Adventure, August 1917 — page 51: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Northwoman He paddled as he never had befére, not in any races with Joan or against any heavy seas when she had been in the bow. As they landed at the beach in front of the mission he did not stop. The canoe struck without diminished speed, and Stanton kept right on toward the house, calling as he ran: “Come on, Mush-to-we! Hurry!” The Indian woman followed as Stanton rushed into the front door. ‘“‘“Has Joan come back aunty?” he called as he ran to the gun-rack over the fire- place. - “No,” answered Mrs. Knox as she came in from the kitchen, ‘‘and she has——”’ But Stanton did not wait to hear. He had run out to meet Mush-to-we. ‘““Go down the trail to the river,” he com- manded. “Find the white man’s camp there and tell him of his danger. His tent is at the end of the trail.” “But Louis will know I did it,” began the squaw. “T can’t go,” exclaimed Stanton, not wait- ing to hear the woman out. ‘You must save Louis alone. I will come when I can. Quick, if you want to save him.” The next instant he was dashing across the clearing and into the brush, leaving Mrs. Knox staring first after him and then after Mush-to-we. CHAPTER XIV HOW VIRTUE WINS iE WOULD have been difficult, per- haps, to find two men more extremely Opposite in every way then Stanton Ban- croft and Gus Fleenor as they faced each other in the store. The fur-trader, whose type had been fixed so instantly and correctly by Wallace Searles, looked stolidly at the other. Nothing about the man conformed with his surroundings. His squat, round, unhealthy form filled only ludicrously the stanch, roughly hewed chair that had been built for a woodsman. The gray, splotched skin, heavy jaws and flabby cheeks contrasted sharply with the great, age-colored logs of the wall behind him. It needed only a little imagination, a wink of the eyes, to transform. the scene to the back room of a tough saloon in a great city. One look at the man and there was _ young man only contemptuously. the suggestion of the odor of stale beer, of quick, significant glances behind large glass mugs, of a dirty towel, the nearest to a suggestion to purity, battling eternally with the reek and residue of malt. -Fleenor would give such a picture to one familiar with his kind. He carried his background .and his frame with him, emanating inevitably an atmosphere that would taint a vacuum. Strong and lean and straight, clean in line and clear of skin and eye, his chest extended by the half-mile run to the trading post, his head up, glance straight, jaw firm, the young missionary, from his moccasins to his black, hatless, tousled head, pro- claimed the great, wide, stainless and un- staining Northland. There was nothing of the cleric, of the pedagogue, of the bigot, in his appearance because he was simply what he seemed to be, a clean, energetic, straightforward, in- telligent young man who loved life and loved to live it. He radiated health and wholesomeness and honesty and, as he looked at the trader, there was that in his bearing which showed that the Northland had bred in him its courage as well as_its vigor. “Fleenor,” he demanded, Miss Malloch?” “Miss Malloch?” repeated the other. “T don’t know. I haven’t seen her.” “You lie!” cried Stanton as he took a quick step forward. “You lie, Fleenor! Where is she?” “T got something else to do besides keep- ing track of all the skirts in the country,” was the sullen response. Fleenor was watching the missionary closely. Heretofore he had thought of the He was a preacher, soft, unused to force, easily deluded, easily bluffed. The trader had hardly considered him in his plans, but now he suddenly realized that he had made a mistake, that this was no soft-spoken disciple of the Gospel. Still, his former opinion would not down entirely, and he played his game as he had planned to play it. Bancroft might bluff, but that was as far as he would go. And Fleenor believed he was Bieingk a safe hand. There was no trace of Joan having come to his store. She was securely bound and gagged in the little back room and would remain there until darkness ‘where is CoOmiclsoo 49. CO 5}