L., Killed brave

rotheroe 7

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By ROBERT WATSON ;

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North-Country Girl Dancing in Seattle’s Bright Lights Helps Police to Gaol

Fur-Stealers—Tires of It All and Goes Back to Woods—Marries Elderly Trapper

—Husband Found Brutally Murdered—Suspicion Pointing to Wife and Lover— Revengeful Ex-Fur-Thief Convicted of Crime—Happy Ending.

STACEY’S FAMOUS night club, just off Yesler Way in Seattle, was unusually busy.

The evening was a languid one; the diners and dancers were anything but that way. Merry guests were at the tables: dancers in close embrace were weaving in and out among the palms that graced certain parts of the dance floor as a background to Bud Stacey’s “Hawaiian Week” which was go- ing over big.

Bob Cotton’s orchestra was doing its best to please and Bob’s best was hard to beat.

Two men, strangely in contrast and yet with similar characteristics, entered the din- ing room and were shown to a table where they could enjoy an uninterrupted view of the floor-show that was soon to commence. These men were Dan Stewart, a Hudson’s Bay Company trader, engaged in the fur trade in the far north at Deer-Staveley post in northern British Columbia, and Sergeant Colin Dalgleish of the British Columbia Police.

Dan was small and grizzled and al though not at all suggestive of the generally conceived he-man of the frozen north, he was wiry and as hard as nails. This was Dan’s first trip out in five years, and he was evidently bent on making the most of it. He was not exactly intoxicated but he was decidedly and garrulously in his cups.

Sergeant Colin Dalgleish was big and in a way handsome, with a body that any man might be proud to possess and a jaw that suggested things. His eyes were limpid clear and steely-blue, and a fearlessness exuded from every part of him, yet he be- trayed a certain amount of reserve and seeming timidity that was disarming. He was dressed as Dan was, in a tuxedo, and, apart from the fact that both men looked healthy and weather-beaten and no stran- gers to the outdoors, they gave little indica- tion from their appearance of their respec- tive callings and might quite readily have been taken for two of the men about town out for the night. Dan Stewart was over- happy, and talkative.

waiter came alongside and presented the menu. Dan squinted at it uncompre- hendingly and passed it to Dalgleish.

“Waiter,” said Dan in a maudlin voice, “this is my old pal Sergeant Dalgleish—best police sleuth in Canada. Just blew in from the north with a couple of Indian witch- doctors and a Yankee bcotlegger.”

[TWELFTH EDITION

“Hi!” put in Dalgleish deprecatingly, “enough of that, Dan. Hold your silly gab.”

The waiter smiled ingratiatingly to Dan.

“Yes, sir! I understand. ‘Always gets his man’.” He glanced over at the frown-

ing Dalgleish and the smile rubbed off his sallow face.

“You're quite wrong,” put in Stewart. “You can’t mean my sergeant. He always gets one better than that. If one man com- mits a crime in the North, he brings in two. That’s just the kind of guy that man is, waiter. Ha-ha! Eh, sergeant old boy!”

BricHT LicHts oF City

Dalgleish showed decided annoyance. “Dan, if you don’t dry up, I'll wring your neck and walk out on you. What's got into you anyway? I didn’t come here to have you yell my business from the house- tops.”

“Correct,” noddéd Stewart agreeably. “Waiter—you pay close attention to that now. Leave us! And bring a bottle of dry champagne. Wring its neck—in the Name of the Law. We didn’t come here to make business for the house-cops. No siree!”

“Yes sir!” said the waiter

“No sir,” corrected Dan.

“No sir—yes sir!” replied the waiter, making sure he had it both ways and start- ing off to fill the order.

Dan Stewart leaned back in his chair precariously, surveying the gay scene, then he drew his face together, smirked, and straightened himself with a great effort.

“Say, Serg.,” he commented, much more soberly than formerly, ““Who’d’ve thought to find you in Shee-atie? Me rotting up North, trading filthy furs with moth-eaten Indians, for five long weary years an’ seeing that ugly mush of yours maybe once in six months. I come down here to get away from it and to give the bright lights a chance to play on me, and I run smackeroo right into you on Yesler Way. What d’ye chase after me for? I didn’t do anything. You Canadian poliche officers haunt me wherever I go. Why don’t you all shtay where you belong—with the mosquitoes up in the Peace River?”

Dalgleish grinned in spite of his annoy- ance. “If a fermented little runt of a fur trader can havea holiday, why not a hard-

working member of the British Columbia police?

“What's that?” replied Dan. “A holi- day! It isn’t done, Serg., Duty—always duty. ‘Uphold the Law’. Isn’t that the rule of every police force in Canada?”

Stewart suddenly changed his tone, and seemed to go sober all of a sudden. He leaned over the table. ‘Who are you after, Dalgleish?”

“T'm still working on the big fur robbery, if you must know,” replied Dalgleish.

“Well, Serg.—if that’s it, I told you six months ago that old Pete Mullen was the thief. We fur traders know a lot more than you Provincial Police think we do. We're on the spot twelve months in every year—you fellcws are all over, on patrol. And we’re tellin’ you. That’s just how good we pelt buyers are.”

“Ay, ay!” dourly answered the sergeant. “And we can pick up Mullen any minute we have a mind to. What I’m after right now is those who are down here on the re- ceiving end of the stolen furs that keep coming out of Canada by plane at night.”

“IT don’t tell you!” commented Stewart in mock derision. “And another scalp was added to the Milwaukee Chief's girdle.”

“Mum’s the word,” whispered Dalgleish, as he noticed the waiter approaching. “Here’s this funeral undertaker with the embalming fluid.”

The waiter poured out liquor for both men. They drank slowly and with evident relish, as they looked about with interest at the dancers and diners.

“Nice place here, Sergeant,” remarked Stewart, with the air of one to whom a Seattle night club was second nature. “Swell dancing dames. Gee—but they sure all look good to me after five years making love to foxes, skunks, husky dogs, klootches —and what are you giving me. But the liquor down here, Dalgleish. is positively lousy. Gives you a head as big as a hotel landing.

“But, say boy!—I have a big surprise for you.”

“Surprise?”

“Sure! Just listen!”

The orchestra leader had just come for- ward to make an announcement.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he started, “the management has a novelty item for you this evening. On account of sudden indis-

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