dark hours of Darlan’s assassination his name
again flashed like a meteor across front
pages when he was arrested on suspicion of
being linked with those who planned the
tragedy. Released, he was re-arrested on
the order of General Giraud on a charge,
according to Secretary of State Hull, of
trading with the enemy. Mysterious and
unpredictable as ever, he turned up last
December at Miami where he was promptly
seized by immigration authorities for alleged
passport violations.

As for the destination of this expedition
it seemed to be wrapped in even greater
mystery than the identity of its leader.
“We're heading for Telegraph Creek,” was
Bedaux’s vague reply to all questions.

“Telegraph Creek!” guffawed a grizzled
old trapper who'd been eyeing preparations
with an enigmatic eye. “Say, brother, you're
wastin a lot o time foolin’ around with
them fancy cayuses an’ tanks an’ all this
fuss and feathers. Go back to Edmonton,
take the train to Prince Rupert and catch
the steamer. Telegraph Creek's right on a
steamboat run—an’ a no-account place at
that. This way you'll land nowhere—an’
it’s goin’ cost you plenty!”

In skirmishing order the Bedaux cavalry,
headed by chugging caterpillar tractors that
awakened strange echoes in the solitudes,
followed their leader into Fort St. John.
First came two shiny limousines, then five
lumbering tank-like tractors loaded with
asbestos tents, rubber pontoons, a hydro-
plane, three river batteaux, electrical gear

galore, a uniformed wireless man; there
were cowpunchers in gaudy chapps and ten-
gallon hats, and a hundred and thirty prairie
broncs who’d never seen a mountain that
didn’t have a man-made trail. There was
Madame Bedaux, too, gracious and smiling,
with her chic French maid Josephine, com-
panion of former jaunts; Madame Alberta
Chiesa, a guest, and Bedaux’s enormous
valet, Bob Chisholm—all full of bright

ideas.

The first one thrilled the poverty-stricken
settlement to the core. Learning that Fort
St. John lacked a water supply, this gen-
erous stranger promptly agreed to finance
a forty thousand dollar pipeline from Charlie
Lake.

Headed by packer F. L. C. Lamarque the
Bedaux cavalry charged the timber. A
hundred prairie broncs, loaded with shiny
tins of gasoline for the motorized transport
bringing up the rear, stumbled ahead to
establish advance bases. West to Cache
Creek and north along the turbulent Half-
way they climbed and slid and stumbled.
Sinking now to their bellies in quaking
muskeg, or engulfed in the icy waters of
frothing streams that came tumbling down
from the mountains, they floundered on.
The first pitched battle occurred not with
ravening wolves or grizzlies that the expe-
dition had most feared, but with diminutive
bees and wasps that swarmed in_ hissing
anger from their nests in the moss beneath
the invading hoofs. That unrehearsed rodeo
beneath the pines beat anything seen at

Calgary or Cheyenne. No frontier-day cele-
bration produced horses that could buck and
keep on bucking with such sustained and
conscientious persistence as this gasoline
toting cavalcade. Flimsy gasoline cans soared
skywards in scintillating glory, spraying
rocks and muskeg with showers of odori-
ferous “rain,” to remain suspended in the
pine-boughs and sway drunkenly in the
breeze.

In the wake of the capering pack-train
snorted lumbering caterpillar-tractors, stim-
ulating the laggard livers of pulchritudinous
passengers to unprecedented activity as they
jolted over up-ended rocks, fallen carcasses -
of trees, and slithered down precipitous cut-
banks. Wallowing like antediluvian monsters
through the morasses they carried fear and
terror to wall-eyed redskins.

No rattling Parisian taxi ever wove a
more devious and perilous course through
the streets of that once fair metropolis
than did Bedaux’s snorting tractors as they
wallowed through the wilds. Northern gods
looked down and laughed, tossing obstacle
after obstacle in the path of these frus-
trated heroes; opening the flood-gates of
heaven and turning placid streams into
raging torrents.

As the rear-guard of the conquering army
headed northward on its thousand mile trip
to nowhere, old-timers shook their heads.
What was it all about? Where were they.
going? And why? Supposing they got those
unwieldly tractors three hundred miles or
more back in the bush—what of it? Theyd

DAWSON'S 5c TO $1.00 STORE

B. McKENZIE, Proprietor

Light Hardware, Paints, China and
Glassware Novelties
Stationery and School Supplies

Ladies’ and Children’s Wear
Drugs and Sundries

DAWSON CREEK BRITISH COLUMBIA

FOR RESULTS—Advertise in the official Magazine
of the Provincial Police.
preciated.

Your patronage will be ap-

DawsonCreek - - -

COMPLIMENTS OF

Spinney Trucking Services Ltd.

General Truckers and Contractors

THE PIONEER TRUCKERS OF THE
ALASKA HIGHWAY

Hotel
Dew Drop Inn

W. MICHAUD, Prop.

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Fully Licensed

= PHONE 19 BOX 1090

e
Dawson Creek, B.C.

DAWSON CO-OPERATIVE UNION

Branches at Groundbirch and Kilkerran
Dry Goods, Groceries, Hardware, Etc.
Cockshutt, and Frost & Wood Machinery

DAWSON CREEK, B.C.

Page Fifty-four

THE SHOULDER STRAP