Adventure Magazine Cover — page 69: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Bullet and the Blast Il May GASPARD BEAUCHAMPS—hot, thirsty, tired and reviling with | French-Canadian proficiency the swarm of black flies that tormented him— made his way along the little blazed trail through the spruce forest to the blind pig kept by Papa Dupré on Lake Shabogama. “T have thirst the most great, mon papal” bellowed Gaspard in the French- Canadian patois, throwing his pack dis- gustedly upon the floor of Dupré’s shack. He seated himself expectantly in a huge chair constructed of spruce saplings and sprawled his legs in an attitude of indolence under a rough table. Papa Dupré’s griz- zled old face brightened with prompt un- derstanding. He fetched a bottle from its cache and poured therefrom a glassful of that strong, colorless liquor that is known to the Canadians as ‘‘white wheat.” Gaspard drank, smacking his lips. He drew a fat wallet from his pocket and tossed a ten-dollar bill carelessly upon the table. “It is that busines is good—hezn?” queried Dupré, noting the size of the visi- tor’s wallet and catching a glimpse of the denominations of some of the bank-notes therein contained. “The Russians are of the buyers the most silly,” vouchsafed Beauchamps with good-humored reminiscence. “Like the sheep,”’ he added with an air of conscious superintelligence. The pedler helped himself to another glassful of the white wheat that Papa Dupré, with keen business acumen, had left temptingly within reach on the table. “T perform not longer the hard labor, me,” boasted Gaspard with a mellow and superior air. Papa Dupré stood looking through the open doorway, which *afforded an unob- structed view of the placid surface of Lake Shabogama, stretching mysteriously into the northern solitudes between its pretty, spruce-girt shores. Miles distant a tiny black speck marred the water’s otherwise unsullied brightness. “That will be the canoe of Pierre La- lange,’’ mused Papa Dupré. “T take not interest, me, in M’siew’ Pierre Lalange—whoever he may be,” rumbled Gaspard petulantly. “Pierre Lalange is a coureur de bois. He is of the country of the Lac Saint Jean. ? 63 The best shot in the*Quebecs is Pierre Lalange.”’ “Tt also shoot, me,” declared Gaspard with contentious arrogance, significantly tapping his pocket. Nothing -was to be gained by pursuing this sort of argument, thought Papa Dupré, who thereupon tactfully dropped the subject and proceeded to refill the pedler’s glass. Gaspard dawdled away another half- hour at the blind pig, bestowing somewhat more attention upon the potent white wheat than was good for him. “A little companion of the pocket, Papa Dupré,” said he at length, winking grotesquely. “It needs that I return to the business.” DUPRE obligingly filled a pocket- flask for his customer, who there- upon paid the bill and rose un- steadily to his feet. Shouldering his pack again, with a perfunctory “Adieu!” Gas- pard sallied forth into the sunlight. Break- ing exuberantly into song, down the path toward the right of way he ambled, past a little log cabin on the shore of the lake. Jacqueline Dupré, the old man’s daughter, was hanging out wash on a clothes-line at the back of the cabin. The sunlight sparkled on the fone dark hair that fell in attractive coils over her graceful shoulders; and, impatient at the restraint imposed by a gaudy little waist, a pretty sun-burned neck and a pair of shapely brown arms escaped therefrom and boldly paraded their attractiveness. Jacqueline’s little person was pulsing just then with the eternal song of health and youth—for was not M’sieu’ Pierre due today from the North? the black hair and the keen eyes and the broad shoulders and the tireless limbs of the hunter? Jacqueline hummed blithe- somely some notes from the epic of happi- ness that bubbled out of her*heart and draped her newly washed clothes with. true Gallic neatness from the clothes-line. Into the liquory eyes of Gaspard the pedler came then this dainty vision. He stopped, coughed significantly and ap- proached the young girl, doffing his cap with exaggerated gallantry. Women— young and comely women—vwere almost as Pierré Lalange of . rare in the Quebec wilderness as birds of paradise. P ECORMICLOOOKS (E@)