The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-12-08
A LOST REVENGE.
BY JAMES BucKHAM.

Copyright 19O3, by Daily Story Pub. Co.D A great, lone rock rises like minia- ture Gothic castle in the center of Nova scotian barren" Ali about it sweeps the wide waste of marsh, carpeted with gray moss and bristiing with stunted, wiry hard-hack. On to the eastward. barely visible through encirclins brush and reeds, gieams a shallow lake. like a silver platter lost fin the grass. Desoia- ton verywhere-desolation, solitude and silence.
 A gray October sky was lowering over the barren when my guide and I entered 1t, coming suddenly out of the dark, thck woods. The sun was just going down Tn a bank of copper-coldred mist on the dis- tant horizons edge. The solitary rock looming before us was the only object that broke the wide, monotonous expanse of the plain. That" said my guide, "is Peter Pardeaus calling-roci. Many was the moose Peter called up and shot from there. And once, they say, he shot a white moose. I'll tell you the story in camp, tonight"
 We trailed across the barren in a thread of a path through brush and moss--a path that none but a guides eye could follow in the gathering twilight-and' slxirting the northern end of the little lake, struck timber again. climbed tly camp, with the quaint sign over It's door, What Cheer?' Good cheer 1t meant for us. that night, wet and weary and hun Rry as we were from a Emile walk through the painless forest The tight little stove giowed rea-hot; the freshly cut baIsam browse in the bunks gave forth it's delicious aroma; the nnoose- steak from the pack simmered in the spider and from the coffee-pot rose that .Na sociates with the feasts of the outdoor gods.
 After supper came the pipes and the guides story of Peter and the white moose. which, for the readers sake, l must tell in fewer words than the guide used. as he leaned hack against the logs, blowing long clouds of smoke across the stove.
 Peter Pardeau. when he was young man-so said the guide--loved a girl of his own Arcadian village, a wisp of white cottages nestIing by the ehere of St. Mary's Bay. Both youi1g people were de- scendants of the old French settlers of the province. whose romantic story has been so beautifully told by Longfellow in ''Evangeiine." But Peter was not the only one of fair Theresa's lovers. for she was the most winsome girl in all the par ish; and among the other guitorH was a handsome. dashing, unserupulous courier de bois. Gaspard Langlois by name. who vowed he would marry the maiden if he had to carry her away by force. This imposing fellow was Peter's only real rival, for. while she cared nothing for her other suitors, 1t was plain to be seen that Theresa admired Gaspard greatly, and was in danger of losing her heart to him in spite of the affection which had been growing up between herself and pe- ter since their childhood
 Peters love affair was at this critical pass when he was suddenly called away to the States by the death of his father, who had gone to Boston with a cargo of fish, and caught a fever while lying in port there. During Peters absence on the sad mission of bringing homo his fa- ther's body for burial, Gaspard succeed ed in persuadlng Theresa to run away with him to Quebec. where they were se- cretly married. Gaspard, as 1t afterwards appeared. had poisoned Theresa's mind by certain evil stories about Peter. which. though false in every particular. had caused the foolish girl to believe her lover untrue to her. In a moment of bitter am ger. jealousy and disappointment she had consented to requite Peter by eloping with his rival. All this Peter learned af- ter 1t was too late to right the wrong done him. Gaspard and Theresa had dis appeared: nor did they ever afterward return together to the village that had been Theresa's home. Of his sweetheart's fate Peter could learn nothing. She had utterly vanished out of his life. But her memory did not die. and as long as he lived the wronged lover vowed that he would revenge himself upon the hated Gaspard Langlois. if ever fate threw the chance in his way.
 For many years. Peter Pardeau. exiied by a broken heart, lived the life of a forest hermit. His fame as a hunter spread far and wide. There was no one who could equal him in calling up the lordly bull moose in rutting time; none who could follow the trafl of moose or bear or caribou so unerFingIy; none who could shoot rife or read the signs of the woods with such masteTly skill.
 It was not long before Peter Pardeau first began to use the great castIe-lIke powder in the barren beyond Lost Lake for a ''callins rock" The shores of the lake were a favorite feeding ground for moose. and their trails led here and there across the great barren; but only Peter