without charge EXETER LONDON HENSALE CARLING & MORLEY, BARRISTERS, SOLICITORS, Ac LOANS, INVESTMENTS • INSURANCE Office: Carling Block, Main Street, EXETER, ONT. At Lucan Monday and Thursday TAX RATE FIXED At a special meeting of the town council in Goderich on Wednesday afternoon the tax rate for 193 2 was fixed at 50 mills for public school supporters and 51& mills for separ­ ate school supporters, the same as last year. The etimates total $174,- 000, of which nearly $40,000 is re­ quired for schools, $23,424.6*5 for debenture payments and $10,000 for public works. iSome paring had to be done in committee to keep the rate down to last year’s level and council had to forego some anticipa­ ted municipal improvements. 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 34J Closed Wednesday Afternoon Di*. G. F. Roulston, L.D.S.,D.D.S. DENTIST Office: Carling Block EXETER, ONT. Closed Wednesday Afternoon BANQUET HELD clos- i, icaunug |— ■■ ■■■-------— ----- -- ban but always Quet in the Sunday school room ofI the United church. Pink and green decorations, were- used, The ban­ suet was arranged by the president, Miss Munroe, and executive. A toast list included toasts to the King-; to the community, proposed "by John Williams, with 'response by Rev, Mir. Harrison; to the ladies, proposed by George Tomes, respond­ ed to by Rev. J. J. Brown. The program, consisted of a solo by Miss Ruth Simpson; violin duet, Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Dundas; solo, Fred Cattenv; piano duett, Warren Fairies and Richard I-Iodgins; read­ ing, Miss Inez Hendrie: speech, H. Banting. An enjoyable evening was closed by prayer by Rev. J. J. Brown. ■Clandeboye Community Club reaching1 e-d a successful season with a . / in Hi n Cnllrlmr c-nlinnl 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.’ hi ■ --‘—raa.T.t - ........................... JOHN WARD CHIROPRACTIC, OSTEOPATHY, ELECTRO-THERAPY & ULTRA­ VIOLET TREATJUENTS PHONE 70 EXETERMAIN ST., Use it for obtaining fire­ safe walls, ceilings and parti­ tions throughout your home. Gyproc may he easily identified by the name on the board and the Green Stripe along the edge, WnSHVL, LIME AND ALABAST1NE, Canatle, Limited Paria ” Ontario For Salo By Fireproof Wallboard AND nails like lumber. - Its light weight makes it easy to handle. It requires no expensive decoration, in fact none at all, when panelled. Il has structural strength, insulation value, 'is draught and vermin-proof, easy to install, saves time in new construction and is an excel­ lent base for Gyptex or Alabastine. EXeter Lumber Company Limited Exeter, Ont. Dashwood Planing Mills Dashwood, Ont. A. Spencer & Son Hensail, Ont. ARTHUR WEBER LICENSED AUCTIONEER For Huron and Middlesex FARM SALES A SPECIALTY PRICES REASONABLE SATISFACTION GUARANTEED ... Phone 57-13 Dashwood R, Rr NG.^1, DASHWOOD FRANK TAYLOR LICENSED AUCTIONEER For Huron and Middlesex FARM SALES A'SPECIALTY Prices Reasonable and Satisfaction: Guaranteed EXETER P. O. or RING 138 OSCAR KLOPP LICENSED AUCTIONEER Honor Graduate Carey Jones’ Auc­ tion Scho-ol. Special Course taken in Registered Live Stock (all breeds! Merchandise, Real Estate, Farm Sales, Etc. Rates in keeping with, prevailing prices. Satisfaction as­ sured, write Oscar Klopp, Zurich, or phone 18-93, Zurich, Ont. ERNEST ELLIOT INVESTMENTS, INSURANCE Office—Main Street, Exeter, Ontario. CONSULTING ENGINEER S. W. Archibald, B.A.Sc., (Toron­ to), O.L.S., Rgistered Professional Engineer and Land Surveyor. Victor Building, 2SSS Dundas Street, Lon­ don, Ontario. Telephone: Metcalf 2801W. A physician says a man’s health is indicated by the length of time he can hold his Meath and his wisdom by the length of time he can hold his tongue.