Checkmate!

Northern Advocate, 27 May 1941, Page 2

Checkmate!

OUR NEW SERIAL

(Continued From Last Tuesday)

They were voluble in their directions as to the way he should take, and, voicing loud thanks, he scooped his pile into the canvas bag and made for the door. His sledge was outside, with the dogs all lying about it. “Your huskies are tired.” It was Black Jean speaking and'the stranger nodded. “Yaas, They done some miles, them animals,” he said. “They will breaek down.” “Not them. We’ll hev ter go slow, but we’ll get through.” “Mush! Mush!”

The tired dogs strained to the. sledge and the whole blundered away into the darkness, while the men stood about the door in the shaft of yellow light and watched. And Black Jean remained quite still, looking at his great team of the crack collections of Alaska, and muttered “Diable! His dogs are tired.” They went inside, Tony as well, and it was not until ten minutes afterwards that they discovered Black Jean had vanished, dogs and all.

They had brought him back on his own sledge, almost dead from the blow on his head and the cold, and they laid him out on the floor of the Star of Eve saloon. His bag of gold had vanished.

And so Tony found him when he journeyed to the town on the following morning on an errand for a much chastened Hessey. “’E was right orf the trail,” volunteered one man. “Must have lost his way in the snow.” "He’s bin hit,” said another. “An’ hit almightly hard wi’ sommat. They’ve collared his dust, too.” “Wonder who’s done it ” A man walked into the room and seized Tony’s shoulder. It was Hessey. “What’re yer doin’ ‘ere gaping’?” he demanded. “I’ll ”

He sudenly caught sight of the man on the floor, and, releasing the boy, pressed to the front of the crowd. In answer to his questioning a dozen voices told him of the man’s visit the previous night and of his setting forth on the Leaping River Trail, despite the lateness of the hour.

“Was ’is dogs all tired?” asked Hessey. "Lopin’ badly, an’ wanted plenty of whip?” “Yer right there,” replied one of the men.

“’E passed my shack, an’ he hadn’t gone long afore another came by with Iresh dogs, makin’ a hot pace. By gum! I thought I knew him. There ain’t another team for fifty miles like that second one had. It was Black Jean, or I’m a liar.” A babel of voices rose sudden and ioud, and in the midst of it the sherriff arrived.

They showed him the unconscious man, and Hessey, with much picturesque descriptive matter, told his tale of the two teams that had passed his phack. The sherriff thought awhile. “It’s Black Jean we want,” he suddenly announced. “Boys, we’ll have this Frenchman this trip. I want the finest dogs in the city, an’ two men for cornin’ with me.”

He collected his team, a dog here and a dog there, until he had every crack dog in the place at his disposal, and then, accompanied by two of the toughest members of the community, he headed for the Leaping River. It was nightfall before they brought Jean back, his dogs somewhat tired, yet he himself fresh and smiling. They had had no difficulty in overtaking him for he seemed to have been in no particular hurry to get along. “We found nothing on him,” announced the sheriff to the excited crowd. “An’ he swears he knows nothin’ about it.”

Jean looked round at them all, and his black eyes were sharp and searching. He shrugged his shoulders. "Voila tout,” he said. “You found nothing. I know nothing. I am innocent as the babe, is it not ? You let me go. I’m all for Dawson City.” They shouted against it and called him things unfit to write, and he smiled at them.' Tony pushed through the crowd, suddenly became brave in the face of his friend’s danger. “You didn’t do it, did you?” he aslced. The Frenchman laughed. “Not I,” he said. “I did not see the man since he left this house.” The sheriff put a heavy hand of his shoulder.

“You’re for the lock-up, Jean,” he said. “An’ I reckon you’re for fair trial tomorrer on the charge of attempted murder and highway robbery.” Jean turned on him with a laugh. “Not for attempted murder, Sheriff,” be said. “Jean never attempts anything that he does not do thoroughly.” They led him away and he laughed as he went. Eut Tony, creeping miserably along in the wake of the exultant Hessey, felt as though he had suddenly lost all the happiness the world might have to offer him. “So yer knight in armour’s got it this time, eh?” It was Hessey speaking, and Tony was spreading the table with eating utensils for his supper on their return to the shack late in the evening of the day of Jean’s capture. The boy did not answer him, and Hessey smiled grimly. “Reckon he won’t be for helpin’ distressed boys for a long while yet. An’ don’t forget I’ve got it up agenst you an’ ’im fer the whip.” His voice suddenly dropped to a harsh grating sound terrible to hear. “For every blow from the French-, man you’ll be getting six. Six ! D’yer ’ear?” He suddenly made a rush to the wall and snatched down a long husky whip. Crack!! The thong shot out like a live thing, and curled round the quivering boy’s body. Tony reeled back against the wall and Hessey came after him, raising the whip aloft as he did so. What might have happened then cannot be told, but just at that second the door opened and a man slid in, soft and swift—a red men, clad roughly in skins made up in wild, fantastic shapes—a man whose lean face showed him to be a full-blooded Indian. “How?” he said. Hessey’s arm dropped to his side, and he turned like a flash. “Yukon Billy !” “Me!” “Me want talk. Just business. Plain straight talk. Right home like White man. No hanky.” To Be Continued).