United States or Eritrea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
All the alluring mystery and solitude, all the sorrow of the wilderness were in those long-drawn blasts; all the enchantment of the woodland, too, calling, calling to the sons of the forest, riflemen, hunter, Coureur-de-Bois. For its elfin monotone was the very voice of the forest itself the deep, sweet whisper of virgin wilds, sacred, impenetrable, undefiled, tempting forever the sons of men.
A Pennsylvania soldier, running heavily down hill ahead of me, was shot, sprang high into the air in one agonized bound, like a stricken hare, and fell forward under my very feet, so that I leaped over him as I ran. The Canadian coureur-de-bois was hit, but the bullet stung him to a speed incredible, and he flew on, screaming with pain, his broken arm flapping.
This was no easy task, but in general they managed to do it for nearly a century. The most active and at the same time the most picturesque figure in the fur-trading system of New France was the coureur-de-bois. Without him the trade could neither have been begun nor continued successfully.
Osterhaut and Jowett became silent, too, and, like the Indians, ran as fast as they could, over fences, through the trees, stumbling and occasionally cursing, but watching with fascinated eyes this adventuress of the North, taking chances which not one coureur-de-bois or river-driver in a thousand would take, with a five thousand-dollar prize as the lure. Why should she do it?
"Never mind what it's for. I want it at once one with the long hair of a French-Canadian coureur-de-bois. Have you got one?" "Suh, I'll send it round-no, I'll bring it round as I come from dinner. Want the clothes, too?" "No. I'm arranging for them with Osterhaut. I've sent word by Jowett." "You want me to know what it's for?" "You can know anything I know almost, Berry.
"Never mind what it's for. I want it at once one with the long hair of a French-Canadian coureur-de-bois. Have you got one?" "Suh, I'll send it round-no, I'll bring it round as I come from dinner. Want the clothes, too?" "No. I'm arranging for them with Osterhaut. I've sent word by Jowett." "You want me to know what it's for?" "You can know anything I know almost, Berry.
Boyd, wielding his clubbed rifle, cleared a circle amid the crowding savages; Sergeant Parker ran out into the yelling crush; the two gigantic riflemen, Murphy and Elerson, swinging their terrible weapons like flails, smashed their way forward; behind them, using knife, hatchet, and stock, I led out the last men living on that knoll Ned McDonald, Garrett Putnam, Jack Youse, and a French coureur-de-bois whose name I have never learned.
Blessed if I ever saw the match of him!" "He's neither voyageur, nor soldier, nor coureur-de-bois," said De Catinat. "'Pears to me to have a jurymast rigged upon his back, and fore and main staysails set under each of his arms," said Captain Ephraim. "Well, he seems to have no consorts, so we may hail him without fear."
But the liberty of these rovers of the forest was not liberty after the English pattern; the coureur-de-bois was of an entirely different type from the pioneers of British stock who were even then pushing their way through the gaps in the Alleghanies and making homes in the backwoods. Priest and seigneur, habitant and coureur-de-bois were one and all difficult to fit into accepted English ways.
If the Jesuits did not deign to pillory him in their Rélations, or if the royal officials did not single him out for praise in the memorials which they sent home to France each year, the coureur-de-bois might spend his whole active life in the forest without transmitting his name or fame to a future generation. And that is what most of them did.
Word Of The Day