“You got your nose in the story?” Adair MacKenzie asked abruptly, and everyone looked at Walker, waiting for his answer.
CHAPTER XV
A BULLFIGHT
“Oh, always interested in whatever goes on,” Walker answered off-handedly. “You know how it is. See a story breaking, you want to be in on the kill. Just can’t help yourself. Gets in your blood, after you’ve worked on any paper for a while.
“Back four years ago, I went up into northern Canada for a vacation. Chose that spot because I thought it would be far away from newspapers and stories of all kinds. I guess I was feeling rather disgusted with everything and wanted to get away, so when an old newspaper buddy who had struck out a claim for himself asked me to go up and do a little prospecting for gold with him, I jumped at the chance.
“It looked like an ideal set-up. We were to go alone to his cabin which was miles away from civilization and stay there for the summer. We stocked up with plenty of food, some books I had been wanting to read for a long time, and took a radio along.
“I had a book I wanted to write, something I had started and never found time to finish. Oh, it was nothing,” he added as Nan and the rest looked impressed. “All newspaper people think that some day they’ll write a book that will take the world by storm.
“Well, I thought I would finish that, do some prospecting and just have a nice quiet time for myself. The chap I was going up with was a nice sort of fellow, quiet like myself.
“We went by train as far as we could go, and then got an old Indian to paddle us the rest of the way in a canoe. It was nice going. We took it leisurely, stopped and fished along the banks of the river, and camped for three days in a gorgeous spot that seemed as remote from civilization as any place could possibly be.