Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine — page 101: what you’re looking at

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

i JACQUES OF THE THICK HEAD. 443 they come?—he will undoubtedly give you a reward—or are you going to let your thick head do us another injury?” “T don’t know,” he answered slowly; and for the first time he admitted his dis- satisfaction with himself. ‘I wish I were not such a fool!” : : “Tt is the end for us,” she said bitterly. “ My father is still living and I have a home!” In silence they walked back to the-camp, and, while Ceéleste went inside, Jacques turned to the pile of firewood and worked furiously; he had no heart to go back to his chopping and he could not remain still. For the second time in their lives there was a sharp division of their ways, and now his instinct told him there would be no sur- render on the part of his wife. It was true that she had endured much. Yet he did not see how he could have done differently, from the time when he had be- friended Henri Painchaud to the present day. Even the man whose note he had signed had been in desperate need. And thus, filled with impotent regrets, the after- noon wore on to a close. Tt was dusk, and Grondin had driven his ax into the chopping block preparatory to going in for his supper when the clatter of snow-shoes striking against each other caught his ear; he looked up to see a man staggering toward him from the edge of the clearing. The man was old, as evidenced by the grayness of the beard that brushed his chest; and he was either ill or hurt or starving, for he swayed at each step, his head rolled helplessly and his arms hung limp and powerless. But in spite of his condition he managed to drag, by means of a rawhide harness about the shoulders, a loaded sled. Grondin ran toward him, and at the first touch of his hands the old man collapsed, sinking down in a heap upon his snow- shoes. Jacques slashed away the harness and carried him into the cabin where Céleste, after the first exclamation of sur- prise, made ready their bunk. As Grondin put him down gently, he spoke one word, “Furs!” and then broke into a babble of delirium which had to do with the far north, and long marches, and dogs that had had to be killed after a fight with a wild- cat. “A trapper,” said Jacques, after the man had been undressed and wrapped in blankets. “ Many of them come down past Grande Montagne at the end of winter—it’s a short route but a hard one.” “Look at his face!” Céleste touched lightly a small patch of flesh not covered by matted hair and beard. “ He has fever —some kind of a sickness. And the man is half-starved!” In the woods there is one kind of sick- ness which tries the souls of men more than any other. If this stranger was stricken with the dread scourge of smallpox, then those who helped him risked their lives. Jacques and Céleste looked at each other with the same fear and the same question in their eyes. ‘“T don’t know,” said Jacques, in reply to her unspoken question. ‘“ But if a red rash comes upon his body, then, God help us!” ““ Whatever it is, he must be taken care of,” said Céleste, as she ttirned to the stove where supper was cooking. “It is our luck.” Grondin remembered the sled outside, and in the growing darkness he unloaded it of two heavy bales and a canvas sack, all of which he carried into the cabin. The sack contained nothing but a meager cook- ing outfit and a piece of salt pork big enough to make one bite for a hungry man. But the bales, brushed free of snow and inspected in the lamp-light, set the heart of Jacques Grondin pounding. “Céleste!” he whispered. ‘“ This man has a fortune in furs! Silver fox and mink and otter such as I never saw before!” She gave up a vain attempt to make the sick man-swallow some soup and shrugged. “The fox skins alone are worth a for- tune!” Jacques insisted, “If he lives he won't have to work any more!”’ “Eh, bien!’ she replied listlessly. ‘‘ That is nothing to us!” “No,” agreed her husband, as he sat down to the supper which she carried to the table, “ nor would I change places with him, for if I ever saw the mark of death it’s on his face now!” ConmicooolxS.comnn