The Cursed Patois | Page 6

with plenty of dirt on top of him, or did he merely drop in the water?"
"I vas not there."
"Maybe the lazy hound has resurrected. I've seen these lumbermen dropped into the water and drowned too often. You can never be sure they won't be up drinking and fighting to-morrow unless you run a knife through them."
"He is a det man," affirmed Puttany.
"Then somebody else has carried her off, and I'm going to know all about it before I come back to camp. If I never come back, you may have the stuff and land. I'm in this heels over head, and I don't care how soon things end with me."
"But, Prowny, old poy, I vill help you--"
"You stay here. This is my hunt."
Jim passed the rustic guest-houses without turning aside from the trail. Brown took no thought of inquiring at their doors, for throughout the summer Fran?oise had not once been seen at the hotels. He did, however, hastily borrow a horse from the stable where he was privileged, and pursuing the blood-hound along the lake shore, he cantered over a causeway of logs and earth which had been raised above a swamp.
The trail was very fresh, for Jim, without swerving, followed the road where it turned at right angles from the shore and wound inland among stumps. They had nearly reached Allanville, a group of log huts beside a north-shore railroad, when Jim uttered the bay of victory.
Brown dropped from the saddle and called him sternly back. To be hunting Fran?oise with a blood-hound out of leash--how horrible was this!
He tied his horse to a tree and took Jim by the collar, restraining the creature's fierce joy of discovery. Fran?oise must be near, unless a hound whose scent was unerring had become a fool.
What if she had left camp of her own will? She was so quiet, one could not be sure of her thoughts. Brown was sure of his thoughts. He grinned in the lonely landscape, seeing himself as he had appeared on recent Sundays, in his best turtle-tail neck-tie mounted on velvet.
"I've got it bad," he confessed.
Stooping to Jim's collar while the dog whined and strained, he passed a cabin. And there Jim relaxed in the search and turned around. The moon stood high enough to make a wan fairy daylight. Gougou, like a gnome, started from the ground to meet them, and the dog at once lay down and fawned at his feet.
More slowly approaching from the cabin, Brown saw Fran?oise, still carrying in her hand the bundle of her belongings brought from camp. In the shadow of the house a man watched the encounter, and a sift of rank tobacco smoke hinted the pipes of fathers and sons resting from the day's labor on the cabin door-sill or the sward. Voices of children could be heard, and other dogs gave mouth, so that Brown laid severe commands on Jim before he could tremblingly speak to Fran?oise.
"Oh, M'sieu' Brownee, I t'ink maybe you come!"
"But, Fran?oise, what made you leave?"
"It is my husban's brudder. I not know what to do! He bring us to dese folks to stay all night till de cars go."
"Why didn't he show himself to us, and take you like a man?"
"Oh, M'sieu' Brownee--he say de priest hexcommunicate me--to live--so--in de camp! It is not my fault--and I t'ink about you and M'sieu' Put-tanee--and Gougou he bite his honcle, and kick and scream!"
"Damn the uncle!" swore Brown, deeply.
"Oh, I been so anxion!" sobbed Fran?oise.
"We must be married right off," said Brown. "I'll fix your brother-in-law. Fran?oise, will yon have me for your husband?"
"Me, M'sieu' Brownee?"
"Yes, you--you cursed sweet patois!"
"M'sieu' Brownee, you may call me de cursed patois. I not know anyt'ings. But when André La France take me away, oh, I t'ink I die! Let me honly be Fran?oise to do your mend'! I be 'appier to honly look at you dan some womans who 'ave 'usban'!"
"Fran?oise, kiss me--kiss me!" His voice broke with a sob. "If you loved me you would have me!"
"M'sieu' Brownee, I ado' you!"
Suddenly giving way to passionate weeping, and to all the tenderness which nature teaches even barbarians to repress, she abandoned herself to his arms.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Cursed Patois, by Mary Hartwell Catherwood
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