The L'Anse sentinel., 1923-02-09

Alone"
Bruce" she cried, "come back soon
soon. Don't leave me to die alone.
I'm not strong enough for that"
He whirled, took two PAGES back,
and his arms went about her. He had
forgotten his injury long since. He
kissed her cool lips and smiled into
her eyes. Then ut once the flurries
hid him.
The girl climbed up into the
branches of fir tree. In the thicket
beyond great gray form tackled back
and forth, trying to locate scent that
a second before he had caught but
dimly and had lost. 1t was the Killer,
and his temper was lost long ago In
the whirling snow.
His anger was upon him, partly from
the discomfort of the storm, partly
from the constant, gnawing pain of
three bullet wounds In his powerful
body. Besides, he realized the pres
ence of his old and greatest enemy
those stall, slight forms that had
crossed him so many times, that had
stung him with their bullets, and
whose weakness he had learned.
And then all at once he caught
the scent plain. He lurched forward,
crashed again through the brush, and
walked out into the snow-swept open.
Linda saw his vague outline, and at
first she hung perfectly motionless,
hoping to escape his gaze. She had
been told many times that grizzlies
cannot climb, yet she had no desire
to see him raging below her, reaching,
possibly trying to shake her from the
limb.
He didn't seem to see her. His eyes
were lowered; besides, 1t was never the
grizzly way to search the branches Of
tree. The wind blew the message
that he might have read clearly In the
opposite direction. She saw him walk
slowly across the snow, head low
cred, huge gray ghost In the snow
furries not one hundred feet distant.
Then she saw him pause, with lowered
head.
In the little second before the truth
came to her, the bear had already
turned. Bruce's tracks were some
what dimmed by the snow, but the
Killer interpreted them truly. She
saw too late that he had crossed them,
read their message, and now had
turned into the clouds Of snow to trace
them down.
For an instant she gazed at him In
speechiess horror; and already the
furries had almost obscured his gray
| figure. Desperately she tried to call
his attention from the tracks. She
called, then she rustled the branches
as loudly as she could. But the noise
| of the wind obscured what sound she
made, and the bear was already too
absorbed In the hunt to turn and see
her. AS always, In the nearing pres
ence of a foe, his rage grew upon him.
Sobbing, Linda swung down from
| the tree. She had no conscious plan
of aid to her lover. She only had a
blind instinct TO seek him, to try to
warn him of his danger, and at least
to be with him at the death. The great
tracks of the Killer. seemingly almost
as long as her own arm, made plain
| trail for her to follow. She too struck
of into the storm-swept canyon.
|
And the forest gods who dwell some.
where in the region where the pine
tops taper into the sky, and who pull
the strings that drop and raise the
curtain and work the puppets that are
the players Of the wilderness dramas
saw a chance for great and tragic
Jest In this strange chase over the
snow. The destinies of Bruce, Linds
and the Killer were. already converg
ing on this trail that all three followed
tho path that the runaway horss
Imade In the snow. Only one of thu
great forces Of the war that had beer
waged at Trails End was lacking. and
now he came also.
] Simon Turner had ridden fhts int