Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 76: what you’re looking at

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

74 as he had known him—tall, straight, hand- some, the pride of his boyish eyes in the dashing uniform of a captain of the Rangers. “Just so! He knew he would not have his life long if he stayed. And who could face his friends or his own flesh with that stain upon him? He disappeared, and one day a priest came into the post of Niagara to care for his boy.” “Who, pray?” “Father Andrews, here!’’ Carlisle leaned lower, his face abruptly charged with red blood. “And he lived—lives yet?” he demanded. “Why not? I have lived—till now. Wayne lives. Why not Charlie Carlisle? Take my word for it. If you don’t take my word for it, ask Father Andrews here. Charlie Carlisle paid him to keep his se- cret and to raise you, and he knows. But be quick. I am weakening fast, and An- drews must give me absolution.”’ “‘Andrews—Andrews!”’ cried Carlisle, torn with emotion. “My father’s alive?” “Ves, Paul—yes.”’ “You know where he is?” Vies.’? “And you’ll take me to him now—I mean, soon, without delay?” ‘Ves, soon,” promised Andrews. ‘‘When we go down to Grande Portage I'll take you ‘ to him. Now go, quickly. Don’t you see Richelieu’s at his last breath?’ Andrews bent over Richelieu to give him final absolution, and Carlisle with his heart in a tumult and his face alight turned away to Wayne and Joan. Joan’s eyes were shin- ing into his through a film of moisture, but Wayne still stood like an image staring stonily at the strange confessional. Then he raised his eyes to Carlisle’s and put out his gnarled hand. “Richelieu isn’t the only one who wronged you, Carlisle!” he exclaimed with a depth of feeling that shook his chest. “I’ve put a terrible wrong on you—on both you and your father.’’ “But, Wayne, you can make it right,” smiled Carlisle, clasping the gnarled fist with one hand and significantly taking Joan’s soft palm with the other. “All ina minute you can make it right.” Wayne looked from one to the other, and an ancient tenderness, a memory of van- ished years, seemed to creep into his stony, mahogany face. His mask broke suddenly, and the tears ran down his cheeks. Adventure “By the Doom, Carlisle,” he muttered, laying his hands upon their shoulders, “I make it right.” CHAPTER XIV IN THE TEMPLE OF THE WILD “(NRANDE PORTAGE at last, father!” exclaimed Joan, using words she had used a full year before as the Factor’s craft grazed the Port Charlotte landing on the Pigeon River’s bank. “It is good to get the canoe cramps out.” “Yes, Joan,” nodded Wayne, a smile cracking the grim mahogany of his face as recollection stirred within him. ‘It’s been a long day, but there’s a nine-mile walk to stretch your legs.” ‘‘And not a packer to clutter up the trail!” laughed Carlisle, giving Joan his hand to help her out. ‘Look at Port Charlotte— empty as a last year’s bird’s nest! Look at the Portage—deserted to the skyline! We'll have a quick passage over.” Twelve months ago he had gone into Cumberland House with a lone canoe. Now he had come out down the Saskatchewan, Lake Winnipeg, through the Winnipeg River, the Lake of the Woods, Rainy Lake and the Pigeon River with a fleet of fifteen hundred paddles. As he turned off up the trail with Joan, followed by Wayne and Andrews, he waved a sign to his brigade leader Drummond to unload the massed brigades and pack over after him. Side by side in the warm glow of the July evening he and Joan climbed up over the three miles of gentle convolutions that terraced the way to the loftiest ridge before they looked back, and when they glanced around they beheld an unbroken line of pack-laden men crawling upward with the slow, peculiar, bobbing motion that packs in the tump-line impart. The sight brought home more clearly to Joan the memory of that other evening when Carlisle and Andrews had come over the Portage with their warning, and she began to laugh softly in low, throaty notes that blended with songs of the thrushes by the trailside. “Do you remember, Paul, how you came to tell us the Portage was closed? You were a Northwest mail courier in black cotton shirt, mackinaw trousers, cowhide mocca- sins and a battered, blue felt hat. Yes, and cConniclboooks (C@