“Lucy and I will expect you, Andy,” earnestly pleaded LeClare. “With you present we shall want for nothing to make our wedding a union of complete happiness.”
Mr. Cameron grasped the extended hand of his faithful associate and friend, saying in his quiet, determined way, “LeClare, we have faced disappointment together, we have endured hardships of a kind to test the merits of our friendship many times before. Defeat we have never acknowledged; sorrow we have borne together side by side in the valley of death. Success and wealth are ours, and happiness, sweetest happiness, Edmond, is yours. Wherever I may be at the call of your wedding bells I will go to add one more good wish for a long journey of life and joy to you.”
At another conference held in the office of Donald Ban, Mr. Cameron had told of his plans for the future. Addressing his friend the lawyer, he had said: “My mission at The Front is finished. The death of Barbara has been avenged. The hypocrites, her tormentors, have been brought very low, the weak are much stronger in person, and justice at last has prevailed. I ask for no thanks or recognition but from our children in Arcadia; in the generations to come may they look awe-inspired as they pass the strange mansion, and be mindful of the moral which was taught when we builded the House of Cariboo.”
THE GROWING MASKINONGE
It was Sunday morning at the “Point.” And over across the bay the last of the phantoms in “Ghost Hollow” had crept up the lampless posts of the walk through “Spook Grove,” and, vaulting in an uncanny way, reached cover in the branches of the birch trees that were thickly clustered around the cottages lining “Spirit Lane” west to the bowling alley. It was through “Ghost Hollow” that the cottagers living to the westward passed while going to and returning from the boat landing and the hotel over at the Point.
At the misty dawn on this Sunday morning the forlorn spectres of the spirits which frequented the small bay were stalking from the water, answering from the hidden abode among the dark cottages of the lane the homing call of the doleful strains of a “chella.” In obedience to their spirit queen they wafted wearily through the rushes and ferns upon the bank; borne by the receding shades of darkness, they sought their resting places under the rafters and the eaves of the gruesome roof of the bowling alley, which crouched along by the vine-covered wall at the brow of the hill. It was then an Indian, from the tribe of St. Regis, on the mainland, stole unnoticed upon the scene and beached his canoe upon the east shore of the bay. He looked about for signs of the awakening day, then stealthily he dropped on his knees, and from beneath a covering in the bow of his “dug-out” dragged up upon the bank a forty-pound maskinonge.
“Hi! hi!” he cackled in the weird voice of his race. “Hotel man like much Injun.” Then disappearing to the rear of the out buildings, life to him soon became brighter by visions of “fire water” and a warm breakfast—he had sold the fish.