The World For Sale | Page 4

their own--
"'I will rejoice, and divide Sichem: and mete out the valley of Succoth.'
"Hush! Hush!" he said to himself in reproach. "These things must be.
The country must be opened up. That is why I came--to bring the Truth
before the trader."

Now another traveller came riding out of Lebanon towards him,
galloping his horse up-hill and down. He also was young, but nothing
about him suggested power, only self-indulgence. He, too, raised his
hat, or rather swung it from his head in a devil-may-care way, and
overdid his salutation. He did not speak. The priest's face was very
grave, if not a little resentful. His salutation was reserved.
"The tyranny of gold," he murmured, "and without the mind or energy
that created it. Felix was no name for him. Ingolby is a builder, perhaps
a jerry-builder; but he builds."
He looked across the prairie towards the young man in the buggy.
"Sure, he is a builder. He has the Cortez eye. He sees far off, and plans
big things. But Felix Marchand there--"
He stopped short.
"Such men must be, perhaps," he added. Then, after a moment, as he
gazed round again upon the land of promise which he had loved so
long, he murmured as one murmurs a prayer:
"Thou suferedst men to ride over our heads: we went through fire and
water, and Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place."

BOOK I
I. "THE DRUSES ARE UP!" II. THE WHISPER FROM BEYOND III.
CONCERNING INGOLBY AND THE TWO TOWNS IV. THE
COMING OF JETHRO FAWE V. "BY THE RIVER STARZKE....IT
WAS SO DONE" VI. THE UNGUARDED FIRES VII. IN WHICH
THE PRISONER GOES FREE
CHAPTER I
"THE DRUSES ARE UP!"

"Great Scott, look at her! She's goin' to try and take 'em !" exclaimed
Osterhaut, the Jack-of-all-trades at Lebanon.
"She ain't such a fool as all that. Why, no one ever done it alone. Low
water, too, when every rock's got its chance at the canoe. But, my
gracious, she is goin' to ride 'em!"
Jowett, the horse-dealer, had a sportsman's joy in a daring thing.
"See, old Injun Tekewani's after her! He's calling at her from the bank.
He knows. He done it himself years ago when there was rips in the tribe
an' he had to sew up the tears. He run them Rapids in his canoe--"
"Just as the Druse girl there is doin'--"
"An' he's done what he liked with the Blackfeet ever since."
"But she ain't a chief--what's the use of her doin' it? She's goin' straight
for them. She can't turn back now. She couldn't make the bank if she
wanted to. She's got to run 'em. Holy smoke, see her wavin' the paddle
at Tekewani! Osterhaut, she's the limit, that petticoat--so quiet and shy
and don't-look-at-me, too, with eyes like brown diamonds."
"Oh, get out, Jowett; she's all right! She'll make this country sit up
some day-by gorry, she'll make Manitou and Lebanon sit up to-day if
she runs the Carillon Rapids safe!"
"She's runnin' 'em all right, son. She's--by jee, well done, Miss Druse!
Well done, I say--well done!" exclaimed Jowett, dancing about and
waving his arms towards the adventurous girl.
The girl had reached the angry, thrashing waters where the rocks rent
and tore into white ribbons the onrushing current, and her first trial had
come on the instant the spitting, raging panthers of foam struck the bow
of her canoe. The waters were so low that this course, which she had
made once before with her friend Tekewani the Blackfeet chief, had
perils not met on that desperate journey. Her canoe struck a rock
slantwise, shuddered and swung round, but by a dexterous stroke she

freed the frail craft. It righted and plunged forward again into fresh
death-traps.
It was these new dangers which had made Tekewani try to warn her
from the shore--he and the dozen braves with him: but it was
characteristic of his race that, after the first warning, when she must
play out the game to the bitter end, he made no further attempt to stop
her. The Indians ran down the river-bank, however, with eyes intent on
her headlong progress, grunting approval as she plunged safely from
danger to danger.
Osterhaut and Jowett became silent, too, and, like the Indians, ran as
fast as they could, over fences, through the trees, stumbling and
occasionally cursing, but watching with fascinated eyes this
adventuress of the North, taking chances which not one coureur-de-bois
or river- driver in a thousand would take, with a five thousand-dollar
prize as the lure. Why should she do it?
"Women folks are sick darn fools when they git goin'," gasped
Osterhaut as he ran. "They don't care a split pea what happens when
they've got the pip. Look