Riddle of the Storm

  CHAPTER XII CURLIE SLEEPS ON THE RIVER

  Time passed, as time has a way of doing. There was much to beaccomplished and Curlie Carson's slim shoulders bore their full share ofthe burden.

  Always in the back of his mind as he labored one thought remained to urgehim on. He was working not for himself alone but for the glory of hiscompany. The men who toiled with him and those in the office in far awayWinnipeg were, he knew right well, worthy of his most loyal endeavors.

  "Loyalty. That's the great word," John Mansfield, the President of theCompany, had said to him. "Loyalty to a proper cause or a deserving groupof human beings; that is the greatest driving power this old world willever know."

  Curlie believed he spoke the truth. He rejoiced in the knowledge that,come what might, his loyalty and his most earnest endeavor would never beoverlooked, discounted or disregarded.

  So Curlie worked untiringly as millions have done before and othermillions will do in the years that are to come.

  All one's life may not be spent in the unravelling of mysteries andhunting adventure. This Curlie knew full well. His work? Was thereadventure in that? Very little. Piloting a six-passenger airplane overthe Mackenzie River route is about as exciting as driving a bus in NewYork. Curlie carried a load of freight, beef, eggs, coffee, calico and ascore of other items from Fort McMurray to Fort Chipewyan. He answered anemergency call from Resolution. A Catholic Sister was rushed to thehospital at Edmonton.

  At Edmonton he took on two cases of eggs, a case of oranges, a package ofphonograph records, one missionary and two "Udson's Bay's Men" (as thenative Canadians call them), and sailed away straight for the shore ofthe Arctic Ocean. He was there on the second day and, after a night'ssleep, was ready for the return journey.

  It was during this return journey that one or two questions that had beenpuzzling him were, in a way, answered.

  At Fort Chipewyan he lay over for a few hours to await the passing of asnowstorm. He did not tarry long enough. The storm was traveling south.It was making but fifty miles an hour. He was doing better than ahundred. He had not been in the air an hour when he realized that hecould not reach McMurray without running into that storm.

  "That means I can't see to land," he grumbled to himself. Jerry was notwith him. "Have to sleep on the river."

  Sleeping on the river is not as bad as it sounds. Here and there alongthe river, trappers' cabins are to be found. The inhabitants of thesecabins are for the most part known to the pilots. And any weary bird-manis sure of a hearty welcome there. The coffee pot is ever on the fire anda pan of beans rich in bacon fat ready for warming. There is an extrabunk in the corner to which the stranger is welcome. But, for the mostpart, the pilot prefers rolling up in his eight-foot-square eiderdownrobe and sleeping on the floor of his cabin. This is what is known as"sleeping on the river."

  It may appear strange that out of the three possible cabins on thissection of the river Curlie chose to come to earth before the oneoccupied by the rough and ready little world war hermit who had in sostrange a manner defied him when a pigeon had been tracked to his window.

  "Oh, it's you, me lad!" the scrawny little man exclaimed, as Curlieclimbed from the cockpit. "Sure it's sorry vittals I be 'avin', but suchas they be, y' are welcome."

  "Ptarmigan!" exclaimed Curlie. "Nothing better than that!" A brace ofthese birds hung by the cabin door.

  "And can y' eat 'em?"

  "Sure. Why not? They're fine."

  "Every man to 'is taste. Sure I've fed 'em to me dorgs until they'vegrown feathers, they 'ave. But it's the birds ye shall 'ave, roasted withbacon fat fer seasonin'."

  Curlie could not complain of his birds, nor of the coffee he drank.

  "That," he said, "is the best coffee I've had for a month!"

  "An' I wouldn't doubt it!" exclaimed the little man. "Learned 'ow t' brewit from a bloomin' Australian bushman in th' bloody war; right in th'trenches.

  "Ye see," he went on, warmed by his own beverage and cheered by kindwords, "I were in th' signal service. Bein' small, I was set to carin'fer pigeons an' sendin' 'em away with messages a-hangin' from their laigsor their necks.

  "And y' know, son, 'avin' 'em always with ye like yer bloomin' dorgs,makes 'em seem like yer bloomin' pals. D' ye understand that?"

  "Yes," Curlie replied, "I understand."

  "An' ye know, son, if it weren't fer 'avin' one of them pigeons under mearm in a cage made of wood, I'd not be trappin' foxes now."

  "No?" Curlie sat up. "Tell me about it."

  He did tell Curlie. And for Curlie that story held a special interest. Itwas no great story as stories go; just the account of one little underfedIrish boy soldier lost in a forest in No Man's Land, with a leg half tornaway by a shell, and a plain, drab carrier pigeon kept safe by the boy'sshielding body. The boy scribbled a note to his pals in camp, thenreleased the pigeon that he might bear the message home.

  "They found 'im safe," he ended quite undramatically. "They found th'message an' after that th' 'eathen enemy's guns was silenced, an' thenthey found me, too.

  "'T'ain't much of a story, son. But ye'll not be thinkin' me soft when Itell ye as 'ow them carryin' pigeons seems like the truest friends I everhad."

  "No," said Curlie huskily, "I surely will not."

  Before Curlie left the cabin next morning he heard a sound that bore asuspicious resemblance to the coo-coos he was accustomed to hear on hisuncle's farm when the pigeons were waking to greet the sunshine.

  "I believe this little chap kept that bird for a pal," he told himself."And he might have done worse than that--a whole lot worse, yes, a wholelot worse."