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Updated: July 27, 2025
But it is one thing to know a fact, another to see that fact in living embodiment; and in this case, the living embodiment was Louis Laplante, a school-fellow of Laval, whom, to my amazement, I now saw, with a beard of some months' growth and clad in buckskin, lying at full length on his back among that villainous band of nondescript trappers.
A great outcry came from the Sutherlands' boat and Louis Laplante was on his feet gesticulating excitedly and talking in loud tones to the rowers. "Hullo, there!" I shouted, riding to the very water's edge and flourishing my pistol. "Stop your nonsense, there! What's wrong?" "There's a French papist demands to have speech wi' ye," called Mr. Sutherland. "Bring him ashore," I returned.
I asked, assuming the strangeness, which Eric's signals had directed, but never moving my eyes from Laplante. The villain who had befooled me in the gorge and eluded me in the forest, and now tormented Frances Sutherland, winced under my watchfulness. "The carvings!" answered Eric, annoyed that I did not return his plain signals and determined to get my eye. "Pray look for yourself!
One sharp, deep, broken draw of breath, and with a laugh on his lips, Louis Laplante died as he had lived. Then the tiger-cat leaped over the dead form at Miriam and me.
The fire cracked so loudly I became aware there was ominous silence among the loungers of the camp. They were listening as well as watching. Up to this time I had not thought they were paying the slightest attention to us. Laplante was not answering, and when I faced him suddenly I found the squaw's eyes fastened on his, holding them whether he would or no, just as she had mine. "Eh! man?"
It was Laplante, and my whole frame filled with a furious resentment which I had not guessed could be possible with me. "That Frenchman," she whispered, but his figure vanished among the buildings. She showed me the council hall where Eric could be found. "And where do you go?" I asked stupidly. She indicated the quarters where the settlers had taken refuge. I led her to the door.
A shout of returning hunters arose from the ravine, at which Louis bounded for the tent on a run, dashing inside breathlessly, I following close behind. "Stay you here, inside, mind! Mon Dieu! If you but show your face; 'tis two white men under one stone-pile! Louis Laplante is a fool dammie a fool to help you, his enemy, or any other man at his own risk."
"Spy," he shouted, throwing aside the moose-skin coverlet. "Spy! Who?" "It's Louis Laplante, of Quebec." "Louis Laplante!" reiterated the trader. "A Frenchman employed by the Hudson's Bay! Laplante, a trapper, with them! The scoundrel!" And he ground out oaths that boded ill for Louis. "Hold on!" I exclaimed, jerking him back. He was for dashing on Laplante with a cudgel.
Does the physician justify medical experiments on the criminal, or the sacrificial priest the driving of the scape-goat into the wilderness? Suffice it to say, when I went down to the shore, Louis Laplante was sitting in the midst of empty drinking-flasks, and the wily, old Nor'-Wester was tempting the silly boy to take more by drinking his health with fresh bottles.
That was in our favor; for in spite of our care the leaves crushed and crinkled beneath us. At intervals a glimmer of light shone from the beach. Louis paused and listened so intently our breathing was distinctly audible. A vague murmur of low voices like the "talking of the trees" in Little Fellow's language floated up from the river; and in the moonlight I saw Laplante laugh noiselessly.
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