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The men of the 42nd Division have every reason to be proud of their battle at Solesmes; the Germans were very strongly entrenched and they were picked troops, and a night attack is, of course, one of the most difficult of all to carry out successfully. The observers were instructed to remain at their quarters in Beauvois, and for the next eleven days training was resumed.
On October 11 we moved on again and got a billet in a small cottage in Fontaine-au-Pire. Next day on again to the next town, Beauvois, which was not at all badly smashed. We had billets in a couple of small cottages off the main street and we were fairly comfortable here. The plague of house-flies was very bad at this place; the whole place was full of them.
"But you forget that Beauvois is au Caho'?" said one of the young men. "Oh, I never can forget anything connected with this day," said Celeste, and the tears ran down her face. "I never can forget how willingly I let those Puants take me, and I laughed as one of them flung me on the horse behind him. We were nearly to the bluffs before I spoke.
There was about him what the city alone gives a man, and the mothers, when they saw his jewels, considered that there was only one drawback to marrying their daughters to Claudis Beauvois: his bride must travel far from Caho'. But it was plain whose daughter he had fixed his mind upon, and Alexis Barbeau would not make any difficulty about parting with Celeste.
Gabriel could match Celeste as a dancer, but it was not likely Alexis Barbeau would find him a match in any other particular. And it grew more unlikely, every day that the man from New Orleans spent in Caho'. The stranger said his name was Claudis Beauvois, and he was interested in great mercantile houses both in Philadelphia and New Orleans, and had come up the river to see the country.
It was like the swarming of wild bees. Paul and Jacques had waited with the boat until nightfall. They heard the firing when the Puants took Celeste, and watched hour after hour for some one to appear from the path; but at last concluding that Gabriel had been obliged to change his plan, they rowed back to Caho'. Claudis Beauvois was the only person who did not sit up talking until dawn.
Claudis Beauvois and a few of his friends galloped off to Prairie du Pont to bring the bride to church. The road from Caho' to Prairie du Pont was packed on both sides with dense thickets of black oak, honey locust, and red haws. Here and there a habitant had cut out a patch and built his cabin; or a path broken by hunters trailed towards the Mississippi.
Claudis Beauvois did not turn around in the street to look at any woman, rich or poor, when he left Cahokia, though how he left was not certainly known. Alexis Barbeau and his other associates knew better how their pockets were left. Oh, yes, Alexis Barbeau was very willing for Celeste to marry Gabriel after that.
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