Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 13, 1923 — page 165: what you’re looking at

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

THE FREE TRADER. vestry they came back to set fire to the trading shop.” ‘And then Henry lost his nerve,” Mar- tin interrupted. “He did not,” Alan declared. ‘‘ That was part of your plan from the first. You wanted all the loot, you didn’t want any one alive who might squeal, and it clinched the thing on Mears. You didn’t take any more chances with Henry than you did with the fur in the vestry. I have to hand it to you. You didn’t overlook any bets.” ‘“T know I didn’t, and that’s what gets me. How did you get wise to all this?” “Tm a fur trader,’ Alan answered shortly. ‘“You’re more than a good guesser, all right, and—”’ Martin coughed horribly and blood again gushed from his mouth. He turned over onto his side as if in agony, and then his head snapped back, his legs twitched, and he was dead. Alan did not waken until late in the after- noon. Helen was waiting beside his bed and smiled down at him. Her face was drawn by lack of sleep, but her eyes were brighter than he had ever seen them before, “Vou’re wonderful, Alan,’ she whis- pered. ‘And father is a changed man. Everything is straightened out.” A little later he persuaded her to get some rest. After she had gone Macleod came in. “ Gray,” he began abruptly, as he sat down beside the bed, “‘ we owe you a lot, the Mears and the Great North and I. How would you like to run a post for the company ?”’ Alan stared in amazement. ‘“That’s all I’ve been hoping for the last five years,” he said at last. “All right. I’ve had you in mind for some time. That’s what I was going to talk to you about when your brigade left Fort Bruce last summer. Then Madge Chester made us buy her out, and for a time she fooled me about you. But T knew when I saw Helen go to you there in the vestry, just what had been troubling Madge. How would you like to stay at Barrier Lake?” ‘“ But Mears?” - 627 ‘* He’s through. I think he sees where he was wrong. He’s willing to take his pen- sion now. He'll be in to see you later. He’s a fine old fellow when he’s not too fanatical in his loyalty to the company. Make it easy for him, He’s really very sorry. “Tl stay here until you’re better and then we'll make arrangements, Barrier Lake is the best place for you. It ‘ll need some straightening out after all this rum- pus.” Alan did not see Helen again until the next morning. Her father had been in, — and because Alan had been warned he was able to soften things in a way that won Mears’s further gratitude. She sat down beside the bed and kissed him. “This is a rotten time to have the use of only one arm,” he laughed. “But you'll be well soon,” she assured him, and then she blushed as she went bravely on: “ Besides, there are years and years ahead of us, Alan.” “ But have you thought of those years?” he asked soberly. “ Have you thought of what they may be? I’m a fur man, but I’m outside the pale. It’s going to be one odd job after another. Madge Chester has sold me out and do you know what it means? I haven’t any position. Can you go with me, help me fight the Great North?” . Alan!” she protested. ‘“ Don’t you understand? Don’t you know now that nothing counts with me but you? I don’t care where you go or what you are or whom you fight. I only know I’m going with you, that I want to, that I can’t think of doing anything else. I only know I'll be happy with you, Alan, wherever you are or whatever you do.” The significance of what she said so daz- zled him that the news he had been eager to tell her became insignificant. He knew that love had leveled the barrier, that pride and contempt and prejudice and hatred had dissolved before it, that even the might of the great company could no longer stand between them. As he drew her to him with - his one good arm he could only mumble in- coherently, THE END. EOPMIC OOO K<S ga fe eee a <x sei pet COL