The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1899-09-08

stream, a few miles above its foaming.
shallow rapids. NNkH
He had two companions, one a young
girl, olivc-skinned and black-haired,
the other an old woman, whose darker
hue showed her to be of unmixed In
dian blood. .sss sSEVsr.s,r ~ aH~S
IN. Villeaubille," said Yvonne, ''zaire
ees my ,grandmozaire' house, at szaiti
montague, far. far. See you zaire?
Gardez! gardez!" nEiA4ssf gG .
Her English was delicious, mixed as
it was with French words and spoken
with the Canadian-French accent. She
spoke to him in English, except when
she became much interested in the con-
versation, or when the theme taxed
too heavily her slender vocabulary,
''Ze rivaire she wind much, and
link we shall hat storm. And re
courante is against us, NJ. Villeaubille."
He glanced up at the skyswhere the
clouds We're gathering above the top
of the Montague Ronde, dark, heavy
clouds, through which the headlight
ming flashed fitfully.
81 do not fear re storm, l., said
/ Yvonne, shut look, grandmere, wat was
zait? Something's wife ran past me, on
b re vater''A - ~. -, 81. A. s'-- -
Grandmere started, and looked about
her uneasily. 10 p5A% Alo}
1T was the moons reflection in the
stream, Mile. Yvonne,'' said Will
loughby. s-,,a. fass r,r~eEt
From her place in the bottom of the
L.. ,{A1
ligible something.
In the shadow of the frs the canoe
slid on almost noiselessly, when out of
the silence a vail quivered in the air
above their heads. Yvonne suppressed
cry of terror and crouched down low
in the canoe. Willoughby himself was
startled by a voice so human, so mel
ancholy, sounding in that solitude.
II believe it IS a child crying!" he
exclaimed. 'Let us go to the Shore
e. mon, non, navaire, monsieur"
Yvonne's voice trembled, but she
stopped the paddle with her hand as
he began to reverse the canoe.
''Zaire was not re place it sounded
it was above us. We will 60 on qvick-
qvick!" &C.. "a uer alsf
'It was wild loon, perhaps, in pas
sage" Willoughby said. ''They have
a human cry" &i 800 ..'..'
He was endeavoring to reassure him
self as well as the others. for fear is
somewhat contagious.
ct was not loon, nor was it hui
man." the old woman spoke out in
French for the first time 's 3D.
FL ''Look there!" She pointed toward
a bay of the river that ran up into
marshy meadow.
Willougby looked but in the twi-
light he saw nothing except the white
mist slowly exhaling from the water
and the flag-fowers along the meadow
edge. t, >-H9't 49,
'What is it?" he asked, his curiosity
fairly aroused, for he perceived that it
was something definite which his com
panion feared '
'Tell me, Mile Yvonne" @
Silence met his questionable girl
putting her finger to her lips with the
gesture of one who dares not speak.
Willoughby's vision became preternat-
urally acute as the weirdness of the sit
uation impressed itself upon him.
Watching the dusky shore past which
they were closely Swimming, he OBJ
served slight, sinuous motion among
the reeds of the margin, and then some
thing slid suddenly in front of the ca
noe. III
''It is she!" the girl cried, suddenly
bowling her head forward upon grand
mere's knees. ELS. Fr4 u ...
'La Jongleuse! She is following us
tonight ,,a t.,, sea. ts =
flush! do not speak her NAME" said
grandmere's husky voice, ''or one of us
will be TAKEN"
Again Willoughby asked, and more
earnestly, for an explanation.
81 will tell you, Monsieur Villeaubille;
p but it is Something's you will not lake of
hearing" ,t-Et,. staHn 4
Then she continued rapidly in
French, giving her version, somewhat
modified, of the old legend current 200
years ago among the Algonquins and
still preserved in tradition among the
seignories of Riviere-Quelle:-r -,a
'She comes at twilight, when the
mist rises from the streams; when the
whippoorwill cries among the grasses,
then her voice is heard quavering and
"A moaning like q lost child in the lonely
marshes. She treads softly on the
white, spongy moss, and where her
footprints are she leaves behind her
little pools of water. One cannot see
her, 81. Villeaubille. No, no. But one
can see the rushes moving where she
walks at twilight, for she gathers the
pale-purple sticky fag-fowers for her
hair. Her hair is long and waves in the
breeze. Sometimes one feels it brush
the cheek, like the touch of a dank
waterweed. Evil-evil for one whom
she touches, monsieur.
where the alders droop and dip she
loves to CO. ard there she sits and
swings her feet in the water, and the
cold low fog rises about her. The sif-
heur whistles in the woods. 1t is a
warning. But the belated fisherman
hears the splashing of her feet and
thinks the trout are leaping where the
current is swift in the deep pool. He
D11shes his caO0e Tnder the lOw-banU-