“Non! Non! Non!” the man shrieked, and his voice carried far into the wilderness.
“Oui,” Jules answered; “an’ eef Ah could, Ah vould torture toi leet’ piece by taime, mais Le Grand an’ Marie no lak’ dat. So Ah ’m goin’ laisse’ les eaux du bon Dieu do heet!”
He stopped and rolled the bound figure, with its clinging stones that struck dully together, to the canoe. He slit the light bark in several places, then with a powerful heave he lifted Annaotaha, stones and all, and dropped him into the craft.
“Le diable he have you een five minute’!” he said as he pushed the canoe with its burden far out into the rushing current. It hung there a moment, then gathering speed, dashed away toward the rapids that shone white and ugly below. Verbaux watched it and listened to the renegade’s screams; the canoe settled lower and lower, then it struck the first fast water; it lurched and plunged soggily, cleared one big wave, hovered staggering on the next crest, disappeared in the hollow beyond, and came in sight no more.
XXIII
THE CROSS ON THE MOUNTAIN
Jules turned from the water’s edge. The night was clear with the light of the rising moon.
“To-mor’ Ah tak’ toi sur la montagne, an’ mak’ de las’ camp pour toi là-bas,” he said mournfully to the body of his friend, then lay beside it on the cold ground; all night he lay there, awake and bitterly saddened.
“Eef Ah had onlee comme back for dat knife!” he muttered again and again.
At dawn he got up, hungry and aching, and tenderly fastened carrying-straps, which he made from his own shirt, about Le Grand’s stiff body; he straightened out the cold limbs, lifted the dead-weight form to his back, and started on his last tramp with his friend. He lingered over the places where Le Grand had rested the day before, and smoothed the mosses where his “ami” had sat, and finally he reached the peak of Mont d’Ours again with his burden.