Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 104: what you’re looking at

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

102 to warn you—you and Mr. Pine, of course.”’ “You came to warn me—alone, at night —in the woods? Why do you do this— for us?” She turned away from him, toying with her riding crop. “Oh, I don’t know. You—you and Mr. Pine—and the woods, and everything about both of you seemed so clean, and decent, and honest, and this other thing somehow seems so dark and creeping and underhanded, though I don’t know what it is, that—there you are,”’ she ended lame- ly. “But you say you’ve known for some time, So my warning wasn’t necessary after all, was itP”’ ‘“‘We knew that we were in danger in a business sense because we—I—have made powerful enemies. That is what I have done—my crime, Miss Drake. I assure you that I am not acriminal. But I have enemies, here in Wolverene, and now you have put us on our guard against them.” “Do you know what it all means, then?” “No; but thanks to you we know that they’re going after me personally and, knowing that, everything is fine and dandy.” “Oh!” She started as he laughed lightly. © “That sounds reckless, Mr. Thorson. You don’t like trouble, do you? What non- sense I’m talking; of course you don’t, nobody does. Help me mount; I must be going back.”’ He lifted her lightly into the saddle and led the pony back to the road. “Vou have placed me under deep—— “Don’t, please.”’” She held out her hand. “Good night.” He bent over her fingers as he took them in his. But he did not touch them with his lips, for in that instant. he thought of the lips of Ada Adair. “Good night; ride fast,’’ he whispered, hot with shame, and slapping the pony, he stood watching and listening until the sound of the pony’s hoofs had died out. Tom Pine took the news calmly. “Well, well. So you’re going to be branded for a criminal, eh? How come you by this information, boy?”’ ‘““A little fairy whispered it to me,” said Gaston, and Tom knew by his tone that no further questions were to be asked. ‘And they’ve promised to show me up soon, and that I sha’n’t bother these diggings much longer.” “Well, well. 99 But I can’t see their play Adventure with that scant information,” growled Tom. ‘“‘They aren’t fools; they know you stand too well to try the old game of putting some dirty work on you. Their nigger in the wood-pile is too dark for me to see. Can you figger him?” ‘““No, except we know now that he’s in my end of the pile, so from now on I natu- rally play fox with the hounds and keep a good piece of trail between myself and anything that looks like trouble. What!” Pine had coughed skeptically. ‘You don’t believe it, eh, you old fire-eater! Well, you watch, Tom Pine. I’m a business man now, and if I see any man coming toward me who looks like he had trouble stored around his jeans, I run.” *fAt him.” “Away from him, you old wood-tick! Into the bush. Yessir. I'll allow no man living to drag me near trouble—at present.”’ ‘‘Hm,”’ said Tom to himself later, “‘he may be right about letting any man drag him into trouble, but: ue XI his hours, his comings and goings, ~“ his paths, his complete mode of existence. | ‘‘When an ol’ buck senses the wolves after him,’ mused Tom, ‘“‘he changes his stamping ground, side-steps the old run- ways and moves up against the wind.” This was his characterization of Gaston Olaf’s erratic movements. Not even Tom knew where the young man might be found at any given hour, day or night. In a general way he knew that Gaston spent most of the day up at the camp, but even there his movements were systematically irregular. MacLean who had strict orders to report at once to his employer the pres- ence of any stranger would have been puzzled to fulfill this order had the occasion risen. ‘He tells me he’s going up to take a look at the dam,”’ puzzled the Scot, ‘‘and that night I hear he was off in the timber help- ing the brush-monkeys swamping. He tells me he’s going out to cruise some jack- pine, and I find he’s been working as top- loader at the skidways.”’ At night Gaston returned to the mill, but he came by a circuitous trail far from the tote-road. After a brief conference COmicloo® S GASTON now proceeded to alter CO