Part 11 (2/2)

Early in the afternoon, the proe of papers and the pipe arrived The prisoner, who, like all northern woodsmen, found a pipe his boon coht it

Somehow, the brier would not draw, and McTavish iate In the small cavity thus exposed, he saw an obstruction which, when dug out with a pin, proved to be a sheet of thin paper, very carefully rolled

Straightening it out, Donald saw pencil-les

There were V's and U's placed in any of four positions, and queer symbols that rese else

For a moment, he stared perplexed, and then e froe the old Indian could use--the Cree symbols into which the Bible had been translated by the zealouswinter nights at Fort dickey, Peter Rainy had taught his superior to read and write in this obsolete fashi+on

Now, Donald bent to the work The first words ca easily And this, freely translated, is what he saw:

I will be athe old beaver trail, froht after Miss Jean's departure until the tenth If you do not coo back to Fort dickey and return for you when your month is up There is work for you to do I have a clew as to Miss Jean, but you must act at once if you expect to save her I have sawed the bars of youralh at the bottom When in the woods callread, Donald McTavish an to smoke furiously

CHAPTER X

THE ESCAPE

It was the old battle between love and duty The pile of covered newspapers lay unheeded beside the young man's chair He pictured Jean Fitzpatrick in every conceivable peril of the winter on those desolate barrens--as the prisoner of Indians, of trappers, as the prey of wild beasts, as the prey of men He writhed at his impotence, and cursed the day that had seen his rescue on Death Trail Better a skeleton without flesh, he thought, than a living being whose every thought tortured hi in the idea of escape that see, he must take his medicine; if he had failed, heto the decrees of his superior That was the discipline in hi to the discipline of Fitzpatrick It was the iron McTavish to the fore rather than the passionate flesh-and-blood McTavish

A griht of Laura, the factor's daughter, innocently placing in his hands the ht her father's coht react to her own loss

The thing that at last decided Donald was the abiding sense of injustice that had all along burned in hi confinement Had he been actually unfaithful to duty, he would have put the thought of escape away harshly As it was, the inherent fear of that great, inevitable Juggernaut, the Company, stirred in him But he crushed it down resolutely This was an affair of persons, not of coht was the fifth after Jean's departure There wasthe rendezvous on tiht

The manner Peter Rainy had indicated was the only feasible one for escape The room in which the captive was confined was one of so wall that surrounded the post

Across the narrow corridor that connected the row of rooms on the inside, the heavy hly At the end of the corridor, a stout door was locked and bolted at night, so that during the dark hours the as the only , after breakfast, Donald called the old Indian servant to him

”Michael,” he said, ”this Is just the time for me to do some work on my outfit My fur suit is badly in need of repair, and one ofnear the curl I want to be all shi+p-shape whentheave the youngthese men that his jailer had often declared he could leave the doors unlocked and still have a prisoner in theNow, Donald was about to blast this old ed his shoulders helplessly, however, and thought no more on the subject Once his decision had been made, he would hold fast by it to the end

McTavish had spoken truly His hunting suit of white caribou was badly frayed and worn after his blind wanderings in the forest, and not only did one snowshoe need restringing, but both were loose from his frequent aard falls Even old Michael, whose eyes eak, could see these things

With _atibisc_--fine, tough sinews of the caribou--Donald strung the defective toe, and thenthe center webbing of _aski of his clothes was a comparatively simple matter by means of needle and thread

All day he worked at this, so planning that evening should find the task uncompleted, as an excuse for Michael to leave the equipan to fall shortly before sundown, and McTavish was robbed of the stars for guidance once he should be free But the heavy, swirling curtain of flakes made his work inside the fort much easier At dinner-time, the wind had risen, and the storm outside was of such fury that only the hardiest Indian or trapper would have ventured out in it This gave the captive soo now, or else lose his opportunity

As was his custo with a few cronies in a near-by room until about ten o'clock Then, he let his friends out of the corridor, and securely fastened the door behind them with lock and bolt After that, he looked into McTavish's room, to find the Scotchood-night, he shut and locked the door, and shuffled on to his own quarters

Immediately, now, Donald dressed himself quickly, and then put out the lalow on the snow outside Presently, the light in Michael's roo the floor noiselessly in his moccasins, sat down in his chair, and smoked his new pipe, for the better part of an hour By that ti, varied heezes and whines, attested that Michael was asleep

Forthwith, Donald stepped cautiously to theHe was fully acquainted with its peculiarities; he had studied thelass set into a fra To escape, he would have to push thebodily from its frame