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Show The y James Oliver Curwood Plains of Abraham by Doubleday Doran Co., Inc. WNLT 8rv!c. her. This did : not take her eyes from Jeems. Tley were twin tires flaming ot him through a twilight gloom. The dog touched her hand with his worm tongue, and she snatched it away. She seemed to grow talier against the gray dusk of the wall of grain. "You Englltii beast !" It was not the mill wheel this time, but Toinette's voice, filled with the mudness and passion which blazed from her eyes. With a sudden movement she picked up the musket and struck at him. If It had been loaded, she would have killed him. She continued to strike, but Jeeins was conscious only of the words which came from her brokenly ns she spent her strength on him. He had come with the English Indians to destroy her people I He and his mother had plotted It and they were alive while every one who belonged to her was dead I - The barrel of the gun struck him across the eyes. It fell against Ms side, and for a brief Interval the sicklies In his head and body overcome him so that he could not gee Tonteur at all. But he could hear Toinetle sobbing. Against this clouding of his senses he felt himself struggling as If swimming In an empty spuce. lie picked up his hatchet and his bow and rose to his feet. He had not lost sound of the mill wheel even when Toinette's sobbing had seemed to be at his side. It was crying at him now, but before he turned toward It his eyes rested on Tonteur's wooden peg. It was half cut off, a mark of grim humor on the part of n butcher. The mill wheel was forcing his attention to that fact "Look look look" It suld, and then repented the old song, calling him an English beast. lie faced It In a flash ot resentment, resent-ment, not becuuse of the wheel alone but on account of what lay at his feet and what he knew he would Bud neurer to the walls of the manor. His mind was hurling hurl-ing anathema at the wheel. He wanted to tell It that It lied. In this hush of death he wanted to cry out thnt he was not of the murderous breed who had sent the killers. Proof was over there. In the valley which at lust was well named. His mother. Ills father: His Uncle Ilepsihah. Not one of them hud been of thlu breed In their hearts, and all of them were dead by Its hand. He had been left alive by chance. That was proof. The wheel lied. He looked at Tonteur again, strengthening himself to go a little farther and find Tolnette. He knew how It would be. Toinette's young body, even more pitiful than his mother's. He forced himself to turn toward the smoldering walls. Tolnette dead 1 Ills father might die. and Tonteur, and ' all the rest of the world but these two, his mother and Tolnette, Inseparable In-separable In his soul forever, the vital sparks which hud kept his owu heart beating how could they die while he lived,? He advanced, ad-vanced, pausing over one .of the slaves, a woiniin almost unclothed, Inky pluck except the top of her head which was red where her scalp was gone. In the crook of There was no longer a Tonteur manor. There were no buildings but one. The great manor house was gone. The loopholed church was gope. The fanners' cottages beyond the meadows and fields were gona All that remulned was the stone gristmill, with the big wind wheel turning slowly at the top of It and making a whining sound that came to him, faintly through the distance. Jeeins, looking down, gnw In the drifting veil of smoke a shroud that covered death. For the first time he forgot his father and mother. He thought of some one he had known and loved a long time ago. Tolnette. As he had stood at the edge of the Big forest seeking for a figure that might have heen bis mother's, he now quested for one that might be Toinette's. But the same hope was not In his breast, nor the same fear. Certainty hod taken their place. Tolnette was dead, despoiled of her beauty and her life as his mother had been. A fury triumphed over him that was as possessive In Its effect as the color which blazed about him In the crimson bush. It had been growing In him since the moment he knelt at his father's side; It had strained at the bounds of his grief when he found his mother; It hud filled hi in with madness, stlJI unformed In his brain, when he covered their faces In the early dawn. Now he knew why he gripped the English hatchet so tightly. He wanted to kill. Ills eyes turned from the smoke-filled valley of the -Richelieu to the south where Chumpluln lay gleaming gleam-ing In the sun miles away, and the hand which held the hutchet trembled In Its new-born yearning for the life blood of a people whom he bated from this duy and hour. lie was vaguely conscious of the whine of the mill wheel as he went down Into the valley. He did not feel fear or the necessity for concealing his movement, for death would not trouble Itself to return to a desolation so complete. But the wheel, as he drew neurer, touched the stillness with n note which seemed to ride with strange Insistence over the solitude, as If culling to some one. It becume less a thing of Iron and wood that was crying In lis hunger for oil, and more a voice which de-uuinded de-uuinded his attention. It seemed to hliu that suddenly he caught what it was saying: "the English beast the little English lieast" repealing those words until they becume a rhythm without a break In their monotony except when a cupful of wind set the wheel going go-ing faster. It was as If a thought In tils brain bad been stolen from him. And what it expressed wns true. He wus the English beust, coming as Madame Tonteur had predicted, Tolnette hod been right. Fiends with white skins, who were of his blood, hud sent their hutchet killers to prove It. And like a, lone ghost he was left to see It all. The mill wheel knew and, even iu moments of quiet, seemed to possess the power to tell him so. . With stubborn fortitude he faced the gehenna through which he knew he must puss before he could turn south to find his vengeance venge-ance with Dieskau. Tolnette belonged be-longed to him now as much as his mother, and It was for her he began be-gan to search. In a ditch which had run almost under the eaves of the loopholed church, he stumbled on a body. It WHAT WENT BEFORE With nil English wife, Catherine, Cath-erine, and twelve-year-old son, Jeems, Henri Bulaln, French aet-tier aet-tier in Canada In 1749, ia return-Inn return-Inn to hie farm after a visit to the Tonteur aelg-neurle. They meet Catherine's brother, flepelbah. He distribute! preaents to the family. To Jeeme ha gives a pie-tnl pie-tnl and adviaea him to perfect himself In markamannhlp. Jaema K'ves Tolnette Tonteur a preaent , which Uepslbah had furnished for that purpose. Jeeme flKhte with Paul Tarhe, coualn of Tolnette. Toln-ette. Jeema apologizes to Tolnette for brawling- In front of her. The Tontcura so to Quebec, where Tolnette Is to be educated. Four years paaa. War between Britain and Prance flames. Returning from a hunt, Jeems finds hia horns In flames, and his father and mother alaln. CHAPTER V Continued Rut he wns not thinking that. The part of lilm conscious of the act was working unknown to the faculties which made him move and see. His thoughts were Imprisoned Im-prisoned within stone wulls, and around these walls they beat and trampled themselves, always alike, telling hlin the same things, until their repetition became a droning In his brain. His mother was , dead back there. Ills father was dead. Indinns wJtb English hatch ets had killed them, and he must carry the word to Tonteur. Thought which had heen wrecked and beaten until now possessed him with a Hume behind It thnt began to burn fiercely but which seemed to give no heut or excitement excite-ment to his flesh. -Only his eyes changed, until they were those of a savage, flinty In their hardness and without depth In which one might read his emotions. His face was white and passionless, with lines caught nnd etched upon It as lf in bloodless stone. He looked at the hatchet aguln, and Odd heard the gasp which came from his lips. The hatchet was a voice telling hint things and gloating In the story It had to tell. It made lilm think more clearly anil pressed on him an urge for caution. cau-tion. As he drew nearer to Tonteur Ton-teur manor, the Instincts of self-preservation self-preservation awoke in him. They did not make h I in leave the open trail or travel less swiftly, but his Senses became keener, and unconsciously uncon-sciously he began to prepare himself him-self for the physical act of vengeance. venge-ance. To reach Tonteur was the first obligation In the performance of this act Tonteur still had a few men who had not gone with Dies kau, and as Jeeins recalled the firing of guns, a picture painted Itself before Ills eyes. The murderers mur-derers of his father and mother had swung eastward from Forbidden Forbid-den valley, and the seigneur, j - warned by Hepslbnh's fire, had met them with loaded muskets. , He bad fulth In Tonteur and did not question what bad happened In the bottom lands. Before this no doubt had crossed his mind as 4 to Hepsibuh's fate. The English ' hatchets had caught hlin, somewhere, some-where, or he would have come V during the long night when he and Odd had wutched alone with death. But now a forlorn and scarcely living bone begun to rise In his breast as he came to Ton-. Ton-. teur's hill an unreasoning thought ( that something might have driven his Uncle Hepslbnh to the Richelieu, Rich-elieu, a hope that, after lighting bis signal lire, be had hurried to the manor with the expectation of finding his people there. His father her arm was her scnlpless Infant. White, black, women, babies the loveliness of girlhood It made no difference. Jeems scanned the earth beyond her, nnd where the smoke lay In a while shroud he saw a small, slim figure which he knew was Tolnette. Another young body might have lain In the suine way, its slemlerness crumpled In the same manner, a naked arm revealed re-vealed dimly under its winding sheet ot smoke. But he knew this was Tolnette. The dizzying liaze wavered before Ids eyes again, und be put out his hand to hold It back. Tolnette. Only a few steps from him. Dead, like his mother. Odd went ahead of hlin halfway to the still form and stopped. He sensed something Jeems could not etr-ue fae! Iliruogh the smoke mist which undulated before their eyes. Warning of Impending (lunger confronted the dog, und he tried to pass It to his master. In that moment, a shot came from the mill, and a Hush of pnln darted through Jeems' urin. He was Hung backward and caught himself to hear echoes of the explosion beating beat-ing against the forested bills and the wheel at the top of the mill screaming t lilm. He answered the shot . by dropping his bow and dashing toward to-ward the mill. Death might easily have met him at the threshold, but nothing moved In the vaultlike chamber be had entered, and there was no sound In it except that of his own breath and his racing heart. Odd went to the flight of narrow steps which led to the tower room and told Jeems that what they sought was there. Jeems rim up, his hutchet raised to strike. He must have been nn unforgettable unfor-gettable and terrifying object as She Had Tried to Kill Him. And He Had Gone Away Leaving Her Alivel his wounded arm. It bruised his body. Sohblngly, she kept repeating repeat-ing that she wanted to kill him. and cried out wildly for the power with which to accomplish the act as he stood ' before her like a man of stone. Ao English beast her people's murderer a fiend more terrible than the painted suvuges. She struck until the weight of the musket exhausted her and she dropped It. Then she snatched weakly at the hatchet In Jeems' hands, and his fingers relaxed about the helve. With a cry of triumph, she raised It, but before the blow could descend she sank In a crumpled heap up'on the floor. Even. I lien her. almost unconscious Hps were whispering their denunciation. denun-ciation. He knelt beside her and supported sup-ported her head In his unwounded arm. For n moment It lay against his hrenst. Her eyes were closed, her lips were still. And Jeems, sick from her blows, remembered his mother's Ood and breaihed n prayer of gratitude becuuse of her deliverance. Then he . bent and kissed the mouth that had cursed hi in. CHAPTER VI T DINETTE wag alone when she awoke from the unconsciousness unconscious-ness which hud come to ease the anguish of her mind and body. It seemed to her she was coming out of sleep and that the walls which dimly met her eyes were those of her bedroom In the manor. That a truth whose evidence lay so horribly hor-ribly about her could be reality and not a dream broke on her senses dully at first und then with a swift understanding. She sat up expecting to , see Jeeins. But he was gone. She was nn longer where she had fallen at her enemy's feet. But Jeems had made a resting place for her of empty hags and must have carried car-ried her to It. She shivered when she looked at the musket and the stain of blood on the floor. She hud tried to kill him. And he had gone away leaving her alive! As had ' happened to Jeems, something was burned out of her now. It had gone In the sea of darkness which had swept over her, and she rose with an unemotional unemo-tional calmness, ns If the tower room with Its dust and cobwebs u ud store of ripened grain had become be-come her cloister. Passion had worn Itself away. If a thought could have slain, she would still have wreaked her vengeance on Jeems. hut she would not have touched the musket again that lay on the floor. She went to the head of the stairs and looked down. The son of the English woman had left no sign except the drip of blood that made a trail on the steps and nut of the door. Exultation possessed her us she thought how nearly she hud brought to the Bulains the sume shallow of death which they and their kind had brought to her. The thrill was gone In a moment. The red drops fascinated her. painted brlghily by the sun. Jeems Bulaln out there with her dead! The boy her mother had tried to make her regard with bitterness bit-terness and .dislike from childhood a man grown Into nn English monster I She struggled to bring buck her power to hate and her desire to kill, but the effort she mode was futile. She followed the crimson stains. (TO BE CONTINUED.) he appeared above the floor Into the light which forced its way through the dusty glass of three round windows over his bend. There must even have been a little of the monster about him. He had left some of his garments with his mother and father, and his an. is and shoulders were bare. Char and smoke and the stain of earth had disfigured hint. His face appeared lo be painted for slaughter ond a greenish tire glittered glit-tered In the eyes that were seeking seek-ing for an enemy. Blood dripped to the oakeu planks from his wounded arm. He was a Frankenstein Franken-stein ready to kill, dlshevelmenl nnd fury conceuling his youth, his stature made appalling by his eagerness to leap at something with the upraised hatchet. If the hatchet had tound a brain. It would have been Toinette's. She faced him as he came, holding the musket which she had - fired through a slit In the wall as If she still possessed faith in Its power to defend her. Her eyes hod In them a touch of madness. Yei she was so straight and tense, waiting for death, that she did not seem to be wholly possessed by fenr or terror. Something unconquerable un-conquerable was with her, the soul of Tonteur himself struggling In her fragile breast to make her unafraid to die and giving to her an aspect of defiance. This courage cour-age could not hide the marks of her torture. Death had miraculously miracu-lously left her flesh untouched In passing, yet she stood crucified In the mill room. Expecting a savage, she recognized recog-nized Jeems. The musket fell from her hands to the floor with a dull crush, and she drew back as if retreating from one whose presence pres-ence she dreaded more than that of . a Mohawk, until her form pressed against the piled-tip bugs of grain, and she was like one at bay. The cry for vengeance which wns ns Jeems' lips broke In a sobbing sob-bing breath when he saw her. He spoke her name, and Tolnette made no response except that she' drew herself more closely to the sacks. Odd's toe-nulls clicked on the wooden floor as he went to hud fallen among tall grass and weeds and ' hud remained bidden there. It wore a Mohawk war tuft, and In one of Its stiffened hands was another English hatchet like the one Jeems had. A scalp was at the warrior's belt, nnd for a moment Jeems turned sick. It was a young girl's scalp, days old. As he advanced, be could see there hud been au alarm and a little fighting. There was old Jean de Lauzon, the cure, doubled up like a Juckknlfe. half dressed nnd with a battered old flintlock under him. He had fired the gun and was running for the fortressed church when a bullet had caught him between his thin shoulder blades. Jeems stood over him long enough to make notes of these things. He saw several more dark blotches on the ground quite near to where the thick oaken door to the church had been. There were Juchereau and Louis Hehert, both well along in years, and not far from them were their wives. Baudot Bau-dot was a fifth. He hod been a slow-witted lad, and now he looked like a clown who bad died with a grin on his face. These people had lived nearest to the church. The others had been too far away to answer the alarm quickly, but the result bad been the same. Sonic had come to meet their death. Others had waited for it. Between this group and the smoldering pile that had been the mnnor. a lone figure lay on the ground. Jeems went to It slowly. The sprawled-out form was Tonteur. Ton-teur. Unlike the others, the baron was fully dressed. He undoubtedly undoubted-ly had been, armed when he rushed forth from the house, but nothing wns left In his hands but the clods of earth which he had seized In a final agony. A cry broke from Jeems. He had loved Tonteur The seigneur had been the one connecting link between his older years and the dreams of his child hood, and it was because of him that he hud never quite seemed to lose Tolnette He crossed the dead man's bands upon his breast and loosened the earth from his fin-gers. fin-gers. He could feel Tolnette at l It Made Him Think Mors Clearly and Pressed on Him an Urge ', for Caution. must have seen Hepsibuh's warning warn-ing across Forbidden valley, and ' had waited, disbelieving, while ' death traveled with the shades of . i night through the lowlands. He might see Ilepsihah, In a moment, mo-ment, coming over the hill. . . . ' Hepslbnh. and the baron, and men with guns. ... t Even Odd seemed to be expecting this as they sped through the last oak open and climbed the chest-? chest-? nut ridge. Beyond were the thick , edging of crimson sumac, a path breaking through it and the knob ot the hill where they had always . - paused to gaze over the wonderland wonder-land which had been given by the king of France to the stalwart vassal Tonteur. Jeems emerged at this point and tlie spark which bad grown In bis breast was engulfed by sudden sud-den blackness. |