Maryland independent. [volume] (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1874-current, 1931-01-23

nette's. But the same hope was not
In his breast, nor the same fear. Ger
taInty had taken their place. Tolnette
was dead, despoiled of her beauty and
her life as his mother had been. A
fury triumphed over him that was as
possessive in its effect as the color
which blazed about him in the Grim
son bush. 1t had been growing in him
since the moment he knelt at his ia
theirs side; it had strained at the
bounds of his grief when he found his
mother; it had filed him with mad
ness, still uniformed in his brain, when
he covered their faces in the early
dawn. Now he knew why he gripped
the English Ratchet so tightly. He
wanted to kill. His eyes turned from
the smoke-filled valley Of the Richie
lieu to the south where Champlain lay
cleaning in the sun miles away, and
the hand which held the Ratchet trem-
bled in its newborn yearning for the
life blood of people whom he hated
from this day and hour.
He was vaguely conscious of the
whine of the mill wheel as he went
down into the valley. He did not feel
fear or the necessity for concealing
his movement, for death would not
trouble itself to return to a desolation
so complete. But the wheel, as he
drew nearer, touched the stiffness
with note which seemed to ride
with strange insistence over the soil
tude, as If calling to some one. 1t be-
came less a thing of iron and wood
that was crying in its hunger for oil,
and more voice which demanded his
attention. 1t seemed to him that sud-
denly he caught what 1t was saying:
1.-THE English beast-the little English
beast"-repeating those words until
they became rhythm without break
in their monotony except when a cap
full of wind set the wheel going faster.
1t was as if a thought in his brain
had been stolen from him. And what
it expressed was true. He was the
English beast, coming as Madame Ton
teur had predicted. Toinette had been
right Fiends with white skins, who
were of his blood, had sent their
Ratchet killers to prove 1t. And ike
a lone ghost he was left to see 1t all.
The mill wheel knew and, even in mo-
ments of quiet, seemed to possess the
power to tell him so.
With stubborn fortitude he faced the
gehenna through which he knew he
must pass before he could turn south
to find his vengeance with Dieskau.
Toinette belonged to him now as much
as his mother, and it was for her he
began to search.
In a ditch which had run almost
under the caves of the loopholed
church. he stumbled on body. 1t
had fallen among tall grass and weeds
and had remained hidden there. 1t
wore a Mohawk war tuft, and in one
of its stiffened hands was another
English Ratchet like the one Jeems
had. A scalp was at the warriors belt.
and for moment Jeems turned sick
1t was young girls scalp, days old.
AS he advanced, he could see there
had been an alarm and little fight
ing. There was old Jean de Lauzon,
the cure. doubled up like a jackknife,
half dressed and with battered old
flintlock under him. He had fred the
gun and was running for the for
tressed church when bullet had
caught him between his thin shoulder
blades. Jeems stood over him long
enough to make notes of these things.
He saw several more dark blotches on
the ground quite near to where the
thick oaken door to the church had
been. There were Juchereau and
Louis Hebert, both well along in years,
and not far from them were their
wives. Raudot was a fifth. He had
been a slow-witted lad, and now he
looked like a clown who had died with
a grin on his face. These people had
lived nearest to the church. The
others had been too far away to an
swer the alarm quickly, but the result
had been the same. Some had come
to meet their death. Others had
waited for it.
Between this group and the smol-
dering pile that had been the manor,
a lone figure lay on the ground.
Jeems went to it slowly. The sprawled-
out form was Tonteur. Unlike the
others, the baron was fully dressed.
He undoubtedly had been armed when
he rushed forth from the house, but
nothing was left in his hands but the
clods of earth which he had seized in
a final agony. A cry broke from
Jeems. He had loved Tonteur. The
seigneur had been the one connecting
link between his older years and the
dreams of his childhood, and 1t was
because of him that he had never quite
seemed to lose Toinette. He crossed
the dead mans hands upon his breast
and loosened the earth from his fin
gers. He could feel Toinette at his
side, and for brief interval the sick
ness in his head and body overcome
him so that he could not see Tonteur
at all. But he could hear Toinette
sobbing.
(To BE CoNTINUED.)