United States or Germany ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Thus we examined the tents and made a circuit of the people round the fire, but found nothing to reveal the whereabouts of Miriam and the child. Laplante and I were on one side of the robe, Larocque and the squaw on the other. "And why is that tent apart from the rest and who is in it?" I asked Laplante, pointing to the lone tepee on the crest of the hill.
At imminent risk to our own lives, we poked sticks through the thicket and felt for our unseen enemy, but found nothing. "Let's go back and peg him out on the sand, where the Hudson's Bay will see him when they come this way," suggested the Nor'-Wester, referring to Laplante. "Yes, or hand-cuff him and take him along prisoner," I added, thinking Louis might have more information.
"My man, Your Honor," interjected Eric quietly. "Come here, Rufus," he commanded, motioning me to his side with the hauteur of a master towards a servant. And Louis Laplante rose and tip-toed after me with a tigerish malice that recalled the surly squaw. "Oh, Eric!" I cried out eagerly. "Are you hurt, and at such a time?"
"The parties that stole those despatches," Laplante was answering slowly. At this stage he looked at his interlocutor as if to question the sincerity of the guarantee and he saw me standing screwing the spear-head on the tell-tale handle. I patted the spear-head, smiled blandly back, and with my eyes dared him to go on. He paused, bit his lip and flushed.
Be careful, Rufus! There's a price on your head." "Ho ho my Ursus Major, prime guardian of Ursa Major, first of the heavenly constellations in the north," insolently laughed Louis Laplante through the dusk. "Let me pass, Frances," I begged, thrusting her gently aside, but her trembling hands still clung to my arm. "Impertinent rascal," rasped the irate Scotchman.
And you paid me back by almost trapping me at Fort Douglas." "But I didn't succeed," exclaimed Laplante. "Mon Dieu! If I had only known you were a spy!" "I wasn't. I came to see Hamilton." "And you pay me back as if I had succeed," continued Louis, "by kicking me me the son of a seigneur kicking me in the stomach like a pig, which is no fit treatment for a gentleman!"
That was how Louis Laplante told us of bringing Diable's squaw and her captives back to Red River. And that was how Father Holland and Eric and Louis and Mr. Sutherland and myself came to be embarking with a camping outfit for a canoe-trip down the river. "Have the Indians passed, or are they to come?" I asked Louis as Mr.
Then they seated themselves at the prow beside the Nor'-Wester appointed to accompany the boat; and I saw that Louis Laplante was sitting directly opposite Frances Sutherland, with his eyes fixed on her face in a bold gaze, that instantly quenched any kindness I may have felt towards him. How I regretted my thoughtlessness in not having forestalled myself in the Sutherlands' barge.
Little Fellow and I'll pole for it. The water's shallow there " "What do you think?" said the priest to Laplante. "T'ink! I never t'ink! I finds out." But all the same, Louis' assurance was shaken and he peered searchingly into the river. "Aren't you coming? What's your plan?" called Eric. "Certainly we are, but get this truck to higher ground, will you?" I hoisted out the camp trappings.
There was the baffled, anguished scream of some poor wounded fellow driven to bay, and I saw Laplante across the field, covered with blood, reeling and staggering back from a dozen red-skin furies, who pressed upon their fagged victim, snatching at his throat like hounds at the neck of a beaten stag. With a bound across the prostrate form of the youth, I ran to the Frenchman's aid.
Word Of The Day