Returning to the house, she threw a fresh log on the fire, and placing the food where it would keep warm she closed the door, casting one disconsolate look across the dark water at the western sky, from which the faintest glow had departed. Taking the path that led to the pasture, she hastened with hurried step to seek her children. She gained the pasture. The cows were quietly grazing; there was no other sign of life. Her heart sank within her. She shouted, and her cries pierced the dew-laden air. There was no response. She sank upon her knees and her prayer, oft repeated, was, “Mother of pity, have compassion on a mother’s sorrow and give me back my little ones!”
The thought suddenly seized her that the children had failed to find the calves and, in returning, had not taken the path, but sought the house by a nigh cut through the woods. She sprang to her feet and hastened back. Alas! the door had not been opened, and everything was as she left it.
“My God!” she cried in the bitterness of her disappointment, “I fear me the wolf garou has met and devoured my children. What shall I do? Marie, my pretty one, wilt thou not again nestle in thy mother’s bosom nor press thy cheek to mine? Holy Virgin, thou who hadst a babe of thine own, look on me with compassion and give back to me my innocent lambs.”
Again she sought the pasture, and even ventured, at her peril, to thread in the darkness the woods that surrounded it, shouting, in a voice shrill with agony, the names of the missing ones, but no answering sound came. Heedless of her garments wet with dew, of her weariness, her need of food and sleep, she spent the night wandering back and forth between house and pasture, hoping to find them at either place, and always disappointed. The stars melted away one by one, the twitter of the birds was heard, the tree-tops reddened, and the sun again looked down upon her. She resumed the search with renewed hope, for now she could see. With the native confidence of one born in the bush she traversed the leafy aisles, but her search was in vain. There was only a strip of bush to be examined, for a great swamp bounded it on one side as the St Lawrence did on the other, and into the swamp she deemed it impossible the children could have gone. She was more convinced than before that a wild beast had killed them and dragged their bodies to its lair in the swamp. Stunned by this awful conjecture, to which all the circumstances pointed, her strength left her, and in deep anguish of spirit she tottered homewards. On coming in sight of the shanty she marked with surprise smoke rising from the chimney. Her heart gave a great leap. “They have returned!” she said joyfully. She hastened to the door. A glance brought back her sorrow. She saw only her husband and her eldest son.
“What ails thee? Your face is white as Christmas snow. We came from Coteau this morning and found nobody here. What is wrong?”
“Joseph,” she replied in a hollow voice, “the wolf garou hath devoured our children.”
“Never! Thou art mad. There is no wolf garou.”
“I leave it all with the good God: I wish there was no wolf garou.” Then she told him of the disappearance of the children and of her vain search. Husband and son listened attentively.
“Pooh!” exclaimed Caza, “they are not lost forever to us. Get us breakfast and Jean and I will track them and have them back to thee before long. You do not know how to find and follow a trail.”
An hour later, shouldering their rifles, they set forth. The day passed painfully for the poor mother, and it was long after sunset when they returned. They had found no trace of the wanderers. They had met the calves, which, from the mud that covered them, had evidently been in the swamp and floundered there long before they got back to solid land at a point distant from the pasture. The father’s idea was that the children had been stolen by Indians. Next day the search was resumed, the neighbors joining in it. At nightfall all returned baffled, perplexed and disheartened; Caza more confident than before that the Indians were to blame. After a night’s rest, he set off early for St Regis, where he got no information. Leaving there, he scoured the forest along Trout River and the Chateaugay, finding a few hunting-camps, whose dusky inmates denied all knowledge of the missing girls. He pursued his toilsome way to Caughnawaga and came back by the river St Louis without discovering anything to throw light on the fate of his children. The grief of the mother who had been buoying herself with the expectation that he would bring back the truants, is not to be described; and she declared it would be a satisfaction to her to be assured of their death rather than longer endure the burden of suspense. Again the father left to scour the wilderness that lies between the St Lawrence and the foot-hills of the Adirondacks, hoping to find in some wigwam buried in forest-depths the objects of his eager quest. On reaching Lake Champlain he became convinced that the captors were beyond his reach, and, footsore and broken-hearted, he sought his home, to make the doleful report that he had not found the slightest trace.