Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1904-11-23

ouS VIC SOW IAC VIZ gray TUX tut4I
scared you, and found your rod where
you dropped it. think a mink carried
your trout off-that Is, If you caught
any,"
CHAPTER ~.
THE MYSTERY OF THE WILDER.
NESS.
Martins first impulse had been to
pursue and solve the identity of this
half-brute creature who
had peeped into their campfire circle;
the next, and kindlier one, to avoid
the timid doctor and pay no
heed to It, but 60 on as planned. But
and doing are wide-apart
not always reconciled, and
although Martin was not one whose
mind turned like a weather-vane, yet
while he was cheerfully deceiving DR..
Sol, his thoughts were away In the
shadowy forest, pursuing an ogreish
creature. Neither did his will Danish
this mystery in the least, for when
breakfast was disposed of, tent struck.
canoes loaded, and they padded away
up the Moosehorn, its clutch was still
upon him. All that bright morning,
while they pushed up the winding and
almost currentless stream, now shad-
owed by spruce and then broadening
into long and narrow lakelets, family
rippled and sparkling in the sunlight.
its spectral hand reached out from
every shadowy opening. Over and over
again had he and Levi discussed this
strange visitor, only to fail Of reach
ing any tangible solution or solve any
part of the mystery, and when noon
came, and they halted where short
rapid compelled a carry, Martin had
hard work to keep from making a
clean breast to the doctor Of all he had
seen and imagined. Then, as II to
drive him to confession, here at this
landing he came upon two more mystic
rious discoveries.
They had decided to cook dinner
here, and as usual, while the guides
it, Martin and the doctor
tried for trout. Both made a few
casts in the same pool below the
rapids, and then Martin, leaving his
friend, started up the path that led
the rapids to try in another
pool. With more thought for tracks
than trout he walked slowly, half
STOPPING and scanning every spot where
one might show. None were found un-
til the path ended at the stream once
more, and here, on a bit Of sandy
margin, and as If the creature had
stepped out of the water, were the
same broad and well-marked claw
prints. Then, turning back, now that
he had found the trail, and, with hunt
er's cunning, locating a dozen others,
though SO family defined that only tho
prints of sharp claws were visible in
the hard soil, or bit of moss scratch ed
from a stone showed where the animal
had stepped. All pointed downstream
and were made as the others were--by
a creature walking upright!
Then, leaving the path and crowdins
through the underground to an eddy
ing pool In the rapids, Martin made q
cast It scored, and then another and
still another speckled beauty, was
booked and reeled In, and the keen
zest Of time, place and sport had, for
the moment, obliterated all other
thought, when, in stepping from one
rock to another above, he saw, wedged
between them, curious bit of drift
wood, one end of which seemed to
grin at him. 1t was that that caught
his eye, and STOPPING, he pulled Il
from between the rocks and found Il
to be the handle of broken paddle.
with the knob carved into semblance
Of human skull. So realistic had this
unknown artist tried to be, that he had
inserted row Of small, catlike teeth
In the skulls mouth and dyed the eye
and nose sockets red. The sun and
rain had almost removed this, but the
teeth still held in place. It was a cu-
rious bit of flotsam, evidently tossed
up and caught between the rocks dur.
Ing some freshet, and then left to
bleach in sun and storm. It had seem.
ingly been so exposed for more than
one year, for It was almost white. It
did not appeal to Martin as having any
with the mystery he had
come upon, but merely as the long-ago
Of some eccentric trapper
or hunter thus killing time. Il was q
curio, but when he returned to the ca
noes at call to dinner. he said moth.
ing, but quietly tucked It into the bow
of his canoe.
When dinner was over, the doctor,
who wanted to fish most of the time.
to his pool, Jean began wash
ing the dishes. and then q look and
nod from Martin to Levi were enough.
and together they walked up the path.
"Our friend of last night came down
this way not long ago." asserted Mar
Tin, quietly. pointing to the best-defined
tracks on the streams bank, and now
can you tell me ,When?"
Levi kneeled and studied them well.
Then glancing up to the sun, and back
to where one track just emerged from
the shadow OF an outerowing spruce
bough, he moved up to that and again
bent low.
Yesterday; n late in the afternoon
1T that" he answered.
And 1t was fully ten miles Of almost
wilderness-that u.s. by
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