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Updated: May 25, 2025
It had, however, been of no use, and Grassette had refused the advances and ministrations of the little good priest, Father Laflamme, who had come from the coast of purpose to give him the offices of the Church. Silent, obdurate, sullen, he had looked the priest straight in the face and had said in broken English, "Non, I pay my bill.
"Yes, Bignold is his name, Grassette," said the Sheriff. "You took a life, and now, if you save one, that'll balance things. As the Governor says, there'll be a reprieve anyhow. It's pretty near the day, and this isn't a bad world to kick in, so long as you kick with one leg on the ground, and " The Governor hastily intervened upon the Sheriff's brutal remarks.
Jacques came back one night and found the house empty. Marcile had gone to try her luck with another man. That was the end of the upward career of Jacques Grassette. He went out upon a savage hunt which brought him no quarry, for the man and the woman had disappeared as completely as though they had been swallowed by the sea.
But it was a new sort of Jacques Grassette who, that morning, spoke to him with the simplicity and eagerness of a child; and the suddenly conceived gift of a pony stallion, which every man in the parish envied Jacques, won Valloir over; and Jacques went "away back" with the first timid kiss of Marcile Valloir burning on his cheek.
His official and officious intervention, behind which was the tyranny of the little man, given a power which he was incapable of wielding wisely, would have roused Grassette to a savage reply a half-hour before, but now it was met by a contemptuous wave of the hand, and Grassette kept his eyes fixed on the Governor. "James Tarran Bignold!"
He stood still for a moment and looked at them, as it were only half comprehending that they were cheering him now, and that voices were saying, "Bravo, Grassette! Save him, and we'll save you." Cheer upon cheer, but he took no notice. He walked like one in a dream, a long, strong step.
Now here, in the thick of life, then, out there, beyond this world in the darkin purgatory." The brave old man had accomplished what everyone else, priest, lawyer, Sheriff and watcher, had failed to do: he had shaken Grassette out of his blank isolation and obdurate unrepentance, had touched some chord of recognisable humanity.
Here Grassette gave the signal to shout aloud, and the voice of the Sheriff called out: "Hello, Bignold! "Hello! Hello, Bignold! Are you there? Hello!" His voice rang out clear and piercing, and then came a silence-a long, anxious silence. Again the voice rang out: "Hello! Hello-o-o! Bignold! Bigno-o-ld!" They strained their ears. Grassette was flat on the ground, his ear to the earth.
The West's hospitable, and this thing has taken hold of it; the West wants to save this stranger, and it's waiting for you, Grassette, to do its work for it, you being the only man that can do it, the only one that knows the other secret way into Keeley's Gulch. Speak right out, Grassette. It's your chance for life. Speak out quick."
"There is no time to be lost, Grassette. He has been ten days in the mine." Grassette's was not a slow brain. For a man of such physical and bodily bulk, he had more talents than are generally given. If his brain had been slower, his hand also would have been slower to strike.
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