Adventure, November 1915 — page 103: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Posts of Pillage On the run of the floods came the fur | brigades from her father’s free-trading posts, barter went on in a tumult, the tumult died, the free-traders vanished to their uttermost outposts, her father drop- ped South with the harvest of fur, and she was left alone through the mellow, transient Summer which tantalized her with its very briefness. On the verge of Autumn, Du- bawni would arrive, Masita would spring to his arms and the eight-months’ Winter would enfold them both, eight months of silence, frost and desolation, of snow-bound river, snow-cloaked forest and snow-drifted barrens. There was magic, there was fascination, there was mesmerism in the North, but greater than these was the unrest within her. She longed again for the touch of her younger years and all that the touch might awake. The pageants of the old days, of the old scenes, the faces of the old friends, as if wafted up on the gulf winds, drifted clear before her mystic eyes. And clearer than anything else in the gossamer cloud- visions passed the face of Frangois La- vergne, Francois the strong, the straight, the stalwart, who had loved her madly with a youthful love and wept when she - went back to her home in the wilderness. Vividly she recalled that day, recalled his words at parting, for the girlish heart of her was steeped in romance and life was a lilting song. “But I will come,” Francois had vowed. “T will come to you across the wastes when such petty things as schools are put be- hind. They can not keep me within walls. I shall be a voyageur, a mighty voyageur. I shall adventure the Northland for the fur companies, and I shall be a Factor in the end. And then—and then, Masita, I shall come for you!” But the seasons of the North had spun ’round and ’round, and the adventurous Frangois had not come. The memory of him, strong, straight, stalwart, the echo of ‘ his words, had become as some old dream, sweet withal, but vague as the caress of these same gulf winds kissing her cheeks, and Masita wondered, unbelievingly, if she should find him in Quebec. QUEBEC! The glamorous pros- pect of return to it possessed her, body and soul. She trembled with eagerness, and her hand pressed more tense- ly upon her father’s shoulder. -dlers backwatered with their blades. Io! “But where is Ishimanikuagan Lake you speak of?” she demanded. “For you know the Saguenay route in old Quebec is the only one familiar to me. This is new.” “Look you,” Dubawni _ explained. “Mushalagan Lake and Ishimanikuagan Lake lie like a crescent moon snapped in the middle, with the Ishimanikuagan end drawn down somewhat. The Lower Mani- ' kuagan River we travel flows out of yon notch you see, touches the Ishimanikuagan to the southward a little, runs on and emp- ties into the Gulf of St. Lawrence at English Bay. ‘There we shall find the schooner to take us up-river to Quebec. But calm your- self. I know what Quebec means to you. But calm yourself, Masita. And sit down by me here or you will be tilted into the water as they swing the fur bales!” He spoke a quick command to his brigade leader, Chambonne, in the bow. The Bn e craft lost momentum: and, with the other canoes ranging themselves in a long line be- hind it, floated as light as a lily pad in to the shore. But before it touched the flat landing- rocks, a rifle poked out of the cleft above, and a stern, bronzed face appeared above the weapon. | ~ “Who comes there?” rang the challenge in a huge voice. \ Masita stared amazed,‘and instantly the years swept back, for the face was the face of Francois Lavergne, Francois of old Que- bec, Francois the strong, the straight, the stalwart, a maturer, browner, more severe face, it was true, than the face of the daunt- less youth of her school-days, but even more handsome in its wild, mannish feature casting, with the glamour of adventure haunting the depths of his golden-brown eyes. ““Mon Dieu, father,” she breathed almost unconsciously, “what a lov—I mean—” she — caught the snarl of her father by her side— “what an enemy! What an enemy!” CHAPTER II THE STROKE OF THE ARCTIC FUR Prok Lavergne’s body had followed his face and his rifle out of the spruce cover, such a body as Masita had never seen although she had looked on many a mighty Northman. Gomicbooks