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The Exeter Times-Advocate, 1932-05-12, Page 6THE EXETER TIMES-ADVOCATETHVJWAY, MAY 12, 1032 I “The Silver Hawk”| E BY W1UUAM BYRON MOWERY s Siiiiiiiiiiiciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiw CARTER XXXV Carter-Snowdon didn’t deny what the man said. He didn't even show .any shame; but I could see he was shaken inside with rage and his fingers twitched and he wanted to murder the rancher for exposing him—before me. ■‘He tried to take my mind iff the incident by talking about his cam paign. He had the brazen effront ery to tell me I’d have to appear on the platform with him. He talked pbout the vote-value of my name and the plans of his enemies; and it was only then, Jim, that I began to see down into his real motives in the marriage and see how I’d been traitress to my father and to his loyal friends and to all the prin ciples he had stood for. “It was revolting to me—the pros pect of being exhibited, of dragging a proud name down, of being pub licly used. I asked him—I was angry by then, Jim—I demanded to know if that was the reason he had married me. He laughed and he said, ‘No, not the whole reason.’ He looked at me in a way he’d never done before and he said, ‘You’re al most reason enough by yourself,’ and he put his arms around me. It made me shudder. I never realized, till I saw that look on his face and he began talking a simpering language to me, that body and soul he was repugnant and loathsome in my jSight; and I began to know then jwhat love in marriage meant, and 'that without love it’s a hideous thing tthat violates all a girl's most sacred instinicts. • “All that afternoon I heard noth ing but the stinging scorching words the rancher had lashed him with; ‘You great white beast’.’'—‘You big drooling brute!’ And as evening shut down it seemed to me the hours of my life were numbered. I prayed that the sun would never set. I prayed that the train would plunge down into a black canyon. I once thought to bargain with him; if he would never touch me, I’d travel with him till the campaign was over and then .go away. 1 “But I knew he’d never release me. I could never get a divorce. What grounds did I have? None— none that any court could ever, ever understand. And I knew he’d fight me—to protect his name—fight me with all his power and. money, and keep me with all his power • and money, and keep me from getting a divorce. And that day, that after noon, that. night, the law itself would uphold his power over me. I was caught, trapped, in his coach, in his power, his wife. To-morrow in Edmonton ... I had friends, I could flee to them, but to-morrow, if it ever came—I’d no longer care what happened to me. .So I sat there hopeless, waiting, with no strength or courage to fight him Aurore paused again. A shoulder of the western range had cut off the setting moon and a darkness was swiftly mantling the wilderness. On the bosom of the lake a shadowy is land rose out of the water straight in front of the drifting canoe, and on the island the lofty great spires Of great pines took on form and outline—dark-silvered minarets -up lifted to the star-glistening heavens. From some naked pinnacle a wolf howl came wavering lonesomely. Farther away, high up on the moun tain-side toward the mesa, a human voice, a mere pin-point of sound in the brooding silence, rose in a hal loo, twice repeated, calling Dorn’s name. Aurore turned, as though to .answer it; but the distance was tco great. In the darkness Dorn could no longer see Aurore’s face, but only the silhouette of her shapely head against the sky—proudly poised, with stars tangled in her dishevelled hair. She seemed vanishing to a voice an a presence; and his clasp tightened upon her hand to keep her from vanishing altogether. • When she spoke again it was ?ri a new strange tone, no longer peni tent, but courageous and triumph ant. “Jim, in those hours I think must have gone down, and down and touched the bottom of abysmal hope lessness, for when I couldn’t sink farther a courage gradually came to me—the fiercest kind—the courage of despair. During twilight the train entered into the mountains where I'd lived in wild freedom With Dad, and I saw them again for the first time in several years, and all those predius girlhood memor ies came flooding back. [ whs inountain-bor.i and bred, and It was like coining honn again, “it seemed m.y father was present •With me then, Jim. I could hoar bis voice telling me that fur jears I had been a paraioa* -the worst cf things In ale eyes; and had made no use o£ my money or my educa te n. And then, as ho always did watched every second while Dorn battled his way across the fire-swept mesa and turned and found the blazing biplane, and then groped on to safety at the north edge. Dorn had not seemed badly hurt when he lay dowm in that cauldron pool, But Aurore , , . Winging overhead during those frenzied minutes, Kansas had seen the old Indian carrying her in his arms, off the mesa, down the. trail; and he could see that Aurora was unconscious, and he thought she was terribly wounded. At the time, ho had considered it the wise thing to light in the lake and come back afoot and help old Luke with Aurore. He understood pretty clearly now what Dorn’s state of mind must have been after the catastrophe, Dorn had not known that his shouts to the detective had reached old Luke at the mest edge. The. pines and the steep slope had shut off his view of the meadow, and he had not seen the old Indian loping out upon the little plateau—a gaunt scarecrow with that greasy medicine-robe flap ping from liis shoulders—and pull ing Aurore from the wreckage, There was only one explanation of Dorn fighting on into the fire; he had thought Aurore was still in the biplane, The catastrophe had pro bably dazed him, stunned him. In his stricken anguish he likely had fallen from a ledge or wandered off into that God-forsaken wilderness where he could never be found. For the. last twelve hours Kansas had cursed himself with every step he took: “I ought to have kept track of Dorn. Jim Dorn was worth' an acre of girls.’” In his 'self-damnation it never occurred to him that hind sight was easy; that he had acted as any man would have; that he had done all that lay in his power. He had risked his life, brushing lofr over the mesa, in that desperate at tempt to make Dorn understand what old Luke had done; but still he blamed himself. During that night he had hoped Dorn might be alive, and might have found his way to the lake where they had left Aurore to- watch for him. But when Kansas trudged out of the woods and saw the empty landwash, his last hope flickered out. Old Luke, with a glance at the dead ashes and a grunt of surprise at Aurore’s beng-gone, stepped for ward and searched along the sand like an old hound' cold-trailing. At his sudden “Huh! Ho!” Kansas hur ried over to him. “Look ” old Luke jabbered, read ing a book that was closed to the white companion. ‘‘His track, Big ger than yours. It come out of the woods. He come while we gone; three, four hours ago. ’ He sick, track wobble, no walk straight. Look she standing by fire, she ran to him, they stand jiere together a minute . . . Saghelie!— Look there—she write hugrtracks on sand for u.s—” Kansas took one glance • at Aur oras message, “Jim has come.” With a whoop, forgetting his exhaustion, he grabbed the Indian’s arm, splash ed out into the icy water, shoved Luke into the rear seat, whirled the Silver Hawk, jumped in; and with his cold motor spluttering like spor adic machine-gun bursts, he started taxiing across the lake. Down the path Aurore came run ning to meet them as they waded ashore in the cove, and fairly ran in to ’ Kansas’s arms with her news, and when he clasped her hands, Kansas had no need of asking whether-Jim Dorn was in any danger of his life.ft*Aurore was worn-out from her long suspense and her all niight vi gil. There - were telltale circles beneath hei’ eyes and a weary droop to their beautiful lashes. But she had bathed her face to a glow and combed her hair and mended her skirt and jacket; and in her happi ness she seemed a different creature from the heart-broken girl Kansas had left over on the opposite shore twelve hours ago. “Why didn’t you signal us?” he asked, a ittle reproachfully, as they Went up the path together. “But I didn’t have any gun, and I couldn’t shout mat far. I'd have built a fire, but till lie went to sleep just a little while ago, I had to stay wih him every second. He seemed to think that if I went away from him . . . he seemed to be » . . not en tirely ..." Kansas knew what Aurore meant to sky and could not. Out of hts experience with crack-ups he was more Inured to such a thing than she was, It was only a couple Of months ago that Dorn had dragged him out of a splintered plane and for more than sixty hours he had been “not entirely . . He said: “YOU mean the Shock Upset him? I suspected. He went through enough, Jim did. Is he bad hurt otherwise?’ “He's terribly burned and wound ed and . , . but I’ll let you—if you after scolding me, he gave me new courage, telling me to fight, to keep circumstances from degrading and breaking me, to eseape*thc terrible thing that wis looming upon like an avalanche, “I began to plan, i felt no com punction. Carter-Snowdon had lied when he said he loved me; he had veiled his real purpose in the mar riage; he’d never told me that I was to be used publicly. My marriage vow was sacred and I swore to keep it so, and you can witness, Jim, J did—against love itself. I saw it was my stern duty to keen secret my separation from him and not in- juie him in his campaign; apd you can -witness—from that telegram and the newspapers—that I did want to keep it secret and did shield him from any consequences of my act. So far I fejt obligated by duty and honour, but no farther. I no mere felt honour-bound to immolate my self than a caught and caged bird will stay prisoner if the door is left open for an instant. “With all his power and money behnid the hunt for me, I knew there’d be np safety in civilization I thought of the lonely lake two j hundred miles north where Dad and I spent spent four happy, sunlit’ summers, Of oar cabin there, the great pines on the island, the cold blue waters and the winds blowing off the snowfields; and in my fever it .was vision or' heaven to me, Jim. I prayed God I could* escape somehow and may my -way north and live there, beyond his finding me. “In my plans I thought of old Dad Bergelot. He would befriend me and find some way of getting me north—if only I could fight off . . , could save myself till we reached Ti tan Pass. “Our train was still forty miles west of here when night shut down and was left c,lone in the coach with —with the man I had married. If he had ever known, ever suspected my thoughts, my wild plan . . . but he never guessed. .With every arti fice of a person fighting for life I kept him from the faintest suspic ion. I laughed with him laughed at his coarse jokes, talked his simper ing language, played coy and modest —the hunted, the elusive—and he liked the game. “I was watching ahead for the moonlight on Titan Major. The in stant I should see it, I meant to whisper that I wanted a few mom ents alone, out in the fresh air of the platform and then I'd come back to him; I meant to kiss him and whisper things in his ear till he’d release me and I coud flee out of the coach and escape when the train thundered into Titan Pass. ■ “That last half hour was a black nightmare. I fought for every mile, for every minute; and.all that time, when I wanted to cry out in horror and expected him every instant to suddenly pick me up in his- arms. I sat on his lap and smiled at him and allowed him to run his coarse fingers through my hair. I know what hell is, Jim; I lived an eternity of it in that half hour, fighting that great hulking . . . but he’s dead, Jim, up on that blackened mesa, and only the truth remains—the blessed truth of God’s mercy to me in that battle-'—for I won.” Chapter XXXVI An End to Partnership In the chill .gray of dawn Kansas Eby and old Luke Illewahwacet, stumbling in their weariness, came back down the mountain from their futile hunt for Dorn. IT he Sillver Hawk still rode at an chor a few yards out; but the canoe was gone and Aurore Was gone and the fire they built there oil the sand as a beacon to guide Dorn had burn ed to dead ashes. All yesterday afternoon and through the dark hours of the night just passed, Kansas and old Luke had searched up and down that Car- riar trail trying to locate Dorn. They had explored by-paths and loOjked fearfully along the- foot ledges, and hallooed his name from high cliffs, but not a trace of him did they find. They had discovered the body of the detective and given it burial in a rock cairn and cut a lobstick to mark that lonely wilderness grave. On the mountain slope south of the mesa they had founa Harry <Juillan. His pack-chute had failed to open till he had plunged almost into the pines; his ankle was broken, he was cruelly battered and bruised; his life was a matter of getting him quick ly to a doctor. Temporarily they had left him up at the edge of the mesa a hundred yards from the charred plane, at the brush shelter .which old Luke had built for himself when Dorn stationed him there. The conviction had grown on Kan sas that Dorn was dead, and he cursed hmiself as the cause of his partner’s death, He saw now that he should have kept track of Dorn instead of givihg his attention to Aurore and old Huke. He had will promise to be quiet and not dis turb or talk to him-r-ril let you see 4 A Kansas looked askance at Aurora, In her words there was an uncon scious proprietorship that hurt him worse than the pews of Dorn being injured. He answered rather dryly: “I’d like io see him. I’m soine interest ed in him too. Dorn and I, we sort, of associated together for several years.” In the cabin he and Aurora tip toed into her room where Dorp lay sleeping on her bunk, She had managed to take off his coat and loosen his spirt at the throat. His body was relaxed; he was sunk into the dreamless oblivion- of a nian who had driven himself -beyond the limit of mortal endurance. Kansas bent over the bunk and examined him. All the “wounds” he could discover were some long, ugly scratches from briai* and dev- il’s-club; and the “terrible burns” of Aurore’s anxiety were a few square inches of blisters on Dorn’s hands and neck. Remembering how Dorn had walked through the fire of that mest, Kansas whispered: “We’ve got to be thankful he wasn’t burned to death or disfigured for life, His heavy flying togs, they’re all that saved him.” sx When Aurore had gone out, Kan sas .softly drew up a chair and sat there beside the bunk. His eyes were misty at the sudden realization that these were his last moments alone with Jim Dorn, and that their partnership was at an end. But that was the truth; something infinitely closer than any partner had come into Dorn’s life, and henceforth the old relationship must needs be ’a poor second-best. Al/ready Auro're was speaking not of “Jim and I” but i Mills and Head Off:ice—-Ojibway, Essex County, Onts - b of “We”—-that indissoluble we al ready. With a jest to cover up the bitter ache, Kansas thought; “We’ve stuck together for six years, Jim, like a double-barrelled shotgun, and we split our dollars when we didn’t have any, and wo were going to call our air line the ‘Dorn & Eby Pacific Airways/ and we’ve stood leg-fo-leg and licked everything from war aces to hosital bills*; but now it's find be tween you and me, Jim. I’ll go a hell of a long ways before I meet your kind again, bujL" I’ve got to go. Two is company, and if 1’4 hang around I’d 'be the crowd. I'll heli) you and Aurore get clear of this ugly fix you’re in; then I’ll go over •to Ontario and take that job you were going to take,” He knew that Aurore was not thinking of the situation she and Dorn were confronted with, and had no idea how ugly it was, At tlie very least, if Dorn was cleared of any guilt in the death of Carter- Snowdon and the detective, he and Aurore would be dragged into piti less publicity. This was the kind of thing the newspapers would run screaming headlines about, Kansas reasoned; “This troubde—the notor iety—they’ll dread going Out and facing it. They’ll never be a'ble to Shake it off. Twenty years from now people will still whisper about them and point when they walk by. And all that is providing Jim hasn’t got a double murder charge hanging over his head!” (Continued next week) “'Have you heard the English Pants Song?” “No, how does it go?” “London breeches falling down, falling down,” W Exeter Suttea-Aimnrirtr Established 187/3 and 18£7 Published every Thursday morning at Exeter, Ontario SUBSCRIPTION—? 2.00 per year M advance. RATES—-Farm or Real Estate foil sale 50c, each insertion for tint four Insertions. 25c. each subse quent insertion. Miscellaneous .ar ticles, To Rent, Wanted, Lest, or Found 10c, per Jine of six words. Reading notices 10c. per lino. Card of Thanks 50c. Legal ad vertising 12 and 8c. per line. 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FIRE PREVENTED A serious fire was averted in the public school at Parkhill by the prompt action of ThOinas Browning1* the caretaker, After putting oh tire; drafts of the furnace he returned, about an hour later to find one> room filled with smoke. Ho found that flames had ignited the paper Which children had thrown down, the register. He promptly threw water on the flames saving them from sDreadihg, s