Show the plains of abraham by JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD 0 by doubleday doran co ino inc be to CHAPTER XIII continued 23 tartans hartans waved and bagpipes screamed creamed defiance as montcalm waited for or reinforcements which never camp came and the bushes and knolls end and cornfields were ft ere taken by fifteen hundred canadians and indians whose guns answered with a roar back and forth the battle raged and france began to crumble then cane came ten something must have broken in Mont Monte calms alms heart his judgment wavered and he gave the fatal command which raised england to the supremacy of the world the french had formed with bayonets fixed in five short thick tines lines tour four white and one blue the english stood with double guns in in a long six jointed thin red line level ground lay jay between ila had d england advanced history might have written itself differently but england waited france advanced teems jeems went with her ile he was already lilt A shot had caught him in the shoulder and blood ran down ills his arm and dripped from his bis fingers he felt no pain but a slumberous feeling was creeping over him as he be staggered on with the lie lines ile he saw montcalm ride along the front of ills his men cheering them on to victory he noted the gold embroidered green coat he wore the polished cuirass at his breast the white linen of his wristband and he heard his voice as lie he asked dont you want a little rest before you begin the answer were never tired before a batt battle lel I 1 rose about him jeems lips framed the words which were repented like increasing blasts lu a storm but the sun eun was growing less bright to his eyes an advance of forty or fifty paces then a pause another advance another pause in tile way regulars fought at that time on flat and open battlefields and teems measured measure il the distance between himself and the red line of the british at each halt he alred with his comrades then loaded and advanced the red line had broken precedent it made no move to play its part in the prescribed routine of war and continued to stand like a wall openings came in it where crimson blotches blotcher blot ches sank to the ground but those who remained wore were unmoved and steadfast as aa they waited with their double guns A tremor ran through the french a thickening 0 of f mens breaths a quickening of their heartbeats a crumbling under 8 train strain while the melody of the be bell 11 stole loftly so atly over the plains of abraham they halted again less than a hundred paces away and still En glands thinning line did not fire A man close to jeems laughed as if nerves had cracked inside hla his lead head another gasped as it if lie he had been struck jeems tried to hold himself erect the weird sensation came over him that the armies were not going to fight a after all then he heard beard his name it was his mother calling him lie ile answered with a cry and would have swayed toward her if hands had not drag dragged ed him back mad lie heard a voice say lie ile dropped his gun as lie tried to wipe the blindness from ills his eyes things cleared there were the red line the open space sunlight something passing those who lived did not t forget what they saw england took the story home with her franco gave it a little place in her history for a few seconds men were not looking at death but at a dog an old decrepit dog who limped as he walked a dog with one toot foot missing jeems made an effort to call odd odd then came Mont calms command forward I 1 lie ile marched with the others into the jaws of death blind groping straining r to wake make the dog hear words word s w which atch never passed his lips there was no longer a day no sun no red wall before him but ills his ears still caught the tramp of feet and the melody of the bell these died in a roar t the he roar of double guns england fired at forty paces and france went down in a shapeless mass of dead mth the front line tell fell teems jeems CHAPTER XIV I 1 it was a long time before jeems again heard beard the melody of the bell when he broke through the blackness w which aich had overtaken him on the plains of abraham lie he found himself in the general ec hospital under the care of tile the nuns of that institution it seemed as it if only a few minutes had passed since the crash of the english guns euna but it was th the e M middle iddle of october montcalm calm an and d wolfs WO fe were dead quebec I 1 lay a y in li a mass f ru ruins I 1 n S an and d england was supreme in t the a new world although the battle of saint sainte poy foy had not been fought from then until late in november when he was strong enough to take advantage of the freedom of movement tile tho british gate gae to french soldiers sold lera who had been wounded he be thought frequently of tile the three legged lebed doz dos that had assed i assed between tho the french and english lines ne ile said laid nothing of the th incident not even to mere here de claude the I 1 superior who took a special interest in him nor to any of her virgin sisters who care cared d for him so tenderly in the dark hours of his struggle for life and the more hopeful ones of 0 lite his convalescence vales cence each day of increasing strength added to ills his suspicion that w what hat he had seen and heard beard were the allu illusions s ions of senses crumbling under the effects of hurt anushock and shock and he be kept to himself whatever faith he bad in them when at last he was able to mingle with the disarmed populace a and nd the crowds of soldiers in the streets he be was strangely unlike the old jeems ile he had been badly wounded and realized that nothing less than a miraculous intervention which the nuns ascribed bribed to the mercy of god could have kept him beyond the reach of death A ball had passed through his shoulder when three others outliers struck him at the discharge of the english gir guns ns that they had failed to kill him he be did not accept as a blessing the impression pres slon grew in him that he be had 6 ALL AL L ACC 0 A his excursions were short and he H wandered alone been very close to ills his mother and tobnette Tol nette and that a fate not satisfy satisfied a I 1 with his unhappiness had drawn h him tin back from them this thought established his belief that odds appearance as well as ills his mothers voice and tile the nearness of tobnette Tol nette had been purely spiritual but whenever lie he saw a dog in the streets of quebec lie he looked to see it one foot was missing ills excursions were short and h hn a wandered alone lie ile saw raw a number of his comrades but they did not lecog nize him and he did not feel tile the im pulse to let them know who lie was flesh had dropped from his bones until lie resembled one approaching death instead of escaping it ile he walked with stooped shoulders ills ilia eyes ees were sunken and his hands in one of which lie he carried a staff were emaciated to the thinness of extreme es trenie age the small interest life had held for him seemed to have shriveled with will the strength of ills body the english rekindled the spark bpark his mothers matheis mo theis english the halt half of himself which lie had tried tiled to hate they were riot not acting the part of conquerors they aliey were unbelievably evabey fri friends ends F from rom the gallant brigadier Url gadler murray to the commonest soldier they were courteous couite humane generous dividing their rations with the starved citizens sharing their tobacco with them helping without pay to build up ruined homes each day working themselves deeper into the good will of those who had been cheated and despoiled by governor ernar vaudreuil Vaud reull and his degenerate crowd and by the weakness of the king of france even the nuns and the priests welcomed then them men and women en of god who for two hundred years had fought indefatigably for new france honor and chivalry had it come to conquer quebec and had brought such friendship for or its people that a british soldier was hanged in the public square for stealing from a resident of the town jeems felt this comrades hipo hla his enemies at first he was taciturn and aloof and talked only when courtesy required the effort of him ile he observed that many eyes regarded him with a pity which added shame to the burden of ills his distress and at times when he was struggling to hold his stooped shoulders erect sympathetic hands came to help him in spite of himself ills health returned slowly but in the second week of his freedom tin an incident occurred which sent a warmer glow through ills his veins he heard two soldiers talking on the street they were talking about a dos dog a three legged dog that passed in front of their line as they had stood ready to fire upon the french when he returned to the little room which lie still occupied in the general hospital mere de sainte claude thought fever had set itself upon him again the next day he went out looking for the dog and found others who had beheld what his own eyes had seen but he asked no questions except in a casual way and did not reveal the reason for his interest ne he knew the dog could not be odd yet it was odd for whom he was seeking this paradoxical state of mind bothered him and lie he wondered it if its his illness had left him entirely sane to think odd had escaped vengeance andrad and had wandered through hundreds of miles of wilderness to quebel quebec would surely be an indication that it had not lie continued to seek trying to believe he was making the quest auest a diversion which was healthful for his body and that curiosity not hope or faith was encouraging him to find the three legged dog As lowertown lower town was the home of most of the dogs lie ho spent much of his time among its ruins but without success ills search came to an unexpected end in st louis street where many aristocratic families of the city lived nancy gagnon who had bad been nancy before her marriage to peter gagnon arid and a dearly loved belle of the town described the incident soon afterward in a letter to anne st denis rock and this letter partly unintelligible because of its age Is a cherished possession of 0 that family 1 I had come out of the house she wrote in time to see a strange figurer figure pause near the iron gate which shut him out from the plot of ground where the dog wal was watching little jeems at play with some blocks and sticks lie ile was a soldier in a faded uniform of 0 france with a hospital badge on ills his arm and ind had apparently just risen from a terrible sickness As he ha staggered against the gate with a strange cry I 1 thought lie he was ft as about to faint and hurried toward tow ard him then a most amazing thing happened the dog sprang straight glit at him and so frightened was I 1 by the unexpectedness of his attack that I 1 screamed at the top ot of my voice aali snatched up lip one or of the babes sticks with which I 1 was about to beat the animal from his victim when to my still greater astonishment I 1 saw that both man and beast were overcome by what appeared to be a paroxysm of recognition awl arv joy the hie action of the log dog together with my scream set little teems jeems to crying lustily and my terrified voice brought tobnette Tol nette and my father to the door shall I 1 ever forget what happened then tobnette Tol nette 6 started first toward her baby then saw the man at tile the gate and the cry which came from her lips will remain with me until my dying day in n moment she was in that poor wreck of it a soldiers arms kissing hissing him find and sobbing robbing until with the antics of tile the dog and the fiercer shrieking of tile the child to say nothing of my own wild appearance with the stick we were beginning to attract the attention of tile the public TO BM BB CONTINUED X |