Argosy, Vol. 111, No. 1 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

LUCK. o Holy Spirit? Every day of his life I have made him handle firearms.. Other men think, and aim, and fire; Pierre thinks and shoots, and has forgotten how to miss. ‘“He goes among wild men. These les- sons must be learned. He is a soldier of God. He can ride a horse standing; he can run a hundred miles in a day behind a dog- team. He can wrestle and fight with his hands, for I have brought skilled men to teach him. I have made him a thunder- bolt to hurl among the ignorant and the un- enlightened; and this is the hand which shall wield it. Ha!” A flash of cold fire came for a single instant in his eyes as he stood with up- turned face. He changed. ‘Yet he is gentle as a woman. He goes out through thé villages and comes back unharmed, and after him come letters from girls and old men and dames. [ven strong men come many miles to see him and they write to him. He is known. It is now hardly a six month since he saved a trapper from a bobcat and killed the animal with a knife.”’ : . His heart failed him at the thought, and he murmured: ‘It must have been my prayers which saved him from the teeth and the claws.” Good Father Anthony rose. “You have described a young David. I am eager to see him. Let us go.” “Wait. Before you go you must know that he does not suspect that he differs from other youths. Women have looked lewdly upon him and written him letters with sing- ing words, but Pierre being of a simple na- ture, he answers them briefly and com- mends them to God. In fact, the flattery of women he does not understand, and the flattery of men he thinks is mere kindliness. Are you prepared to meet him, father?” Father Anthony rudded, and the two went out together. The chill of the open was hardly more than the bitter cold inside the building, but there was a wind that drove the cold through the blood and bones of a man. They staggered along against it until they came to a small outhouse, long and low. On the sheltered side of it they paused to take breath, and Father Victor explained: “ This is his hour in the gymna- sium. To make the body strong required thought and care. Mere riding and running and swinging of the ax will not develop every muscle. So I made this gymnasium, and here Pierre works every day. His teachers of boxing and wrestling have aban- doned him.” There was almost a smile on the lean face. * The last man left with a swollen jaw and limping on one leg.” : Conscience-stricken, he stopped short, crossed himself, and then went on: “So I give him for partners men who have com- mitted small sins. Their penance is to stand before Pierre and box each day for a few minutes and then to wrestle against him. They are fierce men, these woodsmen and trappers, and big of body; but little Pierre, they dread him like a-whip of fire. One and all, they come to me within a fort- night and beg for an easier penance.” Here he opened the door, and they slipped inside. The air was warmed by a big stove, and the room—for the afternoon was dark—lighted by two swinging lanterns suspended from the low roof. By that il- lumination Father Anthony saw two men stripped naked, save for a loin-cloth, and circling each other slowly in the center of a ring which was fenced in with ropes and floored with a padded mat. Certainly Father Victor had spared nothing in ex- pense to make the fittings of the gymna-_ sium perfect. Of the two wrestlers, one was a veritable giant of a Canuck, swarthy of skin, hairy- chested. His great hands were extended to grasp or to parry—his head lowered with a ferocious scowl — and across his forehead swayed a tuft of black, shagey hair. He might have stood for one of those northern barbarians whom the Romans loved to pit against their native champions<n the arena. He was the greater because of the opponent “he faced, and it was upon this oppenent that the eyes of Father Anthony centered. Like Father Victor, he was caught first by the bright hair. It was a dark red, and where the light struck it strongly there were places like fire. Down from this hair the light slipped like running water over a-lithe GOMIIGIOO (©)