Evening star., 1938-12-11

labOred breath. The Storm as usual, had
changed character from it's first mad tumult
the temperature had dropped rapidly until to
the best of Terrys judgment it was now
thirty below zero. and consequently only a
fine snow was falling
He guessed that it must be after nine
o'clock. He had been six hours on the way
and but for the storm he should long since
have arrived at Rawson's cabin As it was. he
believed that he was probably within five
miles of the place. 1t was then that he stag
gered blindly into the radiator of stalled car,
its hubs buried in the snow 1t was without
headlights.
He felt his way around to the door of the
automobile and forced it open. No one spoke
from within. Painfully he lifted one half
frozen leg after the other and crawled into the
shelter of the front seat For some minutes he
sat in a stupor breathing in hoarse, short
gasps, grateful only for brief respite from the
failing razors of the wind and snow outside
But at length he began to beat his hands
together and to stamp his feet groaning as he
did so from the pain of the renewed circulation
in his limbs Now he fumbled about the
instrument board and found the dash light
BY its faint glow he was able to see that the
tonneau was piled high with boxes and lug
gage. And then he saw on the floor at his feet
small leather club bag with initials on it in
y gold He peered closer and confirmed the con-
clusion to which his mind had already jumped
- that no one but Walter Rawson would be
travelling this road on night like this in car
laden with personal belongings. The initials
on the bag were w. S. r.
His brain spun in dizzying kind of heat
as the letters winked palely up at him. Then
it stood still in cold clarity, and all at once
it seemed as if the torture of his wracked body
disappeared His single purpose fixed itself
again in his consciousness. Somewhere. not
far from him, was the man he sought. beating
his way back against the storm to the lodge
from which he had started out. 1t was the
nearest habtation of any sort which could
possibly be reached on this trail. and its dis
tance from the drift begged car was some five
or six miles.
Leaving the dashlight on. Terry opened the
door and tried, against the stinging blast. to
detect tracks other than his own in the whirl-
ing drifts beside the car. But already even
those he had made were vanishing. He saw
then that the car was equipped with spot
light on the left side of the windshield He
switched off the other light and focused the
spotlight as far around to the left as he could.
He had to get out OF the car to make sure
of what he saw before him. There was an
opening in the woods here. down which the
ewind came in roar of fury. But path had
recently been made through the snow-filled
ditch along the road which could be nothing
else but the struggling course of man who
had determined to cut eastward over open
land instead of returning by way of the road
to the place from which he had come. Rawson
had decided on this shorter but madly perilous
route to his lodge on the lake shore.
Terry turned off the spotlight, closed the
car door and plunged down into the ditch
toward the gap which he had recognized, to
be an old logging road he used to drive over
with horse and buggy in making his deliveries
to the Salter cottage on the lake His mind
functioned with relentless logic: II Walter
Rawson dared run the risk of the open prairie,
the danger of losing his bearings in that
malevolent bowling waste then Terry Minteer
could do as much He might even arrive at the
lodge before Rawson and lie in wait - lie in
wait in comparative warmth, thawing him
self out to settle that account. forever.
His imagination leaped to fever again as
the supreme climax of the years of gnawing