Classic Audiobook Collection - The Land of Frozen Suns by Bertrand W. Sinclair ~ Full Audiobook [adventure]

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

The Land of Frozen Suns by Bertrand W. Sinclair audiobook. Genre: adventure Bertrand W. Sinclair was known for his novels which centered in and around the rugged and frozen terrain of Montana and later, British Columbia. The Land of Frozen Suns is primarily an action and adventure novel which takes place near the northern most reaches of British Columbia at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Bob Sumner, after having been shanghaied onto a boat heading north up the Mississippi from his comfortable home town of St. Louis, is put to work on the 'New Moon' and finds himself in the much less comfortable territory mentioned earlier, where he is forced to learn all about treachery, double-crossing, and finds his trust in fellow man questioned more often than he was accustomed to. At the same time, he finds himself needing to learn how to survive in an environment which seemed the antithesis to his old style of life. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:23:41) Chapter 02 (00:39:46) Chapter 03 (01:07:02) Chapter 04 (01:23:45) Chapter 05 (01:39:21) Chapter 06 (02:03:50) Chapter 07 (02:20:22) Chapter 08 (02:45:13) Chapter 09 (02:57:38) Chapter 10 (03:27:55) Chapter 11 (03:50:40) Chapter 12 (04:08:42) Chapter 13 (04:23:34) Chapter 14 (04:43:50) Chapter 15 (05:08:28) Chapter 16 (05:34:43) Chapter 17 (05:49:11) Chapter 18 (06:04:24) Chapter 19 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the land of frozen sons by bertrand w sinclair chapter i the genesis of trouble who was it i wonder made that sagacious remark about the road to hell being paved with good intentions he might have added an amendment to the effect that there's always a plentiful supply of material for that much-travelled highway we all contribute more or less i know i have done so and so did my people before me my father's intentions were good but he didn't live long enough to carry them out if he hadn't fallen a victim to an inborn streak of recklessness a habit of taking chances well i can't say just how things might have panned out i'm not fatalist enough to believe that we crawl or run or soar through our allotted spans of years according to some prearranged scheme which we are powerless to modify oh no it's highly probable however that if my father and mother had lived i should have gone into some commercial pursuit or taken up one of the professions either way i should likely have pegged along in an uneventful sort of way to the end of the chapter. Lots of men do.

Not that I would have taken with enthusiasm to chasing the nimble dollar for the pure love of catching it because I was slated for something of the sort, and as the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined. A man can't sit down and twiddle his thumbs and refuse to perform any useful act

because there is no glory in it. the heroic age has gone a-glimbering down the corridors of time as it happened my feet were set in other paths by force of circumstances only for that the sagebrush country the very place where i was born might have remained a terra incognita i should always have felt though that i had missed something for i was ushered into this veil of tears at the sumner ranch on the red river of the the south. Sumner Pear hadn't developed into a cow monarch those days, but he was on the way. My earliest impressions were all of log and doby buildings, of long-horned cattle, of wild shaggy-maned horses, and of wilder men who rode the one and drove the other in masterly fashion. For landscape there was rolling prairie, and more rolling prairie. And more rolling prairie. beyond. And here and there, the eternal brown of it was broken by gray, sage-grown flats,

and stretches of greasewood, as if nature had made a feeble effort to break the monotony. I knew only this until I was big enough to tease for a pony. I cannot remember seeing a town when I was small. The world to me was a place of great plains, very still and hot. and dry, a huddle of cabins and corrals, and a little way to the south, Red River slinking over its quicksands, except in time of storm. Then it raged. So that when my father bundled mother and myself off to a place called St. Louis, where great squadrons of houses stood in geometrical arrangement over a vast area, I had already begun to look upon things with the eyes of cattle land. I recollect that when we were settled in a roomy, old-fashioned house, I cried because my

mother would not let me go out to the corral and play. There are no corrals in a city, dear, she explained, and I cried the harder. I could conceive of no joy in a place where I could not go out to the corrals and have some brown-faced cow punch or hoist me up on a gentle horse and let me hold the reins while the pony moved sedately about left to himself i think my father would have made a cowman of me but mother had known the range when it was a place to try the nerves of strong men and she hated it i didn't know till i was nearly grown that she had made dad promise me when i was but i was but i was but i didn't know till i was nearly grown that she had made dad promise me when i was born that if the cattle made money for us, I should never know the plains. She came of an old southern family, and her life had been a sheltered one till she met and married, Jack Sumner. And she would have had me walk in pleasant places, as the men of her family had done, doctors, lawyers, planters, and such. The life was too hard, too much of an elemental

struggle, she said, and I was to be saved some of the knocks that my dad had taken in the struggling years. Poor mother, mine, her son was the son of his father, I'm afraid. But Sumner Pair made good on his promise when the Sumner-Herds fattened his bank account sufficiently, and I gyrated through school, with college and a yet-to-be-determined career looming on the horizon. So my childish memories of the great open that lies naked to the sun glare and the chilling breath of the norther's year on year grew fainter and more like something of which I had dreamed. Dad would come home occasionally, stay a day or two, perhaps a week, sometimes even a month, but my mother never went west of the Mississippi, nor did I.

I often plagued them to let me go to the ranch during vacation, but they evidently considered it best to keep me away from the round-ups and horse-breaking and such, till I was old enough to see that there was another side to the life, besides the sun-shiny, carefree one that makes an irresistible appeal to a youngster. And then, just a week after my 20th birthday, my dad, slow-voiced, easy-going old Jack Sumner, rode his horse into the smiling red and drowned under the eyes of twenty men. I was sitting on our front steps grouching about the heat when the messenger brushed by me with the telegram in his hand. Mother signed for it, and he ran down the steps whistling and

went about his business. There was no sound within. I had no hint of trouble. I had no hint of trouble till a maid screamed. Then I rushed in. Mother was drooping over the arm of a morris chair, and the bit of yellow paper lay on the rug where it had fluttered from her hand. I carried her to a couch and called a doctor. But he could do nothing. Her heart was weak, he said, and might have stopped any time. The shock had merely hastened her end. i'm going to pass lightly over the week that followed i was just a kid remember and i took it pretty hard it was my first speaking acquaintance with death a few of my mother's people came and when it was over with i went to virginia with an uncle a kindly absent-minded middle-aged bachelor but i couldn't settle down for a week or ten days i fidgeted about the sleepy southern village and then i bade my uncle an abrupt good-bye and started for st louis

little as i knew of business and legal matters i was aware that now the sumner herds and ranches were mine and i had a hankering to know where i stood except that there was a ranch and cattle in texas i knew nothing of my father's business it didn't even occur to me at first that i was a miner and consequently devoid of power to transact any business of importance i knew that certain property was rightfully mine and that was all once in st louis however i began to get the proper focus on my material interests it occurred to me that sumner pair had done more or less business with a certain bank a private concern engineered by two ultra-conservative citizens named bolton and cur i hunted them up thinking that they would likely be able to tell me just what i needed to know and it happened that by luck i came in the nick of time a clerk took in my card and returned immediately for me I found the senior member wrapping the bit of pasteboard around his forefinger when I was ushered in. We shook hands, and he motioned to a chair. I asked for information, and I got it, straight from the shoulder.

Bolton was very economical in the use of words. Yes, I knew your father well. There is a sum of money to his account in the bank. he died in testate he told me bluntly in view of a communication i have just received you will have little to do with any property until you are of age the estate is now in the hands of an administrator appointed by a texas court the court will probably order that you be allowed a certain monthly sum until your majority i see said i thoughtfully i hadn't considered that phase of it although in a hazy way i knew something of the regular procedure will our place here be managed by this administrator very likely bolton returned he has served us with a court order for the estate funds now in our hands but you are legally entitled to the use and occupants of the family residence until such time as the estate is appraised and the inventory returned after that the administrator has discretionary power he can make any disposition of the property meanwhile making provision for your support

it seems to me i hazarded that some relative should have been appointed exactly bolton nodded they made no move though and this texas person acted at once i dare say it's all right however you're a miner better have some responsible person appointed your guardian then if there's any mismanagement you can take court action to have it remedied frankly i don't like the look of this haste to administer maybe all right may be all wrong see here i burst out impulsively for i had taken a sudden liking to this short-spoken individual who talked to me with one foot on a desk and a half-smoked cigar tucked in the corner of his mouth what's the matter with you becoming my guardian none of my people seem to have thought of it i'm sure we'd get along all right it would be a mere matter of form anyway he smiled my naive way of saddling myself upon him along with a lot of possible responsibilities was doubtless amusing to a hard-headed financier like bolton i saw nothing out of the way in such an arrangement at the time it struck me as a splendid idea in fact but he made allowance for my juvenile point of my view. Shifting his cigar to the other corner of his mouth, he surveyed me critically for a few

seconds, crinkling his black brows thoughtfully. I'll do it, he finally assented. The position ought to be a sign a cure. Run in tomorrow morning at 10.30, and we'll step around to the courthouse and have the thing legally executed. You're staying at the old place, I suppose? i'm going to i replied i haven't been at the house i came straight here from the train well run along son he said good-naturedly i'd take you home to my family only i don't happen to possess one i live at the club the orion mostly oh by the way he called to me as i neared the door how are you off for fun To tell the truth, I owned rather shamefacedly, I'm getting in pretty low water. I think I've some change at home, but I'm not sure.

Dad never gave me a regular allowance. He'd just send me a check now and then, and let it go at that. I'm afraid I'm a pretty good spender. You'll have to reform, young man, he warned, mocked seriously. here he dug a fifty-dollar bill out of his pocket-book that'll keep you going for a while i'll keep you in pocket money till this administrator allows you a monthly sum for maintenance don't forget the time now ten-thirty sharp tata and he hustled me out of the office in the midst of my thanks i was thankful too for i'd put it mildly when i told him that i was getting near the rocks. I was on them. I'd paid my last cent for a meal on the train that morning. And while I did feel tolerably sure of finding some loose silver in the pockets of my clothing at home, I knew it would not amount to more than four or five dollars. Oh, I was an improvident

youth all right. The necessity for being careful with money never struck me as being a matter of importance. I'd never had to do stunts in economy. That was the trouble. From the bank I went straight home. We hadn't kept a very pretentious establishment, even though Sumner Pear had gone on increasing his pile all through the years since we'd moved to the city, a cook and a housemaid, a colored coachman and a gardener. The four of them had been with us for years, and old Adam was waiting by the steps for me when I came up the walk, his shiny black face beaming welcome. I had to go to the stable and look over the horses and tell Adam that everything was fine before the old duffer would rest. In the house, everything

was as I'd left it. All that evening I moped around the big, low-sealed living room. There was little comfort in the place. It was too lonely. The hours dragged by on leaden feet. I couldn't get over expecting to see mother come trailing quietly down the wide stairway, or dad walk in the front door packing a battered old grip and greeting me with his slow smile. I know it was silly, but the feeling drove me out of the house and downtown, where there was a crush of humans, and the glitter of street lights, and the noise of traffic. There I met a chum or two, and subsequent proceedings tore a jagged hole in Bolton's fifty-dollar bill before I landed home in the little hours.

Even then I couldn't sleep in that still old house. The long night came to an hour. end, as nights have a habit of doing, and breakfast time brought with it the postman. The mail was mostly papers and other uninteresting junk, but one missive, postmarked Amarillo, Texas, and addressed to myself, I opened eagerly. It was from the administrator, as I had surmised. Most of the communication was taken up with an explanation of how he came to jump into the breach so quickly. He had been, it seemed, a close friend of my father's. He knew that Jack

Sumner had a son who was not yet of age, and who, even if he were, knew little or nothing about stock. Things needed looking after, he said. My father's sudden death had left the business without a responsible head, and the ranch foreman and the range boss were bucking each other. things were going to the devil generally so he felt called upon to step into the breach seeing that none of the sumner family showed up to protect their interests i wouldn't be under any obligation to him he frankly explained for as administrator he would be paid for what he was doing he also stated that if i felt that my affairs would be more capably managed in the hands of someone whom i knew better he would cheer for him he would cheer for my affairs would be more capable managed in the hands of someone whom i knew better he would cheer for turn over control of the estate without any tiresome litigation. And he concluded his letter with an urgent invitation to come down to headquarters and see the wheels go round for myself. He signed himself in a big, heavy hand, Jake Howie, and the signature gave me an impression of a bluff,

hard-riding cowman, picturesque, and thoroughly western. If I had been born a girl, I expect my disposition would have been termed romantic. Anyway, Mr. Jake Howey's letter made a hit with me. When I went to keep my appointment with Bolton later in the afternoon, I took the letter with me. He glanced over it and tucked it back in the envelope. I don't much believe in long-distance judgment of men, he declared, but I'd be willing to take a chance. chance on this Texas person. I should say you can expect a square deal from him, if this

missive represents his true personality. That's the way it struck me, too, I confessed. I think I'd like to go down there for a while. Yes, what about school, he put in. Well, I suppose it's necessary for me to go through college, I admitted. Dad and intended me to. I was to begin this coming school year. September, isn't it? But that's nearly three months away. I would like to see that Red River Ranch. I was born there, you know. You'll have to cut your eye teeth in the business sometime, he mused. You'll be less likely to get into mischief there than you will in town. Yes, I dare say, you might as well take the trip. But no funking school this fall, mind. I've known youngsters to go to the cattle country

and stick there. Your father did. I won't, I promised. Even if I want to stay, I'll be ready to dig in when September comes. You'd better, he laughed at my earnestness. Or I'll be down there after you. When do you propose to start? As soon as I can. Having paved the way to go, I wanted boy fashion to be on the way at once. Any idea how to get there? he queried, as if he had his doubts about the development of my bump of location. But I had him there. Oh, yes.

Dad used to take the train through Little Rock to for Fort Worth and on up into the panhandle from there. Sometimes he took a steamer from here to Memphis. I think I'd like the river trip best. All right, he decided. You shall go, my boy, just as soon as you can get ready. Now we'll see about this guardianship matter. We saw about it in such wise that two days later, I was the happy possessor of a ticket to Amarillo and a well-lined pocketbook. I had dinner with Bolton and bade him goodbye quite cheerfully, for I felt a good deal as Columbus must have done when he turned the prow of his caraville away from Spanish shores. After leaving Bolton, I went home after a grip I'd forgotten.

the riverboat on which I'd taken passage was due to leave at midnight, and that midnight departure was what started one Bob Sumner up the Trouble Trail. It isn't known by that name, it doesn't show on any map that I ever saw. But the man who doesn't have to travel at some time in his career, well, he's in luck. Or perhaps one should reason by the reverse process. i dare say it all depends on the point of view end of chapter one chapter two of the land of frozen suns this librivox recording is in the public domain the land of frozen sons by bertrand w sinclair chapter two by way of the new moon lights by the thousand speckled the night enshrouded water-front when i reached the slid

where my boat lay. On the huge roofed-in wharf, freight handlers swarmed like bees. The rumble of hand trucks and the tramp of feet rose to the great beams overhead and echoed back in a steady drone. Lamps fluttered on vibrating walls. Men moved in haste, throwing long shadows ahead and behind them. Boxes, bales, barrels, sacked stuff, vanished swiftly down three separate inclines to the lower deck of the memphis girl and from the depths of this freight swallowing monster came the raucous gabble freely garnished with profanity of the toiling stevedores out from under that vast sounding board of a roof the noise at once diminished in volume and i passed through the heart of the dust and babble and gained the cabin deck of the memphis a steward looked over my ticket and guided me to the berth i had reserved it was then half-past nine still two hours and a half to the time of departure i took a look around the upper deck quite a number of passengers were already aboard some were gone to bed others were grouped in the aft saloon one or two poker games had started and little groups were looking on

but of them all i knew not a soul youth hungers for companionship and i was no exception to my kind it may be a truism to say that nowhere can one be so completely alone as in a crowd but the singularity of it never came home to me until that night but we are always learning the old things and esteeming them new i roamed about them memphis wishing i had stayed up-town until the last minute. It had been my plan to go down and turn in. The ceremony of casting off was not one that interested me greatly, but now the whim was gone. A spirit of unrest, an impatience to be off, drove sleep from my mind. If you have ever known the dreary monotony of waiting for train or steamer to start when your whole being craves the restfulness of motion, you will not wonder that I made one more round of the deck and saloons, and then left the Memphis to roam aimlessly past the serried wars that faced the stream.

I don't recollect just how far I wandered. If the place had been strange to me, I should likely have been more circumspect in my prowling. As it was, my only concern was to be at the SS Company's wharf by midnight, and midnight was yet afar. so i poked along stopping now and then to hang over a railing and peer across the dark sweep of the mississippi toward the illinois shore between the lights of diverse craft twinkled like fireflies and tootings of major and minor keys with varying volume of sound went wailing through the night a big passenger packet hailing from up river swept into view a blaze from her bow to the churning stern wheel she bore down like a floating villa strung with yellow gems a band blared dixie from somewhere amid ships

i was young enough to have some degree of enthusiasm for such spectacles and i turned on to a long half-lighted wharf and walked to its outermost tip to get a better view of the puffing river monster with its thousand gleaming eyes until she came abreast and passed i stood there watching in a careless way i became aware of two men strolling out on the wharf in fact i had passed them near the entrance gate i remember that the swell from the big packet was beginning to slap against the wharf wall when one of them edged over and asked me the time like a simpleton i hauled out my watch to tell him it did not occur to me that there might be any purpose behind the question the river front in st louis was not a place where one could safely exhibit signs of affluence in the way of cash or jewelry and i knew it i hadn't grown up in a city without knowing some of its ways no doubt it looked like an easy game out there in the end of a deserted wharf my watch was a plain hunting-case affair with a fob without an inkling of what was to come i turned toward the dim light as i sprung the case open in that instant the fellow struck the watch out of my grasp with one hand and smashed me full in the jaw with the other a vicious pugilistic punch i went down curiously i didn't lose consciousness and the blow gave little pain but it paralyzed my motor nerves for a few seconds gave me a queer, helpless feeling in my legs and arms, such as one has in a nightmare.

It passed, though, and the pair of them were just going through my pockets with a celerity that bespoke much practice when I recovered sufficiently to jab my fist into a face that was bent close to mine, at the same time driving both heels against the shins of the other fellow with what force I could muster. This instinctive outbreak rather surprised them, I think. Anyway, they gave ground. Only for a moment, however. I made one valiant effort to gain my feet,

and they were on me like twin wolves. Kicking, striking, struggling like primal beasts, we three lurched this way and that on the brink of the wharf. A hundred yards away people were hurrying by, and if I'd had sense enough to realize that a shout was my best weapon, I could easily have routed the thugs, but I was too frightened to think. And in a very short time, sheer weight of numbers decided the issue.

One of them got a stranglehold about my neck. The other clasped me fervently around the waist. Thus they dragged me down. For one brief instant I rested on the hard planking, my head in a whirl their weight like a mountain on my heaving chest then with a quick shove they thrust me over the edge of the wharf undertaken voluntarily a twenty-foot dive is no great matter but it is a horse of quite another color to be chucked into space and fall that distance like a bag of meal i struck the water feet first as it happened and came to the top spluttering half strangled, but otherwise none the worse. Right quickly, I found that I'd merely exchanged one antagonist for another.

The current set strongly out from the wharf, and it cost me many a stroke to get back to it, and then I saw that I was no better off. Contrary to the usual thing, the piles offered no avenue of escape, for they were planked up, a smooth wooden wall that i could not possibly climb i felt my way toward shore but the out-sweeping current was too strong so i hooked my fingers in a tiny crack and proceeded to shed what clothing still burdened me of my coat only a fragmentary portion remained it had been ripped up the back in the fracas above and the side containing my ticket and most of my money had been torn clear off me. There was little left save the sleeves. My shoes and

shirt and trousers, I cast upon the waters with little thought of their return, and then, clad in a suit of thin underclothes, I struck out for the next pier below, thanking my stars that I was a fair swimmer. But I could not make it. The channel of the Mississippi threw the full head of a powerful current against the St. Louis side at that particular point. It struck the wharf-lined bank and swerved out again with the strength of an ocean-tide, and I was in the outgoing curve of it. The next wharf was not for me, nor yet its fellow beyond. Steadily I was carried into midstream. Shouting for help across the black space that lay between me and the wharves soon examined,

exhausted what wind and strength I did not use up in a footless attempt to swim against the current. I stopped yelling then. It seemed to be sink or swim, and I began to conserve my energies a bit. Slipping along in plain view of myriad lights, hearing the fiendish screaming of steamer whistles, seeing the moving bulk of them dimly in the night, I felt in no immediate danger, Not half as much alarm disturbed the soul of me as when the fingers of those nighthawks were clawing at my throat. I knew I could keep afloat an indefinite length of time, and some craft or other, I reasoned, would pick me up if I failed to make sure. By and by I wrapped my hand smartly against some hard object as I cleft the water,

and gripping it I found myself the richer by a four-foot-scent. stick of cordwood on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. This served to bear me up without any exertion on my part, and gave me that much better chance to buck the current. I was now well out from the wharves, and straining my eyes for passing boats. Far down the river, the piercing shriek of a siren split the momentary silence that had fallen on the stream.

A drumming noise was borne up to me in a fitful night. breeze. From behind the black loom of a jutting wharf, a steamer appeared, and came throbbing upstream. Now she was almost on me, the heart-like pulse of her engines and the thresh of her great stern wheel, deadening all the other sounds which that vast river surface caught up and bandied back and forth. Remorselessly the current bore me into her path. At first I had strained every nerve to get in her way. But as the black hull with funnels belching smoke and deck lights riding high drew near, I remembered that if I missed a hold on her side, I stood a fair chance of being sucked into the flailing paddles. When that filtered into my cranium,

I backed water in hot haste. But I had gone too far, and her speed was too great. In another minute, I was pawing at the slippery bulge of her water line, and striving to lift my voice above the chug of the engines as she slid by. The wash from her swung me away and drew me back again, and just as the nearing thresh of her broad-paddled wheel struck a chill of fear into my quaking heart, my hands fouled in a trailing line, and I laid hold of it more tightly than ever drowning man clutched the proverbial straw. It was a small line, and the strain of towing me was great, but it held. In the tears of cabins above my head, lights flicked out one by one. Again and again I called, bellowing upward with the regularity of a fog signal. No answer. No inquiring face

peered over the rail. The docks slid by. God only knows how long I dangled at the end of that bit of twisted fiber. The glow-worm lamps of St. Louis twinkled distantly on the left, rapidly falling astern. The thin line wrapped about my wrist, numbed it to the elbow. I changed hands from time to time, in peril of being cast adrift. Fervently I wished for my bit of driftwood. The onrushing demon to which I clung. offered less hope of succor.

In a little while longer, I should have cast loose from sheer inability to hold on. The strain in my arms was exhausting, and the least shift soused me under water, such was the speed. How I should have fared then, I do not know. But in the nick of time,

an answering hail came from above, and when I had established the fact that a human being was clear, singing alongside a cluster of heads and a lantern or two appeared at the rail and a rope ladder came wriggling down cramped and sore and weary as i was i climbed thankfully aboard a knot of passengers surrounded an officer whom i took to be the mate a deck-hand or two stood by eyeing me curiously as i heaved myself on deck the mate held up his lantern and took a good look at me you look some the worse for wear bucko he volunteered indifferently how long you've been hanging on to us i began to explain but i dare say my My appearance hardly lent an air of truth to my words. He cut me short with an incredulous shrug of his shoulders.

Tell that to the captain or the purser, he interrupted sharply. Bilk, you steer him to the pilot house. I'll be there in a minute. He turned on his heel, and Bilk motioned me to follow. As we passed forward, I wondered on what sort of craft I had landed. wither bound, and how good my chance was of getting back to St. Louis and making a fresh start. The first of these quarries I voiced to bilk. She's the New Moon, he growled. Through freight to Bismarck, Cow Island, and Fort Benton.

Stop? Nah, she don't stop for nothing, only would. End of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 of the Land of Frozen. Sons. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. The Land of Frozen Sons by Bertrand W. Sinclair. Chapter 3, which shows that the worm does not always turn. The door of the pilot house swung open, and the captain himself stepped out as Bilt reached for the knob. The eyes of this river autocrat fell inquiringly on me.

I dare say I was not a prepossessing figure in the dull glimmer of a deck lamp. What the devil's this? he demanded. Fellow picked up alongside us, hanging on by an unstowed line, sir, Billk explained. Huh, the captain grunted. See here, sir, I began. I'm much obliged for being picked up, and I'll be much more obliged if you'll put me in the way of getting into some clothes and landing as soon as possible. I was to have taken the Memphis girl down river tonight.

Mr. Bolton, of the Bolton and Kerr Bank, will make it all right with you. The captain guffawed coarsely in my face. God bless me, that's all right. Hey, Tupper, to the mate who came up while I was speaking, here's a lad with a black eye, a skinned nose, and no clothes on who wants us to put about, and his banker will make it all right. And he laughed till my cheeks burned. I don't ask anything of you only to get ashore, first stopping place, I spluttered,

trembling with anger. His patent disbelief of my statement was hard to swallow. I'm not to blame for getting robbed and tumbled into the river, and I don't want my people to think I've been drowned." "'There's the shore,' he jerked his thumb backwards significantly. "'Swim for it, if the deck of the moon don't suit you.' That silenced me for the time. I knew I could never make sure, weary as I was. The inhospitable atmosphere was better than the unquiet bosom of the Mississippi.

I had no stomach for further natatory stunts that night. and i knew that it depended on the good will of this grouchy individual as to when and where i should set foot on land he squinted calculatingly at me for a second or two then addressed the mate take him below tupper he said dig him up some jeans and a pair of shoes and let him roost somewhere forward we can use em i reckon look here i remonstrated anxiously He was overlooking my voice in the manner in a way that didn't suit me at all. I want to know when I'm going to get a chance to go back to St. Louis. You don't seem to understand the fix I'm in. Got passage money about you? he asked coolly. Why, of course not, I replied.

A fellow doesn't usually carry money in his underclothes. He don't, hey? He stepped nearer to me and suddenly thrust a hairy fist under my nose. Who the hell are you to howl about getting ashore? You look to me like a man that's broke jail or something of the kind. As tough a-looking citizen as you are ought to be damned thankful for a chance to climb aboard. You'll earn your keep while you're on the moon, and no questions asked. See?

Take them along, Tupper. kick his ribs in if he makes a roar get forward there that was all the satisfaction i got out of captain spear and truth to tell i followed the mate with proper meekness i knew enough of the riverboat way to avoid open clashing with stern-wheel folk deep-water men paint lurid pictures of hell-ships but i have my doubts from what i've seen and heard of any wind-jammer that that ever sailed the seven seas, being worse than some of the flat-bottomed craft that bucked the Missouri and Mississippi in the year of our Lord 1881. The mate, a sullen red-whiskered brute, hustled me down tween decks, rummaged in a locker, and brought forth a frayed suit of cotton overalls, and a pair of brogans, two sizes too large for my feet, and they are not small by any means.

get into them if you feel the need of clothes he growled you camp on that pile of sacks and stay there till you're wanted much as i resented his overbearing speech and manner i didn't think a good policy to row with him just then my face ached from the punching it had already received physical weariness bruises the strangeness and palpable belligerence that confronted me on the moon all served to cow me, but had never been a fighting man, nor thrown among the breed. My knowledge of the genus River Rat was sufficient to tell me that the mate would rather enjoy carrying out the captain's orders in regard to my ribs. I wanted none of his game at that time and place, so I donned the overalls and kept my mouth closed. He wasted no more time on me, and when he was gone, I settled myself philosophically on the sack pile, wondering how long it would be till the moon would make a landing.

The wisest plan seemed to consist of dodging trouble while aboard and stepping ashore at the first tie-up. Otherwise, I judged myself slated to enact the role of roustabout at the pleasure of the rude gentleman in command. The night was warm, my wet underclothing not uncomfortable. curled in an easy posture on the folded sacks i fell asleep undisturbed by the monotonous beat of the moon's mechanical heart the blast of her whistle long drawn a demoniac ear-splitting cross between a scream and a bellow wak wakened me and while i sat up rubbing my sleepy eyes and wondering how long i'd slept the boorish mate yelled from a gangway hear you come along and be quick about it when i sensed the fact that he was directing his remarks at me my first impulse was to lay hold of something and heave it at his bewiskered face but upon second thought i refrained and ascended resentfully to the upper deck grinding my teeth at the broad back of him as i went a half-dozen other men roustabouts i judged from their general unkemptness were gathered amid ships by the rail off in the east day was just breaking from which i gathered that i had slept seven hours or more

the speed of the moon slackened perceptibly out of the grayness ahead a slip loomed ghostly in the dawn tear on tier of cordwood stacked on the rude wharf upreared on rows of piling it seems to my juvenile fancy like a monster centipede creeping out to us over the smooth water somewhere in the depths of the moon a bell tinkled immediately the great paddle reversed churning the river surface into dirty foam and we began to sidle against the pier end fore and aft lines were run out and made fast by a dim figure that flitted from behind the woodricks the mate growled an order and a gangplank joined the moon's deck to the wharf down this we filed his sorrel whiskers glanced over one shoulder at me at once my grimy companions bilk among the number fell upon the pile of wood for a moment i stood undecided then made to walk boldly past the mate back on the wharf i saw the land a sloping rise dotted with farmhouses take form in the growing light and i was for st louis whether or no but tupper forestalled me i did not get past him he seemed to be paying little attention yet when i came abreast of him heart somewhat a flutter he lurched and struck out with marvellous quickness for a stodgy-built man there was no escaping the swing of his fist i was knocked down before i knew it for the second time in twelve hours

his small blue eyes. He stepped back, and when I got to my feet, something dazed and almost desperate, he was facing me with a goodly billet in one hand. "'Dig in there, blast you,' he roared. "'Grab a stick and down below with it, or I'll fix you good and plenty. You—' The fierceness of him, the futility of pitting myself against a club, much less his ponderous fists, quelled me once more. I hoisted a length of cordwood upon my shoulder and passed aboard. Another trip I made, and some of the murderous rage that seethed inside me, must have shown upon my countenance, for bilk lagged, and, edging near as we trod the gangway together, muttered a word of

advice. "'Forget it, kid,' he warned. "'Don't go again him. He's a killer. He's got more in one man's scalp already. And it's the calaboose for you, if you do lay him out. See? Bilk was right. I was aware that while falling short of mutiny on the high seas, a good smash at Mr. Tupper would land me in jail right speedily, providing the captain and the other mate left enough of me to lock up,

and seeing that St. Louis and my friends were already far away, astern, I might find myself in a worse pickle than aboard the moon. This, coupled with a keen sense of shame for blows received and not yet returned, was galling. But, cowardly or not, just as you choose, I could not cope with sluggers of that heavy caliber, and I knew it. So, temporarily, I subsided, and sullenly became a satellite of the new moon. the empty space behind the boilers and a good share of the lower deck space was duly filled with wood the moon got under way again and then i had a breathing spell which i spent turning over in my mind certain plans that suggested a way out of the difficulty going to montana when my destination was texas was not to my liking and the manner of my going i liked least of all while i pondered bilk drew near

first trip on a stern wheeler huh he asked in a not unfriendly tone yes like this i answered and he grinned understandingly i should have jumped and made a swim for it i mourned that had not occurred to me while we were tied up at the wood wharf in fact my thinking was none too coherent about that time tupper's fist had jarred me from head to heel he'd likely a plug you quicks you hit the water bilk observed indifferently he's no way backward about using a pistol if he takes a notion do you mean to say they'd dare shoot a man for quitting the steamer i uttered incredulously sure bilk's positive answer was distressingly matter-of fact with exceeding bitterness i erred my opinion of such a state of affairs bilk merely shrugged his shoulders they're short-handed that's why they froze to you he explained she'll lose time every wood-loadin if there ain't men enough to pack it aboard then the freight's slow the passengers kick and the owners pry up hell with the captain lord was ye never rung in like this before it's nothin to be shanghide onto a wind-jammer that's due round the horn months of it you get then and it's tough farin too you ain't got no call to roar on this we'll be in benton in ten days or so what's that amount to it amounts to quite a lot with me i responded i'm not goin to benton if i can help it i'll fool that red-whiskered bully yet

don't let him catch you at it kid bilk observed he'll give you worse an ten days steamboating if you mix with em but i did go to benton in spite of my intention to the contrary the moon as bilk had told me was a through freight a fast boat passengers and cargo build direct to the head of navigation and carrying mail but for one or two places between towns along the missouri were few and far apart those days once north of sioux city and for none did the moon slow up wood slips were her only landing since food for the hungry monster that droned in the bowels of the ship was a prime necessity for the next three days tupper and bailey the second mate gave me no chance to quit my involuntary servitude their fists i avoided by submission when we had progressed that far up river i ceased to look for opportunity to take french leave reasoning that i would have more trouble retracing my steps through that thinly settled land than if i stuck to the moon and made the round trip besides this my anger at the dirty treatment had settled to cold malevolence i wanted to stay with the moon to be forced to stay with her for i had promised to make the captain and the mate dance to sad music once we tied to a st louis dock and i could get the ear of my guardian that prospect was my only joy for many dolorous days meantime i unwillingly carried wood slushed decks and performed such other tasks as were gruffly allotted me always under a protest which i dared not voice

i suppose one would eventually become accustomed to being cursed every time one turned around but it never failed to set me plotting reprisals i can easily understand the psychology of a mutineer i think once or twice i had it in mind to make some sort of appeal to one of the passengers a prosperous-looking individual who bilk informed me was a st louis fur merchant and whom i thought might possibly know my father but the sleek one transfixed me with such a palpably contemptuous air when i was in the act of approaching him that i hadn't the heart to face a rebuff a stern-wheel deckhand is not an attractive person as a rule and i suppose i looked the part aggravated considerably by my discolored optic and bruised face my failure to get speech with one of the elect and being scowled at as if i were a mangy dog into the bargain didn't tend to make me feel kindly toward the well-fed well-clothed mortals who lounged on the after-deck smoking havana cigars one of the hide men i took particular note, hoping to meet him sometime in the future, when I'd settled with Tupper Speer at all, and tell him what a damned snob he was. There was a woman or two aboard, but they stuck to their cabins and concerned me not, until a day when I was fool enough to show a trace of the

soreness that always bubbled within. I do not know why I tackled the captain. I did not want wages, for Bilkin made it clear to me that if I signed the steamer's roll, I thereby precluded the possibility of hauling the Moon's commander over the coals for refusing to set me ashore and keeping me in practical peonage. And I would not have missed making it warm for that coarse ruffian for half the cattle my dad had left me. I dare say it was a flickering up of the smoldering fires of hostility. neither tupper nor spear ever came close to me that i did not have to fight down an impulse to club them with whatever was nearest my hand and this day i unthinkingly baited captain spear much as i feared the weight of his ready fists i was coiling a rope just aft of the wheelhouse when the captain paced along the deck and turned a cold eye upon me i dropped the rope

say i asked bluntly and perhaps more belligerently than was wise do i get paid wages for the work i'm doing pay get paid he growled then he lifted up his voice and swore by god you pay for the grub you eat and the clothes you got on and we'll talk about wages you you double-died gilt edged son of a feather duster this is not a literal transcription of captain spears expletives but it will have to serve his rendering was of the sort frowned upon in polite literature being altogether unprintable never did the captain's sacrifice force to elegancy of expression i have heard it said and the statement is indubitably true that he could swear louder and faster and longer than any two men between benton and new orleans with the full tide of his reviling upon me he lurched forward his big knuckled fingers reaching for my throat i turned to dart around the wheelhouse tupper grinning maliciously showed up from that quarter and when i swung about to go the other way i tripped and spear nailed me before i could dodge again like a cat pawing a helpless mouse he slammed me against the deck-house wall and i should doubtless have had my head well worked over but for a timely interruption aft from the wheelhouse a promenade deck ran over the cabin roof whereupon the passengers lounged when they cared to sun themselves.

The captain, the mate, and myself were on the narrow deck below. From just over our heads came the voice of feminine disapproval, at which Captain Spear let go my throat, and Tupper paused with his foot drawn back to kick me. You're a pretty pair of brutes, indeed you are! The girl, a small, serious, face thing her brown hair standing out in wind-blown wisps from under a peaked cap leaned over the rail and flung down the words hotly stamping one small foot to lend emphasis to her observation you may be typical ship's officers she went on scornfully but you are certainly not men the two of them stood abashed like pickpockets taken in the act and a man

by the girl's side put in a word. "'Miss Montel,' he drawled, "'you shouldn't interfere with the pastimes "'of our worthy skipper and mate. "'Let the good work go on.' "'Shame on you, Mr. Barrow!' she flashed, drawing away from him. "'The man paid no heed to her quick retort, "'but himself leaned a bit forward and spoke directly to the captain.

"'Go to it, Captain Spearer. he said indifferently. That is, his manner of speech was well simulated indifference. But I, staring up at him, saw the storm clouds gathering in his dark eyes. Go ahead, beat the boy's face to a jelly. Kick in a few ribs for good measure. Make a thorough job of it. You see, I know something of the riverboat way. But when you are done with that, M. Sier and Tupper, You shall have some little entertainment at my expense, I promise you. There was a menace in the inflection.

By the Lord, sir, I'm master on this vessel. Captain Speer at length found his tongue. If you don't like this, come down and take a hand. Now speaks the doughty mariner, Barrow laughed mockingly. I shall take a hand without troubling to come to come down, believe me. Colonel Colt shall arbitrate for us. If that is to your liking, I am at your service, Captain Spear. Another cowardly blow, cried the girl, her dainty face flushing, and my father shall see that you captain no more boats for the Benton and St. Louis Company,

you barbarian. I promise you that for penalty, whatever Mr. Barrow sees fit to do. whether the threat against his position carried weight or if he simply had no hankering for an encountering with the cool individual on the upper deck i do not know but at any rate captain spears saw fit to sheath his claws at this juncture get to hill out of here you he grunted under his breath and i made haste to git looking back i saw tupper and spear striding aft above the girl stood by the rail tucking in the flying locks with graceful movements of her hands barro was staring after the retreating pair smiling sardonically over a cigarette later i learned from bilk that miss montell was the fur merchant's daughter and straightway i forgave the portly one any grievance i held against him but from none of the crew could i learn aught of barrow nor did i see him again except at ship-length like the girl he kept close to his cabin and the passenger saloon terra incognita to such lowly ones as i i was grateful even at a distance for between them they had saved me a thumping a thumping which i had reason to believe was merely postponed the moon was now well into dakota steadily she forged up the turbid river thrumming past pierre and farther on standing rock reservation

at bismarck we made a brief stop then we turned the great bend and plunged into the bad lands through this gashed and distorted country the moon plowed along an ever narrowing channel from her deck I had my first glimpse of the buffalo, already doomed to extinction. Wild cattle and deer scuttled back up the fearful slopes at our approach, or vanished into the yawning canyons. Unaccustomed to that altitude, I marveled at the clarity of the atmosphere, the wonderful stillness of the land. The high banks that shut us in slanted away like paint-dobbed walls. What of the very colored strata. The ridges back of them were twisted and notched by ancient geologic contortions, washed by countless rains, and bleached by unnumbered centuries of sun, a strange jumble of earth and rocks and stunted trees, a place to breed superstitious fears, and warp the soul of man

with loneliness. In time, the moon left this monstrosity of landscape behind, emerging upon a more wholesome land. Grassy bottoms spread on either side of the river, and the upper levels ran back in a vast, unbroken sweep, the true prairie. And presently we swept around a bend into view of a cluster of houses lining the north shore, and the moon's whistle outdid all previous efforts

in the way of ungodly sound. Twenty minutes later she was rubbing softly against a low wharf, her passengers were disembarked, and the back-breaking task of unloading cargo began. End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 of the Land of Frozen Sons This Libervox recording is in the public domain. The Land of Frozen Sons by Bertrand W. Sinclair. Chapter 4. A forthright fighting man. In due time, the foodstuffs and other goods.

were unloaded, and the moon began to take on her return cargo of buffalo hides and sundry bundles of furs, the harvest of the past winter's hunting, and the spring trade. Had it been left to our loud-mouthed captain, there would have been no cessation of labor until the last pelt was stowed. He would have worked us 24 hours to the day. But Benton was not St. Louis, and the men who loaded ship were of a different cal from the stevedores at the river city. A certain number of hours would they work, and no longer, though the moon rotted at her slip.

So we of the regular crew had a breathing spell as sundown approached, and the first spare time at my command I used to write a letter to Bolton, detailing my misadventures. This I posted, so that in case anything kept me from returning on the moon, he would at least know whither I had gone and how I had fared. It took two days to unload. The evening of the third day, Bilk and I stole away from the boat and went up town.

There was not much of it, to be sure, but what little there was lacked nothing in the way of life and color. One could see any sort of costume, from sober broadcloth and fine linen, to the rainbow garb of a blacker, blanket Indian. Even the long-haired frontiersman, sacred to fiction, was represented by a specimen or two. Altogether, it was a motley, high-spirited crowd that we mixed with that night. Of the quieter residential portion of Benton, I saw nothing that time. My way, guided thereto by Bilk,

was down the main street where lights shone and glasses clinked merrily, into divers. In to diverse places where ancient pianos tinkled dance music drink and dance and gamble that was the night-life of the town wherever we went wherever any man went up and down the length of that one garish street he could get a run for his money if he had money to spend in every saloon and dance hall the knights of faribank and draw poker held tourney on the field of green cloth it was all very new and strange and fascinating to me bilk stood treat in one of the saloons and after we had emptied our glasses we stepped across the room to where a knot of men were watching an unkempt individual buck a roulette wheel with twenty-dollar gold pieces in lieu of chips he had a dirty felt hat on the table before him the crown of it half full of gold and silver and he was scattering the double eagles two and three on a number it was heavy play i thought but the dealer spun the little white ball and called the number and color in a bored sort of manner the buffalo runner lost half a dozen bets And then all at once he caught the double O with three twenty-dollar coins resting on it. I gasped.

$2,100 in fifteen seconds. When the dealer passed over the stacks of gold, the unkempt one opened his mouth for the first time. How much'll you turn for? he asked. The dealer jerked his thumb upward. We'll take the roof off, he answered. answered carelessly, If you want to play him that high. The Buffalo Runner grinned

and deliberately set about placing handfuls of coin here and there on the board, and while I stood there wholly engrossed, eagerly watching the ivory ball in its circular race, someone grabbed me by the shoulders and hurled me unceremoniously out the door.

Once outside and free of that powerful grip, I turned and beheld Tupper, the Red Whiskered, very drunk and very angry, flourishing a pistol and shouting vile epithets at me. Get back to the moon, you son of a sea cook. I'll jerk an arm off you and beat you to death with the bloody end of it, if you show up here again, scoot! Naturally, I scooted, Mr. Tupper, meanwhile emphasizing his threats by sending a bullet or two scoitte. I wondered at the time why no peace officer appeared to put a quietess on this manifestation of exuberance, but later in the game I learned that in frontier towns the popping of a pistol was regarded as one of the accessories of a properly joyful mood.

Men handled their guns to make a noise, a la the small boy with a bunch of holiday firecrackers. One could burn powder with impunity, so long as he had due care for innocent bystanders. Of bilk, I saw no more for a while. Thinking that, since Tupper's hostility had been directed at me, Bilk might have concluded to keep out of it, and see Benton by himself. I went on to the boat and curled up on a bale of buffalo hides,

to sit a while in the moonlight and the pleasant night air, before bedding down in the vile hole where we of the Roustabout fraternity were permitted to rest a night's. An hour or so I sat there, and about the time I began to think of turning in, a figure came slouching up the wharf and aboard. The glare of a deck-light showed me that it was bilk. I called to him, and when he came a little nearer, I saw further that he too had met with rough usage, for his face was bruised and his lips cut and swollen. Ah, that damn mate, he said in answer to my questioning. He gets on a razzoo like this every once in a while.

You was lucky he just throwed you out. The son of a gun nailed me after that, and liked to beat me head off. He's tearing drunk and plumb on the, the fight. Chances is he'll come down here before morning and want to lick the captain, the cook, and the whole blame crew. Somebody ought to take an axe to him, I suggested bitterly. You betcha, that's what he needs, Billk agreed. I've heard tell about him getting on these fighting drunks, but this here's the first time he ever got to me. You wait, I'll get him some of

times for this and bilk went below muttering dark threats i followed shortly and rolled in there was no disturbance during the night and when we stood by for the loading after breakfast tupper was on hand a trifle surlier than usual more or less red about the eyes but otherwise showing no signs of his carouse all that day we labored again at even tide part of the crew sallied uptown before ten o'clock all of them were back one or two badly damaged about the face and one and all filled with tails of the mate's pugnacious mood he says by the great horn spoon he'll bust the head of any airy high-sling and wharf rat that sticks his nose up the main street he wants the whole town to himself the blamed hogs one indignantly declared, and from what I'd seen of Tupper, I could very well believe that he would have it to himself, so far as the crew of the moon was concerned. The next morning found Mr. Tupper still on deck.

Evidently, a steady diet of strong whiskey and rough-and-tumble fighting agreed with his peculiar constitution. That night we were all but done. Two hours' work in the morning would put the moon in shape for the down river journey. And when evening fell, I took a notion to walk up and down the streets of Benton once more. It may have been that the prospect of getting to St. Louis in the near future

made me desire to flaunt my independence in the face of the mate. Anyway, without stopping to make a critical analysis of motives, I slipped away from the moon when dark closed in. The engineer came aboard a minute before I left, and I heard him call to his assistant that Tupper was a sheet and a half in the wind and still wearing his fighting clothes, but I took no thought of turning back. Right up the main street I marched,

venturing into one saloon after another without mishap. I felt quite elated, like a small boy playing hooky from school. And when, in the course of my first of my son, prowling about, I ran into a half-dozen hilarious cow-punchers, I clean forgot Mr. Tupper, and the unkind things he had promised to do to me. The camp of these cattlemen, I gathered from their talk, was on the divide that loomed to the north of Benton, and after the manner of their kind they were taking in the town for the first time in many weeks. Wherefore they were thirsty and noisy, and insistent that

everybody should drink and be joyful. To one of them, a youngster near my own age, slim, sinewy, picturesque in his hair-faced chaps and high-heeled boots, I talked a little, but it was a hit-and-miss conversation, by reason of the general uproar and the rapidity with which drinks came. I was all for information, and in his free and easy way he shed beams of light upon my black ignorance of range affairs. But, alas, a discordant element burst rudely in upon our talk fiesta. Tupper stalked in from the street, and Chance decreed that his roving, belligerent eye should single me out of the crowd. I was leaning against a disreputable billiard table at the time, and straight for me he came, not saying a word, but squinting up his little pig-eye.

in a manner that boated ill. I didn't move. Though my heart flopped like a new-landed trout, I couldn't quite bring myself to slink away. Beaten and bluffed and cowed as I had been for the past two weeks, I hadn't quite lost the power to resent, and though I shrank from the weight of Tupper's ungodly fists, I shrank more from absolute flight.

something of the atmosphere of the ranges had crept into me that evening i did not know what i was about to do except that i was not going to run away from any red-whiskered brute from st louis or any other section of the globe he came up close to me stopped and regarded me a moment as if amazed to see me standing there and making no move to go and then with a quick hunch of his shoulders he saw him swung a dirty fist for my jaw. But that time I fooled Mr. Tupper by side-stepping. I was watching him, and he was a bit over-shore. Again he struck out, first with one hand and then the other. This time one of the blows landed, glancingly. His red, ugly countenance lurched toward me. His whiskey-soddened breath in my face was more than I could stand. And when that vicious swing grazed against my chin as I backed away, I ducked under his arm and smashed him on his reviling mouth. It almost paid me for all the abuse I'd taken off him,

that one good blow. The backward roll of his head, the quick spurt of blood, where my knuckles split his lip, sent a quiver of joy over me. Had he been of the bigness of a house, and equipped with two pair of fists, I would gladly have fought him after that one punch. It showed me that I could hurt him. It gave me a hungry craving for more. I wanted to beat his ugly little eyes, his squat round nostriled nose,

and his whiskey-guzzling mouth into indistinguishable pulp. But it was new business to me, and so instead of keeping at him hammer and tongue, till he was down and out, I waited for him to rush me again, wherein I made a sad mistake. If I had battered him down then and there, if, if! At any rate, he did come with a rush, and he came fortified with a wide knowledge of fist tactics to protect him from another such blow as I had dealt him. He fought me halfway across the room, and had had me, and had me, bleeding like a stuck pig before I connected with him again. But eventually, one of my wild

swings slipped through his guard and jolted his head backward. The little bloodshot eyes of him blinked with a jar of it. And again I made a mistake. Instead of standing off and hammering him with clean straight punches, I rushed to close quarters. Half crazed with pain and anger I stepped in, swinging short right and left blows for his wobbling head, and so came within the sweep of his great arms. He clinched, and in his grip I was next thing to helpless. One thing only could I do, and that was to butt him in the face with my head, which, kindly office, I performed to the best of my ability, until he jammed me hard against the billiard table and bent me backward till i felt my bones crack and then with his thumb he deliberately set about gouging out one of my eyes i can feel it yet the fierce pain and the horrible fear that overtook me when he jabbed at my eyeball i don't know how i broke his hold i only recollect that half-blinded huts

searing pang shooting along my optic nerve, I found myself free of him. And as I backed away from his outstretched paws, my hand, sweeping along the billiard table, met and closed upon a hard round object. With all the strength that was in me, I flung it straight at his head. He went to the floor with a neat circular depression in his forehead just over the left eye. was a hush in the saloon. One of the cattlemen stooped over him. Sangre de Christo, he laughed. A billiard ball sure beats a six-shooter for quick action. I'll bet he was dead when he hit the floor. End of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 of the Land of Frozen Sons. This Libervox recording is in the public domain.

The Land of Frozen Sons by Bertrand W. Sinclair Chapter 5 The Relative Merits of the Frying Pan and the Fire They crowded close, a little ring of curious faces about me and the dead man on the floor, and as a babble of talk uprose, a tall, lean man pushed his way into the circle, Captain Spear of the Moon at his heels. I guess I'll have to take you in just for luck, the stranger said to me. I'm town marshal.

This killin' business has got to stop. He took me by the arm, and as he did so, the cowpuncher who had looked down at Tupper stepped in between us, breaking the marshal's hold. Not this time, Bax, he said softly. Play fair or keep out of the game. You stay, mighty close in your hole when a gunfighter hits the town, and I'll be damned if you build up your

reputation by arresting a kid. This red musler came in hunting trouble, and he found it. It was on the square, and you ain't going to put nobody in your stinking calaboose, not tonight. You and me don't hitch on that proposition. For a second or two, it seemed as if there might be another clash. Behind the two a space cleared at the first words, and I noticed more than one cow puncher hitch his gun belt forward. For myself, I was two days to realize the exact turn of affairs, and I cared less. Tupper, at least, would trouble me no more, and for that I was truly glad. But there was no mix-up, nor even a harsh word. The Marseman. The Marseman weakened. If he had intended to take me, he changed his mind after a brief glance at the

faces of the men who were watching him with silent intentness. If that's the way you feel about it, all right, he said, with an indifference that his flushed face belied. He turned on his heel and walked out, Captain Spear following. You bet it's all right, the cow-puncher flung after him derisively. then to me throw a jolt a bourbon into you kid and you'll feel better you made a good fight but let me tell you something go healed and when one of these rough-necked fist fighters jumps you ventilate em show your claws a time or two and these would-be bad actors'll leave you strictly alone say mr bar-slave let's have one pronto three or four of them picked up the carcass of the moon's mate and lugged it unceremoniously out to a rear room and then the crowd lined up at the bar the play at the wheel went on the men at the farrow table who had turned on their stools to watch the fight again began to place their bets life ran too full and strong there to be long disturbed by the passing of any man

my self-appointed champion who i now discovered was just drunk enough to welcome disturbance in any form whatsoever and the young fellow with whom i had been speaking before the row wiped the blood off my face and doctored the eye that tupper had come near gouging from its socket and while they were thus ministering to me another stock hand clanked in from the street "'Say, Matt, you sure stirred up something,' he announced. "'This is the kid that got action on the St. Louis Jasper? "'Well, there's going to be a healthy ruction round here over that. Let me tell you. "'Backs is red-eyed over your running a whizzer on him, "'and he's collecting a posse to take both of you in. "'Don't you reckon we better drift for camp, Matt?'

"'Matt smiled and beckoned to some of the others. Not by a long shot, he drawled. Whenever old Ed Bax runs me out of town, it'll be in the good bye wagon. I'm going to see that this kid gets a square deal. If Bax or anybody else wants me, let him come and get me. Will the rest of you fellows stand pat? In varying stages of hilarity, they crowded about him and profanely assured him that they would turn Benton inside out and shake the pockets if he but said the word.

In the midst of their chatter, the man who had brought news of the Marshal's action drew closer and lowered his voice. Look here, Matt, he argued. You're running the outfit, and you're a friend of mine, and all that sort of thing, and you know that all of us'll back any sort of play you make. But it looks to me like we can do better in terms. to pull off a big fight. I ain't plum chicken-hearted, but Bax is going to come down on us with a bunch of tin horn gamblers to help him out, and if this kid's in sight, he's going to try and take

him. You sabby? He's got to make some kind of bluff at it, or every pilgrim that comes along will run over him. So it's a cinch that there'll be more or less gunplay, and the circle'll be shy a man or two when it's over. They ain't got the nerve, Dick, Matt declared confidently. It don't take much nerve to start anything like that, Dick replied. Somebody'll reach for his gun and it'll be off. Now, Bax ain't going to jump you, he's afraid to. If the kid's with you, he's got to.

I move, we stake this kid to a hoss and let him drink. drift. That lets him out. And if Bax wants to have it out with you on general principles, why we'll see it through. "'Dick's right,' one of them put in. "'The kid's got to hit the trail anyhow, and he might as well do it right away quick. That's the main thing, ain't it? We started in to help him out, and if we can do it peaceful, we'll live longer. backs won't tackle us unless he just has to you're got me on the run matt frowned i'd just as soon dehorn this backs party to-night as any other time but i see where the kid better move out all right

you pilot him wall and catch up one of them extra hosses and stake him to that saddle musky left i'll fix it with old musk when he comes back he can ride my hoss to camp it was all arranged off-hand in less time than i have taken to tell of it and i was hustled out to where a row of cow-ponies patiently awaited the pleasure of their hard-riding masters for aught these sons of the plains knew i was a purely worthless bit of human driftwood but i don't think they gave a thought to the matter there was only one thing to be done in their estimation and they proceeded to do it without consulting me or doing very much talking about it themselves so very shortly i found myself straddle of the circle foramen's horse and jogging out of benton beside me young wall rode silently until we reached the top of the long hill that slopes to the town then he shook his horse into a lope and broke into cheerful whistling i however was far short of the whistling mood the thing i should have done i was afraid to do ordinarily my instinct would have been to face the music i was unrepentant for the part i had played in the extinction of tupper nor would i if i had calmly weighed the chances for and against have felt any fear of consequences before the law but my experience with the law in those days was a void that which we do not understand we usually fear and that night i was stricken with a swift fear of the law i had killed and there was a penalty

my spirit revolted at the thought of a jail likewise the quick action of those circle cow-punchers made a deep impression on me if incarceration was so to be avoided that they were willing to back their deeds with gunpowder i wanted no phase of incarceration in my experience better the open an unknown country and whatever might befall therein than to lie in benton calaboose which, to my disturbed mind, was a synonym for a place of vague horrors. I thought of standing my ground, of taking chances on backs the Marshal and the Benton Jail, until the moon could reach St. Louis and a prize Bolton of my need, and then I shuddered at the thought that the thing might be settled beyond interference

before he could make the Long River journey. I had heard and read more or less of hasty trials in the West. I had killed a man in what seemed to me a barbarous fashion. I did not know what the authorities, self-constituted or otherwise, might do to me. And I hadn't the nerve to stay and find out. If they should hang me, thought I, I shall be a long time dead. flight under these circumstances made the strongest appeal to my excited imagination such was the chaotic state of my ideas when wall pulled up his horse and i saw the white glimmer of tents close at hand nighthawks got the bunch over here i think said he seems like i hear the bells anyhow you stay here and i'll get you a cabio that can drink

drift. He trotted off, leaving me standing by the clear-cut outline of a wagon. A way off in the semi-dark, for the moon was now risen, I heard a sudden scurry of hoofs, an accentuated jangling of two or three small bells. Presently, Wal came loping back, leading a blaze-faced sorrel horse. From under the forward end of the wagon, he dragged the a saddle, a bridle, and a saddle blanket. There, he said, there's a good rig, barren spurs, which you won't need much, and a good huss to put it on. Go to it! The stocked saddle, with its high horn and deep seat,

was not so different from what I'd been used to, except as to wait. The double-sinch apparatus bothered me a little, but when Wall explained, the uses of the letto go and the manner of its tying i got my horse saddled properly the small imps of uneasy haste spurring me on then i swung up to try the stirrups and found that i had a restive brute under me he plunged once or twice but i kept his head in the air and finally straightened him out wall nodded approval i wasn't dead sure you could ride him he owned but i see you've got him in your sack and you'll find him there when it comes to gettin over the ground i'm all ready now i think said i wait a minute wall laughed don't rush off backs wouldn't come into the circle camp after you to-night for two farms in iowa chances are he's busy right now for figure in a way to get a dead safe whack at Matt Dunn. Come on over to the cook tent and get some grub to tie on your saddle. You'll need it. By the light of a candle, he ransacked the grub boxes on the

tail end of the cook wagon. A loaf of bread, some fresh-made biscuits, and a big piece of boiled beef, together with a trifle of pepper and salt, this light-hearted, capable youngster wrapped in a bit of burlap and tied behind the cantle of my saddle. And while he munched a piece of beef himself, he gave me explicit instructions as to my course. Once he get over into the McLeod country, he concluded, You'll be all right. Nobody'll care a cuss who you are, nor where you come from.

so long as you behave yourself this red huss ain't got the circle brand though he belongs to the outfit so they won't ask no fool questions about em you ought to pick up a job with some of them canadian layouts pretty easy oh wait a minute he exclaimed when i was again about to mount and he ran over to an outspread canvas-covered bed he fumbled among the tumbled quilts a moment and came back to me carrying a broad cartridge belt on which a bone-handled colt swung in its leathern scabbard i pretty near forgot this he chuckled you ain't healed and lord knows you need to be at this stage of the game say how are you off for coin man alive i cried and i meant it you've done more for me now than i can repay in a thousand years i don't need money oh yes you do he returned unruffled a dollar or two'll come in mighty handy when you hit m'cloud or wherever you land i ain't goin to make you rich here and good luck to you he pressed a ten-dollar gold piece upon me then we shook hands as brothers at parting and i rode out of the circle camp on a high-stepping horse with the big dipper and the north star to guide me to the canada line end of chapter five chapter six of the land of frozen sons this librivox recording is in the public domain the land of frozen sons by bertrand w sinclair

chapter six slow-foot george i retained some vivid impressions of that night ride a mile or two from the circle tents i crossed the teeton river then just receding from the june rise and near swimming deep after that i came out upon a great spread of bench land dotted with silent prairie dog towns here and there a lone butte rose pinnacle-like out of the flatness in all my short life i had never known what it was to be beyond sound of a human voice to be utterly alone that night was my first taste of it and to my unaccustomed ears the patterns of my horse's hoofs seemed to be echoing up from a sounding board and the jingle of the bit-chains rang like a bell so profound was the quiet i know of nothing that compares with the plains of pure loneliness unless it be the deserted streets of a city at four in the morning or the hushed ghostly woods of the north which i was yet to know each hollow into which i dipped reeked of mysterious possibilities every moon-bathed rise of land gave me a vague feeling that something sinister some incomprehensible evil lay in wait upon the farther side whatever of superstition lay dormant in my make-up was all agogged that night My environment was having its will of me. I know now that my nerves were all a jangle.

But what would you? The dark brings its subtle, threatening atmosphere to bear on braver men than I, for odd I knew there might be a price on my head. Certainly I was a fugitive, and flight brings groundless, unreasoning fears. bearing a little west of the North Star, I kept the red horse at a steady jog, and when the night was far spent, and my bones aching from the ride, I came to another river, the Marius, which wall had told me I must cross. Following his directions, a half-hour's journey upstream brought me upon a trail,

a few wagon tracks that I near overlooked. This led to a Ford, or what may once have been a Ford. It no longer merited the term, for I got well soaked in the deep, swift stream. Red carried me through, however, and when I gained the farther bank of the Marias Valley, a faint reddish glow was creeping up in the east. In a little while it was broad day. then i halted for the first time my meddlesome steed i picketed carefully ate a little of the biscuits and boiled beef and lay down to sleep in a grassy hollow too tired to care whether backs was hard on my trail or not the sunlight had given me a fresh access of courage i think that and the heady air of those crisp morning hours my difficulties began to take on some of the aspects of an adventure once in the territories with none to hound me i could apprise bolton and he would forward money to get me home that was all i needed and if i could not manage to eke out a living in the meantime i was not the son of my father i fell asleep with a wistful eye on three blue spires that broke through the smooth swing

of the skyline to the northward. The sweet grass hills, touching on the Canadian boundary, if I remembered rightly what Wall had said. The hot noon sun beating on my unprotected face roused me at last. It was near midday. I had no liking for further moonlight travel, so I saddled up and rode on, thinking to get somewhere near the hills by dusk and came. there for the night. I was now over my first fear of being followed, but, oh, my hearers, I was stiff and sore. A forty or fifty-mile jaunt is not much to a seasoned rider, but I lacked seasoning. However, I was due to get it. A little before sundown, I rode into the long shadow of West Butte, in rare good humor with myself, despite the aches.

in my legs, for by grace of my good red horse, I had covered a wonderful stretch that afternoon, and my nag was yet stepping out lightly. On either hand loomed the rugged pyramids of the sweet grass, which in truth are not hills at all, but three boulder-strewn, pine-clad mountains, rising abruptly out of a rolling plain. The brakes of Milk River, in its over-the-border curve, showed plainly in the distance. I was nearing the city of refuge. There in that shadow darkened notch between the lofty pinnacles,

I came to a new fork in the Trouble Trail. I did not know it then, but later I could not gainsay the fact. and the mile-post that directed my uncertain steps was merely a strain of the devil in the blaze-forced sorrel i bestrode had he been of a less turbulent spirit i doubt much if i should ever have fallen in with slow-foot george it happened very simply ambling along with eyes for little but the wild land that surrounded with reins held carelessly in lax fingers i was an easy victim as before remarked i can put forward no better explanation than a streak of cussedness in my red mount suffice it to relate that all at once i found my steed performing a series of diabolic evolutions and in some mysterious manner he and i parted company in a final burst of rapid fire contortions i have since heard and read much of the western horse and his unique method of unseating a rider but never yet have i seen justice done the subject nor shall i descant long on such an unpleasant theme let me simply record the fact that i came to earth ungracefully with a job shawing shock much as an importunate suitor might be presumed to descend the front steps of his innumerata's home when assisted therefrom by the paternal toe

and when i sat up a freshly bruised and crestfallen youth it was to behold red clattering over a little hillock head up stirrups swinging wide he seemed in hot haste like a fool i had nodded the reins together for easier holding with them looped upon his neck he felt as much at liberty as though stripped clean of riding gear it looked like a dubious prospect upon second thought i decided that it could easily have been worse a broken leg say would have been a choice complication my bones however remained intact so i sought about in the grass for the pistol that had been jolted from its place during the upheaval and when i found it betook myself upon the way my erratic nag had gone it was no difficult matter for me to arrive at the conclusion that i was in a fair way to go into the northwest afoot should i be lucky enough to arrive at all red seemed to have gone into hiding at least he remained unseen though i ascended divers little eminences and stared my hardest realizing something of the hopelessness of my quest even while i stared that sweet grass country is monstrously deceptive to the unsophisticated overlooking it from a little height one thinks he sees immense areas of gently undulating plain and he sees truly but when he comes to traverse this smooth sea of land that ripples away to a far sky-line it is a horse of another color i assure you

he has not taken thought of what tricks the clear air and the great spaces have played with his perspective the difference between looking over fifty miles of grassland and crossing the same is the difference between viewing a stretch of salt water from a convenient point ashore and being out in a two-oord skiff bucking the sway-backed rollers that heave up from the sea so with the plains that portion of which i speak distance smoothed its native ruggedness glossed over its facial wrinkle so to say the illusion became at once apparent when one moved toward any given point the negligible creases developed into deep coolies. The gentle undulations proved long, sharp-pitched divides. Creeks, floodworn serpentine water courses, surprised one in unexpected places. I had not noticed these things particularly while I rode. Now, as I tramped across country, persuading myself that over each succeeding hill I should find my light-footed sorrel horse meekly awaiting me, it seemed that I was always either climbing up or sliding down.

I found myself deep in an abstract problem as I plotted, trying to strike a balance between the illusory level effect and stern topographical realities. Presently I gave that up and came back to concrete facts. Whereupon being very tired and stiff from a longer ride than I had ever taken before, and correspondingly ill-tempered, I damned the red horse for bucking me off, and myself for permitting any beast of the field to serve me so, and then sat down upon the peak of a low hill to reflect where and how I should come by my supper. A smart breeze froliced up from that quarter

where the disappearing sun cast a bloodshot haze over a few tumbled clouds this i dare say muffled sounds behind me to some extent at any rate i was startled out of my cogitations by a voice close by a drawly utterance which evoked a sudden vision of a girl with wind-ravelled hair and a lean dark-faced man leaning over a deck railing on the moon magnificent outlook isn't it notwithstanding the surprise of finding him at my elbow in such unexpected fashion i faced about with tolerable calmness that intuitive flash had been no false harbinger for it was barrow sure enough the angular visage of him was not to be confounded with that of any casual stranger even though his habiliments were no longer broadcloth and its concomitants of linen and polished shoes. Instead, a gray Stetson topped his head, and he was gloved and booted like a cowboy. Lest it be thought that his plight was twin to my own, I will say that he looked down upon me from the back of a horse as black as midnight.

A long-geared brute with a curved neck and a rolling eye. best of all, at the end of a lariat, Barrow held my own red horse. That, said I, depends on how you look at it. I'll admit that the outlook is fine, since you have brought me back my runaway horse. I meant that, he nodded to the glowing horizon. But I dare say a man gets little pleasure out of a red sky when he is set afoot in a horseless land. It will pay you, my friend, to keep your horse between your legs hereafter. He threw me, I confessed. Where did you catch him, and how did you find me?

I thought he had slipped his pack by the tied-up reins, said Burrow. As for catching him and finding you, that was an easy matter. He ran fairly into me, and I had only to look about for a man walking. Well, I returned, taking my sorrel by the rope, I am properly grateful for your help, and I have another matter to thank you for, if I am not badly mistaken. He made a slight gesture of deprecation.

Never mind that, said he. His attitude was no encouragement to profuse thanks, if I had contemplated such. I turned then to inspect my saddle and found fresh cause for perplexity. By some means my supply of bread and beef had been shaken from its fastening. The bit of sack hung slack in the strings,

but the food was gone. He looked down inquiringly at my exclamation. More of my luck, said I, and explained. might i ask said he after a moment of thoughtful scrutiny where you are bound for it's no secret i replied i'm for the mccloud country over the line then you may as well ride with me this evening he invited it is only a few miles to the sanders ranch you will be that much farther on your way i can vouch for their hospitality i hesitated for obvious reasons he smiled as if he read my mind and all in a breath i yielded to some subtle confidence compelling quality of the man and blurted out my story the killing of tupper that is and how the circle men had aided me i guessed at something of the sort he remarked you are new at the game and you bear the earmarks of a man man on the dodge we are a rowdy lot out here sometimes and we can't always settle our disputes by word of mouth so that i think you will find most of us inclined to look lightly on what seems to you a serious affair indeed

tupper had it in store for him spear too for all of that and many another brute on those river craft you haven't much to worry about very likely Benton has forgotten the thing by now, unless Bax and Matt Dunn's men locked horns over it. Of course, there is the chance that the Benton and St. Louis Company may hound you for killing one of their officers. But there's no fear of their coming to Sanders after you, not tonight, and tomorrow and all the other tomorrows, you can take things as they come. That's the best philosophy for the planes. he swung a half mile to the east and picked up a pack-horse he had left when he took after my mount thereafter we loped north in the falling dusk barrow riding mute after his long speech and i perforce following his example at length we drew up at the ranch a vague huddle of low buildings set in the bend of a creek barrow appeared to be quite familiar with the place even in the gloom he went straight to the bars of a small round corral in this we tied our horses throwing them hay from a new-made stack close by then he led the way to a lighted cabin

barrow pushed open the door and walked in without ceremony two men were in the room one lying upon a bunk the other sitting with his spurred heels on the corner of a table. Each of them looked up at my companion, and both in one breath declared, I'll be damned if it ain't slow foot. After that there was more or less desultory talk, mostly impersonal. No questions pertinent to myself troubled the tongues of either man. One built a fire and cooked us a hot supper. The other made down a bed in one corner of the cabin, and upon this, at the close of the meal, Barrow and I lay down to rest. A jolt in the ribs and the flash of a light in my eyes brought me to a sitting posture later in the night. Sleep heavy, what of the strenuous events that had gone before,

it took me a full half-minute to get my bearings. And then I saw that three men in scarlet jackets held the two sanders under their gun, while Barreau stood backed against the cabin wall with his hands held above his head. Even so, it seemed to me that he was regarding the whole proceeding with a distinct curl to his lip. Come alive now, old chap, and don't cut up rusty, it won't do a bit of good, one of these oddly-dressed strangers was admonishing, and it dawned upon me that I, too, was included in the threatening sweep of it. of their firearms get into your clothes old chap it is astonishing afterward how much and how quickly one can reflect in a few fleeting seconds a multitude of ideas swarmed in my brain plans to resist to escape half formed and were as instantaneously discarded among the jumble it occurred to me that i could scarcely be wanted for that benton a face

my capture could scarcely be the cause of such a display no thought i there must be more to it than that otherwise barot and the two sanders would not have been meddled with of course i did not come to this conclusion of deliberate thought it was more of an impression perhaps i should say intuition and yet i seemed to have viewed the odd circumstance from every act in the brief time it took me to lay hold of my clothes the queer sardonic expression lingered about barrow's lips all the while i dressed presently i was clothed then the red-coated men mustered the four of us outside by the light of a lantern and two of them stood by the doorway and snapped a pair of handcuffs about the wrists of each of us as we passed out now said one of them you sanders chaps know what horses you'd care to ride and what stock slow-foot george has here so one of you can come to the stable with me and saddle up he took the youngest man and went trailing him up in the uncertain light till both of them were utterly gone after something of a weight they appeared leading barrow's horse and mrs horse and mulled and two others in the interim i had had time to count noses there was a man apiece for the four of us and one off behind the cabin holding the raider's saddle stock we stood there like so many pieces of uncouth statuary no one seeming to have any inclination for talk until the saddled horses came up then both the sanders found their tongues in behalf of me

look a here sergeant said the one ye ain't got any business over here and you know it even if you did this kid don't belong in the crowd you're after us and you got us but you've no call to meddle with him that's right his brother put in i don't know him from adam he'd just drifted in and camped overnight at the ranch i say you know that's a bit strong the sergeant returned birds of a feather you know i shan't take any chances you're too hard a lot sanders you and your friend slow-foot george thus he left no room for argument and in a few minutes the four of us were in the saddle and on the move a mounted policeman jogging at the elbow of each man at the end of half an hour's progress as we crossed a fairly level stretch of plain we came to a little cairn of rocks and when we had passed it the sergeant pulled up his horse and faced about the moon was up and the earth and the cairn and even our features stood out clear in the silvery glow john sanders walter sanders george brown alias slow-foot George, and one John Doe, in the queen's name, I arrest you. He addressed us perfunctorily. A trooper snickered, and Barrow laughed out loud. Routine, routine and red tape, even in this rotten deal.

I heard slow-foot murmur when his laugh hushed. And on the other side of me, Walt Sanders raised in his stirrups and cried hotly, you dirty dogs some day i'll make you damn sorry you didn't keep your own side of the line to-night of this the sergeant took no notice he shook his horse into a trot and prisoners and guard elbow to elbow we moved on End of Chapter 6. Chapter 7 of the Land of Frozen Sons. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. The Land of Frozen Sons by Bertrand W. Sinclair. Chapter 7. The seat of the scornful.

Destiny lurks in obscure places and emerges therefrom to seize upon us unawares. Barrow launched his epigrammatic sentence. in the profound quiet of a cell in the McLeod Guard-house. For that is the pass we came to, a six-by-eight housing of stout planks for the pair of us, food of indifferent quality in none too generous rations, and the keen eye of an armed guard in the background. For two days we had brooded in this cage,

like any common felons. Of the intervening time, there is nothing worthy of chronicling. During the time it took Sergeant Hubble and his troopers to bring us in, we rode, ate, slept, and rode again, and little else befell. If Beiro and the two sanders worried over the outcome, if they indulged any thought of escape, or laid plans to that end, they kept these things to themselves. I, perforce, did likewise. Altogether, we were a company of few words. and one evening when dusk was closing in the journey ended and we lay down to sleep with barred doors and windows between us and other men

little as we spoke i gathered stray odds and ends of the affair and pieced them as best i could most of it came from the troopers after all the thing was simple enough at that time the sale of liquor was strictly prohibited in the canadian territory territories, and naturally whiskey was at a premium. Thus, the Sanders ranch, lying just across the American line, furnished an ideal base of operations for men inclined to gather in the shekels of the thirsty. Proof of the traffic in contraband whiskey lay ready for use, at least so the policeman had it, but they could never catch the Wiley Sanders brothers on the right side of the boundary. So with a fine disregard for all but the object to be gained, they violated an international technicality. The result justified the raid, that is, from the mounted police point of view. My arrest followed logically from the company I was in. Berro's connection,

however, was a little beyond me. Slow-foot George, as they called him, came in for cautious handling. Not once were his wrists free of the steel bands till the guardhouse door closed upon him. From this, and certain pointed remarks that I failed to catch in their entirety, I conceived the idea that he was wanted for worse than whiskey running. But like the other two, Barrow neither denied nor affirmed. Once the sergeant tried to draw him out, and the curl of his lip and a caustic word or two cut short the policeman's effort. Our apartment was singularly free from furniture. A wide plank ranged on either side,

and a few not over-clean quilts served for a bed. There was no room for more in that vile box. I had managed to get paper and a pen from the guard, and was curled up on my plank, setting forth in a letter to Bolton all the unbelievable things that had occurred, when Barrow uttered his observation, anent the workings of destiny. Something in the way he spoke caused me to look up, and I saw that he was looking fixedly out into the guard-room

through the grated opening in our cell door. There was none too much light, but with what there was, I made out a paleness of face and a compression of, of his lips that were strangely at odds with his general bearing. What now? I asked, wondering at the sudden change in him. Something I had hoped to be spared, he said under his breath, more to himself than to me. Then he turned his eyes from the little window, drew up his knees till his fingers locked

before them, and so sat hunched against the wall. wholly absorbed in my letter-writing, I had heard nothing out of the common. Now I distinguished voices, the deep tones of a man, and following that, the clear trouble of a woman. During a brief interval of quiet, she laughed, and after that I heard footsteps coming toward the row, out of which our cell-faced. Presently the shadow of them darkened the little window in our door. the red coat of the guard passed barrow shifted uneasily i too leaned forward listening to the light footfall drawing near for i had a vivid recollection of that voice or one that was its twin it did not seem strange that she should be there benton is not so far from m'cloud in that land of great distances and my recollection was not at fault an instant late her small elfish face bent to the opening and she peered in on us as one who views caged beasts of the jungle but there was none of the human fear of wild things in her attitude

so she said coolly tucking a lock of hair under the same ridiculous little cap she had worn on the moon this is how the northwest would have you is it mr bar mr brown alas to what base uses we do return i cannot say you have my sympathy if that is the least cruel thing you can say barrow flung back at her putting his feet on the floor and resting his hands on the edge of his seat i thank you but my trail is my own and i have never yet asked you to follow in my stumbling footsteps she colored at that and from where i sat i could see the police guard lift his eyebrows inquiringly but she had other shafts at hand i grant you that she replied quickly but it is a shock when one conceives a man to be something of a gentleman to have some remnant of the the code honorable, then pa, to find his name a byword on the frontier, a murderer, even descended to common theft and dealings in contraband whiskey. You have a savory record in these parts, I find. How nicely this chamber fits you, Mr.—uh, what is the euphonious title?

Slowfoot George. Ah, yes. Why the slow foot? By the tale of your successful illusion of the law, I should imagine you exceeding fleet of foot. It seemed to me unwomanly and uncalled for, that bitter, scornful speech. Even granting the truth of it which had not been established in my mind, but it had a tonic effect on Barrow. The hurt look faded from his face. lips parted in the odd, half-scornful, half-amused smile that was always lurking about his mouth. He did not at once reply. When he did, it was only a crisp sentence or two. Let us be done with this, he said. There is neither pleasure nor profit in exchanging insults.

Indeed, she thrust back, there can be no exchange of insults between us. Could ought you say insult any honest man or woman? But so be it. I came merely to convince my eyes that my ears heard truly. It may tickle your depraved vanity to know that McLeod is buzzing with your exploits and capture. That concerns me little, Beiro returned indifferently. Ditto, she averred. Except that I am right,

glad to find you stripped of your sheep's clothing, little as I expected such a revelation concerning one who passed for a gentleman, and to think that I might never have found you out, if my father had permitted me to return from Benton." "'Permitted?' Barrow laid inquiringly inflection on the word. "'What is it to—' she cut in sharply. "'Your father,' he interrupted deliberately. is a despicable scoundrel, a liar, and a cheat of the first water. Oh, oh, she gasped.

This, from you? I said, let us be done with this a moment ago, he reminded her. She drew back as if he had struck at her, flushing, her under-lip quivering, more from anger than any other emotion, I think. Almost at once she leaned forward again, glaring straight at Barrow. "'It would be of a peace with your past deeds,' she cried, "'if you should break this flimsy jail and butcher my father and myself while we slept. Oh, one could expect anything from such as you!'

And then she was gone, the guard striding heavy-footed after her. A puzzled expression crept over Barrow's face, blotting out the ironic smile. It was a dirty trick of me to speak so, he muttered after a little. But my God, a man can't always play the stoic under the lash. However, I dare say... He went off into a profound study, resting his chin in the palms of his hands. I kept my peace, making aimless marks with my pen. It was an odd turn of affairs.

Bob, what did I say about destiny a while ago? He raised his head and addressed me suddenly. I will take it back. I am going to take destiny by the nape of the neck. Being grilled on the seat of the scornful is little to my liking. It was a bit of ill luck that you've. fell in with me. I seemed to be in a bad boat. Ill luck for which of us, I asked. It was the first time he had sounded the personal note. Aside from the evening we were landed in McLeod, when he comforted me

with the assurance that, at the worst, I would spend no more than a few days in the guardhouse. For you, of course, he replied seriously. My sins are upon my own head. But it was unfortunate that I should have led you to Sanders' place the very night picked for a raid. They can have nothing against you, though, and they'll let you out fast enough when it comes to a hearing. Nor, for that matter, are they likely to hang me, notwithstanding the ugly things folks say. However, I have work to do, which I cannot do lying here. Hence, I perceive that I must get out of here, and I may need your help. How are you going to manage that, I inquired,

gazing with some astonishment at this man who spoke so coolly and confidently of getting out of prison. These walls seem pretty solid, and you can hardly dig through them with a lone pen nib. That's the only implement I see at hand. And I expect the guard will be at hand. after that before I get my letter done. I don't know how the thing will be done, he declared, but I am surely going to get out of here pretty pronto, as the cowmen have it. He settled back and took to staring at the ceiling.

I presently became immersed in my letter to Bolton. When it was done, I thrust a hand through the bars of my cell and wigwagged the policeman. They were good-natured souls for the most part, tolerant of their prisoners, and it broke the grinding monotony to exchange a few words with one under almost any pretext. Barrow was cherry of speech, and the Sanders brothers were penned beyond my sight. Shear monotonous silence, my imagine, would drive even peace-loving men to revolt and commit desperate deeds when they are cooped within four walls with nothing but their thoughts for company.

When he came, I observed that the guard had been changed since Miss Montel's visit. The new man was a lean, sour-faced trooper. To my surprise, he took my letter and then stood peeping in past me to where Barrow laid on his bunk. After a few seconds, he walked away, smiling queerly. in a minute or so he was back again taking another squint this time barrow turned over facing the door and when the trooper continued his promenade past our cell he got up and stood before the barred window completely shutting off my outlook i could not see but i could hear and by the sound of his booted feet the guard passed and repassed several times after a little he tired of this it seemed for i heard him stalking away to the front of the guard-house and immediately thereafter the creak of a chair as he sat down then barrow sat down in his bunk again try this kid he said and tossed a package of tobacco and cigarette papers to me i fell upon the forbidden luxury like a starving man upon food

he rolled himself one out of material in his hand and in the midst of my puffing changed to my side of the cell it was but a scant three feet to move and sat down between me and the door fate smiles at last he whispered blacky passed me in a little tobacco and see here in my hand i glanced down at what he was snuggling down out of sight between us a heavy bladed knife a tiny saw not more than six inches in length and a piece of note-paper marked with what my reason told me must be a ground plan of the very place we were in the tools of my deliverance said barot in an undertone I am for the blue sky and the sun and the clean wide prairies once more. End of Chapter 7. Chapter 8 of the Land of Frozen Sons This Librevox recording is in the public domain.

The Land of Frozen Sons by Bertrand W. Sinclair. Chapter 8. By ways that were dark. Looking back, I marvel at the ridiculous ease with which the thing was accomplished. Still more do I marvel at my own part in it. Brought up as I had been, shielded from the ill winds of existence, taught the perfunctory conventional standards of behavior that suffice for those whose lives are lived according to a little varying plan, I should have shrunk from further infraction of the law.

Indeed, it is no more than could have been expected had I refused absolutely to lend myself to Barrow's desperate plan. Conscious that I had done no wrong, I might have been moved to veto an enterprise that imperiled me, to protest against his drawing me further into his own troublous coil. But I did nothing of the sort. It did not occur to me. My point of view was no longer that of the son of a St. Louis gentleman, and the transition was so complete, so radical, and withal, so much the growth of the past three weeks that I was unaware of the change. I know of no clearer illustration of the power of environment. Indubitably, I should have looked askance at a man who tactily admitted himself more or less of a criminal,

making no defense, no denial. The traditions of my class should have kept me aloof, conscious of my own clean hands. This, I repeat, was what might have been expected of me. Put to me as an abstract proposition, I would have been very positive of where I should stand. But without being conscious of any deviation from my previous concepts of right and wrong, I found myself all agog to help Slowfoot George escape. For myself, there was no question of flight. That we agreed upon at the outset.

i could gain nothing by putting myself at odds with canadian law for the law itself would free me in its meeting out of justice but with him it was different he admitted the fact and even so i found myself making nothing of the admission he conformed to none of my vague ideas of the criminal type in aiding him to be free i seem to be freeing myself by proxy as if it was aiding to be freeing myself by proxy as if he conformed to none of my vague ideas of the criminal type in aiding him to be freeing myself by proxy as it were and how badly i desired to be quit of the strange tangle that enmeshed me none but myself can quite appreciate after all so far as my help was concerned it consisted largely of what barot driedly termed moral support i acquiesced in the necessity i stood in the lookout for interruptions he did the work while he cut with his knife a hole in the floor so that the point of the little saw could enter, I stood by the window, listening for the footsteps that would herald a guard's approach. He worked rapidly, yet in no apparent haste. He had that faculty of straining every nerve at what he was about without seeming to do so.

There was no waste energy, no fluster, and the cutting and sawing speedily bore fruit. So noiselessly and deftly did he work, that in less than half an hour he had sawn a hole in the floor large enough to admit his body, and the dank smell of earth long hidden from sunlight struck me when I bent down to look. Then with a caution that I should watch closely and tap on the floor with my heel, if any of the guard came poking around the cells, he wriggled through the opening and disappeared. I leaned against the wall, breathing a bit faster.

The hole was cut in a corner to the right of the cell door. From the outside it could scarcely be noticed. But I had wit enough to know that if a trooper glanced in and missed Barrow, the hole would be discovered fast enough, which would involve me in the attempt, and I was aware that jailbreakers fare ill if they are caught. but no one moved in the guard-house save now and then a prisoner shuffling about in his cell occasionally i could hear the low murmur of their voices it was a small place and filled to its capacity else barot and i would not have been penned together after an interminable period he came quietly out from under the floor and carefully fitted in their places the planks he had cut

one had to look closely to see a mark after he had brushed into the cracks some dust from the floor barrow's eyes twinkled when he sat down on his bunk and rolled himself a cigarette everything just as it should be he told me nothing to do but root away a little dirt from the bottom log of the outside wall i could walk out a free man in five minutes there will be a fine fuss and feathers to-night night. They have never had a jail delivery here, you know. Lord, it's easy enough when one has the tools. There'll be a hot chase, I suggested. Will you stand much chance? That depends on how much of a start I get, he said grimly. I think I can fool them. If not, well, he relapsed into silence. Someone clanked into the guardroom. and Barrow snuffed out his cigarette with one swift movement. In a second or two, the trooper went out again.

We could see him by flattening our faces against the bars, and when he was gone, Blackie sat alone, his feet cocked up on a chair. That reminds me, Barrow spoke so that his words were audible to me alone. Blackie's a good fellow, and I must keep his skirts clear. He will be on guard till about eight. this evening. Eight, nine, ten o'clock. At ten, it should be as dark as it will get. I'll drift then. Some other fellow will be on guard when you give the alarm. It was then mid-afternoon. At half-past five,

two prisoners were set to arranging a long table by the palings that separated the cells from the guardroom proper. With a trooper at their heels, they lugged from the guard-room proper. With a trooper at their heels, they lugged from the police kitchen two great pots, one of weak soup, the other containing a liquid that passed for tea. A platter of sliced bread and another of meat scraps completed the meal. Then the rest of us were turned out to eat, sixteen men who had fallen a fowl of the law, munching and drinking, with furtive glances at each other. And while we ate, a trooper made the round of the cells. giving each tumbled heap of quilts a tentative shake peering into the half-dark corners that also was part of the routine perfunctory as a general thing but occasionally developing into keen-eyed search

it was the rule to confiscate tobacco or any small articles a prisoner might manage to smuggle in if he failed of its concealment but the faint traces of barrow's floor-cutting escaped his eye, and the tobacco was in our pockets. The knife and saw Barrow had slipped within his bootleg. Personal search was the one thing we had to fear, and it passed us by. The guards, four of them during the meal hour, contented themselves with routine inspection, and when the table was swept clean of food, we were herded back to ourselves. For once I was glad to be locked up, knowing that, though dark would bring a trooper past our cell every half hour, to peer in on us through the barred opening, there was little chance of his unlocking the door. We lay on our bunks, silent, smoking a cigarette when the guard was safe in front.

The smell of tobacco smoke could not betray our possession of it, for the guardhouse reeked with the trooper's pipes. We had only to conceal the air. actual material. Thus, eight o'clock came, and brought with it a change of guard. Blackie no longer sat in front with his feet cocked up on a chair, or taking turns with his fellows at peering through cell doors. Nine passed, by the guardhouse clock, and ten dragged by at last. On the stroke of the hour, a guard tramped past our cell, onto the others, and back to his seat. in front. When he was settled, Berrault slid lightly from his bunk. The short pieces of flooring he pried from the hole in the floor. Then he reached a hand to me and shook mine in a grip that

almost bruised. "'Good-bye, Bob,' he whispered. "'I'll meet you in St. Louis next year, unless my star sets. And I will have a pretty story for your ears, then. Give me an hour if you can.' So long! His feet were in the opening as he spoke, and a second later the black square of it was yawning emptily. I put the planks over the hole and got me back to my bunk. I was glad to see him go, and yet knowing that he would come back no more, save in irons,

I missed him. I felt utterly alone and forsaken, lying there simulating sleep, with every nerve in my body on tiptoe. It was a rule of the guardhouse that a prisoner must lie with his feet to the door, so that his head could be seen by the passing guard. Just opposite our door, a lamp was bracketed on the wall. What light it gave shone through the bars directly on our faces while we slept.

Rules or no rules, a man would shade his face with his arm, a corner of the quilt, when the lamp glare struck in his eyes, and Barrow, perhaps with that very emergency in mind, had slept with his hat pulled over his face. None of the guards had voiced objection. They could see him easily enough. Now this very practice made it possible for him to fool them with a trick that is as old as prison-breaking itself. skillfully he had arranged the covers to give the outline of a body and his hat he left tilted over the place where his head had rested the simplicity of the thing i dare say is what made it a success at least it fulfilled its purpose that night here a prisoner snored and there another turned on his bunk with faint scrapings against the wall out in front the policeman conversed in the wall out in front the policeman conversed in lowered tones i could hear every sound in the building it seemed the movements of sleeping men the scurrying of a rat the crackle of a match when one of the guards lit his pipe

but i did not hear that for which my ears were strained and i was thankful twice a trooper made the round seeing nothing amiss although i imagined the lump of my heart echoed into the corridor when he looked in on me and let his glance travel over the place where slow-foot george should have been but was not it was nearing the time for his return and i sat up nirving myself to give the alarm for to clear me of complicity and the penalty thereof barot had instructed me to apprise them after an hour i was to tell them that he was armed and so compelled me to keep silent while he worked and i was to say that he had but gone there would be nothing but his footprints and by those they could not reckon the time of his flight as i sat there waiting for the guard and stealing myself to lie boldly shamelessly for burroughs sake and my own my gaze rested speculatively on the pieces of flooring i had laid over the hole i intended to kick them aside as i rushed to the window and gabbed my tail to the guard but i did not rush to the window nor did i gable to the guard for i saw the pieces of plank slide softly apart and a hand came through the opening thus made a hand that waved imperative warning for me to lie down the guard passed as i drew the cover over me he barely glanced in before the squeak of his chair out in front told me of his settling down i was up on elbow staring

again the plank slid apart this time clear of the hole in the same moment something took shape in the black square something that rose quickly till i could see that it was the head and shoulders of a man i sat mute startled filled with wonder and some dismay the dull light touching his features showed me barrow dirt-stained sweat-drops on his forehead beckoning to me i leaned to catch his whisper i came back for you kid he breathed you're slated for trouble the cabin of the moon's purser was robbed the night you left and it's laid to you there's a deputy from benton here after you you'll get a hard deal better chance it with me robbery i muttered good god what next extradition and a hard fight to clear yourself weeks maybe months in the calaboose come on with me you'll get home sooner i promise you that i've a mind to go you i declared bitterly i seem doomed to be an ishmael hurry then he admonished or will be nabbed in the act slip in here quietly and crawl after me just as you are bring your shoes in your hand thus willy-nilly i found myself in the black dank space between the floor and the ground the blackness and musty smell endured no more than a few seconds the passage to the outer wall was shorter than i had thought presently i followed barrow through a tight hole and stood erected

in the gloom of a cloudy night a night well fitted for desperate needs give me your hand said barrow when i had put on my brogans the dark might have been made to order for our purpose i could barely see barot at my elbow his hand was a needed aid together we moved softly away from the guard-house and once clear of it ran like hunted things looking back over my shoulder once i saw the guard-house lights pale yellow squares set in solid ebony the rest of the post lay unlighted hidden away in the dark i do not know whither barrow led me but at length almost winded from the long run he brought up against some sort of deserted building a vague blur resolved into two horses when we laid hands upon it barrow jerked loose the fastening ropes and as my fingers closed on the reins of one a carbine popped away in our rear then another and a third hard on that came the shrilling of a bugle up with you barot commanded they found our hole stick close to me if they do run us down we must take our medicine we cannot fight the men in red with such odds against us but i think they'll look long and sorrowfully ere they come upon us a night like this he finished with a short laugh side by side two dim figures in the murk we loped away barrow kept a steady unhurried gate we passed a building or two dipped into a hollow splashed through what may have been a river or a pond for all i could tell

and presently came out upon level plain behind us mcclough's few lights twinkled like the scattered embers of a camp-fire soon these also dwindled to nothing and the shadowless gloom of the prairies surrounded us keenly as i listened i caught no sound of following hoofs and barrow seemed to think himself tolerably safe for he began to talk in his natural tone as we galloped into the night. If the police overhaul us now, he asserted confidently, it will be only because of a lucky guess at the direction we have taken. They are more than likely to think we have gone south. And if they don't beat us to the red flats, we can snap our fingers at them for many a moon.

Are you itching with curiosity, Bob? Not altogether itching, I replied, truthfully enough, I'm too glad to be out of that iron-barred box, to be worrying much over the why of things. Just so the program doesn't call for another spell in some guardhouse, I'll be satisfied. I'm putting a good deal of faith in what you said about eventually getting to St. Louis. Cultivating the philosophical attitude already, eh? he returned. You're progressing. To be perfectly frank, there is little chance of our seeing either the inside or outside of a guardhouse again.

The redcoats fight shy of the country we are bound for. Where is that? I asked quickly. I knew you were wondering, he laughed. Unconsciously, you are bristling with question marks. Natural enough, too. But all in good time, Bob. Tonight we have food and clothing, another horse or two, and arms to get. If previous calculations haven't been upset, these things will be forthcoming, and we shall go on our way,

if not rejoicing, at least well provided against the wilderness. And then, if you still choose to paddle in my canoe, I'll go into details. That's fair enough, I answered. there's just one thing. That moon robbery business. How came you to know a deputy sheriff was after me? Simply enough, he returned. When I got out, I had to sneak around and find a man from whom I could get a horse. I have a friend or two there, luckily. And he told me, The circlemen gave you away when they were told you had stolen money from the boat. The deputy had just ridden in. He was a mouthy brute and noised his business about.

"'It beats the devil,' I declared. "'Ever since those two thugs tackled me on the St. Louis waterfront, I seem to have been going from bad to worse, stepping from one hot stone to another still hotter. "'I've done it myself,' he said laconically. "'But they will have to catch their hair before they can cook it. and it takes more than accusation to make a man a thief. With this he relapsed into silence.

There was a sort of finality in his way of speaking that headed me off from asking more questions. I busied myself digesting what he had told me. Occasionally, as we rode, he drawled a remark, a few words about the country we traversed, or our mounts, or a bull train he hoped. to overtake. Between whiles, I speculated on what mysterious link connected him with the girl who had come to

the guardhouse in McLeod. The rancor of her speech had fixed itself irrevocably on my memory. What lay behind their bitter stabbing at each other I could not say, nor was it anything that should have concerned me. I had my own besetments. I knew not whither I was going. nor why, except to escape trial for a crime I had not committed. There were many points upon which I desired light, things that puzzled me.

All in all, as I put aside the disturbing influences of flight, I did, as Barrow had said, fairly bristle with interrogations. Once in the night we halted on a small creek for the best part of an hour, letting our horses graze. only then did i become aware that barrow rode without a saddle no man ever quitted a mounted police guard-house without help from the outside he replied when i spoke of this and the man who took a chance on letting me have two horses had only one saddle to spare i can ride easier on a blanket than you it is only for another hour or two at most see we are just come to the trail i could distinguish no trail at first he followed it easily and after a time i began to get glimpses of deep-worn ruts barrow struck a faster pace two hours of silent riding brought us into the bed of a fair-sized creek and when he had turned a bend or two of its course a light blinked ahead in another minute we brought up against a group of wagons

barrow rode straight to the tent through the canvas walls of which glowed the light there he dismounted and tied his horse whispering to me to follow suit then i followed him into the tent a man lay stretched on a camp-caught at one end the blankets drawn over his head him barrow shook rudely out of his slumber and when he sat up with a growl of protest i found found myself face to face with Montel, the portly fur merchant who had come up river on the moon. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of the Land of Frozen Sons This Librevox recording is in the public domain. The Land of Frozen Sons by Bertrand W. Sinclair Chapter 9

Mr. Montel Oh! It's you. George, Montel purred. That sounds exaggerated, but I cannot otherwise describe his manner of speaking. He made an odd figure sitting up in bed, with his fat purple face surmounting a flannel shirt and a red-knitted cap on his head. So you made it, eh? Who's this with you, George? None of your damned business, Barrow snapped. He stood back a little from the bed, looking down at Montel.

By the glint in his eyes, he was angry. You needn't concern yourself about any man who travels with me. Tut, tut, George, the other pacified. That's all right, that's all right. You're mighty touchy tonight. I did the best I could for you, I'm sure. The best you could. You did that.

though not in the way you would have me believe barrow's voice stung like a whiplash you double-faced mammon worshipper if it would mend matters i would gladly jerk you out of your bunk and stamp your swinish features into the earth do you think you can pull the wool over my eyes for two pins i'd break with you right now montel did not at once reply he sat a few feet of you at once reply he sat a few feet of you. few seconds, softly rubbing the palm of one pudgy hand over the back of its fellow. "'Now, what's the use of that sort of talk, George?' he finally said, quite unperturbed. "'We can't afford to quarrel. We got to—' "'I can,' Barrow interrupted. "'No, no, George, you're mistaken there. We got to stick together,' he declared. "'Hang it, you had bad luck.'

But you shouldn't blame me for them misfortunes. I don't altogether, Barrow cut in again. But you took advantage of my mischance, to help along a little scheme that you've been nursing some time. I had a glimpse of your hand in McLeod. You have done the mischief. Why should I trouble myself further in your affairs, unless it be to call you to account for the dirty trick you have played,

oh oh i see now montel nodded understandingly i didn't catch what you were driving at but you're wrong dead wrong george why i tried every way to send jessie back from benton yes sir tried every way you've no idea how wilful that girl is he spread his fat hands deprecatingly she'd come to m'clough spite of hell and high water i couldn't stop her and with every tom dick and harry talking about you and them dodgers stuck up every place and you really in the guardhouse why you see how it was no way to keep it dark but it's not as bad as you think of course she's kind of excited but shh when you see her again she won't think of it's not as bad as you think of course she's kind of excited but shh when you see her again she won't think of it you're dead wrong, George, when you blame me. Yes, sir. Wouldn't I have kept it quiet if I could? You know it, George.

I got something at stake, too. You have that, Barrow returned grimly, and you had better keep that fact in mind. But don't ask me to believe such rot as you're not being able to prevent her from making such a radical change of plan. However, the milk is spilt. The crying part will come later.

I'll keep to my part of the bargain. Does everything stand as originally laid out? Montel nodded. There's no call to change, he said, and again the purring satisfied note crept into his voice. I want another good horse, a saddle, a pack layout, and grub for a month. Barrow enumerated.

Route Steve up. You know where he sleeps. And have him get those things. We need guns, too. Where is my box? It's on the trail end of the first wagon outside. Steve's sleeping just beyond. Couldn't you just as well wake him, George? No, I've other things to do,

Barrow refused bluntly. bestir your fat carcass and set em to work the night air won't hurt you we have no time to waste for all i know a troop of police may be on us before we can get started again montel grunted some unintelligible protest but nevertheless heaved his fleshburdened body up from the cot he gathered about him a much-worn dressing-gown and thrusting his feet into a of slippers left the tent. Now, let us see about clothes, Beiro said to me, and I followed him to the wagon end. He climbed up on the hind wheel.

After a second or two of fumbling, he upended a flat steamer trunk. I held it while he leaped to the ground, and between us we carried it into the tent. The police have my key, much good may it do them. he remarked and pried open the lid with a hatchet that lay near by he threw a few articles carelessly aside peel off those roust about garments he said to me here is something better lucky we're about of a size he gave me a blue flannel shirt to begin with and when i had discarded the soiled rags i wore and put on the clean one he held out to me a coat and trout

of some dark cloth a pair of riding boots similar to those on his own feet and clean socks other clothing he hauled from the trunk and laid in a pile by itself lastly he brought forth a new felt hat does this fit you he stood up and set it on my head fine no i'll get a hat from steve before we start he silenced my protest we We had both ridden bareheaded. Montel returned while I was getting into the welcome change of apparel. Steve's getting you what you need, George, he informed. There's a new tarpaulin by the bed you can use for your pack. Steve will get you blankets. Go softly. I'm none too sure of all these bullwhackers I got. Barrow went on spreading his clothes in a flat heap as if he had not heard.

presently he closed the trunk getting to his feet he glanced about oh yes he said curtly as if he had but recollected something i want some of that port you've been guzzling dig it up certainly george certainly montel's face broadened in an ingratiating smile though barot's tone was as contemptuously insulting as it could well be he reached under the box upon which the candle stood and brought out a bottle barrow took it held it up to the light then laid it by his clothing without a word montel watching him with a speculative air meanwhile that's fine stuff george he said tentatively fine stuff i ain't got but a little damn you don't talk to me barrow whirled on him i'm sick of the whole business and i want none of your smooth palaver nor whining about what i do the older man's florid face took on a deeper tint one of his fat hands suddenly drew into a fist barrow had penetrated his hide in some way that i could not quite understand and i imagine there would have been some sort of explosion on the spot but for the timely diversion of a man's head parting the door flaps them husses is ready he briefly announced and barrow turned his back on mr montell forthwith i did likewise for all i did i might as well have stayed in the tent barrow and steve went silently about saddling one horse and lashing a pack-tree on another

in the dull light from the tent i could barely make shift to see but they seemed to know every strap and tying-place and the thing was quickly done last of all they folded barrow's clothing and two or three pairs of heavy blankets in the tarpaulin and bound the roll on top of the food supply then barot stepped once more within the tent what he said to montel did not reach my ears at any rate it was brief watching his shadow on the canvas wall i saw him turn to come out saw him stop and bend over something near the flaps he straightened up with a sharp exclamation and this time i heard distinctly what he said by the lord you have been fool enough to let her come farther even oh you've been fool enough to let her come farther even oh you've been fool enough to let her come farther even oh you've You miserable! His words ran into a blur of sound. Montel raised in his cot again. I could see the bulk of him outlined against the farther side.

Now, see here, George, he burst out irritably. This is going too far. Between you and Jesse, I've had a heap of trouble this trip, and my patience has got limits. Yes, sir, it's got limits. I'm doing the best I can, and you got to do the same. You go to back an old man Montel into a corner, and the fur'll fly. You act like you was a schoolboy, and I took your cap away.

I don't think that Barrow made any reply to this. If he did, the words were softly spoken, and he was not the man to speak softly, considering the mood he was in just then. He was out of the tent, almost before montel had finished steve he said in a matter-of-fact way as he laid hold of his stirrup i was already mounted let me have your hat i lost mine in the shuffle without comment steve took the hat from his head and handed it up to him so long he grunted laconically so long steve said barrow the candle in montel's tent blinked out with the words barrow caught up the lead rope of our pack pony and then as silently as we had come we rode away

end of chapter nine chapter ten of the land of frozen sons this librivox recording is in the public domain the land of frozen sons by bertrand w sinclair chapter ten there's money in it a brisk wind sprang up ere we were well clear of the montel camp in half an hour it was blowing a gale overhead the clouds ripped apart in the lash of the wind and a belated moon peered tentatively through the torn places it lighted the way so that we could see sudden dips in the prairie buffalo wallows and such abrupt depressions before we reached them with the lifting of the solid black that had walled us in barrow set a faster pace it will soon be day he broke a long silence and though i am loath to overtax our mounts we must reach the blood flats if we are being followed they will scarcely think to look for us there and i know of no other place in this bald country where our picketed horses would not stand out like the nose on a man's face how it blows it did so that speech was next to impossible even had we been inclined to talk the wind struck us quartering and muffled a shout of inconsequent syllables but beyond those few words barrow kept mute leaning forward in his stirrups at a steady lope we must have covered near twenty miles before the eastern sky-line gave a hint of dawn with that Barrow pulled his horse down to a walk.

"'Well,' he said lightly, "'we made it easily enough. Now for a bit of a climb. It will be awkward if a bunch of unfriendly stonies have taken possession of the one spot that will serve us. But that's hardly thinkable. Are you tired, Bob?' I was and freely owned it.

He swung sharply aside while I was speaking, and in a few minutes an odd-shaped butte loomed ahead. It upreared out of the flat country like a huge wart. The bald slope of it lay weather-worn, rain-scarred, naked of vegetation, but on its crest tangled patches of cherry-brush and sally-willows made a ragged silhouette against the sky. The east blazed like the forefront of a prairie fire when we reached the top. Then it became plain to me why Beiro had sought the place.

The scrub growth stood dense as a giant's beard, but here and there, unfolding little meadows of bunch grass and winding in and out through these, Beiro finally drew up by a rush-fringed pool that proved to be a spring. Wood, water, and grass, said he, as his heels struck the earth, and all securely screened from passers-by. now we can eat and rest in peace let us get a fire built and boil a pot of coffee before it gets so light that the smoke will betray us

the horses we picketed in one of the little glades shut in by the brush they could graze unseen then we cooked and ate breakfast hurrying to blot out the fire for dawn came winging swiftly across the plains come over and take a look from the brow of the hill barrow proposed when we were done wearily i followed him i could have stretched myself in the soft grass and slept with a will every bone and muscle in my body protested against further movement and i was sluggish with a full stomach but barrow showed no signs of fatigue and a measure of pride and my powers of endurance kept me from open complaint. It was worth a pang or two, after all. He led the way to the southern tip of the plateau, no great distance. From edge to edge the table-land was no more than three hundred yards across. But it overlooked the blood flats from a great height, four hundred feet or more, I judged. Barrow sat down beside a choke-cherry clump and rolled himself a cigarette. ten paces beyond the butte fell away sheer to the waist-levels below there is nothing that i have ever seen just like this he murmured and it is never twice alike

watch that rise take fire from the sun and the mountains over yonder square-shouldered giants tricked out in royal purple the sun slid clear of the sky-line and a long shaft of light brushed over the unreckoned miles of grassland till it fell caressingly on our butte hollows and tiny threads of creeks nursed deep black shadows that shrank and vanished as the sun-ray sought them out away beyond to the west the snow-tipped rocky stood boldly out in their robe of misty blue as the yellow glare bathed the sea of land that ringed the lonely pinnacle i saw why the flats were so named named. Impassive, desolate, vast in its sweep, the plane took on a weird look at the sun's kiss. Barren of tree or shrubs so far as the eye could reach, naked even of shrivelled blades of grass, when the last least shadow was gone, it spread before us like a painted floor, red to its outermost edges, a sullen dried blood red. A strange color. A strange color, soil, as if it were a huge bed of dull glowing coals.

Blood flats. There is no incongruity in the name, Barrow vouchsafed. It is almost beautiful. Yet I have seen the sun strike it of a morning, and felt a foolish, oppressive dread. Just after a rain, I remember once. Then it lay like a lake of blood. The light played on pools here and there, pools that glowed like great rubies. Fancy it, 90 miles square of that blood-stained earth. A monster shambles, it is often seen to me. It breeds strange thoughts when one faces it alone, or take it on a day of lowering clouds. Then it almost voices a threat of evil. It is so void of life, so malevolent in its stillness. the psychology of environment is a curious thing how is it that mere inanimate earth a great magnitude of space a certain color scheme can affect a man so

sometimes i wonder if we inherit past experiences from our primitive ancestors along with the color of our eyes or the cast of our features our surroundings work upon our emotions as the temperature affects a thermometer and we cannot tell why even the hard-headed bullwhackers hate this stretch of country he made himself another cigarette and sat quiet for a time staring off across the red-white waist. We may as well go back to camp, he said, rising abruptly. There is no sign of men, mounted, a foot, or otherwise, that I can see. Back by our saddles and pack layout, Barrow divided the blankets and showed me how to fold mine to make the most of them. Thankfully, I betted myself in a shaded place, but he, before following my example, unslung from his saddle the rifle he had procured of Montel. He looked it over, snapped the lever forward and back,

slid another cartridge or two into the magazine. This done, he laid it by his blankets. I grudge the police my two good nags and my Winchester, he remarked as he drew off his boots. What extra weapons Montel had were stowed in a wagon, and I had no time to hunt for them. So we will have to make shift with one rifle for a while at least. For that matter, unless we run foul of some young bucks prowling for a scalp,

one gun will serve as well as two. If you elect to take a different trail, the best I can give you will be an ancient derringer and a scant number of cartridges. But I am inclined to think that we will not part company yet a while. he sat upon his blankets regarding me with a measuring air and i from my comfortable position answered drowsily i have a full stomach a clear conscience and a tired body i am going to sleep right now if i never travel another trail he laughed softly whether he said anything further i do not know i was too near worn out to care my last faint impression was of him sitting cross-legged on his blankets emitting sporadic puffs of smoke and looking at me with his black brows drawn together and the next thing i remember was a tang of wood smoke in my nostrils

i sat up and stared about puzzled at first for i had slept like a dead man twilight wrapped the butte barot was bent over a small fire cooking supper oh he said looking around you've come alive at last i was about to wake you the chuck's ready i washed in the trickle of water that ran away from the spring and felt like a new man as to eating i was little short of ravenous never had food made such an appeal to my senses when the meal was over barrow settled back against his saddle there will be a moon somewhere near midnight he declared we'll move then after tonight we can travel without cover of the dark meantime lend me your ears robertus let us see where we stand fire away i replied i am pretty much in the dark in more ways than one exactly he responded and i imagine you have little taste for walking blindfolded so we will spread our hands on the board first let's Let us look a few facts cold-bloodedly in the eye. Here are two of us practically outlawed. I, well, it should be obvious to you that I am a very much wanted man in these parts.

My capture, especially now, would be the biggest feather any policeman could stick in his cap. There are others who would cheerfully shoot me in the back for what it would bring them. Hence, the sooner I get out of this part of the country, the better I will be suited. You have killed a man for a starter. That... But I had to, I broke in. It was forced on me.

You know it was. There's a limit to what a man can stand. I know all that, he replied quietly. I'm not sitting in judgment on you, Bob. I'm merely setting forth what has happened, and how we are affected thereby. Tupper got no more. than he deserved, and he did not get it soon enough, from my point of view.

But, as I said, you killed a man, and the killing has taken on a different color in the minds of others, since you were also accused of theft. Do you believe that infernal lie? I interrupted again. It galled me to hear him enumerate those ugly details in that calm, deliberate manner. It makes little difference what I believe. leave," he answered patiently. "'If it is any comfort to you, I can hardly conceive of you plundering the moon's cabin, but voicing our individual beliefs is beside the point.

Certain things are laid to us. Certain penalties are sure as the rising and setting of the sun, if either of us is caught and convicted.' And he pinched his eyebrows together until little creases ran up and down his forehead, but his voice was cold matter of fact if we were clean-handed as a babe unborn we have forever damned ourselves before canadian courts by breaking jail you see where we are forgetting these other things that we may or may not have done of this one crime we are guilty we can't dodge it if we are taken it is a felony in itself if i were a free agent He went on, after a momentary pause, I would have made no attempt to escape,

or having escaped, I would quit this damned country by the shortest route. But I can't. I have got into a game that I must play to a finish. Further, I have given my word to do certain work, and in the doing of it I am bucking elements that I cannot always cope with, alone. I need help.

I want someone whom I can, can trust absolutely if he gives his word. A man I can depend upon to stick by me in a pinch. That, he turned his gaze squarely on me, is principally why I took long chances to get you out of the guardhouse last night. It seemed to me I could help myself best by helping you. I will be frank. My motive was not purely altruistic. Men's motive seldom are. you flatter me i commented bitterly considering that i have shown myself more or less weak need every time i've got in a tight place your remark about someone who would stick by you in a pinch savors of irony i hardly see how you could put absolute faith in me when i have so little faith in myself besides i do not know what your program calls for i don't seem to have the faculty of holding my own in a rough game nor the right sort of nerve if i have any my instinct seems to be to give ground until i'm cornered i'd rather be at peace with the world

i don't like war of the personal sort nor does any man any normal man he responded soberly but there are times as you have seen when we cannot escape it so far as your capacity for holding your own is concerned let me be judge of that i know men more or less well by bitter experience under certain conditions i could probably guess what you would do better than yourself. You may be sure I wouldn't ask you to accept certain risks and hardships with me if I thought a yellow street tinged your makeup. So we will not argue along that line. What I need your help in is a legitimate enterprise, clean enough of itself, though I have acquired a dirty reputation in the way of it. I'll give you a few details, and you can judge for yourself. four years ago chance set me north to a hudson's bay post on the saskatchewan from there i drifted farther to the great slave lake country almost

i've known more or less of the fur trade all my life my father was in it and so i was quickly to see how the hudson's bay company holds the north trade in the hollow of its hand it was a revelation to me bob fortunes gravitate to their posts by the simplest process in the world they barter a worthless muzzle-loading gun and a handful of powder and ball for a hundredfold its worth and pelts from one year's end to another yes from generation to generation the tribes have been kept in debt to the company they make a scanty living from the company and the company builds colossal fortunes out of them. You and I would call it robbery. To the company it is merely trade. Ever since the granting of its charter, close on two centuries ago, the company has lorded it over the north, barring out the free trader, guarding jealously against competition. Only the Northwest Fur Company ever held its own with the Hudson's Bay, and the two combined when the Northwest estuary. itself. The others, loan traders, partnerships, the company fought and intimidated till they

withdrew. Technically, it is a free country, has been since 69, but north of the Saskatchewan, the company still holds forth in the ancient manner, making its own law, recognizing no higher authority than itself. It is a big country, the north, and the Canadian, government has its hands full in the east and south. A white man takes his own risks north of latitude 54. All this I knew very well, but like many another purse-broken man, I wanted to fling at the trade. I saw that a man could get in touch with the tribes, give them fair exchange for their furs, give them treble the Hudson's Bay rate of barter, and still make a fortune. i needed the fortune bob i am still on the trail of it but i had too little capital to play a lone hand so i hide me to st louis and broached the scheme to montell

i have known him all my life he also is an old hand in the trade he had the capital i lacked barrow stopped for a minute digging at the earth with his heel the fire had dwindled to a few coals i could not see his face but his voice had changed a note of resentment had crept into it when he began again montel jumped at the plan later i learned things that led me to believe he was near the end of his rope financially at the time so my scheme was in the nature of a godsend to him i had a little money and every dollar i could raise i put in it was to be an equal partnership my knowledge of the country and the conditions to offset his extra capital the first year we made expenses and a little over but we were getting known among the indian hunters convincing them that we would treat them better than the hudson's bay secure in their established grip on the tribes the company passed us up the second year we made money then the company woke up and fought us tooth and nail not openly that is not their way they fought us nevertheless there were reprisals the brunt of it fell on me they seemed to guess that with my teeth drawn their fight was won so they carried the war systematically into the open country our jail-breaking last night took its inception in that struggle for and against a monopoly this year if things do not go awry we stand to clear more than a hundred

thousand dollars, and it will be the last. No individual trader can break lances with the company on its own ground. They are lords of the north beyond gainsaying. At the best, we can but take a slice and leave the loaf to them. Next spring sees the last of our trading. This fall, there will be fierce work to do, tramping here and there, issuing guns and powder, foodstuffs, bargaining with the hunters for the winter's take of pelts. A hundred lodges have promised to trade with us this season, and an Indian rarely breaks his word, once given in good faith, we will get others, in spite of the company runners. But we must be on the alert. We cannot sit in our posts and wait for these things to come

about of themselves, and that brings me to the point. if i had only the hudson's bay company to contend with i would have little fear for the outcome with them it is largely a question of strategy if there is any violence it will come from some zealot in their service and we can hold our own against such but montel is an eel he looms more threatening than the company in these three years i have had no accounting with him i have done the dirty work while he hold up at the post or look after the st louis end i have more than once come near tripping him up in petty tricks secretly he hates me for at bottom he is an arrogant old freebooter and for all his groveling last night he is a dangerous man by one means and another i know that he is made up his mind to put me in the lurch once this winter's trade is turned without me he can do little in the way of getting furs otherwise i would be cooling my heels in mcclaude guardhouse yet you may have guessed that he was the spirit which moved blacky to pass in the knife and saw but once full arrangements are made and the pelts begin to come in with spring why then i don't know what he will do how he will engineer his plan to eliminate my in the prophets. He has some card up his sleeve. Half of everything is mine, but I have

nothing to show it. There is nothing between us but His word, and that, I have learned at least, is a thing he can twist to suit the occasion. He has begun shaping things to suit himself on this trip. He cut a bit of the ground from under my feet back there in McLeod. I'll pay him for that, though, and he knows it. The finishing touch will come this winter, or in the spring. He hates me, just as he hates any man whom he cannot lead by the nose, and he will move like the old fox he is. There's money in it, for him. And money and power are Simon Montel's twin gods. Between these crossfires, I will have my hands more than full. I can only be in one place at a time. There is not a man with the bull train, or among the few

that remain in the north, but is under Montel's thumb. Most of them could not understand if I told them. The thing is too subtle for their simple direct minds. For that reason, I sought for someone I could trust to keep a clear eye open and his ears cocked, for whatever Montel does he will do by stealth. That evening we fell in together at the foot of the sweet grass, I was headed for the Sanders Ranch, thinking to get Walt to come north with me. He would have enjoyed this sort of thing. You know how we fared that night, and you can see why, when the police raid put him beyond my helping, I turned to you. I had you in mind all the while we lay in the guardhouse, but I hesitated to drag you into it until I learned of the robbery

charged to you. Then I went back for you, judging that of the two evils you would choose the one I offered. That is the way of it, Bob. If you help me play the game this winter, you accomplish two things with tolerable certitude. You will be safe from the police and those Benton idiots, and you will get to St. Louis in the spring. Montel himself will see to that when he learns who you are. He knew your father slightly, and he has all of a gutter-snipes snobbish adulation of wealth and family. So you are doubly safe. On the other hand, if you are minded to work out your own salvation, I will share with you what I have, set you in the right direction, and wish you good luck. Don't be hasty about deciding. Think the thing over. But I had already made up my mind.

How much the lore of a strange land and stirring things to be done bore upon my decision, I cannot say. How much, at the moment, George Burroughs' personality dominated me, I cannot quite compute individual psychology has never been a study of mine but i know that there is no course of reasoning no mental action no emotion that has not its psychic factors whatever these were in my case i lost sight of them i think that what influenced me most was his way of putting it man to man so to speak unconsciously that restored to me in a measure, the self-respect I had nearly lost in those brutal days on the moon, and the skulking and imprisonment which followed. Here was a man before whom I had seen other strong men cringe, asking me in a straightforward way for help.

I had no wish to refuse. I felt a thrill at the opportunity. For the time I forgot that Montel's daughter had called him a thief and a murder, and he had not denied i took him at his face value as he took me and we shook hands on the bargain and cemented it further with the bottle of port so unwillingly relinquished by montell i'm with you said i till the last dog is hung but if i weaken in a pinch don't say you weren't forewarned he laughed don't underestimate yourself a man doesn't need to be overloaded with nerve to play a man's part in this world in fact the fellow who hunts trouble for the sake of showing off his nerve is generally some damned fool with a yellow streak in him that he's deadly afraid some one may uncover after all he reflected there may be nothing more to cope with than the dreary monotony of snow-bound days and nights when the frost bites to the bone your part will merely be to keep tab on mr simon montell when i am not about he's afraid of me

if he can't attain his purpose by underhand methods he may consider the risk of open hostility too great but that we cannot foresee our problem now is to reach the sicani river as soon as we can there we need never fear meeting a scarlet jacket it stands us in hand to be shy of those gentlemen for some time to come amen to that i responded sincerely we lay back in the shadows smoking speaking a few words now and then till the moon came peeping up from below the horizon shedding its pale light on the strange red sweep of the blood flats then we saddled and packed and bore away from the lone butte holding a course slightly west of the north star end of chapter ten chapter eleven of the land of frozen sons this libervox recording is in the public domain the land of frozen sons by bertrand w sinclair chapter eleven a trick of the trade a certain concept consecutive number of days weeks to be more exact ensued of which there is little to relate save that we travelled steadily northward seeing no human except from afar once or twice we came in sight of hudson's bay posts but these borough was careful to avoid it was not the season when indians were abroad in the forests he told me when i wondered that in all that vast land not a single lodge appeared they were gathered in summer villages by the trading-posts hence we crossed few fresh trails and bespoke no man white or red in the four weeks of our journey

before the end of it i was hardened to the saddle and to many other things twice we swam great rivers the north saskatchewan and farther on the peace to say nothing of lesser streams that were were both deep and swift. Our food supply dwindled to flour and tea. But with game on every hand, we suffered no hardship in that respect. The getting of meat, Burrow left to me. Strangely enough, after one or two virulent attracts of buck fever, when the rifle barrel wobbled in a most unseemly manner, and the bullet therefrom flew disgracefully wide of the mark, I got into the way of bringing down whatever I shot at. Between my eye and the rifle sights and the shoulder of a deer, some mysterious rapid process of alignment seemed invariably to take place. Why not, Barrow contended, when I remarked upon this sudden attaining to marksmanship.

There are the sights. Your eyes are clear and your arm steady as a rock. That's all there is to good shooting. That and a little experience in judging distance. Some men handle guns all their lives and never make a decent shot other than by accident. Whenever you run across such an individual, you can be sure there is some defect in his vision, or he lacks muscular control over his weapon. That trip taught me many things besides holding a rifle true, how to build a campfire in wet weather and dry, little labor-saving tricks of the axe, the name and nature of this timber and that, the cooking of plain food, a subtle sense of direction, fundamental trail wisdom that I was wholly ignorant of, but which a man must know if he would cope with the way.

wilderness of wood and plain. I profited as much by noting how he did these things as by direct instruction, nor does a man forget easily the lessons he is taught in the school of necessity. With Peace River behind us, we edged nearer to the base of the mountains, passing through a stretch of country alive with caribou and deer. Bear, monsters by the track they left, frightened our picketed horses of a night. The moist earth bordering every pond and spring was marked with hoof and claw. The shire fur-bearing animals, Burrow told me, surrounded us unseen. Barring, barring a thickly wooded plateau south of the peace, we passed through no forest oppressively dense. Our way led over ridges and swales, timbered to be sure, but opening, and the river. We're

out here and there into pleasant grassy parks. Once or twice, forbidding areas of dead and down trees turned us aside. Again, a vast swamp enforced a detour. But I cannot recall any feature of marked unpleasantness, except the one thing that no man who crosses the North Saskatchewan can escape, the flies. Mosquitoes of all sizes, equipped with the keenest tools for their nefarious business, green-headed bulldog flies that plagued our horses beyond endurance, black gnats, flying ants, and other winged pests assailed us day and night in hungry swarms. Someday that particular portion of the northwest will be a rich field for entomologists and manufacturers of mosquito netting. We held our own with the buzzing hosts, however,

and when our flower-sack had nearly reached a stage of ultimate limpness and our tea was reduced to a tiny package in one corner of the shrunken pack we rode out of a long belt of quivering poplars and drew up on the brow of a sharp pitch that fell away to the saccanny river what in the name of the devil has been to the fore here barrow exclaimed he slid over in his saddle staring at the scene below down on the flat just back from the river bank i made out a clutter of small log buildings enclosed within a stockade in the center of the enclosure a half-dozen men busied themselves about the gaunt walls of a larger building logs and poles strewed the ground about its four sides the ring of axe-blades on timber came floating up to us i saw nothing amiss what's wrong i asked nothing that matters greatly bero replied only that ruin you see was a fine upstanding storehouse when i left here in the early spring it seems to be undergoing a process of regeneration it seems to be undergoing a process of regeneration for which i cannot account likewise i see no trace of a stable which stood at the west end of the stockade there are no men missing by my count so i dare say no great thing has happened anyway this is the end of our trail for a while we may as well get down there i am a bit curious to know the means to know the means of this?

Presently we were dismounting within the stockade, and as we greeted the men who stopped their work to hail us, it was plain what form of disaster had overtaken the Montel establishment. The standing walls of 16-inch logs were smoke-blackened and scorched by fire. The inside was gutted to the floor joists, the roof gone. a pile of charred poles and timbers laid to one side testified mutely to cause and effect well ben barrow addressed one man who came forward how did it happen she burned that's all and the stable too ben made laconic answer he drew a plug of tobacco from his hip pocket looked it over with a speculative eye bit off a piece and returned it to the pocket as he masticated the piece contemplatively barrow watched him with a whimsical smile yes sir he went on

she took fire in the night with the boys sleeping in the dog-house and me in the front part of the store it started a rain pretty tolerable hard or i reckon there wouldn't be nothing left but a pile of ashes in the night eh beroe repeated thoughtfully the three of us walked around the building and peered in through a charred doorway quite so beroe continued save anything there wasn't much to save i know most all the stuff ben replied injun name a tall trees drifted in day after you all left he traded out most everything we could spare, and the peltz was easy to get out. Some grub was burned, not much, though. We got plenty left. A very nasty thing, fire, Barrow commented. How do you think it started, Ben? I ain't thinking, said Ben. I know. The deuce you do, neither Barrow's tone nor face bespoke more than the mildest surprise. Had a big fire going, I suppose, and a live coal flew out, eh? Nary coal, Ben declared. Some feller climbed the stockade, cut open one of them deerskin

touched a match to the bucket of oil and gunpowder, boosted it through the window, and there you are. That there's no dream, let me tell you. And then when I'm a his way rejoicing, Beiro suggested. I reckon he did all right, Ben owned, looking rather downcast at the thought. I never got to see nothing but his tracks. If I'd seen him, he wouldn't have done much rejoice him. I dare say, Barrow laughed. Meantime, the joke is on the party of the first part, it seems to me. Logs are plenty.

You have ample time to put on a roof and lay some sort of floor. It would be a different matter if we should be burned out after our goods arrive, but this is a cheap lesson. I see you have put up a good stock of hay. That's fortunate, for they are bringing more stock than we figured on. All together, Ben, you haven't done so badly. now hustle us some decent grub it's near noon and this boy and i have been living on straight meat for some time thus we were once more fairly at our ease the bugaboo of arrest and subsequent lying in jail seemed a remote contingency the confidence born of successful escape stilled any misgivings i might have had as to the future

we lay at the post doing not but eat and sleep and watch the long storehouse creep higher log by log till the skeleton of a roof took form above the blackened walls at night the eight of us would sprawl around a fire in the open talking of everything under the sun sometimes playing with a soiled and tattered pack of cards that these exiles cherished as their dearest possession if we were in hostile territory no hint of apprehension cropped out in our intercourse except as one or another referred casually to incidents past now a fragmentary sentence which hinted of sharp action or a joking allusion to the h b c it was all in the day's work with them but i noticed that each night one man stood guard pacing from cornered a corner of the stockade, a rifle slung in the crook of his arm. Two weeks of this slipped by. Then one morning, Berro sat up on his bed and looked over to where I humped on my blankets, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

"'Bob,' he announced, "'it is high time we bestirred ourselves once more.' After which he got quickly into his clothes and went rummaging in a box. by his bed. We had a little cabin to ourselves. His search bore fruit in the shape of moccasins, a bundle of them. Here, he tossed a pair to me. You'll find these better than riding boots. This time we go afoot. Later, when breakfast was eaten, he made up a shoulder pack for himself and showed me how to prepare its fellow. Only actual necessaries found their place therein. Extra moccasins, a few pounds of flour, a little packet of tea,

pepper and salt, a tin plate and cup. These were laid upon a pair of heavy blankets and tightly rolled in a square of thin canvas. A broad band of soft buckskin ran from the upper corners of the pack over one's forehead. A loop slipped over each shoulder, leaving the hand. A loop slipped over each shoulder, hands free. I was astonished at the ease with which I could walk under this forty-pound burden. From among the post doors, Beiro had long since armed me with a rifle that was twin to his own. Between us, we carried a hundred cartridges. A butcher knife and a small hatchet apiece fitted us for all emergencies. Thus equipped, we set out, bearing away up the saccanny toward. the grim range of peaks that cut the skyline into ragged notches ten miles upstream barrow located the cluster of lodges he sought as our first objective point

the summer camp of two wolves and his band there for two nights and a day we lingered sitting in comical gravity for hours at a time in the lodge of the chief the upshot of this lengthy council was that two wolves sun girded a pack in his broad shoulders and joined us when we left the camp thereafter i lost count of the days possibly if the need arose i could detail the camps we made the streams we crossed the huge circle we swung upon the crossing and doubling back upon our own trail but there is no need suffice it to say that we did these things it was no pleasure jaunt that we three went upon crow feathers was a man of iron in the matter of covering ground he knew the haunt of every tribe and offshoot of a tribe every petty chiefs following and every family group in the north it seemed to me if he did not lead us to them all he at least tried the smoky smell of an indian lodge became as familiar to my nostrils as the odor of food and in every camp over the peace-pipe barot talked trade with crow-feathers to vouch for him barrow spoke the tongue like a native but there were lodges wherein neither cre nor french patois was spoken or understood and when we encountered such the wisdom of crow-feathers smoothed the way he used the sign language in all its bewildering variety i myself picked up words and phrases here and there comprehended a few of the simpler signs but crow-feathers

lingers with me as a past master in wordless communication with his race. Barrow even used to wonder at the astonishing amount of information crow feathers could impart with a few languid motions of his hands. He made a right able interpreter. Insensibly, the day shortened. I recollect with what surprise I awakened one morning to find whorefrost thick on my blanket and, and a scum of ice fringing the little creek beside which we slept hard on that i observed the turning of the leaves the red and yellow tints of autumn and about this time crow feathers left us took up his pack one day at noon shook hands solemnly with each of us and a moment later was lost in the still far-spreading woods three days after that beroa and and i in the midst of a thinly timbered belt of land came suddenly upon a clear-cut trail even my limited experience told me that it was made by man-guided animals

the chumps bea-drowed drawled they are ten miles out of their way i didn't expect to hit their trail till to-morrow well they should be at the post now we may as well follow them in how is it i voiced a thing that puzzled me that there are no wagon tracks are you sure this is montel's outfit no other he answered for many reasons by the mule tracks for one you of course could not see them in the dark but there was a mule herd with the bull train loaded wagons are too hard to handle in this wood's country we have always used pack-mules this side of the piece oh said i and my mystery solved i forbore further inquiry we tramped along the trail in silence then all at once he flung out an abrupt question curiously enough the thing he spoke of had just drifted into my mind remember those two hudson's bay men bob i remembered them very well two taciturn buckskin garbed men who came to an indian camp while we were there talking trade they greeted us civilly enough slept in the next lodge over night and left us a clear field in the morning but before they took to the trail they drew barrow aside and the three of them sat upon a fallen tree and conversed thus for an hour why yes i replied what of them i didn't tell you did i that they were company agents with a proposal to buy out my interest in the house of montel he said

now that amused me at the time but the confounded thing has stuck in my mind and lately i've been thinking in fact i've wondered if he broke off as abruptly as he had begun i was walking abreast of him and i could see that he was engrossed with some problem the mental groping in his tone was duplicated in the expression on his face what i blurted oh just an idea that popped into my mind he parried carelessly i'll tell you by and by to be perfectly honest i challenged on the impulse of the moment i don't think you trust me very much after all you're mistaken there he said slowly you are the one man in all this country whom i would trust you-you would trust you-you would trust you-you would trust you-you are the one man in all this country whom i would trust But I am not going to burden you with the mere theories of possible trouble. Wait till I am sure. With this I was forced to content myself. In a mild way, I resented his secretness,

even while I recognized his right to tell me as much or as little as he chose. Thus a certain diffidence crept into my attitude, perhaps. If it was obvious, it made no difference to barrow. In the two days it took us to reach the post, I do not think he spoke a dozen sentences. He followed the trail of the pack train, wholly absorbed and thought. Only when the stockade-enclosed group of buildings huddled below us, casting long shadows across the flat, did his self-absorption cease. We had halted for a moment on the bank above the river, not far from where I had first seen, the saccanny the sun rested on the jagged mountain range to the west and the river caught its slanting beams till it lay below us like cloth of gold a glittering yellow gash in the somber woods

barrow's hand fell lightly on my shoulder lord i've been a cheerful companion of late he said as if it had but occurred to him and some intangible quality of comrades in the words, or perhaps his way of saying them, put me at ease once more. We stood a little longer, and the sun dipped behind the mountains, robbing the saccanny of its yellow gleam, casting a sudden grayness over the north. Then we hitched our lean packs anew and went down the hill. End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 of the Land of Frozen Suns This Libervox recording is in the public domain.

The Land of Frozen Sons by Bertrand W. Sinclair Chapter 12 The First Move Montel himself, burdened with a troubled air, met us at the gate of the stockade. Well, you're back, eh? he greeted Barrow. I've been wishing you'd show up. At the same time, I'd just as soon you'd stay away. Now, don't get Huffy, George. You ain't got any idea what I've had to contend with.

Jesse's here. Barrow looked at him with unchanging expression. Well, he observed presently, what of it? What of it? Montel echoed. Jehosephat! Ain't you got no imagination, George? That McLeod deal has turned her against you something terrible. She heard all that stuff about you and wouldn't rest till she made sure it was really you. She had raised old Ned if— She found out that her highly respectable parent was associated in business

with a notorious character like Slowfoot George, Barrow cut in, sneeringly. You're rather transparent, Montel. You don't need to beat about the bush with me. I know what you are driving at. I've lost cast with her, which suits you exactly. You are her affectionate father, an honorable, clean-handed man. Hence you will not touch pitch lest she deemed you defiled. Very good.

But you had better take a hint from me and bestir yourself to get her south of the peace before winter breaks. This is no place for a woman. Sure, sure. Montel seemed no wit taken aback. That's what I've been aiming to do. I don't know what the mischief got into her to come up here anyhow. She was supposed to turn back the next day after we left McLeod. I told you the night you came to our camp, but you was too blame busy abusing me to listen, I guess. Then she took me off another day or two. By that time I couldn't leave the outfit, and she wouldn't go back unless I did.

Darn it, Jesse's getting to be too many for me. She's stubborn as a mule and got a temper like, like, well, when she gets on the fight, I got to stand from under, that's all. There'll be war if she finds out you're the big chief here. Say, George, can't you play like you just happened in? No, Barrow, refused flatly.

I will not lie to her if both our necks depended on it. For that matter, the explanation is simple. Why not tell her the truth yourself? Montel looked at him curiously. Of a sudden, the set of his heavy, florid face seemed to become a trifle defiant, aggressive. There's no use stand in here arguing, he said shortly. Come on to the store.

Let's get an understanding of this thing. He led the way. Within, as well as without, the rebuilt storehouse was transformed. A great clutter of goods in bales and sacks and small boxes filled it nearly to overflowing. Shelves lined the walls. On each side a rude counter ran the length of the building. Here and there, a semblance of orderly arrangement was beginning to show. a fire crackled on the open hearth at one end an upended box littered with bills of merchandise and a ledger or two stood against the wall

by this rude desk montel sat him down on a stool he turned a look of inquiry on me but barrow forestalled his question this is bob sumner he made known perfunctorily the son of that texas cattleman who owned the torriante place on rose hill i believe you knew him slightly sumner will winter with us you need not stutter over talking before him i don't stutter over talking before anybody far as i'm concerned it's your funeral montel retorted then he turned to me so you're john sumner's boy eh he sized me up with new interest i dare say he was wondering how i came to be in burroughs company on the very night of his breaking jail yes sir i did know your father did business with him a time or two mighty fine man seems to me i heard he died last spring left quite a large estate didn't he yes i answered briefly to both questions it was not a subject i cared to discuss just then too bad too bad he commiserated but whether the sympathy he forced into his tone was for the death of my father or for me i did not know nor care very much it sounded like one of those convenient platitudes that become a habit with people he focused his attention on barrow however immediately after this now george he said suppose we have a word in private eh

this suits me i'm getting hardened to publicity barrow drawled you want an understanding you said i'm agreeable i remarked that it might be well to try telling the truth if explanations are demanded an exasperated expression crossed montel's face now see here be reasonable he grunted that their guardhouse business settled you if you'd kept shy of that there'd be a chance but there ain't you could swear to things on a stack of bibles and she wouldn't believe a word you know as well as i do that she's got all them old-fashioned ideas about a gentleman's honor that her mother's fo'n't has. You know you did kill them two fellers on high river and run off them Hudson's Bay work bulls. You didn't have to do that. You can't explain them things to her, nor being in jail. That there's a black mark she can't overlook. You wasn't smooth enough, George. You are astonishingly frank, I must say. Barrow leaned forward, smiling, sarah. A sneering, unpleasant smile.

Why? Would you mind explaining why you would refuse to vouch for the truth of my story if I tell her absolute facts? What have you up your sleeve? Nothing, Montel growled. Only, I ain't going to have you force my hand. I ain't going to get into no fuss with my own daughter. Besides, as I said, some of you. of them things can't be explained to her. She couldn't understand. Once she found out what a hell

of a time's been going on in this fur business, and that this winter's liable to breed more trouble, why, she'd be sure to take a notion to stick here by me, and I won't expose her to whatever might come up, for nobody's reputation. Wise old owl, Burrough sneered. What need for this sudden access of caution. Do you think I can't? He broke off short at the slam of a door on the farther side of the storehouse. A feminine voice called, Oh, Papa! Montel sprang to his feet, muttering an expletive to himself, but he did not at once reply. In the stillness, the sound of light footfalls, threading the maze of piled goods, echoed softly among the heavy beams above. It was dusk outside by then, and within that scantily windowed place it was quite dark,

beyond a red circle cast from the open fireplace. And as the girl stepped into the edge of its glow, Montel struck a match and touched it to a three-pronged candlestick on the box by his seat. She stifled an exclamation at sight of us. Then, with a scornful twist to her dainty mouth, She bowed in mock courtesy. "'Gentlemen,' she murmured, an ironic emphasis on the term. "'Your presence is unexpected. I cannot say I esteem it an honor.'

Then she turned to her father. "'Papa,' she observed interrogatively, "'I have always known you were a hospitable soul, but I never dreamed a house of yours would ever prove shelter for an outlawed cutthroat. Upon my word, if I were a man,

I should be tempted to collect the bounty on this human wolf. There is a bounty. See? She fumbled in a pocket of the short, fur-edged jacket she wore and presently drew forth a folded paper. Yes, surely there is a bounty,

she went on maliciously, holding the paper broadside to the sputtering candles. not a great one to be sure but more than he is worth five hundred dollars for the body dead or alive of george brown alias slow-foot george height weight color of eyes certain marks and scars to a dot also an appalling list of crimes have you no shred or atom of a decent impulse left she addressed barrow directly her tone level stingingly contemptuous that you persist in thrusting yourself upon people after they have seen the sheep's clothing stripped from your degenerate shoulders beroe met her gaze squarely and answered her in her own tone i am here he said because i choose to be here montel pair can tell you why now now jessie montel cut in pacifically. This ain't St. Louis. If George is in trouble, I don't know as anyone has a better

right to help him than me. You don't want to be always riding that high hoss of yours. This country ain't peopled with little tin gods, as I've told you many a time. You'd better go back to the house. I'll be there pretty quick. Indeed, I imagine I could hardly be in worse company. she declared. So I will quit it, forthwith. It was not of my seeking. Better keep an eye on your goods, Papa. With that she was gone, leaving the three of us staring at each other, Montel a bit apprehensive, it seemed to me. Berro was first to find his voice. I would advise you to get your trail outfit in readiness tonight, he told Montel bluntly. and start south in the morning otherwise i will give no guarantee of peace and good-will in this camp i can't stand much of that sort of thing

montel seemed to consider this if he felt any uneasiness over the implied threat he maintained an undisturbed front hunched on the stool like a great toad one fat hand on each knee his puffy eyelids blinked with automatic regularity, he regarded Barrow in thoughtful silence. "'I guess that's the proper card,' he uttered at last. "'I can make it back all right, if it does come bad weather. "'I got to get her home, that's sure. "'You can kind of keep out of sight till we get started, can't you, George?' "'That's as it happens,' Barrow returned indifferently. meantime, have you grub staked any of these hunters?

Are the Indians beginning to come in? Montel nodded. Quite a few. Two or three camps up the river, the boys say. Some of them wouldn't make no deal till you showed up. Don't you let none of them have too big a debt, George. Barrow shrugged his shoulders at this last caution. He sat staring into the fire.

his lean dark face touched with its red glow. Then abruptly he got up and opened the door. "'It's dark, Bob,' he said to me. "'Let us go to the cabin,' and without another word to Montel, he left the store, eye following. It was just dark enough so that we could distinguish the outline of the post buildings and the black surrounding wall of the stockade. the burned stable had been rebuilt during our absence within it horses sneezed and coughed over their fodder on the flat beyond the post i could hear the night herder whistle as he rode around the grazing mules

from this window and that light shone mistily through the scraped and dried deerskin that served for glass and at the far end of the stockade a group of men chattered noisily about a roaring fire. Yet the lights and sounds, the buildings of men and the men themselves, seemed inconsequential, insignificant, proportioned to their surroundings, like the chieping of a small frog at the bottom of a deep well. The close-rapping wilderness, with its atmosphere of inexorable solitude, enfolded us with silence infinitely more disturbing than any clamor. it may have been my mood that night but it seemed a drear and lonely land the bigness of the north its power the implacable elemental forces had never taken definite form before now all at once i saw them and i did not like the sight we did not make our way straight to the cabin barot had no mind to go hungry he stopped at the mess-house and bade the cook send our supper to us when it was ready then we went to the cabin flung our lean packs in a corner built a fire and sat by it smoking till a voluble frenchman brought the warm food

again burrow had fallen into wordless brooding for the hour or more that passed after we had eaten he lay in his bed staring at the pole and the pole and his bed staring at the pole and the hour or more that passed after we had eaten he lay in his bed staring at the pole and and dirt roof. He was still stretched, thus, an unlighted cigarette between his lips, when I took off my clothes and laid me down to sleep. And when, at daybreak, I wakened and sat up sleepily, Barrow's bedding was neatly smoothed out on the bunk. His smoking material, which had lain on the table, was gone. Likewise, his rifle, cartridge belt, and the pack-rigging he had cast aside the evening before. It seemed that Mr. Burrow must have gone a journeying. I opened the door and looked about me.

Here and there men busied themselves at sundry occupations. The sun had but cleared the treetops, and on flat and hillside's deep black shadows still nestled. My roving eyes finally settled on one of these blots of shade, and presently i saw four figures mounted two of them leading extra horses ascending the south bank looking more closely i observed that one was a woman mr montell i decided was taking time by the forelock i stood with hands jammed in my trousers pockets wishing that i too were homeward bound wondering if bolton had got either of my led and if he had made any attempt to trace me, and a lot of other footless speculation. End of Chapter 12

Chapter 13 of the Land of Frozen Sons This Librovoc's recording is in the public domain. The Land of Frozen Sons by Bertrand W. Sinclair Chapter 13 A foretaste of strong measures Thus thrown upon my own resources, I betook myself to the roomy cabin where the cook reigned supreme, thence, with breakfast disposed of, to the store. I found there a small, bewiskered man, bowed over a ledger, and a dozen husky packers stowing goods on the shelves.

The clerical person gazed at me over a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, in a colorless, uninterested sort of way. I took him to be the bookkeeping machine of the concern, and such proved to be the case. And when I asked for George, prudently refraining from mention of surnames, he told me primly that Mr. Barrow had gone up the river, leaving word that I was to make myself at home in the meantime. Having delivered himself of this message, he resumed his task. I continued my round of the post until I located old Ben Wise. What between chatting with Ben and sundry games of seven up with one or two of the others whom I knew, and long spells of sitting alone in the cabin smoking over the fire, I managed to murder time for three days,

at the end of which period Barrow returned. He did not come alone, but at the head of a veritable flotilla of birch-bark canoes laden with a picturesque mixture of Indians, squaws, round-faced papooses, sharp-nosed dogs, and the household goods pertaining to these. By the appearance of things, I inferred he had been out to jog up the natives who had signified willingness to trade with the house of Montel. They beached the canoes and pitched their lodgings along the river bank, a little way from the stockade in the two hours of daylight following the arrival of the vanguard other little parties came slipping quietly around the curve of the saccani pitched their camps and set about cooking food the flat was speckled with twinkling dots of fire when dark vanquished the long twilight barot was tired and had little to tell i had come by a new deck of cards through favor of the colorless mr cullen and we played a silent game or two of yuker that night before turning in

by dawn we had breakfasted and were at the store and the copper-skinned men of the lodges began to come in and cast their eyes upon such things as they desired all forenoon i watched the silent outfitting of the hunters saw this one and that stand wrapped to the ears in this gaudy blanket seeming not to see or to be conscious of aught that transpired then of a sudden he would point abruptly at a certain article a trap or two maybe a caddy of tea a flask of powder and emit a guttural sound that barrow interpreted to cullen who would solemnly make an entry in his note-book when the red brother had reached his trading limit his squaw took the burden of his purchases on her back and he strode forth wrapped in a dignity even more striking than his blanket she following meekly at his heels how do you manage to keep track of them all i asked barrow as we sat at dinner suppose these indians that you outfit now don't show up again can you trust them so absolutely for my part i can hardly tell one from another you'd find out that they have distinct individual characteristics barrow replied if you were with them long i know most of these fellows well enough to pick them out of a crowd in fact a good many of them won't trade except with me which is one strong hold i have over my slippery partner and so far as trusting them an indian's word is good as gold for every dollars worth of stuff we let them have this fall they'll bring ten dollars worth of pelts next spring unless it is an extraordinary winter anyway we don't stand to lose a great deal on what we trust them for where we will make money will be in the same

spring trade. They'll have plenty of furs left after their debt is paid, and they'll want guns and more powder, flour and tea for the summer, tobacco, and clothes, and gougas for the women and papooses. If the winter is normal, we're going to have a big trade, bigger than even I thought. I wouldn't mind, he concluded, with a short laugh, if Montel had to go clear to of Benton and got snowed in there. That would eliminate one dangerous factor, but that's too much to hope for. It's a long trip, I reflected. He can't get to the Missouri in time to send his daughter down on the last boat even. The river will freeze any day now. Benton would be a dreary place for her to stay alone, I should think. He may stay there with her.

not likely barrow contended as it happens she knows one or two rather nice families who are wintering at benton and she'll be apt to stay with them he has been altogether too keen to have his finger in his winter's pie when it wasn't needed there no the old fox has something up his sleeve something that he's been leading up to ever since we left benton he'll be back if he has to come on his hands and knees barrow was right montel did come back and the date of his return was only something more than forty-eight hours from the time of that conversation we were stretched upon our respective bunks i listening to barrow's talk of long-dead traders who had undertaken to buck the hudson's bay company when some one tapped on the door and at Barrow's laconic, Come in! Who, but Montel himself should enter? He shut the door carefully behind him,

and waddled to a seat. Barrow raised on one elbow. You, he said sharply, back here already? What has happened now? Montel took off his hat and threw it petulantly on the floor. The expression on his face was sour,

as curdled milk. We couldn't make it, that's all, he growled. I guess the HBC's getting busy all at once. Anyhow, we got headed off. How, Barrow demanded? Montel flung out his hands expressively. Easiest way in the world, he sputtered, wrathfully. Some fellow with a good eye just trailed us up

and killed off our stout. stock. Shot him one by one. Finally, he was afoot, so we turned back. Couldn't walk, cleared him a cloud. Damn him, anyway. No one hurt, Barrow asked quietly. Barron blistered feet, no, Montel snapped. His gaze involuntarily traveled to his own broad, shapeless feet, and a smile flickered across Barrow's countenance. There was a momentary lull. What are you going to do now? Barrow inquired next. I'm going to take eight men by God and a string of mules and hit in the morning. Montel exploded. I ain't going to have that girl winter here, if I know it, and I ain't going to be headed off from nothing by the Hudson's Bay or any other damned outfit.

i'll show them bushwhacking parties a trick or two they'll find old montel ain't so slow i'd just come over here to let you know i was back george so you wouldn't be gettin into the foreground to-morrow morning when we're fixin to start you might just as well be accommodating oh to be sure as a favor from one gentleman to another bero observed sarcastically anything to oblige. But if I were you, I should not try it again, not till you can take the outfit, lock, stock, and barrel. You may find it only a waste of mules, if not worse. Evidently, the company is minded to pen the lot of us here and teach us a lesson. Just so, the girl's out of it, Montel muttered defiantly. They got my permission to go ahead with their teaching. We've held our own for quite a spell, but I got to get her clear, so I'm going to tackle it again.

Very well, Barrow said, indifferently. But you had better take a few pair of snow-shoes. You may need them. Maybe so, Montel returned, but I bet I get a scalp or two if they go to setting us afoot this trip. and he gathered up his hat and left the cabin. Beiro lay back in his bed a long time without remark. Then he said aloud, apropos of nothing in particular, I shouldn't be surprised if that was the way of it. I looked over at him, and catching my interrogative gaze, he went on.

I've simply been doing a bit of inductive reasoning. Taking things as they are in this country, what more natural than that the Hudson's Bay Company should have become alarmed, lest we got into a formidable competitor, and have simply made up their minds that we must be ousted by hook or by crook. They have a way of keeping posted, you know. I shouldn't be surprised if one or two of the men in our payroll were company spotters. here is montel and his daughter and myself they might reason that by driving him back and intimidating him forcing him to winter here and then harassing us in every conceivable way till spring they may make us glad to quit for instance they could try to kill off our stock and poison our dogs and if there was a chance to burn us out why that would be the

finishing touch. I shouldn't be surprised if that is their scheme. And then, along in the winter, they might even go so far as to have the mounted police pull one chestnut out of the fire for them by revealing my whereabouts. How does it come? I asked, in some surprise, that they haven't done that before, if they know that George Barrow, their furred trader, is slow-foot George of the McLeod coming. country. For the very good reason that they want no mounted policemen in this neck of the woods, he said decidedly. They don't want to establish a precedent. They have lorded it in the north for generations, and so long as they continue to do so, the Canadian government will permit it.

Once the police begin to come here, the company authority is at an end. Also, their monopolies, for a mounted police post up here would mean open country and a swarm of free traders of course what i said is mere theory but i might be on the right track if i am we may look for merry times here this winter and you and i may have to take to the deep snows before spring suppose while we're theorizing i ventured that montel had an idea he could get along without you if he wants to settle your chances of sharing in the profits as you think why mightn't he give the police a quiet hint if he gets through i can very well imagine him doing that berro responded thoughtfully but he can't make it go without me at least not just yet and i do not think he will get through for all his determination i kept barot's prophecy in mind days of busy outfitting slipped by i kept no track of the hunters who indebted themselves to the post but they came and went by scores the days merged into a week and at the end of it a black ruck of clouds came scudding out of the west thick and lowering they gathered overhead and one day one day one day day at noon, while Barrow and I stood in the doorway of the store, watching a great multitude

of damp snowflakes come eddying down through the still air, Montel, his daughter, and the eight men, came plotting afoot to the gate of the stockade. End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 of the Land of Frozen Sons This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Sons by Bertrand W. Sinclair Chapter 14 Interest on a Debt

They filed past the store, a weary looking squad, Montel's fat jowl drawn into sullen lines, the men not wholly free of a certain furtive bearing. Observing them, I could very well enter into their feelings. My brief experience between Benton and McLeod had taught me something of the fear that stalks at the elbow of a hunted man. The girl looked up at Barrow and me, and for the first time there was no curl to her lip,

no scornful gleam in her eyes. Only a momentary flash of interest. Then the listless, impersonal expression came back to her face. She walked at her father's elbow like one utterly worn out. The men branched off to the bunkhouse. Montel and his daughter went straight to their cabin. I think he is beginning to have a profound respect for the company, Beiro told me that night as we sat over our fire.

They have set him thinking. It seems that none of his men could get so much as a glimpse of a moccasin track. Still, their saddle horses and pack mules were systematically shot down, down until they were afoot again. After that they were not molested. He knows that his whole party could as easily have been put out of the way. That seems to have put the fear of God into the lot of them. They can't understand the object. I don't, myself altogether. But I could hazard a close guess, I think. All that night and the next day the big snowflakes came gyrating down, The temperature remained the same, just short of freezing, and a dead calm lay over the land.

Then it fared gradually. With the clearing sky, the feathery snowfall melted and disappeared. Upon its passing, the night frosts took on a keener edge. Little vagrant gusts of wind went frolicking through the open spaces in the woods, fluttering the dry fallen leaves into tiny, heaps and scattering them again. Sometimes of a night, these same whisperings of the north rattled the bare limbs of the cottonwoods and birch till the miles of forest seemed to voice a protesting murmur.

Steadily the cold grew and the sun rode lower on its diurnal passage. Save the pine and spruce and scattered cedars, the great woods shivered in their nakedness, lacking the white robe which the north dawns at such season. And presently that came also with the deep-throated whoop of a northeast gale to herald its coming. In one night, the sickony froze from bank to bank. At daybreak, the wind drove curling streamers of loose snow

across its glassy surface to pile in frosty windows at the foot of the south slope. During this period, we of the post settled into a routine of minor tasks. There were fires to keep against the cold. From dawn to dusk, somewhere within the stockade or on the timbered hill above, the clink of an axe blade on frosty wood rang like a bell. That and water for cooking and caring for the stock, now housed in the long stable, kept time from hanging hill.

heavy on the hands of the men. Barrow and I gravitated between our cabin and the store. Montel sulked for a week after that last failure to reach the South. Then he emerged from his shell of silence and became ponderously genial, talkative, a metamorphosis which Berro regarded with frank contempt. He spoke to Montel no oftener than was necessary, and when he did speak, his tongue was barbed openly and unequivocally he despised and distrusted his flesh-burdened partner and he made no effort to hide the fact for the most part montel took his sneering unmoved or grinned pacifically but there were times when his red face went purple and his puffy eyelids would droop till the pupils glinted through mere slits like a cat about to pounce. Then it would be Barrow's turn to smile, in his slow, ironic way. Of the girl, who kept close to the cabin she and her father shared, no word ever passed

between the two, nor did she meet Barrow or myself face to face for a matter of three weeks. Our sight of each was from a distance, and from that distance, with a blanket coat to her heels and a fur cap pulled over her ears, it was hard to distinguish her from one of the few half-breed women who had followed their men into the north. In what way Montel accounted for our presence I did not know,

nor how he explained Barrow's assured position about the post. It may be that she did not notice this incongruity on the part of a supposed fugitive. It may be that Montel was a plausible liar, At any rate, upon the few occasions when we three came near enough to recognize each other, she appeared calmly indifferent. Burrow and I ate in the big cookhouse with the rest of the men. Montel and his daughter had their meals served in the cabin. So we, at least I will speak for myself, for Burrow maintained a stony front and absolute silence on the subject, were saved the embarrassment.

of meeting three times daily. Montel himself became very friendly toward me. Bit by bit he drew from me the story of my wanderings and shook his head over it, assuring me that Missouri River stern-wheel men were a hard lot. Once he became reminiscent, and spoke of his dead wife and her people with a poorly concealed pride in the alliance. His palpable satisfaction, and he became reminiscent, amused me. It seemed odd that a man of his rugged type, a hard-headed business buccaneer, should have that fatuous overestimation of wealth and so-called blood. But he had it to the nth degree. I dare say it was his one-week spot. She was a Charbonne of the old New Orleans Charbonnes, originally a Huguenot family, but for the last generation or two of

st louis he told me and in the telling he shed his natural carelessness of speech and spoke in the stilted exactly phrased english in which he might have addressed the aristocratic parent of his bride i knew more or less of the st louis charbons myself and i wondered that i had never heard of montel or his daughter barot smiled when i spoke of this later that's montel all over he drawled marrying a charbon stands out as one of the big things he has accomplished he can't help boasting of it now and then i imagine that if he were dying in a snowbank that thought would cheer him in his last hour he regards it as a distinct achievement he was a big perfectly formed good-looking brute when he met her and from all i know it was a case of two strong natures brushing aside all obstacles i've heard that the charbonnes were furious over what they considered the rankest sort of mess alliance but they were married and so far as i know she never discovered his very obvious clay feet she died in childbirth the second child the family has kept up a desultory intercourse with him for the girl's sake they recognize her as their own blood and tolerate him on that account a day or two after this burrow rigged up a dog team and left the post bound for a point down the river where they had established two frenchmen with some trading goods on the chance of getting into touch with some few lodges that hunted in that territory

he took one man and i tramped a few miles with them for the sake of the snowshoe practice of which i was sadly in need it looked easy to go stocking over the drifts on those webbed ovals but it was trying work for a novice i discovered at my first attempt. There was a certain free swinging stride which I had yet to master. So it happened that I did not return to the post until that chill hour between sundown and dark. I was aware that the fire in our cabin was long dead and the room corresponding in temperature to an ice box, but I was in no mood for the ultra-friendly conversation Montel had been favoring me with of late, for which reason I eschewed the blades that I knew was crackling on the store hearth and made straight for my own quarters. The day's work was at an end. Besides myself, not a soul moved within the frosty area of the stockade. The doors of every building were shut tight against the sharp-toothed cold.

This I noted almost mechanically. I was beginning to develop the woodsman's faculty of observing detail, without conscious purpose. With my mind busy about the prospect of getting a fire started in the shortest possible space of time, my gaze for a moment rested on the Montel cabin as I stopped at my own door. At that instant, Jesse Montel stepped outside, a shawl thrown over her head, carrying in one hand some object covered with a white cloth. the dogs must have been lying at the end of the cabin the slam of the door had barely sounded when she was confronted by one wolf-like brute he faced her boldly his nose pointed inquisitively toward the thing she carried she made a threatening gesture and spoke sharply to him whereat the husky retreated a foot or two and was instantly reinforced by half a dozen of his fellows

the girl lifted her hand a little higher and berated them her clear voice reproaching them for their lack of manners and then of a sudden one cock-eared brute sprang at the thing she carried he missed and one of the others had a try she gave ground holding above her head what i now saw was a plate and immediately the snarling pack was snapping at her skirts and she was cut off from the door i could hear the click of their white fangs as i ran she backed against the wall scolding them in a voice that betrayed some alarm i reached her on the double quick when i saw that the dogs meant mischief the short-tempered devils turned on me in a body with the first blow i struck one after the other i knocked galley west and crooked with the barrel of my rifle and shortly emerged victorious from the melee but with my leggings ripped in divers places and the left sleeve of my parka slit as if with a knife from this last the blood streamed forth merrily flowing down over my mitten and dripping redly on the trampled snow prior to that my experience of vicious dogs had been with those which grabbed and held on the slashing wolfish snap of the husky was new to me i stood looking at my gashed arm in some astonishment why they've bitten you the girl exclaimed with a sharp intake of her breath let me see she spread apart the opening in my buckskin sleeve and frowned at sight of the torn flesh

meanwhile balancing on her other hand the plate of meat that had caused the onslaught most women i found time to reflect would have dropped it at the first intention but she had clung to it as a miser clings to his gold come in and let me tie that up she commanded peremptorily and flung open the door giving me little chance to debate whether i would or no and i followed her in as much through a sudden desire to see a little more of this very capable and impulsive young lady as to have the sharp sting of the wound allayed she brought water in a basin a sponge and a piece of clean linen which she spent speedily reduced to strips, and after helping me remove the parka, proceeded to dress the gash on my forearm with deft tenderness. During this ministering of my need, we were both silent. When it was done, she tilted her head to one side and surveyed her handiwork, for all the world, like a small bird perched on a limb and looking down. This fanciful notion struck me as rather absurd, and the more I thought of it, the more absurd it seemed, till I found myself smiling broadly.

Likening Jesse Montel to a saucy bird was, in a way, a very far-fetched comparison. She was distinctly unbird-like, apart from that trick of tipping her head sideways and gazing speculatively at whatsoever interested her. I'm really and truly sorry I got you into such a scrape, she apologized, sweetly. I suppose I should have thrown the meat to those ferocious things. But dear me, I'd toiled so over it, getting it thawed and fixed for Papa's supper, that I hated to see it literally go to the dogs. You mustn't let the cold get into that cut.

You'll have a nasty sore if you do. oh i'll see that the coal doesn't have a chance at it i assured her and you don't need to feel guilty on my account i'd rather it was my arm than yours i'm only too glad to pay a little interest on my debt she looked puzzled for a second oh she said then you mean that time on the moon there's no debt to me those ruffians would have paid little heed to me Mr. Barrow—' She colored and broke off abruptly with an impatient gesture. "'Papa has been telling me about you,' she changed the subject. "'Another St. Louis, unfortunate,' smilingly, aren't you? "'As the Scotts say, I feel very well akin to it. Your mother and my Aunt Lois were more or less intimate,

so that I know you by proxy in a way. I don't recollect just what reply I made. If she were trying to put me at my ease, she made a woeful mess of it in the very next minute, for she demanded to know, with embarrassing directness, why in the world didn't you stand your ground at Benton, whatever possessed you to cross the line? Well, you see, I—it was—

and there i halted lamely i couldn't discuss the ethics of my flight with this self-sufficient young woman my grounds for self-justification in that particular instance were rather untenable i couldn't explain the psychology of the thing to her when i couldn't quite grasp it myself i couldn't honestly admit that i had refused to stay and face the consequences of tupper's sudden end at my hands because I was overwhelmed with fear. I didn't believe that myself. Even if I had believed it, I would have been ashamed to admit, frankly, to that gray-eyed girl that I had run away because I was afraid.

It had been a peculiar situation for me, one that I could hardly attempt to make clear to her. With Beiro, it had been different. He seemed to understand, to divine how and why I did see, such and such a thing at such a time and place with but a meger explanation from me certain effects invariably led him intuitively to first causes moreover with her i seemed to be put upon the defensive i found myself reflecting on what she would do in such a case and instantly deciding that miss jessie montell would defy the devil and all his works if she thought herself in the right. In addition, thereto, I felt that she was unconsciously appraising me and classing me as a weakling,

and that, added to my own half-formed conviction that in time of trial I was likely to prove so, made me a most uncomfortable individual for a few moments. Montel's entrant saved me from a rather unwelcome situation. There is no knowing how deep a tangle I should have gotten myself into. She was so uncompromisingly direct. Montel, however, opened the door at the crucial period, and she turned to him with the recital of the Husky's outbreak, lighting a cluster of candles as she talked.

If you don't shut up those ferocious brutes or feed them a little oftener, she concluded, they'll devour somebody one of these days, and there won't be so much as a mottes. Gaukeson left to tell the tale. At which extravagant forecast, we all three laughed, and I felt myself equal to the occasion once more. The upshot of this dog episode was that I stayed to supper with them, and went to my own cabin rather late in the evening. End of Chapter 14. Chapter 15 of the Land of Frozen Sons

This Librevox recording is in the public don't. The Land of Frozen Sons by Bertrand W. Sinclair Chapter 15 Strangers Twain My arm was somewhat swollen and it throbbed like an ulcerated tooth when I got up the following morning, but I made shift to build a fire. When the icy chill was banished from the room, I dressed, and was getting what comfort I could out of a smoke when Montel not.

knocked at my door, bringing a cold gust of air when he entered. "'Oh, ho!' said he, stirring around, eh? "'This ain't much like home, is it? How's the arm?' I told him briefly, having little inclination to enlarge on that theme. The pain was sufficient without the aggravation of discussing it. "'A-huh,' he grunted. "'Now you just come along to the shack and have Jess fix it up again.' she's pretty near as good as a doctor and seeing she's partly responsible it's no more unfair there ain't no use you makin a hermit of yourself

i attempted to dodge this invitation which seemed to savor of command montel's semi jocococinus rather jarred on me for one thing his heartiness didn't quite ring true possibly i misjudged him he could have had no particular motive for posing on my account but i got the impression that his solicitude was of the lip rather than of the heart while i had passed a very pleasant evening with them i did not contemplate making myself at home in the montel cabin by any means i had a vague feeling that it involved disloyalty to barrow montel however was quite insistent and as i had no forthright reason for being churlish i ended by going with him he made a great fuss at helping me off with my coat and while he hovered over me in his ponderous way miss montell came out of the other room she nodded to me and smiled a greeting whereupon he busying him with hanging my coat and hat upon a peg plunged into a jesting account of my reluctance to leave my own fireside relating with much detail what he said and what i said and how i owed it to my arm to have it well cared for and so on till i wearied of his gabble i don't think she listened half the time she moved about the room getting a basin and warm water and other first or perhaps a-and-and-water I should say second, aids to the injured, and she washed and bandaged afresh the laceration with an impersonal absorption in the task that I half-resented. When she had finished, breakfast, hot from the cook-house, was brought by one of the breed

women, and Miss Montel seated herself at the table, and airily waved her father and myself to places on her right and left. That was how I came to break bread with them a second time, and it was not the last by any means. In the ensuing five or six days, I wore a distinct path between my cabin and theirs. Montel made it a point to descend upon me at some hour of the day, and, after all, I was not so loathe. I am constrained to admit that Jesse Montel was the one bright spot in those dreary, monotonous days. With Barrow gone, I was a little bit of the a lonely mortal indeed those evenings at montells passed away many a leaden-footed hour after that first time jesse never challenged me in that imperious judicial manner anent my benton escapade we spoke of it to be sure but in terms dispassionate uncritical when montel was about he and i played cribbage when she and i were alone we talked

talked. We discovered a similar taste in books, a mutual acquaintance or two in St. Louis, and we gravely discussed the prospects of getting home in the spring. Naturally, she was a rabid partisan, hating the Hudson's Bay Company with outspoken frankness. Moreover, she spoke confidently of her father's power to beat them at their own game, notwithstanding the strong hand shown by the company so shortly before. Of Barrow's part in the war for pelts, she seemed profoundly ignorant. His name never passed her lips. Once the swelling left my arm, the torn place healed rapidly, so that by the end of a week

I felt no inconvenience, and it was beyond need of any treatment, save a simple bandage to protect it from the rubbing of my sleeve. Then I bethought me of my neglected snowshoeing, and sallied forth on the track of that free, effortless stride which had so far eluded me. At the gate of the stockade I turned back, on the impulse of the moment, and went to the Montel cabin to ask Jesse if she were a snowshoe expert or wished to become one. Thank heaven for a chance to see the outside of this stockade wall once more, she cried, in mock fervor. Will I go snowshoeing? Yeah, and verily. I detest being mewed up, and I don't like to wander off alone.

This big desolate country is so forbidding. Yes, I've snowshoed a little, one winter in the Wisconsin woods. She had more of a mastery over the webbed boots of the north than I, it shortly transpired. We went up the river a mile or two, crossed it, and climbed to the top of a bald point that immediately appealed to us as an ideal coasting place. We were in something of a light-hearted mood, anyway, and like a pair of children on a holiday, amused ourselves by sliding down and climbing back to slide down again. thus we passed two or three hours at imminent risk of frozen cheeks and noses for it was bitterly cold so cold that the snow crunched beneath our feet like powdered rosin

and when we wearied of that we went trailing home over glistening flats that lay between us and the post down in the bare bottom lands of the sicany a tenuous frost haze hung in the air back from the valley edges the great woods stood in frozen ranks branches heavy freighted with the latest fall of snow to the west towered the mountain range robed in ermine now instead of summer purple huge ragged crests flashing in the heatless sun what insignificant creatures we are after all the girl stopped suddenly and looked back at the white peaks and to the north and south where the somber woodlands stood like twin walls for a true sense of his own importance in the universe one has only to face this she nodded toward the surrounding forest and the rockies crouching against the far skyline it is so big and so silent it gives me a feeling of being pitted against a gigantic remorseless power a something indefinable and yet terrible in its strength. Power, when I can understand it, fascinates me. But this makes me shrink. Sometimes I actually feel afraid. They say that men compelled to stay up here alone often go mad. I hardly wonder. I don't think I like the North. So you feel that way, I rejoined. So do I, at times.

she assented soberly. Perhaps we are blessed or cursed, whichever it may be, with too much imagination, and give it over free reign. No, I returned, blundering on in an attempt to voice that which I had often felt but could never express. There is an atmosphere, a something about these immense spaces, that sits hard on the nerves. We don't have to imagine these things. They're here. It seems to me that any wilderness untamed must have that same effect.

It over Oz won. And man hasn't tamed this yet. The north is master, and we feel it. We plotted a few yards farther. The north is master, and we feel it, she repeated presently. I resent that. i shouldn't care she murmured thoughtfully to be holy at the mercy of the north it reminds me of the sea cold and gray and pitiless and she fell into a silent reflective mood as we trudged along to the post just at the gate of the stockade we met two men two tall men burdened with shoulder-packs i knew the face of every man in the pay of montel

but these were not of his following yet somewhere some time i had seen them my memory insisted upon this but where or when i could not instantly recall they passed within a few feet of me their parkah hoods drawn close about their cheeks i had only their profiles to spur my recollection but that sufficed i stood watching them bare away to the north and as mechanically i shuffled the cards of memory a picture flashed out clear as the ace of spades in a diamond suit the two men were those who had come to the camp of three wolves early in the fall the same who had sat upon the log with barrow that morning and made overtures for peaceful capitulation once i had placed them my interest flagged i turned and entered the stockade jessie had kept on to the store montel was standing on the stoop as i reached the building his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his fur coat by the fixity of his gaze as i turned the corner i guessed that he was watching the two men a backward glance showed them just vanishing into the belt of spruce that ran to the brow of the hill well i greeted you've had callers to break the monotony i see that's what he replied queer fish too wouldn't stay no time at all claimed to be free traders like ourselves and wanted to know if we'd mind em trying to pick up a few pelts around here in the spring got a stock of goods they said somewhere between here and the piece

i pricked up my ears at that someone had fibbed properly and when it was on the tip of my tongue to say that they were hudson's bay men i refrained that information would keep i reflected the more i thought of it the less i cared to make any assertions the man had done no harm apparently if they had lied to montell he was probably shrewd enough to know why if montel were lying to me he likely had good reasons i dropped the matter forthwith it was for barrow to speculate upon when he returned so i went into the store and warmed myself and after jesse went home spent the rest of the afternoon playing p'nuckle with ben wise but the sight of those men in buckskin had jarred me out of the peaceful routine of thought that the quiet weeks had bred. I was once more brought up against the game of cross-purposes that Beiro and Montel were playing, and the Hudson's Bay Company again loomed as a factor. I wondered if anything had befallen, Beiro. He had told me he would be back in four days. The time had doubled. Ben brought me up standing in the midst of these reflections.

He threw down his cards in disgust. I quit you, he growled. By gosh, I want to play cards when I play, and do my dream and in bed. So we put up the deck, and I went to my cabin and built a fire. The cheery warmth of the cabin, after the exertion of snowshoeing, and sitting there in a state of mental passivity, soon begot drowsiness. I piled wood on the fire and stretched myself in the bunk. And the next minute, it seemed, I was being shaken out of my sleep,

but I opened my eyes to candlelight and barrow standing over me, smiling. Come out of the trance, old snoozer, he laughed cheerfully. I've just got in. Suppose we go and eat before the cook shuts up shop. Amen to that, I replied. i put fresh wood on the fire which had sunk to a few dull embers while barot busied himself with the wash-basin and comb stripped of the parka that had cast confusing shadows on his features i saw that he had suffered attack from the frost a patch of blackening skin stood over each cheek-bone i see you got bitten too i remarked and went on to tell him of my clash with the high huskies. I had worse than husky dogs to contend with, he returned in a matter-of-fact way.

Our two Frenchmen, the cabin, and everything in it has been spirited away. I went on a scouting trip, thinking I might get track of something. I've laid out every night since I left here. Hull fared even worse than I. He may lose some of his toes. and you found i started to ask nothing he replied carelessly i don't think the men came to any harm but it's one more item on the debit side over in the mess-house we had the long room to ourselves except for the cook pottering over his fire and in the midst of the meal i bethought me to tell beaureau of the two strangers and montel's account of the two strangers and montel's account of this fire their mission. He laid down his knife and fork and listened intently. Free traders, eh, he drawled. Not so bad for Montel, that, or has the company taken a fresh tack, I wonder? They knew I was away. I had a feeling that they were being watched,

and so had Hull. Quite an engrossing little three-cornered game, isn't it, Bob? We left the cookhouse without referring to this again. A light shone dully through the store window nearest us, and we walked toward our cabin, and, just short of the door, Barrow turned aside. I may as well go and tell him that the brother's growl have gone over to the enemy, he said to me. Come along, Bob, to see him squirm. He always does when he is stabbed in such a vital point as the purse. That's a veritable heel of Achilles with him. Montel was alone. He stood with his back to the fire,

legs spread apart, hands clasped behind him. He looked very well satisfied with himself. His little eyes surveyed us placidly from under the blinking puffy lids. "'Well, George, you're back, eh?' he observed. "'How's everything below?' very well i dare say barrow answered during the process of making a cigarette from the other fellow's point of view montel's eyelids grew a little nearer together how's that he inquired in his mildest manner and barot when he had found a box to his liking and seated himself on it beside the fire proceeded to tell him very much as he had told me

the two of them eyed each other a few seconds then montel bit off the cigar he had tucked in one corner of his thick-lipped mouth and spat it viciously into the fireplace god damn em he snarled but whether the company or the two frenchmen he did not specify perhaps both berole laughed softly don't let your angry passions rise he sneered temper always induces apoplexy in fat people a man of your beefy tendency should be very careful montel's heavy jowl quivered slightly and his jaws clamped together aside from that he kept an impassive front with that last shot barrow turned his gaze to the fire and as montel stood staring intently before him there was an interval of silence in the hush a scuffling sound arose in the rear of the store them darned rats montel muttered he cocked his head aside and stood in a listening attitude i watching him unobtrusively saw his glance flit furtively from me to barrow and then to a table standing just back from the hearth for the first time i noticed then that a first time i noticed then that a rifle lay upon it, the general direction of the muzzle toward Barrow. Again he looked swiftly from me to George, and then stared straight away into the black

shadows that shrouded the far end of the long room. Once more the rustling and scraping sounds could be heard. "' Them darned rats!' he repeated. "'They'll eat us out before spring!' He left the fire and stole softly. back among the shadows, whence presently came the noise of something being thrown, followed by Montel's voice cursing the rats. Barrow had not once turned his head, but I had watched Mr. Simon Montel as much because his actions interested me as because I expected anything to happen, and I

distinctly saw the rifle shift its position when he passed the table end, as if he had accidentally brushed against the projecting stock. Accidentally or otherwise, the muzzle then pointed straight at Barrow. I have a deep-rooted aversion to seeing the business end of a gun directed at a man unless, such as the intention of the man behind it. Loaded or empty, my father taught me,

never point a gun at anybody unless you mean to hurt him. And so, I reached over and gave the rifle a hitch that pointed it toward the opposite wall, just as Montel returned from his rat hunting. By thunder, I'd ought to took that to him, he declared, as if he had but noticed the rifle. He placed himself before the fire again. In a minute or so came the subdued rustling of the rats. Montel winked at me, picked up the Winchester, cocked it, and went tiptoeing toward the rear. barot came out of his study at the click of the hammer he flashed a quick glance after montel then quietly he moved his box backward till his body when he seated himself was no longer clearly outlined in the firelight the rat activities ceased after a time montel came poking back again carrying the rifle in his right hand

as he reached the end of the table so close to me that i could have touched him and within six feet of beroe he stumbled pitched sharply forward and the report of the gun made my heart leap with the forward lurch of montel's body beroe cast himself backward like an uncoiled spring and fell full length thus escaping the bullet he made no attempt to rise simply rolled over his side. For an instant, a pistol glinted in his hand, and his thin lips were drawn back from his white even teeth. As quickly as he had drawn it, he thrust the six-shooter back out of sight. The habitual unruffled expression came back to his face, as Montel got upon his feet, leaving the rifle upon the floor. Barrow sat up then. By the great horn, spoon, Montel stammered. I ought to be kicked.

By gosh, I thought that hammer was down. Darn me for a careless fool, running round with a loaded gun and stumbling over a little piece of wood. I'd no idea I was so blamed clumsy. I guess I'm getting old all right. Barrow laughed, a cold-blooded, unmerthful sound.

He got up from his sitting-pocket, posture, laid hold of the rifle, and stood it against the wall beside him. Then he sat down on his box and felt with his fingers till he located the bullet hole. It was embedded in the log, on a level with his breast. "'Clumsy,' Barrow said, in a voice nearly devoid of inflection. "'Well, yes, it was rather clumsy.' Montel was facing the light now. now. Berro got up from his box again, and Montel took a step backward. Thus, for half a minute

the two faced each other silently, gray eye pitting itself against cold steel blue. Montel weakened under that direct contemptuous glare. His glance sought me in a furtive way, and the fat pudgy hands of him began to fidget. don't do it again montel beaure said slowly and his tone was like a slap in the face then he sat down upon the box and rolled himself another cigarette end of chapter fifteen chapter sixteen of the land of frozen sons this librivox recording is in the public domain the land of frozen sons by bertrand w sinclair chapter sixteen claws unsheathed the heavy log walls must have muffled the shot completely for contrary to my expectations no inquiring faces came poking in the door in pure defiance i believe barrow kept his place by the fire smoking placidly till it wore on to ten o'clock then montell pursing up his lips put on his overcoat and left without a word shortly after that cullen came in followed by ben wise they slept in the store one at each end at their entrance barrow drew the park o hood about his ears and we took our departure

the fire was down to a single charred stick but the chill had not yet laid hold of the air within and we made ready for bed before the numbing fingers of the frost made free with our persons i stretched myself on my bunk and wrapped the blankets and a rabbit-skin robe about me but barrow sat on the edge of his bed staring into the candle flame as if he sought therein the answer to a riddle if those company men made the same proposition to montel he broke out suddenly that they made to me it is ten to one that montel stands ready to deliver the goods that would account for the baldness of that play to-night you think he did mean it then i had so far given montel the benefit of the doubt despite a growing conviction that he had stumbled purposely why of course that's obvious isn't it barrow declared you know he did else why did you move that gun after he had very artfully contrived to point it my way so you were watching him after all said i i always watch him he answered dryly i feel sure that he sees or thinks he sees the way clear once i'm attended to barrow continued i've been looking for this very thing it came to me that day we struck the pack trail you remember i started to tell you and changed my mind i nodded the incident was quite fresh in my memory my juvenile egotism had received a bump on that very occasion it struck me with a sort of premonitory force as i stood there looking at those mule tracks he went on

that if the company offered him the same terms they did me, he would jump at it. They offered me $40,000 to get out of the game, to give them a bill of sale to my interest, and they would take care of my partner. You see? Now I'm satisfied they wouldn't incorporate that last clause in any offer to Montel. I'm not boasting when I say that from the beginning I've been the thorn in the company's flesh.

Every time they've locked horns with me, I've come out on top. They might offer him 40,000, but he'd have to guarantee them against me. And I think that performance tonight is a sample of how he will try to clear the way. To put it baldly, I said, you think he'll kill you out of hand

if he gets a chance to do it in a way that won't prove a boomerang? Exactly, Beroe observed. Then, I suggested, and even as the words were on my tongue, I stood amazed at the ruthless streak they seemed to uncover. Why not catch him at it,

and do the killing yourself? There's no law here to restrain him, apparently. Be your own law, if you know you're right. I can't, Beryl muttered. Not that my conscience would ever trouble me. He's protected in a way he doesn't dream of, and he's too wary of me to lay himself liable. If anything happens, it will be an accident.

You know how it would have been tonight. You, sitting right there, could not have declared it otherwise, no matter what your private opinion might have been. He has pretty well calculated the chances. No, Mr. Montell is. was not going to put himself in any position where i'd be clearly justified in snuffing him out for a minute or two he sat silent frowning at the candle on the table between my bunk and his how he would bait me he went on presently if he knew that killing him is the one thing i desire to avoid at any cost i hope it doesn't come to that it would be only just but i have no wish to meet out justice to him. His miserable life is safe from me, for her sake. No, I'll be honest,

for my own. I want him to live till I can force him to tell her a few truths that she will never believe except from his own lips. I was a seven times fool for not doing that long before we reached Benton. I could have forestalled all this, but I didn't suspect he was tolling her on, for a purpose. He stopped again. It was not the first time that Burrow had touched upon that theme, and always his tongue had been stricken with a semi-parallysis, just short of complete revelation. In a general way, it was plain enough to me, from the verbal collisions between himself and Montel on that same subject, and though I was humanly curious enough to want the particulars at first, I made no effort to draw forth his story.

Hence, I was surprised when he took up the threat of the conversation where he had left off. One reads of these peculiar situations in books. He rested his chin in the palms of his hands and stared abstractly at me, but they are seldom encountered in everyday living. I dare say the world is full of women, good women, beautiful, brilliant women, that I might have won, yet I must fall victim to an insane craving for an elfin-faced, hot-tempered sprite, who will have none of me. Six or seven years ago, she was a big-eyed schoolgirl with a mop of unruly hair.

Then, all at once, she grew up, and, and I've been the captive of her bow and spear ever since. Love, the old primal instinct to make. It's a brutal force, Bob, when it focuses all a man's being on one particular woman. I never told her, but I'm sure she knew. I know she did. And she, well, a man never can tell what a woman thinks or feels, or will do or say, or whether she means what she says when she says it. I don't know. But I've thought that she did care, only she wouldn't admit it until I made her. She's the type that wouldn't give herself to even the man she loved without a struggle, and I'm just savage enough to be glad of that.

I've only been waiting till this spring and the end of this fur deal, so that we would have the wherewith to live before I cornered her and fought it out. But I've waited too long, I'm afraid. You see, Montel has always been against me, that is he has secretly been cutting the ground from under my feet since he learned that i wanted her the old fool looks into his own heart and seeing perfect bliss in an alliance with blood and money straightway determines that these two will ensure her future happiness oh i can read him like an open book he'd move the heavens to bring about what he'd term a good match as it happens i can compare pedigrees with the best of them good lord he broke off and laughed ironically that's sickening but i'm trying to make the thing clear naive recital this i must say well anyway i measured up to the standard of breeding but fell woefully short on the financial requirements and somehow foxy simon grew afraid that i was in a

fair way to upset his cherished plans for Jess. This was after we'd gone in together on this fur business. He had always acted rather guardedly about Jesse and myself, but I had him there. So long as she went out, I could meet her socially, and he could not prevent. Then a year ago last summer, the Hudson's Bay undertook to run me out of this country. That bred the trouble on high river, and after that I was really outlawed. I expect he began at once to figure how he could turn that to his advantage, regarding me as a dish towel that he could ring dry and throw aside. He has nursed a direct personal grudge since the first season. Naturally, he wanted to dominate everything, and I wouldn't let him. He thought himself the biggest

toad in the puddle, and it angered him when he found himself out-splashed. He made mistakes. I corrected them, and held him down at every turn. I had to. It was a ticklish job, and I made him move, according to my judgment, which was a very bitter sort of medicine for a man of Montel's domineering stamp. So he was not long in developing a rancorous dislike of me, which seems to have thrived in concealment. Where I made the grand mistake was in letting him keep her from knowing that we were partners in this business. Without giving the matter a second thought, I had kept our business strictly to myself. He hinted that others might follow our lead, and at first we had visions of making terms with the Hudson's Bay and building up a permanent trade here.

After two or three years of this, I didn't think it well to plunge into explanations last spring. I made a mistake there, however. The mistake, I should say. Jesse had gone out a good deal the last two winters, both in St. Louis and New Orleans, and she was becoming quite a bell. For all that, I think, oh, well, it doesn't matter what I think. To make a long story short, a day or two before the moon went upstream, she told me that she was going as far as Benton with her father. I, of course, had to rise to the occasion, be very properly surprised, and inform her that I, too, contemplated a trip on that same steamer,

and I straightway hunted Montel up, and tried to have him dissuade her from the journey. I didn't fathom the purport of it. Even then, although I knew that he would welcome any chance to put me wrong in her eyes. It was too late, I felt, to volunteer any details concerning my part in her father's business up north. So I contented myself with his assurance and her statement that she would see him as far as Benton and then return on the moon. You see, I could easily imagine what would be her opinion of me, if she learned all the unsavory details with which the Northwest has been pleased to embellish the record of slow-foot George. She has such a profound scorn for anything verging on dishonesty,

and according to the sources of her information, I've got some very shady things laid at my door. I can't be anything but a moral degenerate in her eyes, Oh, he engineered it skillfully. If I had only waited at Benton till the bull train was ready to start. You know how her returning panned out. I believe now that he intended from the first

that she should go on to McLeod. I'd come to the conclusion that he would knife me in the business end, and that was why I wanted Walt Sanders with me. But it didn't occur to me that his plans were so far really, That unfortunate police raid delivered me into his hands at the psychological moment I was like a cornered rat. That day she came to the guardhouse and peered in on us through the cell door.

I couldn't help lashing back when she was so frankly contemptuous. I could see so clearly how he had managed it, and having accomplished his purpose, he saw to it that escape was made easy, for he still needed me up here mind you it would have been pretty much the same if i had not been taken by the police he would have seen that she was well posted before she left mccloud the rest you have seen for yourself she spoiled this plan a little perhaps by coming all the way once she had started that wasn't his fault he didn't want her to come here especially after i picked up one of her combs that night we came to the camp and threatened him if he didn't send her home she is willful and the only way he could have kept her from coming to the sikani would have been to go back himself if our presence here has puzzled her you may be sure he has made satisfactory explanations i am only biding my time if i can hold him down and stand off the hudson's bay till the firs come in i can win out so far as the money end is concerned and if i am to lose her by god he'll pay for

for it. She shall know the truth if I have to choke it out of him one word at a time. It looks like a big contract, I sympathized. He made a gesture that might have meant anything, but did not reply. Presently he reached for his tobacco. When his cigarette was lighted, he blew out the candle. By the glowing red tip, I could follow his movements as he settled himself. and drew the betting about him. Oh, Bob, he addressed me after a long interval. What is it? I answered. If that old hound and I should get mixed up, you keep out of it.

Somebody will have to see that jest gets out of this godforsaken country. You're woods wise enough to manage that now. Why, of course I'd do that, I replied. It was a startling prospect, he held forth. But I hope nothing like that happens. Anything might happen, he returned. We're sitting on a powder keg. I can't guarantee that it won't blow up.

Montel is a bullheaded brute, and so am I. If he should throw a slug into me, I'd probably live long enough to return the favor. Then, after a pause, I've been running on like an old woman. That rifle business tonight jarred me like the devil. Maybe a decent night's rest will scatter these pessimistic ideas. Here goes, Robert, good night, with which he turned his face to the wall,

and did, I verily believe, go at once to sleep. And he was still asleep, his head resting on one doubled-up arm when I got up and lighted the candle at seven in the morning. My slumbers had been beset by disturbing visions of violent deeds, the byproduct of what I had seen and heard that evening. Barreau, by his cheerful aspect on arising, had banished his troubles while he slept.

The day dawned, clear and cold and very still. It passed, and another followed, and still other followed, and still others, till I lost track of their number in the frost-ridden cycle of time. Montel's momentous stumble grew to be a dim incident of the past. Sometimes I was constrained to wonder if, after all, he had done that with malice aforethought. Upon diverse occasions I met and talked with Jesse, but I did not go to the house again, until Burrough hinted one day, that unless I continued the intimacy I had accidentally begun,

Montel would think I suspected him, that I was taking Barrow's side. There is no use in your making an enemy of him, he said. Well, I replied, I must say I don't altogether like his fatherly manner. He makes me uncomfortable. Nevertheless, Barrow declared, he has taken a fancy to you.

he's human and seeing it's not your fight you'd better not break off short on that account better not antagonize him it's different with me i have no choice influenced more or less by barrow's suggestion i suppose i found myself giving assent that very afternoon when montel asked me to the cabin for supper and a session at cribbage over the meal and the subsequent card game he was so genial so very much like other big easy-going men that i had known i could scarcely credit him as cold-bloodedly scheming to defraud and if necessary murder another man somehow without any logical reason i had always associated fat men especially big fat men with the utmost good nature with a sort of rugged straightforward uprightness that frowned on anything that savored of unfair advantage i could not quite fathom mr simon montell nor george barrow either so far as that goes shortly after that at the close at the close of an exceeding bitter day, an Indian came striding down the saccanny to the post. When the guard at the big gate let him in, his first word was for the white chief, as Burrow was known among the men of the lodges.

Ben Wise came shouting this at the door of our cabin, and we followed Ben to the store. The Indian shook hands with Barrow, then he drew his blanket coat closer about him and delivered himself of a few short, guttural sentences. Barrow stood looking rather thoughtful when the copper-skinned one had finished. He asked a few questions in the native tongue, receiving answers as brief, and after another period of consideration, he turned to me.

Crow feathers is sick, he said. Pneumonia, I should judge, by this fellow's description of the symptoms. The chances are good that he'll be dead by the time I get there, if he isn't already. The medicine man can't help him, so old Three Wolves has sent for me, out of his sublime faith in my ability to do anything. I can't help him, but I'll have to go as a matter of policy. Do you want to come along, Bob?

It won't be a long jaunt, and it will give you some real snowshoe practice. i embraced the opportunity without giving him a chance to reconsider which he showed signs of doing later in the evening curiously enough montel also attempted to dissuade me from the trip what's the use he argued you'll likely get your fingers or your feet frozen it's a blamed poor time of the year to go traipsen around the country you'd better stay here where there's houses and fire fires. The cold and other disagreeable elements didn't look formidable enough to deter me, however. I wanted something to break the monotony. A trip to Three Wolves' camp in midwinter appealed very strongly to me, and I turned a deaf ear to Montel's advice, and held Barrow strictly to the proposal which he evinced a desire to withdraw. That evening we got the dog-harnesses. ready, and rigged up a toboggan for the trail, loading it with food, bedding, and a small

light tent. Two hours before daybreak we started. There was a moon and the land spread away boldly under the silver flood, like a great ghostly study in black and white. All that day our Indian led us up the Sakani. There was no need to use our snowshoes or to break trail. for we kept to the ice and its snow covering of snow was packed smooth and hard as a macadam roadway by grace of an early start and steady jogging we traversed a distance that was really a two days journey and at dusk the lodges of three wolves band loomed in the edge of a spruce grove then our indian shook hands with barrow and me and swung off to the right he says his lodge is over there in a draw barrow told me when i asked the reason for that the dogs of the camp greeted us with shrill yapping and two or three indians came out they scattered the yelping huskies with swiftly thrown pieces of firewood and greeted Barrow gravely. After a mutual exchange of words,

Barrow vented a sharp exclamation. The devil, he said, and followed this by stripping the harness from the dogs. What now? I asked, as I bent over the leader's collar. You'll see in a minute, he answered briefly, and there was an angry ring in his voice. the dogs freed and the toboggan turned on its side he led the way to a lodge pointed out by one of the hunters a head protruded it was withdrawn as we approached and some one within called out in cre and when we had inserted ourselves through the circular opening i echoed bero's exclamation

for sitting beside the fire which burned cheerfully in the center was crow feathers himself smoking his pipe like a man in the best of health nor was there any suggestion of illness in the voice he lifted up at our entrance barrow fired a question or two at him and a look of mild interest overspread crow feathers aquiline face as he answered it was a plant all the way through barrow declared declared, sitting down and slipping off his mitts. Three wolves sent no message to me. Crow feathers never was sick in his life. I wonder who's responsible, said I. Do Indians ever play practical jokes? He shrugged his shoulders at the suggestion.

Crow feathers squaw pushed a pot of boiled venison before us and some bannock, and we fell upon that in earnest. Not till we had finished, and were fumbling for tobacco. Did Barrow refer to our wild goose chase again? I'd like to have speech with that red gentleman who led us up here, he said grimly. It may be that Mr. Montel has unsheathed his claws in earnest. If he has, I'll clip them, and clip them short. chapter seventeen of the land of frozen sons this libervox recording is in the public domain the land of frozen sons by bertrand w sinclair chapter seventeen nine points of the law a perceptible wind from out of the east blew squarely in our teeth all the way down the saccanny slight as it was a man could no more

more face it steadily than he could hold his nostrils to sulfur fumes blown from a funnel. All day it held us back from our best speed. Time and again we were forced to halt in the lee of a wooded point, where, with threshing of arms, we drove the sluggish blood back into our numbing fingertips. Twice the frost struck its fangs into my cheeks, despite the strap of rabbit fur that covered my face between eyes and mouth. Berro rubbed the whitened places with snow till the returning blood stung like a searing iron.

Twice I performed a like office for him. So it came that night had fallen when we lifted up our voices at the gate of the stockade. And while we waited for it to open, our dogs whining at the snarl of their fellows inside, side, someone in the glimmer behind us hailed the post in French. A minute later, the frosty creek of snowshoes sounded near, and a figure came striding on our track. As he reached us, the gate swung open.

A group of men stood just within. One held a lantern so that the light fell upon our faces, and, incidentally, their own. They were strangers to the sun. the last man. Barrow ripped out an oath. For a second we surveyed each other. Then one of the men spoke to him who had come up with us. Is there aught a foot? he asked, with a marked Scotch accent. Not that I have seen, Donald, the other replied. Then, said the first, speaking to Barrow, come ye in and put by your dogs. Didn't stand there as if you look for harm.

I am very sure there will be no harm done us, Barrow drawled, unmoved in the face of this strange turn of affairs. But I am of two minds about coming in. The Scot shrugged his shoulders. That's as you like, he observed. Tis not for me to compel you. Tis merely the factor's word that if you came, he desired speech with you.

You will find him no at the store. Barrow considered this a moment. Lead the way, then, old Bannock Burn, he said lightly. We will take our dog team with us. Keep an eye on the rear, Bob, he muttered to me. This may be a trap, but we've got to chance it to find out how things stand. I nodded acquiescence to this, for I myself craved to know how the thing had been brought to pass. the group of men scattered save the scot with the lantern not one was in sight when barrow halted the dogs and turned the toboggan on its side by the front of the store

our lantern-bearer opened the door and stepped inside motioning us to enter my eyes swept the long room for a sign of violent deeds but there were none the goods lay in their orderly arrangement upon the shelves the same uppiled boxes and bales threw huge shadows to the far end there was no change save in the men who stood by the fire instead of montel warming his coat-tails before the crackling blaze a thin-faced man stood up before the fire a tall man overtopping barot and myself by a good four inches he bowed courteously looking us over with keen eyes that were black as the long moustache and he turned over and over on his forefinger a thatch of hair white as the drifts that hid the frozen earth outside covered his head he might have been the colonel of a crack cavalry regiment a leader of fighting men his voice when he spoke bore a trace of the gall gentlemen he greeted it is a very cold night outside come up to the fire he pushed a stool and a box forward with his foot and turned to a small swarthy individual who had so far hovered in the background leave us now dufort he said and you donald come again in a half hour oui monsieur duphor gathered up his coat and departed obediently the scot following as nonchalantly as if he were in the house of a friend barot drew his box up to the fire and sat down thrust the parker hood back from his face and held his hands out to the blaze

but i noticed that he laid the rifle across his knees and taking my cue from this i did the same when i sat down a faint smile flitted across the tall man's features he also drew a seat up to the fire on the opposite side of the hearth so that he faced us it is to mr barrow i speak is it not he inquired politely it is barrow acknowledged and you i take it are factor l'noir of king charles's house the black factor as they call me yes he smiled i am glad to have met you mr barrow you are a hearty man i did not come seeking compliments barrow returned curtly why are you here you and your voyageurs making free with another man's house and what have you done with Simon Montel and his daughter and the forty-odd men that were here two days ago one thing at a time le noir answered imperturbably is it possible that you do not know of the arrangements which was made it is obvious that there was an arrangement bero snorted what i would know is the manner of its carrying out to be brief then the other said, speaking very slowly and distinctly, as if he measured out his words, for a consideration, Simon Montel has abandoned the field.

While my company permits no competitor in the trade, according to our charter, yet sometimes it is cheaper to buy than to fight. Barrow's shoulders stiffened. Your charter is a dead letter, he declared. You know it as well as well as. as I. That, however, is beside the point. You have made terms with Montel, but you have made none with me. Possession is nine points of the law, Lenore returned tranquilly. Having bought, we will now fight, if it be necessary. One does not pay twice for the same goods.

Be wise and seek redress from, well, if the fat man has taken. trick you, make him pay. Suppose I choose instead to make the company pay, Barrow-drawled. What if I come to you with a hundred well-armed red men at my back? Ah, it is of that I wish to speak with you, the black factor crossed his legs and emphasized his remarks with a waggling forefinger. Of that very thing, I know that you are not easily turned to

side, but this time, listen. Tonight, here within these stockade walls, there are four redcoat men from a cloud. They have come seeking, he paused significantly. You can guess whom they seek. Now, if, when you leave here, your track should point to the Indian camps of the west, why, then the redcoats shall be shown it.

And I will send twenty months, men to help them. But if you take the South Trail, these four will return empty-handed." Berro sat a minute or two, pondering this. "'You win,' he said at length. "'I am not the man to beat my fists on a stone. Give us flour and tea, and your word is a gentleman that the police shall not be put on our track, and we quit the saccanny.' you shall have the tea and the flour l'noir agreed there are the shelves take what you want i give my word for the police i would beg of you to stay to-night but these government men have sharp ears and eyes should they get a hint i cannot put a blanket over the mouths of my men he spread his hands as if to indicate that anything might happen throughout our briefs

day, Berro's thinly veiled vigilance did not once relax. The supplies he selected I carried to the door, while he stood back watching me with his rifle slung in the hollow of his arm. If this wary attitude irked Le Noir, he passed it by. To me, it seemed that Berro momentarily expected some overt act. Eventually, we had the food, a hundred pounds of fly, a square tin of tea, a little coffee, some salt and pepper, and half a dozen extra pairs of moccasins lashed on the toboggan. Then he stirred up the surly dogs and we went crunching over the harsh snow to the stockade wall, attended by Donald and his lantern, and the factor himself swathed to the heels in a great coat of beaver. At the drawing of the

bar and the inward swing of the great gate, Barrow put a final question to Lenoir. Tell me, if it is not betraying a confidence, he said ironically, how much Montel's flitting cost the company? It is no secret, the factor replied. Sixty thousand dollars in a good bank of Montreal notes. A fair price. A fair price indeed, Berroo. laughed good night monsieur the black the gate creaked who its clothes behind us as the dogs humped against the collars a hundred yards and the glimmering night enfolded us the stockade became a vague blur in the hazy white

barot swung sharp to the west this course he held for ten minutes or more then down to the river across it and up to the south flat here he turned again and curtly bidding me drive the dogs tramped on ahead peering down at the unbroken snow as he went we plodded thus till we were once more abreast of the stockade for a moment i lost sight of barrow then he called to me and i came up with him standing with his back to the cutting wind that still thrust from out the east like a red-hot spear he took the dog-whip from me without a word swinging the leader southward in the uncertain light i could see no mark in the snow but under my webbed shoes there was an uneven feeling as if it were trampled we bore straight across the flat and angled up a long hill and on the crest of it plunged into the gloomy aisles of the forest once among the spruce barrow halted the near-winded dogs for a breathing spell we will go a few miles and make camp for the night he said this is Montel's trail. The more miles the better, I rejoined.

I'm tired, but I have no wish to hobnob with the policeman. Fah, he burst out. There are no policemen. That was as much a bluff as my hundred well-armed Indians. Le Noir is a poser. Do you think I'd ever have gotten outside that stockade if there had been a red-coat at his call? oh no that would have been the very chance for him one that he would have been slow to overlook i know him he's well named the black factor

his heart is as black as his whiskers and the truth is not in him when a lie can make or save a dollar for his god which is the company we have not quite done with him yet i imagine Hup there, you huskies. The trail is long, and we are two days behind. End of Chapter 17. Chapter 18 of the Land of Frozen Sons. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. The Land of Frozen Sons by Bertrand W. Sinclair. Chapter 18. The long arm of the company.

The fourth day out at a noon camp by a spring that still defied the frost, Barrow straightened up suddenly from his stooping over the frying-pan. "'Listen,' he said. His ears were but little keener than mine, for even as he spoke I caught a sound that was becoming familiar from daily hearing, the soft pluff-pluff of snow-shoes. In the thick woods, where no sweeping winds could swirl it here and there, and pile it in hard smooth banks, the snow was spread evenly, a loose three-foot layer as yet uncrusted. Upon this the foot of man gave but little sound, even where there was a semblance of trail,

so that almost in the instant that we heard and turned our heads, we could see those who came toward us. Three men and two women, facing back upon the trail we followed. the men I recognized it once. One was Cullen, the bookkeeping automaton. The other two were half-breed packers. They halted at sight of us, and from their actions,

I believe they would have turned tail if Beiro had not called to them. Then they came up to the fire. Where now? Barrow demanded. We go back on Zipos, Monsieur, one of the breeds declared. What of the others?

Barrow asked sharply. And why do you turn back? Because I'm not wish for follow ze fat trader and die in some snowbank, me, the breed retorted sullenly. Monsieur Barrow knows that the company has taken the post, eh? I do, Barrow answered. Go on.

The black factor, he says to him, Why not you stay till the spring? But Monsieur Montel, he's not stay, And he's make talk for us to come with him on the South Trail. It don't make no difference to me, just so I'm get pay, So I'm take the old woman and come along. Montel, he's heat her up like hell, ever seeing she's all right. Then last night, somebody he's makes sneak on the camp and poison the dog,

Ever last one, and he's steal some of the grub, too. This morning, when Jacques Larue and me him start out for follow these fellas' track, he's lay for us and take shot at us. First pop, he's hit Laru, kill him dead, just like snap ze finger. I'm not go on after that. McLeod, he's not too damn far for make the trip with no dog for pull the outfit. Not me.

I'm going back on the post. The company, he's given me chance for make leaving. For why somebody he's poisoned the dog and bushwack us, I don't can say. But I know for sure, Montel, he's damn crazy for try to go on. you too eh cullen burrow observed oh you are certainly brave men he was a fool to start cullen bristled the first time i had ever seen a flash of spirit from the man of figures and i am not fool enough to follow him when it is plain that he is deliberately matching himself against something bigger than he is there was no reason for starting on such a hard trip The Hudson's Bay men did us no harm.

The factor did advise him to stay there till spring opened. I heard him myself. But he was bound to be gone. Whoever is dogging him means business, and I have no wish to die in a snowbank, as Jean puts it. How was the taking of the post managed? Barrow asked him next. Cullen shook his head.

I don't know, he mumbled. It was just a daylight of the morning you left for three wolves' camp. Somebody yelled, and I ran out of the cookhouse where I sat eating breakfast. The yard was full of company men. And when I got to the store, why there was Montel making terms with the company chief, a tall, black-mustached man. We started within an hour of that. montel seemed in great haste he is determined to go on i felt sorry for miss montell i tried to show him the madness of attempting to walk several hundred miles with only what supplies we could carry on our shoulders

he wouldn't turn back though for a very good reason barrow commented which a man who knew as much of our affairs as you did cullen should have guessed well be on your way doubtless the black factor will welcome your coming the three men had laid down the shoulder-packs with which they were burdened they resung them and passed on with furtive sidelonged glances The women followed, dragging a lightly loaded toboggan. Rats will quit a doomed ship, Barrow remarked. Then he resumed his turning of the meat that sizzled in the pan. We will soon come up with them, he said, when we had eaten and were putting the dogs to the toboggan again. They cannot make time from their morning camp. The beaten track was an advantage.

now since the returning party had added a final touch to it we laid aside our snow-shoes and followed in the wake of the dogs half the time at a jogging trot in little more than an hour of this we came to the place where montel had lost his dogs and his followers the huskies lay about the trodden camp-ground stiff in the snow scattered around the cleared circles where the tentations were the tentations were the tenets and the tenets lay about the trodden campgrounds stiff in the snow scattered around the cleared circles where the tents had stood overnight were dishes articles of food bedding montel had discarded all but absolute essentials a toboggan and its useless dog-harness stood upended against a tree so much for loss of motive power barrow said grimly it is a pity to leave all this but we are loaded to the limit now if we should lose our dogs he left the sentence unfinished and so we passed by the abandoned goods and followed on the trail that led beyond there is a marked difference between the path beaten through snow by seven persons with three full dog teams and that made by one man and a slight girl dragging a toboggan by hand barrow took to his snow-shoes again and strode ahead i kept the dogs crowding close on his heels it was the time of year when in that latitude the hours of daylight numbered less than five thus it was but a brief span from noon to night and nearing the gray hour of twilight he checked the straining huskies and myself with a gesture out of the woods ahead

uprose the faint squeal of a toboggan bottom sliding over the frosty snow. Berro's eyebrows drew together under his hood. It's a hundred to one that there will be fireworks the moment I'm recognized, he muttered finally. But I can see no other way. Come on. A hundred yards farther, I caught my first glimpse of the two figures. Montel's huge body, bent forward as he tugged at his load. Barrow increased his speed.

We were up with him in a half-minute more. Montel whirled with a growl, half alarm, half defiance. He threw up the rifle in his hands. But Barrow was too quick for him, and the weapon was wrenched out of his grasp before he could use it. With an inarticulate bellow, Montel shook himself free of the shoulder rope, by which he drew the toboggan, and threw himself bodily upon Barrow, striking, pawing, blaspheming terribly.

Strangely enough, Jesse made no move, nor even cried out at the sight. She stood like one fascinated by that brute spectacle. It did not endure for long. The great bulk of Montel bore Barrow backward, but only for a moment he ducked a wild swing that had power enough behind it to have broken his neck came up under montel's clutching arms and struck him once under the chin a lifting blow with all the force of his muscular body centered therein it staggered the big man and as i stepped forward meditating interference barot jammed him backwards over our loaded toboggan and held him there helpless. He pinned him thus for a second,

then suddenly released him. Montel stood up, a thin stream of blood trickling from one nostril. He glowered sullenly, but the ferocious gleam of passion had died out of his eyes. Get a fire built, Beiro ordered, and a tent pitched.

We shall camp here tonight. Make no more wild-bushed. breaks like that, unless you want to be overtaken with sudden death. When we are warm, I have something to say to you. Twilight merged into gray night, and the red blaze of the fire we built glowed on the surrounding trees and the canvas of the tent. A pot of melted snow bubbled and shed steam.

Close by it, a piece of moose flesh thawed in the heat. Jesse, still mute, sat on a piece of canvas i spread for her and held her hands to the flame now barrow challenged montel is a good time for explanations only facts no matter how they gall you will serve speak up first begin at the beginning and tell the truth to her he motioned to jessie she started slightly a half-dozen times i had noticed her looking first at myself and then at barrow and there was wonder and something else in her heavy-lashed eyes now she flashed a glance of inquiry at her father for a moment i thought she was about to speak i cannot say what there was in barrow's tone that stirred montel to the depths it may have been that finding himself checkmated dominated by a man he hated so sincerely another fierce spasm of rage welled up within and ruptured some tottened blood vessel it may have been some weakness of the heart common to fleshy men i cannot diagnose at best i can but feebly describe montel's jaw thrust forward he blinked at barrow at his daughter at me and then back to barrow a flushed up into his puffed

cheeks surged to his temples, a flush that darkened to purple. His very face seemed to swell, to bulge with the rising blood. His little swinish eyes dilated. His mouth opened, he gasped, and all at once, with a hoarse rattling in his throat, he swayed and fell forward on his face. We picked him up, Barrow and I, and fell. of his heart. It fluttered. We loosened his clothing and loved his wrists and temples with the snow water. The body lay flaccid. The jaw sagged. When I laid my ear to his breast, again the fluttering had ceased. Berrault listened, felt with his hand, shook his head. No use, he muttered. Jesse was standing over us when we were.

gave over. He's dead, Bero looked up at her and murmured. He's dead. He rose to his feet and stared down at the great hulk of unsentient flesh that had vibrated with life and passion ten minutes before.

After all his plotting and planning to die like that. The girl stood looking from one to the other, from the dead man in the firelight, to me and to Barrow. Of a sudden, Barrow held out his hands to her. But she turned away with a sob, and it was to me she turned,

and it was upon my shoulder that she cried. Oh, Bobby, Bobby! As if her heart would break. And at that, Barrow dropped to his haunches beside the fire. There, when the storm of her grief was hushed, He still sat, his chin resting on his palms, his dark face somber as the north itself. End of Chapter 18. Chapter 19 of the Land of Frozen Sons

This Librovoc's recording is in the public domain. The Land of Frozen Sons by Bertrand W. Sinclair Chapter 19 The Strength of Men and Their Weakness No wind could reach us where we sat. At the worst, a gale could little more than set the treetops swaying, so thick stood the surrounding timber. But the blasting cold pressed in everywhere.

Our backs chilled to freezing while our faces were hot from the nearness to the flame. Presently, at Barrow's suggestion, we set up Montel's tent, fashioned after an Indian lodge, in the center of which we could build a small fire. This was for her. We chopped a pile of dry wood and placed it within. By that time, the moose meat was thawed so that we could haggle off ragged slices. These I fried while Beiro mixed a bannock and cooked it in an open pan. Also, we had tea.

Jesse shook her head when I offered. offered her food. Willy-nilly, her eyes kept drifting to the silent figure opposite. You must eat, Barrow broke in harshly upon my fruitless coaxing. Food means strength. You can't walk out of these woods on an empty stomach, and we can't carry you. A swarm of angry words surged to my tongue's end and died unspoken. Right willingly would I have voiced a voice. blunt opinion of his brutal directness to a grief-stricken girl at such a time, but she flashed him a queer, half-pleading look, and meekly accepted the plate I held before

her. He had gained my point for me, but the hard, domineering tone grated. I felt a sudden, keen resentment against him. To protect and shield her from everything had at once become a task in which I desired no other man's aid. Now let us see how much of the truth is in the black factor, Beiro began, when we had cleaned our plates and laid them in the grub box. He turned down the canvas with which I had covered Montel and opened the front of the buckskin shirt. Jesse stirred uneasily.

She seemed about to protest, then settled back and stared blankly into the fire. deliberately methodically barrow went through the dead man's pockets these proved empty feeling carefully he at last found that which he sought pinned securely to montel's undershirt beneath one arm he brought the package to our side of the fire considered a moment and opened it flat the breadth of one's hand little over six inches in length It revealed bills laid smoothly together like a deck of cards. Barrow counted them slowly. One, two, three, four, on up to sixty. Each a thousand-dollar bank of Montreal note. He snapped the rubber band back over them

and slid the sheaf back into its heavy envelope. Le Noir did not draw such a long bow after all, he observed to no one in particular. Yet this is more than they offered me. Well, I dare say they felt it would not be long. He broke off with a shrug of his shoulders. Then he put the package away in a pocket under his parka. Jesse watched him closely but said nothing.

A puzzled look replaced her former apathy. That night we slept with the dogs tied. inside our tent, and the toboggan drawn up beside our bed. I did not ask Barrow his reason for this. I could hazard a fair guess. Whosoever had deprived Montel of his dogs might now be awaiting a chance to do a like favor for us. I would have talked to him of this, but there was a restraint between us that had never risen before. And so I held my peace. i fell asleep at last for all the silent guests that lay by the foot of our bed what time i wakened i cannot say the moon glare fell on the canvas and cast a hazy light over the tent interior

and as i lay there half-minded to get up and build a fire barrow stirred beside me and spoke last night was christmas eve he muttered to-day to-day Peace on earth, goodwill to men. Merry Christmas. What a game. What a game! He turned over. We lay quite still for a long time. Then, in that dead hush, a husky whined.

And Barrow sat up with a whispered oath, his voice trembling, and struck savagely at the dog. The sudden spasm of rage subtly communicated itself to me. I lay quivering in the blankets. If I had moved, it would have been to turn and strike him as he had struck the dog. It passed presently and left me wondering. I got up then and dressed. So did Beiro.

We built a fire and sat by it, thawing meat, melting snow for tea, cooking bannock, all in silence, like folk who involuntarily lowered their voices in a great empty church, the depths of a mine, or the presence of death. Afraid to speak? I laughed at the fancy, and looked up at the rancest sound of my own voice to find baroque scowling blackly at the sound, I thought. Before long, Jesse came shivering to the fire. The rigors of the north breed a wolfish hunger. We ate huge quantities of bannock and moose meat. That done, we laid Montel's body at the base of a spruce and piled upon it a great heap of brush. Jesse viewed the abandonment calmly enough. She knew the necessity.

Then we packed and put the dogs to the toboggan, increasing the load of food for Montel's supply, and leaving behind our tent and some few things we could not haul. Barrow went ahead. Bairing straight south, setting his snowshoes down, heel to toe, beating a path for the straining dogs. Fierce work it was, that trail-breaking. My turn at it came in due course. Thus we forged ahead, the black surrounding forest and the white floor of it irradiated by the moonbeams. Away behind us, the aurora flashed across the polar horizon. a weird blazon of light silky shimmering varicolored dyeing one moment to a pinpoint leaping the next like sheet-lightening to the light of the north star this died at the dawn over the frost gleaming tree-tops the sun rose and bleared at us through the frost haze and that inverted bowl they call the sky where under crawling cooped we live

and die. The tentmaker's rhyme came to me and droned over and over in my brain. The bowl arched over us, a faded blue, coldly beautiful. At our noon camp, a gun snapped among the trees, and a dog fell sprawling. As we sprang to our feet, another husky doubled up. Barrow caught the remaining two by the collars, and flung a squire. And flung a squire. of canvas over them. A third shot missed. He cut up his rifle and plunged into the timber. An hour or more we waited. When he returned, I had the toboggan ready for the road. I got his track, he said between mouthfuls of the food I had kept warm. One man. He struck straight east when he saw me start. There may be more, though. It is a

not like the company to put all its eggs in one basket. You think the company is behind this, I asked. Who else? he jeered. Isn't this money worth some trouble? And who but the company meant no of it? Why bother with dogs, if that is so, I replied. The same bullets would do for us? Very true, Barrow admitted.

but there is a heavy debit against me for this last four years of baiting the hudson's bay and this would be of a piece with the black factor's methods their way his way is the policy of the company to an end is often oblique only by driving a bargain could they have taken the post montel could have fought them all winter even though they bought it cheaply i do not think they had any intention of letting him get away with money. Le Noir paid, and put me on the trail. At the same time, this bushwhacker held Montel back, so that we overtook him. Otherwise, with two days' start, he might have beaten us to the police country, where we would not dare follow. Can you appreciate the sardonic humor that would draw out our misery to the last possible pang, instead of making one clean sweep?

Lenoir knows how the North will deal with us, once we are reduced to carrying our food and bedding on our backs. He has based his calculations on that fact. These breeds of his can hover about us and live, where we shall likely perish. Then there will be no prima facie evidence of actual murder, and the company will have attained its end. They have done this to others. We can hardly be exempt.

If we seem likely to reach the outer world, it will be time enough then for killing. Either way, the company wins. I wish to God it would snow. We might shake them off then. We harnessed the two remaining dogs and pushed on. There was nothing else to do. Either in camp or on trail, the huskies, to say nothing of ourselves were at the mercy of that hidden marksman. So we kept our way, praying only for a sight of him,

or for a thick swirl of snow to hide the betraying tracks we made. We moved slowly, the lugging of the dogs eeked out by myself with a rope. Barrow broke trail. Jesse brought up the rear. At some down, midway of a tauter. tiny open space in the woods, our two dogs were shot down. Barrow whirled in his tracks, stood a moment glaring furiously. Then, with a fatalistic shrug of his shoulders, he stooped, cut loose the dead brutes, harness and all, and laid hold of the rope with me. That night we were not disturbed. Jesse slept in the little round tent.

Barrow and I Burrow and I Burrowed with our bedding Under the snow Beside the fire The time of arousing Found me with eyes That had not closed

And the night of wakefulness The nearness of a danger That hovered unseen stirred me to black unreasoning anger I wanted to shout Curses at the north At the Hudson's Bay Company

At Barrow At everything And by the snap of his eyes, the quick scowl at trivial things, I think Beiro was in as black a mood as I. The girl sensed it too. She shrank from both of us. So to the trail again and the weary drag of the shoulder rope. At noon we ate the last of our moose meat, and when next we crossed moose tracks in the snow, Barrow ordered me in a surly tone to keep straight south and set out with his rifle.

It was slow work and heavy to lug that load alone. Jesse went ahead, but her weight was not enough to crush the loose particles to any degree of firmness. For every quarter mile gained, we sat down upon the load to rest, sweat standing in drops upon my face, and freezing in pellets as it stood. And at one of these halts I fell to studying the small oval face framed in the parka hood beside me. The sad, tired look of it cut me. There was a stout heart to be sure in that small body, but it was killing work for men.

I gritted my teeth at the mesh of circumstance. if you were only out of this i murmured i looked up quickly at a crunching sound and there was barrow empty-handed i shall never forget the glare in his eyes at sight of me standing there with one hand resting lightly on her shoulder there was no word said he took up the rope with me and we went on where in the name of heaven are you heading for something spurred me to ask of him. The tone was rasping, but I could not make it otherwise. To the peace, he snapped back, then west through the mountains, down the Fraser, toward the sound country. Do you think I intend to walk into the arms of the police? You might do worse, some demon of irritability prompted me to snarl. He looked back at me over his shoulder, slackening speed. For a moment I thought he would turn on me then and there,

and my shoulder muscles stiffened. There was a thrill in the thought, but he only muttered, Get a grip on yourself, man. Just at the first lowering of dusk, in my peering over Barrow's shoulder, I spotted the shovel antlers of a moose beside a clump of scraggy willows. I dropped the rope, snatched from my rifle, and fired, as Barrow turned to see what I was about. I had drawn a bead on the broad side of him as he made the first plunge, and he dropped. Well, that's meat, Barrow said, and it means camp. He drew the toboggan up against a heavy stand of spruce, and taking a snowshoe, shovel-wise, fell to bearing the earth for a fire-base. I took my skinning knife and went to the fallen moose.

Jesse moved about, gathering dry twigs to start a fire. Once at the moose and hastily flaying the hide from the steaming meat, my attention became centered on the task. For a time I was absorbed in the problem of getting a hind quarter skinned and slashed clear before my fingers froze, Happening at length to glance Campered, I saw in the firelight, Beiro towering over Jesse, talking, his speech punctuated by an occasional gesture. His voice carried faintly to me.

I stood up and watched. Reason hit its head, abashed, crowded into the background by a swift flood of passion. I could not think coherently. I could only stand there, blinking, furious, over what I did not quite know, nor pause to inquire of myself. For the nonce I was as primitive in my emotions as any naked cave-dweller that ever saw his mate threatened by another male. And when I saw her shrink from him, saw him catch at her arm, I plunged for the fire. "'You damned cub!' he flashed. and struck at me as i rushed at him i had no very distinct idea of what i was going to do when i ran at him except that i would make him leave her alone

but when he smashed at me with that wolf-like drawing apart of his lips i knew then i was going to kill him to take his head in my hands and batter it against one of those rough bark trees i evaded the first swing of his fist by a quick turn of my head after that i do not recollect the progress of events with any degree of clearness except that i gave and took blows while the forest reeled drunkenly about me the same fierce rage in which i had fought that last fight with tupper burned in my heart i wanted to rend and destroy and nothing short of that would satisfy And presently I had barrow down in the snow, smashing insanely at his face with one hand, choking the breath out of him with the other. This I remember, remember too, hearing a cry behind me. With that my recollection of the struggle blurs completely.

I was lying beside the fire, Jesse rubbing my forehead with snow in lieu of water, when I again became cognizant of my surroundings. Barrow stood on the other side of the fire, putting on fresh wood. I'm sorry, sorry, Bob, she whispered, and her eyes were moist. But you know I couldn't stand by and see you. It would have been murder. I sat up at that.

Across the top of my head a great welt was now risen. My face, I could feel, was puffed and bruised. I looked at Barrow more closely. His features were battered even worse than mine. Did you hit me with an axe, or was it a tree? I asked peevishly. That is the way my head feels. The rifle, she stammered.

I, it was, I didn't want to hurt you, Bob, but the rifle was so heavy. I couldn't make you stop any other way. You wouldn't listen to me even. So that was the way of it. I got to my feet. Save a dull ache in my head, and the smarting of my bruised face, I felt equal to anything,

and the physical pain was as nothing to the hurt of my pride. To be felled by a woman, the woman I loved. I did love her, and therein lay the heart. heard of her action. I could hardly understand it, and yet, strange paradox, I did not trouble myself to understand. My brain was in no condition for solving problems of that sort. I was not concerned with the why, the fact was enough. If I had been the unformed boy who cowered before those two hairy-fisted slave drivers aboard the new moon, but I was not. I never could be again.

The trouble trail had hardened more than my bone and sinew, and the last seven days of it, the dreary plodding over unbroken wastes, amid forbidding woods, utter silence, and cold, bitter beyond words, had keyed me to a fearful pitch. There was a kink to my mental processes. I saw things awry.

In all the world, there seemed to be none left but us three two men and a woman and each of us desiring the woman so that we were ready to fly at each other's throats standing there by the fire i could see how it would be i thought unless the unseen enemy who hovered about us cut it short with his rifle we were foredoomed to maddening weeks perhaps months of each other's company though she had jeered at him and flaunted her contempt for him at both mcclough and the post jessie had put by that hostile bitter spirit to me it seemed as if she were in deadly fear of barot she shrank from him both his words and look and i must stand like a buffer between weeks of suspicion of trifling jealous actions of simmering hate of simmering hate that would bubble up in hot words and sudden blows. I did not like the prospect. I have a mind to settle it all, right here and now. I did not know until the words were out that I had spoken aloud. As a spark falling in loose powder, so was the effect of that

sentence upon a spirit as turbulent and as sorely tried as his. "'Settle it, then, settle it!' he rose to his feet. shouted at me. There is your gun behind you. I blurted an oath and reached for the rifle, and as my fingers closed about it, Jesse flung herself on me. No, no, no, she screamed.

I won't let you. Oh, oh, for God's sake, be men, not murdering brutes. Think of me if you won't think of your own lives. Stop it, stop it, stop it, put down those guns she clung to me desperately hampering my hands he could have killed me with ease i could see him across the fire waiting his winchester half raised the fire glow lighting up his face with its blazing eyes and parted lips teeth set tight together and i could not free myself of that clinging crying girl not at once without hurting her mad as i was i had no wish to do that at length however i loosened her clinging arms and pushed her away but she was quick as a steel trap she caught the barrel of my rifle as i swung it up and before i could break her frenzied grip the second time a voice in the dark near by broke in upon us with startling clearness

hello folks hello the sound of feet in the crisp snow the squeaking crunch of toboggins other voices these things uprose at hand i ceased to struggle with jesse but only when a man stepped into the circle of firelight with others dimly outlined behind him did she release her hold on my gun barrow had already let the butt of his drop to his feet he stood looking from me to the stranger his hands resting on the muzzle how d'y do everybody the man stopped at the fire and looked us over he was short heavily built under the close-drawn parka hood we could see little of his face he was dressed after the fashion the necessity rather of the north his eyes suddenly became riveted on me god bless my soul he exclaimed he reached into a pocket and took out a pair of glasses wrapped in a silk handkerchief the lenses he rubbed hastily with the silk and stuck them upon the bridge of his nose i could hear him mumbling to himself a half-dozen men edged up behind him god bless me he repeated without a doubt it is bob sumner somewhat the worse for wear but bob sure enough ha you dying dog i've had a merry chase after you don't even know me do you he pushed back the hood of his parka the voice had only puzzled me but i recognized that cheerful rubicund countenance with its

bushy black eyebrows, and the thing that favored me most in my recollection was a half-smoked, unlighted cigar tucked in one corner of his mouth. It was my banker-guardian, Bolton, of St. Louis. Wakening out of the first doze I had fallen into through that long night, I was constrained to rise and poke my head out of the tent in which I slept to make sure that I had not dreamed at all. for the event savored of a bolt from a clear sky. I could scarcely believe that only a few hours back I had listened to the details of its accomplishment. How Bolton had, in the fullness of time, received both my letters,

how he had traced me step by step from McLeod north, and how he had only located me in the Sakani River through the aid of the Hudson's Bay Company. He was on his way to the post. Our meeting was purely accidental, and so on. From the tent I saw a lone sentinel plying the fire. I slipped on the few clothes I had taken off and sat down beside the cheery crackle of the blaze to meditate upon the miracle. I was sane enough to shudder at what might have been, if Barrow and I had had a few minutes longer. In an hour all the camp was awake. Bolton's cook prepared breakfast, and we ate by candlelight in a tent warmed by a sheet-iron stove. How one's point of view shuffles like the needle of a compass.

A tent with a stove in it, where one could be thoroughly comfortable, impressed me as the pyramid point of luxury. After that there was the confusion of tearing up camp and loading a half-dozen dog teams. Jesse sat by the great fire that was kept up outside, and her face was troubled. Barrow, I noticed, drew Bolton a little way off, where the two of them stood talking earnestly together, Bolton expostulating, Barrow, urging. Directly after that, I saw Barrow with two of Bolton's men to help him load one of the dog

teams over again. He led it to one side, his snowshoes lying on the load. Then he came over to Jesse. Reaching within his parka, he drew forth the package he had taken off Montel's body and held it out to her. "'Girl!' he said, and there was that in his voice which gave me a sudden pang and sent a flush of shame to my cheek. "'Here is your father's money!' There is no need for me to take care of it now. Goodbye. She stared up at him, making no move to take the package, and so, with a little gesture, he dropped it at her feet and turned away.

And as he laid hold of the dog whip, she sprang to her feet and ran after him. George! George! If ever a cry sounded a note of pain, that did. It made me want to be. wince. He whirled on his heel, and the dogwhip fell unheeded in the snow. Oh, oh, she panted. I can't take that. It isn't mine. It's blood money. And, and if you go by yourself, I shall go with you. With me, he held her by the shoulder, looking down into her upturned face. Never before had I seen such a variety of accounts.

expression on his features in so short a span of time hope tenderness puzzlement a panorama of emotions i'm an outlaw there's a price in my head you know that and you yourself have said ah i won't repeat the things you have said you know you knew you were stabbing me when i know i know i know she cried i believed those things then oh you can't tell how it hurt me to think that all the time you had been playing in double part fooling my father and myself but now i know i know the whole wretched business or at least enough to understand i got into his papers back there in the sicani there were things that amazed me after that i stormed at him till he told me me the truth, part of it. You don't know how sorry I am for those horrible, unwomanly things I said to you. How could I know? He lied so consistently, even at the last he lied to me, told me that the company man had taken the post by surprise, that we were lucky to get away with our lives. I believed that until I saw you find that money. Then I knew that he had sold you

out, his partner. I've been a little beast, she sobbed, and I've been afraid to tell you. Oh, you don't know how much I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid. I'm not afraid now. If you are going to strike out alone, I shall go too. He bent and kissed her gravely. The northwest is no place for me, Jess, he said. I cannot cross him.

in the winter without being seen or trailed, and there is no getting out of that jail break. If I am caught, I must go over the mountains, and so to the south, where there are no police. You cannot come. Bolton and Bob will see you safe to St. Louis. If nothing happens, I shall be there in the spring. She laid her head against his breast and sobbed, wailing over him. before us all. I bit my lip at the sight, and putting my pride in my pocket went over to them. "'Beroux,' I said, "'I don't, and probably never will, understand a woman. "'You win, and I wish you luck. But unless you hold a grudge longer than I do,

there's no need for you to play a lone hand. Let the dead past bury its dead, and we will all go over the mountains together. I have no wish to take a chance with the police again, myself. You and Bolton seem to forget that I'm just as deep in the mud as you are in the mire. Barrow stood looking fixedly at me for a few seconds. Then he held out his hand, and the old, humorous smile that had been absent from his face for many a day once more wrinkled the corners of his mouth.

Bob, he said, I reckon that you and I are hard men to beat at any game we play. That, to all intents and purposes, ends my story. We did cross the mountains and traverse the vast, silent slopes that fall away into the blue Pacific.

Bolton had gilded the palm of the Hudson's Bay Company in his search for me. and so they considerably dropped their feud with barrow at least there was no more shooting of dogs nor any effort to discover the money that cost montel his life or perhaps they judged it unwise to meddle with a party like ours so by wide detour we came at last to st louis there barrow and jesse were married and departed thence upon their honeymoon when their tremoon when their train had pulled out i went with bolton back to his office in the bank he seated himself in the very chair he had occupied the day i came and saddled the burden of my affairs upon him he cocked his feet up on the desk lighted a cigar and leaned back well robert he finally broke into my meditations how about this school question have you decided where are you going to try for a b a and when what about it i can take up college any time i responded just now well i'm going to the ranch

a season in the cow camps will teach me something and i would like to run the business just as my father did i don't think i'll slip back so that i can take up study again anyway the schools have no monopoly of knowledge there is a wonderful lot of things i've discovered that a fellow has to teach himself he surveyed me in silence a few minutes his cigar pointed rakishly aloft his eyes half shut then he took the weed between his thumb and forefinger and delivered himself of this sapient observation you'll do bob as a matter of fact the north made a man of you i made no answer to that i could not help reflecting a trifle bitterly that there were penalties attached to the attaining of manhood in my case at least the end end of chapter nineteen end of the land of frozen sons by bertrand w sinclair