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WNU SERVICE
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(Copyright by W. G. ®hapman)
I MEME AERERERERRARREERERERNRNNR
DELIRIUM
SYNOPSIS. —Lee Anderson, Roy-
al Canadian Mounted Police ser-
geant, is sent to Stony Range to
arrest a man named Pelly for
murder. He is also instructed to
look after Jim Rathway, reputed
head of the "Free Traders,” filicit
liquor runners, At Little Falls
he finds Pelly Is credited with
having found a gold mine, and
Is missing. At the hotel appears
a girl, obviously out of place In
the rough surroundings. A half-
bread, Plerre, and a companion,
“Shorty,” annoy the girl An-
derson interferes in her behalf.
The girl sets out for Siston Lake,
which Is also Andefson’s obiec-
tive. He overtakes her and the
two men with whom he had trou-
ble the night before. She Is sus-
picious of him and the two men
are hostile, Pierre and Shorty
ride on, Anderson and the girl
following In the hills the road
is blown up, before and behind
the two. Anderson, with his
horse, is hurled down the moun-
tain side, senseless Recovering
consciousness, Anderson finds
the girl has disappeared, but he
concludes she is alive prob-
the power of Pierre and
On foot he n his
way to Siston Lake. he
finds his compani¢ day
before, and Rathv a girl,
Estelle, a former swee
Anderson's, who had ab
confidence and alme
Rathway strikes
fter a fight An
's help, escapes
Anderson's ot
clouded and =
with a dial
nn sets the
and
ably in
Shorty akes
There
the
yt
ler
cate
knee
CHAPTER VI—Continued
re Drm
joint into
body ceased
slipped position,
its protest, and
rose, the perspiration streaming
is face,
Trembling in the tion
fro
nervous reac
|
Lee
the motor
im the istened to
struggle,
increasing
increasing
noise of
again
It rose t a ro as it passed
along
front
immediately
nated
Leaving
The
shore o
the reeds
and two other
he
discovery was only
ne, decided that it would
hoat and
underbrush
he
abandon
where in
boat had
he
F 10 escape to the
the
the
not
return
been found
with
niand
could
were discovered,
NO Worse,
e strapped one of the packs abont
I thus
the
It ite
opposite
picked up the girl, and,
proceeded tl
making for the
where he put the girl down in
tan
bered., rough
brush,
vity where the growth was
Removing the tin
water and poured some down
l throat. [le noted that the
ng reflex was present, a fa-
vorahle sign in unconsciousness, as he
had learned at the front.
Toward the middie of the afternoon
sun, which had shone brilliantly
ughout the morning, went perma-
behind the clouds, Another
snowstorm was beating up. A few
soft finkes began to fall.
Suddenly a distant hubbub broke
out and continued. There was no mis-
taking what was meant. The York
board had been discovered,
The Free Traders began to beat
across the Island, calling one an-
other. Their voices gradually sounded
nearer. Crouching beside the girl In
the thick of the brush, Lee waited. At
a distance he saw two of them pass
through the trees and disappear. The
shouting died away.
As soon as they
leaving the girl where she lay, Lee
slipped softly through the under
growth, making his way back to the
sandy His expectations
confirmed. The York had
the
thre
nently
to
had passed him,
spit, were
boat dis
fppeared.
Reascending the spruce tree, he saw
York boats moored to the
motor boat in mid-channel, a man with
a rifle seated in it on guard,
They were trapped on the island.
Lee made his way back, and waited
while the afternoon wore away. The
snow fell thicker. He took off his
mackinaw and placed it over the girl.
She was no longer In a coma, but
senl-conscious, and unaware of her
«rroundings., She muttered and
tossed ; sometimes It was all Lee could
to to qulet her. And the disjointed
fragments of speech that fell from her
lips Mdicated the same mental an
guigh that she had revealed to him
during their ride through the range,
He shuddered to think of her mental
agony Lf she had awakened to find
the two
herself a prisoner in Rathway's power
at the promontory.
And even in the darkness of their
desperate situation, he drew new hope
from his resolution. And gradually his
plans formed in his mind.
Then night began to fall, and Lee
breathed a vast sigh of relief. Un-
less his plans miscarried, they should
he safe upon the mainland well before
midnight.
These depended, of course, upon his
being able to capture one of the bogts.
The best plan for the Free Traders
would have been to have withdrawn
them to the promontory, knowing
that Lee could not swim with the girl
across that stretch of lce-cold water.
Lee felt sure that, in thelr eagerness,
feeling their numbers, they
the shore, either
or leaving them
the single guard in the
secure in
upon
boats
encamp
beaching the
after dark he
half an
on his
hour
About
out investigations.
brush as softly as
hooted though he was,
under his feet
the
were
any Indian, and
twig erackled
Making his w
toward central
trees
where
and the ound lating, he
discovered hat
distant glow
Four
looking
of a camp
seated
ha was
fire,
men were
» one
awakened
sjointedly,
It wad al-
KOM
ning. Fu
assuage
ook up his task.
Now the campfire came [nto view. The
it,
were
ree Leo t
four men ill vigible about
ling; they
not drunk enough to
wit
hout a fight possible
shouting
drunk, but
der escape
Imaost inch by inch, to the
raspberry brambles, Lee
down to the water's edge
He looked at
her apprehensively for a moment, but
her eyes were closed in sleep and her
breathing was soft and regular.
Then coolly Lee stepped out into the
open space and made his way toward
the group.
He was within five and twenty yards
of them before they perceived him, and
then they seemed to take him for one
of their party. Lee's Impressions were
oe confused shouting and challenging
His coolness disconcerted and bewild-
ered them; he was almost upon them
before Plerre recognized him,
“By gar, it's dat dn
flusher !” he shouted.
And on the instant Lee was into the
thick of them. A tall rufian grasped
a rifle and rushed at him. Lee fired.
The man, through the hand,
dropped the rifle, and, uttering a howl
of pain, took to his heels in the under
growth,
A second man
Lee brought the
Creeping. o
extension of
followed It
four-
shot
alming at him.
hutt of his pistol
down upon his head, and the man,
collapsing in a mumbling heap, lay
face upward upon the ground. Shorty
was pulling desperately at a gun, Lee
swung at him, missed his skull, but
knocked him sidewise with a blow
that lald his cheek open to the bone.
Shorty dropped and lay still,
Pierre, who had made no movement
of aggression, was staring at Lee
stupidly.
“Hands up, d-n you!" Lee shouted.
Pierre's arms went up to their full
height. Lee frisked him, took his
gun, took Shorty's and the third man's,
and tossed them into the undergrowth
as far as he could fling them. He
stooped and picked up the rifle that
the first man had dropped. And,
within a few seconds of the opening
mele¢, Lee found himself, by virtue
of the surprise, master of the situation.
was
jut there was no time to be lost,
for the tall ruffian who had fled was
howling somewhere along the shore,
and all depended upon the nearness of
the motor boat. Lee, covering Plerre,
had lald the girl. He picked her up
and ran toward the boat with her,
Instantly Plerre's figure was blotted
out in the dar¥ness.
Lee had set down the rifle when he
picked up the girl; he placed her in
the bottom of the boat, ran back and
found it and threw it Inside, together
with the pack from his shoulders, He
ralsed the heavy anchor. He threw all
his welght against the boat, which re.
ceded In a trall of viscous mud until
it was afloat, Lee leaped In,
the oars, fired another shot in
ing. All the the
was howling along the
Lee desperately
till
seized
warn.
while
shore,
pushed with the
oars he was in deeper water,
furiously for I-ehannel
he did so there came
motor boat
Picked Up the Girl. He Placed Her
in the Boat, Ran Back and Found It
and Threw It Inside, Together With
the Pack From His Shoulders.
was wounded. But at all cost he must
reach that nearing, welcome shore, He
felt the wet blood trickling down him
His breath was coming in short gasps.
He hent to the oars with all his reso
lution set upon the completion of that
Journey. At last the shore seemed to
reach out to him, the forests parted,
the distant shouts died away. He ran
the boat aground.
Lee's brain seemed preternaturally
acute, In that moment he did not for-
get the pack, but, snatching it from
the ‘bon, leaped ashore, and, running
some fifty yards, placed it carefully In
the brush at the base of a tall pine.
He ran back, picked up the girl, and,
carrying her in his arms, began to
make his way into the thick of the
forest. 4
And all the while he ran, he was
weighing everything. The Free Trad-
ers would not know that he was
wounded, they would certainly aban.
don the pursuit as hopeless; he must
carry the girl a mile into the forest,
where the light of thelr fire would not
betray them, returning for the pack in
the morning. He suffered no pain,
and seemed momentarily endowed
with some extraordinary vitality, but
there wns a numbness in his side
which seemed to be spreading upward,
He had no idea how serious the
wound was; everything that was him.
self was set upon the completion of
the last phase of his task, so that, if
he died, the girl should at least come
back to consciousness in the forest
and not In Rathway's hands,
He struggled on, felt himself wedk-
ening. felt himself choking, and set
down the girl in order to draw breath,
But as he ralsed her again, he felt
a sudden stab of agonizing palin, and
something grated beneath his heart,
He realized then that the rifle bullet
had split of his ribs, probably
glancing off again, and that the bone
bad given way under the strain of the
one
for a
WHE not
On the
growing
now
In a this reassured him,
glancing wound of that kind
likely be a
other hand, the agony
unendurable, Every
torture. Three or four times, when It
way
to serious one,
was
step was
seemed impossible to proceed, Lee was
forced to set the girl down and, lean.
ing agaipst a tree, to gasp for breath
Eternities
his left
pain,
throughout his
seemed to be passing
a flaming
the
Wis now
side
which radiated from
body,
coming automaton,
Vas no longer
control ov
felt that
Lee knew
But the
Asad
Estelle
end for
It was a quee i
talked, the fra ‘ of ther
Le
wilon of his personality
recalling to mind all
queer things, quite trivial and unim
portant episodes of ti en
tanglement
| ; i
had once been, and ¢ discovered
that
was
he
this lost p
sorts of
mt unhappy
And so one part of him held colloquy
with the shade of
now nothing to him, while the
held the unconscious girl, and
the lagging body onward.
And to his horror, In that dim light
the girl he clasped seemed to take on
the aspect of Estelle, and he found it
was to her that he was talking.
But then he heard her moan slightly,
This was
not Estelle, it was his comrade of the
range whom he was carrying. The
phantom disappeared into the past, and
once more Lee was aware of that odd
sense of tender companionship. He
rested her head more gently against
his shoulder.
At Inst, when he was satisfied that
he had gone the mile he had set him-
self, he laid the girl down gently on
the ground, and, breaking off some
spruce branches, he made a bed for
her and wrapped her in his mackinaw
again.
And with
do to hold himself together while he
examined his own wound as best he
could,
He saw that it was a mere flesh
wound. The bone had taken the force
of the bullet, which had glanced off,
and one broken end was working into
the flesh,
He tore some strips from his shirt,
and having brought the ends into po-
sition, bound them tightly. And then
he dropred to the ground at the girl's
feet and lapsed immediately into a
delirious slumber.
CHAPTER VII
The Girl Awakens
And all that night it was the will
that sustained the worn-out body In
that fight up through the darkpess
the woman who was
other
drove
»
nnd the knowledge that he must re
tain intact the thread of consciousness
if he was to save the girl from the
filternative between death in the for-
est and recapture,
At earliest dawn he must retrieve
the pack, In case Rathway's men
should declde to beat about the shore
and perhaps, might find it. Be.
yond that point he would not let his
anticipations carry him.
It was some time before the dawn
when Lee heard the girl ery out sud.
denly, a moan of pain and of surprise
as the body, heavy with its coma,
struggled to convey the of dis
tress the dazed mind
That cry drove the phatftoms of dell-
rium from mind, pulling
back to counsclousness, and in an In
stant the girl's side, per-
fectly master of himself, and, as she
stirred and murmured, he raised her,
put arms about her, and took her
head upon his shoulder, as tenderly as
if she
wounded upon patrol.
But as he listened to her broken nt
terances Lee realized that it
than pain that
ing her
KO,
sense
to
Lee's him
Lee was at
his
were some boy comrade,
was
more
physical Wig torinent
on, It
I must go bac
“] cannot go was too heavy
If vou
u price
ne away. |
His
Carrs
axe in «
if pine branches,
roug!
haul the
an hour's
me hot
ber «
on
which to
rough
to
and
work
the
girl,
She sleeping naturally, and
there was a faint tinge of color In her
cheeks After a
about the task of making
gathered brushwood and built a fire
he put on to boil the pot which he had
brought back full of water. And, hav.
ing on the return journey discovered a
small, clear stream near by, he decided
that that would be a safe camping
place until they could proceed, and
accordingly bent down some saplings
and proceeded to thatch them with
branches, to make a shelter for them.
He had just begun when he heard a
low call behind him. The girl was
awake and conscious at last. She was
looking at him in wonder, but not in
fear.
woods brought
was
ghort rest Lee set
camp.
Of course the girl's delirious
utterances mean nothing. What
will the forlorn couple do next?
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
Inconvenient “Currency”
Economists tell leurnediy why money
makes the commercial world go round.
but a Parisian opera singer of a decade
ago learned the lesson in one classic
experience. She was determined to
tour the world thoroughly and she
stopped over in the Society Islands,
where her manager tontracted to have
her sing for one-third the receipts. Her
ghare of “the box office” was 38 pigs,
29 turkeys. 44 chickens, 5.000 covo
nuts and an uscomputed quantity of
bananas and oranges, She couldn’
cotivert her proceeds; the natives had
no money. She fed the fruit to the
animals and donated her barnyard to
the community when she sailed away.
0O0000O000OCOOOOOOOO00O0O0
HOW TO KEEP
WELL
DR. FREDERICK R. GREEN
Editor of “HEALTH”
(Gh 1926, Western Newspaper Union.)
STOMACH ULCERS AND
BAD TEETH
stomach Is Compara
partly
are
Many
called
LCER
tively
of the
common This Is
the fact that
due 10 i more
recognized today than formerly,
Casen
cases of what used to be
“chroni dyspepsia,”
American
known to
regarded as a
typical disease, are now
be ulcers of the stom;
Or
duodenum
In many cases the
the
that
symptoms
a% rie! $ . § |
and iicerations de
IWIN
ttention
to
DEATH RATE IN COUNTRY
riers at
the oot
living ®ix years longer than she
if she in the city
DO
gua
while
}
Dorm
were
the country child
the
could
pels a
start child. If the
be Kept
on City
tage
premacy of the country over the cl
Unfortunately, it isn't kept
some very important diseases
leath rate In the country is much high
er than in the city. What's the use of
in the country and having
a longer life ahead of you at birth, if
you are going to this advantage
a8 soon you come up against the
lisa ses childhood?
up
the
lose
as
of
The death
ior
than among city
the country
scarlet
cough,
country
rate for hooping
among
On the other
sth rate for
and diphtheria
ath rate
shows a
for
COT
instance, ig higher
iren
iid de
fever
City
death rate
The only treatment
that is of any value
alr, sunshine,
food. Al
abundantly in
Yet the eaun
rate Is higher
measles,
in the child de
The tuber
is lower ti
iingis
curious fact
tuberculosis
sints of fresh
nourishing
cusier
country than in the city
try death
than the city rate,
Smallpox kills more people in the
rountry than in the eity. probably on
account of the neglect of vaccination
influenza 8 also more fatal In the
country. But heart disease (excem
angina), Bright's disense and all other
Lidney diseases, are much more com
mon In the city than In the country.
Suicide and wurder sre mnch wre
common in the cities, hut deaths by
drowning. burning, gunshot wounds
rmilrond accldents. lightning and ex
cesgive cold sre all more conunen Ir
the country.
and
found
the
rest
these are
and more
tubercalosis