“HERE’S HOPING”
The news of the arrival of Chicago’s best known detective, Drew Lane, in
the northern wilds spread over the land as oil spreads over water. Mail
planes speeding on their courses dropped the surprising news.
Gold-hunting planes picked it up and carried it on. Dog teams creeping
over the white surface of the earth did their bit. Every trader, every
trapper and every Indian passed the word along. Above and beyond all this
was some mysterious means of communication which no one appeared to
understand but which none doubted. This carried the news to every corner.
And from each corner the word came echoing back: “Drew Lane is here. He
rides in a bright red plane. The ‘Gray Streak’ may well tremble now!”
Some there were who doubted Drew Lane’s power. Not least among these were
certain members of the Mounted Police. “All very well for Chicago,” they
laughed, “a young chap like that. Plenty of nerve, no doubt. But what
does he know about the North? Leave it to the Mounties. In the end, we
get our man!”
“In the end.” Ah, yes! But there were those who shook grave heads at
this. Rumors were not lacking that told of the bold, evil doings of the
“Gray Streak.” Some of these, to be sure, went unconfirmed. Yet when a
starved trapper with a starved dog team came in from the Barrens to tell
of a cabin pillaged to the last cupful of flour, the last bacon rind,
they said:
“It is time this was stopped!”
But who was to stop it? As for Curlie Carson, his answer was: “Drew
Lane.” And yet, in the back of his head was a great desire. He hoped that
for the glory of the Company that had trusted him with a powerful and
valuable plane in this land of many hazards, he might help to bring the
“Gray Streak” to justice.
Even Joyce Mills, busily engaged as she was in the business of bringing
her father back to life, and puzzled as she ever was with the problem of
the stolen films, found time to listen and thrill at the tale of the
arrival of her one-time pal and all-the-time friend, Drew Lane, and to
lend an ear to the stories that came floating in from all quarters.
“He’ll get them,” she told her father. “I am sure he will.”
In her more sober moments she puzzled as ever about the stolen films.
Matters were coming to a head in their mining camp. Hope ran high.
“But one is a thief,” she whispered more than once. “Jim, Clyde, Lloyd,
which could it be? Jim is so religious, so kind and so—so—How could he?
Clyde saved my father’s life. How could I doubt him? And Lloyd went all
through that terrible war as a boy soldier. He might have gone home from
the horror of it all simply by saying the word, yet he never said that
word. How can one doubt a man like that?”
So the days passed. Her father’s condition improved. The work at their
camp progressed.
From the other camp Johnny Thompson went in search of pitchblende, only
to return empty-handed. Nothing daunted, he prepared for a second
journey.
In the meantime, with his pilot, Don Burns, one of America’s finest, Drew
Lane scoured the country for signs of the “Gray Streak.” Starting at
Edmonton, he soared in ever widening circles until his ship of flaming
red was known to every Indian child from Fort McMurray to Lake Athabasca
and beyond where Great Slave River winds its white wintry way into the
lake that bears its name.
From time to time he came to earth for food, fuel and sleep. All the
resources of the land were at his command. The poorest trapper was ready
enough to share with him his last batch of sourdough pancakes. But
information? Ah! That was quite a different matter.
“Where is the ‘Gray Streak’?”
“Where indeed, Monsieur?” So spoke the half-caste French-Canadian. So
spoke they all. “He is there, somewhere; not here. He has been seen on
the Porcupine, at Great Bear Lake, over the Barrens. But not here, sir.
Thank God, not here!”
“And all the time,” thought Curlie Carson, as the days passed, “that
D’Arcy Arden person is being carried about as a captive. Or, can that be
true? Could a girl stand such a life? Or even a woman, or a boy? Think of
the mental strain!”
“Drew,” he said one day as they met at the Chink’s at Fort Chipewyan, “if
you ever come up to them, be careful. Think of that captive. If there is
shooting to be done, watch the course of your bullets.”
“I’ll watch,” Drew replied quietly.
That Drew had watched the course of many bullets Curlie Carson, yes, and
most of the world besides, knew right well, for Drew Lane had not
hesitated to arrest the higher-ups in one of the greatest crime rings a
city has ever known.
“This,” Curlie laughed, “should be a mere vacation for you.”
“Hardly a vacation,” Drew replied soberly. “No work, especially work that
concerns the safety and welfare of many people, can ever be a vacation.
Do you know, Curlie,” his tone became deeply serious, “it’s just because
this case is different and quite new, and because its dramatic moments
are to come in a land strange to me, that I fear it.”
“Fear it, did you say?” Curlie stared.
“Fear of failure is not considered a weakness,” Drew answered quietly.
“Fear of failure properly applied puts one on his guard, leads him on to
do his best.”
“But you will succeed!” Curlie spoke with conviction.
“Here’s hoping!”
They parted at this, but Curlie was to recall those two words, “Here’s
hoping,” and that not twenty-four hours later.