The Spokane press. [volume] (Spokane, Wash.) 1902-1939, 1910-10-17
THE DANGER TRAIL
Copyright 1910, The Bobbs-Merril Company.
| JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD
Copyright 1910, The BobbsMerri Company

| Wnat JnaC! asked GregSOn,
edging around him curiosly.. 4
Rowland crushed the note in his
hand and thrust it into one of his
pockets.
"A little private affair."" he
laughed. Come, Gregson, let's see
what we can discover"
In the glood outside one of his
hands slipped under his coat and
rested on the butt of his revolver
Until 10 o'clock they mixed casu-
ally among the poulace of LIE Pas.
Half a hundred people had seen
Croisset and his beautiful compan-
ion, but no one knew anything
about them. They had come that
! forenoon on eledge, had eaten
their dinner and supper at the cab
in of Scotch tie cutter named Nc
Donald, and had left on sledge.
"She was the sweetest thing l
ever saw" exclaimed Mrs. Melon
aid rapturously. only she couldn't
talk. Two or three times she wrote
things to me on slip of paper"
Couldn't talk" repeated Greg
son, as the two men walked leas-
urely back to the clearinghouse.
What the deuce do you suppose
/ that means, Jack?"
I'm not supposing," replied
Rowland indifferently. We've had
enough of this pretty face, Greg
son. I'm going TO bed. What time
do we start in the morning."
fn 10
if you're anxious"
81 am. Good night"
Rowland went to his room, but
it was not to sleep. For hours he
sat wide-awake, smoking cigar
after cigar, and thinking. One by
one he went over the bewildering
incidents of the past two days. At
first they had stirred his blood with
a certain exhilaration-a spice OF
excitement which was not at all I'M
pleasant; but with this excitement
there was now a peculiar sense OF
oppression. The attempt that had
already been made on his life, to-
gether with the persistent warn
ing for him to return into the
south began to have their effect.
But Rowland was not a man to
surrender to his fear, if they could
be called fears. He was satisfied
that mysterious peril of some
kind awaited him at the camp on
the Wekusko, but he gave up try
ing to fathom the reason for this
peril, accepting in his business
like way the fact that it did exist,
and that in a short time it would
probably explain itself. The one
puzzling factor which he could not
drive out of his thoughts was the
girl. Her sweet face haunted him.
At every turn he saw it--now over
the table in the opium den, now in
the white starlight of the trail,
again as it had looked at him for
an instant from the sledge. Vamy
he strove to discover for himself
the lurking sin in the pure eyes
that had seemed to plead f6r his
friendship, in the soft lips that had
lied to him because of their silence.
"Please forgive me for what I have
done" she knew that he knew
that she had lied to him, that she
had lured him into the dangT
from which she now wished to save
him. His cheeks burned sf q
thousand perils threatened him ph
the Wekusko he would still gog TIP
would meet the girl again. Despie
his strongest efforts he found itiN-
possible to destroy the visioH n
her beautiful face. The eyesy soF
with appeal; the red mouth, puiv-
ering. and with lips parted as II
about to speak to him; the head as
he looked down on 1t with its glory
of shining hair-all had burned
themselves on his soul in picture
too deep to be eradicated. II the
wilderness was interesting to him
before it was doubly so now be-
cause the secret of its life, Of the
misery that 1t had half confessed
to him. was hidden somewhere out
in the black mystery of the spruce
| and halsam. forests.