The La Chance Mine Mystery

It's but six weeks since Thompson left here; and from what he said he didn't mean to come back. He told me he was in a hurry to get away, because he was taking a position in a copper mine in th

forget which. I remember Thompson forgot to send me a tin

ot have sent Macartney to La Chance, or a letter to Dudley now. But what I was really thinking of was that I had been right about the date old

atiently: "Oh, he went there all righ

s likely to have been killed was on my corduroy road the night before. Only I did not see how Thompson's clothes could have got water-soaked in a frozen swamp; and I did not see, either, what a decent man like T

s Thompson he'd found,-lying right on shore in the daylight! You know how that fool Lac Tremblant behaves; the water in it had gone down to nothing this morning, and on the b

was his

chance-put him ashore!" I did know: I had had all I wanted to keep from being smashed myself the night I crossed

ad just been drowned in Lac Tremblant. There was nothing in his pockets to tell how he had got there: only a single two-dollar bill and a damp pack of cards in a wet leather case. Thompson's solitaire cards! Somehow the things gave me a lump in my throat; I wished I had talked more to Thompson in the long e

why Dudley looked so jumpy and bad-tempered, but all I was thinking of then was my ugly news. But before

artney had found out,-I don't mean about Collins so much as about Paulette

old's in Caraquet. But the reason I didn't g

never spoke loud,

new I was staring at Macartney. His capable face was always pale, but in one second it had gone ghastly. It

took no

a man does when he is sick with shock. "Who found

s if he were dizzy. "Only Thompson was about the oldest friend I had. I thought--" But he checked himself and exclaimed with a sudden sharp doubt, "It can't

im, that I got in Caraquet, only it's for Mr. Wilbra

I had not suspected him of much of a heart.

the thing again and handed it to Macartney. But Macartney only gave one silent, comprehensive stare at it, in th

address, which was not like Thompson. But its precise ph

othing else in view, and I am stranded. If by to-morrow I cannot obtain work here I see nothing between me and starvation but to return to La Chance. I trust you can see your way to taking me back, in

rs t

m D. Th

ntarily. And Dudley snapped at m

on was scared blue of that lake; he used to beg me not to go out on it. And by gad

have intended to walk here along its shore, and strayed or slipped in or something, in the dark. But what troubles me is-can't you see he'd gone crazy? This letter"-he put a finge

nkindly. "He was too old-fashioned to make good elsewhere, I expect

ompson's neat copperplate. But it wasn't well glued or something, for as I shoved my fingers inside, the whole thing opened out flat, like a lily. I looked down mechanically as I felt it go, and-by gad, the inside of it didn't look right! There was nothing on the glued-down top flap, but the inside back of the envelope wasn't blank, as it should have been. It wasn't

d envelope with his set-eyed stare. "'Take care, Macartney! Gold, life, everything-in danger!'" he read out blankly. "Why, it's some kind of a crazy warning to me! Only-nobo

It fits about the gold, perhaps. Thompson migh

on the Caraquet road till I knew what Paulette had said about them,-which I was pretty certain was mighty little. But once again I had that cold fear that Macartney might have

s between here and Caraquet-or hear from B

lying truth. "I saw two of

left, and I thought--" he broke off irrelevantly. "What the dickens possessed you to take Paulett

t. I had no desire to talk before Macartney either, in spite of what he might have found out, or guessed; no matter what Paulette might have been mixed up in I was not going to have a stern-faced, set-eyed Macart

I don't see why that should have worried you about Miss Paulette-o

nd Collins had to do with my worrying about the gold you carried, it's simple enough. They--" but he stopped, chewing two fingers with a disgusting trick he had. "By gad,

d'ye

for you and get it. I had trouble with them over some drilling the morning you left; and when I went back to the stope after seeing you and Miss Paulette off, they'd cleared out. They must have gone a couple of hours b

the wind clean out of me as to Collins having been the man in the swamp. With only two hours' start neither he nor Dunn, nor any man, fo

ight, that had halted the wolves on my track. My first thought of it, and of Dunn and Collins, had been right. "By gad, I believe I he

ide was only a girl who would not have shot without need. But when I explained

s if that wasn't worry enough, poor old Thompson has to go out of his mind and come back here to be found dead-and I mean to find out how!" He was working himself up into one of his senseless rages, and he turned on Macartney furiously. "You kn

ng about his journey here, I don't suppose we ever can! All we'll get at was that he came back-and was found dead." And some

artney might have found out something about her. But she was staring at Macartney's unconscious back as you look at a chair or anything, without seeing it, and if he were pal

en I came?" she stammered, as if it choked her. And I had an ungodly f

d come out with more about shooting and wolf bait, and perhaps herself, than I chose any one to know,-till

," she returned faintly. "I'm glad-he wasn't. But if

come out, Miss Paule

t she was not sure, one never could tell;

my dream girl and explanations. But Dudley began the whole story of Thompson over again, and Macartney stood there, and Marcia-whom I had not seen since she went

ff to my room before I remembered I was still unconsciously holding that torn-off flap of poor old Thompson's envelope in my shut

envelope flap Macartney's grab had left in my hand: and, knowing Thompson, it was pitiful. He was t

esire to speak to Macartney of them or the scrawled, torn-off flap from Thompson's envelope: he was sick enough already about old Thompson's aberration, without any more proofs of it. It hurt even me to rem

I had not sense enough to