The DeLamar nugget. [volume] (DeLamar, Idaho) 1891-1900, 1899-12-08

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.
What is ii? ?" 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 ob-
served Il slight, sinuous motion amonp
the reeds of the margin, and then some
thing slid suddenly in front of the ca
noe.
at is she!" the girl cried, suddenly
bowling her head forward upon grand
mere's knees.
LA Jongleusel She is following us
tonight"
Hush. 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;
but it is Something's you will not lake of
hearing"
Then she continued rapidly in
French, giving her version, somewhat
modified, of the old legend current ECO
years ago among the Algonquins and
still preserved in tradition among the
seignories of Riviere-Quelle:
"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
moaning like lost child in the lonely
marshes. She treads softly on the
white, spongy moss, and where Ler
footprints are she leaves behind Der
little pools of water. One cannot see
her. NJ. Villeaubille. No, no. But one
can see the rushes moving where she
walks at twilight, for she gathers the
pale-purplc sticky flag-flowers for her
hair. Her hair is long and waves in the
breeze. Sometimes one feels it brush
the cheek, like the touch of a dark
waterweed. Evii-evil for one whom
she touches. monsieur.
where the alders drocp and dip she
loves TO go. and 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 n
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
pushes his canoe under the low-hang-
ing branches, and next morning one
finds ii empty.
Zone can never see beF.~isat- some
times long Pobe, which is the color
of evening. leaves n trail OF little stars
behind il. pale and yellow, among the
sedges, or Il sheet of blush light on the
water where the scum is like cream and
the blue-winged dragon-hy darts. Then
we know she has been there. the JON
gleuse.
Her eyes are blue, blue like the flag
flowers she twincs in her hair, and her
lips are smiling always. She has many
voices, like the wind in the frs, sigh
ing, sighting; like the water on the
shore, gurgling, plashing: like the lit
lie frogs that pipe in the spring; like
the grassboppers, cracking. ciapping;
like the little cricket, lonely. chirPinS;
and sometimes you can hear her moan
around the gray caves OF an empty
house, when the dead trees break and
fall on windy autumn evenings, and the
long MOSES swing like an old mans
beard from the dccaying henlock."
There were two hours more of pad
ding, but hardly Il word was spoken.
Grandmere's head had sunk upon her
breast. Yvonne's gaze was fixed ear
nestly upon the young mans face as
il she found strength there. Nillougl-
by. watching the PROV as he sent it
shooting through the water, had ever
urfore his eyes the vague, mysterious
image of the Lady of the Flag-Flowers.
They approached the hillside on
which stood grandmerc's little white
house. The storm that had been threat
ening for so long, seemed almost recdy
to burst above their heads.
at is near midnight" said Willough-
by, as he turned the canoe toward the
shore.
Then, by a sudden impulse, he leaned
toward Yvonne.
"You have not told me the name of La
Jongleuse, Yvonne!"
Non, non, for it is re bad fortune to
speak it,"
Nothing will harm you now, my
child" he answered, as he sprang from
the boat and pulled it up on shore.
''If one speak her name and the hour
ees midnight, then she will appear, and
if she will appear it be sign OF death"
He held out his hand TO guide her to
the bank, and when he felt her fingers
,,,;3 Il; ~ bia otrp "a masfarful desire grew