Lincoln High School - Totem Yearbook (Seattle, WA)

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.A 5 A I .'. 0, S if L, ,ei vi my He was a real he-man, he said at length. They were true pards, my boy. returned the miner, gravely. The third man stood up, and stretched his great form sleepily. lt's getting late, he said. You can talk, if you like, l'm going to bed. And picking up the young man as easily as if that hearty chap were a baby, he administered a stately spank, set him down, and marched into the tent, as solemn as an owl. The other two grinned at each other. He never will tell me what he has done, said the lad presently. And l've never been up here before where I could find out. Then, with uncon- scious reverence: But Dad is a fine old chap, anyhow. The fire leaped and flickered beside them, as if it were trying to arouse the silent night. Abruptly the sun swung down behind the Signal hills. Far overhead a solitary cloud leaped into flaming scarlet. Somewhere in the middle distance an owl hooted, and the sound was swallowed up in the night. The elder man smiled gently. Yes, boy. he said. He was Cameron. l was the sick man. .. -1 An Easter Mystery Phillif famen The woods were coming to lifeg green leaves obscured the gray trunks of trees and the salal and Oregon grape were profusely decorating the brown earth with their first pale shoots. The fir needles which covered the narrow, twisting path had not been trodden upon since before the light fall of snow, gone some weeks since. Voices echoed down the trail. They trod lightly, did these merry girls, even though the packs on their backs were not light. They had only half a mile farther to go, and then would begin their long-anticipated Easter camping venture. The air was still cold and the sun shone but seldom, but it was spring and they knew it. After this lively van-guard of five high-school girls, Helen, Elizabeth, Dorothy, Florence, and Luella, came two chaperones and one small boy. Aunt Pheme, as she was lovingly called, was one guardian, but the one of more im- portance to the hungry girls and the object of their solicitous care, was Anna Gustave Johanssen, the cook-from Sweden. It was nearly noon when they reached the summer camp that they were to occupy. The house was small, having only two rooms, but the attractions of the larger one were enhanced by an immense stone fireplace which they were to use for cooking and heating. There was the large porch behind the house which the girls immediately decided was the place for them to sleep, while beds indoors were assigned to Ferg and the chaperones. The house was on a bluff overlooking a small bay and entirely surrounded on the other three sides by dense woods. PAGE EIGI-ITEEN

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Men are big-hearted up here. In about half an hour the prospector took the back-trail over the hills, and Cameron, with the other's dog-team, went careening down the dim trail to Lindeman. At every cabin he grabbed a fresh team and plunged on in this grim race with death across the snows. He made that hundred miles in two days-a third of it on foot. No other man could have endured the strain that he did, and held out. He had to build a fire under that little town to wake it up. But he did it. That doctor was a man. He was one of those priceless gems that make the world better to live in. He went. The miner uncrossed his legs with a sigh, laid aside his pipe, and resumed, after a moment: Well, that blizzard was just about the worst in years. It blew like sixty, and it was raw, damp and cold. Those blizzards are bad. You can't see ahead, nor behind, nor anywhere. The driving snow stings like need.les. The wind leaps at you in savage gusts, and the trail is gone and a man feels like lying down on the job, and yet these men struggled through it all, and got ahead. They never knew how they kept the trail, or how they held on through the nightmare. Yet Cameron was always somewhere out there ahead, leaning into the storm and stumbling on in the lead. The man was a miracle of endur- ance. They nearly had to tie him on to make him ride. Finally the storm let up, and they went faster than ever. At every cabin there was a fresh dog-team waiting, and they switched them all relent- lessly. Well, it was a wonderful race. These men played a desperate hand in the big game against the North, and they played it big. The thing they did was epic. It was a big thing in a land where big things look small. They stopped for nothingg and went through everything: and over everything. Just about twenty-six hours after they started they were back in the valley where the cabin stood. Cameron was staggering now-two hundred miles in three days, over seventy of them on foot, with maybe six hours of sleep- think of it! And yet on this home stretch he had gotten off the sled and was struggling on somehow out there in front of men who were half-dead themselves. They say the skin was drawn tight across his cheeks, and his eyes had sunk way back in their sockets. His strength had gone long ago, and he was going ahead simply on his iron will. The thing was magnificent. Pretty soon they broke into the clearing, and there was the cabin, with smoke coming out of the chimney. That other prospector was there. Cameron reached it first. He threw open the door and stood swaying by the bedsidle, looking at a wan face there. It smiled. Wlrat relief must have come out on poor Cameron's haggard face! 'l'm here, pard.' he said simply, and dropped there beside the bunk. The grizzled miner ceased, lost in reflection. Well, he roused himself at last, Cameron won the race, and they saved them both. That's all there is to the yarn. There was a pause. The fire leaped and flared among the fresh wood. flinging new light abroad. ' ls that true? asked the young man after a moment. All. replied the other. All Every word of it. There are strange things done in the midnight sun, By the men who moil for gold: And the Arctic trails have their secret tales, That a magic world unfold, quoth he. The youngster's eyes were fixed absently upon the flames. PAGE SIC VENTEEN Q . .4 iii I1 'f A ix, I rr fn

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It was a quarter of a mile to the nearest neighbor and the next morning, as no one but Luella and her brother knew the way, Ferg volunteered to get the milk. Dorothy went with him, as she wanted to be able to find the way next day. On the way home Ferg carried the milk. Dorothy quite frequently rambled from the path and it was while she was away on one of these ex- cursions that Ferg heard a surprised gasp and then an excited scream. He ran toward the sounds and found Dorothy pulling a mysterious looking paper off a branch. Before he could speak or get a clear glimpse of it, she was gone like the wind on the path leading home, the deserted Ferg speeding after. He reached there in time to see the rest of the party come hurriedly out of the house in answer to Dorothy's loud calls. One and all gathered around her as she stood on the lawn waving a waxed blue parchment aloft. The document was sealed but when everyone had as- sembled Dorothy carefully broke the seal and spread it wide. ln unison rose mingled exclamations of delight, disappointment and surprise when the paper disclosed rows and rows of symbols and numbers written in black ink! Luella was the first one to speak. Let's try to decipher it! I have an idea and I think I can! There were a few astounded murmurs at this proposal, but Luella's ideas were usually good ones so they listened to her explanation. In English, you remember, we read Poe's 'Gold Bug' and in that he told how to decipher a cipher: let's try his method on this one. Though they all secretly believed that this was no ordinary cipher and so could not be worked out by their amateurish methods, they agreed at least to try. Dorothy and Luella were voted to carry out the great project while the others humbly finished the interrupted housework. The honored two lay on a bed with paper, pencils and the wonderful cryptogram, and with great care, though there were difficulties that seemed ine surmountable until a lucky guess dissolved them, worked at the all-enthralling puzzle. The dizzying mass of punctuation marks, geometric figures, signs of the Zodiac and more familiar numerals finally faded before their eyes as one often sees happen on the cinema screen, and there appeared almost magically before their astonished eyes the following message: Herr Crundelz- Follow the path to the grove of trees locate stockade walk three feet east seven feet south ten feet diagonally southwest crawl through the dead brush to the decayed tree follow barbed wire fence to opening in woods trace path south of largest tree in clearing to deserted cabin climb south wall of cabin and walk east to huckleberry bush investigate. J. Bandricourt. Everyone was more excited than ever over this mysterious puzzle. Work was stopped immediately and they started off on an exploring expedition, headed by Dorothy and the paper. They had no idea of where to start but guessed that the path where the cipher was found would be the most likely place. Once there, they followed a branch of the main path into the woods a little way until it stopped. Where to go from there was the next question, as the only thing in sight was a rustic playhouse. Luella had an idea the stockade mentioned was a disguise for the playhouse. And so it proved! Dorothy, using Elizabeth's big feet, measured three feet east of the house, seven feet south of that point and PAGE NINETEEN 3 V Pt A ldlll