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Baptiste's cries, a curious mixture of French and English, continued to strike through all other sounds till they gained the top of the slope to find the others almost a hundred yards in front, the citizens' team leading, with the miners' following close. The moment the pintos caught sight of the teams before them they set off at a terrific pace and steadily devoured the intervening space.
So they were in great haste to make the best of fine weather. Tom thrust his Jacob's-staff into the snow, set the compass sights to the right bearing, looked through them, and stood by to let Big Baptiste get a course along the line ahead. Baptiste's duty was to walk straight for some selected object far away on the line. In woodland the axemen "blazed" trees on both sides of his snow-shoe track.
Nine was striking by St. Jean Baptiste's clock; day was fading, but it was not dark: the crescent moon aided little, but the deep gilding of that point in heaven where the sun beamed last, and the crystalline clearness of a wide space above, sustained the summer twilight; even in my dark walk I could, by approaching an opening, have managed to read print of a small type.
Irritated by the manner of Baptiste's recital, he put down his bundle, seized the man's arm with his right hand, while with the left he whisked a light flexible cane, and said: "Look here, fellow, I want you to hurry up, you know." That was all he said; the servant was terribly afraid of this little blond man, with a strange voice, and a fist harder than a vice.
With this general tendency to bully and intimidate, the wary patron had, however, made a silent exception in favor of the Italian, who has introduced himself to the reader by the ill-omened name of Il Maledetto, or the accursed. This formidable personage had enjoyed a perfect immunity from the effects of Baptiste's tyranny, which he had been able to establish by a very simple and quiet process.
The poor lad's face became much redder than the legs or beak of the gull as he sat down in confusion, which he sought to hide by busily reloading his gun; while the men indulged in a somewhat witty and sarcastic criticism of his powers of shooting, remarking, in flattering terms, on the precision of the shot that blew Baptiste's feather into atoms, and declaring that if every shot he fired was as truly aimed he would certainly be the best in the country.
Baptiste's cries ring out high and shrill as ever, encouraging his team, and never cease till, with a plunge and a scramble, they clear the brush heap lying at the mouth of the ravine, and are out on the ice on the river, with Baptiste standing on the front bob, the box trailing behind, and Sandy nowhere to be seen. Three hundred yards of the course remain.
Hence Baptiste's terror, as to which his mistress asked him with a gentle smile, "What is the matter, Baptiste? Has the name of Scuderi been found in La Voisin's lists?" "Ah! For Christ's sake," cried Baptiste, trembling in every limb, "how can you say such a thing; but Desgrais the horrible Desgrais is looking so mysterious, and presses in so he seems hardly able to wait till he can see you."
Tom looked round at his men, amazed at their faces of mysterious terror. "What on earth has happened?" cried he. Instead of answering, the men simply pointed to Big Baptiste, who was soon within twenty yards. "What is the trouble, Baptiste?" asked Tom. Baptiste's face was the hue of death. As he spoke he shuddered: "Monjee, Mr. Tom, we'll got for stop de job!" "Stop the job! Are you crazy?"
Another step. Yes, the ground was solid no, it shook. The weight of his body came down on the spot. His foot went through. He hurled himself backwards again and clutched wildly at the ground. He shuddered and cried out. Again came Baptiste's voice. "Git on, or " The distraught man struggled to his feet. He was becoming delirious with terror. He stepped forward again.
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