SYNOPSIS
THE STORY SO FAR; Janice Trent
runs away from wedding Ned Paxton,
ric h but a gay blade. By a device, she
becomes secretary at a wilderness camp
in Alaska. But Bruce Harcourt, newly
appointed chief, who has known her since
jrihood was not aware of It till later.
Mrs Hale, wife of the deposed chief
engineer, is also attracted to Harcourt.
Her husband treats her badly. Hale
suffers a stroke or feigns one. The de
parture of the Hales from Alaska is
postponed. Hale is believed to have an
affair with Tatlma, an Indian girl. Her
sweetheart, Kadyama, resents It. Hale
calls Janice In the absence of Mllllcent
Hale to take some dictation, a codicU to
his will. Mllllcent suggests going with
Bruce and his assistant, Tubby Grant,
on an airplane visit to the city. Janice
Is invited also. In the meantime, Janice
rescues a cat belonging to the Samp
sisters, who run the Waffle Shop, from
a bunch of huskies. Kadyama threw
me cat to the dogs. The Indians
believed it was a bad omen. The dogs
attack Janice and* Bruce rescues her.
He is furious with her.
Now continue with the story.
CHAPTER VII
Still clutching the black cat who
was stirring in her arms, Janice
looked.
“What’s the matter with the sar
torial effect? Those dogs nearly ate
me up and you stand there glowering
at me because I’m not properly
dressed!”
With a furious lunge for freedom
Blot flung up a spiked paw, clawed
her cheek from brow to chin. With
a cry of pain Janice dropped him.
"Demon! You ungrateful—”
Harcourt flung an arm about her
half-bare shoulders. ‘‘Jan! Jan,
dear! That infernal cat!” His voice
Jroke. He pulled forward a chair.
“Sit here. Don’t touch it, dear,
don’t touch it. I’ll bring something
to ease the pain.”
His voice was shaken, his face
taut, colorless.
Harcourt entered with a bowl in
one hand, scissors and gauze in the
other.
“Sit still.” He drew up a chair,
set the bowl on it, dipped a piece
of gauze in the liquid it contained,
bent over her. “This will make it
smart like the dickens at first.”
“Like the dickens” was express
ing it mildly.
“I’m sure that Kadyama was the
kidnaper.” She put her hand to her
cheek and winced. “Perhaps Blot
has clawed him.”
“I doubt it. The natives regard
the black cat with malevolent super
stition. Kadyama may have been
acting for them. Forgive me for
lashing at you about your clothes,
Jan. They were an excuse to blow
off steam. Looking out of the office
window I saw you in the kennel
yard. I thought I’d never get to
you.” He cleared his voice. His
turbulent eyes met hers. “You were
wrong. I’ll not threaten again to
send you home. I’ll try another
plan. Take care of that scratch.
you later.”
He closed the door behind him.
“I’ll try another plan.” The words
ran like an undertone through her
mind.
What could Bruce have meant?
She examined her reflection in the
mirror. Two red, angry scratches
streaked her cheek from brow to
chin. She was a sight, and the black
cat snoozed as peacefully in the fire
light as though he never had done
anything more harmful than lick
cream from a saucer. Her anger
cooled as she looked at Miss Martha
somewhat later beside the table
with the open Bible. Her gnarled,
big-knuckled hands gripped a news
paper. She seemed tired. She was
absorbed in a murder case, of
course.
Crime accounts were meat and
diink to her. Her white-stockinged
feet were stretched at ease, her
heavy shoes were beside her chair.
Rosy, benign, Miss Mary was ab
sorbed in a copy of Vogue. She
looked up to ask in a thrilled voice:
“Janice, did you notice this dress
the Princess—l can’t pronounce her
name—is wearing?”
Janice blinked a mist from her
eyes. Dear little Miss Mary, starved
for what gaunt Miss Martha called
the “pretties” of life.
“Sakes alive, Janice and her fash
ion magazines have started a
clothes epidemic in this camp.
Caught Mary sending for a free
week-end sample of tissue cream
and face powder. Tatima spends
overy spare minute with her nose
in a mail-order catalogue.” With a
sniff of disdain Miss Martha re
turned to her paper.
Chair tipped back against the
chinked walls, Tubby Grant
strummed a ukulele, crooned softly
to its accompaniment. Black-haired,
tired-eyed Jimmy Chester, lounging
on the couch, pulled at his short
niustache, with a hand which looked
surprisingly white in contrast to the
dark seal ring on the little finger.
An authoritative knock was fol
lowed by the opening of the door.
Bruce Harcourt entered. “What’s
the matter? You look as though you
nod seen a ghost.”
Miss Martha rose stiffly, pattered
forward in her stockinged feet. Her
voice was warm with affection.
R just does my old eyes good
r° se ® you here, Mr. Bruce. You
‘Oven’t dropped in for the evening
° r weeks an’ weeks; now I come to
hink of it, since Janice came.
Mar y. bring out the bowl an’ crack-
with the nuts we’ve been savin’
for him.’'
War y Samp fluttered forward to
Harcourt entered. “What’s the matter? You look as though you had
seen a ghost.”
take his cap. Miss Martha patted
a chair invitingly.
“Sit here, Mr. Bruce. My, I’m
all flustered havin’ you back again.”
Tubby Grant drew his hand across
the strings of his uke. Struck into
“Hail to the Chief.”
Janice turned her back on Har
court and bent over her papers.
“Give these to the lady who
turned her back on us, Tubby.”
There was laughter in Harcourt’s
voice. Beginning to be friendly, was
he? A trifle late in the day, Janice
resented indignantly.
“Thank you, I don’t eat nuts.”
Grant paused in the act of set
ting down a saucer full of meats.
“Says you! Who gobbled all that
walnut fudge Miss Mary made for
me? All right. We’ll keep these for
them as likes ’em, eh, Chief?”
Harcourt laid down his hammer
and rose. He crossed to the desk,
gently lifted Janice’s chin.
“How’s the scratch, dear?”
The color flamed to the girl’s hair.
Her heart seemed to stop. What
did he mean by speaking to her in
that possessive voice, touching her
with fingers that sent a tingling
warmth from feet to head. The
room was so still she could hear fur
tive rustling in the moss chinking.
Were they all as paralyzed with
surprise as she? Chester, face white,
took an impetuous step toward her.
Grant caught his arm, laughed,
an embarrassed, shaky laugh.
“Come on, Jimmy. We’re ‘de trop.’
Nighty-night, Miss Martha, Miss
Mary.”
The door closed. With an inartic
ulate word or two about lights in
the Waffle Shop, the Samp sisters
hurriedly departed. Janice roused
from her stupefaction. Hands grip
ping the back of the chair behind
her, she faced Harcourt’s indomita
ble eyes.
“What did you mean, speaking to
me like that, before—before every
one. I felt as though Pel been tagged
or—or posted ‘No Trespassing.’ ”
She stopped for breath.
“Glad I got the idea across. Good
night, Jan. We start at sun-up, re
member.”
• • •
A faint pink glow was brightening
the east as Janice stepped from her
cabin attired in a one-piece flying
suit of weather-proof gabardine
over her blue wool sports suit.
She gripped the handle of the gay
Indian basket which the Samp sis
ters, always mindful of the para
mount importance of provisioning an
expedition, had packed to the brim.
In the other hand she carried her
camera. Under one arm she had
tucked a soft felt hat, to wear when
she reached the city. City. The
mere word had her all excited.
Harcourt nodded and called a
greeting as she approached the
plane, which looked like nothing so
much as a mammoth darning-nee
dle observing her approach with two
calculating, sinister eyes. He
seemed taller and sterner in his
flying-clothes. There was no hint
of his manner of last night.
Grant came puffing up.
“Good morning, little Bright-eyes.
It’s a wow of a day. Ba-gosh, he’s
taking the new Tanager. It’s a hum
dinger. Jump in. Done much fly
ing?”
“No. This is my pos-itively first
experience. My friends happened to
prefer boats and cars.”
Harcourt approached eyes on his
wrist-watch. He glanced at the girl.
“Sure you want to go?”
Janice nodded assent. Her voice
wouldn’t come.
“You will be perfectly safe and
comfortable. Almost no bumps or
air-pockets in the early morning.
I’ll see to her straps, Tubby. Toddle
over to the Hale cabin and hurry
up Millicent. She’s always late.”
He appeared as cool and imper
sonal as might a hired pilot, as he
explained the mechanism of the
plane. Janice’s mind was a jumble
of cockpit, rudder bars, clips and
control-sticks. Grant returned.
» “She was watching for me. Can’t
come. If you ask me, that woman
has about reached the limit of en
durance. Joe made a row last night,
somehow he’d heard of her plan,
she didn’t dare cross him for fear of
consequences. The sooner a man
like that is kissed good-bye the bet
ter. She gave me a list of things
to get for her in the big city.”
“Will you go, Jan?”
HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL, PERRY, GEORGIA
Janice sternly controlled a frantio
desire to jump out. Assented breath
lessly:
“Yes! If I won’t be in the way.”
Grant dropped into the seat be
side her. Harcourt adjusted his gog
gles, secured the flaps of his helmet,
fastened his sheepie coat, climbed
into the cockpit. “Turn her over.”
“Bruce is feeling perky,” Grant
shouted.
Janice caught her breath in an un
steady gasp, shut her eyes tight,
opened them, cautiously looked
down. The plane wasn’t moving. The
earth, all blurry patches of color,
was falling away. Ground mists
were pelting after one another like a
flock of white sheep in a Gargantuan
pasture. Toward the horizon, the
sun, a disc of flame, tipped moun
tain-tops with scarlet, gold or blind
ing white. Heaps of cumulus clouds
were piled against the hazy skyline
like mounds of whipped cream. Far
away green glaciers glinted through
shimmering mist. She tried to
speak. Grant grinned and advised
through the earphone.
“Better talk in this till yov> get
your air-lungs.”
The sun rose clear and ruddy.
Lakes and streams which had
seemed opalescent silver warmed to
molten gold. Harcourt throttled to
a speed to maintain altitude. Grant
prepared his camera.
Breathless with interest, Janice
watched him as he made an ex
posure every twenty-two seconds.
After a while she looked down upon
a panorama of forests, spruce and
cottonwoods; lakes and rivers; bar
ren uplands; plateaus connecting
mountains, like jade links in a mam
moth necklace; fields of seed grass
cut by bear-trails, like lines of ex
perience worn deep in the face of
an elderly giant. No sign of habi
tation save an occasional shack of
a wood-chopper or fish-wheels set in
a river. She could see miles of
glaciers, gulleys, rounded knolls, ir
idescent flashes of color, wagon
roads, like threads crossing and
crisscrossing. A railroad, looking
in the vast stretch of world like a
toy abandoned by a boy called away
from play, twisted and turned like
a glittering serpent, sometimes by
caverns which were abandoned gold
mines or gold-producing creeks.
Far below, ethereal as a spider’s
web, unreal in that wilderness as a
castle in the air, a trestle spanned
a frothing river. Janice pointed ea
gerly, a question in her eyes. Grant
nodded. Said through the phone:
“That’s it. Our Hero’s bridge.”
Skimming, racing, scudding, the
plane flew on. Grant took innumera
ble pictures at the direction of the
pilot. They left the wilderness.
Houses and farms increased in num
ber. They hovered over a city, a
city laid out like one half of a wheel,
its spokes converging toward a love
ly sweep of river.
Harcourt thrust out an arm to in
dicate a left curve. Pointed earth
ward. Made an easy turn.
“Going to land,” Tubby Grant in
terpreted.
Janice looked down upon a field
dotted with lethargic flies. The
plane circled, losing altitude. The
flies swelled to bumble-bee propor
tions. People? People moving. The
ground rose. In one corner lay a
twisted, smoking mass of frame
work. A little bounce, another. The
plane taxied to a stop.
The two men stood up and
stretched, pushed back their gog
gles, peeled off their jumpers. Har
court was on the ground first. He
held out his arms.
“Come.”
As Janice stole a surreptitious
glance at the smoking embers he ]
pressed her face against his shoul- |
der.
“Don’t look at that. Someone try j
ing a crazy stunt, probably. Won- ;
ders have been achieved in plane ]
building, but no genius has yet de
signed one warranted fool-proof.
Better leave your flying-suit in the j
bus. Get a taxi. Tubby, while I see |
if I can help.”
Grant deposited Janice in a cab
and disappeared. It seemed as
though she waited hours before
they joined her. The lips were com
pressed, the blood seemed to have
been drained away from under
their bronzed skin. Harcourt gave
a curt direction to the driver and the
automobile shot along the street.
(TO DE CONTINUEDJ
wkui
“ANGEL PUSSI Sugah Pie!
Where are you all? Com
halp youh Por Ole Mammy wit
dese hot things.” And since this
happy-go-lucky trio have handy
loops for convenient hanging, they
are bound to be ever ready to help
protect hands from the heat.
♦ • •
They have such roguish eyes, especially
Angel Puss and Sugah Pie, you'll wish
Words Are Signs
We should have a great many
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PHmveaoime]
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