Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 89, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1915 — November Joe The Detective of the Woods [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

November Joe The Detective of the Woods

By HESKETH PRICHARD

SYNOPSIS James Quaritch engages November Joe as his guide. Joe and he go to Big Tree portage to investigate the murder of a trapper named Lyon. Joe decides that the murderer followed Lyon to his camp and shot him from a canoe. v By studying woodland evidence and making clever deductions Joe discovers the murderer, Highamson, Lumberman Close reports that Blackmask, a high\faytnan, is robbing his men. Six lumberjacks are robbed by the same man. Joe makes a careful examination of the scene of the robbery. Close is accused by his men, but Joe arrests Chris, one of the lumberjacks, the real robber. Sally Rone, a widow, has been, roDDeo of-valuable pelts. Joe and Evans, a game warden, search for the thief. Sally’s lover, Val Black, is suspected, but Joe catches the actual culprit, In jin Sylvester. Millionaire Planx’s daughter Virginia has been abducted. The abductors demand $150,000 ransom for Virginia. Joe’s investigations indicate that one Hank Harper has abducted the girl. Joe ascertains that Virginia had herself abducted to get the ransom for her lover. Joe goes after Cecil Atterson, #ho has stolen SIOO,OOO. ■ ■ CHAPTER X. The Hundred Thousand Dolla?* Robbery. “ W WANT the whole affair kept uivofficial and secret." said Harris, £ the bank manager. - November Joe nodded. He was seated on the extreme edge of a chair in the manager’s private office, looking curiously out of place in that prim, richly furnished room. “The truth is.” continued Harris, “we bankers cannot afford to have our eus-) torners’ minds unsettled. There are. know. Joe, numbers of small depositors, especially in the rural districts. who would be scared out of their seven senses if they knew that this infernal Cecil .Tames Atterson had made off with a hundred thousand dollars. They’d never trust us again.” “A hundred thousand dollars is a wonderful lot of money,” agreed Joe. - “Our reserve is over twenty millions, two hundred times a hundred thousand,” replied Harris grandiloquently. “Have you ever seen Atterson?” “No.” “I thought .vou might have He always spends his vacations in the woods, fishing usually. The last two years he has fished Red river. This is what happened. On Saturday 1 told him to go down to the strong room to fetch up a fresh batch of dollar and five dollar bills, as we were short It happened that in the same safe there was a number of bearer securities. Atterson soon brought me the notes I had sent him for with the keys. That was about noon on Saturday. We closed at 1 o’clock. Yesterday, Monday, Atterson did not turn up. At first I thought nothing of it. but when it came to afternoon and be had neither appeared nor sent any reason for his absence I began to smell a rat. I went down to the strong room and found that over SIOO,OOO In notes and bearer securities were missing. “I communicated at once with the police, and they started to make Inquiries. The constable at Roberville replied that a man answering to the description of Atterson was seen by a farmer walking along the Stoneham road and beading north on Sunday morning early.” .' At this point a clerk knocked at the door and. entering, brought in some letters. Harris stiffened as he noticed the writing on one of them. He cut it open, and when the clerk was gone out he read aloud: Dear Harris—l hereby resign my splendid and lucrative position in the Grand Banks of Canada. It is' a dog's dirty life. Anyway it Is so for a man of spirit. You can give the week’s screw that’s owing to me to buy milk and bath buns for the next meeting of directors. Yours truly, C. J. ATTERSON. “What’s the postmark?” asked Joe. “Rimouski. Sunday, 9:30 a. m.” “It looks like Atterson's the thief," remarked Joe. “I’m inclined that way because Atterson had that letter posted by a con-rcon—what’s the word?” “Confederate?” ■ “You’ve got it. lie was seen here In town on Sunday at 10:30, and he couldn’t have posted no letter in Rimouski in time for the 9:30 a. m- on Sunday unless he’d gone there on thb 7 o’clock express on Saturday evening Yes. Atterson’s the thief, all right. And if that really was he they saw Stoneham ways he’s had time to get thirty miles of bush between us and him, and be can go right on till he’s on the Labrador. ■ I doubt you’ll see your SIOO,OOO again, Mr. Harris.” “H’m!” coughed Mr. Harris. “My directors won’t want t# pay you $2 a day for nothing.” “Two dollars a day?" said Joe in his gentle voice. “I shouldn’t ’a' thought

£bs TEoasand dollars could stand a strain like that!” I laughed. “Look here, November. I think I’d like to make this bargain for you. I’ll sell your services to Mr. Harris here for $5 a day if you fall and 10 per cent of the sum you recover if you succeed. Well. Harris, is It on or off?’ I asked. “Oh. on. I suppose, confound you!" said Harris. Twenty hours later Joe, a police trooper named Hobson and I were deep in the woods. We had hardly paused to interview the farmer at Roberville and then had passed on down the old deserted roads until at last we entered the forest, or, as it is locally called, the “bush.” “Where are you heading for?” Hobson had asked Joe. “Red river, because if it really was Atterson the farmer saw I guess he’ll have gone up there. None of them trappers there now in July month, bo he can Steal a canoe easy. Besides, a man who fears pursuit always likes to get into a country he knows, and you heard Mr. Harris say how Atterson had fished Red river two vacations. Besides”—here Joe stopped and pointed to the ground—“them’s Atterson’s tracks,” he said. “Leastways, it’s a black fox to a lynx pelt they are his.” “But you’ve never seen him. What reason have you?” demanded Hobson. “When first we happened on them about four hours back, while you was llglitiu’ your pipe,” replied Joe, “they come out of the bush, and when we reached hear Cartier’s plfice they went back into the bush again. Then a mile beyond Cartier's out of the bush they come on to the road'again. What can that circumventin’ mean? Feller who made the tracks don’t want to be seen. No, 8 boots, city made, nails in ’em, rubber heels. Come on.” I will not attempt to describe our Journey hour by hour nor tell how November held to the trail, following it over areas of hard ground and rock, noticing a scratch here and a broken twig there. The next morning November wakened us at daylight, and once more we hastened forward. For some time we followed Atterson’s footsteps and then found that they left the road. We moved on quietly and saw that not fifty" yards ahead of ns a man was walking excitedly up and down. His head was sunk, upon his chest in an attitude of the utmost despair. He waved his hands, and on the still air there came to us the sound of his monotonous muttering. We crept upon him. As we did go Hobson leaped forward and, snapping his handcuffs on the man’s wrists, cried: “Cecil Atterson, I’ve got you!” “By the way. I'd like to hear exactly what I’m charged with,” said Atterson. “Theft of SIOO,OOO from the Grand banks. May as well hand them over and put me to no more trouble." Hobson ulungod his hand into Atterbckj£ pockets and searched him thoroughly, but found nothing. “They are not on him!” he cried. “Try his pack.” From the pack November produced a square bottle of whisky, some bread, salt, a slab of mutton—that was all. “Where have you hidden the stuff?" demanded Hobson. Suddenly Atterson laughed. “So you think I robbed the bank?” he said. “I’ve my own down on them, and I’m glad they’ve been hit by some one, though I’m not the man. Anyway, I’ll have you and them for wrongful arrest, with violence.” November was fingering over the pack, which lay open on the ground, examining it and its contents with concentrated attention. Atterson had sunk down under a tree like a man wearied out Hobson and Joe made a rapid examination of the vicinity. A few yards brought them to the end of Atterson’sl tracks. “Here’s where he slept” said Hobson. “It’s all pretty clear. He was dog tired and just collapsed. I guess that was last night. It’s an old camping place, this. But where has/he cached the bank’s property?” For upward of an hour Hobson searched every conceivable spot. But not so November Joe, who, after a couple of quick casts down to the river, made a fire, put on the kettle and lit his pipe. , • At length Hobson ceased his exertions and accepted a cup of tea Joe had brewed. “There’s nothing cached round here, and his trail stops right where he slept. He never moved a foot beyond that nor went down to the river, 100 yards away. The chap’s either cached them or handed them to an accomplice on the back trail. I’m thinking he’ll confess, all right, when I get him alone.” He stobd up as November moved to take a cup of tea over to Atterson. “No, you don’t!” he cried. “Prisoner Atterson neither eats nor drinks between here and Quebec unless he confesses where he has the stuff hid.” “He won’t ever put you wise,” said Joe definitely. “Why do you say that?’ “ 'Cause he can’t. He don’t know himself.” “Bah!” was all Hobson’s answer as he turned on his heel. November Joe did not move as Hobson, his wrist strapped to Atterson’s. disappeared down the trail by which we had come. “Well,” I said, “what next?” “I’ll take another look around.” Joe led the way down to the river, which, though not more than fifty yards away, was hidden from us by the thick trees. It was a slow flowing river, and In the soft mud of the margin I saw, to my surprise, the quite recent traces of a canoe having been beached. Beside the canoe there was also on the mud the faint mark of a paddle having lain at full length.

Toe pointed to it The paddle had evidently, I thought, fallen from the canoe, for the impression it had left on the soft surface was very slight “How long ago was the canoe here?” “At first light—maybe between 3 and 4 o'clock,” replied Joe. “Then I don’t see how it helps you at all. Its coming can’t have anything to do with the Atterson robbery, for the distance from here to the camp is too far to throw a packet and the ab-

sence of tracks makes it clear that Atterson cannot have handed the loot over to a confederate in the canoe. Isn’t that right?” "Looks that way,” admitted Joe. “Then the canoe can be only a coin cidence.” November shook Ids head. “I wouldn’t go quite so far as to sn> that, Mr. Quaritch.” Once again he rapidly went over the ground near the river, then returned to the spot where Atterson had slept following a slightly different track to that by which we had come. Then taking the hatchet from his belt, he split a dead log or two for a fire and hung up the kettle once mo[re. I guessed from this that he had seen at least some daylight in a matter that was still obscure and inexplicable to me. “I wonder If Attersonhns confessed to ITbbson yet,” T buKT, meaning 10 draw Joe. “He may confess about the robbery, but he can’t tell any one where the bank property is, because he’s been robbed in his turn.” "Robbed!” I exclaimed. Joe nodded. “And the robber?” > “ ’Bout five foot six, light weight, very handsome, has black hair, is, I think, under twenty-five years old and lives in Lendeville or near it” “Joe, you’ve nothing to go on,” I cried. “Are you sure of this? How can you know?” “I’ll tell you when I’ve got those bank bills back.” (TO BE CONTINUED)

“Cecil Atterson, I’ve got you!”