Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 101, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1915 — November Joe [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. By studying woodland evidence and making clever deductions Joer discovers the murderer, Highamson. Lumberman Close reports that Blackmask, a highWayman, 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 roDoeo of valuable pelts. Joe and Evans, a garni warden, search for the thief. Sally’s lover, Vai 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, who has stolen SIOO,OOO. Joe discovers that the robber has been robbed by his sweetheart, Phedre Pointarre, and compels her to give up the money. John Stafford has been robbed of val« uable black foxes. Joe finds that an Aleut employed by Stafford was in league with the thieves. Joe traces the crime to one Jurgensen and recovers the foxes. Linda Petersham gets Joe to investigate a shooting at Kalmacks. Mysterious unknowns demand $5,000 of Petersham, and one of them holds up Puttick, an employee, and repeats the demand. Puttick julvises Petersham to pay. Joe, searching for the blackmailers, is wounded and kills one of the miscreants.

CHAPTER XVI. The Capture. A S we walked Joe gave me in little /% jerks the story of his advenj > tures. “I started out, Mr. Quaritch,” he began, “and crossed the lake to the canjp where Bill Worke was fired at—you mind Miss Linda dropped a brooch there? I had a search for it, but I didn’t find it, though 1 come across what I'd hoped to find—a lot of tracks—men’s tracks.” “Who had been there since Saturday?” i “Huh! Yes; only about two days old. After awhile I built a bit of a fire and cooked a pinch of tea in a tin I’d fetched along. Then after lunk”—Joe always called lunch “lunk” —“I started back. I was coming along easy, not on the path, the wood about twenty yards to the south of it, and afore I’d gone above three or four acres a shot was fired at me from above. The bullet didn’t strike me, but as I was in a wonderful poor place for cover—just three or four spruces and half a dozen sticks of wild raspberry—l went down, pretending I’d got the bullet, pitched over the way a man does that’s got it high up, and I took care to get the biggest spruce trunk between me and where I think the shots come from. “Sometimes, if you go down like that, a man’ll get rattled-like and come out, but not this one. Quess I’m not the first he’s put a bit of lead into. He lay still and fired again—got me in the shoulder that time, and I gave a kick and shoved in among the raspberry canes in good earnest, had some of them whitey buds in my mouth and was chewing of them, when the fella shoots twice more—both misses. Then he kind o’ paused, and I guesses he’s going to move to where he can let me have it again.

“I see the black hat on him for a moment and then I lets drive. I tried to get up to have a look at him.” “Surely that was risky. How could you know he was dead?” i “Heard the bullet strike and’ saw the hat. go backward. A man don’t never fall over backward when he’s shamming. I couldn’t get to him—fainted, I guess. Then you come along.” ■ * ♦ * * ■ ' * * ♦ Evening had fallen before we ultimately arrived at Kalmacks. We approached the house with care and entered by a window at the back, as Joe thought it possible the front entrances might be commanded from the wood on that side. We went at once to the room where Worke was lying and Joe gave him a rapid description of the man he had shot. “That’s Tomlinson,” said Worke at once. “Them two brothers lives together. What have,they been doing?” “You’ll know afore night,” replied Joe.. “What are their names?” _ '

“Dandy Is the one with the’ black beard, while him they calls Muppy Is a foxy colored man.” “Thank you,” said Joe. “Now, Bill, if you keep them names to yourself I’ll come back in half an hour and tell you who it was shot you.” On Joe's appearance Linda started up and ran to him. "You’re wounded!” she cried. “It’s nothin’ much, Mis#"Linda.” ? But as we laid him down on the couch he seemed to lose consciousness. Petersham brought brandy, and Linda, holding Joe’s head upon her arm, put it to his lips. He swallowed some of it and then insisted upon sitting up. “I must bind up your shoulder. We must stop the bleeding.” Linda’s distress and anxiety were very evident And Joe had to give way. With her capable and gentle hands Linda soondressed the wound and afterward insisted on sending for Puttick to help him to his bunk. “So you’ve got it?” Puttick said. “I warned you. Lucky you’re not dead.” “Yes. ain’t it?" returned Joe. Well I knew that soft drawl, which November’s voice never took except in moments of fiercest tension. “You’d best join your hands above your head, Ben Puttick. Lock the thumbs. That’s right!” Joe had picked my revolver from the table and held it pointed at Puttick’s breast. “He’s mad!” screamed Puttick. “Tie his hands, Mr. Quaritch. Miss Linda, will you please to go away?” i “No, Joe. Do you think I’m frightened?” “Huh! I know you’re brave, but a man acts freer without the women looking on.” Without a word she turned and walked out of the room. “Puttick’s going to confess, Mr. Petersham,” went on November. “I’ve nothing to confess, you fool!” “Not even that story you invented about the man witli the red hanker across his face—the man who wasn’t .never there?” ■ “What’s he ravin’ about?” cried Puttick. “Have you forgot them long haired Tomlinson brothers that”— The effect of this speech on Puttick was instantaneous. Evidently he leaped to the conclusion that he had been betrayed, for he turned and dashed for the door. We flung ourselves upon him and by sheer weight bore him to the ground, where we qufekiy overpowered him, snarling and writhing. Some hours later we sat round November Joe who was stretched upon the couch. Puttick had been tied up and imprisoned in. the strongest room.

“No, Mr. Petersham,” Joe was saying. “I don’t think you’ll have much more trouble. There was only three men in it. One's dead; one’s locked' up, and I dare say we’ll find a way of dealing with No. 3.” “What I don’t understand.” said Linda, “is how you found out that Puttick was in it. When did you begin to suspect him?” “Last night, when Mr. Petersham didn’t go to Butler’s cairn. The fellas who promised to meet him never put in there either. That was queer, wasn’t it? Of course it could mean one thing —that some one had told ’em that Mr. Petersham weren’t coming. There was only us three, and Puttick knew. So Puttick must ’a’ been the one to tell.” “But, November,” I said, “Puttick never left the house, for you remember you found no tracks on the sand. How, then, could he let them know?” “I guess he waved a lantern or made some other sign they’d agreed on.” “But why didn’t you tell me all this at once?” exclaimed Petersham. “Because I weren’t sure. Their not going to Butler’s cairn might ’a’ been chance. But this morning, when Puttick comes in with his yarn about the man with the red hanker across his face that made him hold up his hands and threatened him when he was mending the canoe, I begun to think we shouldn't be so much longer in the dark. And when I went down and

had a look around by the river,' I knew at once his story was a lie, and that he’d got an interest in scaring Mr. Petersham away.” i “How did you know that?” “Yau mind Puttick said the fella

come just when he was begfnnin’ to mend the canoe? I took a look at the ; work he’d done on It and he couldn’t' i ’a’ got through all that under an hour. 1 He’s fixed a little square of tin over the rent as neat as neat And then | wasn’t it queer the fella should have come on him there—a place he wouldn’t be in not one morning of a i hundred?” i “You believe' he made up the whole story? And that no one came at all?” I “I’m pretty sure of it; There wasn’t a sign or a track and as to* the fella’s jumpin’ from stone to stone, there’s distances of fourteen and sixteen feet between. Still he might ’a’ done it, or he might ’a’ walked in the water, and I were not going to speak till I ’ were sure.” “Go on. We’re still in the dark, Joe,” Linda. i “Well, Miss Linda, you remember how Puttick advised Mr. Petersham to pay or go, and how I told him to stick it out, and when I’d given him that advice, I said to you that I was going | across to Senlis lake, and asked Mr. Quaritch to tell Puttick. I thought there was a good chance that Puttick would put on one of his partners to scare me. You see nobody knew which way I were going but you and him, so it’d be fair certain that if I was i Interfered with it would prove Puttick guilty.” ■ “That was^clever, though you ran a i horrible risk. Was there any particular reason why you chose to go to Senlis lake?" “Sure. I wanted to see if any one had been over there looking for your brooch. On’y us and Puttick knew it , was lost, and you’d said how your father had paid dollars and dollars .for I it. When a thing like that’s lost woodsmen ’ll go miles to try to find it, : and Puttick must ’a’ told the Tomlinsons, for there was tracks all around i our fire where we boiled the kettle.” I “Do you think they found my brooch?” j “Huh! No. I pick’ it up myself five ! minutes after you drop’ it. I only kep’ ! it, pretendin’ lost, as a bait like. . I’ve told you what happened to me coming back and how I had to shoot , Dandy Tomlinson. His shooting at ' me after I was down give me a sur- , prise, for I didn’t think he’d want to do more than scare me, but I guess it was natural enough, for Puttick was gettin’ rattled at me always nosin’ nround.” “It’s all very clear. November, and 1 We know everythifig except who it was shot Bill Worke.” “I guess Muppy Tomlinson’s the man.” “What makes you think that?” “Bill w r as shot with a 45-75 rifle.

' Both Puttick and Dandy Tomlinson ' carries 30-30's. Muppy’s rifle is a , 45-75.” “How can you know w’hat sort of rifle was used to shoot with? The : bullet was never found,” said Linda. “I picked up the shell the first time I was over with you.” : “And you never told me!” said I “But that doesn’t matter. What I’m ' really angry with you for is your mak- ' ing me promise not to go out yesterday ' and then deliberately going out youri self to draw their fire. Why did you i do it? If you had been killed I should ; never have got over it.” i “And what ’ud I have done if you’d 1 been killed, Miss Linda?” j “What do you mean, Joe?” said Lin- . da softly. i “I mean that if one of the party I j were with got killed in the woods i while I was their guide I’d go right ■ into Quebec and run a boarding house i or become a politician. That’s all I’d be good for!” (TO BE CONTINUED)

“You’d best join your hands above your head, Ben Puttick.”