Adventure, November 1915 — page 124: what you’re looking at

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

S44 a ‘ : ¥ i ~ A Pie * ero 4e> Fi, vv. ¢ ry oe i i geen ey 7 ¢ ot Aa ‘eh ie, i. eA eid bya Ras f *. ted Col Soh i ie ee 4 an ay wh 4 122, Adventure is 344. . rite! J we 2 ~ (Shanere se 1S. Ae ‘ ny ~ sk ~ had time to consider well. propose the toast. To the passing of the free-traders and the ancient and honorable Company of Adventurers!” With gusto they drank the toast, while Dubawni in the council-room ground his impotent teeth and clenched his huge brown hands. To the passing of the free-traders and the ancient and honorable Company of Ad- venturers! Wassailers all, they drank it in wine and dream, but for all its extravagance and windy bravado there was real menace in the sound, and the hammering of the heels of the tumblers upon the board seemed to Dubawni in his helplessness like the knell of his independence. ‘“And now,” Helbaud’s domineering voice rang out above the tumult, “we will take the first step towards its realization. Our supper has run long and Dubawni will have Also, it is nearly time that Father Boccairre was here if my head voyageur Frangois did not linger by _theway. Let us go forth, messieurs, and you shall see me bend them both to my will.” A scraping and overturning of chairs arose as all the members of the company got upon their unsteady feet, and at the ’ sound Masita seized her father’s arm. “Mon Dieul’” she breathed. ‘Let us not face them here, father. Shut in, we could take no advantage of any turn of fortune. Let us face them on the beach where there isroom torun. For I am like a wild thing. I have a fear of walls. In the open they may do their worst, and I shall not cringe. And then, there is Francois. He will not fail me in coming.” “But much good he will do by coming if Ivan Trevor is not strong enough to attack,” - growled her father, as she drew him across the floor. Still he will come, and the Factor’s men will be with him. Keep a good heart, he told me, father, and shall I distrust where he had faith so stern? We must have faith and listen for the curlew’s call!” CHAPTER XIII NO LAW PAST QUEBEC HE beach outside was a bedlam of noise, for whereas Helbaud and his as- -sociates had indulged in a dimensioned carouse in the mess-room, here in the open his hirelings had flung forth in an unlicensed debauch. Walls could not contain their numbers, their clamor nor their frolics, so they had built a monster fire in the center of the flat rock-beach and about it they rioted in Saturnalian din. Beside the fire stood many rum barrels, flowing without halt, and when their cups ran too full the debauchees slopped them over the fire till the flames reached to the tree-tops. The gray limestone of thebeach shone bloody-red under the glare, and a crimson half-moon of fire lay upon the black river water where Betarde, still keep- ing his vigil, paced unsteadily along. All about in the ruddy glow which fell like the crimson aurora on Northern snows sprawled, huddled, crouched, sat, ran and danced the most motley horde ever gathered together upon a Northern river, a full half thousand frontiersmen, the scum of the woods, seas and cities. Heterogeneously mingled, yelling, singing, laughing, quar- reling, rolling in brawls with the glint of a knife or the flash of an uplifted paddle above them, buffeting each other in a trav- esty of the art of self-defense upon their wobbly knees, they cumbered the shore, the rakings of the Gulf ports, the off-scourings of the seas, Iroquois Indians, Montagnais Indians, hard-bitten wreckers of Anticosti and Sable Island, outlawed sealers and fishermen from far Newfoundland, St. Pierre and Miquelon. - Helbaud had recruited whatever was at hand, and as he and his comrades passed from the mess-room into the council-room, peering about for Dubawni and his daugh- ter, the full babel of their reveling set him to chuckling maliciously. Rolled in a maudlin chorus came the words of their drinking song: To the Pole we go, to the Arctic floe, And it’s naught we care or reck; For it’s there we’d be where the rum flows free, And there’s no law past Quebec!” Ho, our enemies we will stamp like fleas, And their gear our posts will deck; For it’s knife and ball and an ax-stormed wall; And there’s no law past Quebec! “Hear, messieurs?’’? demanded Helbaud, staying his comrades just outside the door. “Hear that song? They are right. When I let them loose, there is no law past Quebec. I wonder if tls and the girl under- stand?” VNOOKS CONMUG (C@)