The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-11-22

Curt stepped inside and began ex- their duffle. to make sure he had overlooked no label or initial. ing which might give them away to a suspicious prowler. While he was doing this. he heard Paul stop pound; irs ard say Bon soir" to someone. Glancing out the flap iron, ne saw g ciri go past. carrying 0 fsh rod, creel and canoe paddle.
 He had only iieetfna gIfmpsesof her. but that giiinpse made him straighten up and stare. She was wearing a blue corduroy dress. laced moccasins. tam. and a sweater blouse with one elbow worn through.
 Her hair was a brownish golden; she walked along with lance'iike erectness of body: and her face--he saw 1t only in protile-was so beau tiful and so strange in it's type of beauty that he kept staring through the fiap-front for moments after she had gone. by. : When he finished and went out. side she was already out upon the lake in a birchbark canoe. skirling toward a cluster of wooded isiets half a mile offshore. Trouting. he guessed. If she was anything Of a fisherman she ought to snag some big ones in the shadows around those islands: but from the awk. ward way she handled the paddle she was plainly tenderfoot.
 He turned tosPanl. who was watch. ing her too. "Who is she. d'you knowy"
 "A stranger to me. to my regret
 Curt smiled at his rapt gaze. You find her pretty. don't yon? As pretty as p'tite Regina Ducharme at Fort Chipewyan?"
 Almost"
 "Iiumph. That a big admission from you!"
 THE girl disappeared among the
 islands. Curt went on with the camp work. Bending down nearby sapling. he tied their grub pack 10 the top of it and Tipped the sapIing up again. safely caching the supplies from stray huskies.
 He stepped back into the timber to find a dead hirch for fuel. The tropical iuxuriance of the woods amazed him.. even though he had made trips up Juneau way and knew the "drizzle country" well. The pines and cedars were lordly things. eight feet across the stump and towering above two hundred.
 The air was heavy with the odof of summer tiowers banked in great heaps in the open spots. The moss under his feet was like walking on three inches of softest plush. The whole woods was dominated by moss. It carpeted the ground and windfall logs. ran over tue boulders and up the tree trunks. and hung in festoons from the branches.
 "I'm plain lucky.- he thought gratefully. "to be hunting Karakhap in country like this,""
 He pushed over a dead birch. dragged 1t back to camp. and told Paul: "rd better step out to the trading store now and get the hang of things there, so that tonight we can put across the job we talked about. While I'm gone. you can be bringing our canoe from the pier" When he returned. half an hour later. Paul was standing on the'land. wash. The young canAdla1 beekoned him down.
 "That girl oyer among those II. lands is likely to experiences trouble if we don't go over thefe."
 "What's ip?"
 Paul told him. \ few minutes after the girl had padded in among the islands. one of those half-Dreeds had come down the shore. furtively secured a canoe. andSslipped across the water on her trafl. He was drunk. Paul added.
 Curt looked out at those low dim masses and swore in perplexity. If he went over there and interfered he would make an enemy of that half-breed. and 1t was bad policy to have enemies at Russian Lake The girl should have known better than to wander away at twilight when irresponsible men were loaf ing about the post.
 But stiil. she was a girl. alone out there.
 On the rocky tip of an island where the waves lapped close to her moccasins. Sonya was having fine luck with the butterfly lure which oid John Paxton had made for her. In forty minutes she had caught eleven trout. some of them so biz that their tails stuck out of heI creel.s &
 She was conscious of no danger lfCopyriohs 1888. watam 3. SfoUery. | Curt. fomorrouf takAa q haavH