The Coolidge examiner., 1931-07-10
Tho By James Oliver Curwood
Plains Of Abraham
Co, Inc
CHAPTER XII-Continued

As the captured cannon were
rushed from Fort William Henry
60 TicOnderoga. Jeems surrendered
himself. as MOntcalm was doing
In another way, to the last chapter
i'm his fate. There was no goal at
which he could aim, nothing for
which he could play: winning for
Canada, should the miracle of ulti-
mate victory come, could hold no
more of solace and happiness for
him than defeat at the hands of
the English. There were times
when his French and English
body was divided against itself,
when his mother and Hepsibah
Adams and all they stood for
looked upon him questioningly
from out of the past as if he had
turned traitor to some precious
part Of them, yet in such a way
chat they could not condemn him.
In hours like these, the spirit of
Toinette came to his side and
placed her hand in his, and he
knew it was for her he was fight
iLy. for the home which would
have been theirs. for the country
she would have made a paradise
for him. She grew nearer as the
Sureness of an approaching end
crept upon him. and he felt the be-
ginning Of a comfort he had not
known before. 1t was the cOnsOla-
tion of something about to- hap
pen. Something that was tremen-
dous and final. Something that
would have to do with her and
with him. He knew what it was
and waited patiently for it as an
other year passed.
Then came Ticonderoga. that
July :, 1913. when over a space
of a hundred acres one could not
walk without staining the sOles of
his shoes with French or English
blOod-that red day i'm history and
heroism when three thousand toll
worn, harassed soldiers of New
France faced six thousand British
regulars and nine thousand Amer
lean miltiamen; the day on which
JeemS and his comrades drove
back the waves of scarlet and gold
and thousand killed Highlanders
of the Black Watch led by Dun
can Campbell of Inverawe. until.
as MOntcalm wrote TO his wife.
even the bullet-scarred trees
seemed to be dripping blood.
Through hours of tumult and
death, Jeems. loaded and fired, and
stabbed with his bayonet, and the
thing for which he was waiting
did not come. Men fell around him.
tens and scores and hundreds Of
them. as the day wore on. He
saw whole ranks shiver and crum-
bic before blasts of fire. But when
It was ended and the English
dropped back in last smashing
defeat. he was unscathed except
for bruises and powder burns.
But Montcalm retreated. and
this puzzled Jeems. The army be-
gan TO learn the truth as. weary
and footSore. ii turned toward
Quebec. Rapacity, folly, intrigue,
and falsehOOd had fed at the heart
of New France until IL was honey
combed by the rottenness of dis
solution. Montcalm was its one
star of hope, and as autumn came.
then winter. il seemed to Jeems
that M0ntcalm's God had deserted
him. The St Lawrence was filed
with British ships. The harvest
was meager. and barrel of flour
cost two hundred francs. Even
MOntcalm ate horse-feSh. Still he
did not lose faith in God. A thou
sand scOundrels headed by Vau-
dreuil had fattened on the ma
tion's downfall. and he prayed for
them. What a countryl" he ex-
claimed. Here all the knaves
grow rich and the honest men are
ruined" A fighting man, a man
of sword and death, he kept his
faith TO the end. If we are driven
from the St Lawrence" he wrote
e. his wife. I'VE will descend the
Mississippi and make final stand
for France among the swamps of
Louisiana"
Thus planned and prayed the
man whose bleached skull is now
shown To visitors in the UrsuIine
cOnvent at Quebec. Through the
spring and summer of 1859. Jeems
watched the spiders as they wove
their web ever closer about Que
bee. the last French stronghold in
America. 1t was in May of 1856
that TOinette had been killed, and
1t was in May of 1883 that he first
saw from the MOntmorenci shore
the mighty rock which so long had
been the mistress of the New
world
Four months later, on the most
eventful September 13 of written
history-that Tomorrow Morn
ing which will never be forgotten
he stood on the Plains of Abra-
ham.
Montcalm's God was about TO
complete an immaculate elegv
which hung in the air like a mighty
chorus waiting for a whispered
command TO begin. To Jeems
Bulain. facing the sun and the
thin red line of the British across
the meadows where Abraham Mar
tin had grazed his cattle. fate was
bringing an end to uncertainty and
chaos. 1t had missed him at Fort
William Henry, at TicOnderoga. at
MontmOrenci, but here he could
feel its presence-an escape-a re-
lease from ndage-somethinc
greater than iron or flesh-as the
crimson lines drew nearer. He