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Then, with me leadin' the way and him urgin' her on from behind, we starts on our shoppin' expedition. "It's to be a complete outfit, from the ground up, ain't it?" says I. "That's it," says Mr. Leavitt. So, instead of botherin' with any department stores, I steers 'em straight for Madame Laplante's, where they set you back hard, but can furnish a whole trousseau, I'm told, at an hour's notice.
Eric's words, curiously enough, banished triumph from Laplante's face and the Frenchman's expression was one of puzzled suspicion. From Eric's impassive features, he could read nothing. What Hamilton was driving at, I should presently learn; but to find out I would no more take my eyes from Laplante's than from a tiger about to spring.
"You'll stare the lady out of countenance " But at this moment the Indian who had come up the bank behind us came round and interrupted Laplante's merriment by tossing a piece of bethumbed paper between my comrade's knees. "The deuce!" exclaimed Louis, bulging his tongue into one cheek and glancing at me with a queer, quizzical look as he unfolded and read the paper.
All that had happened in the past twenty-four hours came back to me with vivid reality. I remembered Laplante's promise to leave a horse for me in the valley beyond the beaver dam. With this hope in my heart I crawled cautiously down through the silent shadows of the night.
It pulls the fools from high places and awards only one crown merit. It was Little Fellow who had brought Father Holland, wounded and insensible, from the Sioux camp. "What of Louis Laplante's body, Little Fellow?" I asked, as soon as I had seen all the others set out for the settlement with Father Holland lying unconscious in the bottom of the canoe.
He wait now for carry us down. We must go to the rapids to the camp! There my contract! My bargain, it is finished," and he shrugged his shoulders, for Frances had removed her hand from his. Whether Louis Laplante's excitable nature were momentarily unbalanced by the success of his feat, I leave to psychologists.
With a faint cry of anguish, she leaped forward. "Is it you, Eric? O Eric! is it you?" she asked. "No no, Miriam, not Eric, but Eric's friend, Rufus Gillespie." She tottered as if I had struck her. I caught her in my arms and helped her to the couch of robes. Then I took up my station facing the tent entrance; for I realized the significance of Laplante's warning.
I ordered, trying to struggle up; for the iron hand still held me. "Let go, or I'll " But Louis Laplante's palm was forcibly slapped across my mouth and his other hand he laid significantly on his dagger, giving me one threatening look. By the firelight I saw his lips mechanically counting the numbers of the enemy and mechanically I audited his count.
If he had not spoken I might not have turned; but having turned I could not but notice two things. Louis jerked back from me, as if I might try to read the soiled note in his hand, and in raising the paper displayed on the back the stamp of the commissariat department from Quebec Citadel. Neither Laplante's suppressed surprise, nor my observations of his movement, escaped the big squaw.
That was true enough to appease conscience, a half-truth like Louis Laplante's words. So I would rob my foolish avowal of its personal element. A flush suffused the snowy white below her hair. "Oh! I didn't notice any particular star above the leading canoe. There were so very, very many splendid stars, I used to watch them half the night!"
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