THE PRIMAL LOSE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15645, 26 June 1914, Page 3

THE PRIMAL LOSE

A ROMANCE OF FORT LU CERNE.

BY V. E. ROE, Author of " The Maid of the Whispering Hills," " The Heart of Night ■Wind-"

COPYRIGHT.

CHAPTER XlX.—(Continued.) This meeting had not been of her devising, saving its inception in the mind of Sylvestor alone. Her eyes dropped, and they were inscrutable in their flickering lights and shadows as she laid Sylvestor back upon the bed. Go,"' she said, turning to those present. " Cleo, you need the rest of an hour. I will tend hero through the day. So the* went away from tlio cabin, some to a few hours' heavy sleep, others to serve yet longer in other cabins, and at last this man was to have alone for the grace of his last day this girl for whose sake he was to die. For it was as surely for her sake tliat ho was dving now as that the sun shone in the heavens. If it hud not been for that Lois 1.0 Moyne who smiled from the guardhouse window with the drooping of lips and the gentleness of eyes, he would have been, long ago, back among the pleasures of his kind in Henrietta. Something of this arose in the mind of the girl, but it did not trouble her. Sho beheld it calmly, for she was lieyond the law of remorse.

Ho had solved her purpose, she had paid for that serving with tho promise of herself; therefore sKp stayed beside him now, d'juig for him tin* best she could, soothing hi- r"r' , .]jfls!<c'.<s with a tenderness she did not teal. As soon as they were alone he threw his hot head in the bend of her arm, catching her lund in both his own. "A beast of a man,'' he panted; "keep out of his power, Lois. Never let him get a grip upon you in any way. Promise!'' Tho curious look upon the girls face deepened as she promised. Sylvestor, quick to read a sign, saw it, but misinterpreted. "You fear him!'' he cried. ''Oh, Lois, my heart's heart! And I will not be here

" No—no" soothed Lois, gently, "I j havo no fear. Beside, m sieu, what is there for such as Ito fear—l who have naught in the world for hope or anxiety or ambition?" The words woro quick, and they held a bitterness which filled the listener with joy. What could so blight a woman's life save the loss of one she loved? And the doubt that had ever underlain tho triumph of her surrender to him passed for ever. His pale eyes were alight with the mighty pa.'sion which sometimes Fate places in such a hollow, sensuous nature as his. They burned upon her (ace with a compelling power which thrilled her to her linger tips, albeit there was no answering passmn 111 her soul for him. The very strength of it appealed to her and stirred her. " Lois, idol of my soul, queen of all women, my pearl ot the wilderness, you do love me—you do?"

Thero was a beauty in his burning eves, a winsome beauty of high idolatry, of pure passion, forgetful of self—the same true tire that was lighted in the heart of the French half-breed, only there it was to be an undying flame, here it was but a flash.

" You do love me, l.oia?" he gasped with his h> t breath.

"Yes, m'sieu." whispered the girl soothingly. "yes."

With a sigh he pressed his face against her breast and so great was the joy i within him and the peace it brought that J for a timo he forgot the nearness of the Grim Shadow and fell into a silent sleep. So t'leo, coining from her rest an hour later, found them. " If you would go for word of the boy and Marcel, Geo':" Lois whisjwred, "I would know how they are taring." Cleo, glad of the diversion, went, and I/us watched her through the open door. Tho sun was hot on the roadbed and the dust was deep under foot. The stalks of those poor flowers planted in ttie joyous and nngnessing spring were coated heavily with its grey fineness. The hewn slabs on the roots of tho cabins were warped and curled with the heat.

The sad business of the post was going forward. I'p the way from the shut, pate J'alo Hoc. was coming; and beside him Old Blajic gesticulated excitedly. Along the stockade wall at the north were strung out here and there four trappers who tapped and worked with sledges, driving in heavy wedge-like bars, setting long braces, strengthening tlie palisades at every weak point, and back and forth with his hands locked behind him walked Mc.Connel. From the door of the Rleatird cabin issued Pierre Ycrnaise, going toward the church with a candle ''n his hand. A new digmtv seemed u> encompass the youth, a strength and quiet purpose "which changed his very bearing. A wave of reaJ tenderness swept over Uis and she turned her eyes to the weak face* sleeping on her ami. Life indeed was a strange tangle. Richard Svlvestor loved her and was dviD" for that love, yet she had no feeling of any sort for him save a straight and honest desire to nay the debt she owed mm—Pierre loved her. to receive a maternal tenderness, being in his turn loved bv little Jaqua. while she herselfBut there her thongi.t chocked itself with sick sternness. (100 was coming back. "It is of the abating. Lois— Thinks be to le boil Dion ! —ihe sickness," she said gladly. " Marcel is yet most weak, but she is all of a sad smile when she looks at the chili! an' all of tears in her poor eves when she look' at the empty bed in the corner. Netta does amazing well in the attendance.' Throughout the whole day Sylvester slept and woke fitfully to find always tho woman he loved bending over him, bathing his hot face and soothing him with voice and hand, answering his weak caresses readily and filling bis vision and his wavering thoughts, which wore growin* vague, with her lie of love. Toward evening he sank into a rose-hned dream of Paradise where soft, winds blew upon him and Lois' face drifted upon golden l clouds. • I That it was in reality a thin face with dark shadows beneath the great black eves and high cheekbones showing through the worn flesh, he. did not- know. It was still bo an ii nil to him, Under, Vomanlv, love-filled, and he was content. That his dream of love and its short triumph had ever been as hollow and unreal as this fancy of his closing day, mattered not- since lie "had never known. The fear if death had passed with Lois' nearness. milled the very thought was gone, and he slipped down to the twilight with a smile on Ins lips, parted in the light heard. : I. ■> "■at "ii the bed, still holding the • s|i_'it :h-.iildiTs in her arms while the i sim dropped behind the rim of the forest. She was dead weary, soul and body, and she waited the end, patiently impatient. It was a beautiful hviligb, purple and gold and crimson, fading to silver and palest nink and lavender where the long streamers of light shot up into the deepening blue of the great dome, changing t.i a sinister opalescence where they en countered the copper haze glowing above the Mis in the north. Wli fhe coming of the swift dark the man on the bed turned his face to hor breast with a little contented motion, sighed once and lay still—for ever. Lois laid him down presently and straightened up, pushing the hair back from h?r face.

"Lois, come here," said Clco, in a low tone from the doorway. The girl stepped ouer and stood beside her. "Listen," said Cleo, " and look there." There was some commotion at tho great gate. A bunch of men were gathered there and others were running from hare and there toward them.

From without the wall came a mingling of sounds, the myriad sounds of a great concourse of people, calls, and cries and chatterings, the stroke of falling tepee poles and the neighing _of ponies. Old Blanc's wife turned white in the dusk. M "Mary Mother!" she whispered, the Indians!"

CHAPTER XX. * 0 A WHITE SACRIFICE. v Aye! The Indians .indeed. As far as li one, looking through the porthole in the a wall beside the great gate could see, they a were pouring into the cleared space around '. the post between the stockade and the forest. They came with the paraphernalia of the quick trail, tepees snatched up and e rolled around their poles fastened E to their ponies, in which baglike i, troughs in many instances there lay tlio swaddled forms of the sick, loose bundles, carried 011 the backs of the squaws, of things hastily gathered from c the suddenly moving camp, and all bearing ( the confused appearance of sudden action. , Grim, half naked warriors stalked among the concourse, painted with the brilliant colours of menace, the vermillion and green ' of war, the yellow of disaster. ! They had" brought their women and , children, therefore it was a matter of mo- j ment, not a sally of young warriors on the warpath whose probable attack on the post could be repulsed and settled, if not by guns, by gifts and fire-water, and tobacco. They came and camo and there siemed j to be no end of them. Around the post on . every side they circled, pitching their huge camp, and it was plain that they were the legions of some mightv tribe. '1 hev were heavily armed and McConnel, looking from the vantage of the porthole in the gate, ( frowned darkly when he s: •.%• that each | . warrior crriel 1 company ritie. Ihey I were neither '':ees nor ' , oways. and they came from 'lu- mnth. There was only one : tribe in the wilderness whose chiefs had i held aloof from the post, refusing either trade or friendship, one tribe whose numbers were uncounted, whose ways were unknown to the white man andvlwso stronghold lay in the untrailed wilderness to the 1101 th oi the Red Hills,the dread tribe of the Blackfect of whose strength and cruel vague tales drifted down from time to time. No man of the post had ever been among them, 110 one but the good priest, Bather , Tenau, so long tarrying from his people in their dire need now, ever having penetrated to the heart of their unfriendly country. He had once spent a season among them and he had come back thin and haggard and had never spoke of that season's experiences. His people had looked upon him with awe of the sadness in his beautiful old eyes, wondering what strange fights they had beheld, let ho had come back laden with savage gifts of those things which the people of the wilderness dedicate to the service of the Great Spirit. What had passed in that summer of Father Tenau's unusual life none in Fort Lu Cerne ever knew, whs, grip he had take.ll of their savage souls, what he had done to them or they to him, and why, though they held him in some peculiar reverence as evidenced by the sacred gifts, lie vet had never gone back among them to press his advantage for the winning of their souls. Campfires soon began to send up their thin spirals in the evening air on ail sides of the fort. Dogs barked and the shrill wailing of children came out of the stillness. With calm precision this concourse of savage foes entrenched itself in the camp around the little handful of whites waiting within their stricken post, JV,;tiny knot of | aliens lost jn the primev,il||ieart of the great woods whose very depMTand vastness seemed to aid and urge on the painted fiends which were its natural offspring. Dark fell and there was no movement of the host outside. They would wait until - morning for the parley. i In the meantime McConnel, having I satisfied himself of this and stationed ; I watchers at every porthole, went himself ! to headquarters. * Here with old Blanc he I i set to work unpacking and distributing the ammunition, hvery man who could stand, came and got nfle iind belt and cartridges, ' carrying them to the gate, placing them ' at intervals round .lie stockade, making ; ready for anything I hat might happen. >' Thev were grim and quiet, these men who • j worked in the summer darkness, and there : was no fear on their faces. Death had become so common a thine that its nearness ' in any other form held no terror. Tint ' among the women it was not so. Frightened eyes peered into each other and ashen J lips whispered from door to door. In the Corlier cabin Lois Le Moync left 9 the silent, figure on the bed uncovered and went down the road where Marcel Roque, 1 not yet able to walk, sat up with the 0 sleeping child in her arms, gazing out from • the. unlighted house with eyes in which all 0 the misery of earth struggled with the slow 0 returning calmness of her patient strength. The girl went in and sat down on the 5 foot of the bed. The woman's sad heart 0 thrilled silently at that unrecognised thing a within which had sent her to her at this R first moment of the great crisis. 0 Ah'. What was there not in this strange s girl with her ha'f savage nature, her hauteur and her pride, her strength and g her coldness! ' 5 Net La Baupre had fled and they were h alone. d "The Blackfeet?" asked Marcel. " Ave." said Lois. n There was silence for a little while. Ie These two women were both, each after A- her own fashion, of heroic mould. Here c there was 110 wringing of hands, no 50 hysterical trembling, no tears. >r I (To be con'imiod daily).