Four Flush Island

Taranaki Daily News, 23 March 1935, Page 23 (Supplement)

Four Flush Island

(by

L. C. Douthwaite)

CHAPTER VI (continued.) "I shall be fftdst awfully pleased to help, Miss Wayne,” he said in the rather shy way she liked. to iftftdh. She gathered up gldves and vanity bag. “Then We won’t keep Mr. from his Work,” she said. “There’s a perfect herd of litigants in the downstairs office.”

It seemOd & long-drawn Out job, this purchase of outfit The best shop for the various articles appeared to be so Widely distributed, fatiguing journeys which necessitated lunch and tea as restorative, and upon more than one occasion a theatre in the evening. However, as by this time Natalie had dually severed her’ Connection with Ponsonby’s, they had all the time they needed. She enjoyed every moment of those days. Spending money was a novelty, and the outfit suggested by Kit’S expert knowledge fen intriguing one. And if in the bustle of that last fortnight all thought of danger ahead passed from her mind, Kit was the last to remind her df it. Once he had overcome his original shyness she found in him the ideal partner. Even his diffidence was rather refreshing. Apart from a distrust for sudden friendship, she had found the exhuberent self-sufficiency of post-war youth rather dverwhelming. There wfeS more to Kit ChaiftpheyS, she found, than he allowed to appear on the surface. She felt that behind his diffidence Was a Code from Which nothing Could petsiiadd him. Another quality that appealed was his faculty for brushing aside irrelevancies in order to reach the real heart Of a question. And She found he had a delightful sense df humour.

Tlie fteardst Shfe arrived to direct questioning as to his deeupatton was a few days before she sailed. They Were lunching at The Lotus Flower, in Soho, a discovery of their Own upon which they rather prided themselves. Across the aisle a man was lunching at a table by himself. Natalie pointed him out. “Who does he remind you of?” she asked.

Kit gave a quick glance and Said promptly: “StagSden—pnly the Chap across the way looks cleaner-cut.” It was this reminder that brought recollection of her interview with Stagsden and the man Platt. . With a keenness of observation she had noticed ih him before, Kit added reassuringly. “You needn’t worry about Stagsden. He’s a cheap little crook, anyway Without the gu— courage to make hitoself refelly objectionable.” “How do you know that?” she asked.

“Oh—just heard it,” he said vaguely, and neither then or later .made atty allusion to his own occupation. She felt that he had some reason for this reticence, so made no effort to force his confidence.

But Kit said when they met the following morning: “There’s a place I particularly want to take you io. Also, I want you to come with me right now.” “What place is that?”'Natalie inquired with interest. . Kit grinned. “All the jolly fun!” he Said. “You’ll come away burdened with bags Of nuts fdr yourself and nice pink omamen’s for the parlour mantlepiece. Or should, anyway, if the proprietor knows his business.”

The taxi stopped at an establishment in a street between Leicester Square and Charing Cross, and with a nod to the man at the counter Kit ushered her through a door that led to a long narrow room at' the back, where a tall thin man in shirt sleeves and apron was cleaning a rifle. He greeted Kit with a grin. “Good-morning Albert,” Kit said cheerily. “A Colt .45 and fifty rounds, please. And bung up * target.” The weapon was brought, and raising it slowly from the hip, Kit scored a bull. Then he raised it more quickly and Scored another. At the sixth and last Shot the action of raising.fend firing was so swift as to appear simultaneous. Then, having reloaded, he handed the revolver to Natalie.

“Now you try,” he instructed. “Bring it up from the hip, not down from the shoulder . . . Steady!” As she pressed the trigger the weapon seemed to leap in her hand, so that the shot went high. But after twenty rounds or so she had less difficulty in keeping on the target. “Splendid!” Said Kit. “That’s enough for to-dfey; we’ll try again to-morrow.” To her surprise shooting appeared to come natural to her, and within ten days she would have backed herself to Shoot within a four inch circle at any range within sixty feet. The accomplishment gave her a new sense of security. After the Ifest lesson Kit made her a present Of the smaller and lighter weapon he had advised her to use as soon as she became accustomed to the practice, a Wesly Richards which, though short barrelled, was of fairly heavy calibre. “Thanks most awfully,” Natalie said gratefully. And then, though she had realised his object all along; “But what’® it for?” she inquired. “Oh—just in case,” Kit said lightly. “In case of what?” she persisted. She wanted him to formulate, not so much What he intended to guard against, as his idea of the danger. “It's a hundred to one precaution,” he told her comfortingly. “I don’t suppose for a moment you’ll ever see either Stagsden or that man Platt again. Only, if you did, or rather do, aftd need a revolver, you’ll need it pretty badly. In which case don’t hesitate to use it.” “I won’t,” Natalie assured him.

A ffew days later, as she mounted the gangway of the C.P.R. steamer at

Liverpool, she was aware of. a figure which, leaning over the rail and peering intently towards her, struck her with a sense Of familiarity, and with that familiarity a vague apprehension. A moment later she saw that it was Mike Stagsden! CHAPTER VII. A NEW FRIENDSHIP. Natalie had always revelled in the sea, and after two or three years without a holiday the voyage came aS an especial delight. Putting /disturbing thoughts aside, she set herself to enjoy it to the utmost. Her companions at meals were a doctor and Mrs. Malcolm, with whom she stfUCk up a friendship, and. with them she spent most of her time. Mrs. Malcolm, a comfortably proportioned matron of fifty with a mass of perfectly white hair and a humorous mouth, constituted herself a kind of unofficial chaperone. To Natalie she had the additional attraction of having been born and bred in the frontier town of Lurgen’s Landing, and thus had fifst-haftd knowledge Of the wilder region in which Natalia was so interested, and concerning which her inquiries were persistent. At first, apparently, the older woman regarded, the girl’s intensive cross-ex-amination only as the usual interest area which it is a common mistake to regard as having figured largely in adventurous fiction, At last, however, on an afternoon towards the end of the Voyage, she spoke more personally.

“Whenever the North West’S mentioned, as certain as a compass needle turns to the pole, the thoughts of you English fly to Alaska and the Yukon,” she observed. “That’s because you’ve been fed Jack London and Robert Service?’ She turned a shrewd but kindly eye on Natalie. “Lurgen’s Landing is in northern Manitoba,” she said. “How far do you figure that is fronv—say—Skagway or DaWsdn City, that’s had so much ink spilled over ’em?” Natalie smiled. “I’m afraid I’ve never given it a thought,” she said. “Hdw fat is it, anyway?” . Mrs. Malcolm waived the question for a moment No nation is more keenly patriotic than the Canadian bdrn, and to her, as to the majority of her countrymen, the ignorance of the average Briton concerning the topography of our greatest and wealthiest Dominion was a continual source of astonishment. “Go get an atlas from the library,” she instructed, and when a few minutes later Natalie returned with the volume, proceeded to demonstrate her point. “There’s Alaska,” she pointed out, “right on the west coast, and here—” she moved her forefinger a few inches to the right, “Is my home town—if you can call it a town though I used to think it the place where the world’s axle protruded—close Up against Hudson’ Bay, which is the east coast. But it’s twothree thousand miles from there to where all the stories are written about?’

“Why the literary neglect?” Natalie inquired. “Because, until a fevz years ago, it wasn’t opened out. No gold runs, like there was in Alaska and the Yukon. It was the writers who followed in the wake of the prospectors that made all the talk. The same thing’ll happen in the Hudson’s Bay area before long.” By this Doctor Malcolm had joined them, and it was he who took up the tale. “I share the same office block in Montreal with one of the most prominent mining engineers in Canada,”, he said. “He tells me that Northern Manitoba’s going to prove one of the richest mineral areas in the world—gold, silver, nickel and copper.” He turned to her shrewdly. “You seem interested, young lady,” he said. Natalie was not given to promiscuous confidences, but she both liked and trusted this kind and cheery couple. Besides, there was no reason why she should keep her destination secret. “I am,” she said at last. “I’m going there to live.”

For one startled moment the doctor’s wife scrutinised her; took in her deceptively fragile beauty aftd correspondingly fragile afternoon frock, (a Bond Street extravagance decided upon at the last moment especially fdr the voyage), and the air of fastidiousness which two years in Bloomsbury lodgings and stuffy offices in Aldersgate had been powerless to diminish. Then she sniffed in the half-dry, half-derisive fashion with which it was her habit to greet anything she considered of dubious sense or practicability.

"Where?” she inquired. “It’s a pretty big proposition, that area.” , Natalie produced the yellow-covered C.P.R. map she had carried since her first interview with Mr. Champneys.

“There,” she said, pointing to the indentation made by her fork in the New Oxford Street restaurant.

The Canadian woman’s Dahns and eyebrows shot upwards in amazement. “There!” she repeated. What in the name of goodness . . Omitting atty reference to the attempts that had been made to buy her property, Natalie gave a categorical account of her legacy, and the life from which that strange benefaction had rescued her.

“After an atmosphere of bricks and mortar and ink and dust,” she declared, “I’m going to see if the wide spaces come up to the caption writers’ advertise-, ments.” She thought for a moment, then added. “And if anyone tries to interfere with me they’ll discover that I can be a very bad-tempered young woman?’ She turned to discover the doctor’s wife looking amused, but resigned. I | (To be continued.)