Chapter 9 EAGLE EYES

There are some who believe that, should one be so fortunate as to reach Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, he would be at an outpost of civilization. Nothing could be more false. Edmonton is not an outpost. It is a city.

There are those again who believe that all cities are alike. They, too, are mistaken. The city of Edmonton is not like any other city in the world.

No one knew this better than Curlie Carson. He was not a stranger to other cities. Chicago, New York City he knew. Belize, in British Honduras, had seen him on her streets. Paris he loved for her beauty. Yet none of these thrilled him more than did Edmonton. On his days off, between flights, nothing suited him quite so well as sitting in the narrow lobby of his own hotel, the old Prince George, listening to the scraps of conversation that drifted unbidden to his ears. For, while not an outpost, Edmonton is the gateway to a thousand outposts. All the vast Northwest lies beyond it.

And down from this Northwest, even in these conventional days when all men appear to think alike, talk alike, and dress alike, men still drift into Edmonton who are unique. They dress in strange ways and speak of affairs that are far from the minds of the commonplace men of the street.

They drift into Edmonton, and then an invisible bond draws them one and all to the Prince George. There in the lobby they sit and talk of timber drives along some unknown river, of mineral in the Rockies, of musk ox, of reindeer on the tundra, of fish in Great Slave and Great Bear Lakes, of fur from the far flung barrens, of petroleum and of tar-sands, of gold outcroppings, and a hundred other curious industries and discoveries.

"The thrill one gets from it!" Curlie said to Jerry that evening, after they had followed the carrier pigeon to the lone cabin and had left it there, to continue their flight to McMurray and then to Edmonton. "The thrill comes from knowing that every man of them is sure that he is going to make his fortune at once, or at least after the break-up in the spring."

"That," said Jerry, "is the pioneer spirit. It is not dead. It still lives here."

"Yes!" exclaimed Curlie. "And I am glad it does! How wonderful it is to live in a land where men still dream!"

"Ah, yes." Jerry settled back and closed his eyes as if he, too, would dream.

Curlie was in no mood for dreaming. The incident of the carrier pigeon was too fresh in his mind for that.

Drawing a slip of paper from his pocket, he began studying it. "I'd give a pretty penny to be able to read it," he grumbled to himself after a time. He was looking at his copy of the code message he had taken from the carrier pigeon. So absorbed did he become that he did not notice that a tall, dark-haired man moved across the room to take a chair directly behind him. The man had small, piercing eyes. He wore no beard, yet the very blueness of his chin suggested that he might recently have had a beard. His eyes, as they fell upon the paper in Curlie's hand, became strangely fixed.

Curlie did not read the message. Indeed, as we have said, since no two words of it made sense as they stood, how could he? It was one of those messages that impart information only after they are rearranged. It is possible that every fifth word, plucked from the rest and set in order, would make a sentence. Then again, it might be every third or every sixth word. Or perhaps the first and fourth, then the fifth and eighth words might be combined with the ninth and twelfth, and so on. The thing had so many possibilities that Curlie gave it up very soon and, folding the paper, put it back into his pocket.

Perhaps this was just as well, for the man of the eagle eye, if one were to judge by the tense look on his face, even from his point of disadvantage was making progress at deciphering the message.

"Curlie," said Jerry starting up from his reverie, "why did you allow that little fellow back in the cabin to keep the carrier pigeon?"

"I-I don't know." Curlie seemed confused.

"What? You do a thing and don't know the reason?"

"Sometimes I do." Curlie spoke slowly. "There are times when I seem to be guided by instinct, or shall we say led by a spirit that is not myself, that is higher and wiser than I. At least," he half apologized, "I like to think of it that way. Probably it's all wrong.

"But I say, Jerry!" He sat up quickly. The eagle-eyed one started suddenly, then rising, glided silently away. "I say, Jerry old boy, that chap in the cabin was a world war veteran. A real one from Canada, or perhaps Ireland. He's one of those scrawny little fellows so small and so quick that a shell couldn't get them, nor a bullet either. Served through it all, then came back here to live on the birds and fish he can get with a light rifle and a gill-net. You can't be rough with a chap like that, you really can't."

"No," murmured Jerry. "Not even if he committed murder. But, Curlie, do you think he's in with the crowd that's flying wild up here and burning up our gas?"

"That," said Curlie, "remains to be found out."

"But, Jerry!" He leaned far forward. "There's something about that little trapper and the carrier pigeon that we don't know. I'm going to keep an eye on that little fellow and his cabin. There's something worth knowing there. And in the end I'll know it."