A Gentleman of Courage: A Novel of the Wilderness

by James Oliver Curwood

It was a little girl, six or seven years old, and forgetting in his amazement the thundering menace of the sea Pierre thought that in all his life he had never seen anything so beautiful as this child. She was not hurt. Her eyes were wide open—great, dark eyes that were velvety pools of terror—and her face, lovely as an angel's, looked at him from a mass of jet-black hair that dripped with water and clung about her neck and shoulders like silken strands of seaweed. It was as if a vision had crept up from the foaming surf to taunt him, a vision of a face he had painted in his dreams and had prayed for and hoped for all through the years of his life, and he dashed the water from his eyes to see more clearly. Then he reached down and drew the child to him and held her fragile, slim little body in his arms. The woman's face changed then. Its fierce resolution died out. She became suddenly limp, and seeing her weakness Pierre caught hold of her so that the surf would not beat her from the rock.

"I will get you ashore," he shouted. "You must not give up! You must hold to the rock!"

He bent his face to the child's.

"And you——"

She lay against his breast. Her eyes were looking up at him steadily, and words choked in Pierre's throat. Those eyes, it seemed to him, were too beautiful for a child's eyes. Her lips were still red. But her face was the color of a white cameo in its frame of wonderful black hair, and the thought came to him again that it was an angel the storm had blown in from the sea.

The woman was drawing herself up beside him. Another wave broke against the rock, smothering them in its surf. Out of it came her voice.

"I am Mona Guyon," she cried, so close that her head touched his shoulder. "This is my baby. Her father—went down—there—beside the rock—a few minutes ago. Take her ashore——"

A roaring flood inundated them. When it was gone Pierre drew in a deep breath.

"You must hold to the rock," he shouted again. "I will come back for you. It will be easy—easy for all of us to get ashore—if you will hold to the rock!"