Show the plains of abraham by JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD 0 by doubleday doran co inc service THE STORY with his an englith glash wife catherln ln and son ion jeems henry bu bit lain french settler in canada in 1741 17 cultivates cultivate B farm arm adjacent to the th lg nurl As the story opens the bullins are returning from a bialt to the ton tours catherines Catherln ei wandering brother Hopet hepsibah bah meets them with trent presents for tile family to jem it he gives a pistol bidding him perfect himself in marksmanship Hep albah tears fears for the safety 0 of f the bullins in their isolated position jeems fights w with ith paul tacho tache cousin of tol notte nette Tont eur whom they both adore next day jeems calls at the home and apologizes apologies tor for brawling in front of tobnette Tol nette the Ton teura taura RO go to quebec four years pass war be between tween britain and france names flames jaems returns from a hunt to find his home birned and his father and mother slain ile he coes to the Ien eurla neuris and finds the manor den destroyed troyd and and his servants servant dead CHAPTER V continued 11 against this louding clouding of his senses betru he felt himself struggling glang as it if swimming in an empty space lie ile picked up his hatchet and his bow and rose to his feet ue ile had not lost sound of the mill wheel even when sobbing had seemed to be at his side it was crying at him now but before he be turned toward it tits his eyes rested 0 on 13 Tont eurs wooden peg it was half cut off a mark of grim humor on the part of a butcher the mill wheel was forcing his attention to that fact look look look it said and then repeated the old song calling him an english beast he faced it in a flash of resentment not mot because of the wheel alone but on account of what lay at his feet and what he knew he would find nearer to the walls of the manor ills mind was hurling anathema at the wheel he wanted to tell it that it lied in this hush of death he wanted to cry out that he was not of the murderous breed who bad sent the k killers ailers proof was over there in the valley which at list last was well named ills mother ills father ills uncle not one of 0 them were dead by its hand ile he had bad been left alive by chance that was proof the wheel was wrong it lied lie ile looked at again strengthening himself to go a little further farther and find tobnette Tol nette lie knew how low it would be young body even more pitiful than ill his mothers lie forced himself to turn toward tile the smoldering walls tobnette Tol nette dead I 1 ills his father might die and Tont eur and all the rest of the world but these two his mother and tobnette Tol nette inseparable in his soul forever the vital sparks which had kept his own heart beating how could they die while he lived he advanced pausing over one of the slaves a woman almost unclothed inky black except the top of her head which was red where her scalp was gone in the crook of her arm was her infant white black women babies the loveliness of girlhood it made no difference jeems scanned the earth beyond her end and where tile the smoke lay in a white shroud lie he saw a small slim figure which he know knew was tobnette Tol nette another young body might have lain in the same came way its slenderness crumpled in the same manner a naked arm revealed dimly under its winding sheet of smoke but lie he knew this was tobnette Tol nette the dizzying haze wavered bea before 0 re his eyes again and he be put out nut lils his liand hand to hold it back tobnette Tol nette only a few steps from him dead like ills his mother odd went ahead of him halfway to the sit still I 1 I 1 form and stopped ile he sensed something jeems could not see or feel through the smoke mist which undulated before their eyes warning of impending danger confronted the dog end and lie he tried to pass it to ills his master in that moment a shot came from the mill and a flash of pain darted through jeems arm ile he was flu flung ni backward bac knard and call caught lit himself to hear echoes of the explosion beating against the forested hills and tile wheel at the top of the mill screaming at him ile he answered the shot by dropping ills his bow and dashing toward t the lie mill death might easily have met him at the he thres threshold bold but nothing moved in the raul chamber lie he had entered and there was no sound in it L except xee pt that ot of tits own breath and his racing heart odd went to the flight fligh t of narrow steps which it d to the tower room and told jeems trat tiit what they sought was there jeems rtin ran up ills his hatchet raised to strike ile he must have been an unforgettable and terrifying object as lie ho appeared above the tha floor into tile the light which forced its way through the dusty glass of three round windows oyer over tits his lead there must even have been a tittle little of tim monster about him lie he lal la ha l 1 left some broe of his garments with tits ills mother bother and father and his arms and shoulders were bare char and smoke a and nd t the lie slain main of earth had disfigured him ills his face appeared to be painted tor for slaughter slaught and a greenish fire glittered ta in the eyes that were seeking tor for an enemy blood dripped to the tha oaken planks from his wounded arm ile he wis was a frankenstein ready to kill dishevelment and fury concealing his youth his stature made appalling by his eagerness to leap at something with the upraised hatchet if the hatchet had bad found a brain it would have been she faced him its as he came holding the musket which she had bad fired through a sw in the wall as if she still possessed faith la in its power to defend her tier lier eyes had in them a touch of madness yet site she was so straight and tense waiting for death that she did not seem to be wholly possessed by fear or terror something unconquerable was with her the soul of himself struggling in her fragile breast to make her unafraid to die and giving to tier her fin an aspect ot of de defiance deblance flance this courage could not hide the marks of her torture death had miraculously left tier her flesh untouched in passing yet she stood crucified in the mill room expecting a savage she recognized jeens jeems the musket fell from her hands to tile the floor with a dull crash and she drew back as if retreating from one whose presence she dreaded more than that of a mohawk until her form pressed against the piled up bags of grain and she was like one at bay the cry for vengeance which was on jeems lips broke in a sobbing breath when he saw her lie ile spoke 7 a she had tried to kill him and he had gone away leaving her alovel her name and tobnette Tol nette made mace no response except that she drew herself more closely to the sacks odds toenails clicked on the wooden floor its as he went to her this did not take her eyes from jeems they were twin fires flaming at him through a twilight gloom the dog touched her hand with his warm tongue and she snatched it away she seemed to grow taller against the gray dusk of the wall of grain you english beast 1 it was not the mill wheel this time but voice oiled filled with the madness and passion which blazed from tier her eyes with a sudden movement she picked u up p tho the musket and struck kat at him it it had been loaded she would have killed him she continued to strike but jeems was conscious only of the words which came from her brokenly as she spent her strength on him ile he had come with the english indians to destroy her people 1 lie ile and his mother had plotted it and they were alive while every one who belonged to her was dead I 1 the barrel of the gun r truck struck him across the eyes it fell against bis Ills wounded arm it bruised his body sobbingly she kept repeating that she wanted to kill him and cried out wildly for the power with which to accomplish the act as he to s tood stood before tier her like a man of af sto stone n e an english beast her peoples in murderer U r a fiend alend more terrible than t the it e painted savages she struck until the weight of the musket exhausted lier and she dropped it then she snatched weakly at the hatchet in jeems hands and his tin fin gers relaxed about the helve with a cry of triumph she raised it but before the blow could descend she sank in a crumpled heap upon the floor kven even then her almost unconscious lips were whispering their denunciation nuncia tion lie ile knelt beside her und and sub supported ported her head in his unwounded arm for a moment it lay against his breast her eyes were closed tier her lips were still and ana jeems sick from tier her blows remembered his mothers god and breathed a prayer of gratitude because of tier lier deliverance then he boot bent and kissed the mouth that had bad cursed him CHAPTER VI fornette Fol Tol nette was alone when she awoke from the unconsciousness which had come to ease the anguish of her mind anil and body it seemed to her she was coming out of sleep and that the walls which dimly met tier her eyes were those of her bedroom in the manor that a truth whose evidence lay so horribly about tier her could be reality and not a dream broke on tier her senses dully at first and then with a swift understand ing she sat up expecting to see J jeems but ile he was gone she was no longer where she had fallen at her feet but jeems had made a resting place for tier her of empty bags and must have h ap carried her to it she shivered when she looked at the musket and the stain of blood on the floor she had tried to kill him and lie he had gone away awa leaving tier her alive As had happened to jeems something was burned out of her now it had gone in tile the sea of 0 darkness which had swept over her and she rose amse with an unemotional calmness as if the tower tover room with its dust and cobwebs and store of ripened grain had become tier her cloister passion had worn itself away it if a thought could have slain she would still have haie wreaked wrecked tier her vengeance on jeems but she would not have touched the musket again that lay on the floor she went to the head of the stairs and looked down tile the son of tile the eng lish woman had left no sign except the drip of blood that made a trall trail on the steps and out of the door exultation possessed her as she thought how nearly she had brought to tile the bullins the same shadow of death which they and their kind had brought to her the thrill was gone in a moment the red drops fascinated her painted brightly by the sun jeems bulala out there with her dead I 1 tile boy tier her mother had bad tried to make tier her regard with bitterness and dislike from childhood a man gown into an eng english monster I 1 she struggled to bring back her power to hate and her desire to kill but the effort she made was futile she followed the crimson stains all about her was the haze of smoke soft and still in the air in the distance obscured by the fog which ran from the smoldering ruins she saw a form bent grotesquely under a burden it was a shapeless thing distorted by the sun and the smoky spindrifts spin drifts dancing before her eyes ees but living because it was moving away from her behind it was a smaller object and she knew tile the two were jeems and his dog she watched until they were blotted from her vision and minutes passed before she followed where they hid bad gone jeems must have seen tier her for lie he reappeared with the dog like a werewolf at ills his heels ile he had found a coat somewhere and did not look so savage though ills his face was disfigured and bleeding where she lind struck him with tile the barrel of the musket she tried to speak when nhen he stopped before her accusation and a bit of ferocity remained in tier her soul but they were impotent in the silence between them ills eyes meeting hers steadily from under the lurid brand 0 of f tier her blow seemed less like a murderers and held more the 9 gaze aze of one who regarded tier her with a cold and terrible pity lie ile did not put out a helping hand though she felt herself swaying ile he was no longer youth lie ile was not even jeems bblain but his voice olce was the same 1 I am sorry tobnette Tol nette TO en 1113 3 CONTINUED |