The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-12-01
Chapter l5
MIDNIGHT SEARCH
"TWELvE.THIRTY. Paul." sai

ADVERTISEMENT. Paul." said
 Curt. "'Te'd better start; our jobll take us an hour or more. This rain is our good luck-every- body'll be indoors"
 They stepped outside. The rain still beat down. but the thunder heads with their livid flashes had passed on east. so that there was no danger of the lightning betraying them. The cabins and Indian tepees were all dark.
 They went out the path to the Bay establishment. The store. twenty steps from Higginbotham's resi- dence, was entirely dark. but to Curtis disappointment there was a light in the house. From a window on the north side a yellow shaft streamed out into the rainy black ness.
 Leaving Paul at the fur press. he circled around to the north side and crept up behind cord of wood. He dared not rise and look over the rick: the light would glsten on his wet slicker and give him away. Feel ing about with his fingers, he located loose stick. pulled it out and made an aperture large enough to peer through.
 The room was Sonya Nichols. With a chair drawn close to the window, Sonya was looking out into the night, an elbow on the window sill. The candle on the dresser turned her hair to mass of thin spun gold and lighted up the soft | rcundness of her arms and shoul. ders. She seemed too moody for sleep.
 l Less than ten feet away from her. Curt felt guilty for intruding on her privacy: but the expression or her face arrested him and he continued to watch. Evidently she thought herself alone with the night, and so made no effort to hide her feelings, as she normally did. She seemed bitterly unhappy and worried. but the thing that struck him most for cibly was her hard-set purposive ness.
 Seldom fooled in such matters. he knew that something wrong. badly wrong. lay behind her tragic reverie. At the moment. pressed by his own work and the need of hurry. he could not pause there long; but the incl dent left it's impression on him.
 Around with Paul again. he whis pered:
 s"It's all right: we won't be bother ed. I'll go into the trading store my self. You stay here and keep guard. If anyone shows up. give that cluck ,of the hawk-owl ii time for me to get out. The doors are locked. but ioosened the inside catch on this front window when I was here this evening. Give me boost up. part ner."
 Paul stopped. Curt stood on his shoulder. raised the window noise lessly. wedged through. and drop ped down inside the store.
 He was not sure his work would get results, but the odds favored it. The clue he was after almost had to be in that trading post, for there was no station between Russian Lake and the Yukon, and none near CT than Fort Nelson on the Liard. THROUGH the pitch dark he felt A along the counter to the rear and found the desk where Higginbotham kept his books. He had secuted out the store thoroughly that evening and knew the exact ledger that he wanted. His fingers closed upon it, he drew it out and took it over be- hind the counter Making himself little barricade If boxes so that his flash glow could not be noticed out. side, he began examining the book.
 The record started with June first of the previous summer. and ran for exactly one year. Every transaction of the store, whether cash, trade or debt, had been entered by the methodical factor. Several of the months were scanty. others heavy. l By interpreting the little human stories behind the entries. Curt could reconstruct almost every hap pening at Russian Lake in the last twelve months He became familiar with names. people. their occupa. tions. the events in their lives.
 Mary Talking Water buys ten yards of fannelette-charge. Peter ; Lame Wind trades thirty lake trout far canvas to recover his canoe. 'Teeste LeNoir buys a carton of Savage 1903 cartridges - charge. sam Canoe-Tied-to-Shore trades al