Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 2, 1922 — page 120: what you’re looking at

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

590 put it, as he and the priest stood apart by themselves. And Pére Louvois, after great deliberation, answered with a huge sigh: ‘Although I do not intimate any com- parison otherwise, I confess that their pride can almost be likened to that of Satan! An odd world, sometimes,” he added, “for I had truly thought that these two might— well, that they might have been each made for the other!” Wherein the good Father had not been by himself. Another month went by, but still the tongues, of the women and the men, were busy with the affairs of Gervaise Armagnac. It is true that she handled her trading at the post with as expert a grasp as her father, but how a-girl or a woman could live that life alone, in that grim desolateness of Lac Morte, was beyond comprehension. For all her pride, they swore, she wanted some- thing—some one—but what? That was the question; that was the thing that puzzled. What? There were many—Hector and the pére among them—who rued the fact that she and Jason had been so antagonistic. She needed a man, up there at that cabin by the headwaters, and they had deemed that he was the most acceptable. Him, too, they blamed even more than Gervaise. Just be- cause he had probably heard about her pride, they averred, was no reason for him so brazenly to put forth his own. No. He had acted with as much stupidity as—yes— as Gervaise herself. Could the gossips, in particular, have seen him one night at Louis Leblanc’s, some five weeks after that memorable dance at M. Pompelle’s, they might have been given pause. The aforesaid Louis, it should be known, was proprietor of what was conceded to be the worst—or the best, as you looked at it —gaming and drinking haven in the north- land. It was over at Boileau’s Hope, the current prospecting center, a fair score of miles from Fork River Landing and easily that much further away than the settlement from the post at Lac Morte. Jason Kirk, while not to be classed as an habitué of the place, occasionally ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, dropped in, while at camp, for a game of stud. This, always, was confined to a table composed only of men he knew well. On this night, however, he was not even enjoying this infrequent recreation. He had badly twisted an ankle, that afternoon, and had been forced to lay up in one of the rooms above the bar. Finding sleep long in coming, he had improvised a crutch from one of the slats in his bed. With this, he hobbled down below. “Ha!” welcomed the urbane Louis, who never missed the most slight move. “ So M. Kirk, maybe, is going to attempt to wreck the faro bank, as he did four years ago?” “Not to-night, Louis,” smiled Jason. “This hanged ankle won’t let me sleep, and I just traipsed down to see if there was any decent stake game running. Feel like amus- ing myself by just watching one.” M. Leblanc, at that, spoke at least three of the proverbial volumes with his shoul- ders and his eyes. He intimated, all in that one shrug and rolling of the orbs, that the world had gone plainly and irremediably to the devil. And, to prove this, he ended with a spit of disgust: “Bah, M. Kirk, but just look, for ex- ample, at this Swedish Sven Landquist. In the brave old days—ah, those good days such as when you yourself broke the bank —a man making such a strike as he has would play to the limit, and even ask to have it removed. But this Swede? Cochon! He was here, to-night, and after he had lost a paltry two thousand in dust, or maybe a trifle more, he becomes infuriated, and stamps out, and gets his team, and says that he is traveling to where there is better excitement. Bah! It was his chagrin at losing, that was all that—” “Had he been drinking, Louis?” The question had been asked quietly, but there was something in the tone, in those gray eyes, that stopped the gambler’s volu- bility. His answer came direct: “He had, M. Kirk!” “The way he does every three or four months—heavily?” “Yes. It seemed one of his nights!” “ He traveled north?” té Yes! 2? CoOmmicoooxS.CoOnn |