Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 132: what you’re looking at

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

162 snow. They reached the creek, descended to its white surface through snow hung brush and halted there for a minute or two. A few scoops of a snowshoe cleared a flake of black ice. A dozen discreet hacks with the ax pierced through to the clear water. They both drank, and Gabe filled his flask. He scooped the displaced snow back into the little hole before the slow journey was resumed. Gabe led the way downward with the course of the narrow stream, keeping well under the overhang of the wooded bank. It was easier for the child here, where the foot- ing was levél—but the snow deepened stead- ily, and within two hours of leaving the water hole they were forced to halt again and rest for half an hour. When winter caught Archie McKim and Joe Newsam at the mouth of Gunflint Creek it did little, if anything, toward delaying their advance. They thrust Tim Leblanc’s canoe into the bushes and covered it safely with brush. They ate hearty breakfasts and made up their dunnage into two packs by the first bleak light of dawn. “Lucky thing ye fetched them snow- shoes along,” said Joe. “ An’ the mocca- sins an’ things.” “Luck?” queried Archie. “ Aye, it’s a lucky thing I was born with human intelli- gence.” They. traveled afoot all day through that bitter wind and thin wash of biting snow. Archie led the way, though he had kept the heavier of the two packs for himself. Joe was amazed at the speed with which he moved over that rough ground and hur- dles of “ blow-downs” and through snarls of underbrush. Joe was not only amazed, but he was sorely put to it to keep in touch with Dandy Devil McKim. He wondered if this could be the same man as the deliberate agricul- turist who used to rub his big knees with both hands beside the kitchen stove and dolefully predict a change of wind. They wore their borrowed snowshoes next day and kept right on. Archie continued in the lead, leaping many of the obstacles in the way with the agility of a breechy steer. He paused now and then to shake ARGOSY-ALESTORY WEEKLY. the snow out of his whiskers, and Joe was always thankful for those pauses. Pete Woodhall pursued Gabe Loon and little Jacob Kester through the winter wil- derness; and Archie and Joe sought the trail of WoGdhall; and one Tim Leblanc, a person of mixed blood and uncertain tem- per, moved hotly in pursuit of the “ dirty dewnriver farmers” who had ventured to hire his canoe and buy his provisions with- out permission. He admitted that the stran- gers had left enough money—but that wasn’t the point. The point was that a couple of potato growers from downriver had treated him, Timothy Leblanc, with indignity—had be- haved toward him as if he were nothing and nobody, even in his own house, although he had not been in the house at the time, and flashed their dirty money just as if they were better men than he was. And noth- ing that Charlie Dix could say had the slightest effect on his dangerous temper; and Mrs. Dix did everything in her power to add fuel to his rage against the men from downriver—and one ef them a colored man, mind you!—and urged him to follow them with blood in his eye. He pursued them, armed like a pirate, hating them more for having left money be- hind than he would have if they had stolen his belongmgs like ordinary, inferior thieves. It was that calm acceptance of su- periority on their part that infuriated him. There wasn’t another man on the river who would have felt and acted as he did with so little cause. Leblanc was a dangerous person to an- tagonize, as Charlie Dix had warned Archie McKim. He was, in short, a fighting fool. The snowfall ceased early in the after- noon and was followed by clear and wind- less hours of daylight and a calm night of cold white stars. Gabe Loon would have been glad of wind and drifting snow. And the next morning broke calm and bright, but bitterly cold; and so the weather held all that day. The progress of Gabe and little Jacob was dificult and slow. The child would have been better off for a pair of small snow- cComichbooks (S)