Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 19, 2025
Still you go well armed and provisioned, and from what I have heard of you, you are not the sort of boys to let a few obstacles upset you." While they were still talking and waiting for breakfast to be announced they were joined by a singular figure. It was that of a white man in rather shabby ducks and crowned, as was M. Desplaines, with a huge, white pith helmet.
As the boys started to make their way up the beach a trim figure with neatly waxed black mustaches, almost extinguished in a huge pith helmet and dressed in white duck with a red sash about the waist, emerged from the nearest house and hastened toward them. "Welcome to Africa!" cried the newcomer as he approached and who, as Frank at once guessed, was M. Desplaines himself.
"That will be a matter for the American courts to decide," was the frigid reply. "I shall lay the whole matter before M. Desplaines the consular agent of our government," cried Frank at last. "It is too late to do that," retorted Mr. Barr, "anticipating that there would be some trouble I have already engaged a lawyer and M. Desplaines will keep his hands off this affair."
The boys and Ben in their hunting costumes and stout boots, M. Desplaines, short and inclined to be fat and as neatly barbered and tailored as if he had just stepped off the boulevards, Madame Desplaines and her little girls in cool, white frocks and in the center of the group dominating it by his impressive manner and mighty form the huge, ebony Krooman.
Inside the house, which was delightfully cool and darkened by jalousies from the glaring heat outside, the young adventurers were introduced to Madame Desplaines and two little girls, who constituted the family of the consular agent, who also kept the general supply store at Assini. After dinner that evening, M. Desplaines talked long and earnestly to the boys.
But though La Salle was a careful observer and must have known that what was then called the Chekago River afforded a very short carrying to the Desplaines or upper Illinois, he saw fit to use the St. Joseph both coming and going. His march to Fort Frontenac he afterwards described in a letter to one of the creditors interested in his discoveries.
"I I have heard of him," replied the other with a slight hesitancy which was, however, so faint as to be hardly noticeable. The voice of Madame Desplaines summoning them to breakfast broke off any opportunity for further questions on a matter that plainly, for some strange reason or other, seemed to have heartily interested even disturbed the naturalist.
"We've always got the Golden Eagle," he comforted, "and anyway it's likely if no one stops them, that some at least of the canoes will drift down the river to the coast. M. Desplaines will no doubt be able to surmise something serious has happened when he hears of their arrival and will send aid. In the meantime we have to consider what we are to do about the ivory cache."
The rest of the party, having goods and canoes to carry from the Chicago River to the Desplaines, lost sight of him, and he was never seen again. Autumn grass grew tall over the marshy portage, but they dared not set it afire, though his fate was doubtless hidden in that grass. The party divided and searched for him, calling and firing guns.
"In a safe place, where we can plan, and work, and organize for the final blow! Now, you shall know no more. Good-bye!" One last look each gave the other. Their eyes met, more caressingly than many a kiss; and, turning, Gabriel took his way, alone, toward Desplaines Street. At the exit of the park, he looked around. There Catherine sat, on the bench.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking