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NINTH INSTALLMENT f Synopsis: Toiyng Ed Maitland and it. What you heard Owens say doesn’t count for much. And if this perspec- tor had a £old mine, why wouldn’t he him. the hardened sranihlex. Speed Malone, withjout needin’ a grold secret'back of became partners-hn thfe^trip north to ' the Yukon gold fields in ’87,-when word of the rich ores thOre first came down the Pacific coast; Maitland, son of a New England^ seafaring family, was determined to wijn back his lost family fortunes. FrencKy, the fisher man who took him and Speed north; Lucky Rose, beautiful young woman .who had given Maitland a ring for a keepsake; Fallon, trail boss of the miners, who^Msented Rose’s atten tions to Bfaitland; Steiner, the money lender; young Pete and his drunken partner, 3iU Oweni; Brent, old-^e prospector; and Garnet, a well-to-do modem one who hired Maitland and Speed to haul his stuff from the beach over the-mountains to the Yukon— these were -itRiong the crowd that made up the gold seekers at Liars- ville, a camp in the hflls. Speed was made trail ^ss in Fallon's plaice, be cause Speed insisted on closing Ihe “Maybe nowheres else. OutfitiL are] The shape of these marks was not gambled and lost right along the trails I tihat of bootprii^ but of some moc casin-like foot covering. There were other phantom dots and lines tl^ sug gested aaled track—unaccountabl^o record it, thus endin’ the secret? An other thing—I’d bank she wouldn’t be that much interested even in a gold mine. She comM by gold too easy.’’ “Then what motive would she have?” “Motjvp?’’. Speed’s mouth tight ened. “You’d better not guess. Noth in’ sets a man wonderin’ Jike gold, and' the best trick a woman has is to get you wonderin' till you go round her in circles. When she talks of puttin’' heads together, whose head do you figure she’s interested in? May be Fallon and me both cramp her ideas; She baits me with a gold" lure to go trailin’ him, and her other ar gument is plausible. It would surely be a wise move to hunt Fallon down and settle that feud. But not on Ca nadian ground. ... If that ain’t her “|1y, “she’s drawin’ evidence for the and Maitland took a stand above ^ ^ pass to keep^^e miners froni bVeak-!|j^^ She’s the most insidious wo ing through; Pete came to offer his I I known soipe help, but Speed refused it and the boy, i after saying his partner had been! . drowned after as drunken brawl, rode! the top of the they looked off, but he took a position where hei<>“‘ could fire on the miners when they tyied to rush the pass, and so helped Speed. Later Brent, with an old deer gun, added his help. Just when Speed seemed to be gaining the upper hand, Fallon called his men with an exultant shout. A cavalcade was coming down the trail. .(Now Go On With the Story).. “We'll take the street,’’ skid Speed to Maitland, “it’s more yijsible.’’ The marbled- thoroughfare, with its cross stripes of light, opened a chance course before them when they turned the bend. These alternating patches of light and darkness were an advan tage as well as a menace; they ex posed the entrance, of each resort, while the dark spaces between shield ed their approach. When the sign of The Pack Train saloon appeared ahead. Speed’s step became a little more measudred. No figures loitered around this Entrance; the noisy revel inside was apparent ly too ingroesing. Light, streaming from chinks and seams in the canvas, clearly illuminated the roadway, mak- ' ing it an unlikely spot for an ambush. ► ‘ They reached the outer radius of the light, entered it, and passed the low bright beam that issued from un der the swing doors. Through shad ows that, flickered over the road from the shuffle of dancing feet, they ^ moved safely toward the mar^n of ^rkness. , “Which goes to show—’’ jSpeed be gan. But the sentence was never com pleted. He stopped and wheeled with a sud denness that brought the lead bron co’s chest against His leg. Maitland heard a doable cra^; saw a bright flame stab from Sp^’r gun. Some thing burned past his cheek. The sa loon door behind them -was swinging to and fro, throwing blinks of light into the road. In the luminous pool just below it, a man lay crumpled with his face uptunjed. XbeJftAtum ‘ were clearly legiWe. It was the shell ♦ _^ler they had seen at Liarsville. ' " They werejn shadow again and^had gained the dafknsss of the trail before the street filled, for The IHwk Train was a “last chance’’ saloon. They joined a scattered line of prospectors ' who _had started on the night trail into the canyon, and no one followed them, j . " " In waryh silence the two partners kept trailing till they made camp far I up the river canyon. , Over the fire, the outlaw sat in a * long study. “I reckon that was a case,’’ h$, said at last, “of what you would call ’suggestion.* The man wouldn’t believe I didn’t have a gun notched for him.” * “What made him think you did?’’ Maitland asked. -‘T followed him one night in Ne- f vada. Got a slant of him then in the light of a saloon door. It just needed one look to see he was only a tramp / tin-hom. Seems, though, like he had ' other things to be nervous about; he * had friends in the camp and his im agination started guns blazin’. . . . I When be seen me here be figured I was still after him.. . . Lake the girl • &|iid, the worst risk may b.e the one you ain’t-lookin’ for. ■ “I’ve been figurin’ slower since I made that first mistake.-. . . They’s a heap of pretty bumette girit in the Western camps. You can see how easy it is to get mistracked from how wide my guess was about this one and the horses, thinkin' she wanted pay." “Do yon think the gold aeciwt she apoke of waa just something ehe'd overheard while singing through the t camp? lAe her tip about the ahell * dealer?" , Speed looked at him^ curioualy. “Why 'would you guess ehe overheard a gold seerst?" “I don't know," Maitland hesitat ed. “Something ehe said the first time I saw her. And then Owens losing his outfit when he waa on ids % wny to join a paitner in the Tokos .... Do 1 boiiguM, or doaa Hiai tia Speed studied them with an absent ir\tentnes»» from which he was re called by a question from the other. • “Must be the tracli*orthe lone Si- wash Drew’s patrolman was curipus about,’’ he saidii “My^ter’ous, too, because there ain't any native settle ment in this region, a!nd nothin’ much to bring a, wanderin’ Siwash in.’’ They made an uneventful trip down the stretch of Lake Lebarge to the Lewes and delivered their consign ment to the inspector in charge, with out meeting the other official person age. Nor [did Speed show any desire to do so. He lost no time in getting rid of the order, and put^ng miles of lake ice between them and tHe J>wes; Retracing their lonely route with the empty sleds, they loaded up with logs they felled along the way. Pros pecting for timber sometimes led them far apart. They had been separated trtil till it could be i^pair^ motive, it’s just barely possible she’s almost imptwMble. But the I workin’ with Fallon to nail my pelt. ... - , crowd veered back to Fallon. Speed]concluded lest audib- way for Mine . when . ..r .r, -1. ..t.- ^Idaitland became aware that it was turning dark. A wolf howl, wierd in the distance, deepened it still more. Some minutes later his ears were stung to Alertness by the muffled double crack of a rifle Wondering what grame Speed would consider worth that number of shells, he pulled the horses into a faster gait Presently, through the snow drizzle he di.scerned a dark lifeless bulk on the snow-blanketed ifce. He found it-to be a stray woodland caribou—the first he had ever seen. It had been dropp^ by a clean head shot, and its bl<^, still warm, ^ined the snow. Speed’s bullet had stolen a feast from the tim ber wolves In answer to his shout, his partner came toward him, out of the shadow of a clum of cottonwoods. “What were you looking for?’’ Maitland asked. The other had an oddly abstracted look and was still scanning the shore line. “I must be ’gettiii’ mental," he said. “I got a dim sight of this caribou crossin' the river mouth, and had to shoot twice to stop it. Then it seemed like 1—like somethin’ else was moving in the timber." “Maybe a wolf was trailing the deer you shot?’’ They put the deer on the sled and kept trailing till they camped in the shelter of some timbw above the riv er mouth. When they had skinned the game and cleaned up, darkness had closed around them with a bitter night cold. Maitland broke limbs from a fallen tree for the camp fire, while Speed waa^ cooking caribou Clouds billowing darkly on a chill wind, shadowed the crests of a pil ing sea of mountain peaks. To the east and below them, a gleam that follow^ this moving dar k n e sa; changed a> sable wood to misty en chanted green, and glinted over the snow-dusted surface of Sumi^it Lake —first^ promise of their approach to the headwaters of the Yukon. 1110 sky turned grayer as they descended till it melted in j flakes that drifted around them like leaves, mantling their mud-stiffened clothes.'" When the long strait of Windy Arm brought them into the wooded still ness of Lake Ta^sh, and they reached the Fovi-er end of this waterway, they came on an advance crew of police, setting up a barracks. ^ An officer walked out through the snow flicker to meet them. It, was Drew,*wearing a winter service uni form. He aaked where they were bound. “Just lookin’ for timber and a place to camp," said Speed.. Drew’s eye was on the pintos, as he filled and lit a pipe. “If you're heading toward the L^es and you’d like to make some wages, I could give you a load of supplies to haul to Thirty Mile. One of our inspectors is camped there. He's taking Judge McGuire a^^the Crown prosecutorJ^j^jjg wood coals. Releas ing the axe for a moment to blow on his fingers, Maitland happened to glance across the. river, and was ar rested by a yellow gleam from a dark, slinking shape of fur. ' “There’s your wolf,’’ he called to his partner. ^ Speed gave another turn to the steak he was browning. “Xhat’s no wolf,’’ he muttered. “It’s a Siwash dog. And lame. Must of strayed from tKe team of that dis appearin’ Indian. Or the Siwash cut Ft loose." 7~ The cruelty of leaving a lamed dog to starve seemed extreme to Mait twRQv *oift WillIV t*iiu viwiniui wvrv ing Speed mei'^tioned some harsher ex<< to Dawson,’’ -Drew explained, as a pleasant conversational item^ “The goods are to be delivered to him. No rusk about it.” Speed looked darkly at his part ner, who - had a provident thought. With what lay behind,them, it might be good politics to do the police a ser vice. “We could leave our atuff here,” Maitland'ventured, “and prospect for a camp-on the way." ^ “That’s an idea," said the inspec tor. “If you make camp between here |uid ^barge; you’ll be in the line of Cathcart’s patrol. Corporal Cath- cart’s a new man. It’ll 1^ an event % .him to mest ipyo-pe alojjg that lonely beat." “Does he use dogs," Maitland asked curiously. “No. Our dogs haven’t arriv^ yet. Speaking of that, though, Cathcart's very interested in the sled track of a mysterious siwash he’s seen down that way.^ If you should get a glimpse of this lone Indian, you’ll have exciting news for him.” “The fact that no one has ever had a clear view of the Siwash or his team. This sopnds-jodd, hot it dates back to a time before our men enter ed the territory—when a miner from the Felly brought in some gold he claimed to have got from an Indian in a storm. The, snow, he said, was driving thick, aiid the native, wh^^ face was' muffled Ihjs parka hood, spoke in Chinook, o;Kering a potlatch of furs and nuggetiT in ewhimge for supplies. A gold legend grew from it, aa«L whenever a cache was robbed, or ribbed by wolves; the vanishing Ijti^ dian was blamed.- ' “Intereeting case,” Drew conclud ed, tapping out his pipe. . . But I’ll be getting your sled-load ready.” Speed listened in silence, his mind apparently less occupied with the in spector’s story than with the peculiar circumstance of their making a haul for the police. The snowfall continued' in flurries as they sledded on toward Lage Le- barga. Between the canyon rapids an^ the Takhim thqy. passed a creek that cut into the left bimk of the riv er. It a.pp6aled to Epeed as a aite for a winter camp. The timber around it waa good enough for cab in lofi and they could haul in the fin er grained wood thi^ needed for the boat. The solitude <si the region remain ed unbnAcn. Fkatherikig snow had enm^ the track of a patrolman’s mount, which they had aoM occasion ally. So, sriwn th^ ynn rstprning to the horses after a aide excursioa to examine timber, Maitland was eur- priaad to tee hit paHner itop and- dealy and look dowa^ if ha had da- tacted aone mark on a blaak fine of amples of the law of survival in thk snow country^^ The topic did not dull their appetite. Having appeased it, they lolM in the fire’s warmth. Speed took a deep drag at a wan ing cigarette and tossed the stub in the fire. Then he got up an sleepily stretched his arms.^ As he did so, his eyes came suddenly - and sharply awake. Continued next week « •R. M. SULLIVAN It is with a deep sense of loss and sorrow that we record the passing of Brother R. M. Sullivan, on April 14, 19i35. He was a most faithful member of the Clinton Friendship Association, Clinton, S. C. Brother SuHivmi came to be a humble and true Christian be fore .departing this life. He never failed to respond to offers made to him’whereby he might help to bright en another’s pathway. All who knew him held him in the highest esteem. 'Therefore, we, the members of the Clinton Friendship Association offer the following resolutions. 1. That we, with humble hearts, bow to the will of our Heavenly Father. 2. That we extend our heartfelt sympathy to the bereaved family. 3. That a page in our minute book be dedicated to the memory of Broth er Sullivan*, and a copy .of these reso lutions be sent to the family and one to The Chn^n Chronicle, and one to The Greenville News for publication. Meeting the dear <me departed, Knowing him, cUsping his hand, All the bek>v^ and true-hearted There'inrthe fairest of lands. Sin evemKHe behisd us. Pain nevermore to distress: . Changing the moan for the music, Lvting the Saviour to bleaa. - Respectfully submitted, Mrs. Joe Campbell. Mka Minnie (^rmicha^. Will Evaos. 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