Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 15, 2025
His mind worked swiftly, even as swiftly as Breault's in its way, and without any process of reasoning he sensed menace and enmity in this man's appearance, and associated with it the mysterious flight of Jolly Roger and Nada. Breault had nodded, without speaking. Then his eyes rested on Peter, and his face broke into a twisted sort of smile.
Back in the pit-gloom, with a grim smile now and then relaxing the tight-set compression of his thin lips, and with eyes that stared like a night-owl's into the gloom ahead of him, Breault poled steadily on. Dripping from the bog-holes and lathered with mud, it was the mystery of Breault's noiseless presence somewhere near him in the still night that drew Peter continually deeper into the swamp.
To Corporal Blake fell the unpleasant task of going after Jan Thoreau. Unpleasant, because Breault's starved huskies and frozen body brought with them the worst storm of the winter. In the face of this storm Blake set out, with the Sergeant's last admonition in his ears: "Don't come back, Blake, until you've got him, dead or alive."
Even that fraction of an inch caught Breault's keen eyes. "Still a one-man dog," he observed, stepping well inside the cabin, and facing Father John. "Where is McKay, Father?" He had not closed the door, and Peter saw his chance.
Also he was determined to stick to the edge of the scrub timber, for if the Barren was Bram's retreat he would sooner or later strike a trail unless Bram had gone straight out into the vast white plain shortly after he had made his camp in the forest near Pierre Breault's cabin. In that event it might be weeks before Bram would return to the scrub timber again.
His caution, after he left Fort William, was in a way an automatic instinct that worked for self-preservation in face of the fact that he was growing less and less concerned regarding Breault's appearance. It was not in his desire to delay the end much longer.
Oosimisk, with the caution of her race in moments of danger, was drawing the curtains at the windows, and Father John smiled his approbation. He did not want Breault, the man-hunter, peering through one of the windows at him. Even as he walked back and forth he listened intently for Breault's footsteps.
"Down south?" queried Porter. "Why down south if you care for her and you up here?" McKay shrugged his shoulders. He had said too much. Neither he nor Porter knew that Breault's eyes were half open, and that he was listening. Jolly Roger held up a hand, as if something in the wailing of the storm had caught his attention. "We'll have two or three days of this. Better turn in, Porter.
He had given his promise, and he was keeping it; for, if it wasn't really Breault's voice up there in the wind, multiplied a thousand times, it was a good imitation of it. Again Corporal Blake laughed a laugh as unpleasant as the cough that had come from Breault's bullet-punctured lung.
To-night he sat in Pierre Breault's cabin, with Pierre at the opposite side of the table between them, and the cabin's sheet iron stove blazing red just beyond. It was a terrible night outside.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking