White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1931-03-05

| in his breast, nor the same rear. Ger
tainty had taken their place. Toinette
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-
bed 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 a 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 it's hunger for oil,
and more voice which demanded his
| attention. 1t seemed to him that sud-
denly he caught what it was saying:
"the English beast-the little English
beast"-repeating those words until
| they became rhythm without break
| in their monotony except when cap
4 full of wind set the wheel going faster.
1t was as if 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 like
lone ghost he was left to see it all.
The mill wheel knew and, even In mo-
ments of quiet, seemed to possess the
power to tell him so.
1 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. It
had fallen among tall grass and weeds
and had remained hidden there. 1t
wore a Mohawk war tuft, and in one
of it's stiffened hands was another
English hatchet like the one Jeems
had. A scalp was at the warriors belt,
and for a moment Jeems turned sick.
1t was young girls scalp, days old.
AS he advanced, he could see there
had been an alarm and little nght-
ing. There was old Jean de Lauzon,
the cure, doubled up like jackknife,
half dressed and with battered old
flintlock under him. He had fired 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 we'll along in years,
and not far from them were their
wives. Raudot was fifth. He had
been a slow-witted lad, and now he
looked like 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
q to meet their death. Others had
waited for it.
y 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 thu
others, the baron was fully dressed
He undoubtedly had been armed wher
he rushed forth from the house, bu
nothing was left in his hands but thu
clods Of earth which he had seized IL
final agony. A cry broke from
Jeems. He had loved Tontenr. Thu
seigneur had been the one connecting
link between his older years and thu
dreams Of his childhood, ard it wa
: because of him that he had never quit
seemed to lose Toinette. He crossed
| the dead mans hands upon his breas
and loosened the earth from his An
gers. He could feel Tojnette at hi
side, and for brief interval the sick
ness in his head and body overcom
, him so that he could not see Tonteu
at all. But he could hear Toinett
sobbing.