The Ghost of Dismal

Valley

By
ROBERT WATSON

Author of “My Brave and Gallant Gentle:

man,” “Gordon of the Lost Lagoon,” “The

Spoilers of the Valley,’ and other British
Columbia novels.

*

Being the Unusual Experience of Sergeant Colin Dalgleish of the British Colum-
bia Police with the Revengeful Ghost of a Murdered Man, and Proving that

SERGEANT COLIN DALGLEISH was
never the man to boast of his exploits, his
adventures and his investigations as an
officer of the British Columbia Police, and
usually he declined to be drawn into con-
versation regarding any case on which he
happened to be working, excepting as a
matter of duty to his superior officers or to
a fellow constable on the case with him.
Even then, Dalgleish was tight lipped.

Years of sleuthing had taught him that
most law breakers give themselves away
sooner or later through a desire to boast to
some other person of their crafty operat<ons.

The Dismal Valley mystery was one the
sergeant wished to forget altogether. It is
quite true that the murderer in the case
suffered a just retribution from a remorse-
less, unexplainable fate, but that was some-
thing outside of the operations of the Law
and its relentless, persistent upholders. It
was a retribution that had to be credited
to a Higher Law, the law that declares
“Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the
Lord.”

THE CASE OF SANDY FLINT

But the closed case of the murder of
Sandy Flint came catapulting back with
startling reality to the sergeant one night,
fifteen years later, when he was travelling
on the Pacific and Transcontinental, north-
ward bound in British Columbia, as he sat
on the rear platform trying to be comfort-
able on one of the stupid little folding
chairs the railway companies provide for
passengers who prefer the open air to the
cushion comforts of the observation car.

Dalgleish was on holiday leave and travel-
ling in plain clothes. With him, out there,
was the trainman attending to the rear
lights and monkeying with some flares
which he would have to use later, and a
big, ruddy-faced, well-fed looking indi
vidual who bore all the earmarks of a
travelling butter-and-egg salesman.

The gathering night was raw and cold,
with a damp mistiness in the air which was
not made any more pleasant by the closed-in
forest through which the train was travel-
ling. Just ahead, the observation car bore
a much cheerier aspect, well lighted, with
the passengers lounging on cushioned easy
chairs, reading the evening paper or maga-
zine stories or listening to the radio. In
there it was another world altogether from
the little world of the rear platform.

“Gee!—but this is the most dismal bit

SUMMER EDITION

Fiction Is Stranger than Truth—Sometimes.

of railroad line I’ve ever travelled over.”

It was the big man who gave vent to
this remark, and getting no answer, he con-
tinued:

“This gloomy stretch gives me the bloody
creeps. Ugh!”

He turned up the collar of his jacket and
folded over a page of the newspaper he was
trying to scan by the diffused light that
came from the observation car.

Suddenly the gloominess became intensi-
fied as the trail of the railroad line seemed
to narrow, and the train appeared to be
virtually hewing its way through the forest
of giant pines and firs. A sure-enough awe-
some chilliness was in the air, and the deep
forest silence, always so vast and unexplain-

This is the first of a series of experiences
of Sergeant Colin Dalgleish which will ap-
pear in future issues of ‘The Shoulder
Strap,” by the well-known author, writer
and movie director, Robert Watson, whose
articles have appeared in many of the best
Canadian and American magazines.

He is the author of some of the best sellers
including “My Brave and Gallant Gentle-
man,” “Gordon of the Lost Lagoon,” ‘The
Spoilers of the Valley,” and other British
Columbia novels.

Among his film assignments are the fol-
lowing: ‘Secret Patrol,” ‘Tugboat Princess,”

wow

“Stampede, The Country Beyond,” and

many others.

able, could almost be heard above the roar
and din and rattle of the train as it hurtled
on its way.

“Vou feel it too, sir?” asked the trainman,
a full sixty seconds later, as if the big man’s
remarks had just penetrated his slow-moving
mentality. “Everybody gets a spooky feelin’
as we go through this ten-mile stretch. It
is well named ‘Dismal Valley’.”

“Dismal Valley? Why do they give it
that name?” asked the sergeant, although
he knew only too well.

The trainman was elderly, with the
wrinkled face of a used brown paper bag
that craved friendship. He was all eager
to talk.

“Why, sir, it has been called that since
ever I've known it, even before IT hap-
pened.”

“Before what happened?” snapped the
big man in the far corner.

“Why—Sandy Flint, sir!”

“And who was Sandy Flint?” asked Dal-
gleish, innocently enough.

“Gosh! Thought everybody hereabouts
knew that, sir. The papers were full of it
at the time. But maybe you're new in this
neck of the woods?”

“Yes,” prevaricated Dalgleish.
travelling through.”

“Well, it is quite a gruesome story,”
started the trainman, leaning against the
rail, facing his two listeners and preparing
to let go. “Ye see, I’ve been travelling over
this line for seventeen years. Know every
inch of it blindfold. "Way back, let me see,
fifteen years ago, there was two pardners
livin’ in the shack down the trail that we
kin just catch sight of from the train as we
go by in a few minutes.

“One of the pardners was this same
Sandy Flint.”

“And who in hell wants to know about
your Sandy Flint?” broke in the big man.
“Ain't we dismal enough without that?”

“Td like to hear the story, if you don’t
mind,” interrupted the sergeant. “Go ahead,
trainman.”

“Just

A. MURDERED PROSPECTOR

“Okay! Well, tother guy was the notor-
ious Dan Kelly. These two prospected in
the summer an’ trapped in the winter.

“And, d’ye know, they was the original
discoverers of the famous Bonaventura Gold
Mine. Leastways, Dan Kelly took cred’t
for the whole discovery a year later, al-
though I’m thinkin’ maybe they discovered
it together, an’ that was what caused Sandy
Flint to be done in.”

The big red-faced man turned his body
about quickly on his frail folding chair.

“Well, now; and that sure is interestin’,”
he said. “What makes ye think this Smellie
bozo done in the Flint guy?” he asked,
rather bruskly. “And what d’ye know about
who discovered the Bonaventura Mine?”

“Don’t know zactly, sir. Just a kind o°
a hunch I’ve always had about that Dan
Kelly.”

The big man laughed raucously. “And
many a man’s gotten his damned ears pinned
back for expressin’ a hunch like that, smack
out in the open. If Kelly, or Smellie, or
whatever ye call him, happened to be here
rght aboard this express, and heard ye,

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