The Carbon County news. [volume] (Red Lodge, Mont.) 1924-1931, 1931-03-12
CHAPTER VI-continued

With an effort. Jeems reused
himself. He saw Odd at his feet.
Day had come, and the sun was
rising He sensed these things
first, in flash of wakefulness.
and then felt a weight against
him and the softness of his moth
er's hair on his cheek. Only it
was Toinette and not his mother.
She must have come to him before
the dawn broke. Her head was
resting on his shoulder and his
arms were about her as they had
been about his mother. His move
ment had not awakened her. but
now slow tightening of his arms
brought d tremor to her lashes and
deep breath to her lips. He
kissed her pale face, and her eyes
opened. He kissed her again. and
the act did not seem to disturb her
any more than it amazed or
shocked him. There was a respon.
sive greeting in her eyes.
Then she sat up straight beside
him and faced the rising sun.
The air was so cold that she
shivered Every shrub and briar
and blade of grass in the clearing
glistened with frost. The coat she
had brought from the house
slipped from her shoulders, and
Jeems drew it about her again.
They stood up, and strength re-
turned into the cramped limbs. For
a little while they did not speak.
That they belonged to each
other was a truth which pressed
itself ON them without effort or
confusion. Toinette was not
ashamed that she had come to him
nor that her act had proclaimed
what pride and false prejudice
had so long hidden from him in
her heart. Her eyes glowed with
light which shOne softly out of
fathomless depth of pain and
grief. She wanted him to know
how completely the folly of her
pride was gone and how glad she
was that it was he who stood be-
side her now. They might have
been years older, so clamly did the
sense of surrender and of posses
sion hold them. Except for the
tenderness in her eyes, Toinette
was unchanged But Jeems felt
himself taller at her side and
something had entered him which
was like the spirit of a conquerer.
1t was another world now. A vast
mystery ahead of him. Something
to fight through, to win from, to
live for Mysterious, it was still
very real. It set his heart throb-
bling with an unappalled and chal.
longing force. Yesterday, black
with tragedy and grievous with its
pain, was long time ago, but,
with Toinette, today had become
tremendous living present. Gently
her fingertips touched his Shout
der. Then she looked with him
toward the east and the Richelieu
and what lay beyond.
From the moment they had
risen to their feet, Odd had stood
as rigid as carven wood in the
white-coated grass with his muz-
zle leveled toward Lussan's mea-
dow. Something definite had come
within his reach, which made it
unnecessary for him to measure
the wind, and suddenly there rose
above other sound the wild and
raucous crying of blue jay, and
cawing of alarm among the
crows. A second and a third blue
jay joined the first, and their
tumult came to an end when a
piercing bird call terminated
sharply in single screening
note.
"That was an arrow" said
Jeems, beginning to string his
bow. More than once l have had
to kill noisy blue jay when creep
ing up on game"
He drew Toinette into the shell
ter of the house and called Odd.
A few minutes later-swiftly NOV
ing, somber horrors in a world of
shimmering white-they saw the
Mohawks come out of the edge of
Lussan's meadow.