The Going of the White Swan | Page 3

if you want to." The voice was husky.
The boy began:
"O Bon Jésu, who died to save us from our sins, and to lead us to Thy
country, where there is no cold, nor hunger, nor thirst, and where no
one is afraid, listen to Thy child.... When the great winds and rains
come down from the hills, do not let the floods drown us, nor the
woods cover us, nor the snow-slide bury us, and do not let the
prairie-fires burn us. Keep wild beasts from killing us in our sleep, and
give us good hearts that we may not kill them in anger."
His finger twisted involuntarily into the bullet-hole in the pelt, and he
paused a moment.
"Keep us from getting lost, O Bon Jésu."
Again there was a pause, his eyes opened wide, and he said:
"Do you think mother's lost, father?"
A heavy broken breath came from the father, and he replied haltingly:
"Mebbe--mebbe so."
Dominique's eyes closed again. "I'll make up some," he said slowly:
"And if mother's lost, O Bon Jésu, bring her back again to us, for
everything's going wrong."
Again he paused, then went on with the prayer as it had been taught
him.
"Teach us to hear Thee whenever Thou callest, and to see Thee when

Thou visitest us, and let the blessed Mary and all the saints speak often
to Thee for us. O Christ, hear us. Lord have mercy upon us. Christ,
have mercy upon us. Amen."
Making the sign of the cross, he lay back, and said: "I'll go to sleep now,
I guess."
[Illustration]

[Illustration]
III
The man sat for a long time looking at the pale, shining face, at the blue
veins showing painfully dark on the temples and forehead, at the firm
little white hand, which was as brown as a butternut a few weeks before.
The longer he sat, the deeper did his misery sink into his soul. His wife
had gone he knew not where, his child was wasting to death, and he
had for his sorrows no inner consolation. He had ever had that touch of
mystical imagination inseparable from the far north, yet he had none of
that religious belief which swallowed up natural awe and turned it to
the refining of life, and to the advantage of a man's soul. Now it was
forced in upon him that his child was wiser than himself; wiser and
safer. His life had been spent in the wastes, with rough deeds and
rugged habits, and a youth of hardship, danger, and almost savage
endurance had given him a half-barbarian temperament, which could
strike an angry blow at one moment and fondle to death at the next.
When he married sweet Lucette Barbond his religion reached little
farther than a belief in the Scarlet Hunter of the Kimash Hills and those
voices that could be heard calling in the night, till their time of sleep be
past and they should rise and reconquer the north.
Not even Father Corraine, whose ways were like those of his Master,
could ever bring him to a more definite faith. His wife had at first
striven with him, mourning yet loving. Sometimes the savage in him
had broken out over the little creature, merely because barbaric tyranny

was in him--torture followed by the passionate kiss. But how was she
philosopher enough to understand the cause!
When she fled from their hut one bitter day, as he roared some wild
words at her, it was because her nerves had all been shaken from
threatened death by wild beasts, (of this he did not know) and his
violence drove her mad. She had run out of the house, and on, and on,
and on--and she had never come back. That was weeks ago, and there
had been no word nor sign of her since. The man was now busy with it
all, in a slow, cumbrous way. A nature more to be touched by things
seen than by things told, his mind was being awakened in a massive
kind of fashion. He was viewing this crisis of his life as one sees a
human face in the wide searching light of a great fire. He was restless,
but he held himself still by a strong effort, not wishing to disturb the
little sleeper. His eyes seemed to retreat farther and farther back under
his shaggy brows.
The great logs in the chimney burned brilliantly, and a brass crucifix
over the child's head now and again reflected soft little flashes of light.
This caught the hunter's eye. Presently there grew up in him a vague
kind of hope that, somehow, this symbol would bring him luck--that
was the way he put it to himself. He had felt this--and something
more--when