Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1926-01-29

not lift their flying canoe, then lay be-
fore them.
AS they padded toward the carry
above the laundering Frying Pan,
Steele asked the Indian whose eyes
ceaselessly searched the shore below
them: Have these rapids ever been
runY'
mo! Dey are ver' bad cen some
place." muttered David.
Gould we run them?"
The Indian shook his head.
"Then why did you insist on our
having our setting poles handyY"
David did not answer.
you're wasting your time watching
that portage" laughed Steele.
Still the Ojibway ignored the man
in the stern. Then the scotfer sud-
denly wondered why the bowman was
edgng the nose of the boat, as they
drifted, away from the carry A
thrill shot through him. Had David
seen something suspicious?"
The boat was fast approaching easy
rife range. With his paddle buried,
the Indian, Stimulating leiSurely ac-
ton, and followed by Steele, was rap
idly adding to the distance between
the canoe and the shore. But to the
straining eyes of the American the
scrub told nothing.
what is it? | can't make anything
out" demanded Steele.
Back from the low came: keep
on paddle; dey are dere!"
The words froze Steele where he
kneeled
On drifted the craft, ever edging
farther and farther from the ambush
Stiff as stone knelt the man in the
bow, outthrust arms rigid, eyes an
chored to the beach, wrists alone in
f1ercely gripping his paddle, Steele,
marveling. at the Ojibway's nerve,
waited for his order. A hundred
yards more and the suck of the first
chute would draw them into the Fry
ing Pan. The boat was now passing
the portage, yet the rifles on the
shore were silent Then Steele un-
derstood. The plan was to drown
hem.
"Can we run it?" he called, above
thunder of the whitewater. mus
cles set In a croucn nerves raw WIFE
suspense.
"Down, flat !"
With a fierce lunge of his blade,
David swung the nose of the craft
toward the beach as an Indian rose
to his feet in the low scrub. In mock
cry of his victims the assassin
laughed as he deliberately raised his
rife. But the Mannlicher with the
lone shell spat first and the surprised
Ojibway crumpled where he stood.
Down." cried David. A rifle ex-
ploded on the shore, and the men in
the boat again flattened, as a bullet
splintered the gunwale. Then, caught
in the pull of the first pitch, the canoe
slid sidewise, until Strengthened by
the lunge of two paddles, and nosed
down, out of range Of the beach, into
the white half-mile of the boiling Fry
ing Pan.
The thought of two women who
would wait for his coming-the moth
er at home and the girl far on the
Wailing-wait while two battered
bodies lay stiff in the ice somewhere
along the Jacktish, flashed through
Steeles brain, then the battle was on.
AS the boat shot down the first
fiume, the stark despair which had
gripped Steele when they had been
sucked into the head Of the rapid,
gave way to desperate hope. For 1t
was clear, from the insistence of
David on the poles being free in the
boat, that he had foreseen the posi-
bility of being driven into the Frying
Pan. He believed the fight to get
through worth making.
On leaped the canoe, like a runaway
horse, ever seeking the black water
channels, hanging momentarily on the
lip Of disaster, only to be lifted and
swung off by the pole of the fighting
bowman; burying its nose in the
spume Of broken water, to rise shake
free, and plunge on into the white riot
beyond.
Finally, as the rock walls Of the
gorge swept past in a gray blur to
eyes which hunted the water trail