STEWART AUTO MARINE
Phone 183-R-1

FINEST SEA FISHING IN B. C.
Fully Equipped for Boat Repairs

Cowichan Bay, Vancouver Island

diminutive Japanese climbed the steps to the
freshly constructed platform. As he did so,
James remarked with typical bravado to
Warden Vicars:

“So this is what you've been busy with
the last few days. Why, you haven’t even
got it painted for us!”

As the ropes were adjusted the two men
looked around, and Takahashi, with true
Nipponese fatalism hissed a polite, ““Good-
bye, gentlemen.” James uttered a sneering
remark, and as he did so, the drop opened
with a clang, to avenge the death of Provin-
cial Constable Aston.

AuTHor’s Note: Particular thanks are extended
to Sergts. Dave Halcrow, Penticton; R. S. Nelson,
Vernon; Alex. MacDonald, Kelowna; and Asst.
Chief Clerk Wellings, Kamloops; for their con-
siderable help and interest in collecting much
valuable data in connection with this case.

ALWAYS GOOD ADVICE

“WHERE are some good places to stop on
this trip?” asked the prospective automobile
tourist.

“At all railroad crossings,” replied the
clerk in the touring bureau.

Gordon Stores Ltd.

General Merchants

Youbou, B.C.

SOLUTION OF the mysterious destruction
by fire of Robert Pypor’s new store at
Chilanko Forks years ago in the Chilcotin
district of British Columbia depended to a
large extent on the most primitive kind of
evidence—the tracking of the culprit by
Indians for many miles by means of a
patched moccasin. The full story was told
in the No. 4 issue of THE SHOULDER STRAP,
June, 1940.

There was, of course, much more than
this to the full account of how Sergt. F. W.
Gallagher, of the B. C. Police, used this
single scrap of evidence as a starting point
for fixing the guilt beyond any doubt upon
the culprit, who was convicted in due course.

So far as the police were concerned, this
closed the case naturally. But Pypor was
not a young man. Punishment of the
criminal did not replace the business in
which he hoped to make a comfortable
living after long residence in the Cariboo
country. He had been a guard on the mail
stages running between Barkervillle and
Yale in the early days. For a time he served
with the B. C. Police, then ranched success-
fully near Hanceville. A house on this
place became a police post and oddly enough
was destroyed by fire shortly after the
police moved in. Pypor’s last business
venture was the Chilanko Forks store.

The incendiary fire left nothing but the
concrete foundations. But new hewn log
walls began to rise on the old foundations.
He lived in the cabin which appears in the
background in the illustration of the scene
of the fire. It is now used by T. H. Hodgson
and his men when carrying mail and freight
along the road west to Tatla Lake and
further. Work on the store never got higher
than the walls, and the weathered logs still
stand as a forlorn memorial of hopes unful-
filled.

Pypor is described by those who knew
him as having been a big, up-standing man,
always clean and particular about his person
and his premises. A gradual change came
over him. He grew careless about such
things, and became addicted to chewing
tobacco. Then it was learned that he suffered
from cancer of the throat, a slow and painful
disease which continued unchecked.

It is a lonely spot in a vast stretch of small

Compliments of

— TRADE— <3 ©

Industrial Timber Mills Ltd.

LOGGING OPERATIONS AND SAWMILL
YOUBOU (on Cowichan Lake, Vancouver Island)

The End of the “Moccasin Trai 4

scattered fir and jackpine. His near
neighbour east along the road was David
Fraser, 14 miles away. Some 30 odd miles
away in the other direction—clear across
Loon Lake Mountain — lies the ranch
Robert Graham beyond the south end of
Tatla Lake, and the post office of that name
is at the ranch. Hodgson runs a weekly mail
service. Other trafic is uncertain during
the winter, or even in summer, past Chilanko;
Forks. ee
Pypor was 70 years old. His condition
became worse during the last winter. Some
of the local people declare this vicinity is
the coldest spot in North America (a dis-
tinction meteorologists reserve for higher
parts of Montana, contrary to all popular
notions of the Arctic coastline). =
One particularly wretched day in March,
Hodgson’s young son, Jack, was making the
usual mail run west. He had been asked by
the police to look up Pypor when passing. —
Jack got no answer to his continued
pounding on the door after he had failed
to see any sign of Pypor around the place.
The door was fastened on the inside and he
could not force it open. He managed to get
in by way of a window. b 3
Pypor lay on the bed in the dim light.
Jack Hodgson is now in the Air Force, but:
his father says that Jack put a hand on the
cold body, rushed to the telephone and yelled
into it “Pypor’s dead!” and then jumped out
of the window and drove away. Davi
Fraser says the body was frozen solid at
this time. In due course burial took place
down the road from Alexis Creek.
Rudland, the man who was convicted
for burning Pypor’s store claimed that he
was only carrying out a suggestion made by
Dan Purkitt or Puckett, his trapping part
ner, who cherished some sort of a grudge.
against Pypor. Rudland’s unsupported word

SID’S STORES

Dry Goods, Groceries and
Confectionery
®

Lake Cowichan, B.C.

Page Fourteen

Long-distance Telephone via Duncan

RIVERSIDE INN

LICENSED PREMISES

Where Personal Services Make
Your Stay Enjoyable

A Good Place to Fish All Year ‘Round

Lake Cowichan, Vancouver Island, B. C.

M. Berti, Proprietor |

THE SHOULDER STRAP