The Carbon County news. [volume] (Red Lodge, Mont.) 1924-1931, 1931-04-09
he By James Oliver Curwood
Plains Of Abraham
Q by Doubleday Doran Co., Inc WNU Service.
CHAPTER X-Continued
Q by Doubleday Doran Co.,


and the mergansers, or fish ducks,
would come to the swift-running
.hea dwaters to feed as soon as ice
closed the lakes and the mouths
of the streams. Here they made
their lodge of saplings. 1t was a
new kind of home for Wood
Pigeon. Jeems built it with a
cooking hearth and chimney and
a tiny room set apart for Wood
Pigeon herself. The child's eyes
glowed with delight at this pos
session. Each day Jeems told her
more about Toinette-how Sol
Van Makwun cared for her beauti-
full hair, how it was part of her
religion to keep herself clean, how
and why she did this thing and
that, until thoughts and desires
grew in Wanonat's head, and she
employed the comb and the brush
which Jeems made for her until
her sleek black hair was never
untidy.
Heavy snow and extreme cold
came early in the season. By the
middle of December, Jeems was
compelled to hunt on snowshoes,
and so bitter were the nights that
the first of January found even
the headwaters freezing out the
mergansers.
This was the memorable winter
of 1755 and 1855, the story of
which the Senecas handed down
from father to son for many gen.
.erations-a winter in which all
game seemed to have gone from
the face of the earth, and when
hardship and starvation killed a
tenth OF the three westernmost of
the Six Great Nations, the Sen
ecas, the Cayugas, and the Onon-
.dagas.
AT first Jeems was partly pre-
pared, because he had killed a
buck, and with Wusk0o's shreWd
assistance had marked a number
of trees in which raccoons were
sure to hibernate. But late in
January famine drew closer about
the cabin on the Little Selus, and
-Jeems travelled farther in his
hunts, until he was gone two days
at time. In February, he made
-four of these hunts and found no
game. The cold was terrific. Trees
cracked like rifles in the woods.
Bitter winds continued night and
day. Wood Pigeons eyes grew
larger and her body more fragile
as the weeks passed. Each time
Jeems came in from his hunts she
blazed up like fire in her happi-
ness, but he could mark the steady
fading of her strength. He hunted
with almost insane energy. Every
thing was for her when famine
clutched at them hardest.
sTorturing fears assailed Jeems.
Toinette was never out of his
mind, for even in his sleep he
dreamed of her. She, too, was a
part of this fight to hold life to-
gether.
At night, when the wind howled
he sweated in fear, and more than
once the thought came to him to
abandon his family and go In
search of Toinette. His visions of
the fate which might be oyertak-
ing her became almost unbearable.
His hunts were not long now, and
seldom took him more than three
or four miles from the cabin, for
his own strength was ebbing. His
only hope was to kill an occasional
bird, and it was in the darkest
hour that an answer came to his
prayers. In blizzard against
which he was working his way in
half-blindness, he stumbled upon
q doe as weak as himself and
killed her. Without this stroke
of fortune, Wood Pigeon and Wus-
koo must have died. When the
thaws came, they were alive. Rae
co0ns began to appear and deshy
roots could be gathered out of the
opening streams. Early March
brought a warm break in which
Jeems and his companions started
for Chenufsio. Food was plentiful
on the way, and each night they
gathered strengthening sap from
the naples.
The arrived at Chenufsio. The
people there had lived frugally on
their supplies, and from the first
running of the maple sap had been
making sugar. Only four families
had preceded Jeems to the village,
and of their number, which was
tWenty-eight. five had died. No
word had been received from
Tiaoga and his warriors.
The maple sap ran steadily. In
spite of this opening grace of
spring, there hung over Chenufsio
grim specter whose shadow
grew darker with each day that
passed.
This specter was death. Scarcely
a family returned which did not
bring grief with it, And All De
Bah, the mightiest hunter of them
all, did not come. No one had
heard of him. No one knew where
he was. F'ifty-seventy-a hun
dred-and then hundred and
fifty of those who had gone in the
breakup were accounted for by
the end of March. Among them
was Mary Daghlen. Of their num-
Der, thirty had died. Still All De
Bah, the Tall Man, did not come.
Then he appeared one day. He
was a grotesque rack Of fieshless
bones whom Tiaoga would not
have recognized. Behind him
trailed his people. Jeems counted
them before he could tell one from
another. Eleven He ran toward
them and Tninpttp sWaved from