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“The woods must be afire near Sandy Chevalier's.”


A FOREST
DRAMA
BY
LC, UIS iPEN LILE CON
Author of
“The s, as of Ham,” “The wedding Carment,” “King
Tom and the Runaways, Etc.
H E N R Y T. C.O A "I H. S & C ().
PHILAi) E. Li'HIA 1904.


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- - -
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A FOREST
DRAMA
BY
LOUIS PENDLETON
Author of
“The sons of Ham,” “The Wedding Garment,” “King
Tom and the Runaways,” Etc.
HENRY T. C.O AT E S & CO.
PHILADELPHIA I 9Q4


THE GRIFFIN SERIES
of NEw FIC T1 on
Each 12mo, cloth, gilt,
illustrated, $1.oo
THE WEstcotes, by A.T. Quiller-Couch
THE ARCHIEREY of SAMARA, by Henry
Iliowizi.
KENT FoRT MANor, by William Henry
Babcock.
A VICTIM of ConscIENCE, by Milton
Goldsmith.
THE TU-TzE's ToweR, by Louise Betts
Edwards.
AN EMBARRAssING ORPHAN, by W. E.
Norris.
A FoREST DRAMA, by Louis Pendleton.
SAwd UsT, by Dorothea Gerard.
Others in preparation.
Copyright 1904 by Henry T. Coates & Co.


2 A FOREST DRAMA.
all that day, being uncertain as to her comings and
goings. There were two or three shanties at the
Muskeg Lake end of the portage where they were
now stranded, and it was possible to lock up the
baggage and have it forwarded later, should they
choose to proceed at once by canoe. Their desti-
nation could be reached by night in this way, and
the young man suggested that it might be more
agreeable than waiting.
The girl looked out over the rippling water with
fond eyes and promptly approved the plan. A
birch-bark canoe belonging to the teamster was
rented, and they got afloat without loss of time.
The day was cool and fine, and, in its windings
among the green-clothed hills, the lake gleamed blue
and white and shiny black, according to light, shad-
ow and distance. Now and then the canoe glided
past a clearing containing a few acres under culti-
vation and a shanty of hemlock logs or, in rare instan-
ces, a more ambitious little frame house. But for
the most part the sloping shores were covered with
a dense forest growth, to all appearances as yet
scarcely touched by the lumberman's despoiling
hand. . " - -
As they rounded one point after another, sur-
prised flocks of shell ducks half lifted themselves


A FOREST DRAMA. 3.
from the water and went skurrying and splashing
away, or a smaller company of startled loons rushed
swimming and diving to a safer distance, uttering
their strange laughter-suggesting cry. Gliding
across the mouth of a little sheltered cove, they saw
a startled deer leap into the brush, and now and
again the scream of the small gray eagle was heard
as it sailed on high. Many were the proofs that this
winding hill-locked lake was near to nature's heart.
In the course of the morning the travellers passed
a lumber-loaded scow, a punt or two, and some half
dozen canoes. In one of the latter were two Indians
who lifted their paddles in salute and called out:
“B'jou'!”
And with no lack of good will the young man
responded: “Bon jour.”
The girl remarked that there seemed to be more
settlers on these lakes now than when she was a
child. Otherwise she saw no change. “I was
5 *
afraid that it would not be the same,” she said.
At two o'clock they turned shoreward and
landed, both glad of the change from the cramped
canoe; for the young man rested on his knees while
paddling, and the girl, seated on a bear skin in the
bow, could afford but slight changes of position


4 A FOREST DRAMA.
with safety. By this time they were hungry, too,
and a fire of birch bark and sticks having been
lighted and water boiled they were soon heartily
enjoying the tea and cold lunch brought from the
portage tavern. But not very merrily, for there
were signs of a growing constraint in the young
man's manner. It appeared to the girl that he made
an effort to keep his eyes away from her face.
“Is it because he still may think of becoming a
priest, and is—afraid?” she conjectured as she ob-
served him narrowly. At the thought an expres-
sion crept into her eyes which might have been
translated: “I won't have him a priest! It is noth-
ing to me, nothing whatever, but it is a shame, and
I won't have it.”
She may not have determined then and there
to entice him from his supposed aspirations of
which she so positively disapproved—in his case-
seeking to bind him to humanity and the world by
a chain of roses as strong as iron; but it is certain
that if this young man were susceptible to feminine
enchantments his fate should have trembled in the
balance that day. Whether he misunderstood her
witching kindliness, or whether determined to re-
main invulnerable, there is no doubt that his con-


A FOREST DRAMA. 5
straint of manner became more noticeable as time
passed.
The girl remarked that the place where they now
rested resembled in some respects the site of a wild
camp occupied by her boy-brother and herself when
she was only ten years old—a refuge to which they
had been driven by unkind usage after the death of
both their parents. As she now drank her tea dur-
ing this temporary halt on another wild shore ten
years later, she recalled certain events of a memor-
able experience: the upsetting of their canoe among
the terrible white-caps one stormty day, the loss of
their gun and all their goods, and the exciting swim
ashore of her brother, herself, and the cat and dog;
the fever that then attacked the overworked boy,
and her plucky but unsuccessful attempt to paddle
him down to the portage and carry him across; the
difficulties and dangers that beset the lonely
camp of the two little refugees, one of whom was
near death from fever and the other face to face
with starvation. when a young French-Canadian
sportsman came to the rescue and provided for their
needs until they were consigned to the care of an
uncle in England.
“You were to us the very “good angel’ for


A FOREST DRAMA. 7
my love was to be had merely for the asking! He
is a French-Canadian—I don't quite like that—but
I shall always consider it an honor to be his friend.”
As the man slept and the girl mused, two red
squirrels skipped about in full view, barking and
scolding at the intruders, and occasionally the cry of
a loon was heard far across the lake, but otherwise
the sylvan peace remained unbroken. Nearly an
hour had passed when the sleeper suddenly started
to his feet, gasping and blinking and fearfully ex-
amining his watch.
“How stupid of me!” he exclaimed. “It is a
quarter to four, and we are hardly more than half
way.” -
“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” she asked un-
concernedly.
They got afloat without delay and the young man
paddled hard, keeping close in shore, except where
inwinding bays would have lengthened the course,
for the girl revelled in the near views of rock, hill
and forest. As the afternoon wore away, the lat-
ter's physical discomfort, arising from an unvaria-
ble position, was at times forgotten in the pressure
of mental anxieties. In what condition of life and
health would she find those whose roof she sought?
Would there really be a place for her? Would she be


8 A FOREST DRAMA.
wanted ? It was easy to make plans in far-off Eng-
land, but as the time for their testing drew near
misgivings multiplied.
The sun went down in great pomp of red and
gold, the glory lingering long above the screen of
darkening hills. As night drew on and faint stars
peeped through the rosy dusk of the west, the east-
ern sky was seen to brighten and glow, until, at a
point where the horizon joined the dark wall of
woods, they could discern the red leap of flames.
“The woods must be afire near Sandy Chev-
alier's,” said the man at the paddle, breaking a long
silence. -
The girl asked the remaining distance between
them and their destination, and was told that it was
about eight miles. Ten minutes later, as the canoe
rounded a point, they became a part of a brilliantly
illuminated scene. Almost as distinctly visible as at
noonday was every object of a long, stony meadow,
the entourage of a farm house, the field beyond, and
the sloping hillsides merging into the dark limits of
the forest wall. Several acres along the verge of
the clearing were dotted with blazing log heaps,
which lighted up the sky and lake for miles. Mov-
ing to and fro in this fire-lit scene were numerous
human figures.


A FOREST DRAMA. 9
“They are having a logging-bee. Mr. Hunter,
and possibly your aunt, may be here, and we had
better stop and inquire.”
As he spoke, the canoeist abruptly changed his
course, and approached the landing by a widely
round-about way. He had observed several human
heads on the water's surface directly in his path and
comprehended the meaning of the shouts and laugh-
ter that had already reached his ears. In a clump of
trees on shore could be seen the indistinct outlines
of other human figures just emerged from or about
to plunge into the bath. The young farmers of the
lake, who had come at early morning in their canoes
with their wives or sweethearts, and who had spent
the day rolling together the logs of the newly-
cleared land—while the women busied themselves at
the house, cooking good things, knitting and gos-
siping—were now freeing themselves of the dust
and smoke, preparatory to opening their “turkeys”
and arraying themselves in holiday attire in advance
of the evening's festivities.
Once at the landing, a little floating wharf of
drift logs, the travellers lost no time in seeking re-
lief from their cramped positions in the canoe. As
the girl was assisted to rise and step guardedly


IO A FOREST DRAMA.
ashore, one of the bathers who had completed his
toilet drew near to inspect the new arrivals.
“Good-night!” was his friendly salute, which
struck neither of the travellers as odd, “good even-
ing ” never being heard after dark in that region.
“That's Mr. Lucien Merrimy, Marshall's book-
keeper, ain’t it?” he asked, when the salute had
been returned.
“Yes. This is Miss Ransom. We stopped to see
if Mr. Hunter is here, or his wife. Miss Ransom
is going to their house. We thought they might
have come to Sandy's logging-bee.”
“Ab Hunter? They don't live in these diggins
now.”
“But I saw Mr. Hunter on his place not long be-
fore I went away.”
“He sold out and moved away three weeks ago.
He's 'way up on Mink Lake, trappin', they tell me.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Miss Ransom, in keen distress.
“Don’t be alarmed,” begged Lucien Mérimée.
“They can be reached. How far is Mink Lake?”
“I ain't sure jest how many miles, but it's quite
a few. Not less’n fifty. Sandy can tell you.”
Miss Ransom's heart sank as she listened. She
was sufficiently well acquainted with the surround-
ing country to know that to reach a lake fifty miles


A FOREST DRAMA. II
distant as the crow flies involved a tortuous journey
by canoe and portage of nearly twice as many miles.
Besides, her friend and travelling companion was
evidently troubled, though unwilling to appear so.
“Until you hear from your aunt,” he said, trying
to speak cheerfully, “I think you had better go to
the house of Mrs. Burton, an English lady. She is
my friend, and I have no doubt it can be arranged
for you to stay there; but it is a long way down the
lake and we must stop here over night.”
He moved away to find Sandy Chevalier, followed
by the young farmer who till now had stood staring
curiously at Miss Ransom; for the burning log heaps
made the whole neighborhood almost as light as day.
Left alone, the homeless girl stood looking va-
cantly before her, a prey to blank dismay. Even
supposing that her aunt, whom she could scarcely
remember, should be found cordial and agreeable,
what future was there for a girl accustomed to re-
fined surroundings in a trapper's camp on a wild
lake that probably could not boast a single acre of
cleared land?
Tears dimmed her eyes and self-accusing
thoughts pressed upon her as she considered her
hapless situation. This, then, was the result of her
oposition to those who wished to control her desti-


I 2 A FOREST DRAMA.
nies, and of her sudden and wild determination to
travel alone a distance of nearly five thousand miles
in order to be free. She should have kept quiet and
waited, she now told herself; she should have first
received word from her aunt in the Canadian back-
woods and advice from her brother in Arabia, or
wherever he might be; she should have done many
things that she had not done, and everything that
she had done was a mistake. For the moment she
even doubted if she had any right to feel resentment
against her uncle in England, considering all that he
had done for her brother and herself. Had she not
judged him from the standpoint of passionate, im-
patient youth, taking no account of the fact that in
his own view his course was just P : It was
easy to see her mistake now. She had done wrong,
and her punishment was begun.
Within a few minutes Lucien Mérimée returned,
accompanied by the French-Canadian farmer, a lit-
tle bandy-legged fellow, more kindly than well-fav-
ored. Having been formally presented to “Miss
Alberta Ransom,” he made haste to assure her that
his house would be honored by her presence.
“We are please that you will stay,” he said
heartily, “but I fear it is a noisy time you
have to-night. Come up, and Eloise will make you
a cup of tea.”


A FOREST DRAMA. 13
II.
ALBERTA murmured thanks and followed her
guide up the hill, Lucien halting to draw his canoe up
out of harm's way. The house was a small frame of
a primitive fashion, and was clearly taxed far beyond
its possibilities to entertain the guests. Mme. Chev-
alier, a buxom housewife, was found hurrying about
among her assistants, preparing for the great supper
shortly to be announced. The sight of the strange
lady evidently filled her with dismay, but she re-
ceived her cordially enough, telling her she was most
welcome if she would not mind the crowd and
the noise. The dancing would, of course, continue
till a late hour, and then the men would sleep in the
barn and the women in the house as best they could
—that is, if daylight did not surprise them before
any one lay down at all!
As Alberta drank her cup of tea in a comfortable
corner, she looked in vain for a familiar face among
the bustling matrons and young girls. And yet
nothing seemed new; the very house with its four
small rooms and attic above was almost a copy of


14 A FOREST DRAMA..
the one in which she had been born on a neighboring
lake. -
Meanwhile Lucien Mérimée had joined the group
of men collecting about a fire in the rear of the
farm-house. There was no room for them within,
and here they sat on logs of wood and spun yarns
until the welcome supper call was heard. A long
table was set in the “living room” and another in
the kitchen and dining-room, which were one, and a
place was found for all. The feast would doubtless
have appalled an epicure, but many of the hungry
men and women gathered round the board had never
seen half so many tempting eatables all at once. A
whole roast pig, roast legs of mutton, fried salmon
trout, ragout of wild duck, steaming vegetables,
breads, tarts, cakes, preserves—all served at once
and washed down with great cups of strong tea and
hot toddy of Canadian whiskey.
By ten o'clock the tables had been cleared away to
make room for the dancers. About the time this
vigorous exercise began Alberta took note of sev-
eral new arrivals. Three men recently landed from
a canoe had joined the crowd of on-lookers about
the doors. One of these was a brawny Indian of a
stolid, grave countenance; another a dark-eyed
white man with a long black beard and a nervous,


A FOREST DRAMA. I-5
uneasy manner. Both wore rough shabby suits,
their trousers thrust inside of their highly-colored
stockings reaching to the knee which are usually a
part of the river driver's dress. The third new-comer
was in appearance a gentleman, some thirty-five
years of age, of a clean-shaven ruddy face, dressed
in neat gray outing-clothes."
“Who's that?” asked one of the by-standers in
a low voice. -
“An English sport named Hawksworth,” was
the reply. “He’s campin' down the lake with that
black-bearded feller. The Injin is his guide.”
The Englishman would have been handsome but
for a rather hard and bold look in his keen gray
eyes, and the suggestion of a sneer in the lines about
his mouth. It was an intelligent but not a pleasing
face, except so far as one may be pleased with the
mere strength of determination, which seemed to
be indicated by his square jaw and prominent aqui-
line nose. Glancing in at the dancers and around
the room with a bored air, his eyes fell on Alberta
in her corner. Immediately his gaze became riveted,
and it was the persistence of his scrutiny that drew
to him her momentary attention.
Some time later, as couples were again forming
on the floor, Mme. Chevalier approached Alberta in


I6 A FOREST DRAMA.
her corner and asked if she would dance. An Eng-
lish sportsman, a Mr. Hawksworth, had sent her,
she explained, to solicit the honor of an introduction
and the favor of a dance. Alberta refused to dance,
but consented to meet the Englishman, who dropped
into a seat at her side with every evidence of satis-
faction, to dance having clearly not been his
object. He began by saying that it was an extra-
ordinary and unexpected pleasure to meet an Eng-
lish lady in that wild place.
“This is my native district,” was the girl's loyal
reply.
“You don't say so!”
“But I was educated in England.”
“Oh, that explains.”
“It is very strange,” he went on to say, “but I
must have seen you before, somewhere in England.
Your face is—familiar.”
“Indeed? My home was in Surrey.”
“Surrey—Surrey?” he mused, perplexedly.
Although she declined to help him with further
particulars, Alberta felt convinced that he spoke the
truth. They must indeed have seen each other be-
fore, for there was something strangely familiar in
his face, too; those keen, cold eyes, that beak-like


A FOREST DRAMA. 17
nose, the cut of that smooth jaw, seemed a part of
a past forever fixed in her memory. And yet she
could not tell where or when, and knew positively
that she had known no person of his name.
“Do you like roughing it?” he asked, the baffled
look still in his eye.
“I love these woods and lakes, if that is what you
mean.”
He assured her that he, too, was gypsy enough to
enjoy weeks and months of canoeing and camping.
“I have a hunting lodge away up in the wilds north
of here, and usually go there for the fishing and
shooting in September and October.” he told her.
“That must be fine,” she said, interested, vision-
ing a wild lake shore, a snug log house, days of
thrilling trout fishing, weeks of ardent following
after the moose and deer—a life of excitement, calm
and isolation, dear to the genuine sportsman and lov-
er of nature, to be reluctantly abandoned only as the
leaden skies float down out of the vast bosom of the
north, dropping a white mantle over the whole land
and gradually obstructing the waterways.
“It's a curious country,” he continued, “a very
curious country. From here the journey is fully
twelve or fourteen days even at the best speed, and
2


I8 A FOREST DRAMA.
the whole route is by water—lake, river and portage,
portage, river and lake. I make the trip by canoe
with my man and an Indian guide, with Indian
packers to carry my supplies. I like to be comforta-
ble, and you would be surprised to know what I have
‘packed up there in my time. I have everything.
The Indians like gifts of powder and bullets and
blankets and what not, and they are my slaves. I
am monarch of all I survey, as the saying goes. It
is good to have such a retreat. I wouldn't exchange
it for a European principality. I like the sense of
freedom, the ability to command—to feel that there
is no one to dispute my authority within hundreds
of miles, except an occasional factor at some trading
post of the Hudson Bay Company, and I know
how to steer clear of them when it suits me.”
“What do you call your kingdom in the wilds?”
asked Alberta, more interested than she cared to ac-
knowledge.
“I have not been sentimental enough to give it a
name. The hunting lodge, on an island in a lake
without a name, I call my den—my retreat.”
Their conversation halted here. Lucien Mérimée
was about to play on his violin, and Alberta showed
no further interest in this stranger Englishman's


A FOREST DRAMA. I9
kingdom in the north. The dance over, Sandy
Chevalier took the squeaking instrument from the
young man who had been playing and extended it
with a pleading look toward Lucien, who stood in
the doorway. The latter nodded consent, but pro-
duced his own violin which he had preferred not to
leave with the other baggage at the portage that
morning. A few strokes were sufficient to cause a
hush throughout that gay company. First he
played a bright, rippling air, interspersed with tender
minor passages that pleased them all; then followed
a wild love-plaint, all in the minor, a sombre tragedy,
ending in a burst of half-mocking merriment. The
latter brought the appreciative Chevaliers up to a
high pitch of excitement—took the very heart out
of one's bosom, Madame declared, tears in her eyes.
“He play well, hein?" demanded Sandy of those
about him. “Vraiment c'est merveilleux!”
Putting the butt of his violin down on his knee,
the musician sang in a pure baritone, to a light
accompaniment, some patriotic lines, beginning:
“Sol Canadien, terre cherie |
Par des braves tufus peuplé.”
Chevalier then called for “Par Derrière chez mon
Père,” but Madame preferred “A la Claire Fon-
taine,” or would be satisfied with “C'est la Belle


2O A FOREST DRAMA.
Francoise.” Some one else asked for “Sur le Pont
d'Avignon,” and still another for “Cécilia.” Lucien
took the suggestion of the hostess and sang the
widely popular “Fontaine,” after inviting all to
join him in the refrain. After this he played an-
other touching selection, and then escaped from the
room, fearing the dancers might grow impatient.
“His playing is wonderful,” declared Alberta
with enthusiasm, turning to Hawksworth, who had
not yet vacated his place.
“Yes?” he responded doubtfully, not relishing
the admiration expressed in her face. “Who is he?
Some poor devil of a French-Canadian, I suppose,
though he seems better kept than the most of them.”
“He is my friend.”
“I beg your pardon.”
The girl turned abruptly away, entered into
conversation with a young woman on her other side,
and he saw that she was not to be readily appeased.
Bowing and smiling, the Englishman then left her
and returned to the group of men outside. As soon
as opportunity offered, he took Sandy Chevalier
aside, spoke to him flatteringly about the entertain-
ment he was giving, and proceeded to extract in-
formation from him about the “wonderful fiddler”
and the “beautiful young English lady” who


A FOREST DRAMA. 21
graced the happy occasion. The gratified habitant
readily told all he knew. The fiddler was M. Lu-
cien Mérimée, a book-keeper in Marshall's lumber
camp. Where was that? Off there in the “bush.”
behind Cedar Bay. And the lady? Lucien had
brought her back with him only that day after being
“out front” for more than a month; in the morning
he was to take her to Burton's in Birch Bay. How
long she would stay there Sandy could not say.
“Do you think he is to marry her?”
The habitant lifted his hands and shoulders in
a slightly impatient shrug. He had not been in-
formed, but thought it reasonably probable. Lu-
cien was a fine fellow, a scion of a great French fam-
ily of Quebec, and Miss Ransom, although with so
grand an air, was a niece of Mrs. Hunter, wife of
Ab Hunter, one of the common sort, now to be
found trapping on Mink Lake. With one more
flattering speech, the Englishman turned away, well
satisfied, and walked down to his canoe where the
Indian and the long-bearded white man were await-
ing him.
It was after two o'clock when Alberta at length
lay down in an inner room, sharing her none too
ample couch with two of the older women. There
she slept until called next morning, although the


22 A FOREST DRAMA.
squeaking fiddle continued to afflict the ear and the
tread of the dancers to resound throughout the
house until the hour of dawn. The sun had just
risen when Lucien Mérimée came forth from his
brief slumbers on the hay in the barn. The very
last of the revellers were now departing in their ca-
noes, loath to go and hurrying off only to save good
Mme. Chevalier the labor of serving them with
breakfast. Sandy was asleep, but Madame was stir-
ring about the kitchen.
“Ah, you would not go so soon!” she exclaimed,
when asked about Miss Ransom. “Let her sleep
yet a little, cher M. Mérimée. Elle est tellement fa-
tiguée, cette belle demoiselle.”
“As long as you think best,” the young man
agreed, and going down, he took a brief plunge into
the lake in order to freshen himself, for he, too, was
fatigued. The bath, breakfast, and a strong cup of
tea brought every desired result, and when Alberta
was at last ready to start, and Madame saw them off
with a smile and a friendly parting word, he dipped
the paddle with no lack of his accustomed vigor.


A FOREST DRAMA. 23
III.
JoHN BURTON's farm on Birch Bay was one of
the most desirable in the vicinity of Muskeg Lake.
There was not much cleared land, but the stone had
been taken out of what there was, and the rich soil
yielded abundantly. Moreover, Burton owned more
cattle and sheep than any farmer on the lake, and in
addition a well-equipped saw-mill that was always
running. As wealth was measured in that region,
he was an unusually prosperous man. Both he and
his wife were English, and being far above the aver-
age of their neighbors in education, it resulted
through no fault of their own that they were called
proud and exclusive by some of these less fortunate
neighbors. Their house was a two-story frame
standing on a cleared hillside above Birch Bay, and,
though simple in all its arrangements and furniture,
was regarded as more or less palatial by the average
shack-dweller of the lake.
They were somewhat of an anomaly in their sur-


24 A FOREST DRAMA.
roundings, but were by no means an isolated in-
stance. Educated Englishmen were to be found in
wilder spots than theirs; they merely represented
in their own way the instinct of expansion which
has caused a dauntless, conquering race to girdle
the globe and carry civilization into its remotest
COrnerS.
“I am really ashamed of myself,” laughed Mrs.
Burton, as she sat lunching with her husband in
their cozy dining-room. She was past forty-five, but
her vigorous English constitution and native color
gave her an appearance of youth which the average
woman of the American continent is glad of at a
much earlier age. Her husband was less well pre-
served, his gray hair and the deep lines in his strong
ruddy face casting no doubt on his fifty years.
“What have you done?” he asked, only mildly
curious.
“Don’t scold me, dear, but I have been neglect-
ing everything, and have read ‘Père Lorette’ all
the morning—the second reading, too!”
“I might say you were foolish, but people who
live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. If any-
body had told me two weeks ago that I should ever
plough through a manuscript novel and sit up half
the night to finish it, I should have believed that my


A FOREST DRAMA. 25
sanity was doubted. But once started on the con-
founded thing, I couldn't lay it down.”
“Of course not. It is so absorbing. And André
is such a hero!”
“The girl is uncommonly bewitching, but André
—he's a good deal of a prig, and I couldn't forget
that he was a French-Canadian.”
“You prejudiced Englishman! Isn't Lucien a
French-Canadian?”
“Lucien is an exception. I should never have be-
lieved it possible for me to get on so well with a
French-Canadian, and a musical one at that.”
John Burton enjoyed the contempt of the able-
bodied Briton of the mechanical engineer type for
all forms of art, especially art considered as a
serious pursuit for men. If asked his opinion, he
would have said that the painting of pictures, the
writing of novels, and particularly the making of mu-
sic, were pastimes suitable only for women, and
such men as went in for them seriously were not
only wanting in manhood but were open to the
charge of seeking an excuse for loafing. To his
view a “fiddlin' Frenchman ” was quite beyond the
pale of respectability, and yet Lucien Mérimée had
long been in the habit of visiting the house as a wel-


26 A FOREST DRAMA.
come friend and was often requested to play the
fiddle. So much for being “an exception.”
“It ought to be published,” Mrs. Burton contin-
ued.
“Isn't he going to try?”
“Why no. He burns them. Lucien told me that
he had written three before this one was begun and
burned them all. He has been writing during his
leisure for years, and this is the first that anybody
has seen. He told me that he wrote the first ones
in French, but now he prefers English. He is a
genius, John,” the lady concluded, “and the won-
derful part of it is that he doesn't know it.”
“Don’t be Utopian. Genius doesn't lie around
loose in our day. You had better be careful not to
put any such notion into his head, for he is not likely
to keep on burning them, and he may be disappoint-
ed. A critical reader might not agree with us about
‘Pére Lorette. We read very few books and
are hardly able to judge.”
“I never read a better tale, I'm sure!”
“Let him keep his pastime, but don't—He needs
something of the sort as a refuge. He's like a fish
out of water in that lumber camp. He ought to
have been trained for some profession.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Burton agreed, “they were bent on


A FOREST DRAMA. 27
making a priest out of him and then that trouble
came and his life was spoiled. He was meant for
an artist of some kind.”
5
“By the way,” said Burton as he rose from the
table, “did you know that Lucien had come back
from the ‘front?’ I hear he brought an uncom-
monly handsome young woman up the lake yester-
day—by canoe.” -
“Good gracious! And he told us nothing.”
“And here's another less agreeable piece of news
for you: a bear killed one of our calves last night.”
“Oh, dear! . . . And they said she was
handsome, did they?”
“Who—the bear or the calf?”
Mrs. Burton bore down on her husband with a
threatening mien, and he, snatching up his hat, ran
out laughing, and took the path to the mill.
& 4 Oh, I forgot,” he turned round to say, “I have
invited an English sportsman to dine with us to-
morrow. He spent an hour at the mill this morning.
His name is Hawksworth.”
5 *
“That's good news,” the housewife responded.
“We might let Lucien know and have whist.”
Hearing a knocking and going to the door a few
minutes later, Mrs. Burton found Lucien Mérimée
on the veranda. The moment she had concluded


28 A FOREST DRAMA.
her greetings and inquiries he told her that he had
come to ask a great favor, and she promptly en-
gaged to grant it blindfold.
“Then will you give a young lady friend of mine
a home here for a few days?” -
He saw her face fall, but a moment later her smile
returned. “Ah, that is another thing,” she laughed.
“You have entrapped me, you sly man. But tell
me about her.”
He said she was Canadian born, but had been
brought up in England, at “Redwood,” Surrey, the
home of a wealthy uncle. Her presence in Canada
now was not easy to explain. Apparently her
father's marriage was a mésalliance, for she was
nearly related through her mother to the Hunters,
in order to visit whom she had come alone to Can-
ada, not knowing until the previous night of their
removal from their poor little farm on Muskeg
Lake. She seemed to have proposed to herself an
indefinite sojourn with Mrs. Hunter, and could not
have known how unsuitable it was.
“How very curious!” said Mrs. Burton, deeply
interested. “Depend upon it, there is something
wrong in England, or she would not have come.
Where is she now?”
“Waiting down there at the landing.”


A FOREST DRAMA. 29
This statement caused Mrs. Burton to start with
surprise. How like a man to have done this before
arranging things! However, she promptly moved
to accompany him down the hill. Alberta sat wait-
ing on a log near the water, an anxious expression
on her face. She rose as the two were seen drawing
near, and fixed a pair of fearless violet eyes inquir-
ingly upon Mrs. Burton, who involuntarily ejacu-
lated in a low voice:
“She is handsome, Lucien.”
Then she walked on, smiling, to where Alberta
stood, shook her hand cordially and kissed her
cheek, saying: “I’ve heard all about you, dear, and
I'm so sorry. Come up to the house. It is your
home until you are ready to go to your friends. Lu-
cien’s friends are mine.”
“And yet you talk about impulsive people!”
laughed John Burton, when his wife related all this
to him. He did not say she had done wrong, how-
ever. He had seen Alberta—and, besides, there was
magic in the mention of the great English estate of
Redwood where she had lived with her uncle for
ten years.
The two ladies went up to the house alone, Lu-
cien having put off at once in his canoe to the village
of Rockledge, five miles away, in order to arrange


3O A FOREST DRAMA.
for the forwarding of Alberta's baggage, and
ascertain if it would be possible to com-
municate with the Hunters. He returned late in the
afternoon stating that he had found a trapper who
expected to start for the Mink Lake neighborhood
the next morning and who agreed to deliver a letter
to Mrs. Hunter in the course of the following week.
He therefore suggested that Alberta write to her
aunt and let him deliver the letter to the trapper that
night, which was accordingly done.
Alberta felt secure in her present haven, her heart
was warmed by the cordial welcome extended her,
but the uncertainty of the future weighed upon
her and caused her to lie awake far into the night.
The morning brought back her wonted hopeful-
ness and she met her hostess with the most
cheerful of smiles. The two women had felt mutu-
ally attracted toward each other, and only a few
days of continued association were needed to
produce a genuine friendship. Alberta was moved
almost at once by a desire to confide in her warm-
hearted country-woman, and no sooner was Mrs.
Burton free to sit down and converse, at the con-
clusion of the morning's most pressing household
duties, then the girl said to her impulsively:
“An angel couldn't have been kinder to me, Mrs.


A FOREST DRAMA. 31
Burton, and I want to tell you everything, and have
you advise me.”
“Yes, dear— if you wish it. But don't feel
bound. I seek no justification of anything. Lu-
cien’s word and your face are enough for me.”


32 A FOREST DRAMA.
IV.
“YoU already know,” Alberta began, “that I
was born here in this lake country. My father came
here from England. He and my uncle Edward
were younger sons of Sir Arthur Ransom, of Cliffton,
Kent. They were left to their own resources with
no other preparation for life than a university educa-
tion. Uncle Edward afterward inherited some prop-
erty by a special provision of the will of a great-aunt
who was fond of him, prospered on his own ac-
count, bought Redwood, and married well. My
father had nothing to start with and was unfor-
tunate. He finally felt compelled to leave England, -
came here, and lived the life of a frontier farmer
until he died. He lived alone for four years and
then married the daughter of an uneducated English
settler. It is not easy to remain true to one's tradi-
tions in a country like this. The girl he married
was very young, was devoted to him, and he partly
educated her. They had two children, my brother
Harry and myself. As long as my father lived we


A FOREST DRAMA. 33
were happy, for both he and my mother loved us
tenderly.
“Our troubles began when my father died. We
were always poor, but now we soon became almost
destitute. My mother married again within a year,
solely in order to have bread for herself and her
children, I am sure. I remember that she often wept
both before and after her second marriage. My
step-father was not a good man and ill-treated us
all. About two years later my poor, dear mother
died, and it was not long before my step-father
g
brought home another wife—the “new wife” we
called her. Harry and I now lived a very unhappy
life. The severest tasks were required of us and we
were frequently beaten without just cause. We often
thought of going to our aunt, Mrs. Hunter, of
whom our mother sometimes spoke with affection,
but we did not know where to find her, the Hunters
having moved away from the lake when we were
very small. Finally, one day late in summer, when
Harry was fourteen, and I was ten, unable to stand
such a life any longer, we ran away.
“We stole off before day one morning and made
our way to the wildest spot we could find, about
twenty miles up the lakes, avoiding farms and lum-
ber camps for fear our step-father would find our
3


34 A FOREST DRAMA.
hiding place and take us back home. We both knew
how to fish and how to cook, and Harry was a good
shot. We had brought in our birch-bark canoe a
little tent, blankets, and provisions, and we were at
first very prosperous and happy in our lonely camp.
But one day we were upset in a high wind and the
gun was lost, and one night the canoe drifted away.
Our fishing-tackle had been lost with the gun, and
now we were not only prisoners on the shore of that
secluded bay, but had no way of securing food. No-
body came within sight or within sound of our cries
as we wandered along the shores of the inwinding
bays, and finally crept back to camp at night. What
we had left to eat was soon gone. Meanwhile Har-
ry took the fever, and at last I was utterly alone, for
he became delirious.”
“Poor child !” murmured Mrs. Burton.
“Harry would have died and I should have
starved if Mr. Lucien Mérimée had not found one
of my birch-bark letters and come to our rescue. I
wrote funny little misspelled accounts of our con-
dition and situation on pieces of birch bark and left
them where I thought passing canoeists might see
them. I prayed at night that a ‘good angel’ might
come, and at last one came. For Mr. Mérimée was
one. He fed me and nursed Harry, giving up his


36 A FOREST DRAMA.
sion, on one of those little English creeks they call
rivers. I went down stream, and too far, and it
took such a long time to row back, and it
rained, and, oh dear! what a fuss they made about
it! They said I would be the total demoralization
of that school, and that it was a special Providence
that I had not been drowned. Fancy my being
drowned in that little baby river! I indignantly in-
formed them that once in Canada when I was only
ten years old I got astride of a cedar log and pad-
dled a mile out into the lake after a drifting canoe.”
“Go on,” urged Mrs. Burton, after laughing out-
right, “It is better than a novel.”
“I could tell you some funny things about that
school,” Alberta declared. “Girls of my age ac-
tually asked me if it was Canada or California that
belonged to England, and when I wickedly told
them it was California, and that Canada was only
about half as large as England, they believed me.
They even believed me when I said that out here
among the lakes white people had to keep themselves
locked up all the time or the Indians would take
their scalps. This was after I had been forced to
go back to the school and eat humble pie, and
wanted revenge. It was about this time that Lucien
Mérimée came to see Harry and me on his return


38 A FOREST DRAMA.
at Oxford and now looked toward scholarship and
a professor's chair. Just before our little war began
he started off for a long visit to Egypt and Arabia
in order to study to better advantage certain Orien-
tal languages, Uncle Edward generously furnishing
the money.
“ I say “war, for that is what it really was.
Harold clung to the hope that if his parents should
consent I might be won. He stormed, threatened
and sulked by turns, but my uncle and aunt were as
immovable as mountains. As for me, I frankly told
them that I could never love Harold and had dis-
couraged him from the outset. I thought that ought
to satisfy them, but it did not. They seemed to be
afraid of me and their manner toward me under-
went a change. They evidently concluded that the
only way to cure Harold of his infatuation was to
dispose of me, and they began to be in a great hurry
to marry me off. I confess that as soon as this
was plain to me I became foolishly angry, and if it
had been possible for me to love Harold I would
have allowed him to run away with and marry me
in spite of them; for he often threatened them with
such violent measures.
“I was nearly twenty and had been going into
society for about a year, but as yet had received no


A FOREST DRAMA. 39
offers. Dowerless girls are not apt to be burdened
with suitors among the English county families.
The men were very attentive, but they only came
to look and admire and pass a pleasant hour. They
knew and I knew that, though my father had been
a gentleman, without a dower I could be only an
appendage in the social world in which I moved. Of
course I am speaking in general terms. There are
always exceptions. It is possible that I might have
caused some aristocratic and worldly British mam-
ma agonies by capturing her best beloved if I had
tried, but I did not and would not try. The
only man who had made up his mind to marry me
without charge was a young curate called Egbert
Horton. He was of ‘blameless antecedents and high
connections, as Aunt Amelia put it. He was also
good-looking, but he was stupid, and as soon as I
understood that they had pitched upon him as Har-
old's savior I promptly loathed him. His courtship
did not prosper and his avowal was resolutely
staved off as long as possible. But he was too stu-
pid to understand, and it came finally. An uncondi-
tional refusal did not dispose of him. He insisted
that I might learn to love him, and actually bade me
consider the fact that he had spoken to my uncle


4O A FOREST DRAMA.
and obtained his consent! I suggested that he go
home and wait for my consent.
“The war was really serious after that. My aunt
and uncle were more determined than ever, so was
Harold, and so was I. The clash of swords was
quite alarming. Though they all loved me in their
way and I loved them in mine, it was clear that I
was fast becoming a persona non grata at Redwood.
Unknown to Harold, I proposed to go away—to
visit my aunt in Canada. My aunt Amelia evidently
approval of the plan as a last resort, but my uncle
objected. He pronounced such a plan ridiculous
and declared that I would be disgusted with life on a
Canadian frontier farm in a week. He wanted to see
me ‘properly settled in life. He did not positively
command me to marry the curate, but he clearly inti-
mated to me that it was ‘necessary, and I knew that
peace would be impossible until I did so or cleared
the atmosphere by my departure. I gladly chose the
latter course, confident that I could be happier here
than anywhere in England, for the old homesickness
was still with me at times. I had already written
and ascertained the whereabouts of my aunt, Mrs.
Hunter, and now I wrote to her direct. But as the
time for my departure seemed to have come, I
waited neither for her reply nor to hear from Harry.


A FOREST DRAMA. 4I
Uncle Edward happened to go away for a week or
more in one direction and Harold in another, and
this was my opportunity, for neither would have
consented for me to go. I packed my belongings
and left Redwood on short notice, informing Aunt
Amelia of what I was about to do. She tacitly con-
sented, for she offered no objection and did not
summon Uncle Edward home by telegram as she
might have done. It was scarcely a case of running
away; I simply came away, with my aunt's knowl-
edge and tacit consent. Indeed, she offered me
money and she sent a servant with me as far as
Liverpool. She kissed me good-bye and said:
“‘I am so sorry for all this, Alberta, dear, but it
is better for you to be out of Harold's sight. When
he is married you must come back, for we all love
you.’
“So here I am at the end, or almost at the end,
of a journey of about five thousand miles, under-
taken for the sake of the peace of a family to which
I was most deeply indebted as well as for the sake
of my own freedom. And what is your candid
opinion of it, Mrs. Burton? Do you blame me?
Would you have come?”
“No, dear, I don’t blame you in the least,” was
the prompt answer. “In your place I should most


42 A FOREST DRAMA.
certainly have left Redwood, but—I think your com-
ing here—to Mrs. Hunter—was ill advised. I do
not see that it was necessary. Your uncle could
have provided a place for you with friends in Eng-
land or on the Continent that—that would have been
So much more suitable. Or he could have sent his
son away.”
“Another man might have done something of
that sort, but not Uncle Edward.” Alberta de-
clared positively. “He is a man of an iron will and
brooks neither suggestion nor advice. He liked Eg-
bert Horton and simply refused to receive as final
my solemn declaration that I could never love or
marry him. He was determined to have his own
way.” -
“As to what you ought to do now,” said Mrs.
Burton, after a moment's thought, “I should say,
better stay here until you can communicate with
your brother. It is his business to provide a home
for you until some other man claims the right.” •
“And that will not be long,” the elder lady re-
flected, as her eyes rested admiringly on the young
girl seated before her. The reflection was justified,
for the picture presented of youthful loveliness
was an uncommon one. Alberta was slenderly and
gracefully made, and her face exhibited both


A FOREST DRAMA. 43
delicacy of outline and beautiful color. Her dark
violet eyes expressed tenderness as well as intelli-
gence, and in her whole atmosphere there seemed
to be something rare and fine. Mrs. Burton thought
there were few women who would not admire her
and few men who would not involuntarily do her
homage.
“Then you think a home with my aunt, Mrs.
Hunter, is out of the question?” asked Alberta,
stifling a sigh.
“Oh, yes—quite. You would see that for your-
self as soon as you saw her and her surroundings.
It might be well for you to see for yourself. While
you are waiting here you might go up there for a
few days. We could arrange to send you, I think,
with a party by canoe. I have travelled farther than
that by canoe with my husband in my time and en-
joyed it.”
“It is delightful to think of,” Alberta declared.
“But even if it were to be dreaded I should feel
that I ought to go and spend at least a few days with
my aunt.”
At this moment a half-breed servant girl looked
in at the door, and Mrs. Burton rose saying that she
had a question to ask, but would defer it, as a guest
was expected for dinner.


44 A FOREST DRAMA.
V.
ALBERTA was more surprised than pleased to find
that the guest was Hawksworth, the Englishman
whose acquaintance she had made at the Chevalier's
logging-bee dance. Her manner toward him was
sufficiently gracious, but he saw that she had not
forgotten his offense. She was again forcibly struck
with his marked resemblance to some one whose
image had been impressed upon her memory in the
past, but the more she studied his face the more she
was puzzled. A face of such striking outlines and
expression was not one to forget, and yet she had
forgotten.
The conversation was left largely to him and their
hosts, with whom he made palpable efforts to ingra-
tiate himself, and not without success. With the
exception of Lucien Mérimée it was not often that
they had a guest of the cultivated sort; the enter-
tainment of two at once was an uncommon event
in which they could not fail to find rare pleasure.
While the four were seated on the veranda after
dinner, the two men smoking, Lucien Mérimée ar-


A FOREST DRAMA. 45
rived in his canoe, bringing his violin, as Mrs. Bur-
ton had repeatedly instructed him never to fail to
do. This prevented the proposed game of whist, the
company being now composed of five, and when
they adjourned to the little parlor, the outdoor air,
being a trifle too cool, the remainder of the evening
was devoted to music and conversation.
There was much talk of moose hunting, the most
exciting sport which the region afforded. Burton
told a good story, Hawksworth told several;
Lucien might have told many, but left the talk-
ing chiefly to the other two men. From the
outset Hawksworth declared war. There was an
unmistakable challenge in his eye, and his visible
disdain as he submitted to an introduction to the
young French-Canadian amounted almost to insult.
As he told his stories, he practically ignored the
third person presumably experienced and certainly
interested in moose hunting. The Burtons appeared
to see nothing of this, but Alberta was quick to ob-
serve it, and Lucien, though he showed no resent-
ment, was no less angered than surprised. He felt
annoyed to see how high this insolent stranger had
already risen in the esteem of his old friends, and
when later he was asked to play his annoyance in-
creased. For the hunters had now stopped talking


46 A FOREST DRAMA.
out of deference to the hostess, Burton turning to-
ward the “fiddlin' Frenchman ” with a tolerant
smile, while Hawksworth stared with a cool inso-
lence not far from open contempt. Obedient to Mrs.
Burton's desire, Lucien played two selections, then
put away his violin with a final air that could not be
mistaken.
As he played, Alberta's glance wandered again
and again to Hawksworth's face which was now
turned toward the musician, and in her eyes appeared
the suggestion of dawning recognition. She had
reached the point where she entertained a sus-
picion but required confirmation in order to be sure.
It was this that caused her abruptly to remark,
when the violin had been put away:
“You gentlemen have been talking of your ex-
ploits, now let me tell you of one of mine.”
“By all means,” was the unanimous invitation.
“Something has made me recollect it and I see
it all as vividly as if it were yesterday, although it
happened six years ago,” she told them.
Late one night at Redwood, her uncle's home in
England—her story ran—being more than usually
wakeful, she decided to read an hour or two before
putting out her light, although the time for every
one in the house to be in bed had already arrived.


A FOREST DRAMA. 47
There being no book in her room that enticed her,
she determined to go down to the library and get
“The Last of the Mohicans,” at that time her favor-
ite story, telling of the wild forests of New Eng-
land and Canada and the nobility of the brave young
Indian Uncas, the engaging picture of whom
had taken a firm hold on her youthful imagination.
Candle in hand, the girl descended to the first
floor of the dark, quiet house, passed through a long
and spacious apartment hung with pictures, mostly
of dead and gone Ransoms, and entered the library,
the room best loved of all in the house by her be-
cause there were the means, the stories of Cooper in
particular, of momentarily escaping from a confined
existence and returning in fancy to the wild, free
forests of America.
Finding her book, she placed the candle on a
stand near a lounge, lay down and read for nearly
an hour, in reckless disregard of the injury done her
eyesight. Attacked by drowsiness at last, and care-
less of consequences, she closed her eyes and was
soon asleep. Some time later her expiring candle
flickered out, and she slept tranquilly in the dark-.
ness. When at length she awoke with a start the
room was full of light, and some one stood over her.
“Don’t move,” a voice said softly. “Don’t—


48 A FOREST DRAMA.
don’t try to get up! And of all you do, don't open
your mouth. If you make a noise, I'll have to gag
you, you know, and it would be a beastly shame to
spoil your pretty face; it really would, and I hope
you won't drive me to it. Yes, I'm a burglar—lie
still'—but a decent one, I hope. I never lay vio-
lent hands on ladies, if I can help it; and when they
are as charming as you are, my dear, they are the
objects of my special courtesy.”
Alberta lay quite still, in a state of nervous col-
lapse, comprehending that a man was holding her
down at the point of a revolver. There were other
men in the room, too, or rather in a small adjoin-
ing apartment which her uncle used as an office and
which contained in addition to ordinary furniture
a small iron safe. She could hear movements and
whispers there, the jingling as of keys or small
tools, the opening and shutting of the drawers of
the desk, and conjectured that the lock of the safe
was being picked. This was a serious matter, be-
cause the safe was the repository of some valuable
old family jewels and sometimes contained a large
sum of money.
Afterward the girl thought it was the burglar's
eye rather than the muzzle of his pistol so close to
her face that held her bound as if through fearful


A FOREST DRAMA. 49
fascination or charm. They were keen, cold gray
eyes, alive with the determination that stops at noth-
ing. The face was not the openly sinister and repul-
sive one that she would have expected. There was a
suggestion of the criminal's hardened look, but not
of the low-browed, beastly type. There was intel-
ligence in that face, as well as something suggestive
of scorn and derision. Evidently this was a burglar
who respected himself and his trade, who suffered
no regrets, and who perhaps looked upon the major-
ity of mankind as a pack of fools. He was a young
man, hardly thirty, and in his bold way handsome.
The type was distinctly English, of the middle class;
similar faces might be seen in a London omnibus
almost any day, and yet the individual lines in this
one were vividly marked, and they were indelibly
photographed, every one, on Alberta's tenacious
memory.
“Don’t be frightened,” he whispered, smiling.
No harm is intended to you. The only thing I am
tempted to do is to steal a kiss from those pretty
lips, but I daren't try it; you'd scream in spite of me.
What deucedly fine eyes you have!”
He ran on thus with reckless gayety, though with
lowered voice, until the movements in the office
ceased and the sound of retreating footsteps was
4 -


5O A FOREST DRAMA.
heard. The moment all was quiet the burglar
pointed to a clock on the wall within range of Al-
berta's vision and told her to lie perfectly still for
five minutes longer, or it would be the worse for
her; did she but lift her hand or open her mouth, a
man standing outside a window behind her, cover-
ing her with a revolver, would fire without mercy.
“Now be sure you don't tempt him, for he's
a terrible fellow,” was the concluding admonition.
Then, kissing his hand and smiling, this unconven-
tional housebreaker withdrew, and Alberta heard
him as he leaped lightly from a window.
In mortal fear and trusting simplicity, the girl
lay motionless in her place until the slow, unfeeling
clock measured the five long minutes. Not until
then did she dare turn her head in order that the dis-
ignated window might be brought within the range
of her vision. To her unbounded relief no leveled
pistol and no burglar met her glance. Leaping to
her feet, she caught up the “Last of the Mohicans,”
fled to her room and locked herself in. And then,
with the sense of safety, came a thought that caused
her to flush with mortification. No burglar would
linger five minutes in order to help his friends off;
she had been duped, and now it was too late to
rouse the house and catch the thieves, and therefore
best to leave the family undisturbed till morning.


A FOREST DRAMA. 5 I
Alberta sat down in her room and thought it all
over, anon seeking tranquility of mind in reading;
but wherever she looked, even in the pages of the
book, she saw continually the cold gray eyes and
mocking merry smile of the burglar who had “made
such a fool” of her, as she insisted, in growing
anger. The face was so vividly impressed on her
memory that she believed she could draw its every
line and feature. Suddenly it occurred to her to
try. Should she succeed might—might not the po-
lice be able to recognize the original? What a
just retribution! What a sweet revenge!
Fired by this novel idea, Alberta threw aside her
book, spread out some drawing paper on her table,
and set to work. Encouraged by the result of her
first few bold strokes, she brought all her energies
to the task and worked harder and more earnestly
than ever in her life before, keeping on untiringly
as the minutes, quarters and half hours passed.
Drawing was her delight, and she was far in ad-
vance of all the members of her class at school, de-
lighting her teacher, who was known to have re-
marked that the little Canadian rebel was the only
girl in the school who might really become an artist.
But she had rarely attempted to draw faces. Her
best loved subjects were landscapes, and these were


52 A FOREST DRAMA.
nearly always Canadian, bits of lake and rock and
tangled forest, the gliding bark canoe, the moose
and deer, with now and then the figure of a woods-
y
man with his “turkey” over his shoulders, a half-
breed Indian coureur du bois, or a French-Canadian
river driver in gay stockings.
She was determined to draw a face now, how-
ever, and did her very best. When finished at last,
a living, breathing face looked out from the paper,
whether a true likeness or not. “It is just like him,”
was her own comment, with a sigh of satisfaction.
“And did it—and did it really catch him? How
delightful!” Mrs. Burton burst in impetuously at
this point of the story.
“Yes, my uncle took the portrait to London, it
was photographed and sent out from Scotland Yard
all over the country, and within three weeks the
man was caught. So this was my exploit,” explained
Alberta. “On account of my knack at drawing
I was the means of entrapping one of the most suc-
cessful burglars of his time.”
She interrupted the chorus of admiring exclama-
tions to add that the burglar afterwards wrote to
her. His letter, which she still vividly recalled, was
as follows:


A FOREST DRAMA. 53
“My Little Beauty. Thanks to a newspaper I
was lately permitted to read, I now share with all
England the knowledge of how a fourteen year old
miss caught the cleverest burglar in the kingdom.
Who would have believed it! The next time I am
present at a safe cracking and have to mount guard
over a young lady I'll know better than to turn on
the light. I have to thank your pretty face and my
confounded recklessness for that. (A stronger term
would be more appropriate, but I am writing to a
boarding school miss and must avoid the slang of
the profession.) I wanted a good look at you, you
see, in the best light possible, and little dreamed what
a risk I ran in permitting you a full view of myself.
From the conventional idea of burglars, you doubt-
less think that I am sorry I did not put you ‘out of
evidence, as the phrase goes, and so have saved my-
self from this beastly run of ill luck; but my only
regret is that I did not kiss you when I had the
chance. It would have been a thing to remember
for years.
“Perhaps I may do it yet, my clever one! By the
time you are out of boarding school you may be
sure I shall have found a way out of this beastly
prison— for I am clever, too—and we may meet
again. If there be such a thing as fate, it will bring


54 A FOREST DRAMA.
us together, for who could be so fit to mate as the
cleverest burglar in London and the little woman
who had the wit to catch him? What a pair we
should make! With you to back me I could brave
the world. But I forget that your conventional edu-
cation will prejudice you against my profession.
For my own part I consider it more respectable than
many so-called legitimate trades—I only take from
the rich what the rich have taken from the poor.
For your sake, however, I might be induced to give
it up and go into another line. We could succeed
in anything, you and I. Think it over, my dear,
until we meet again.
“Those wondrous fine eyes of yours have haunt-
ed me constantly, and now that I know your sur-
passing cleverness I think of you all day like a
lover. I will not say goodbye to the girl in all Great
Britain but only au revoir, for we are to meet
again—we must. Au revoir, then, my beauty,
au revoir l—THE BURGLAR.”
“And was that the last you ever heard of him?”
asked Mrs. Burton, after Alberta had told them lit-
tle more of what the burglar had written than they
might gather from her statement that he had sent


A FOREST DRAMA. 55
her “a dreadful, bold, saucy letter that showed intel-
ligence.”
“Yes,” was the reply, “I don't know what be-
came of him. By this time he may have served out
his term, or he may have escaped from prison and
is now at large.”
“I had not supposed that there was ever a bur-
glar so well educated,” remarked Lucien.
“I read of one a few years ago who was said to
be a college graduate and quite a ‘gentleman’,” re-
joined Burton.
“Miss Ransom has eclipsed us all,” said Hawks-
worth, gallantly. “Our sporting exploits were com-
monplace in comparison with her experience, and
her account of it shows her to be a born story-
teller.”
As she graphically described all the details of her
adventure, Alberta had kept her eyes away from
Hawksworth's face, fearing that otherwise she
might become so excited as to exhibit signs of
agitation. But she was conscious throughout that
his eyes were riveted upon her, and more than once
she fancied that he was ill at ease. She looked di-
rectly at him only as she concluded with the words
—“ or he may have escaped from prison and is now
at large.” She was a trifle disconcerted, but was by


58 A FOREST DRAMA.
powering disgust for himself and the circumstance
of his daily life.
What could he offer her? What future was there
for a woman who linked her life with that of a book-
keeper in a back country lumber camp? There was a
time when he might have worked for and won the
proper position for such as she, but he had thrown
away his opportunities and now he was—nothing!
Even if he could win her—glorious thought—what
right would he have to sacrifice her? Then there
was the annoying question of nationality. Though
she might not require wealth, might she not share
in the prejudice of her people against natives of
French Canada? This insolent, cold-hearted Eng-
lishman, Hawksworth, might— no, no, it would be
horrible; she must be saved from that, even though
he offered untold riches. There were some things
infinitely-worse than even a life of poverty and isola-
tion beyond the borders of civilization.
Lucien suddenly turned his canoe at right an-
gles and entered a bay to the left. A few minutes
later he landed, hid his canoe in the brush and made
his way along a dim trail through dense, dark woods.
He held his light rifle in readiness as he walked
and kept close watch for fear of wandering from
the spectral trail—a short cut that even by day was


A FOREST DRAMA. 59
troublesome at points— but a wild beast so minded
might have taken him by surprise that night. He
saw none of the glowing eyes, full of wonder, fear
or hate, that watched him from shrub-grown rock or
tree as he passed. Nor did his fancy run before him
through the dreaming forest as at times on nights
like this. The dusky sighing trees did not hover
about him as if on spectral wings, and the shadowed
vistas beneath them were not thick with nameless
shapes that sprang up hastily from beds of leaves
to hearken with bent heads as storm-strewn twigs
broke harshly beneath his tread. He saw only his
own oft-repeated thoughts and the visions that went
with them.
At length, at the end of a two-mile tramp, he
came into an open where the starlight dimly out-
lined half a dozen low, heavy buildings, apparently
huddled together in disorder. Before the door of
one of these he halted, glanced upward at the sky,
at the dark encompassing forest wall, then fixed his
eyes upon the ground at his feet. “I ought to keep
my resolve and hold off,” he muttered, “but if that
He did not complete the
phrase. He stood silent for another half minute,
* *
bull-dog Englishman—.
uttered a final sigh, opened the door, groped his way
in, and climbed into his bunk.


6o . A FOREST DRAMA.
He was roused from a troubled sleep at dawn by
a pounding on the door. Five minutes later the
company's bookkeeper had begun the business of the
day by selling a plug of the company's tobacco
across the counter in the company's office where he
slept. Here also, in the regulation lumbermen's
bunks along the walls, slept the superintendent,
the blacksmith and one or two other men who
held responsible positions. Here the accounts
were kept, a few necessaries were sold to the men,
and all other business was transacted.
“It ain’t three days since I got the last,” the pur-
chaser of tobacco remarked to Lucien with a semi-
boasting air. “There ain't a chopper in this camp
that's the heavy chewer I am.”
Other purchasers followed. The “sleeping
camp,” the largest building in the collection, had
long since emptied its gangs of choppers and
sawyers into the “cook-camp, where breakfast
was served by candle-light, and these were now scat-
tering into the woods where the logs were cut and
whence, later in the season, they would be dragged
to the lake and dumped on the ice, there to be
“boomed” after the spring thaw and taken by the
drivers to distant markets. -
It was late on the afternoon of the same day that


A FOREST DRAMA. 6 I
the English sportsman who gave his name as
Hawksworth appeared in Marshall's lumber camp.
He was accompanied by his Indian guide and the
long-bearded nervous man, the two whites carry-
ing guns and the Indian a game bag. Inquiring at
the office if he and his men could get supper, and re-
ceiving an affirmative answer, Hawksworth sent the
5
Indian to the “cook-camp” and entering, he made
himself as comfortable as a cowhide bottom chair
would permit. It was open to the third member of
the party to follow his leader, but at sight of the
face of Lucien Mérimée he shrank back from the
door of the office and moved on hurriedly in the
track of the Indian. -
The bookkeeper, who was seated behind the coun-
ter, looked up as Hawksworth entered and their eyes
met. The latter stared insolently but showed no
sign of recognition, and naturally all the entertain-
ing was done by the superintendent, the blacksmith,
and such other aristocrats of the camp as were wont
to sit in the office during their leisure, a right
denied the rank and file of Marshall's lumbermen.
Soon after the arrival of the visitors supper was
announced, and all hands crowded into the cook-
camp, where even the superintendent and bookkeep-
er were wont to sit down meekly at the long tables


62 A FOREST DRAMA.
and take their food in company with the common
herd. The members of the office party having
promptly returned to their reserved apartment, the
visiting sportsman was invited to join them in a
game of poker. This was proceeding merrily, Lu-
cien meanwhile seated apart reading a book, when
the following conversation grew out of some refer-
ence to a passing trapper who could speak scarcely a
word of English.
“Do you talk French, Mr. Hawksworth?” asked
the blacksmith. “I guess you often meet up with
that kind on your trips.”
“No, what should I learn such a beastly barbar-
Ol1S lingo for?” was the loud, sneering response.
“They tell me they don't talk nothin else in some
o' the camps up above here.”
“Yes, those fellows are as thick as flies in some
parts, but we don't call 'em Canadians at all. A lot
of priest-ridden French rabble—”
“Really, Mr. Hawksworth,” interrupted the sup-
erintendent in a low voice, glancing toward the
bookkeeper, “you must be careful or you'll have
trouble on your hands.”
“I’d as lief be a Hottentot,” persisted the Eng-
d fiddlin' French Ca-
lishman, brutally, “as a d
nadian l’’


A FOREST DRAMA. 63
And then before anybody could interfere Lucien
sprang to his feet and slapped Hawksworth's face.
The latter started up, purple with rage, his hands
seeking a weapon.
“Gentlemen! gentlemen!” cried the superin-
tendent, rushing between the two infuriated men.
Hawksworth seemed taken by surprise. He pos-
sibly may not have expected the insult to be re-
sented, and probably was convinced that in any case
one able-bodied Englishman was the equal of two
Frenchmen in any contest. But whatever he might
think of this as a general proposition, he saw at
once that it was a mistake to count on it in the pres-
ent CaSe.
“Let 'em fight!” cried the blacksmith and others,
dragging the table out of the way and crowding
round; this promised more entertainment even than
the game of poker. “Take away their weapons, if
they’ve got any, and let ’em fight it out, fair and
square.”
The superintendent's remonstrance remained un-
heeded, Hawksworth submitted to being disarmed,
and they did fight. Stripping to their shirts, they
began without loss of time a stubborn sparring con-
test. Hawksworth was bigger boned as well as
heavier by fifty pounds, and his very assurance and


64 A FOREST DRAMA.
contempt for his antagonist further helped him. For
some time he promised to be the ultimate victor.
By a skillful feint, he got in an unwarded blow that
sent Lucien reeling against the stove and thence to
the floor, and cried out with laughter and taunts in
the joy of his triumph. But the other had not given
up, although he rose staggering and as pale as death.
He took a sip of the water that was offered him,
halted a few moments to recover his forces, then
bounded forward with a tiger's fierceness. After
all, the wronged man has an advantage in the very
spur of his wrong that tends to equalize the odds
against him. Besides, it gradually became appar-
ent that the Englishman's heavier body was not in
equal training to endure. The toughening of Lu-
cien’s muscles during years of life in the wilds was
now to tell in his favor.
It seemed almost incredible to the on-lookers,
but was, after all, no great wonder that the termina-
tion of the protracted struggle found Hawksworth
insensible on the floor, while his foe, though blood-
stained and panting, stood whole of limb and other-
wise in the possession of his faculties.
While restoratives were being applied, the victor
disappeared. There was no more poker that night,
and an hour later Hawksworth staggered out of the


“Hawkesworth lay insensible on the floor.”





A FOREST DRAMA. 65
clearing, supported by the Indian guide on the one
side and the long-beard on the other. Thus he
reached his canoe and was carried to his own camp.
No sooner was he gone than Lucien reappeared in
the office and climbed into his bunk. The next
morning he did not get up. During the night he
had spat blood and vomited; in the morning he had
fever. A doctor was brought from a distant point
to the camp that day to attend a chopper who had
been struck by a falling tree, and having examined
Lucien, declared that he suffered from an overstrain
and urgently recommended quiet.
- Thus it came about that Marshall's bookkeeper
sold no more tobacco and kept no more accounts for
the remainder of the week. He lay in his bunk for
two or three days, and was hardly himself again
for a fortnight.
5


68 A FOREST DRAMA.
public official or English church clergyman, but I
spent nearly the whole afternoon on a seat on the
terrace overlooking the noble river, admiring the
view and shedding tears alternately. I was faint
from hunger when I forced myself to make another
start, and felt that something must be done at once.
But my heart failed me and I did nothing during the
rest of the daylight but sit in the cathedral and look
at a picture of a beautiful, patient Virgin over the
high altar of the chancel. A priest passed me whose
face seemed kind and I came near stopping him and
asking his advice, but I did not.
“When I came out of the church it was dark. I
now walked forward, blindly but rapidly, not daring
to be seen to hesitate. How far I walked I don’t
know, but after a while I began to grow faint and
had to stop and lean against the wall of a house. It
was then that I heard some one singing:
“‘Chante, rossignol, chante,
Toi qui as le coeur gai;
Tu as le coeur à rire,
Moi, je l'ai à pleurer.’”
“I not only recognized the air and words from
the old familiar “A la Claire Fontaine’ which Lu-
cien so often sang for us after he came to the res-
cue of Harry and me in our lonely camp, ten years


A FOREST DRAMA. 69
before, but I recognized the voice of Lucien him-
self. I knew that he was in the house in front of
which I stood, and I managed to stagger up the
steps, find the knocker and sound it, and then, just
as soon as the door opened and I had spoken his
name, I was silly enough to faint dead away.”
“How could you help it, poor child!”
“The next thing I can remember was their giv-
ing me a glass of wine, with Lucien looking on and
directing. I must confess it made me happy to see
him near and to know that I was safe. My feeling
of relief was almost as great as when he came to
us on the lonely lake shore, although then Harry
was delirious and I was starving. He seemed a
little older and more manly, but otherwise he was
not in the least changed.
“Well, my troubles were over now, of course.
Lucien lent me money, took me to the right hotel in
a carriage, came to see me every day, and several
times took me out for a drive through the quaint
old town. By his advice I waited until he had com-
pleted his business—a week—and was ready to start
on the long journey to Muskeg Lake. So that is
how we came to travel out here together.”
“It must be a happiness to him to know that good
fortune permitted him to come to your rescue


7o A FOREST DRAMA.
twice.” There was something in Mrs. Burton's af-
fectionate glance as she made this remark that
caused Alberta a certain uneasiness and led her to
avoid a reply.
“I have answered your question,” she said quick-
ly, “now can you answer one from me? The priest
I talked with in Quebec said it was a ‘family trouble'
that caused Lucien to abandon the idea of taking
holy orders, but he did not explain. Can you?”
Mrs. Burton answered that she could, Lucien hav-
ing talked it all over with her, and she therefore
told the following story:
At the age of nineteen Lucien Mérimée, then one
of the most promising students in the Laval Univer-
sity at Quebec, being in danger of losing his health,
was sent to the farm of a French-Canadian on Mus-
keg Lake in order to recuperate, and it was during
one of his canoeing trips while there that it fell to
his lot to act the part of the ‘good angel’ of the
unfortunate little Ransoms. Returning to his na-
tive city some months later, a new man physically,
he completed his education and then considered the
question of entering the service of the Catholic
church. His father being dead and his mother poor,
he had been educated by a childless and wealthy
aunt, a very devout woman who ardently desired to


A FOREST DRAMA. 71
see him become a priest. Being of an artistic tem-
perament, and believing that he could cause truer
prayers to ascend to heaven from his violin than
from any altar before which he might bow, he hesi-
tated, and would have promptly dismissed the
thought but for his aunt's persuasions which were
the stronger by reason of the debt he owed her.
He freely confessed to Mme. Auclair, his aunt,
that the vow of celibacy, though no doubt well for
some men, was not to his liking, and that he thought
fondly of marital and paternal joys. For answer, he
was enthusiastically told to fix his thoughts on the
glorious vision of the hundred and forty and four
thousand who were clothed in white raiment, and
were pure and undefiled with women; and though
he thought these high and noble words, they struck
him with the sort of chill the man desirious of the
sun's rays might feel if told to seek warmth from
the stars
Having from the outset directed his education
largely with the priesthood as an end in view, Mme.
Auclair was not to be persuaded to leave him the
perfect freedom of choice that should have been his.
Having taken his degree and left college at twenty-
three, he was promptly sent to Rome for a stay of
several months, in the hope that there under the


72 A FOREST DRAMA.
influence of the greatness and power and pageantry
of the church, and the incomparable beauty of the
art treasures inseparably associated with it, his
imagination would be captivated, and his interest
in ecclesiastical life and work quickened.
But only bitter disappointment awaited the pro-
moter of these plans. Before Lucien Mérimée re-
turned home his mother died and his sister entered
the convent of the Ursulines. The former event
was partly and the latter was wholly the result of a
tragedy which made a profound impression on the
absent son and brother, and caused him forever to
renounce the idea of taking the priest's vow of celi-
bacy, although he thus severed friendly relations
with his aunt, who announced that at her death all
her property should go to the church.
When Lucien went to Italy his sister Madeleine
was a young girl of twenty, less talented than he
was, but distinguished by marked personal attrac-
tions and much loveliness of character. Some time
afterward it was observed that this young lady had
developed great piety. No one was found praying
in the churches so often, whether it were the Basi-
lica, Notre Dame des Victoires, or Sanctus Joan-
nes Baptista. Indeed, she was seen often in the
smaller churches of St. Roch and St. Sauveur, the


A FOREST DRAMA. 73
lower town suburbs, and she made not a few pil-
grimages to the shrine of St. Anne. Astute ob-
servers hazarded the guess that Madeleine Mérimée
suffered from a trouble of the heart, and this was
true. The unhappy girl was seeking a refuge from
her own wilful affections which remained fixed upon
an unattainable object, in spite of all her prayers
and pilgrimages.
Connected with one of the churches of Quebec
was a young priest known as Père Jérome, who
would have done well to hesitate, even as did Lu-
cien Mérimée, before he took the vow of celibacy.
Père Jérome was not more than thirty, was well
formed in body, and of a handsome face; he was
also an exceedingly eloquent prédicateur. About
the time that Madeleine Mérimée commenced her
unwonted church pilgrimages. Père Jérome began to
kneel before his superior and confessor in great an-
guish of spirit and humbly accept the heavy pen-
ances that were laid upon him.
Madeleine might have done well had she prayed in
all the churches of Quebec but one, that one with
which Père Jérome was actively connected. But she
was not strong enough to take this heroic medicine,
and, in spite of her resolves and struggles, visited
that particular church more often than any other.


74 A FOREST DRAMA.
While Père Jérome stood in the pulpit and preached,
Madeleine, seated well to the front, never removed
her eyes from his manly face; and he, although he
might forget her in the fervor and zeal of his dis-
course, as he took his place his eye never failed to
search for and find her, and go back to her again
and again with their unspoken message of love.
Each time poor Père Jérome vowed to look no more,
but presently yielded to the sweet slavery of a for-
bidden passion and looked upon her again.
As time went on, there was more than mere silent
intercourse at hours when few supplicants were to
be found kneeling in the church. In sorrow and in-
ward groaning, and yet with exultation, Père Jérome
marked Madeleine's coming, and, for the moment
powerless in the grasp of his love, he would be
drawn toward the spot where she kneeled to pray.
And as he passed by, lightning leaped from his eyes
and pierced her soul. Thus day after day, while the
growing weight of sore penance imposed on him
made the very life of his body a burden.
The unquenchable fire within him burned deeper
and deeper, until one day the looking and passing by
did not content him and he stopped and spoke.
Then every day he stopped and spoke, and every
night was passed awake and groaning on his knees.


A FOREST DRAMA. 75
The supreme moment of this agony arrived when
one morning Madeleine knelt to pray in a little chapel
off the left aisle. Screened from the view of the few
worshippers kneeling in the body of the church, she
wept and prayed and asked for death in her despair.
Hither came the sad-visaged Père Jérome and found
her. At the sound of his well-known tread, Made-
leine rose, and though she said no word, her tender
eyes made full surrender of her heart. And he, still
with inward groaning, but with mad delight, came
close and folded her, unresisting, in his arms,
Laughing a low laugh, he pressed his hot lips upon
her trembling mouth, and in that moment it seemed
to these two travailing hungry souls that they were
one and no more twain.
As they stood thus, a brother priest and two
women who had finished their devotions passed
down the aisle together, looked into the side chapel,
and stood rooted to the spot, crossing themselves in
their excitement and horror.
“Père Jérome!” -
Then, as the awakened lovers broke from each
other's arms, the accuser lifted high his crucifix, and
with eyes fastened thereon, repeated in a voice that
trembled:
“Et vidi, et ecce Agnus stans super Monte Sion,


76 A FOREST DRAMA.
et cum ipso centum quadraginta quatuor millia, hab-
entes nomen Patris Ipsus scriptum super frontibus
suis. Et canebant tamquam canticum novum,
et nemo poterat discere canticum, nisi quam
illi centum quadraginta quatuor millia, empti
de terra. Hi sunt qui cum mulieribus non sunt in-
quinati, virgines enim sunt. Et in ore illorum non
est inventus dolus, immaculati enim sunt coram
throno Dei.”
And when he ceased and looked down, Madeleine
Mérimée had fled and Père Jérome was on his knees,
with head bowed low and hands uplifted to heaven.
The accusing priest let fall his crucifix and turned to
the two women who still lingered.
“I have spoken,” he explained to them in a low
voice, “the words of the holy saint who saw the
hundred and forty and four thousand of the pure
and undefiled with women, et qui étaient sans tache
devant le trône de Dieu. And now leave me, mes-
dames,” he concluded, “with this poor mad brother,
and let me beg you to speak not in the town of what
you have seen, pour l'amour de notre Dame!”
When the returning traveller arrived at his home
he found, as has been stated, his mother buried and
his sister retired from the world in the Ursulines.
He found also that Père Jérome had not waited to


A FOREST DRAMA. 77
be transferred to another field of usefulness, but
had left Quebec abruptly, going none knew where.
As for Lucien, the thought of an ecclesiastical ca-
reer, never inspiring, was now intolerable. The vow
of celibacy, which Père Jérome had taken to his
own undoing and that of poor Madeleine, had be-
come as something horrible to contemplate. The
city of his birth, moreover, was now to him a place
of sadness and he gladly relinquished such opportu-
nities as might have been his had he remained there
and adopted a more desirable profession.
After some last futile interviews with his broken-
hearted and resentful aunt, he left hurriedly for the
wild lake country which had become dear to him
long before, and whose vastness, isolation and peace
seemed to offer the healing balm which he craved.


78 A FOREST DRAMA.
VIII.
THE friendship of Mrs. Burton and her visitor
advanced so rapidly that it was impossible for the
existence of Lucien’s manuscript novel to remain
long a secret. The fourth day of Alberta's sojourn
at the house on Birch Bay was spent by her in read-
ing “Père Lorette,” over which she smiled and was
tearful by turns, moved now by a quaint drollery
of expression and a keen insight into the humorous
side of character, and now by a pathos as genuine
as it was effective. She suspected that the style was
by no means flawless, that there were faults of con-
struction, and that the story might be cut down and
thoroughly revised with advantage, but felt sure that
even were the author unknown to her and the scene
of his romance unfamiliar she would have been un-
commonly interested.
Whatever its imperfections, the book produced in
her case a deep and lasting impression. Some of the
scenes, in fact, seemed to her as vivid as life itself,


A FOREST DRAMA. 79
and on going out to sketch one day she involun-
tarily began to draw one of those that had taken a
strong hold on her imagination. One sketch suc-
ceeded another before any definite aim of illustrat-
ing the story found lodgment in her mind. Such a
purpose was formed only after a suggestion from
Mrs. Burton, who enthusiastically commended the
drawings and urged that the work be continued. To
return the book to its author illustrated, she thought,
would be a compliment only such as he deserved
and would highly esteem.
Three weeks passed, after Alberta's arrival, be-
fore word was received from the Hunters. During
that time little was seen of Lucien at the house on
Birch Bay and much was seen of Hawksworth. The
latter appeared almost every day, and his intentions
were soon so evident to all that Mrs. Burton became
alarmed and contrived to curtail his opportunities
of being alone with Alberta, much to the latter's
relief. The Burtons were pleased with their intel-
ligent countryman, but knowing nothing of his an-
tecedents or connections, they agreed that Alberta
ought to be shielded from him until she could be
consigned to the protection of her friends. The
girl's dislike for his company, and her suspicion of
him, increased; but, observing that his visits gave


8O A FOREST DRAMA.
pleasure to her hosts, she passively submitted, the
more willingly because the man interested her.
Once, during the second of those three weeks of
waiting, Hawksworth did not appear for three days,
and when he did show himself he was conspicuous
for a black eye, of which—John Burton thought—
he gave an unsatisfactory explanation. Lucien called
once after his first visit, and then they saw him
no more for ten days.
Meanwhile, though surprised and secretly an-
noyed by this apparent neglect, Alberta worked hard
until she had produced a desirable number of small
but vigorous and life-like sketches faithfully re-
flecting the spirit of “Père Lorette,” the scene of
which was largely placed in her native wilds.
Walking alone in the clearing by the lake shore
one afternoon, Alberta's attention was drawn to a
small boom of logs that was being towed to Bur-
ton's mill by an “alligator.” What interested her
was not the curious amphibian contrivance itself,
half-steamboat, half-locomotive, gifted with the
power of travelling by land or water at pleasure,
but two “drivers ” in knee-breeches and bright hose
who were skipping about over the boom, long sticks
with hooked spikes at the end in their hands, these


A FOREST DRAMA. 8I
being made use of as the men leaped from one sink-
ing log to another.
Alberta's eye wandered from the boom to
a canoe that was approaching the landing. Its
occupant, half-sitting, half-kneeling, as he dipped
his paddle, was a young half-breed trapper who was
a familiar figure in Birch Bay, the Burtons often
buying his game. He called himself Hibou Rivière,
the surname being that of his French father, and
Hibou (owl) being the French equivalent of his Indian
mother's ancestral patronymic. Among the English-
speaking people of the lake he was called simply
Owl, and sometimes, jocosely Blind Owl, his eye-
sight being remarkably keen and his superior quali-
fications as a sportsman's guide being well known.
With a friendly “B'jou’l” Owl leaped ashore
and brought to view some half dozen partridges, en-
quiring of Alberta, as she drew near, more by signs
than by words, if she cared to buy them. Having
suggested that he take the birds to the house, Al-
berta abruptly asked:
“Do you ever go to Marshall's lumber camp?”
“Sometime, for sell”— He could not remember
the word “game” and by a motion drew her atten-
tion to the birds instead.
“How long is it since you were there?”
6


82 A FOREST DRAMA.
“Three day.” -
“Did you see the bookkeeper, Mr. Mérimée?”
“No. He seek, cook say: he ver' seek.”
“Sick! How long has he been sick?”
Owl could not say, but when asked if he expected
to visit the camp again soon he announced his in-
tention of doing so on the following day.
“Then stop here on your way. We may have
some word to send.”
“Bien—all righ’.”
Alberta went forthwith to Mrs. Burton with this
news. “Do you think it can be serious?” she asked
anxiously.
“It seems to me we should have heard in such
a case. As soon as John comes he must go and see
about it,” said Mrs. Burton, referring to her hus-
band, who had gone down the lake on a matter of
business.
“But he will not be here until the day after to-
morrow.”
“Mr. Hawksworth will probably be here this
evening. We might get him to go.”
Hawksworth indeed! Alberta's face plainly in-
dicated that the proposal did not please her. “I
told Owl to stop here on his way to camp to-mor-
row,” she said, with sudden color, “but—but his


A FOREST DRAMA. 83
report will hardly be reliable.” She paused with the
manner of one who has not finished.
“No woman is ever seen in one of those lumber
y
camps,” remarked Mrs. Burton, speculatively, after
a searching glance at her companion, “and one must
consider appearances even in these woods, but I
think—perhaps—you and I might go there with
OW1.” -
“Why not? It may be very serious, you know.”
“And he may have recovered.” This was a dis-
turbing possibility. They looked into each other's
eyes inquiringly. “I could take my gun and it could
be said that we were hunting and stopped to see the
camp. Lucien knows that I go out with my gun
now and then,” said the elder lady, after a moment's
thought, and the younger looked relieved.
When Owl, the half-breed, stopped at Burton's
landing on his way to the lumber camp next morn-
ing he was mildly astonished to find that he was
to carry two ladies instead of a message. Under the
additional weight his long slender craft of birch
bark sank until the gunwales were within two inches
of the water, and some danger was apprehended.
Fortunately the lake was calm, and the distance not
great. Mrs. Burton was the only one to hesitate,
Alberta and the half-breed willingly taking the risk.


84 A FOREST DRAMA.
Less than an hour after they embarked a landing
was made from an inwinding arm of the lake called
Cedar Bay. Concealing his canoe and paddle in the
brush, Owl led the way along a dim trail through a
dense forest of maple, birch, hemlock and balsam—
the same short cut Lucien was wont to take. In
order the more successfully to convey the impression
that their real object was hunting, Mrs. Burton
seized the opportunity offered en route of shooting
a couple of partridges (she called them pheasants),
the delay occasioned being evidently grudged by
Alberta. The latter's impatience to proceed sudden-
ly gave place to reluctance when they reached the
borders of the camp.
Just before entering Marshall's clearing the party
encountered a gang of choppers, French-Canadians,
with trousers stuffed inside of red and blue stock-
ings, who stared curiously and shook their heads
when inquiry was made as to the health of M.
Mérimée. They appeared to know nothing of the
matter.
“I wish we had not come,” faltered Alberta.
“Can't we send the Owl to inquire and wait for him
here?”
“Useless,” was the emphatic response. “Every-
body will know that we were here.”


A FOREST DRAMA. 85
So they walked forward and entered the camp,
finding very few persons about. It was now twelve
o'clock and the men had already dispersed into the
forest, eleven being their dinner hour. The cook, a
corpulent, florid Englishman, stepped forth with
something of an ill grace to meet the visitors.
Amazed to see ladies, not knowing what was ex-
pected of him, and being at all times more or less
ill-tempered, he frowned rather than smiled as he
informed them that the superintendent was absent
and asked if they wished to see any one in particu-
lar.
“We were hunting in the woods on Cedar Bay,”
said Mrs. Burton, “and came on here to see your
camp and ask about Mr. Mérimée. We heard that
he was ill.”
“Yes, mum, he's been under the weather, but he's
hup and hout to-day.” -
“What was the matter?”
“He 'urt himself fightin'. The doctor said he
strained himself.”
“Good gracious! Fighting?”
“He 'ad a tussle with a Hinglish sport 'ere one
night. I don't know nothink about the bookkeeper's
business, but they tell me the sport hup and hin-
sulted 'im without cause, and then, oh s'y! they 'ad


86 A FOREST DRAMA.
it. The Hinglishman was most big enough to 'a
eat 'im hup, but they say the bookkeeper knocked
him out fine. I didn't 'arf believe it was in
'im, e's so quiet; but you carn’t jest always
tell about them kind. Mr. Meerimy won't 'ave an-
other fight on his 'ands soon, he won't; it's what you
call a ticklish business. He'll come out on top or
kill 'imself. It's what you call grit.”
The sullen cook was disposed to unbend, nothing
being so much to his taste as the discussion of a
fight. “Them Frenchies is surprisin sometimes,”
he added confidentially. “It don't do to fool with
'em with yer eyes shut.”
“Do you know the Englishman's name?” Mrs.
Burton hastened to ask.
“’Awksworth, I think it was.”
The two ladies looked hard at each other, and the
elder muttered, “Ah!”
“I guess the bookkeeper's gone off fishin' down
the creek. I seen him fixin' 'is flies this mornin’.”
“Let us go before he comes,” Alberta whispered
urgently.
The cook then invited the visitors to have some
tea and a “snack,” and saying, “We must rest, you
know,” Mrs. Burton followed into the cooking
camp, an ill-smelling place and otherwise unattrac-


A FOREST DRAMA. 87
tive enough. Seated on a bench at one of the long
rough tables, the two ladies were served with pre-
served apple pie, currant biscuits and boiled green
tea, dished out in quart bowls made of tin. The cook
apologized for these latter, explaining that there
was not a “piece of crockery’ in the camp.
“Crockery aint fit for a lumber camp,” he added;
“breaks too easy.” The ladies would not have
mourned the absence of “crockery” had the tin not
been so discolored and manifestly half clean.
Having eaten a few morsels, swallowed a portion
of the rank tea, and rested half an hour, Mrs. Bur-
ton agreed to shoulder her little gun and start home-
ward, after asking for a sheet of paper from the
office and writing a note to Lucien. She repeated the
fiction about the hunting expedition, expressed re-
gret at not finding him in the camp, asked after his
health, and hoped that they would soon see him in
Birch Bay. The half-breed had disposed of the
game he had brought and was now ready to accom-
pany them. He noted curiously that the younger of
the two ladies was at first in great haste, pushing
forward eagerly until they were well out of sight
in the forest, after which she appeared to be quite
satisfied with a more deliberate gait.
Sometime after the departure of the visitors a


88 A FOREST DRAMA.
young man, carrying a fishing-rod, entered the camp
from the opposite direction. He was haggard and
his manner listless, but as he read Mrs. Burton's
note color came to his cheek and fire to his eye. Two
minutes later he was hurrying forward on the writ-
er's track. He literally ran over the trail until
he saw the water of the lake glistening through the
treeS.
But he was too late. Just as he appeared on the
shore Owl's canoe was seen rounding a point a quar-
ter of a mile away and in a few moments was lost
to view. He put his own canoe into the water, but
promptly reconsidered and carried it back to its hid-
ing place in the bushes. He then absently retraced
his steps along the forest trail, often with a smile on
his lips, and always with hope in his heart.


A FOREST DRAMA. 89
IX.
NoT until the following afternoon, however, did
Lucien Mérimée appear at the house on Birch Bay,
by which time his state of exaltation had passed and
he was again filled with many doubts.
y
“You look as well as ever,” remarked Mrs. Bur-
ton, who had sighted his canoe and gone down to
meet him at the landing.
“It was nothing,” he lightly replied.
Then why have you not been here before?” she
asked sharply, a challenging look in her eye.
“I might tell you, but some things are the worse
for discussion.”
“I have suspected that there was something
wrong with you. Don't be foolish, Lucien.”
“I have been trying very hard not to be.”
“Some men are very stupid.”
“NO doubt.”
“Are we not friends? Tell me what is the mat-
ter?”
“It is a question of morals.” He smiled, then


A FOREST DRAMA. 9I
“Every right in the world, provided the girl ac-
cepts his company as that of an equal.”
“He need not even think of the hard life before
her in case she should consent, or of his own misery
if she should refuse?”
“Of his own misery, no. Love is a game of
chance, like any other, only the stake is high. If
one loses one must face the consequences, but one
must not hesitate to play simply for fear of losing.”
“But I was referring chiefly to a poor man's re-
sponsibility for the hard life he would bring upon
such a girl.”
“I know. It won’t hurt him to think of that.
He ought to think of it,” Mrs. Burton declared,
“ and he ought to determine to do everything in the
world to prevent her life with him from being hard;
but he has always the right to give her the opportun-
ity of deciding whether to share with him his lot,
whatever it may be. And her choice is often a sur-
prise to the worldly-wise, as you ought to know.
What a true woman loves is not a life of ease but a
man, and the two do not always go together. But
we are talking platitudes; it is all so clear to every
one, or ought to be.” -
“I find your platitudes intensely interesting.”
“Besides,” Mrs. Burton resumed earnestly, “sup-


92 A FOREST DRAMA.
pose there should be another man in the field and de-
termined to win by the shortest possible process?
Suppose there is a doubt of him, but in spite of it,
that he is strong and persuasive?”
“You mean—?”
“The man who was once knocked senseless in
a lumber camp, according to report, but who was
not disposed of and, in spite of his bruises, has since
been particularly active. He is here every day, and
I am alarmed. Some one is needed to stand between
her and him, or would be, if this should go on long.
A woman likes to be wooed.”
“I thank you for this. I have done with scru-
ples,” said Lucien Mérimée. -
Mrs. Burton now feared that she had gone too
far, but she liked the atmosphere of manly deter-
mination that enveloped him as he walked beside
her to the house in silence. Alberta was pleased also
to observe a change in him. During the hour that
he spent at the house, partly in the company of both
ladies and partly alone with the younger, it was
manifest that all traces of his former constraint of
manner had vanished. And thereafter scarcely a
day passed without a visit from him.
Finally he came one afternoon to tell Alberta that
a message had been received from the Hunters, and


A FOREST DRAMA 93
found her seated on a stone near the landing. She
was busy with her last sketch illustrating “Père
Lorette,” and her attention was not drawn from
her work by his noiseless arrival. A portfolio con-
taining all the sketches and a few pages of the man-
uscript lay in her lap.
“Oh, it is you,” she said, coloring slightly and
quickly shutting her portfolio, as she saw him with-
in a few feet of her.
He then told her of the message from the Hun-
ters. The man who brought it reported that Mrs.
Hunter had been seriously ill for more than a week,
and Mr. Hunter could not leave her. He, however,
sent word that if the young lady could get some-
body to take her up to Mink Lake they would be
glad to see her.
“If my aunt is ill I ought to go to her,” said
Alberta promptly, “though it may not be best for
me to remain there long.”
Thereupon Lucien eagerly offered his services,
should she decide to go, proposing to get leave for
a few days and take her in his canoe. He said he
would engage Owl, the half-breed, and his Indian
wife to accompany them. The latter would do the
cooking and help to make Alberta comfortable. A
small tent would be carried for the use of the lady


94 A FOREST DRAMA.
and her Indian maid, the men sleeping under their
canoes. For the distance was considerable, there
was much portaging, such a party could not hurry
as men could alone, and it would probably be neces-
sary to spend two nights on the road. Alberta de-
clared that such a trip would be delightful, but that
they must talk the matter over with the Burtons.
“May I ask what is that you have there?” en-
quired Lucien abruptly.
He had seated himself at her side, and his
eyes were fixed on the portfolio in her lap. A por-
tion of one of the sheets of manuscript was exposed,
and on it he recognized his own handwriting. Al-
berta saw that the innocent little secret could no lon-
ger be kept.
“You have caught me,” she said, smiling and
blushing. “I should have been more careful.
Don’t blame Mrs. Burton. She let me read ‘Père
Lorette’ and I liked it so well that—I became so full
of it that—that I felt that I had to illustrate it. See
here,” she opened the portfolio and spread out the
drawings.
One swift glance was devoted to the pictures, and
then his eyes sought her face. The gladness, the
tender fire, in them startled her. The hand that was
involuntarily put forth, covering her own, caused in


A FOREST DRAMA. 95
her a strange new thrill, the significance of which
she preferred not to acknowledge even to herself.
“And you did that—for me!”
Her frightened eyes broke away from the mas-
tery of his and she withdrew her hand, but not as
quickly as she might have done—he exultingly re-
flected.
“I made the drawings for you, yes, and for my
own pleasure,” she told him lightly, now in complete
possession of herself. “But you don't appreciate
them. You don’t seem to care to look at them.”
Laughing like a happy boy, he then proceeded to
examine the drawings one by one, admiringly com-
menting on the striking points of each in turn.
“They are beautiful, all of them,” he said. “They
give a distinction to my make-believe book that
many a real writer would envy. They repay me for
all my labor. Thank you—thank you.”
They were so much absorbed in the draw-
ing and in each other that they did not
see a man coming along the path from
Burton's mill. Not until he turned toward them,
came up from behind, and satisfied himself as to
what it was they were so interested in, were they
aware of the proximity of a third person. .
: “I see you still draw, Miss Ransom.”


96 A FOREST DRAMA.
Alberta turned her head like a startled bird, and
her eyes grew cold as they fell upon Hawksworth.
She closed her portfolio and rose, as did Lucien.
“Yes, I still draw,” she answered, a curious in-
tentness in the gaze she fixed on the Englishman's
smiling face. “I still draw, but I shall never really
be an artist because I don't advance. My greatest
success was the portrait I drew from memory one
night six years ago. You heard the story. I came
across that portrait on going through my collection
this morning. When we go into the house I’d like to
show it to you.”
“Delighted, I'm sure.”
Lucien looked from Alberta to Hawksworth in
surprise, not comprehending. In this instance, as
always on meeting at the home of the Burton's after
the memorable episode in the lumber camp, neither
of these men did more than barely acknowledge the
other's presence with a distant nod of recognition.
So much of a concession they felt compelled to make
out of consideration for Alberta and their hosts.
The appearance of Mrs. Burton at this moment was
a relief to all.
“Come to the house, all of you, and have a cup
of tea,” she said.
As later the hostess sipped her afternoon tea—a


A FOREST DRAMA. 97
home custom to which she clung tenaciously even
in exile—Lucien told her of the news from the Hun-
ters, and was pleased that his plan to transport Al-
berta to Mink Lake met her hearty approval. With
the consent of both ladies, the hour of departure
was at once settled. It was now Tuesday afternoon;
on Thursday morning the two canoes would leave
Birch Bay before dawn, the intervening day being
sufficient for communicating with Owl and making
the necessary preparations.
Hawksworth listened to the discussion of the ar-
rangements with evident interest, but without re-
mark, until he found opportunity to speak with Al-
berta aside.
“And so you are really going?” he then said,
with much more than a mere polite air of regret.
“It is time for me to move on, too. I should like
to vary my route so as to see this Mink Lake dis-
trict and pitch my tent for a few days near your
friends. They tell me that the shooting is fine up
there. Do I have your permission?” he concluded,
his glance ardent and his smile persuasive.
“Don’t ask me. Mink Lake is no private domain
of mine as you know.” -
Irritated by the coldness and indifference of her
7 - - - - -


98 A FOREST DRAMA.
speech, he allowed himself to make an incautious
retOrt.
“That beggarly French-Canadian seems to be
more fortunate.”
“I think you insulted him once before.”
“He did not come whining to the ladies about it,
surely.”
“It is not usually the victor who whines after
the fight is done.”
Hawksworth was not ready with a rejoinder, and
was doubtless glad of the entrance of John Burton,
which caused the conversation to become once more
general. Alberta rose abruptly, with heightened
color, and left the room, returning after a few min-
utes with a drawing in her hand.
“You remember the story of how I caught a bur-
glar,” she said to Burton, her voice so pitched as to
attract the attention of all, and her eyes showing
excitement. “I found the sketch this morning and
here it is.”
Every one moved forward to look at it, including
Hawksworth, who drew a long breath through his
open mouth, as if making a great effort at self-con-
trol.
- “Why, Mr. Hawksworth, it resembles you!” ex-
claimed Mrs. Burton, amazed.


IOO A FOREST DRAMA,
ment he was out of the house, however, Alberta
ventured to predict that they should see him no more.
“Why not?”
“Because he and my burglar are one and the
same man.”
“Utterly absurd,” was John Burton's deliberate
judgment, after much excited discussion, his wife
inclining to his view. As to Lucien's opinion they
could only conjecture, his departure having pre-
ceded that of Hawksworth.
“We shall see,” said Alberta, unconvinced.
But she was staggered when Hawksworth ap-
peared as usual the next day. He called at the mill
to see Burton and was then paddled up to the land-
ing opposite the house. Leaving his canoe in charge
of the long-bearded man, he walked up the hill and
spent half an hour with the ladies. He was there
to say good-bye, he told them, and to thank them for
the pleasant hours he had spent in their company.
Such society was rare even in civilized centers, and
it was this good fortune which had caused him to
change his original plans and remain encamped so
long on Muskeg Lake. Now, however, it was neces-
- sary for him to proceed on his journey. There was
so much of genuine courtesy and gratitude in his


A FOREST DRAMA. IOI
manner that Mrs. Burton was more than ever in-
clined to laugh at Alberta's suspicions.
“He talks about a necessary journey, but his
next camping place will most likely be on Mink
Lake, within a mile of the Hunters,” she remarked,
with a significant smile, when he had gone.
But Alberta stubbornly replied that she thought
otherwise.


IO2 A FOREST DRAMA.
X.
ABOUT the hour that Hawksworth made his part-
ing call at the house on Birch Bay, his Indian guide,
whom he had nicknamed Jeremiah, entered Mar-
shall's lumber camp and was seen hanging about for
some time. He carried a gun and a bag of game,
and it subsequently developed that, in return for the
present of several partridges, the cook invited him
to wait for his supper.
Meanwhile he strolled with seeming aimlessness
about the camp, but took occasion several times to
peep into the office, and each time his glance was di-
rected toward the vacant corner behind the counter
where usually the bookkeeper was to be seen.
At the time Lucien was seated on a log a little
way out of the camp, conversing with a priest. The
latter was a missionary who periodically visited
remote villages and lumber camps throughout a
large section of country. He belonged to the order
of French-Canadian priests, who, from the pioneer


IO4 A FOREST DRAMA.
son, you who, they tell me, were educated for the
priesthood. What led you so astray?”
“If you mean what caused me to disappoint my
friends by not taking holy orders, I did so for two
reasons: I was not fitted for the work, and
something happened that made me loathe the
thought of taking the vow of celibacy. Later
I lost my belief in the necessity of the institution it-
self. The celabate idea is founded on the persau-
sion that marriage is only a permitted evil, while I
believe that a true marriage is of all things the most
blessed and holy.”
“Alas, alas!” murmured Père Turcotte.
“I do not say that celibacy is a sin, mark you.
For those who believe in it and act according to their
convictions, it may be a good thing. I believe it is
according to our will and motives rather than our
acts that we shall be judged. I honor you, Père
Turcotte, for your self-sacrifice and devotion to your
ideal, but for me to vow celibacy would be to sin,
believing as I do that marriage is divinely appointed
for men—all men. I know that I should become a
better man through marriage, provided I truly loved
and was so loved in return. A true union of one
man and one woman is the ideal state, and I believe


A FOREST DRAMA. Io;
all good men and good women will attain to it, in
another world if not in this.”
“This contract of the flesh! Ah, your speech is
wild.”
“That is where we differ, good father. I do not
believe it is of the flesh primarily, but of the spirit.
Souls are united in a true marriage and such a
union is therefore eternal.”
“Nom de Dieu ! what madness is this? Who
has seen this ‘true marriage’? Where is it?”
“In only one case in a thousand, perhaps; but it
exists, it is the ideal, the goal, of human exist-
ence.”
“You have been lured into love, my son, and
your mind runs riot with poetical dreams.”
“I assure you that is not all. I have not reflected
upon my unhappy sister's experience for nothing, -
but of that you are ignorant, No, I speak from pro-
found conviction.”
“Then, you do indeed renounce the teachings of
Our mother church?”
“Yes—if you must put it so. That is why I
avoided the confessor who preceded you. In doubt-
ing the doctrine of celibacy for the clergy I came to
doubt others. In deciding not to take holy orders,
personal feeling may have been too greatly involved


IO6 A FOREST DRAMA.
at first, but the doubts that came to me then have
been confirmed by the sober reflection of years. I
am no longer a churchman, and yet I believe that I
have a religion. I am not a bigot, Père Turcotte.
I believe there is that which can help to save in
every religion of the world, for it is the earnest act-
ing according to conviction, even though the convic-
tion itself come from error, that makes man better
and prepares him for a higher life.”
“Ah, no, no; not when those convictions are con-
trary to the teachings of the sainted Apostles and all
the holy men who have succeeded them. But go on;
tell me what is your religion.”
A living faith in the only God and a future life
for all men—was the substance of the reply; the will
and determination to shun what is evil and love
what is good, as these are seen by the light of re-
vealed truth; the heartfelt desire and intention to
“do justice and love mercy,” to cultivate duty, hon-
esty, faithfulness, patience and forbearance, deco-
rum, reverence for law, patriotism. “Can you say
this is not religion, Père Turcotte?”
“It belongs to religion, but it is not enough.”
“Anyhow, I am content with it, and if I live ac-
cording to it more and more, as I hope to do, you
need not despair of me.”


A FOREST DRAMA, 107
: The two men talked on with great earnestness
until the bulk of the lumbermen had gathered to
the cook-camp, eaten their supper, and collected for
the most part in the sleeping-camp, there to sing,
dance, or play poker until bed time, as they might
severally be inclined. Oblivious of everything but
the subject before them, Père Turcotte and Lucien
were finally recalled to their surroundings by the
appearance of the corpulent cook who irritably in-
quired if they expected to eat anything that night,
and went off grumbling.
“What a d-d h-ass that bookkeeper is,” he
muttered. “He’d rather talk than to eat, he would.”
“He is a heretic in faith,” mused Père Turcotte,
as he hurried toward the cook-camp, “but his heart
is not evil. He is not hardened, he does not sneer,
—vraiment c'est étonnant.”
The object of these reflections, after a moment's
halt at the office, followed promptly to the eating-
camp, and found there only Père Turcotte, the cook,
and the Indian guide known as Jeremiah. The lat-
ter was seated near the bookkeeper's accustomed
place, still eating. A conversation on a subject of
minor importance had scarcely been begun by Lu-
cien and the priest, when they were diverted by a


IO8 A FOREST DRAMA.
great shouting and laughing outside the door, where
two men were now wrestling.
As they turned to look, and the cook ran to the
door, Jeremiah slid noiselessly along the bench,
whipped out a small vial into which thirty drops of
laudanum had been carefully measured, and poured
the contents into the bookkeeper's tea.
He was back in his place again before any one
looked round, and, none the wiser, Lucien swal-
lowed his tea to the last drop and asked for more
during the course of his meal.
Immediately after supper the priest departed,
walking the two miles through the forest to his wait-
ing canoe before it was quite dark. Jeremiah had
preceded him over the trail by ten minutes, and was
now paddling rapidly toward Rocky Point, where
Owl, the half-breed, and some half dozen Indians
and their squaws camped during the summer and
early fall, being tempted temporarily to leave wilder
and more agreeable regions farther north by the
rewards offered for their services as the guides of
sportsmen and travellers. •
Within half an hour after supper Lucien began
to wonder at the unwonted drowsiness stealing over
him, but was by no means ill pleased, as he wished
to rise at half past two next morning in order to


A FOREST DRAMA. IO9
make sure of meeting Owl in Birch Bay at four.
His preparations for the journey being complete, he
made no effort to keep awake, but climbed forthwith
into his bunk, where he at once fell into a deep sleep.
At half past ten next morning the cook appeared
at the office to ask the loan of a newspaper. The
door stood open, but the room was empty; no, not
empty, for some one lay in one of the upper bunks,
breathing heavily.
“Oh, s'y, ’oo's asleep this time o’ day?” Step-
ping forward, the disgusted cook climbed up and
looked at the sleeper's face. “Oh, s'y ! look 'ere!”
he cried out, putting his hand forward roughly.
“Thought you was goin' on a trip.”
But the sleeper only turned over, sighing and was
not awakened. “Hall right,” said the cook scorn-
fully, turning away,+“if that's what you got leave
of absence for, to lay in that bunk all day like a
lazy sheep, hall right!”
The sleeper again attracted attention when the
blacksmith and other habitués of the office gathered
there after supper and began to play poker. But
no one attempted to wake him, the suggestion to do
so being disposed of by the careless remark: “Oh,
let him be. Guess he's stove up—must a been out
all night.”


I IO A FOREST DRAMA.
It was eleven o'clock, all hands being now in bed
and the lights out, when Lucien suddenly sat up and
stared about him stupidly. Leaping out of the bunk,
he struck a light and looked at his watch. Won-
dering, he returned to bed. It seemed strange that
he should have waked so soon, stranger that he
should have a headache and feel hungry. To sus-
pect the true situation under the circumstances
was impossible. Little dreaming that he had
already slept twenty-seven hours, he lay down and
resolutely put away the crowding thoughts of the
morrow's journey, fearing that his night's rest
would be broken.
When he woke again it was about four o'clock in
the morning. Discovering that his watch had
stopped near midnight, he opened the door and anx-
iously looked out. “Nearly daylight—overslept,”
was his disturbed thought. Hastily completing his
toilet, he shouldered his gun and literally ran away
from the camp over the trail that led to Cedar Bay.
By the time he reached the spot where his canoe was
hidden in the brush it was broad daylight, and when
he rounded the point of land and entered Birch Bay
the sun was rising. -
Another canoe entered the bay from the opposite
direction almost at the same moment, and the two


A FOREST DRAMA. I I I
shot rapidly toward Burton's landing. The second
contained two persons who were presently seen to
be the half-breed and his squaw.
“So the Owl overslept, too,” cried Lucien, as the
canoes drew near each other in the vicinity of the
landing. “What a couple of sorry laggards we
are !”
“Two night one day, M'sieu', she say,” answered
the Owl, jerking his head toward the squaw and smil-
ing sheepishly. “I no understand, me, that grand
sleep. Comment?”
“What do you mean? I saw you yesterday.”
No, Owl declared it was the day before. He had
his squaw's solemn word for it that he had slept
all one night and until the next before she could
rouse him. After a struggle with him, late in the
morning she had called in a passing friend who pro-
nounced him drunk. Then she let him alone till
evening, when she finally succeeded in driving him
out of his bed. She reminded him of the broken
engagement with “M'sieu, but it was too late to
move that night. Towards morning they made a
start, and here they were—a day behind, but ready to
fulfill their obligations, if not too late!
“You have been dreaming,” laughed Lucien.
Their story appealed to his sense of humor, and


II 2 A FOREST DRAMA.
he preferred to laugh rather than to scold, for the
delay of an hour or more in getting off was really no
serious matter. Owl hung his head, smiled sheep-
ishly, and looked puzzled, but the squaw vehemently
reaffirmed the truth of her assertions. At this junc-
ture John Burton was seen hurrying down the path
from the house.
“Why, Lucien, what's this?” he called out in a
tone of very great surprise, as he drew near. “You
are not back from Mink Lake already?”
“Back? I haven't started yet. We all overslept.”
“But you sent an Indian and his squaw for Miss
Ransom before daylight yesterday morning.”
“What? We were to go this morning, and Owl
and his squaw are there before you.”
“Oh, but it wasn’t the Owl. They said you
weren't able to engage him after all. They said you
had to go to Rockledge on pressing business—some-
thing you had overlooked the day before—and that
you told him to call for the lady and join you there
in order to save time.”
Lucien leaped out of his canoe, staring wildly at
the speaker. “Have we all lost our wits?” he asked.
“Where is Miss Ransom?” -
“You don't mean you didn't send for her? Good
heavens! We thought it strange, of course, but


A FOREST DRAMA. II3
couldn't suppose there was anything wrong. She's
gone- yesterday morning, with those Indians who
claimed to have been sent by you!”
8


II.4 A FOREST DRAMA.
XI.
As he swayed sidewise and steadied himself only
by an unusual effort of will, Lucien recollected that he
had eaten nothing for thirty-six hours. He looked
on like one bewildered as Owl and the squaw also
landed and repeated the strange story of the “grand
sleep.” Burton demanded to know if any stranger
had visited the half-breed's camp before he fell into
that deep sleep, and both the latter and the squaw
answered in the affirmative. Jeremiah, the English
sportsman's Indian guide, had visited them in the
evening and remained some time. He brought with
him a bottle of whiskey and he and Owl made merry
together.
“Ah! Now, Lucien, who was with you?”
“No one but Père Turcotte,” was the answer,
with a perplexed expression. “Except—yes, that
same Indian guide was hanging about in the after-
noon.”
“Could he have had an opportunity to tamper
with your drink?”


A FOREST DRAMA. II 5
“I think not, but he sat near me as I ate my sup-
per.”
“You were both drugged,” declared Burton.
“Hawksworth is evidently at the bottom of this.”
“You mean that he has carried her off?” cried
Lucien, his momentary weakness gone. He looked
about him with eyes of fire and moved toward his
Ca11Oe. -
“Wait,” said Burton, seizing his arm. “You
must come to the house for some brandy.”
They made him eat as well as drink before they
let him go, and meanwhile Mrs. Burton heard all.
“The poor girl was right and we wrong,” said she,
tears in her eyes. “No one but a professional out-
law would think of kidnapping any one even here in
this wild region.”
After a brief stay at the house, Lucien hurried
back to his canoe, and dispatching Owl to see
if Hawksworth's camp had been vacated, he rushed
off to Rockledge to make inquiry. The vil-
lage on Muskeg Lake consisted of a lumberman's
supply store and some half dozen dwellings, the
largest of which offered accommodations to passing
travellers and was called “the hotel.” The spot
was at the foot of a gently sloping hill overlooking


II6 A FOREST DRAMA.
-
a little bay, on which several other canoes were
coming and going as Lucien arrived. On being
hailed, one of these halted.
The little French-Canadian farmer, Sandy Chev-
alier, listened in great astonishment and concern to
the strange story Lucien had to tell, and hastened to
impart a valuable bit of information. He related
that as he was returning in his canoe from a trip to
Pine Lake the day before, at about ten in the morn-
ing he met a party consisting of an Indian, a squaw,
and a young white woman. He would have passed
them without remark if he had not recognized Miss
Ransom. The Indian was evidently disinclined to
stop, but could not avoid it and the two canoes
drifted within a few feet of each other for several
minutes. Miss Ransom informed Sandy that she
was on her way to visit her aunt on Mink Lake. M.
Mérimée was behind and was expected soon to over-
take the party; something unforeseen must have oc-
curred to detain him, or he would have done so long
since. She seemed a little uneasy. Sandy endeav-
ored to reassure her, but when he failed to meet M.
Mérimée in all the way back to Muskeg Lake, the
matter began to look strange to him, too, though of
course the real truth was never suggested to his
mind.


A FOREST DRAMA. 117
“You didn't see Hawksworth and that long-
bearded fellow in another canoe?” asked Lucien
eagerly, believing that he devined certain features of
the kidnapping scheme.
“No.” -
“They dodged you no doubt and kept out of
Miss Ransom's sight, too. Are you sure that the
canoe was heading for Mink Lake?”
“I saw it turn into Snake River. That's the
route, you know.”
“Well, Sandy, my friend, if you hear of their
being seen by any one else, let Mr. Burton have all
the particulars. We must inquire in every direc-
tion.”
“Bien.”
A few minutes later in the store at Rockledge, Lu-
cien told the strange story to the proprietor and sev-
eral men who were found there, earnestly requesting
all to circulate it among trappers and guides, and
to give notice that any definite information of
the whereabouts of Miss Ransom and the soi-disant
sportsman Hawksworth would be liberally re-
warded, if carried to Burton's mill on Birch Bay.
“There's a sport named Ransom at the hotel,”
one of the men remarked. “He come last night.


I 18 A FOREST DRAMA.
Jim Groover says he wants a man to take him down
to Burton's mill this mornin’.”
Lucien supposed the name to be a mere coinci-
dence, and was returning to his canoe when he saw
approaching from the direction of “ the hotel” a
tall, light-haired young man dressed in dainty and
expensive outing clothes. As he drew near he was
seen to have a handsome, clean-shaven face, an intel-
ligent gray eye, and an air of determination.
“I beg pardon,” he began, his accent at once sug-
gesting an Englishman. “I am told that you are
Mr. Mérimée and can give me information about
Miss Ransom. I am her cousin, Harold Ransom.
I followed her from England as soon as I knew that
she had come here.” He spoke frankly and courte-
ously, but his manner was distant. “Is my cousin
well ?” he concluded.
“Perfectly well the last time I saw her, but—Mr.
Ransom, I regret that you did not come sooner,”
said Lucien hurriedly. “A very strange—a dreadful
thing has happened. Miss Ransom has disap-
peared.”
“What can you mean?” Fierceness and suspic-
ion showed in the gray eyes of the Englishman as
they were now fixed upon and sought to pierce the
depths of the dark eyes of the French-Canadian.


I2O A FOREST DRAMA.
agreed on, they went to the tavern, Harold opened
his luggage, and Lucien advised him as to what to
take and what to leave.
An hour later they reached the landing in Birch
Bay, where Owl was waiting with the report
that Hawksworth had broken camp and departed.
Harold was taken to the house and presented to
Mrs Burton who sent post haste to the mill for
her husband. In the grave consultation that fol-
lowed Burton took a hopeful view. He thought the
news brought by Sandy Chevalier encouraging. If
the canoe was really heading for Mink Lake, then
the whole affair might after all be only a practical
joke on Hawksworth's part, involving the substitu-
tion of his own escort for Lucien’s, whose privilege
he envied. An asinine proceeding, of course, that
could result only in the anger of the lady and the
mortal enmity of her chosen escort; but, remember,
the man was in love, and lovers were often fools.
“If you follow straight to Mink Lake,” he con-
cluded, “you may find her with her aunt and
Hawksworth camped near them.”
Mrs. Burton and Lucien both shook their heads
doubtfully, agreeing that as Hawksworth had be-
come master of the situation by means of a cunning


I22 A FOREST DRAMA.
Just before the start Harold had contrived to speak
to her aside. She was his country-woman, a lady,
her heart evidently tender and true; but he was less
sure of the men.
“Mrs. Burton,” he said, “I am all in the dark
here. I want to ask you a question. Tell me your
honest opinion of that young French-Canadian.”
“I have known him a long time. Excepting my
husband, there is no man I more fully trust. Miss
Ransom knew him before I did, you know, and I
am sure she feels as I do.”
“I am glad to know this,” said Harold, ill at ease.
“Frankly, I at first distrusted him. But is he dis-
interested? Is he—in love with her?”
“He has not shown it by his manner, but—I think
he is. However, I am sure that he has not told
her.”
“Then, he has not taken advantage of the oppor-
tunity her predicament gave him?”
“Never—in the way you mean. Indeed,” she
added, with hesitation, “it has sometimes seemed
to me that your cousin would have preferred to see
more of him.”
A scarlet flush swept over Harold Ransom's boy-
ish face. “Thank you; it is as well for me to know
this,” he said brokenly. Then he shook the lady's


A FOREST DRAMA. I23
hand in farewell and turned hurriedly away, but not
before his eyes had seemed to say to hers: “If she
love him, he shall be my friend, not my enemy.”
Mrs. Burton was touched to the heart and looked
after her young countryman's retreating form with
a mother's yearning tenderness. She believed that
nobleness of purpose as well as a hopeless love had
been laid bare to her eyes, and she would have been
confirmed in her impression could she have known
that before the day was done the young English-
man's first distance of manner toward Lucien Mér-
imée had disappeared.
The canoes entered Pine Lake about one o'clock
and moved straightway toward a lumber camp
which was the only settlement of any kind on the
shores of this eight mile stretch of water. Diligent
inquiry there resulted in nothing to the purpose. It
appeared that Sandy Chevalier alone had seen the
canoe of the kidnappers as it crossed the open ex-
panse on its way to Snake River. From this point
on the pursuing party, should they proceed as Bur-
ton advised, might expect to encounter only an oc-
casional trapper, for the region was a wild waste of
uninhabited hills, every valley being a lake, and
these communicating one with the other only by
rivers, creeks or portages. If definite information


I24 A FOREST DRAMA.
were not received from time to time, it would be im-
possible to track the fugitives through such a wilder-
ness, all travel going by water except for the occas-
ional portages, which were little more than blind
trails through the forest. -
From their present position the guide calculated
that the distance in an air line to Mink Lake was
about forty miles, but their course through wind-
ing lake and river would cover twice that distance.
Unless they travelled at night, which was scarcely
practicable even under the most favorable circum-
stances, they could not reach their destination under
two days. The canoes and baggage must be carried
over many portages, and the chances were that on
some of the larger lakes head winds and rough
water would further retard their progress. The
thought of so much delay was maddening, particu-
larly in view of the time and effort wasted should
Alberta not be found with her aunt, but having now
no further definite knowledge to go upon, it seemed
as well to seek information in the direction of Mink
Lake as elsewhere.
So after a short halt and a hasty lunch at the
mouth of Snake River, the canoes pushed forward
"up that stream for about eight miles, nearly half of
which distance had to be portaged on account of a


A FOREST DRAMA. I25
series of impassable rapids. This was necessarily
slow work and it was late in the afternoon when
they reached the open of another lake and night
caught them on the succeeding river. Harold
wished to push on, but the Owl objected, and Lucien
agreed that the danger of going utterly astray would
be too great. As soon therefore as they saw the
open expanse of still another lake before them they
landed for the night, the two young men cutting
hemlock brush and putting up the tent, while the
half-breed cooked their evening meal. The latter
slept soundly on a bed of brush under his canoe, but
Lucien and Harold, in spite of their fatigue, lay
awake for the most part, being unable to shut from
their minds the one all-absorbing anxiety.
Two hours before dawn Lucien was up, building a
fire, and by the time the east began to brighten
breakfast had been dispatched and the canoes were
on the water. The weather was favorable and they
travelled at an extraordinary speed, slaving at their
paddles and almost running over the rough por-
tages.
Under ordinary circumstances Harold, to whom
such a country was entirely new, would have found
delight in so unconventional a journey, but now the
unending scene of lake, river, portage, hill and for-


126 A FOREST DRAMA.
est, the skurrying ducks and shrieking loons, the
scolding red squirrels, the fleeing deer, the vast ma-
ple woods, the gardens of white birches, the dark
crowding firs, -were shorn of their charm and were
only the background of a painful nightmare.
It was late in the afternoon when the canoes en-
tered Mink Lake and finally glided up to a landing
beneath a small clearing which had been discovered
only after a lengthy search. Harold looked about
him upon the dreary scene in amazement and pain—
this was the home his peerless Alberta had come so
far to seek -
“Does Mr. Hunter live here?” asked Lucien of
a tall, roughly-clothed white man who came down
the slope to meet them.
“Ab Hunter? Yes.”
- “Did a young lady arrive here in a canoe with
two Indians yesterday?”
“Not as I know of, and I'd know.”
Lucien and Harold looked at each other in help-
less grief, and for a few moments no word was spok-
en. “How is Mr. Hunter's wife?” asked the for-
mer at last.
“She’s dead.”
“Good heavens!”


A FOREST DRAMA. 127
“We buried her day 'fore yesterday, and Ab he's
been drunk ever since.”
Another silence, broken at length by the half-
breed, who rose in his canoe, stepped guardedly
ashore, fell grunting on the ground and stretched
out his cramped legs. He had been kneeling in his
canoe since daybreak with the rest and change of
only an occasional portage. The condition of Lu-
cien's limbs was no better.
“We'll have to stop,” the latter said mournfully
to Harold. “If we don't take time to rest and eat,
we shall soon be unfit for travel.”


I28 A FOREST DRAMA.
*
XII.
IN reply to further questions the trapper inti-
mated that Mrs. Hunter had come to Mink Lake in
a low state of health and apparently grew weaker
continually. She grieved over her husband's fail-
ure as a farmer in the more civilized region of Mus-
keg Lake, and was unhappy in her new home, to
which they had come as a last resort. Here they
could at least live on fish and game in the summer
and fall, and trap enough fur-bearing animals in win-
ter to secure the actual necessaries of such an exist-
ence as would be theirs. It was the way the Indians
lived, and might do for rough and hardy white men,
but it was trying for Mrs. Hunter, who was the only
woman on Mink Lake. Thus she had the more
readily fallen a prey to typhoid fever, of which she
had died at the expiration of two weeks.
The visitors were now led up the slope and invited
to enter the larger of the two cabins, or shacks,
which the clearing contained. The smaller had been
the home of Hunter and his wife, and the larger was


A FOREST DRAMA. I29
the central camp and store-house of four trappers.
Both were built of hemlock logs and the visitors saw
that the latter had only a rough-hewed puncheon
floor. The furniture consisted of a stove, a rough
table, a few benches, and several sleeping bunks
filled with hemlock brush. Only a few pelts hung
on the walls and these were not valuable. The trap-
ping season would not begin until winter. For the
present only such animals were taken as came within
easy reach of a gun, it being difficult to preserve the
skins in the summer or early fall; and of late the
chief employment of all hands had been net-fishing,
the smaller prizes going into the pot and the larger
being salted down for winter. -
So much the visitors gathered from the trapper
as he built a fire and made them some tea, serving it
with cold food left over from the midday meal. On
hearing the story of what had occurred, their host
advised them to halt until night. At least two of his
three partners would then return from long trips in
different directions, and it might be that they would
bring news. As it was already within an hour of
sunset, this was promptly decided on without much
discussion. The failure to find Alberta at the trap-
per camp on Mink Lake confirmed their worst fears,
but the strain of their anxieties was in a measure re-
9


I3o A FOREST DRAMA.
lieved by the grateful food and drink, followed by
a soothing pipe, and in spite of the dark outlook be-
fore them they were led to take a somewhat more
hopeful view.
Stepping out upon the open a few minutes later,
Lucien and Harold observed a short, thick-set man
coming unsteadily toward them from the smaller
shack, and were told that this was Hunter. The
trapper had gone to inform him that visitors had
come on business with reference to his wife's niece
and this caused him to start up from a drunken doze.
“She's comin', eh?” he asked, trying to keep his
balance in the presence of the two young men.
“She's welcome. Maria's gone, but she kin stay;
she kin take Maria's shack and I kin bunk with the
men. Mebbe she'll do mer cookin'. Maria was a
grand cook.” He lurched sidewise and leaned
against a tree for support. “If she's the grand cook
Maria was,” he added, “she'll be mighty welcome in
this camp.”
“Little did the poor girl dream what was before
her when she started on this mad journey,” thought
Harold, as he turned away in disgust and went
down to the landing. Lucien promptly followed,
leaving to the trapper the task of making the situa-
tion clear to the widower's alcohol-befuddled brain.


I32 A FOREST DRAMA.
er had any news to communicate. More than two
hours of daylight had thus been sacrificed in vain,
intensifying the feeling of disappointment with the
visiting party, who were now compelled to remain
over night at the trappers' camp.
The next day was cloudy and blustering, a stiff
southwest wind covering Mink and the neighboring
lakes with a rolling white-crested swell. The two
canoes did not proceed far before encountering
heavy and dangerous work. Owl shook his head sa-
gaciously and advised a run in shore until the wind
went down, but neither Lucien who appreciated the
danger nor Harold who was ignorant of it would
agree to the delay, and they pushed on in the teeth
of the wind. Once, as it shot through an angry
breaker, Lucien's canoe shipped so much water that
it was found necessary to run in on a lee shore and
dump it out, but the halt was brief.
The wind continued high all day and their prog-
ress was very slow. Though no longer in danger,
they were much retarded by head winds on the sec-
ond day also, and in spite of themselves were forced
to camp over night the second time before two-
thirds of the return journey had been covered. Not
until the fifth morning after their departure from


A FOREST DRAMA. I 33
Burton's landing, in fact, did they re-enter Pine
Lake where Alberta was last seen.
During the whole of the return journey from
Mink Lake they had not sighted a single canoe, but
now as they emerged from Snake River one was
seen making straight toward them across Pine Lake.
Its occupant proved to be a wrinkled little man of
middle age as brown as an Indian, with keen black
eyes and an alert air. His skin cap, rough thread-
bare clothes, and his whole aspect, suggested the
trapper.
“I thought I knowed ye,” he surprised Lucien’s
party by calling out as soon as within speaking dis-
tance. “Ye're from Muskeg, ain't ye,—huntin' the
young lady?”
“Yes, who are you?”
“My name's Myrick. That mill man over thar on
Muskeg gim-me this letter for—one or t'other of
3 *
ye.
He produced a soiled letter, which, on being
opened, was found to be from Burton and to read
thus:
“I have concluded to send Myrick to meet you.
It will save time. With Miss Ransom's inclosed
letter in your hands it would be a waste of time to
come back here, unless you feel the need of a larger


I 34 A FOREST DRAMA.
party and more supplies for the journey. Perhaps
you can engage Myrick to go with you. Sandy
Chevalier says he will go if you need him. As for
me, to my great mortification, I am out of it, I fell
through the scaffolding at the mill yesterday and
broke my left leg. It has been set and will
mend nicely if I keep quiet. As for supplies, if you
have enough tea and salt to last some time, your
guns and fishing-tackle ought to keep you from
starving at least. Our worst fears are realized. You
and Mr. Ransom will of course decide what to do,
but I should be disposed to start at once for the re-
gion indicated by Miss Ransom, whom may God in
his mercy protect.”
The accompanying letter was written in pencil on
thin splittings of the white inner bark of the birch,
two sheets some five by eight inches in size, almost
without a flaw. It was as follows:
“DEAR MR. BURTON: This may never reach
you, but I write it in order to have it ready if there
should be a chance to send it. It is noon of the third
day since this strange journey began. The Indians
are cooking dinner and are paying no attention to .
me as I scribble this. They have constantly pre-
tended that we were bound for Mink Lake and that
Mr. Mérimée has not overtaken us on account of


A FOREST DRAMA. I 35
some accident. At first I believed them, but became
suspicious when they refused to go back or stop and
wait for him. Last night all doubts were set at
rest. Hearing voices, I peeped out of my tent and
saw the Indian talking with that long-bearded per-
son who was so often seen in Hawksworth's canoe.
Yesterday I noticed several times a canoe containing
two men at a long distance behind us. I now feel
sure that it carried Hawksworth and this man, who
are following us all day and camping near us at
night. I have been entrapped. Where I am to be
taken, and wherefore, I can only conjecture. Jere-
miah, the Indian, professes ignorance of the names
of the lakes we pass and I am unable to tell you
where we are. Since meeting Mr. Chevalier the
first morning, the Indian sees to it that we pass
near no one, though I have seen canoes in the dis-
tance only once or twice. Our course seems to de-
pend much on the windings of the lakes, but from
the position of the north star at night I think we
must be going northwest. It is likely that we are
not far from the Lake Hiawassee, for I have heard
that name uttered several times. I also overheard
Jeremiah and the long-bearded man speaking of a
“Lone Lake’ and of a ‘Retreat,” which called to
mind what their master told me of his kingdom in


136 A FOREST DRAMA.
the north. I am probably being taken there. What
can have become of Mr. Mérimée and the Owl? I
hope—
Here the letter ended abruptly, as if the writer
had been interrupted and unable to complete it.
Handing both letters to Harold, Lucien turned
eagerly to the trapper.
“Where did you get this?”
“On that lake full of islands 'bout half way to
the Hiawassee—Island Lake, I call it.”
“I know it—the Lac du Labyrinthe. Did you see
Miss Ransom ?”
“Yes; and she give me a gold sovereign and she
says, “You take this here letter to Burton's Mill on
Muskeg Lake, she says, and I done it. I was on
a still hunt in the thickest bush you ever seen when
I run up on 'em and heard that Injin and his squaw
a-talkin’. ‘I’ve come across a piece o' the lake
again, I says to myself, ‘and here's a camp,' I says.
So up I sneaked easy and quiet and peeped through
the bresh, and there they was—the Injins bilin tea
and fryin' fish, and the white lady settin' on a stone
writin' on that piece of birch bark. One o' them pes-
terin little squirrels skipped away from me a-bark-
in jest then, and she looked up and seen my face in
the bushes. But the Injins didn't see nothin', they


A FOREST DRAMA. 137
was too hot after somethin' to eat. And soon as
ever she seen me she looked quick at the Injins and
made a motion to me to stay where I was. Then she
folded up that birch bark letter and wrote on the
back of it, and got up and come walkin' toward me
as slow and careless as you please, pickin' leaves
and stoppin' to 'zamin 'em, makin' out like that
was all she was up to.
“When she got right close to me, with her back
to the Injins, she says to me in a whisper, ‘Be very
quiet, she says. ‘Better squat down so they can't
see you, she says. “What's to pay?' I says. “I’m
a prisoner, she says; “they're carryin' me off, she
says. “How dast they?' I says, wonderin’ if she
was crazy. “I’ll knock the lights out o' that Injin
quick if you say so, I says. “I ain't a-scared o' one
lone Injin, I says. “He ain't all; there's two white
men not fur off, she says. “How fur is your ca-
noe?’ she says. “Close on two mile, I says. “I’d
like to run for it with you, but they'd ketch us and
maybe kill you, she says. “I’ll have to wait. You
take this money and carry this letter to Muskeg
Lake, she says. “Take it to Mr. Burton at the saw
mill and he'll pay you more, she says. “You can
go to Muskeg Lake, can't you?’ she says. “Like a
shot, I says. ‘Well, then, go, travel night and day


138 A FOREST DRAMA.
and tell him where you seen me, she says. “If you
meet a young white man with a Injin in a canoe, and
he tells you his name is Lucien Mérimée, then you
can give the letter to him, she says. ‘Be careful you
don't let them two white men see you; they're round
here some’rs, she says.
‘’Bout that time I seen the old squaw comin', and
I squatted and started crawlin' away. I heard her
tell the lady in that French gibberish that the dinner
was ready. I crawled on out of hearin’ and then
went runnin’ for my canoe. I never seen nothin o'
them two white men. Well, I paddled hard, gentle-
men, and got to Burton's mill last night, and now
here I be on the back track.”
“Surely we don't need to go to Muskeg Lake
now P” were Harold's first words, huskily spoken.
“No, we go straight to the Lac du Labyrinthe
and the Hiawassee, replied Lucien. “Can we en-
gage you to go with us, Mr. Myrick? We are will-
ing to pay you well.”
The trapper slowly shook his head. “You’ll have
a tartle to ketch them Injins,” he said. “I’m gittin'
old—aint up to sich hard paddlin' no more; and if
your guide tuck me in his canoe you'd only have a
bigger jag. I wouldn't mind goin' with you to Is-
land Lake, but them Injins will run you a race to


A FOREST DRAMA. 139
the north end of Hudson Bay or the Mackenzie
River, for that matter, before they'll let you ketch
'em.”
“Can you take us there, Owl?” asked Harold,
impatiently. “You can name your own price.”
“I take you quick, me,” said the Owl with a
knowing smile. “Yes, m'sieu'.”
“Owl is the guide and you the captain,” Harold
said to Lucien, as they talked over the route and
their plans in camp that night. “I’ll have to be the
company. At any rate I can act under orders, and
I promise you to take a hand when the fighting
begins.”


I4O A FOREST DRAMA. .
XIII.
“I FounD a little blank book and a pencil in my
bag to-day and decided to make note of passing
events,” reads Alberta's diary, date of September
IO. “There is something wrong. Instead of finding
Mr. Mérimée and the Owl and his squaw at the
landing yesterday morning, this Indian—who says
white men call him Jeremiah— and his squaw were
waiting there. Owl could not be engaged, he said,
and Mr. Mérimée awaited us at Rockledge.
“I disliked starting off with two strange Indians .
before daylight, but the Burtons did not seem in
the least alarmed and I acquiesced. Mr. Burton said
he would accompany us as far as Rockledge if I
liked, but I knew that he had important business on
hand and would not suffer it. We had not gone
half a mile when a man whose face I could not see
in the faint light, paddled up to us and said that
urgent business would keep Mr. Mérimée at Rock-
ledge several hours; he had, therefore, sent word for
us to proceed slowly on our way, promising to over-
take us before noon.


I42 A FOREST DRAMA.
Her tangled black hair is as coarse as the mane of a
horse and she has not one pleasing feature. But she
is kind and so is he. They try very hard to make
me comfortable. While she cooked the supper last
night, he put up the little tent and then cut a great
pile of spruce tips, over which I spread my rug
and made a soft cushion-like bed. The tent space
is about eight by ten feet and ample for two. The
squaw told me that she would sleep outside under
the canoe or in one corner of the tent, as I might
decide. I preferred the former, and asked her if
she would not like better to be with Jeremiah. She
acquiesced in what she took to be my decision with-
out remark.
“We camped on a little bay, two hundred yards
or more back among the trees. I objected to this,
telling them that our camp ought to be where Mr.
Mérimée could see our light if he passed. Jer-
emiah's answer to this was that Mr. Mérimée could
not travel at night without losing his way and
would not attempt it. I asked if we should reach
Mink Lake by the next night, and he shook his
head doubtfully. I could get no satisfaction out of
either of them. They often do not understand what
I say, or pretend not to. They seem to understand
almost no English at all and very little French.


A FOREST DRAMA. I43
“All questions yesterday were answered by the
monotonous statement that we were travelling to-
ward Mink Lake and that Mr. Mérimée would soon
overtake us. After supper I retired into the tent
and tied up the door as securely as I could. I was
very tired and slept, but started up in fright many
times before morning. I often heard a scratching
noise in the underbrush around us, which I suppose
was made by porcupines striking their quills against
obstructions as they moved. Harry and I used to
hear them years ago in our lonely camp at night.
There were other sounds, too, made by a variety of
little forest dwellers as they stole up guardedly to see
who were these strange sleeping intruders and then,
startled, pattered away over the dry leaves.
“We made an early start and have travelled hard
all day by lake, river and portage, with still no sign
of Mr. Mérimée. Twice I saw two men in a canoe
far behind us, but they must have gone another
way, as we have not been overtaken. I waved
my handkerchief to them, but they took no notice of
it. Once I saw another canoe across the lake to our
right. The country is wild and deserted, but beau-
tiful. How I longed for just such a trip during
those years in England, and now all my pleasure is
spoiled by anxiety. Something is certainly wrong.


I44 A FOREST DRAMA.
We are now encamped the second night and should
be near Mink Lake, but somehow I feel as if we
were farther away from there than at the start. The
most of this was written this afternoon in the canoe.
“Sept. II. There has been foul play. Late last
night I heard voices and looking out, saw Hawks-
worth's long-bearded man in conversation with Jer-
emiah over the fire. They were speaking of the
Hauteur des Terres, and I gathered that we had
either just passed or were about to pass the Height
of Land, though I had seen little sign of anything
suggestive of what I had supposed the great divide
was like, except two or three blue hills in the dis-
tance yesterday afternoon. They also spoke of
‘Monsieur” and of ‘the lady, and referred several
times to a “Lone Lake’ (Lac Isolé) and “The Re-
treat' suggesting what I had heard Hawksworth
say of his ‘kingdom’ in the north. But as I was not
near, and they spoke a French patois hard to follow,
the result of my efforts to overhear definite informa-
tion was scarcely encouraging.
“The moment I recognized the long-bearded man
Icomprehended that he and Hawksworth were in the
canoe seen behind us yesterday, and that it is their
plan to follow us and camp near enough at night
to permit of frequent conferences. This can mean


A FOREST DRAMA. I45
only that I have been kidnapped. For we should
have reached Mink Lake last night, and it is now
late afternoon and we are still travelling. The only
doubt is whether even this man would have the au-
dacity. Yet how can there be a doubt? His record
is that of a man who would dare anything. I en-
trapped him once, and now he has entrapped me.
The tables are turned.
“But I have not been idle, and hope to outwit him
after all. While the Indians were cooking lunch
to-day I stripped off some birch bark and wrote a
letter to Mr. Burton, telling him everything; no,
not everything, for I forgot to mention about the
“Hauteur des Terres.’ This does not matter, how-
ever, for the man I sent the letter by knew and
would tell where he saw me. As I was writing the
last words I saw a man's face peering at me out of
the bushes. I contrived to speak to him, engaging
him to deliver it to Mr. Burton. But that I knew
our invisible escort was near and on the lookout I
would have made a dash for liberty with this trap-
per, for his face inspired confidence.
“Sept. 12. Last night I told the squaw that I felt
afraid and would like her to sleep in the tent. She
accordingly arranged a pile of hemlock brush on
the farther side from my bed and slept there. She


146 A FOREST DRAMA.
is not clean, but the nights are cool, and I felt better
to have her there. I did not start up in fright so
often. Yesterday afternoon I looked Jeremiah in
the eye and demanded to know why we had not
reached our destination. He answered, without the
change of a line in his stolid face, that he had lost
the way and was trying to find it again. We are
lost, and yet we are pushing forward with never a
moment's indecision as to which way to turn! My
questions to-day are answered in the same way; we
are still lost and still seek the way! I made up my
mind to run off into the woods at the first favorable
opportunity, but when we stopped at sundown my
heart failed me. I waited till morning and again
felt afraid. What could I do without a gun and
without a canoe, or even with them, in this vast
wilderness? Besides, I should no doubt be tracked
and caught, and to resist would invite violence,
which would be insupportable. The alarm would
also bring our invisible companions from covert and
I should have to face that man.
“Let that be delayed as long as possible, and
meanwhile I shall contrive to leave behind indica-
tions of the route we are travelling. This is my
plan for the time. So, while they were cooking
breakfast this morning, I procured a suitable sheet


A FOREST DRAMA. I47
of birch bark and sketched our camp, the tent, the
two Indians cooking, etc., against the forest back-
ground. When the squaw at length called to me,
‘C’est prét’, the picture was done, in rough outline
at least, and as I sat down to eat I showed it to the
Indians. They stared at it in wonder and seemed
pleased. Intending to drop it in the portage path
leading to the lake shore two hundred yards away,
I wrote at the bottom: “Drawn by Miss Alberta
Ransom, who is being carried off against her will
by two Indians, the agents of one Hawksworth, a
white man. Please send to John Burton, Rockledge,
Muskeg Lake.”
“I had just finished eating when two men, each
carrying a canoe over his head, appeared on the por-
tage path. A glimpse of their faces told me that one
was a half-breed and the other a very dark bronzed
white man. Here was my chance. ‘B’jou!’ cried
Jeremiah, and turned again to his food, evidently
not wishing them to stop. ‘B’jou!' the half-breed
responded, and after a momentary pause and stare
around our camp they walked on, their canoes slop-
ing almost to the ground behind them and lifted
high in front in order that they might see the way.
I was on the point of calling out to them when I
changed my mind. If I appealed to them openly,


A FOREST DRAMA. I49
dently had not taken note of my flight, and Jeremiah
now suggested to me that a spark from our camp
fire must have started the flames. The tent cloth
that had been saved was bundled up as usual with-
out the poles which were cut fresh every night. As
we started off I dropped the birch-bark drawing
in the path unobserved.
“The greater part of the morning was spent in
paddling up a river with several impassable rapids
around which we portaged. We met no one, but
about two o'clock, just as we were about to enter
another lake, I heard a faint halloo far ahead. Jere-
miah immediately turned shoreward and we landed.
Pretending that we were portaging, he led us half a
mile or more off into the dense bush and then threw
down his load. After tea had been made and a lunch
eaten, there were no evidences of the usual eagerness
to start. The squaw, in fact, lay down and went to
sleep. Jeremiah also lay down, but remained watch-
ful. When I asked him what this meant, he said
that as all hands were worn out with travel, it
would be better to rest a few hours, and then push
on during a part of the night. Later, thinking, he
was asleep, I got up softly and stole away toward the
river, hoping I might again hear that welcome hal-
loo. But I had gone scarcely a hundred yards be-


I 50 A FOREST DRAMA.
fore he overtook me and requested me to return to
camp. He said the forest was full of bears and he
could not allow me to walk about alone. I felt
afraid of the threatening look in his black eye, not
of the unseen bears, and promptly returned with
him.
“I have spent the afternoon writing this long en-
try in my diary, and in drawing another picture
with my name, ‘condition of servitude, etc., written
beneath it. What grand plantations of fir, maple
and beech these lake forests are. The restless little
squirrels, and now and then a bird, the former full
of daring curiosity and venturing very near the big,
strange, silent intruders upon their domain, have
been a comfort to me during this dreadful afternoon.
They at least have no evil designs upon me.
“Sept. 13. After we had our supper of bread,
fried duck, and tea at sunset yesterday, Jeremiah
shouldered his canoe, bade me follow him, and the
squaw bringing up the rear with the heavier loads,
we trudged out of the woods and took to the water
again. By this time it was dark. No sooner had
we left the river behind and glided out on an open
lake than I saw a light on the shore to the left, in-
dicating a settlement of some kind. If not an Indian
or trapper's camp, it was a post of the Hudson


A FOREST DRAMA. I5 I
Bay Company, for I have been told that there are
no lumber camps north of the Height of Land,
where the waters no longer flow south and the logs
cannot be floated to market. On seeing the light I
was confirmed in my suspicion of Jeremiah's rea-
sons for lying perdu in the bush all the afternoon.
“We travelled by lake and river far into the
night, portaging several times over dim trails be-
neath dark, towering, spectral trees, and once
around a great thundering sault, or rapid. It must
have been as late as three o'clock when we halted
for the night, for after we had pushed about a mile
into the woods, selected a camping site and built a
fire, we had not rested long before the light of the
new day began to filter through the tops of the great
trees and slowly dissipate the gloom around us.
Weary to desperation, I had thrown myself down on
my travelling rug by the fire, indifferent to every-
thing in my despair; but as I watched the miracle
of dawn, hope and determination were restored to
me.
“While the squaw cooked breakfast, Jeremiah
looked after my comfort. Against the side of a
precipitous rock a tree had fallen, the upper end
lodging on a projecting ledge some five feet from
the ground and the trunk remaining fixed at a dis-


A FOREST DRAMA. I53
panions the night before at the Hudson Bay post,
or whatever the settlement was, that we passed. I
could sleep no more after this, but lay still while the
squaw proceeded to fry a choice bit of the deer and
Jeremiah to convert portions of the rest into porta-
ble strips. When alone they usually spoke in their
native tongue, but I now heard Jeremiah say in the
French patois: “Raphael says Monsieur is not
well. The long-beard is Raphael, then, and ‘Mon-
sieur” is the criminal Hawksworth.
“The rain continued until late in the afternoon,
within an hour of our preparations to abandon our
camp. I spent the time in writing part of this and
in drawing another picture with the usual inscrip-
tion below it. My object in leaving pictures behind
instead of letters is to disguise my purpose. The
Indians can not read and will hardly notice the few
words written at the bottom. Jeremiah volunteers
to keep me supplied with sheets of bilch-bark, and
probably regards my picture-making as a harmless
and useful pastime.” -


154 A FOREST DRAMA.
XIV.
“SEPT. 14. We re-embarked yesterday just be-
fore dark. The Indians were busily engaged and
did not see me put the drawing under a stone on a
floating log. How I prayed that it would be picked
up and sent to my friends! But even if it reaches
them it will not tell them where I am. The person
who picks it up can only tell them where I was.
My case seems quite hopeless. O Harold, O Harry,
O Lucien!—where are you all, that I should be al-
lowed to come to this? My only hope is in the clue
sent Mr. Burton by the trapper. That we are bound
for Hawksworth’s ‘kingdom in the north '—where-
ever that may be—there can be no doubt.
“We had paddled about a quarter of a mile when
a canoe containing two men shot round a point of
land and passed near us. It was not yet so dark
but that I saw that one of them was a white man.
I called to him instantly, but he made no reply.
Turning, I saw Jeremiah touching his forehead
with his finger and shaking his head. At the
same time he called out something rapid in the


A FOREST DRAMA. I55
patois, but I caught no more than the word folle.’
I now saw that I must speak French. “He lies, I
said. “I am as sane as he is, and I repeated my
frantic appeal for help. This time I was evidently
understood, for the man seemed moved and dis-
posed to ask questions. But Jeremiah, jerking his
head toward the bay behind us, said:
“‘Demandez au canot en 'rière de nous. Mon-
sieur is there and will tell you it is with Madame as
I declare.’”
“Turning, I saw far behind a canoe with two
persons faintly outlined in the haze of twilight.
‘Bien, was the answer; ‘if he say so, then it is
true enough. So the canoe passed on, leaving me
in a state of utter collapse. Being followed and
watched by Hawksworth and his man Raphael, it is
useless to think longer of escaping en route. I can
only go on to the end and await the coming of my
friends—forlorn hope! Even if I have the oppor-
tunity to tell my story, who will believe me when
contradicted by four others? I am Mme. Hawks-
worth, of unsound mind; I do not ride in the canoe
behind with Monsieur because it is a peculiar fea-
ture of my malady that I am more difficult to man-
age in his presence. This or some similar story will
be put forward, of course.


A FOREST DRAMA. I57
“She bade me enter the house and I did so, see-
ing nothing of what was there until I found myself
in a bedchamber, at the door of which the woman
waited for my orders. Both my brain and body
were worn with fatigue, and in that moment rest
was my whole thought. The woman meekly asked
if I would have supper. I sent her away, barred
out all intrusion, threw myself upon the bed, and
scarcely moved a finger for sixteen hours.
“The whole time was not spent in sleep. The
later hours slipped by in periods of mental torpor
and others of dreary regret that I could not have
died while I slept. Not until one o'clock, after the
woman had knocked repeatedly on the door and
begged me to let her come in with refreshments, did
I rise, open the door, and consent to eat. What
slaves of the physical senses we are! After bath-
ing my face and drinking a strong cup of tea I felt
so much better that I no longer wanted to die, but
rather to fight.
“‘Who are you?' I asked coldly of the woman,
a half-breed, young and rather handsome. She an-
swered in French that she was Colinette, the wife of
Raphael and niece of the squaw who had attended
me on the journey. Raphael was a French-Cana-
dian, she said, a man of great learning who had


158 A FOREST DRAMA.
once lived in the city of Quebec. She said it was
her baby I heard crying this morning. Then this
was M. Raphael's house? No, it belonged to Mon-
sieur, who loved the northern wilds and had it built
for his convenience, importing many unheard-of
luxuries; for Monsieur was a man of wealth.
“‘And who, pray, is Monsieur P’ Surely
Madame had heard of M. Hawksworth, the English
gentleman! I asked where this ‘gentleman’ might
be now and was told that he was at ‘the shack,'
having arrived last night shortly after I did. She
explained that the shack was a small log cabin a
short distance from us down the island shore. ‘If
this is his house, why is he not in it?' I asked, won-
dering. ‘This is reserved for you now, she an-
swered. “But I am to stay here with you, and
Raphael will sleep here at night, so that you will not
be lonely or afraid. She added that Monsieur had
bade her say that he would not trouble me until I
was willing to see him. “Monsieur is so good, she
added reverently.
“This was too much,-a criminal in the rôle of
benefactor and courteous gentleman! I laughed de-
risively and Colinette looked uncomfortable. “Can
I do anything further for Madame?’ she asked,
after a moment. Evidently she has some education,


A FOREST DRAMA. I59
her French being comparatively pure. ‘Made-
moiselle would prefer to be alone,' I said, not very
kindly, and she promptly retired.
“Sept. 26. I have spent two days at ‘The Re-
treat’ without even a glimpse of Hawksworth, but
I have spoken once with Raphael and seen much of
Colinette, who is kindness itself.
“The house is large, and remarkably comfortable
in view of its great distance from the sources of sup-
ply in the south. The walls are of hemlock logs, made
air-tight by filling the interstices in with mortar. The
roof is covered with rived shingles. The floors are of
the rough “puncheon order, but for the most part
are covered with the soft cured skins of various
animals. The windows are small, but provided
with panes of glass. There is a long veranda across
the front. Of the four rooms of moderate size on
the first floor, two are occupied by Raphael and Col-
inette, who are, I suppose, good Catholics, judging
from the cheap pictures of the Virgin and saints
on the walls which I have noticed in passing their
open doors. The other two lower rooms are kitchen
and dining-room, the latter, where I am now given
my meals by Colinette, being quite an attractive
place.
“The upper floor contains a large sitting-room


16o A FOREST DRAMA.
(two-thirds of the whole space), a bedroom, and a
long narrow store room which has no window. The
bedroom has two windows, a clean, white bed, an
easy chair, and a roughly-made dressing table cov-
ered with a red cloth above which hangs a small
but good mirror. The sitting-room has three win-
dows. The rafters and under side of the roof are
visible, but this is not a drawback, since it makes
the room more airy and is in keeping with the gen-
eral roughness. There are numerous cured skins
on the floor, a lounge, a table for writing, several
camp chairs, an easy chair, and a large stove. A
book case, evidently made on the island, contains
a small but interesting collection of standard Eng-
lish novels, books of poetry, histories, etc., and a
large supply of modern paper-back literature. On
the walls are several colored lithographs of hunt-
ing scenes, but the space is mostly taken up by
moose and caribou horns and all manner of trophies
of the chase. On the wall between this hunter's
hall and the two smaller rooms hang several snow-
shoes, an old rifle and two swords crossing each
other.
“My first survey recalled Hawksworth's remark
that I should be surprised to know what he had
‘packed up here in his time. It must have been


A FOREST DRAMA. I61
difficult indeed to bring so much so far merely by
means of Indian canoes. The whole upper floor is
reserved for me. No one ascends the stair but Coli-
nette and she only when her presence is required. I
had not expected so much consideration.
“The immediate vicinity is similar to the usual
lake shore of which I have seen so much of late.
The island, which I am told is about a mile long
and much less wide, is densely wooded. The land
slopes up to a rocky hill some distance behind the
house and descends almost perpendicularly to the
water. Under this cliff, Colinette says, the water is
very deep, and there Raphael catches many of the
fine fish that we eat. Lone Lake, or as the Indians
call it, the Kaweagotami, is not of great size. The
island lies near its center, and the longest distance
to the mainland does not exceed eight miles.
“I walked out to explore our immediate sur-
roundings this morning and came upon Raphael
suddenly as he was preparing for a fishing trip. He
started nervously as he saw me and actually seemed
to tremble. He has a good face, and but for that
long disfiguring beard, those unsteady eyes, and his
curious, shrinking manner, he would really be hand-
SO111e.
“‘I hear you are a learned man and have lived
11


A FOREST DRAMA. 163
in the distance several times, but none of them has
as yet visited the island. I was glad to hear that
they often do. If they are not superior to the power
of money, I may yet dispatch a letter.
“I like Colinette. She leaves me to myself, but
is always within call and anticipates every want.
She is devoted to her baby. To-day she sat outside
in the sun the whole afternoon, rocking a little
home-made cradle with her foot, knitting, and sing-
ing in a soft contralto voice a queer little lullaby, be-
ginning:
“‘C'est la poulette grise,
Qui pond dans l'église;
Elle va pondre un petit coco,
Pour le p’tit qui va faire dodo.”
“She must have sung the same over and over for
two mortal hours. I wearied of hearing so many
times of the gray pullet that ‘lays in the church, of
the black pullet that ‘lays in the cupboard, of the
white pullet that ‘lays in the boughs, and even of
the impossible green pullet that deposits her eggs in
secret places, as well as of that most wonderful
44 & poulette brune
Qui pond dans la lune !’
“And so I finally interfered. Going out, I said
that I liked her voice, but would she not sing some-


164 A FOREST DRAMA.
thing else? She took the suggestion in good part,
her baby being asleep, and sang ‘Isabeau s'y Pro-
mène, a pathetic little ditty about a sailor boy who
was drowned while gallantly diving for Isabeau's
ring. Then she began the touching and dramatic
‘Malbrough s'en Va-t-en Guerre. When she came
to the—
“‘Monsieur Malbrough est mort,
Est mort et enterré,’
of the ninth verse, something made me rush into
the house, lock my door, fling myself down and
weep, weep! Was Mme. Malbrough half so desolate
as I? Where were Harry, Harold, Lucien—all the
good men and true—that I should be left to such a
fate? Like M. Malbrough, they might as well be
‘dead and buried, every one.
“These were my first tears since this strange ex-
perience began, and I think they were a relief.
Growing calmer, I heard Colinette singing the old
familiar “Claire Fontaine, which brought fresh
thoughts of Mr. Mérimée. Twice in my life has he
come to my rescue, and he will not fail me now.”


A FOREST DRAMA. 165
XV.
ALBERTA's diary, date of September 27, contin-
ues: “I saw his majesty “Monsieur’ this morning.
“It is time for this farce to cease, I said to Coli-
nette at breakfast. “I wish to see Mr. Hawks-
worth. Accordingly, as I went out for a little stroll
an hour later, he appeared among the trees in the
direction of the shack and came toward me. He
was clean-shaven and neatly dressed, a marked con-
trast with the unkempt Raphael, and his keen, cold
gray eyes seemed softened by an expression of half-
pitying tenderness that surprised me and gave me
hope.
“How often have I gone over in mind what I
should say to him! How many whips of flaming
words with which to scourge him had I prepared !
And yet, now that he stood before me where I sat
on a rock, with that look in his eyes, waiting with
respectful deference for me to begin. I spoke to
him meekly enough. Whatever he might intend, as
long as he had begun by treating me with so much


166 A FOREST DRAMA.
consideration, and it was important that this should
continue to the last possible moment, I felt that it
would be unwise to anger him needlessly.
“‘I wish to know your plans, I said with inev-
itable haughtiness, but quietly. “Nothing can be
so bad as suspense. But before you answer I want
to tell you that there is at least one desperate rem-
edy for my situation within my reach, and you need
not hope that my courage will fail me when the
time comes to take advantage of it.”
“The look of horror on his face, if not genuine,
was well assumed. “You are very wrong, he said
earnestly, his voice pitched low. “I have brought
you here to make you a queen, not a slave. My ob-
ject is to win your love by fair means.’
“‘Such as kidnapping?”
“‘That was only a desperate means to an end.
I hated to resort to it, but you held me at arm's-
length and it was the only way to get near you. I
love you to distraction, but it is my honest purpose
and determination to zvin your love in return.”
“‘And you think that is possible?’
“‘I do, he said, smiling. “You remember that
story of Charles Reade's about a man and woman
cast alone on an uninhabited island, the man loving
the woman, and the woman hating the man; she


A FOREST DRAMA. 167
is dependent on him and he studies to please her;
little by little, as the months pass, her hate becomes
friendship, and her friendship love. Time, patience,
opportunity—these always conquer.”
“‘I know that story, I said, ‘and it strikes me
that the comparison is not well taken. Their situ-
ation was the result of shipwreck, not of force on
the man's part. Besides, though personally unat-
tractive, he was an honorable man, not—' Here I
stopped, afraid to go on.
“‘A retired burglar, he completed, laughing
good-humoredly. “I knew that would stick in your
mind and keep us apart, and that is precisely why I
had to resort to this unusual method of securing a
fair chance at you. No, the two cases are not quite
parallel, but I spoke of Reade's story as a suggestion
of the gradual, subtle change likely to take place in
your mental attitude toward me during, say, a year
of such association as will be ours here, where your
comfort, pleasure and happiness will meanwhile be
my constant thought and aim.”
“‘A year!” I gasped. “I shall have been dead
of a broken heart long before that, unless my friends
come and take me away.”
“‘No you will not. You will become reconciled
like the Sabine women of old, he assured me with


I68 A FOREST DRAMA.
a low, merry laugh, and I knew then that I hated
him with an incurable hatred. I turned haughtily
away from him, but dared not speak out or hurry
away. “My desire for your happiness, he contin-
ued, ‘you will find to be so constant, genuine and
tender that you will gradually like me better in spite
of yourself.”
“‘You are not at all sanguine, I permitted my-
self to remark sarcastically.
“‘It is natural for me to be sanguine, he said,
‘because I always get what I want—in time. I am
a masterful man, and the men of that breed know
no such thing as failure in anything they seriously
undertake.’
“My impression of “masterful” men, I told
him hotly, “is of those who are strong, not through
genuine force of character, but through wilfulness
and conceit, and sooner or later they come to grief.'
“‘I’ll take my chances, he said, laughing, and
added, with the air of a gallant uttering compli-
ments: ‘Though I am by nature masterful, I am
willing to be ruled by one woman.’
“I turned my face away in disgust, and after a
moment he spoke as follows: “You will be wrong to
trust in the coming of your friends, for they will
never find you. This lake is practically inaccessible.


A FOREST DRAMA. 169
Nothing but a Hudson Bay company's post or two
and scattering Indian encampments can be found
within a radius of hundreds of miles. The nearest
post is a journey of a week, and the trail is travelled
only by Indians, and the Indians are my devoted
friends—for what they get out of me, I might add.
You might be here two years and never see a white
face except my own and Raphael's. Besides, in a
few weeks the whole region will be one vast field
of trackless ice and snow until the late spring thaw.
And, you see, your friends have no clue. Those
clever, tell-tale little drawings on birch-bark dropped
on your way were all picked up and are now among
my most cherished possessions.”
“I stared at him helplessly, my heart sinking;
even the recollection of the letter sent Mr. Burton
by the trapper brought scarcely a ray of hope. “No
it will not pay to trust in your friends, he con-
cluded.
“‘Then I trust in God.”
“‘That will not pay either. Like the god of the
priests of Baal, you will find that he is talking or
pursuing, or taking a journey, or that he is asleep,
and will not help you.’ I turned my face away in
horror, and he continued: “It is a waste of energy
to trust in a myth. Those who do it always find


172 A FOREST DRAMA.
several Indian canoes, huge affairs of birch bark
with sometimes a whole family on board, the squaw
in the bow and the “buck” in the stern, both pad-
dling. Even the children hang over the gunwales
wielding little paddles. The solemn-visaged pa-
poose alone is inactive, swathed in cloth wrappings
and strapped in an upright frame or hod, like a little
live mummy. On the last day of our long journey
I saw a squaw lacing up her youngest in this con-
trivance, afterwards standing it aside out of harm's
way, and finally slinging it on her back when she
was ready to tramp over the portage. The poor
little creatures never seem to cry and appear to know
already that they are part of a world where self-
repression is the great lesson of life.
“The canoes of these half-clothed, mild-looking
Indians are coming and going on the lake almost at
every hour. They have nets set at some points of
the island shore as well as elsewhere. Their wild,
free life has its charm, no doubt, and they
probably could not be induced to give it up for all
the money in the world. They interest me greatly
and I have several times expressed a desire to visit
one of their camps. Colinette at first objected, but
yesterday she said that we might do so, having no
doubt asked and obtained permission. We did not


I74 A FOREST DRAMA.
ning blows with clubs. This required great care,
for one blow from its horns would have shattered
a frail bark canoe. It staggered ashore at last and
while held by men swinging on the ropes on both
sides, was beaten into insensibility with clubs. Thus
the Indians triumphed without wasting a single bul-
let. I looked another way when they rushed upon
it with their knives to skin and cut it up. The
whole thing seemed cruel and unfair.
“Before this we had landed at a camp on the west
shore. I noticed one skin tent of neatly-dressed
hides and a couple of birch-bark wigwams, but
nearly all the tents in these temporary and movable
summer camps are made of the ordinary white tent-
cloth which is secured from the trading posts of the
Company in exchange for furs. Colinette says that in
the permanent winter camps the skin tents are banked
around with snow and are as warm as any house.
The flaps of all the tents were tied back and I could
see the usual carpet of hemlock brush, bundles of
rabbit skin blankets, and now and then an unsightly
old squaw. The younger women and girls were
moving about the fires, cooking and fetching water.
They were modest in their manner. Such men as
were in the camp lolled indolently about the tent
doors, and some dozen boys were playing about the


A FOREST DRAMA. I75
vicinity, shouting, wrestling, or teasing the dogs,
of which there were many and evidently half fed.
A party returning with fish from the nets while we
were there, threw the less desirable to the dogs,
which fought over them and devoured them raw.
“I was surprised to find cats also in the camp.
In every case these were tied with strings about the
neck to tent stake or tree. Fish hung drying over
some of the slow fires, and a few half-dressed furs
were stretched and exposed to the air on trees.
Some of their rabbit-skin blankets were also hung
out in the sun. Colinette says that the skins of
which these are made are taken in winter when the
fur (of the arctic hare) is quite white. There is one
of these Indian blankets in my bedroom here at
“The Retreat, but I have not as yet made use of it.
I am told that nothing in the world is so warm.
“My visit was taken in good part and I was
free to look about me as much as I liked. The men
held aloof, but the women seemed mildly pleased
and greeted me with welcoming smiles, though it
struck me that there was a furtive watchfulness in
their manner. No doubt the fiction that I am
Hawksworth's wife and am not of quite sound mind
has been circulated among them. I tried to engage
them in conversation, but found none who knew a


176 A FOREST DRAMA.
word of either English or French and was forced to
leave the talking to Colinette, who found much to
say in the native dialect. This, by the way, is rather
pleasing to the ear. The younger women are by no
means ill-looking. They have clear, ruddy-brown
complexions. They and all their tribe are lighter in
color than the Indians of lower latitudes.
“Before our departure we were invited to par-
take of venison that had been roasted before the
open fires. When we had returned to our canoe
. I noticed that a boy about eleven or twelve years old
had followed us down the slope and was staring at
me curiously. His sole garment was a rabbit-skin
jacket which doubtless usually hung open at the
front, but was now carefully held together with one
hand, leaving his chest and legs still exposed. He
was quite handsome, for an Indian boy, and the ex-
pression of his face pleased me. Indeed my heart
yearned to him as one young and innocent as well
as kindly.
“‘What is your name, my little man?' I invol-
untarily asked, after smiling at him.
“To my surprise he answered in French that it
was ‘Little Cloud.’ Colinette then explained that
he was a son of her uncle, a chief, and that she had
seen much of him and taught him a little French.


178 A FOREST DRAMA.
XVI.
“OCT. 5. Little Cloud took me at my word
and came to the island in Jeremiah's canoe the after-
noon after my visit to the Indian camp. Colinette
says his father, the chief, first sent and asked
Hawksworth's permission and that it was readily
granted. I thought he might object, but he prob-
ably fears no danger from such a source, and is glad
to consent to anything that will gratify me. Coli-
nette tells me that he intends to have the Indians
come to the island in force some day soon, distribute
presents among them, and have them entertain me
with a dance.
“The boy has been here twice since. At my sug-
gestion Colinette had a pair of trousers ready for
him the second time and promptly slipped them on
him, and now he does not need to tire himself out
holding his buttonless coat together in front. She
made the trousers out of an old bag and there is
a stripe down one leg and none down the other! A
quaint little picture he makes, clothed in such a gar-


I8O A FOREST DRAMA.
clares that he will not until I invite him as a friend,
and I ‘keep on not inviting him. The man is a
curious parodox. In spite of what he has done, I
sometimes think he is sincerely anxious to gain my
respect and affection. Colinette evidently adores
him. Of course she loves Raphael first, but Hawks-
worth is a revered benefactor, a grand seigneur and
a romantic figure in her imagination. She continu-
ally praises him to me, but with caution. To-day
she set a dish before me that resembled beef. “That
is moose steak, she said. “Monsieur risked his life
to get it for Madame. Raphael says that they had a
terrible fight. And yet Madame never even smiles
for Monsieur, who is so good.’
“I bade her say no more about ‘Monsieur.”
Even Satan was doubtless “good’ to his devoted
followers. The comparison is not inapt. In his own
small way Hawksworth does resemble the Satan of
Milton, who was quite sublime in his wickedness.
Every day when I step out of the house for a little
fresh air he comes and talks with me, and is always
courteous. As he has talked of a thousand things,
I have seen clearly that his moral sense is utterly
perverted. To him, what is right is what he wants,
what is wrong is what stands in his way. That is
the whole of it. And yet, in spite of myself, I feel


A FOREST DRAMA. I8 I
a certain admiration for his audacity, his fearless-
ness. Even his serene lack of anything like remorse
excites curiosity and wonder. He suffers none
whatever, apparently, and goodness and wickedness
are to him mere meaningless terms.
“‘As I believe in no God, no future life of re-
wards and punishments, why should I trouble my-
self about what is pronounced good or bad by the
countless, conflicting and puerile myth-religions of
the world?” he asks. ‘Why should I be any more
concerned because Christians say it is a sin to dance
than I am because the Kamtchatdales say it is a sin
to tread in the tracks of a bear?’.
“I suppose there is a certain logic in this, and
yet he is not altogether consistent with his theory, for
he seems to have a regard for decency, he is not a
brute, his heart is not shut to kindness and pity. I
am constantly forced to acknowledge that his treat-
ment of me is remarkable for its consideration.
Had he only chosen the good instead of the evil,
with his talents, his naturally refined instincts, his
personality—which is persuasive in spite of every-
thing—it seems to me he ought to have made one
of the best and most attractive of men. He only
laughed when I suggested that the really regenerate
man, as I understood it, was engaged in cultivating


184 A FOREST DRAMA.
curious moral obliquity of the man's mind. He
seemed to regard his vicious exploits as heroic
achievements. As he viewed it, he was in every re-
spect the hero of the play, while the representatives
of the law hounding on his track were implacable
wretches totally unfit to live and worthy of the hat-
red and contempt of all reasonable men. He had
over scorned the police and detectives, but it seems
that ten months of hard labor made an impression
even upon this bold spirit, and he concluded to show
himself no more in England, where, ‘thanks to a
plucky little girl, his face was public property. He
says he has since lived on this side of the Atlantic,
increasing his ‘pile’ through speculations and get-
ting as much “fun’ out of life as possible. From
boyhood he was devoted to out-door life, he prefers
travel away from the beaten track, and this, together
with his fondness for the gun and rod, accounts for
the existence of this truly sequestered ‘Retreat.”
“Oct. 9. The monarch of the Kaweagotami,
otherwise Monsieur, otherwise Hawksworth, enter-
tained the Indians here yesterday, and had them
dance for my special gratification—so I was in-
formed. Though not gratified, I was not a little
interested. Fully a hundred men and women re-
sponded to his invitation, and to judge by the ex-


I86 A FOREST DRAMA.
resisted the temptation; the woman went into a con-
vent and the priest departed for a distant scene of
labor. But the latter's trial was more than he could
bear. One day he tore off his gown, put on citizens
clothes, fled into the outside world and plunged into
dissipation. The first time Hawksworth saw him
he was drunk. Once domiciled at ‘The Retreat, he
had never wished to leave, and there he returned
promptly to orderly habits of life and was faithful
to his duties. Among her Indian kinsfolk on the
Kaweagotami he found Colinette. They pleased each
Other and in the end travelled out to the nearest
mission and were married by a priest.
“All this recalled the pathetic story of Père Jé-
rome and Madeleine Mérimée. I recollected, too,
that Colinette told me her husband once lived at
Quebec. Raphael was more than likely a mere
Christian name,—might not this man be Père Jé-
rome himself?
“To-day I put the matter to the test. Raphael
was down at the shore, bending over his upturned
canoe, filling the cracks with melted pitch. I
walked up softly and called out suddenly—‘Père Jé-
rome!” I believe the man leaped half a foot from
the ground. He uttered a nervous cry, threw out
his hands as if to ward off a blow, and faced round,


“Then I have twice wronged him.”





A FOREST DRAMA. 187
trembling violently. When he saw who had called
he dropped on the ground and sat with his face
bowed in his hands, trembling and muttering.
“‘Poor man, I said, ‘you see I know your se-
cret, but I can do you no harm.’
“‘How did you know?’ he gasped.
“‘Lucien Mérimée is my devoted friend, and I
know the sad story of his sister Madeleine and Père
Jérome. What your employer told me of you led
me to suspect that you and that poor priest were
one.’
“‘And you are the friend of Lucien?” he asked,
a piteous look of distress on his face. “Then I have
twice wronged him. He hid his face in his hands
and groaned.
“‘Yes, you have twice wronged him, but you can
undo the second wrong, if you only will be brave
enough. You think your soul is lost, but I believe
you can still save it. Be true to Colinette, who is
a good woman, and that will be your salvation. Be
true to her, and do your duty toward me.’
“I doubtless expressed myself more freely than
I should have done had he shown less weakness.
‘It appears to me, I said, ‘that your remorse is for
the wrong thing. Your really serious offense before
God is not in marrying Colinette, but in helping to


I88 A FOREST DRAMA.
kidnap me. Repent! Merely to be sorry is not to
repent—you must undo what you have done. Defy
Hawksworth, if you are a man! Take Colinette
and me away from here. I ask it in the name of
Madeleine Mérimée, the woman you once so loved,
the woman you should have married before you
knew Colinette. Alas, since marry you must, why
did you not marry her before it was too late?’
“The man seemed to quiver in every limb, but
said nothing. “Lucien Mérimée is now seeking
me, I continued. “Every night I pray that he will
soon find me here, and he will. Be beforehand,
then; take Colinette and me and go to meet the
man whom as you say you have twice wronged.”
“I spoke hurriedly and eagerly, employing less
well chosen words no doubt than those I have
quoted above. After a while he stood up and looked
out over the lake, his face averted from me. “As
I told you before, he said, his voice shaken, ‘I
could not prevent your being brought here. What
I can do for you now it is difficult to see, but I shall
think over what you have said.’ He then hurried
away. -
“Another case of curious moral obliquity. In
his view assisting his master to kidnap me was a
mere peccadillo in comparison with the enormity of


>
>
A FOREST DRAMA. 189 ><
marrying Colinette, by which latter he doubtless be- >
lieves that he surrendered himself to the devil for
all time. And yet I have some hope in him, al-
though since our conversation he has shrinkingly
avoided me, and although he is a pitiable nervous
wreck.


I90 A FOREST DRAMA.
XVII.
“Oct. II. The man Hawksworth made me very
angry to-day. He again brought up the subject of
his intention to win my love by ‘fair means, and I
was unwise enough to tell him frankly that there
was absolutely no hope of his success.
“That's because you think you love that beggarly
French-Canadian, he said, with a laugh that fright-
ened me.
“Had I been a free woman I should have turned
my back on him and walked away, but I dared not
provoke him too far. To make matters worse, he
gleefully related how he had caused both Lucien and
the Owl to be drugged on the eve of our prospective
journey, thus being able to substitute his own In-
dian escort and take me in a trap. “That's the way
I served your poor hero, he said, laughing exult-
antly. After struggling hard to curb my wrath, I
quietly remarked that I did admire and honor Mr.
Mérimée, but that the question of my loving him
would not come up for consideration even in my


I92 A FOREST DRAMA.
of real happiness on the wildest of Canadian lakes,
"I think. Should Lucien—should we love each other,
even in “a shanty on Muskeg Lake we should have
more to be thankful for than perhaps the very best
of men and women deserve; for life, love, the world
of nature, for rain and sunshine, land and water,
for summer and winter, for seed time and harvest,
for food, clothing and shelter, for health and reason,
for a thousand benefits that are new every morning.
And so long as we should love each other devotedly
and do no wrong, we should have true happiness
and the blessing of Almighty God. My situation
makes me thoughtful and humble, and sometimes
I think I see into the heart of things as never be-
fore.
“I was foolish enough to say something of this
to Hawksworth, after suppressing the angry tears
provoked by his words. “Do you know, he made
laughing reply, ‘I, even I, the confirmed law-
breaker, admire fine sentiments when I read them in
a well-written book, or hear them recited by pretty
lips. I am quite touched by your eloquence, I
really am; but what a pity that such noble phrases
should be associated with that poor, commonplace
French-Canadian!’ And then he went on to speak


A FOREST DRAMA. I93
sneeringly and disrespectfully of Lucien in terms
that I shall not repeat even in my diary.
“‘Whether it be Mr. Mérimée or another, I at
last flamed out, ‘the man who wins my heart will
be he who comes to my rescue and horsewhips you!'
Forgetting caution, everything but my outraged
feelings, I turned from him with a withering glance
and hurried toward the house.
“‘I glory in your spirit, he said, following me
and laughing. ‘From the day I knew your clever-
ness had done what all Scotland Yard could not do
I have loved the thought of you. I knew then that
you alone were a fit mate for me. I am more sure
of this now than ever. You cannot escape me, my
proud, beautiful Alberta! It is fate that brings us
together and fitness that will bind us.”
“At this point I shut the door in his face, fled up
the stair and locked myself in the upper apartments,
where I paced back and forth in a great rage.
“An hour later I was less angry and more fear-
ful, and when Colinette knocked and announced
that Little Cloud had come, I felt that my only
hope was in this Indian boy, young and powerless
though he was. I opened the door and told Coli-
nette to send him up, shutting and locking it again
as soon as he entered the room.
13


A FOREST DRAMA. I95
“I was so pleased, and he looked so proud and
brave, that I could have kissed him then and there.
I asked if he could send a letter for me to the south,
and he promptly said that he would try. He then
told me that Hawksworth would send his Indian
packers south for more supplies in two days' time.
“That is our chance, I said. “Would you be
allowed to go with them, Little Cloud, and if not,
can you not bribe one of the packers to carry my
letter?' He could not say, but he was willing and
eager to try every possible scheme, and when he
left the island he carried not only a letter addressed
to Mr. Burton and one to Lucien, but two gold
pieces to reward the bearer of them southward.
“Oct. 12. Little Cloud's face was gloomy when
he came this afternoon to report the result of his
efforts, and I knew before he told me that he had
failed. He dared not approach any of the older
men, and spoke only to two well-grown Indian
youths who are his friends and who are to go south
with the packers. Each agreed not to speak of the pro-
posal made them, but refused to carry the letters even
after seeing the gold. ‘White Lady is sad, Little
Cloud says that he told them; ‘she desires to send
word to her kindred in the south, from whom she
hears nothing. The first shook his head in an-


196 A FOREST DRAMA.
swer and said; ‘Let Red Man's Friend bid me take
his woman's letters and I will. I want no trouble.”
The other said: ‘Her man should send her mes-
sages. I will not meddle. Nothing could persuade
them, so Little Cloud went to his father, the chief,
and asked that he might go with the packers. Was
he not big enough to carry loads, and was it not
right that a chief's son should travel and see the
world? This also failed, for there is room only for
strong and well-grown men in such service.
“White Lady did well to say I was only a boy,’
he concluded mournfully. “I have failed.’
“‘You have failed in this, I said, “but can you
not at least cross the lake in your canoe, follow the
trail of the packers a little way, and put my letters
where some white hunter or trapper may find
them?”
“The boy brightened instantly at the suggestion,
promising to do this and more. He would carry the
letters a day's journey on the trail—indeed he would
carry them much further, perhaps even to the dis-
tant trading post of the Hudson Bay Company.
“‘Have you ever been so far, Little Cloud P’
“‘Yes—with those carrying furs.”
“‘How long was the trip?’
“‘Five days.”


198 A FOREST DRAMA.
turn to the left, follow a long narrow waterway and
land at the base of a wild range of hills. In
these we should hide for days while our Indian pur-
suers pushed on to the trading post, believing we had
gone there. At the post they would ask for a mad
white woman and an Indian boy, and the white factor
would answer that he had not seen them. Doubting
this, the Indians would camp about and watch and
wait, or go further on the southward trail. Finally
they would return and look for us by the way, but
if they landed to search our place of refuge the
scent would be so old that neither they nor their
dogs could follow it. So at last they would re-
turn hopeless to the Kaweagotami, and then we
might go down to the trail and reach the post by
travelling at night, if need be, and hiding by day.
Such was the plan chosen in a moment by this cun-
ning Indian boy, and, if ‘White Lady’ could stand
cold nights and hungry days, it might succeed. He
wanted me to know in advance that hard days were
probably before us, for the canoe was small and we
could carry little.
“‘I can stand anything, I said. “I would face
tigers in order to leave this place.”
“So it is settled that we are to try the adventure.
To-morrow morning the packers are to start, and to-


A FOREST DRAMA. I99
morrow night we are to follow. Little Cloud is
to secure food and I am to carry blankets. When
I hear his signal I am to tiptoe down stairs with
my bundle, softly unbar the door, and join him. I
have one day in which to prepare, and must write
letters to leave behind me on the portage paths at
the last moment, should our adventure fail.”


A FOREST DRAMA. 2OI
took the risk of a visit to the dining-room at mid-
night, in order to appropriate a small canister of tea
and a tin in which to boil water. These had been
rolled up in the blankets with such care, that, as she
now fearfully dropped her bundle from the window,
there was no sound further than a gentle thud
which could attract no attention. To crawl through
a narrow opening and swing to the ground on the
makeshift rope was a more serious matter, but she
accomplished it without noise, caught up her bundle
and hurried down to the lake shore, where the boy
was found awaiting her, kneeling in the stern of
his tiny bark canoe.
Stowing her bundle beside the bag of provisions
amidships at his whispered bidding, and seating her-
self in the bow, Alberta lifted the paddle awaiting
her hand, and they were off. Fortunately the wind
was down, and no perils faced them as they glided
over the gray-white surface of the Kaweagotami,
now almost calm enough to reflect the stars. The
canoe shot swiftly forward, both being glad to dip
their paddles vigorously, not merely for the sake of
speed but for the sake of bodily warmth, the still
air being sharp with frost.
The first hour spent in skimming over the quiet,
glistening lake entailed no hardship, but the long


2O2 A FOREST DRAMA.
portage was another matter, both being burdened
with a heavy load. It was with a light heart that
Alberta shouldered hers, however, and followed the
dark shape of the upturned canoe slanting backward
from Little Cloud's shoulders.
The dim winding trail with its unknown sur-
prises, the dusky, towering trees, the dark vistas on
either hand crowded with nameless shapes of the im-
agination's begetting rising from the formless gloom
and listening with wide-eyed watchfulness as the
intruders passed, the flutter of a bird, or the startled
plunge and noisy retreat of some shy animal—these
were to Alberta the welcoming signs of her deliv-
erance, rather than the source of fear. The north-
ern panther, the gray timber wolf, a maddened
moose, or a bear at bay, were indeed the menace of
the unwary, but she did not think of them now.
The pathless forest was her refuge, the forest deni-
zens were her friends, even the winds and waters
might be trusted; man alone she feared.
Day was breaking by the time the weary portage
was a memory and the succeeding lake had been
crossed to the desired point. Little Cloud brought
his canoe up at the side of a low flat rock whose
smooth surface would reveal no tell-tale footprints,
and from this point they picked their way up the


A FOREST DRAMA. 2O3
forest-clothed slopes nearly a half mile before the
boy thought it safe to leave the canoe hidden in a
tangle of brush.
As they halted here in the full light of the new
day and refreshed themselves with cold food, a bull
caribou, migrating southward with his slender cows,
passed within easy range. But Little Cloud merely
regarded them with the young hunter's kindling
eye, being determined not to shoot except in self-de-
fense. The furred and feathered creatures that
watched from far and near, with more or less hos-
tile eyes, as the intruders passed, were this time safe
from harm.
The hiding place finally chosen at the end of a
five mile tramp was a hollow among the hills
through which ran a small, clear stream. Here
their fire at night and their smoke by day could be
seen only by near eyes. Here they would rest quiet
and wait, having food for several days, and shelter
from possible storms beneath an overhanging rock
of the steep hillside.
The remainder of that first day was soon gone, be-
ing full of duties, as the cutting of spruce tips for beds
and the collecting of wood for a continuing fire.
Afterward the time dragged, there being little more


2O4 A FOREST DRAMA.
than tea-making and toasting dry meat before the
fire to engage their attention.
The boy became restless, and Alberta sought
means of entertaining him as well as herself.
French being her next accomplishment after draw-
ing, she found no difficulty in telling Little Cloud
stories of life in the far land of the white men.
Though he did not always understand, he listened
with a grave face and absorbed attention. And
after some persuasion he was led to talk in turn, in
his slow quaint way, of the Indian tribes of the
north, their customs and legends.
The constellations of the Great Bear, Cassiopea,
and the kite-like Boötes being pointed out to him on
the second night, and being told the legends con-
nected with them that have been handed down from
ancient times, he proceeded to impart some of his
own knowledge concerning the sky realm by declar-
ing the lightning to be a serpent which Kitchi-Man-
itou, the Great Good Spirit, vomits up, and the
thunder the hissing accompanying that remarkable
operation. Alberta was also gravely informed that
Kitchi-Manitou keeps the rain spirits from drown-
ing the world by “tying them with the rainbow.”
The clearest account he gave was of the old Al-
gonquin legend of Michabo, the giant rabbit, sent


A FOREST DRAMA. 207
and fearful, listening for hours to the cold wind as
it roared through the dark balsams on the heights
about them, now and then whirling down into their
hollow with a shower of red-ripe leaves and causing
their fire to sway wildly.
But it was neither the manifest signs of approach-
ing winter nor the wild cry suggestive of the tawny
northern panther, a harsh, screeching wail, now and
then borne to her on the wind from one of the
wooded heights of the vicinity, that troubled Alber-
ta. The hopelessness of their plan to reach the
Company's trading post unmolested, as she now
viewed it, and the difficulties in which her generous
little Indian partisan would find himself in the event
of their capture—these were the source of the
thoughts that banished sleep.
No sooner had breakfast been prepared and eaten
next morning than Little Cloud proposed that he go
down to the lake and reconnoitre, offering to leave
his gun for White Lady's protection and go armed
merely with a knife. Alberta consented for him to
go, but cautioned him to be careful and insisted that
he take his gun, assuring him that she would be
safe enough at camp without it.
Little Cloud reached the lake shore in due course,
and spent some time watching in vain for passing


A FOREST DRAMA. 209
hurried down the slope and was about to run across
the open, when he halted abruptly, with dilating
eyes.
Not twenty feet from the sleeping girl crouched
a long, lank animal of a tawny hue, its twitching
tail uplifted and its small flat head lowered. Inch
by inch it drew nearer the prey upon which its eyes
were fastened with a devouring stare. To shoot
was to bring to the scene the Indian or Indians lurk-
ing in the neighboring woods, but Little Cloud
could not hesitate.
Awakened by a loud report, Alberta started up
in time to see the panther leap into the air with a
horrid snarl and come down with a soft thud within
a few feet of her—lifeless. Her exclamation of
alarm was interrupted by the boy, who ran up, bid-
ding her be quiet and follow him. Significant look
and gesture alone informed her that they were be-
set by peril from another source.
In the rocky and steeply-sloping hillside to the
left and some forty feet above the level of their
camp Little Cloud had the previous day discovered
a small niche well covered by ground vines and
likely to pass unnoticed, except under the glance of
the most practiced eye. Here the two now took
refuge, there being nothing better to do, to venture
14


2 IO A FOREST DRAMA.
beyond the borders of the hollow in any direction
being regarded as extremely hazardous.
Alberta was still breathing heavily from the exer-
tion required to gain their retreat when an Indian
was seen descending the opposite slope, looking
about him with a sharp eye. The great dead cat
Soon caught his notice, and as he moved toward it
the watchers in their hiding place recognized the
familiar face of Jeremiah. From the cat he trans-
ferred his attention to the camp, in and out of which
he walked, scrutinizing its every feature. Then he
stepped quickly out into the open and swept the
walls of the hollow with his eye, evidently assured
that the fugitives were as yet scarcely escaped be-
yond its boundaries.
After a second and third deliberate survey, his
eye fastened itself upon the vine-covered niche with
an appearance of certainty that was confirmed in a
few moments by his forward movement with the
evident intention of investigating.
A single tear rolled down Alberta's cheek as he
drew nearer, but she said nothing. Little Cloud
also remained speechless, though there was fire in
his eye and anger in his heart. Suddenly he raised
his gun and aimed it at the advancing Indian.
“No, no!” whispered Alberta, laying hold of the


A FOREST DRAMA. 2 II
leveled weapon. “It won't do. It would make you
an outlaw among your people. Besides, it would be
useless. Look!” she added, pointing toward three
more Indians who were picking their way down the
opposite slope.
At “The Retreat” two days later, after describ-
ing her unsuccessful adventure in the company of
Little Cloud, Alberta wrote as follows in her diary:
“I begged Jeremiah to tell the boy's father that I
persuaded him and he was not to blame. I also
humbled myself to the extent of asking the jubilant
and laughing Hawksworth to intercede for him.
But Three Bears loves “Red Man's Friend’ and was
full of wrath when he knew that his own son, a
chief's son, had committed an indiscretion so bold
and alarming. And so—according to Colinette-
my poor, dear Little Cloud has not only been beaten,
but severe tasks have been imposed on him, and he
will not be allowed to visit the island again. A pity
that I corrupted him! After all our brave planning
and great effort, nothing is left me but misery of
regret at the thought of the consequences of
failure.”


2 I2 A FOREST DRAMA.
XIX.
IT was to be a cold October night even in that high
latitude. The air was sharp with frost and the snow
lay two inches on the ground. The latter had been
cleared away for several feet around, the tent was
up, brush had been cut, supper had been cooked and
eaten, and now the two travel-worn men and their
guide could rest.
But Lucien Mérimée alone was inactive, lying on
a pile of cut brush between the tent and the fire
and watching the flames with restless, melancholy
eyes. Meanwhile the Owl busied himself with over-
night preparations for breakfast and Harold Ran-
som, provided with razor, hot water, soap, and a
small hand-mirror, was shaving himself as carefully
as if he expected to step into a drawing-room in half
an hour.
Harold's expensive outing clothes now exhibited
the wear and stains of weeks of continuous travel.
Having consulted with Lucien on the day of their
departure from Muskeg Lake, he found that it


A FOREST DRAMA. 2 I 3
would be impossible to carry a second suit, the por-
taging of the canoes, the tent, blankets and food
supplies necessitating extreme self-denial so far as
personal baggage was concerned. But though only a
single change of underclothing was taken, and for
an extra tip the Owl at night frequently enacted the
role of washerwoman in consequence, the young
Englishman would as willingly have left his tooth
brush behind as his shaving outfit. No matter how
worn out he might be, he never allowed more than
one night to pass without employing his razor, but
he sometimes envied his travelling companion, who
was saved time and painstaking on the one hand,
and an unkempt appearance on the other, by wear-
ing a short brown beard which he trimmed at
longer intervals.
While the shaving was in process the half-breed
constructed an oven out of a collection of flat stones,
building a hot fire within, around and above it.
Then he squatted before an open sack of flour, into
which he poured from time to time, water from a
tin cup held in one hand, meanwhile deftly stirring
with the fingers of the other.
“Hello there, Owl ! What does that mean?” de-
manded Harold, as he rose to put away his precious
razor and looking-glass.


2I4 A FOREST DRAMA.
“All right, m'sieu'—no harm. Mix bread—
grand loaf.”
Stepping forward, Harold saw a neat round ball
of dough in a deep circular depression that had been
hollowed out in the flour. “And what's all that
fire on those stones for?” he asked, after perceiving
that all the water poured into the bag was safely
mixed in the dough.
“For cook, m'sieu'. Mix loaf—so—put him in
hot stone all night—to-morrow grand loaf bread.
M'sieu like bread some more, eh?”
“Well, rather!—after nothing but flapjacks for
a week. Owl, you're a jewel.”
Lucien knew that the others talked, but his pre-
occupation was complete. His thoughts were con-
cerned only with their long and vain wanderings
over vast spaces, searching, searching, day after day,
with little or no encouragement. Not until that
morning had they come upon the faintest of clues
and this, though they meant to follow it up, would
probably prove a disappointment. At old Fort
Glengary, a trading post of the Hudson Bay
Company, they were told that a white man and
woman, husband and wife presumably, were living
among the Indians on Lake Kaweagotami, five days
distant, and having taken explicit directions as to


A FOREST DRAMA. 215
the course, they were now on their way thither, de-
termined to investigate.
“By the way,” said Harold, turning to Lucien,
“I picked this up behind you on the trail to-day, put
it in my pocket, and at the end of the portage forgot
to give it to you. I see your name is at the bottom
of it.” He produced a folded letter, consisting of a
single sheet, unprotected by an envelope.
Taking it and glancing into it, Lucien folded it
and put it in his inside pocket with the brief re-
mark: “It is about some property in Quebec. It
came the day we left Muskeg Lake, and I had no
time to answer it. I have scarcely thought of it
Since.”
Harold Ransom regarded his friend curiously but
without disapproval, as the latter's melancholy gaze
returned to the fire. “He must love her indeed if
* * *
he has ‘scarcely thought of it since,’” was his im-
mediate reflection. For Harold had read the letter
almost to the end before he saw Lucien’s name and
knew that it contained important information. It
was nothing less than a notification from a lawyer
that one Mme. Auclair (referred to as the aunt of
the person to whom the letter was addressed) had
left no will conveying her property “to the church,”
as she had so often expressed her determination to


218 A FOREST DRAMA.
wanted it and put it inside his cap. But to-day
when it dropped out I saw there was writin' on it
and picked it up.”
He produced a folded paper from an inside pocket
and extended it toward Lucien with a “Did you
ever see the like O' that?”
The inscription on the single sheet of ordinary
writing paper, without signature or address, was as
follows:
“Whoever finds and reads this is earnestly re-
quested to take it to the nearest Hudson Bay post
and give it to the factor. The writer is a white
woman—Alberta Ransom by name—who was kid-
napped and forcibly brought to this wild place by
an Englishman calling himself Hawksworth. In
reality he is one Arthur Biggs, a convict escaped
from an English prison. Miss Ransom was brought
to this man's hunting lodge (on an island in a lake
called by the Indians Kaweagotami) from Muskeg
Lake, far to the south, where she has friends, among
whom are Mr. Lucien Mérimée and Mr. John Bur-
ton. Tell them, or any and every good man it is
possible to reach, where she is to be found and bid
them come to her aid before it is too late.”
Absorbing the information contained in these
closely written lines with incredible quickness, Lu-


A FOREST DRAMA. 219
cien passed the paper to Harold and started wildly
to his feet. Harold's excitement was no less visible
and immediate, and he, too, rose, as if to take ac-
tion at once.
“You don't mean—you know her?” exclaimed
MacDonald, also rising.
“My name is mentioned in her letter as one of
her friends,” said Lucien, huskily.
“We were going to that lake on the chance, hear-
ing that a white woman was there,” said Harold.
“We’ve been hunting her for weeks.”
“Well! And I thought she must be crazy.”
“Can't you turn back and go there with us?”
asked Lucien. “We could make it in much quicker
time.”
“If it's a matter of—money—you can name
your—” began Harold.
“It's not a matter of money,” he was interrupted,
“and I'll go quick if you'll wait till I can go to
Glengary and back.”
“We can’t wait.”
“That would mean a day lost.”
MacDonald shook his head. “Now that I'm
this close I must go in and report. Duty is duty.”
“Then draw us a map of the route,” urged Lu-
cien.


222 A FOREST DRAMA.
to know. Evidently Monsieur was much concerned
to know. He asked numerous questions as to the
appearance of the two white men, and finally in-
quired of Jeremiah if he expected to reach the camp
of Three Bears that night.
“Yes, m'sieu'; I go straight.”
“Then tell him to come in the morning with four
or five men. Tell them to come early and come
armed. We are only two to their three,” he added,
turning to Raphael, “and we may need help. It is
well to be on the safe side.”
“You have reason,” answered Raphael, musingly.
Jeremiah promised compliance, backed out his
canoe, and paddled away. Three Bears would no
doubt come; he would be glad to serve his white
friend, to whom he was indebted for so many sub-
stantial favors. Counting certainly on assistance
from the Indians, if needed, Hawksworth dismissed
anxiety and prepared to spend the night as usual.
Half an hour later he sat down to dinner with
the captive lady, Colinette standing by and waiting
on them. He still occupied the shack, but for some
days past—ever since the capture of Little Cloud
and “White Lady” in their hiding-place among
the hills, in fact—he had dined at The Retreat every
evening, an innovation that was tolerated without


A FOREST DRAMA. 225
small loaded revolver carried on his person, and the
two crossed swords on the wall of the upper sitting-
room. It was Raphael's intention to surrender
when the rescuers came, and by concealing the am-
munition he hoped to compel Hawksworth to a like
course, thus preventing bloodshed; for otherwise
bloodshed there would be, he felt assured. The plan
might of course fail if the rough weather did not
delay the arrival of the Indians.
The morning dawned late. Lowering clouds cov-
ered the sky and the waves broke white before the
wind. Hawksworth was up and out betimes and
swept the lake with a field-glass. In the direction of
Serpent Rock he promptly located two canoes that
were steadily approaching the island in spite of
wind and foam-crested swell. Reassured to observe
that the approaching party consisted of only three
men, he turned to look into his defenses. He
thought it advisable to house all his resources under
one roof, that one which must stand the siege should
the approaching party be reinforced before the ar-
rival of Three Bears, and decided to remove the
guns and ammunition from the shack. Their dis-
appearance was thus brought to his knowledge and
he hastened to question Raphael, who affected blank
astonishment.
15


226 A FOREST DRAMA.
“Who could have done this?” demanded Hawks-
worth. His eye was fierce, but it never occurred to
him to suspect Raphael, mild, pliable, nervous Ra-
phael.
“Perhaps there are two parties,” suggested Ra-
phael darkly, “one of which is already on the is-
land.”
“They must have landed early last night and
robbed the shack while I was at dinner,” said the
startled master, instantly accepting this plausible.
solution. “And now ’’—he glanced apprehensively
toward the heights of the island where the balsams
were bending and groaning in the gale,—“they are
up there waiting for the other party to come. What a
fool I have been | I should have ordered Three
Bears to come last night.”
Even this bold, reckless spirit was seized with a
species of panic at the thought that enemies were
crossing the lake in front of him and other enemies
were already in the woods behind him. Seeing Col-
inette about to light a fire, he promptly ordered her
to put it out and bade her prepare a cold breakfast.
Raphael was then told to bar the doors until the In-
dians arrived.
“Trouble is coming,” the ex-priest had said to


A FOREST DRAMA 229
Monsieur had business on the upper floor and would
like to come up.
“Tell him the door is open,” directed Alberta.
She did not retire to the inner room, but stood wait-
ing. “What is the matter?” she asked, as he ap-
peared in the doorway and bade her good-morning,
smiling amiably.
“The matter is a possible siege,” he answered, a
suggestion of nervousness in his laugh and manner
as he advanced into the room. “I have had the mis-
fortune to offend Three Bears,” he glibly continued,
“and it seems he is coming here with his Indians to
give me a roasting. How would you like to be car-
ried off by an Indian? That would make you think
better of your present quarters, would it not?”
Alberta was seized with an intense desire to say
that as between an Indian and a convict kidnapper
the odds might be in favor of the former, but she
merely replied: “I thought the Indians were your
friends.”
“It is always with our friends that we quarrel,
you know. I wanted to tell you,” he continued,
smiling persuasively, “that it would be risky to
show your face at a window after they arrive. It
would be tempting fate. It would make every one
of them the more determined to put an end to me,


230 A FOREST DRAMA.
(
your only protector. Really, I think it would be
wiser for you to hide in this lumber room during
the trouble. The day is cold and that square hole
up there will allow you plenty of air.”
While speaking, he opened the door of the win-
dowless closet or store room, caught up a candle,
lighted it and placed it inside on a box. The inter-
ior, a space of some six by twelve feet, being only
partly occupied by chests and boxes, was ample for
the present purpose. Before Alberta made any re-
ply Colinette appeared with food on a tray, which
she placed on a small table and retired. Still smil-
ing, as if half in jest, Hawksworth moved across the
room, lifted both tray and table and placed them
within the store room. Then, having dragged a
comfortable chair into the candle-lit apartment, he
turned to Alberta who had looked on in speechless
astonishment.
“Now, I have provided for all emergencies,” he
said. “Go in—to oblige me. It is only for a short
while.”
“Do you take me for a child?” Alberta asked
haughtily. “I am not afraid of a fight or of Three
Bears either.”
“But I am, you know, on your account. There
is no time to lose and, really, I must ask you to


232 A FOREST DRAMA.
hearing or pretending to hear some sound. “There
they come! Go in!” he urged.
He lifted his hand and touched her between the
shoulders, as she stood motionless. It was a prom-
ise of possible force to come, and Alberta started
forward shuddering. Up to that moment he had
not so much as touched her hand. A new fear of
him, and the recollection of Raphael's warning,
caused her now to step forward quickly and enter
the candle-lit apartment.
“Thanks, thanks,” he said, smiling and follow-
ing. “Only for a little while,” he assured her, then
shut the door and softly turned the key in the lock.
Profound silence followed, but as she sat staring
at the flickering candle a few minutes later, Alberta
heard the opening of a chest that had stood in a
corner of the outer room. Almost immediately she
was aware that Hawksworth had cried out, swear-
ing, and bounded to the head of the stair calling
Raphael's name. Steps sounded on the stair, then
Hawksworth's angry voice:
“What does this mean? All the cartridges have
been taken from the chest, too. It can’t be that she
got word from them and has done this! She's
clever enough.”
Then the voice of Raphael: “It is very strange,


A FOREST DRAMA. 233
but I don't think she did it. Some one could have
slipped into the house when we were talking with
Jeremiah last evening. When I came up Colinette
was at the spring and the lady was out walking.”
“This is the devil to pay,” Hawksworth was
heard to exclaim. “Is your rifle loaded?” he then
asked, still not appearing to suspect Raphael.
“No,” was the answer, “and I have not a car-
tridge.”
An oath and—“nothing left but the five charges
in my revolver!”
There was silence again for some minutes, broken
at length by a loud sneering laugh from Hawks-
worth. Alberta wondered at, and it was well that
she did not guess the meaning of, this triumphant
outburst. What had delighted her jailer, who
leaned out of an upper window, was the spectacle of
two drifting canoes filled to the brim with water,
and three human heads one moment in view against
the foam of the rising swell and again out of sight
in the trough.


234 A FOREST DRAMA.
XXI. *
THE gale blew toward the island. Near its shore,
therefore, was the roughest water, and as the two
canoes entered on the latter half of their journey,
danger threatened them more and more.
“We swamp for sure. Better go back,” called out
the Owl, when still a mile of dangerous water sep-
arated them from the island shore.
said
“If we turn back now, he'll escape us,’
Harold.
“No!” called out Lucien in return. “We'll go
on till we swamp, then we'll swim.”
It was a daring plan and Owl shook his head,
being unable to enter fully into the feelings of the
two young white men who set their teeth, dipped
their paddles as though their muscles were of iron,
and strained their eyes toward The Retreat. For-
tunately the canoes were empty of baggage, even
their guns having been left behind with their other
belongings in a cache. Their only arms were a
hunting knife and a revolver each.


A FOREST DRAMA. 235
Had the wind blown in their faces, so that they
could have taken the swirling white caps on the
quarter, their chances would have been better.
With the heaving swell astern, the canoes were ex-
tremely difficult to manage. The Owl's in partic-
ular, carrying less weight, was buffeted and knocked
about in a frightful manner. But it was the canoe
sinking lower under the weight of two that was
first swamped. A great wave struck the stern,
swung the little boat side-wise and poured in a de-
luge over the low gunwale. A second wave com-
pleted the disaster. Down went the canoe, swaying
from under their feet to rise and float away, though
full to the brim, as Lucien and Harold struck out
boldly for the island shore, now a half mile distant.
To have swung on to the drifting canoe, the neces-
sary resource of less expert swimmers, would have
caused them to be carried too far out of their course.
The swamping of the second canoe was not long
delayed, and the half-breed followed, swimming in
the wake of the two white men. There was little
danger for such good swimmers as the three plainly
were, and Hawksworth's scoffing, “Drown, then,
meddling fools!” came of a too hasty calculation.
Holding his field-glass focussed on them as they
neared the shore, he first made out the face of an


236 A FOREST DRAMA.
unknown half-breed, then that of a light-haired
Englishman equally unknown to him. Ah, this was
hopeful; after all it might be only a harmless hunt-
ing party, in which case he would go down and meet
them, assist them to regain their canoes, invite them
to breakfast (the bird being caged safely enough),
and send them on their way. But look! The glass
was now focussed on the third floating head, and
Hawksworth uttered an oath as he recognized the
dark clustering hair, the bronzed skin and well-
known handsome face of Lucien Mérimée.
Ah, well, his precautions were well taken, then,
and he would be wise to remain behind closed doors.
With Raphael at his back, he would not be unwill-
ing to face three men, but it was necessary to
consider the possible confederates waiting in the
woods behind him. He remembered that it be-
hooved him to be very cautious, in view of the great
stake for which he was playing. He determined to
remain quiet, allowing the house to exhibit no sign
of life until openly attacked.
Lucien was the first to touch bottom, get clear of
the leaping spray and crouch down behind a huge
rock. Harold shortly joined him and then the Owl.
All were panting hard, and in their temporary ex-
haustion it was mutely agreed that they should rest


238 A FOREST DRAMA.
forward with a “Voici, messieurs!” It had rained
at dawn and the ground was soaking; this tell-tale
bit of cloth was dry.
“Some one was here within half an hour,” said
Lucien, with a suspicious glance toward the silent
upper windows.
“If they took to their boats on the other side of
the island?” suggested Harold.
Thereupon Owl ran off a little way, examining
the ground for tracks. He came back promptly, re-
porting no signs whatever of a retreat from the
house across the island that morning. Lucien now
led the way around to the front, all scanning the
upper windows expectantly. As they halted again
opposite the front porch, which was raised only
about a foot from the ground, he shouted:
“Hallo! Hallo there!”
Silence followed. Harold took up the cry, shout-
ing a second and third time, and then was heard a
faint knocking within. Hearing the call, Alberta
had recognized the situation and determined to
make a sign. But scarcely had she begun when her
efforts were arrested by the fierce voice of Hawks-
worth commanding and threatening; he spoke to her
through the closed door and she quailed before him.
She doubtless would have gone on after an interval,


24O A FOREST DRAMA.
The answer to this was a bullet. As it hissed
past Harold's ear, the Owl shot like an arrow be-
hind a tree. The other two were quick to follow
his example, the mask being now thrown off and
war declared. Before he took to cover, Harold
fired a shot into the window whence the voice had
issued, breaking a pane of glass, after which for
some minutes all was quiet.
Between the two trees behind which Lucien and
Harold were sheltered lay a section of a hemlock-
log some twelve feet long and not less than a foot
in diameter. The moment the former's eye fell on
it a plan of attack was suggested to his mind. The
log was light enough to be lifted and carried by
three men and heavy enough to serve effectively as
a battering-ram. Should the three lift it and run
with it beneath the shelter of the porch, they could
stand out of range from the window above and bat-
ter the door in. It was a means of forcing Hawks-
worth to open combat in any event, and the Sooner
this was done the better, for might he not we await-
ing help from some unknown quarter?
Standing in his place, Lucien in a low voice ex-
plained his plan to Harold, who promptly approved.
The Owl was near enough to overhear, and at a
given signal the three men leaped from cover, seized


A FOREST DRAMA. 243
worth, and hoped that he would also fire the last,
thus ending the struggle without bloodsheed.
But after the battering-ram struck the door the
third time he hastened to unlock it, concluding to
wait no longer for the final shot to be fired. He
held himself in readiness, and as soon as the fourth
blow sounded on the door, quickly drew the bolt
from its place and leaped aside. The result of the
fifth blow, therefore, took the assailants by surprise.
The door flew inward and the ram followed,
dragging those who wielded it confusedly forward
by the force of its own momentum. The Owl fell
prostrate across the porch and Lucien was thrown
to his knees. Harold alone managed to keep his
feet, and, perceiving Raphael, promptly covered him
with his drawn revolver.
The ex-priest threw up his hands. “You see,
messieurs, I am unarmed,” he whispered, with a
nervous side glance toward Lucien. “I have no part
in this wickedness. See!—it was I who opened the
door to you.” He pointed to the bolt. “Voilà,
messieurs!”
It was clear that he spoke the truth, and Harold
lowered his weapon. “Where is Miss Ransom?”
the latter demanded.
“Above.”


246 A FOREST DRAMA.
Hawksworth bounded forward with uplifted
sword and Harold fired, missing his mark by
a hair. Then a strange thing happened. Before he
had covered more than half the distance separating
him from his enemy, Hawksworth seemed to stum-
ble, and fell face forward on the floor.
Harold thought he was shot. He had forgotten
Owl and scarcely noted the circular shadow that
seemed suddenly to hover over Hawksworth and de-
scend about his head. The Owl knew better, for as
Hawksworth leaped forward he had thrown his
rope like a lasso with practised aim, had quickly
drawn it taut, thrown his whole weight upon it, and
thus brought the game to earth.
Leaping upon the prostrate form with incredible
swiftness, the half-breed planted his knees upon
Hawksworth's head, seized his hands, drew them
upward upon his back, and wound the rope about
them. Though at first slightly stunned and par-
tially suffocated by the tightening of the noose
about his neck, Hawksworth struggled desperately
to shake off his captor and rise. But for the weight
of Harold's knees also, descending with crushing
force upon his back, the furious victim of ill luck
might have prevented the accomplishment of the de-
sign. As it was, the scheme of taking him alive


A FOREST DRAMA. 247
prospered beyond expectation. Both his legs and
arms were soon as secure as it was possible for sev-
eral yards of strong rope to make them, and, the
noose about his neck being loosened, he remained
unharmed.
As the two men stepped back to survey their
work, they became aware of a knocking and the
calling of a woman's voice from the lumber room.
The Owl, who was nearest, ran forward and un-
locked the door.
Then Alberta rushed out, looking about her al-
most blindly, and recognizing Harold only after he
had reached her side. She gave him both her hands
and clung to his.
“You?—Oh, Harold !” she joyfully exclaimed.
Her surprise and bewilderment were scarcely les-
sened when her eye fell on Hawksworth lying
bound hand and foot almost at her feet, but the last
traces of fear vanished from her face. The sudden
reversal of the situation—the jailer now become a
fettered prisoner—appealed forcibly to her sense of
humor.
“That is rather a humiliating position for a
3 * *
“masterful man,’” she said, looking down and trans-
fixing her enemy with the cruelty of a smile.
When Alberta appeared Hawksworth ceased to


248 A FOREST DRAMA.
writhe and curse and fixed upon her a devouring
stare. But when she laughed and uttered her little
taunt, anger as well as passion appeared in his eyes.
“Fool that I was,” he snarled in the bitterness
of his soul,—“fool to have waited—on account of
a silly sentiment!” *


A FOREST DRAMA. 249
XXII.
IN that moment Alberta saw upon his face the
mark of the beast as she had never seen it before,
and she quickly averted her eyes. Her glance now
wandered, full of inquiry from Harold to the Owl
and then to the head of the stair—was there no one
else?
“And you came all the way from England—
here,” she said to Harold. “How did you do it,
brave boy? You are wounded !” she cried anx-
iously, seeing the blood trickling down his left
wrist.
“Only a scratch,” he said lightly.
Nevertheless, with her glowing eyes fixed upon
him, she obeyed a sudden impulse to lift his bloody
hand and kiss it, softly uttering the words—“My
knight, my hero!”
The color rushed into the young man's cheek in
a flood and his eyes took fire, but his smile
of happiness was brief. “You don’t know,”
he said to her in a hoarse, lifeless way. “It was


250 A FOREST DRAMA.
Lucien Mérimée who did it all. Without him I
could not have come here. He was the first on the
stair. He was shot down and I jumped over him.
We must go to him—he may be dying.”
“Dying—and you did not tell me!” said Alberta
in low, hushed tones, directing at Harold a look
suggestive of that of a wounded deer, ere she turned
and ran impetuously toward the head of the stair.
“Remain here on guard,” said Harold in a
shaken voice to the half-breed, as he moved to fol-
low her.
In the large lower room where the meals were
served, and whence the stair ascended, Lucien Mér-
imée lay on a lounge, his eyes closed. His wet
clothing was partly removed, his breast was bare,
and blood oozed slowly from a bullet wound there.
Raphael was on his knees beside him, holding aloft a
crucifix, and Colinette stood near, rocking her fret-
ting baby in her arms.
“O mon pauvre Lucien! Dieu vous ait en sa
sante garde!” the ex-priest was saying as Alberta
appeared at his side.
“How is he?” she whispered.
“I can not tell, but I fear—O grand Dieu, sau-
vez ce brave jeune homme!”
“It is the time for action rather than prayer,”


252 A FOREST DRAMA.
this instant, arresting the attention of every one be-
low.
Hurrying to the door, Raphael saw a flotilla of
six or seven canoes coming across the lake. “It is
Three Bears,” he said to Harold. “We may have
more trouble yet to-day.” He softly shut both the
doors and barred them. The wind was now rapidly
going down and the swell had already become less
formidable. It was evident that these unwelcome
canoes would arrive in safety.
When they did arrive, some thirty minutes later,
Harold, Raphael and the Owl stood watching them
from an upper window, ready to enter into a friend-
ly conference with the newcomers, or to resist their
attack, should they elect to interfere. In the half
light of the lower room Alberta remained alone
with Lucien, whose eyes were now closed in sleep
or stupor. The stillness was broken only by the low
voice of Colinette as she sat in her room, hushing
her baby to sleep and singing softly about a lover
who sought his lady—
Bien tard, après souper,
Ma luron, lurette;
Bien, tard après souper,
Ma luron, luré.”
The appearance presented by Three Bears and


A FOREST DRAMA. 253
nine men of the tribe, as they camé indolently up the
slope and stood within thirty feet of the house, was
scarcely formidable. They were all armed, all
brawny fellows, and doubtless not altogether un-
worthy descendants of their ancient and once pow-
erful tribe; but Harold thought a determined white
man would be a match for any two of them. Three
Bears was unmistakably hideous, but some of the
younger men of his company were distinguished by
a more or less comely regularity of feature and a
certain nobility of expression, although their eyes
were for the most part rather dull and sleepy in re-
pose. They all wore rabbit-skin jackets, and lower
garments of either buckskin or coarse cloth trousers
purchased from the Hudson Bay Company.
Both Raphael and the Owl were acquainted with
the native dialect and amicable salutes were prompt-
ly exchanged. Then Three Bears, looking about
him curiously and with a suspicious manner re-
marked:
“I do not see the white chief who sent for me.”
With assistance from the Owl, Raphael then told
the story. It was soon clear that the Indians were
amazed and incredulous, but one and all listened
with characteristic patience.
When there was no more to be said Three Bears


A FOREST DRAMA. 255
“Three Bears, they lie! Shoot them and I will
make you rich!”
At Harold's order Raphael and the Owl at once
dragged the struggling and shouting captive into
the lumber room and locked the door upon him.
There his shouts could no longer be distinctly heard,
but the mischief was done. He had spoken at the
right moment. The Indians had heard his voice,
his denial and his offer, and showed unmistakable
excitement. They gripped their rifles threaten-
ingly, and at a sign from Three Bears drew off
some distance to confer with each other.
Another conference which immediately took place
at the upper window of The Retreat was both
more brief and decisive. It was agreed that at the
first war-like sign from without, three rifles should
be fired simultaneously from the window, and that
the firing should continue as long as a meddler re-
mained visible and disposed to champion the prison-
er's cause. That they could hold out and do deadly
work until the Indians were largely reinforced,
neither Harold nor Raphael entertained any doubt.
The history of that day might have included a
second siege and much bloodshed, had not two
canoes now reached the island shore unobserved.
Before Three Bears and his men had arrived at a


A FOREST DRAMA. 257
that, as MacDonald had confidentaly asserted, these
Indians were too wise to quarrel with the Company.
Hawksworth was a good friend, but the Company
was a better and an older. The white-washed store-
houses of Fort Glengary had stood in their places a
hundred years, and the time never was when a hun-
gry Indian could not find food there in the days of
scarcity. Some malign influence might send the car-
ibou to other parts, and the hunting-grounds of the
tribe might become a temporary desolation, but
there was always flour for bread at the old trading
post, and if the Indian could not bring a pelt to give
in exchange, the game being gone, the wise and
patient Company would take his promise instead.
“It's all settled,” said MacDonald, returning.
“Open your door and let's see the prisoner.”
“Before everything else I want medical attention
for my wounded friend,” urged Harold. “Are you
a doctor or surgeon?”
“Both—after my own fashion. A white man is
apt to be a jack-of-all-trades in the north.”
Bidding Three Bears await his return, MacDon-
ald entered the house and proceeded to examine Lu-
cien’s wound. A small chest belonging to Hawks-
worth, which was provided with surgical instru-
ments as well as medicines, was brought to him at
17


“He followed her every movement with a grave and contemplative eye.”


A FOREST DRAMA. 259
ground attracted her eye. When at length Harold
appeared at the door and saw her he knew that she
was conscious only of a devouring anxiety, and he
hastened to her side with words of hope.
Though the case was serious, he told her, there
was a prospect of recovery. MacDonald was at
first afraid that the ball was in the left lung and that
to extract it would prove a critical operation, but
fortunately it had just grazed that organ and lodged
in the flesh to the left, and he had completed the
operation without added danger.
“Cheer up,” said Harold softly. “I can not be-
lieve that it will be fatal. Men have recovered from
worse wounds. Proper nursing will no doubt bring
him round.”
The girl thanked him with a look, then turned
her pale drawn face toward the lake, whose growing
calm seemed now reflected in her eyes.
“If he lives and you should choose him, Alber-
ta,” the unhappy rival then bravely forced himself
to say, “I’d be compelled to admit that I know no
one more worthy. A month ago it would have been
different, but he and I have been through the sort
of experience that shows what a man is made of.
I know him now for what he is, and it would be
y
beastly of me to make trouble since you—” He was


A FOREST DRAMA. 263
when called into the room, timidly related what she
knew of Hawksworth's relations with Miss Ran-
som, not omitting to mention the fact that the for-
mer had left the latter entirely to herself, except for
an occasional chat when Miss Ransom walked out,
and at dinner during a week past. She concluded
with the remarkable statement that she reverenced
the “good Monsieur” but thought it a cruel and un-
lawful thing that he had done to the “sweet lady,”
and then, observing that her utterance had provoked
a smile, she retired in confusion.
Alberta was now requested to leave her charge
with Colinette and come up to testify. Her story was
brief and to the point. Her beauty, dignity, and com-
posure, and her manifest desire to avoid exaggera-
tion, made a profound impression on all present.
“I must tell you,” she said in conclusion, “that
though this man is what he is and has done what he
has done, his consideration for me after I was
brought here left little to be desired. He said he
wanted to win my love and, on the whole, he seemed
really to try. His motive was selfish, you will say,
but its influence was none the less fortunate for me.
My life here was not the nightmare it might have
been.”
As Alberta rose to retire, Harold rose also, and


264 A FOREST DRAMA.
this brought the whole court to its feet, including
even the judge and the Indian chief. Thus she
passed out from among them as a queen might have
passed, and the object of a more genuine homage.
“I ain't a judge and you ain't a jury—this is
just a taking of evidence,” said MacDonald, “but I
don't mind askin some of you what you think
ought to be done with the prisoner. What do you
say, Three Bears?”
The chief seemed troubled as to how to answer,
but clearly intimated that he washed his hands of
the affair. He said he had been deceived by a bad
man's fair words and good deeds. All these people
who told the same story in different ways could not
be liars; it must be the truth. He regretted only
that Jeremiah was not there to confess his share in
the kidnapping. It was not for Three Bears, the
Indian, to say what should be done with the pris-
oner. It was a white man's quarrel and white men
should choose the punishment.
“Well said,” remarked MacDonald when the
speech had been translated for Harold's benefit.
“There's an Indian with a level head.”
Being asked for his opinion, Raphael said he
thought, provided it could be done, that the prisoner


266 A FOREST DRAMA.
to say that he deserves it. He must go to Glengary.
What the factor’ll do with him I can't say, but it's
likely he'll send him south and recommend that they
ship him to England. As an escaped convict alone
he would likely go up for twenty years, and this
kidnappin' and the shootin' of your friend in addi-
tion may bring him a life sentence. I think it will,
if you manage it right.”
“You may depend on that,” said Harold, as soon
as he saw that argument would be futile. “I’ll go
to Glengary with you and to England with him.
He deserves hanging on the spot for the kidnapping
alone—in my opinion almost the worst of crimes,—
but if I can't get a rope for him, I'll get at least
a life sentence. I devote myself to it.”
After taking a few more notes, MacDonald
turned to the prisoner:
“And now what have you to say for yourself?
What is your statement?”
“My statement,” said Hawksworth with com-
posure, but with a flame of hatred in his eyes, “is
that every man who has spoken here is a liar, and
that you are a d-d fool!”
Harold Ransom started half out of his chair, but
subsided into his place as the representative of the


A FOREST DRAMA. 267
great trading company of the north began to laugh
softly.
“I guess you calculated to wind up this meetin'
with a witty remark and get the laugh on us,” Mac-
Donald said drily to the prisoner, “but after thirty
or forty years of hard labor you'll be pretty apt to
laugh on t'other side of your mouth.”
An hour later Hawksworth was led out of the
house and conducted to the shack, where he re-
mained until his removal to Glengary, meanwhile
being kept in bonds and under lock and key. By
day he was left alone except when it was necessary
to give him food, but the Owl agreed to sleep in
the same room with him at night in order to give
the alarm should any of the Indians led by Jeremiah
attempt to rescue and set him free. MacDonald
thought that such a precaution was now unneces-
sary, but Harold preferred the sense of security
which the arrangement furnished, and liberally re-
warded the faithful half-breed for his devotion.
MacDonald voluntarily proposed to stay several
days in order to watch Lucien, until it was seen
whether he would begin to grow better or worse.
On the fifth day the patient's condition was pro-
nounced so favorable as to render it reasonably safe
to leave him in the hands of good nurses, MacDon-


268 A FOREST DRAMA.
ald explaining that he was the more willing to do
so seeing that at Glengary he would be near enough
to be called if unfavorable symptoms such as he did
not anticipate should develop. But, yielding to
Harold's urgent solicitations, he extended his so-
journ to ten days, at the expiration of which he
confidently declared that complete recovery was
only a matter of time. He stated, however, that the
patient would be unable to travel for weeks and
should not attempt to leave The Retreat before mid-
winter at the earliest.
If desirable Lucien could arrange to remain with
Raphael and Colinette at The Retreat during the
entire winter. Harold would of course accompany
MacDonald and the prisoner to the trading post and
later, in pursuance of his expressed determination,
convey the latter to England and see to it that this
time the “masterful” lawbreaker would be incarce-
rated for life. But what of Alberta ?
Harold expected her to go south with him and
made his plans accordingly, but before the day of
departure arrived he learned that such was not her
intention.
“I am glad Lucien has improved so rapidly,” he
said to her as they walked out together in the bright
cold afternoon, “because we need to start at the


FAMOUS STANDARD
JUVENILE LIBRARIES.
ANY VOLUME SOLD SEPARATELY AT $1.00 PER VOLUMB
(Except the Sportsman's Club Series, Frank Nelson Series and
Jack Hazard Series.).
Each Volume Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth.
HORATIO ALGER, JR.
THE enormous sales of the books of Horatio Alger, Jr.,
show the greatness of his popularity among the boys, and
prove that he is one of their most favored writers. I am told
that more than half a million copies altogether have been
sold, and that all the large circulating libraries in the country
have several complete sets, of which only two or three vol-
umes are ever on the shelves at one time. If this is true,
what thousands and thousands of boys have read and are
reading Mr. Alger's books! His peculiar style of stories,
often imitated but never equaled, have taken a hold upon the
young people, and, despite their similarity, are eagerly read
as soon as they appear. -
Mr. Alger became famous with the publication of that
undying book, “Ragged Dick, or Street Life in New York.”
It was his first book for young people, and its success was so
great that he immediately devoted himself to that kind of
writing. It was a new and fertile field for a writer then, and
Mr. Alger's treatment of it at once caught the fancy of the
boys. “Ragged Dick” first appeared in 1868, and ever since
then it has been selling steadily, until now it is estimated
that about 200,000 copies of the series have been sold.
-Pleasant Hours for Boys and Girls.


* HENRY T. coATEs & co.'s PopULAR JUVENILEs.
A writer for boys should have an abundant sympathy
with them. He should be able to enter into their plans,
hopes, and aspirations. He should learn to look upon life
as they do. Boys object to be written down to. A boy's
heart opens to the man or writer who understands him.
—From Writing Stories for Boys, by Horatio Alger, Jr.
RAGGED DICK SERIES.
6 vols. BY HoRATIO ALGER, JR. $6.oo
Ragged Dick. Rough and Ready.
Fame and Fortune. Ben the Luggage Boy.
Mark the Match Boy. Rufus and Rose.
TATTERED TOM SERIES-First Series.
4 vols. BY HoRATIO ALGER, JR. $4.oo
Tattered Torn. Phil the Fiddler.
Paul the Peddler. Slow and Sure.
TATTERED TOM SERIES-Second Series.
4 vols. $4.oo
ulius. Sam's Chance.
he Young Outlaw. The Telegraph Boy.
CAMPAIGN SERIES.
3 vols. BY HORATIO ALGER, JR. $3.oo
Frank's Campaign. Charlie Codman's Cruise.
Paul Prescott's Charge.
LUCK AND PLUCK SERIES-First Series.
4 vols. BY HORATIO ALGER, JR. $4.oo
Luck and Pluck. Strong and Steady.
Sink or Swim. Strive and Succeed.


RENRY T. coATEs & co.'s PoPULAR JUVENILEs. 3
LUCK AND PLUCK SERIES–Second Series.
4 vols. $4.oo
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Bound to Rise. Herbert Carter's. Legacy.
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jack's Ward. Wait and Hope.
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The Young Salesman.
GOOD FORTUNE LIBRARY.
3 vols. BY HoRATIO ALGER, JR. $3.oo
Walter Sherwood's Probation. A Boy's Fortune.
The Young Bank Messenger.
RUPERT'S AMBITION.
1 vol. BY HoRATIO ALGER, JR. $1.oo
JED, THE Poor-House Boy.
1 vol. BY HoRATIO ALGRR, JR. $1.oo


4 HENRY T. COATES & Co.'s POPULAR JUVENILRs.
HARRY CASTLEMON.
HOW I CAME TO WRITE MY FIRST BOOK.
f WHEN I was sixteen years old I belonged to a composi-
tion class. It was our custom to go on the recitation seat
every day with clean slates, and we were allowed ten min-
utes to write seventy words on any subject the teacher
thought suited to our capacity. One day he gave out “What
a Man Would See if He Went to Greenland.” My heart was
in the matter, and before the ten minutes were up I had one
side of my slate filled. The teacher listened to the reading
of our compositions, and when they were all over he simply
said: “Some of you will make your living by writing one
of these days.” That gave me something to ponder upon.
I did not say so out loud, but I knew that may composition
was as good as the best of them. By the way, there was
another thing that came in my way just then. I was read-
ing at that time one of Mayne Reid’s works which I had
drawn from the library, and I pondered upon it as much as
I did upon what the teacher said to me. In introducing
Swartboy to his readers he made use of this expression:
“No visible change was observable in Swartboy's counte-
nance.” Now, it occurred to me that if a man of his educa-
tion could make such a blunder as that and still write a
book, I ought to be able to do it, too. I went home that very
day and began a story, “The Old Guide's Narrative,” which
was sent to the New York Weekly, and came back, respect-
Aully declined. It was written on both sides of the sheets
but I didn’t know that this was against the rules. Nothing
abashed, I began another, and receiving some instruction,
from a friend of mine who was a clerk in a book store, I
wrote it on only one side of the paper. But mind you, he
didn't know what I was doing. Nobody knew it; but one


HENRY T. coATES & Co.'s PoPULAR JUVENILEs. 5
day, after a hard Saturday's work—the other boys had been
out skating on the brick-pond—I shyly broached the subject
to my mother. I felt the need of some sympathy. She
listened in amazement, and then said: “Why, do you think
you could write a book like that?” That settled the matter,
and from that day no one knew what I was up to until I sent
the first four volumes of Gunboat Series to my father. Was
it work? Well, yes; it was hard work, but each week I had
the satisfaction of seeing the manuscript grow until the
“Young Naturalist” was all complete.
—Harry Castlemon in the Writer.
GUNBOAT SERIES.
6 vols. BY HARRY CASTLEMON. $6.oo
Frank the Young Naturalist. Frank before Vicksburg.
Frank on a Gunboat. Frank on the Lower Mississippi.
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Frank Among the Rancheros. Frank in the Mountains.
Frank at Don Carlos' Rancho.
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Snowed up. Frank in the Forecastle. The Boy Traders.
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The Buried Treasure. The Boy Trapper. The Mail Carrier.


6 HENRY T. coATES & Co.'s PoPULAR JUVENILEs.
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George in Camp. George at the Fort.
George at the Wheel.
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- Carl, The Trailer.


RENRY T. CoATES & Co.'s PoPULAR JUVENILEs. 7
EDWARD S. ELLIS.
EDwARD S. ELLIS, the popular writer of boys' books, is
a native of Ohio, where he was born somewhat more than a
half-century ago. His father was a famous hunter and rifle
shot, and it was doubtless his exploits and those of his asso-
ciates, with their tales of adventure which gave the son his
taste for the breezy backwoods and for depicting the stirring
life of the early settlers on the frontier.
Mr. Ellis began writing at an early age and his work was
acceptable from the first. His parents removed to New
Jersey while he was a boy and he was graduated from the
State Normal School and became a member of the faculty
while still in his teens. He was afterward principal of the
Trenton High School, a trustee and then superintendent of
schools. By that time his services as a writer had become
so pronounced that he gave his entire attention to literature.
He was an exceptionally successful teacher and wrote a num-
ber of text-books for schools, all of which met with high
favor. For these and his historical productions, Princeton
College conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts.
The high moral character, the clean, manly tendencies
and the admirable literary style of Mr. Ellis’ stories have
made him as popular on the other side of the Atlantic as in
this country. A leading paper remarked some time since,
that no mother need hesitate to place in the hands of her boy
any book written by Mr. Ellis. They are found in the lead-
ing Sunday-school libraries, where, as may well be believed,
they are in wide demand and do much good by their sound,
wholesomelessons which render them as acceptable to parents
as to their children. All of his books published by Henry
T. Coates & Co. are re-issued in London, and many have
been translated into other languages. Mr. Ellis is a writer
of varied accomplishments, and, in addition to his stories, is
the author of historical works, of a number of pieces of pop-


8 HENRY T. coATEs & co.'s PoPULAR JUVENILEs.
ular music and has made several valuable inventions. Mr.
Ellis is in the prime of his mental and physical powers, and
great as have been the merits of his past achievements, there
is reason to look for more brilliant productions from his pen
in the near future.
DEERFOOT SERIES.
3 vols. BY EDWARD S. ELLIS. $3.oo
Hunters of the Ozark. The Last War Trail.
Camp in the Mountains.
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Lost Trail. Footprints in the Forest.
Camp-Fire and Wigwam.
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Ned in the Block-House. Ned on the River.
Ned in the Woods.
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Two Boys in Wyoming. Cowmen and Rustlers.
A Strange Craft and its Wonderful Voyage.
BOONE AND KENTON SERIES.
3 vols. BY EDWARD S. ELLIS. $3.oo
Shod with Silence. In the Days of the Pioneers.
Phantom of the River.
IRON HEART, WAR CHIEF OF THE IROQUOIS.
I vol. BY EDWARD S. ELLIS. $1.oo
| THE SECRET OF COFFIN ISLAND.
I vol. BY EDWARD S. ELLIS. $1.00
THE BLAZING ARROW.
I vol. BY EDwARD S. ELLIS. $1.00


RENRY T. CoATES & Co.'s PoPULAR JUvENILES 9
J. T. TROWBRIDGE.
, NEITHER as a writer does he stand apart from the great
currents of life and select some exceptional phase or odd
combination of circumstances. He stands on the common
level and appeals to the universal heart, and all that he sug-
gests or achieves is on the plane and in the line of march of
the great body of humanity.
The Jack Hazard series of stories, published in the late
Our Young Folks, and continued in the first volume of St.
Micholas, under the title of “Fast Friends,” is no doubt
destined to hold a high place in this class of literature. The
delight of the boys in them (and of their seniors, too) is
well founded. They go to the right spot every time. Trow-
bridge knows the heart of a boy like a book, and the heart
of a man, too, and he has laid them both open in these books
in a most successful manner. Apart from the qualities that
render the series so attractive to all young readers, they
have great value on account of their portraitures of American
country life and character. The drawing is wonderfully
accurate, and as spirited as it is true. The constable, Sel-
lick, is an original character, and as minor figures where will
we find anything better than Miss Wansey, and Mr. P. Pip-
kin, Esq. The picture of Mr. Dink's school, too, is capital,
and where else in fiction is there a better nick-name than
that the boys gave to poor little Stephen Treadwell, “Step
Hen,” as he himself pronounced his name in an unfortunate
moment when he saw it in print for the first time in his les-
son in school.
On the whole, these books are very satisfactory, and
afford the critical reader the rare pleasure of the works that
are just adequate, that easily fulfill themselves and accom-
Plish all they set out to do.—Scribner's Monthly.


1o HENRY T. coATRs & Co.'s PoPULAR JUVENILEs.
JACK HAZARD SERIES.
6 vols. By J. T. TRowBRI GE. $7.25
ack Hazard and His Fortunes. Doing His Best.
he Young Surveyor. A Chance for Himself.
Fast Friends. Lawrence's Adventures.
ROUNDABOUT LIBRARY.
For Boys and Girls.
(97 Volumes.) 75c. per Volume.
The attention of Librarians and Bookbuyers generally
is called to HENRY T. COATES & Co.'s ROUNDABOUT
LIBRARY, by the popular authors.
EDWARD S. ELLIS, MARGARET VANDEGRIFT,
HORATIO ALGER, JR., HARRY CASTLEMON,
C. A. STEPHENS, G. A. HENTY,
LUCY C. LILLIE and others.
No authors of the present day are greater favorites with
boys and girls.
Every book is sure to meet with a hearty reception by
woung readers.
Librarians will find them to be among the most popular
books on their lists.
Complete lists and net prices furnished on application.
HENRY T. COATES & CO.
PHILADELPHIA