Air Stories, April 1936 — page 50: what you’re looking at

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

AIR STORIES of the path ahead. He evidently ex- pected an ambush. Don leaped from the cover of the bush. His pistol jerked up. ‘‘Get those hands up—and keep them up ! ’’ he gritted. The little man stopped in his tracks. His beady eyes glittered, and his face twisted into a sneer. The muzzle of his rifle swept towards the pilot. Don didn’t hesitate. He pressed the trigger. The little weapon spat. The slug struck the barrel of the rifle and whined off into the spruce. Flinging the useless weapon aside, Don leaped. Red rage fired his blood. He swung his fist in a wicked, savage punch. It crashed into the face of the bandit. Bone and flesh subsided into a bloody mess. The man staggered back, holding his hands up to his battered face. Don’s big fist, hard as iron, connected solidly with the unprotected jaw. The man sank to the snow with a moan. His partner, however, whipped out a heavy-calibre gun. Through a red mist, Don saw the hammer of the weapon rise under the trigger pull. A cold fury gripped him. He bore down on the second bandit. Just as the hammer was about to fall, Don slipped aside. Before the man had another chance to pull the trigger he felt himself hurled backwards as though by a giant hammer-blow. Like the strike of an otter, Don had leaped and hit out with all his might. But the blow, though it knocked the man down, did not knock him out, and an instant later he had picked himself up and swung his gun again. He pressed the trigger even as Don jumped for him. The pilot felt the searing blast of the discharge on his cheek. One hand shot out and gripped the bandit’s throat, and the fist of the other described a vicious arc and landed high on the bandit’s cheekbone. Furiously he smashed the bandit’s head against the stump of a tree, and with a sobbing wail the insensible man sank to the ground. Don’s fury cooled as quickly as it had arisen. He ran to the cariole and threw back the buffalo robe. Beneath a dunnage sack he saw a flash of red. Tossing the sack to the ground, he lifted the heavy box of gold bricks. Without wasting a glance on the fallen bandits, he walked to his ’plane. ‘‘ There,’’ he said, ‘‘ that’s that. I’ll still take the gold out to the ‘steel.’ I wonder whether ‘ Bugs’ got any answer to my message yet.’’ Even as he spoke he heard the drone of an aeroplane, and, looking up, saw a Puss Moth with the red, white, and blue targets of the R.C.A.F. on its wings sliding in for a landing on Wolf Lake. ‘‘Humph,’’ he grunted. ‘‘ This is a hell of a time to arrive; still, it’s just as well.’’ MOUNTIE climbed out of the ’plane and came towards him. His quick glance took in the pilot and the two bandits lying in the snow. ‘‘Aha, you got ’em, I see. Nice work. Your wire did the trick. This pair sent those instructions to Mike Dawson themselves. They came into the country through Norway House * and had this affair all planned. They knew Mike wouldn’t check on a radio message of that nature. They relied on his sending at least one shipment out by cat before he discovered the instructions were faked. They were a slick pair. I say were, because they won’t be any longer. I know a nice place where they’ll spend a few years.”’ ‘‘ That’s why they had all those dogs, eh ? ’’ Don put in. ‘‘ Yeh, they reckoned two dog teams could take them out to Fraser in a hurry. They also imagined that no one would suspect them if they had dogs.’’ ‘* Well, I did,’’ Don smiled. ‘‘ They knew nothing about dogs, and that put me on to them from the start.’’ ‘‘Is that why you sent the radio asking the directors if they authorised the gold shipments to go out by cat ? ’”’ ‘*'Yes, and I’m going to send them another, but there’ll be a nice freight charge on it.’’ * An historic Hudson’s Bay trading-post.—Author’s Note. 336 GOMIGIOO SJ (Cl QO)