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Updated: June 17, 2025
Thirteen big Puants were sitting around the camp fire eating their supper of half-raw meat. Their horses were hobbled a little beyond, munching such picking as could be found among the fern. Gabriel went back as still as a snake and whispered his orders to his men. Every Frenchman must pick the Puant directly in front of him, and be sure to hit that Puant.
You ride the same track to-day, my child, only it is not as shaggy and savage as the course then lay. And as soon as Claudis Beauvois was out of sight, Gabriel Chartrant followed with his dozen French Puants, in feathers and buckskin, all smeared with red and yellow ochre, well mounted and well armed. They rode along until they reached the last path which turns off to the river.
He did not say anything, and the others all had eyes which made me shudder. I pressed my hands on his buckskin sides and said to him, 'Gabriel. And he turned and looked at me. I never had seen a feature of his frightful face before. And then I understood that the real Puants had me. Do you think I will ever marry anybody but the man who took me away from them? No.
"But you forget that Beauvois is au Caho'?" said one of the young men. "Oh, I never can forget anything connected with this day," said Celeste, and the tears ran down her face. "I never can forget how willingly I let those Puants take me, and I laughed as one of them flung me on the horse behind him. We were nearly to the bluffs before I spoke.
They left their meat, their horses, and arms. They were off like deer, straight through the woods to any place of safety. Every marksman had taken the Indian directly in front of him, but as they were abreast and the Puants in a circle, those four on the opposite side of the fire had been sheltered. Le Maudit Pensonneau scalped the red heads by the fire and hung the scalps in his belt.
"We go to the land of the Malhominis, to the wild rice people. They live toward the south-west?" He nodded. "Across La Baye des Puants as the wild goose flies. Then down till you find the mouth of the wild rice river. But why go till another sunrise?" I hesitated. But I thought of the shadowing Huron, and decided that I could elude him best at night.
My aunt Choutou will keep her safely until I can make some terms with Alexis Barbeau. Maybe he will give me his daughter, if I rescue her from the Puants. And if worst comes to worst, there is the missionary priest at Pain Court; he may be persuaded to marry us. But who is willing to be at the river?"
So Celeste Barbeau was kidnaped the day before my mother met my father. Glad as the Cahokians were to see them, the troops were no longer needed, for the Puants had gone. They were frightened out of the country. Oh, yes, all those Indians wanted was a good whipping, and they got it.
It was like the swarming of wild bees. Paul and Jacques had waited with the boat until nightfall. They heard the firing when the Puants took Celeste, and watched hour after hour for some one to appear from the path; but at last concluding that Gabriel had been obliged to change his plan, they rowed back to Caho'. Claudis Beauvois was the only person who did not sit up talking until dawn.
He shot ahead, glad to pass what he had taken for a second body of Indians, and Le Maudit Pensonneau hooted after him. "The miserable coward. I wish I had taken his scalp. He makes me feel a very good Puant indeed." "Who cares what becomes of him?" said Gabriel. "It is Celeste that we want. The real Puants have got ahead of us and kidnaped the bride. Will any of you go with me?"
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