White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1931-01-02
CHAPTER l
-


a dog, boy, man, and woman had
crossed the oak opens of Tonteur's
hill and were trailing toward the
deeper wilderness of the French
frontier westward Of the Richelieu
and Lake Champlain-the dog first,
the boy following, the man next, and
the woman last.
It was a reversal of proper form,
Tonteur had growled as he watched
them go. A FOOLS way of facing
savage-infested country that had no
end The man should have marched
at the head of his precious column
with his long gun ready and his quest
ing eyes alert; the woman next, to
watch and guard with him; then the
boy and the dog, if such nuisances
were to be tolerated in travel Of this
kind, with evening coming on.
Tonteur was the one-legged warrior
seigneur from whose gristmill down
in the valley the four were going
home.
His eyes had followed the woman
with subdued and appraising hunger
in them.> Henri Bulain was a strange
man, he had thought. He might be
little crazy, might even be fool But
he was also very lucky husband to
possess a woman with the sweet face
and form and the divinely chaste
heart of Catherine. his wife.
Jeems was fortunate boy to have
her for q mother.
Even the dog was scoundrel for
luck. An Indian dog at that. A
sneaking, good-for-nothing dog. A
wreck of a dog without soul, to be
fed by her, petted by her, smiled at
by her-as he had seen her smile.
Tonteur was first of the long string
of heroic fighting barons settled by
France along the Richelieu to hold
the English and their red barbarians
back. He was Doorkeeper to the
waterway that led straight to the
heart of New France. If the English
came with their scalping fiends the
Mohawks and the Senecas, they would
have to pass over him first of all. No
general could be given greater distfnc-
ton than that. Honor. Wealth. A
wide domain over which he was king.
And yet
He envied Henri Bulafn.
It was midafternoon. Maytime shad-
ows were growing longer toward the
east. It was the hour when birds
were singing softly. Morning had
heard their defiance, glorious and
fearless challenge of feathered min
strelsy to all the spirits of darkness;
but with late afternoon, sunset, eve
ming, these same slim-throated song.
sters found a note of gratitude and
of prayer in their chastened voices.
Flowers crushed underfoot. In the
open spaces they carpeted the earth
with white and pink and blue. Flow
ers and birds and peace-a world
filed with declining sun-a smiling
heaven Of blue over the treetops-
and with them dog, boy, man.
and a woman advancing westward.
Three of these, even the dog, Ton
teur envied.
This dog had name which fitted
him, Tonteur had thought. For he
was wreck Of dog-even more
wreck than the splendid seigneur him
self, with his stub Of shot-off leg
and breast that bore sword marks
which would have killed an ordinary
man. The dog, first of all, was
homely dog, SO hopelessly homely that
one could not help loving him at sight.
His hair was bristly and unkempt His
paws huge. His tail was half gone,
which left him only stub to wag.
He walked with limp. heavy,
never-failing limp that seemed to
shake his long body from end to end,
IN his left fore paw-like Tonteur's
foot-was missing. crooked. CHEEKY.
inartistic, lovable dog to whom the
~oman-in a moments visioning Of
the fitness Of things-had given the
name Of Odds-and-Ends.
So Tonteur was half right In think
Ing Of him as wreck of dog. but In
one other thing he was wrong. The
dog did have a soul-a soul that be-
longed to the boy. his master. That
soul had great scar scared upon 1t
BY hunger and abuse In an Indian
camp where Henri Bulain had found
him four years before. and from
which, out Of pity for q dying crea-