ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
IThe Summons[1]
IIA Painful Memory[12]
IIIThe Solway Shore[19]
IVAppleyard[29]
VSweetheart Abbey[42]
VIOn Criffell Hill[53]
VIIThe Gray Car[60]
VIIIThe "Rowan's" Light[71]
IXIn the Dark[81]
XThe Young Officer[92]
XIThe Signal[103]
XIIA False Alarm[114]
XIIIThe Wreck[127]
XIVA Fair Ally[140]
XVA Bargain[148]
XVITrailing the Motorcycle[160]
XVIIThe Matchbox[172]
XVIIIA Conference at Sea[183]
XIXA Warning[195]
XXThe Whammel Boat[205]
XXIThe Lost Paper[216]
XXIIStaffer's Messenger[226]
XXIIIAn Evening at Appleyard[235]
XXIVThe Buoyed Channel[247]
XXVA Clue[259]
XXVITightening the Meshes[272]
XXVIIThe Reckoning Day[283]
XXVIIIA Wild Ride[293]
XXIXWhen the Tide Turned[305]
XXXThe Net[317]
XXXIUnexpected Happiness[327]

JOHNSTONE OF THE BORDER

CHAPTER I
THE SUMMONS

Sable Lake shone like a mirror among the ragged pines, as it ran back between the rocks, smooth as oil except where a puff of wind streaked its flashing surface with faint blue wrinkles. Behind it the lonely woods rolled on, south to Lake Superior and north to Hudson Bay. At one place a new transcontinental railroad cut its way through the forest; hammers rang and noisy gravel plows emptied the ballast cars along the half-graded track; but these sounds of human activity were quickly lost and in a mile or two only the splash of water and the elfin sighing in the pine-tops broke the deep silence of the woods. This belt of tangled forest, where the trees are stunted and the soil is sterile, offers no attraction to homesteader or lumberman. In consequence, it has lain desolate since the half-breed voyageurs, who crossed it with canoe and dog-team, abandoned the northwest trail when the Canadian Pacific locomotives began to pant through the rock-cuts by Lake Superior.

The solitude itself had drawn Andrew Johnstone into the quiet bush. The lone trail had a charm for him. He knew the empty spaces of Canada; for his inaptitude for an idle life had led him on adventurous journeys through many leagues of its trackless forest. He was of the type that preferred some degree of hardship to conventional comfort. His one ambition had been to be a soldier; it was the career which from early boyhood he had chosen. He had entered Woolwich as a prize cadet, and had left it with honors; but a few weeks later he had met with an accident on a mountain crag, and his military career was suddenly closed. The surgeons did what they could; but it soon was obvious that Andrew never again would be able to take his place in the British Army. He was not crippled; he could still walk well; but he limped slightly and his injured knee gave him trouble sometimes.