A Gentleman of Courage

him was whispering softly the truth of his faith and his creed. For Pierre was the son of a runner of the streams and forests, as that son's father had been before him, and love of adve

had touched the consecrated water from the sacred font, and had looked with awe upon mountains of canes and crutches left by those who had[2] come afflicted and doubting and

raying gently that at last their long wanderings up the St. Lawrence and along this wilderness shore of Superior ha

boy quested on hands and knees in the ferns and green grass for wild stra

one almost think the big lake is aliv

agreed Josette, seating herself wearily upon a big stone, "though

all the years that have followed since that d

ed through[3] it until an answering shout came from deep in the spruces and balsams, and a little later Dominique Beauvais came out to the ed

e Gourdon made a wide and all

live in," he said. "It is wh

led. Again they were happy. The boy was hunting

r in the day, and broke into a wild boat song which his grandfather had taught him on his knee in the wic

atigue seemed to have run away from them now that their questi

ans, and long after nine-year-old Joe had crawled into his blanket to sleep, and the women's eyes were growing soft with dro

t last Josette fell asleep, her head pillowed close to her boy's, her red lips that had not lost their prettiness through motherhood and wandering were tender with a new peace and contentment. And a little later, while Pierre and Dominique still smoked and p

tly emptied the ash from his

ty of game, and where there is

ant, a deep and murmuring echo, faint and very far, that broke in

whispere

minique, half rising to ca

5

orth shore of Superior the cry of wolves in the forest

y where the kill was made. Mellow darkness trembled and thrilled with life. Silent-winged creatures came and disappeared like ghosts. Bright eyes watched the sleeping camp of the home seekers.

f life, and little birds that were silent in the

y was dreaming. Pierre slept with his head pillowed in the crook of his arm. Dominique's whiskers were turned to the sky

the morning chatter of a multitude of red squirrels[6]

struck deep into the sweetly scented hearts of the cedar trees out of which they were to build th

ific. Black and green and purple with its balsam, cedar and spruce, silver and gold with its poplar and birch, splashed red with mountain ash, its climbing billows and dripping hollows were radiantly tinted by midsummer sun-and darkly sullen and mysteriou

f broken at the joint, was a placid pool of green and silver over which the gulls floated, calling out their soft notes in welcome to the home builders, and in its white sand were the prints of many feet, both of birds and of beasts, who played and washed themselves there, and came down to drink. Between these two, the open and peaceful serenity of the i

e and home. Pierre sang, as his grandfather had sung long years ago, and Dominique bellowed like a baying hound when the chorus came. Women's laughter rose with the singin

riendly. The deer came down to drink again in the dusk, and moose rattled their antlers up the ridge. Pop-eyed whisky jacks began to eat bannock crumbs close to Josette's hands. Jays came nearer to scream their defiance, like wild Indians, in the t

rst week they saw far out in its hazy vastness wh

d of birch and poplar thickets for violet roots, and out in the sheltered fens and meadow-dips for hyacinths and fire-flowers; and in the hour before dusk, when the day's work was over and supper was eaten, they would go hand in han

9

little to do with, but with a world full of endeavor and anticipation ahead of them. And it worried them to see that the fruits were ripening, red raspberries so thick the bears were turning into hulks o

returning with sixty pounds of burden, and berries were put into cans and dried and preserved-until Pierre and Dominique began to tease their wives and ask them if they wanted their hu

e each morning with new wonder and new joy in their eyes. For if these frosts were giving to the waters of the lake a colder and harder sheen, with[10] something of menace an

the days when the carnival of autumn color was gone and all but the evergreen trees assumed the ragged distress of naked limbs and branches, and winds broke down

es; long months of adventure and thrill of deep snows and stinging blizzards on the trap lines, of red-hot stoves, and

s, and the bears hunted their dens. One after another songbirds departed, leaving the whisky jacks and the jays behind, and the ravens gathered in flocks, while in the thickets[11] and swamps the big snowshoe rabbits turned from brown to gray and fr

It was a cold, dry winter, and there was never a day that a haunch of venison or moose meat was not hanging behind the cabins. Trapping was good, and the store of pelts grew as the weeks went on, until Pierre and Dominique both swore in the same breath that it

bins. Pierre and Dominique built toboggans, and from the crest of the ridge where they had first looked[12] down upon the Five Fingers they sped in wild races over the open and halfway across the snow-crusted ice of the m

hungrily, like a woodchuck, only to hunt himself a den again when he saw his shadow freezing in the snow. After this there was more sun in the morning and less of the cold of sullen twilight each night, and before ev

lowers. He was a cold-footed and crabbed-looking bird, forlorn and disappointed at the worl

rents, lakes and ponds crept up over their sides, and the tiny stream which passed near the cabins, quiet and gentle in summertime, was all at once a riotous and quarrelsome outlaw, roaring and foaming in its mad rush down to the Middle Finger. Half a mile away was a larger stream whose flood sounds cam

sh sparrows whose voices were sweetest of all the spring songsters. The earth itself began to breathe with swelling roots and tips of green; the first flowers popped up; the popla

ing in his head all winter. He was standing with Josette at the tip of th

er as fine as this

e the woods were cu

e laid her cheek against his shoulder so that his lips cou

confession would thrill the one at his side, "and I have said nothing about it, but have done much thinking. Would

Josette, her heart giv

n Dufresne, and Sara, and all the children. And there is room for the Clamarts, too, and Jean Croisset and his wife. It is a big land,

suddenly round her husband's neck[15] and kissed him. And Pierre, with a heart full of happiness, little guessed th