CHAPTER XVII

“HERE’S HOPING”

The news of the arrival of Chicago’s best known detective, Drew Lane, in the northern wilds spread over the land as oil spreads over water. Mail planes speeding on their courses dropped the surprising news. Gold-hunting planes picked it up and carried it on. Dog teams creeping over the white surface of the earth did their bit. Every trader, every trapper and every Indian passed the word along. Above and beyond all this was some mysterious means of communication which no one appeared to understand but which none doubted. This carried the news to every corner. And from each corner the word came echoing back: “Drew Lane is here. He rides in a bright red plane. The ‘Gray Streak’ may well tremble now!”

Some there were who doubted Drew Lane’s power. Not least among these were certain members of the Mounted Police. “All very well for Chicago,” they laughed, “a young chap like that. Plenty of nerve, no doubt. But what does he know about the North? Leave it to the Mounties. In the end, we get our man!”

“In the end.” Ah, yes! But there were those who shook grave heads at this. Rumors were not lacking that told of the bold, evil doings of the “Gray Streak.” Some of these, to be sure, went unconfirmed. Yet when a starved trapper with a starved dog team came in from the Barrens to tell of a cabin pillaged to the last cupful of flour, the last bacon rind, they said:

“It is time this was stopped!”

But who was to stop it? As for Curlie Carson, his answer was: “Drew Lane.” And yet, in the back of his head was a great desire. He hoped that for the glory of the Company that had trusted him with a powerful and valuable plane in this land of many hazards, he might help to bring the “Gray Streak” to justice.

Even Joyce Mills, busily engaged as she was in the business of bringing her father back to life, and puzzled as she ever was with the problem of the stolen films, found time to listen and thrill at the tale of the arrival of her one-time pal and all-the-time friend, Drew Lane, and to lend an ear to the stories that came floating in from all quarters.

“He’ll get them,” she told her father. “I am sure he will.”

In her more sober moments she puzzled as ever about the stolen films. Matters were coming to a head in their mining camp. Hope ran high.

“But one is a thief,” she whispered more than once. “Jim, Clyde, Lloyd, which could it be? Jim is so religious, so kind and so—so—How could he? Clyde saved my father’s life. How could I doubt him? And Lloyd went all through that terrible war as a boy soldier. He might have gone home from the horror of it all simply by saying the word, yet he never said that word. How can one doubt a man like that?”

So the days passed. Her father’s condition improved. The work at their camp progressed.

From the other camp Johnny Thompson went in search of pitchblende, only to return empty-handed. Nothing daunted, he prepared for a second journey.

In the meantime, with his pilot, Don Burns, one of America’s finest, Drew Lane scoured the country for signs of the “Gray Streak.” Starting at Edmonton, he soared in ever widening circles until his ship of flaming red was known to every Indian child from Fort McMurray to Lake Athabasca and beyond where Great Slave River winds its white wintry way into the lake that bears its name.

From time to time he came to earth for food, fuel and sleep. All the resources of the land were at his command. The poorest trapper was ready enough to share with him his last batch of sourdough pancakes. But information? Ah! That was quite a different matter.

“Where is the ‘Gray Streak’?”

“Where indeed, Monsieur?” So spoke the half-caste French-Canadian. So spoke they all. “He is there, somewhere; not here. He has been seen on the Porcupine, at Great Bear Lake, over the Barrens. But not here, sir. Thank God, not here!”

“And all the time,” thought Curlie Carson, as the days passed, “that D’Arcy Arden person is being carried about as a captive. Or, can that be true? Could a girl stand such a life? Or even a woman, or a boy? Think of the mental strain!”

“Drew,” he said one day as they met at the Chink’s at Fort Chipewyan, “if you ever come up to them, be careful. Think of that captive. If there is shooting to be done, watch the course of your bullets.”

“I’ll watch,” Drew replied quietly.

That Drew had watched the course of many bullets Curlie Carson, yes, and most of the world besides, knew right well, for Drew Lane had not hesitated to arrest the higher-ups in one of the greatest crime rings a city has ever known.

“This,” Curlie laughed, “should be a mere vacation for you.”

“Hardly a vacation,” Drew replied soberly. “No work, especially work that concerns the safety and welfare of many people, can ever be a vacation. Do you know, Curlie,” his tone became deeply serious, “it’s just because this case is different and quite new, and because its dramatic moments are to come in a land strange to me, that I fear it.”

“Fear it, did you say?” Curlie stared.

“Fear of failure is not considered a weakness,” Drew answered quietly. “Fear of failure properly applied puts one on his guard, leads him on to do his best.”

“But you will succeed!” Curlie spoke with conviction.

“Here’s hoping!”

They parted at this, but Curlie was to recall those two words, “Here’s hoping,” and that not twenty-four hours later.