Then the fire changed in his eyes, clouded, flickered, glowed—went out. The last breath was expelled with a wheeze. He was dead.
Then my own powers sank, and I thought that I was dying, too. Somewhere in the midst of my faintness I had a sense as if I felt, rather than heard, hasty, heavy footsteps on the bank above me. As soon as I knew anything clearly, I knew that the tree had been pulled away, and that Alaric was bending over me. He had, with ears alert for any sound, and with footsteps kept as near to me as they might be with obedience to my order, come rushing to my aid at the sound at my first revolver-shot. But the distance was so great that he did not arrive until my fight was over.
IN CANADA WITH A LYNX
By Roe L. Hendrick
This adventure came about through an invitation which Ray Churchill received from his friend, Jacques Pourbiere of Two Rivers, New Brunswick. Ray had half-promised to visit his New Brunswick acquaintance during the deer-hunting season, and late in August was reminded of the fact. A second letter came in September, the carefully worded school English of the writer not being able to conceal the warmth and urgency of the invitation.
So Ray telegraphed his acceptance, and four days later arrived at Fredericton, where he secured a hunting license. The next morning he reached Two Rivers, and Jacques met him with a span of ponies, attached to a queer spring vehicle, mounted on wheels that seemed out of all proportion to the body of the carriage. Ray wondered if it was a relic of Acadia, but did not like to ask. They drove for a dozen miles through a wooded and hilly country, and arrived at their destination shortly before nightfall.
Jacques was quite alone at the time, as his parents had gone to visit their older children along the St. John River. He promised Ray at least one deer within a couple of days, and another within a week.
The Pourbiere home resembled those of the better class of habitants, but with a difference due to the greater prosperity of the family in preceding generations. The main room had a huge fireplace, used only occasionally, for there was an air-tight stove connected with the chimney just above it, to afford greater warmth in winter. The other rooms Were chiefly detached, although there was an entry-like porch on the south front of the living-room, and a huge door opening at the east end, both connecting with the yard outside.
But the wood-shed, milk-house and summer kitchen were in the rear, each being a rectangular building of heavy logs, with low lofts above. The homestead was, in fact, a cluster of houses rather than a single dwelling.
What most attracted Ray's attention were the huge bedsteads in the living-room. They were tall four-posters, such as he had seen elsewhere, but with the difference that a canopy covered them. Each had a carved wooden frame, surmounting the top of the posts like a roof. The wood was black with age, its surface being covered with elaborate foliage and armorial devices, representing the toil of some old French artisan of the seventeenth century. They probably had been brought across the Atlantic by the original emigrant, and carefully preserved ever since. They stood in diagonally opposite corners of the room, and upheld the hugest of feather beds, with gay, home-made worsted coverlets and valances that shamed the hues of the rainbow. They certainly tempted to rest in that climate and at that season, but would have seemed suffocating in a warmer region.