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Show THE RICH COUNTV REAPER, RANDOLPH, UTAH The . 1 (PfloSmis Albraha Janies Oliver ,, - Curwood IIlushwUulg wu Invin Mycti TMwqkt Bn Do.Wbui Pom j THE STORY CHAPTER 1 With hi English wife. eon, Catherine, and "Jeems," Henri Bulain, French settler in Canada in 1749, cultivates a fertile farm, adjacent to the Tonteur As the story opens the Bulain family is on its way home from a visit to the Tonteurs. Catherines wandering brother, Hepsibah. meets them. CHAPTER 11 Hepsibah, as Is his custom, has brought presents for his s.ster and her family. To Jeems he gives a splendid piece of crimson velvet, laughingly telling the boy it is to be a present from Jeems to Toinette Tonteur, small daughter of the seigneur Hepsibah also gives Jeems a pistol, bidding him perfect himself in for the people of the marksmanship, frontier are constantly in fear of raids by Indian war parties, allies of the s twelve-year-o- ld seign-euri- e. -- n ii -- SERVICE 2 ms neud Dared, as cold ana impassive in appearance as a soldier at attention, while his heart beat like a hammer. Toinette had to face him to re- turn his companions greeting. It was Impossible for her not to see him when she made this movement But there was a slowness in her dis- - fit English CHAPTER 111 Hepsiban fears for the safety of the Bulains, in their isolated position, but Henri laughs at the idea of danger. Jeems presents the velvet to Toinette. Her cousin, Paul Tache, a few years older than Jeems. to the ontrives throw parcel away .eems resents the action, and attacks Iaul. but the latter whips the smaller hov i CHAPTER IV. Continued. In a double rejoicing over Toinettes homecoming and his countrys success at arms, Tonteur planned a levee and barbecue at the seigneurie. Hepsibah was away at the time, which disappointed the baron, who Insisted that Henri and his family must attend the celebration or he would never call them friends again. Jeems felt a thrill growing in him as the day drew near. He was no longer the Jeems of Lussans place as he set out in the company of his father and mother with Odd pegging along faithfully at his side. In January he would be eighteen. The alert and sinuous grace of one of the wild things of was in his movements. Catherine vas more than ever proud of him and rejoiced In the cleanness of his build, in his love of nature and God, and in the directness with which his eyes looked at one. But she was not uiore proud than Hepsibah Adams, who had seen in this pupil of his flesh and blood the qualities and courage, the lock, stock, and barrel, as he called it, of a fighting man. Jeems was anxious to see Toinette. but with this desire there remained none of the old yearnings which had once oppressed him. She whom he was going to regard today was a stranger, one into whose presence he was determined not to force himself This resolution was not, inagain. spired in him by a lack of boldness or an uncertainty as to his own social An immense pride upheld fitness. him. The spirit and freedom of the forests were in his blood, and behind these was also the spirit of Hepsibah Adams. He knew that he could meet Toinette coolly and without embarrassment should they chance to stand face to face, no matter how splendid she had grown. Ahd he realized there must be a great. change in her. She was fifteen now,"A young lady. At this period of.hls life, five years seemed a long time,. and he thought it was possible he tnjght not recognize the-for- est . her. - " ' overwhelming moment of shock he saw her. seized him whet! It was as jf.aJester(1ay of long ago had come hack into this today, us if a picture which had been burned and it scattered Into ash had miraculously An ilast - been'. restored. was taller, of course. Perhaps But she was the lovelier. , sleinsToinette. He could see no in her except that she had be-more a' woman. Hepslhahs rk, his own, his freedom, and his courage were dissipated like dust as he looked at Jier. and once more he felt himself the Inferior being offering her nuts and feathers and maple ugar and praying in his childish way that she might smile on him. This was not a new Toinette removed another million miles away from him, as lie had supposed she would be, but the him to old Toinette, commanding ' slavery again, and making his blood run hot in his body. With a group of young ladies from the neighboring seigneurie, she had come down from the big house, and he was almost in her path, with Peter l,ubeck at his side. It was Peter who advanced a step or two toward them. Except for his action Toinette would not have turned, Jeems thought. He pulied himself together and stood with 'i . - - - U ' , x rjignty tnousana rrenen ana more than a million English in the New world made ready for the sacrifice. Massachusetts enlisted one man out of eight of her male popuiaton. Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, and the others followed her example. Children, loyal, proud to fight and hating the French ferociously I Then came Braddock, preceding Wolfe, to call them worthless trash. And New France, a glory of sun and land even now gutted of her prosperity by corruptions brought from Louis and La Pompadour, sent out her own sons to fight and kill, valiant, glad, confident and hating the English implacably! With them, on both sides, went Indians from almost a hundred tribes red men who had once found honor In fighting, but who, now skulking and murderous and vengeful, found their souls in pawn to the great White Fathers across the sea who had prostituted them with whisky, bought them with guns, maddened them with hatreds, and who paid them for human hair. Of these things Jeems was thinking as winter grew Into spring and spring into summer. Only love held him from leaping to the temptations which were drawing closer about him, love for his mother whose happiness marked the beginning and the end of all action on the part of her men folk. And in this hour, when three out of four of the fighting men along the Richelieu were preparing to join Dieskau, when half of his acquaintances at the Tonteur seigneurie had already gone to fight Braddock, when the forests trembled at the stealthy tread of painted savages, and when the Frenchman who did not rise to his countrys call was no longer a Frenchman, Jeems observed that the strain upon his father was more difficult to bear than his own. For Henri, in spite of his worship of Catherine, was of New France to the bottom of his soul, and now that other men were making a bulwark of their bodies against her enemies, his own desire to make the same sacrifice was almost beyond the power of his strong will to control. In their years of comradeship, Jeems and his father had never come so near to each other as in these weeks of tension. Almost as painful to them as the sting of a wound was the day when Dieskau came up the Richelieu with a host of three thousand five hundred men and made forever a hallowed ground of the Tonteur seigneurie by camning there overnight. When she knew they were coming, Catherine hnd said : If your hearts tell you It is right, go with them But they remained. For Henri it was a struggle greater than Dieskau fought, greater than that in which Braddock died. For .Jeems it was less a torment and more the mysterious madness of youth to tramp to the clash of arms. For Catherine it , was the gehenna of her life, a siege of darkness and uncertainty in her soul which gave way suddenly before news which swept like a whirlwind over the land. S& It Had Not Been Her Desire Speak to Him. covery, an effort to keep from looking at him which was more eloquent than words. It had not been her desire to speak to him. If he needed courage, it was this enlightenment which gave it to him. He inclined his head when she met his gaze. Her face was flushed, her eyes darkly aglow, while his own cheeks bore only the color of sun and He might never have known wind. her, so unmoved did he stand as she went on her way. She had slightly nodded, her lips had barely formed a name. Later, after the feast on the green, came Tonteurs spectacular feature of the day, a military review of his tenants, with wives and children wit- ! ! nessing the martial display. The male guests, who had drilled in their owfi seigneuries, joined Tonteurs men. Only Henri Bulain and Jeems were not among them. Henri, sensitive to the fact, and to save Catherine from the hurt which might arise because of It, had started with her over the homeward trail half an hour before. Jeems had remained. This was his an swer to Toinettes contempt that he was not of her people, that his world was not circumscribed by the pettty boundaries of the seigneurie. He stood with his long rifle in the crook of his arm, conscious that she was looking at him, and the invisible shafts from her eyes, poisoned with their disdain, j him with the thrill of a pain- - i ful triumph. He could almost hear j her calling him an English beast again, j A coward. One to be distrusted and watched. He did not sense humiliation or regret, but only a final widening. of what had always lain between them. He bore, this feeling home with him. It grew as time went on, and with its growth an increasing restlessness came over him. News creeping through the wilderness and reaching every corner, like the whispering winds, kept an unquenchable heat under the ash of these fires, fanning the embers into flame in spite of him. Secrets were no longer secrets. Rumors had grown into facts. Fears had become, realities. England and France were still playing at peace in their mighty courts. In the sunlight they were friends, in the dark they were seeking each ethers lives tike common cutthroats. And the thirteen little Colonial governments of the English, quarreling like small hoys among themselves, just beginning to walk alone, feeling the significance of the new word American, cheated by their parent, laughed at by their parent, hated by their parent, still yearned for the love of that parent as children have wanted love from the beginning of time, and were loyal tb it. So tragedy began to move, to build , out of death, out of betrayed confidence, out of dishonor and fraud and pitiless murder the American and Canadian nations of the future. ! ; ! God had been with New France! Braddock and his English invaders were destroyed! No triumph of French arms in the .. ?w.or,d. had.bf 80 TODlp,ete and Dieskau, the great German baron who was fighting for France, moved southward to crush Sir William Johnson and his Colonials and Indians, planning not to stop until he had driven tha tbe doors of lbay . ')tb himere,loyal S1 'T'""1"2 to 0x11 hundr,ed' and were tbemselves Cana-stirre- d ans" outeur rode over to bring the news toIIenri Bulain. To Catherine he re- called his predlctiou that the English would never get into this paradise of theirs. Now the whole thing was settled for many years to come, for Dieskau would sweep their last enemy from the Champlain country as completely as a new broom swept her home. He had sent almost every man he had to the scene of fighting, and only his wooden leg had kept him from joining Dieskau. Even Toinette had wanted to go! This recalled an important matter to his mind. Toinette had entrusted him with a letter for Jeems. Boiling over with his own selfish exultations, he had forgotten it He hoped It was an invitation for Jeems to come to the seigneurie. He had often told his girl she should be more friendly with the lad. t Jeems took the letter and went off by himself. It was the first recognition from Toinette since the day of the levee. He had not seen her and had tried not to think of her. Alone, he read the words she had written i him. With pitiless coldness and brevity, they called him a renegade and a coward. On a September morning some days later, Jeems stood watching his uncle as he disappeared into the woods of Forbidden valley. It seemed to him that Hepsibah's suspicions and frost-tinte- d hen its chmck bells Gntbe Sabbath, car Their reposeful ooll Tb the house cfjmget ; Then a holy calm. Seemed ho settle doruan. On. the peaceful sheets Of the Old Home Taum.; Tor The Old Homs Tbunx H3as a restful place lUhere they paused sometimes hxthus dollar race; Ahd I often. lanj, Tor In. the city 3 roar. Oabbolh. calm. its And repose once more. gunraiansnip or ;ne valley naa oecome greater with the growing news 6f French triumphs in the south which so positively assured their safety. Only yesterday Tonteur had brought the latest word from Dieskau. The German had been on the eve of smashing Sir William Johnson and his mob of Colonials and Indians when his messenger had left By this time the event had probably happened, Jeems thought. Yet his uncle was going into Forbidden valley with a look in his face which puzzled him. Restlessness possessed Odd after Hepsibah had gone. Passing years were beginning to leave their mark on the dog. He was growing content to watch life with Jeems instead of ceaselessly pursuing it He was not old, and yet he was no longer There remained one thing young. which did not fail to stir in him the tense fierceness of his youth. This was the Indian smell. He always told Jeems when one of their wilderness visitors was near, sometimes many minutes before the savage appeared from the woods. And he never tired of watching Forbidden valley. In the dawn he faced It. At midday he dozed with his eyes turned toward it In the evening he sniffed its scents. Yet he did not go down into the valley unless Jeems or Henri was with him. During the morning, Odds uneasiness began to reflect itself in Jeems. Soon after noon, he left his work and told his mother he was going In the Cathdirection of Lussans place. erine walked with him through the young orchard and up the slope. Never had she seemed more beantiful to Jeems. His father was right this mother of his would always be a girl. From above the orchard, standing on a little plateau that overlooked the Bulain farm, they called to Henri, who was in his turnip field.' and waved half-close- d , U SHED BE HAPPY I She I could be happy with you only had a crust of bread. He Youll like nay If crust. Permanent Question As man oontend for pslf or pewr They never leave at a loss, As to the questions of the heur. Which Is, Who's going to he hoes 7 Search Him Seeing a foreigner emerge from the bathroom In his barber shop, minus his eollar and with his coat on his arm, the proprietor demanded sternly, "Did you take a bath?" I no take da bath, said the new arrival meekly. I leave it in da tub YOUR PRINTING Is A Valuable Asset of Your Business We Help Our Cus tomers to Success With Presentable, Profitable PUBLICITY JustRemember Jeems Stood for a Few Moments With His Arm About His Mother. at him. Jeems stood for a few moments with his arm about his mother. Then he kissed her, and Catherine watched him until he was lost to her sight in the Big forest (To be Continued) The Reaper Print ing Shop does job work of all kinds. Let us figure with you on your next Printing Job. |