United States or Benin ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"You saved my life, kid!" he said, softly. "How ever did you know I was down there in that hell?" "I jest knowed it was you, when I seen Red Pichot an' Bug Mitchell a-trackin' some one," answered the child, still keeping her eyes on the trail, as if it was her part to see that Henderson was not again taken unawares.
While he was recouping his strength and spirits, on the 1832 holiday, she was in Paris negotiating with Pichot of the Revue de Paris, with Gosselin and other publishers, arranging for proofs, and also for an advance of cash. Even his epistolary good-byes were odd mixtures of business with sentiment.
But to this fierce storm, which almost bent double the trees around the rim of the pot, Red Pichot and Mitchell were by no means so indifferent. About sixty or seventy yards below the falls they had a snug retreat which was also an outlook. It was a cabin built in a recess of the wall of the gorge, and to be reached only by a narrow pathway easy of defence.
To the last gasp he would maintain his hold on life, and give fortune a chance to save him. When he could no longer resist, then it would be Fate's responsibility, not his. The better to fight the awful fight that was before him, he put clear out of his mind the picture of Red Pichot and Mitchell perched on the brink above, smoking, and grinning down upon the writhings of their victim.
Heedless of the sheeting volleys of the rain and the fierce gusts which whipped her dripping homespun petticoat about her knees, she clambered skilfully down the rock wall to the ledge whereon Pichot had stood. Bracing herself carefully, she reached out with the pike-pole, which, child though she was, she evidently knew how to use.
Thereupon, Amedee Pichot, who naturally wanted consecutive numbers of the story for his magazine, committed what was in Balzac's eyes an unpardonable breach of trust, by publishing the uncorrected proofs, leaving out or altering what he did not understand. Balzac was furious at his signature being appended to what he considered unfinished work.
At the sight of Henderson on his log, lying quite close to the edge, and far back from the dreadful cleft, the terror in the wild eyes gave way to inexpressible relief. The face drew back; and an instant later a bare-legged child appeared, carrying the pike-pole which Pichot had tossed into the bushes.
Then he turned to Sis, who stood silent and motionless close at his side, her big, alert, shy eyes watching like a hunted deer's the trail by which Red Pichot might return. She was trembling in her heart at every moment that Henderson lingered within that zone of peril. But she would not presume to suggest any move. Suddenly Henderson turned to her and laid an arm about her little shoulders.
Though respected by the vermin, the glorious imperial is nevertheless ruined not by larvae, but by a parasitic fungus, the Mycogone rosea, which spreads in a purply stain and turns it into a putrid mass. This is the only despoiler that I know it to possess. It is called lou pichot gris, the grayling, in these parts, because of its coloring, which is usually an ashen gray.
This outlaw, a French half-breed, known through the length and breadth of the wild backwoods county as "Red Pichot," was the last but one and accounted the most dangerous of a band which Henderson had undertaken to break up. Henderson had been deputy for two years, and owed his appointment primarily to his pre-eminent fitness for this very task.
Word Of The Day