Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 166, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1912 — The Bar of Red [ARTICLE]

The Bar of Red

By June Gaban

1 1 ' "" (Copyright, HQ, by Associated Literary “Spell it,” said Constance, biting the end of her pencil. Lois glanced at the slip of paper beaide her. "L’Hommedieu,” she Bpelled out slowly. “First name Paul. What does that mean, Connie?” “Man. of God, doesn’t it, or God’s man. Very mediaeval, isn’t it? Have you seen him?” ?r Lois nodded absently, her hands idle on her lap, her eyes looking out of the west window to where the falls swept over the dam in a great flashing horse<ehoe of light and foam. Above it the logs were piled high in a Jam. From the window she could see the men working on them, prying, pushing, trying to release them. ' i “It’s the second day,” Constance {talked on with the easy cheerfulness iof sixteen. She was fresh from the • {convent up at GraUdiere, the quaint (old Canadian town across the Straits. {Here in the white pine country of the ‘Peninsula she seemed lost. i Lois was different Years ago when ‘both girls were children, a man had •' ‘ridden one day up through the great [forests from the lake settlements, and 'he carried a child before him on the - - {saddle, a girl with great, dark-lashed # blue eyes like his own, and short curly (brown hair. ■ “She had for mother a French girl (down Charlevoix way,” he told Coni stance’s mother and father, who kept (the big log house boarding place above the falls, where the loggers lived in the season. "She is very quiet little girl. She will not bother anybody. 1 will take care of her, and pay for her.” “You any relation to her?” asked (Betty Morgan, in her cheerful way that no one took offense from. “She looks (just like you.” * “She is my daughter,” the man told ‘her simply. "Her mother is very beau (tiful girl.” “Where is she?” asked Betty bluntjly, eyeing the child, and noting the (good quality of her clothes. This was ;no jogger’s child, she decided. “She is dead, but one month now," Ihe answered gravely, one hand upon (the child’s head. >"After this Lois and {myself we have to grow up together, .eh, Lois?” ' I ! He had stayed there in the white jpine country for years, making few {friends, living at the Morgans, working steadily, happy to watch the child grow and blossom. She was a tall, istrong limbed girl, unlike the fluffyhaired, blue-eyed Constance. She could step from log to log like the men. and jloved to climb on the piled up mass of ;a Jam above the falls, and peer over lat the foaming, leaping water far below. “It makes me dlxzy to do Lois.” •Connie would say. “How can you? You are like a boy.” \ “Ah, if she had been a boy, history would have been all changed,” her father would exclaim, a sudden glow lightening bis eyes. “Then she would ‘have taken up my work and finished jit; now 1 must leave it go for her sake, and rest always beside her.” As she grew older the words had a new meaning for Lois. “There is somebody you would take •revenge on;’’ she asked one day, with a touch of his own abruptness. He met her gaze in silence for a minute “How old are you, Lois?” "Nearly sixteen.” “Your mother was nineteen when you were born. She Is so beautiful. Lois; I can never tell you how beautiful she was. And there is one man who hates me always because I have married her. He followed me down Ca the Straits, then back up through Territory, then dqwn again, always we know he is Just there, behind us. And finally, one night be came to our place, our house, and she sits by the fire ropking you to sleep. We are far In the woods, so we give always the might's shelter to anybody who is lost But when I see his face, I remember Ihlin, and your mother put you down quickly, and comes between us. even while he lifts his gun and shoots at me.” Lois’ strong young hand clasped hie tightly. Her cheek was pressed against his knee as she knelt beside him. "Did he get away?" "Yes. 1 have to look after her first "He patted her hair gently. “Some day maybe we will find him.” "If we ever do,” whispered Lois, "it won’t make any difference, my being a girl. I will help you, father.” But the breath of life slipped out of old Fontaine before his heart’s desire' came true, and Lois had been left alone at the Morgans. Connie went to the convent, but she remained alone in the woods, with old Mrs. Morgan. Then every spring when the logs were ■floated down the river, there came Paul L’Hommedieu up from the lake settlements to work In the logging ~._ n He was the first ™-n whose whose broad young shoulders overtopped ner own, wno was not air&iu ; when Conhie came home from the con-

i• ’ - him to the towns when the logging season was over. * that had grown in tiMßhadow of the great towering pines, and very charmingly. very frankly, she bestowed her coquetries and flavors on the tall, blonde lumberman. "Make eyes and shrug shoulders at the other men,” Lois arid her. curtly. “Paul is mine.” “Is her’, laughed Constance. "You have good taste.” “That night the two girls stood watching the jam. and men working on it like beavers. Paul paused a moment by their side. "In Charlevoix we have nothing like this, Lois,” he said, tenderly. "Yon will miss it.” Constance’s lashes drooped. “You are from Charlevoix?” she asked innocently. All that afternoon she had been making Inquiries among the other men, and the whole past of the lad lay open to her. She knew that he had ignored her advances, and the little tang of Indian blood that ran in her veins from big Kirk Morgan sang its own little song of revenge. “Did you ever know a man there name Fontaine?” "TT Both Lois and Paul turned to look at her. T“Louis Fontaine?” “He Was Lois* father.” Constance smiled slowly, straight up into his eyes. She had found out that the man whe had shot Lois’ mother was named L’Hommedieu. The startled ,look in Paul’s eyes did the rest for her. "Eh, Paul, if it were only twenty years ago, and your father could meet him here, there would be more tragedy. It would make our old woods livelier.” Lois’ eyes questioned him mutely. Did the bar of red lie between them, making their Jove, almost a horror to think of? His own eyes were filled with startled dread. A cry of the men on the jam made him leap* for the nearest logs, as the mass...started to move towards the falls. He had gained the summit of the jam., Lois watched him with a quick beating heart. She heard Constance laugh beside her. “Is he yours now?’’ she asked, softly. Z.jTt' 4 ' The men were leaping from the logs now, as they neared the falls. It was rißky work, always to catch a foothold on the swirling, ever turning, slippery logs. The last was Paul. A log caught In midstream and swept crossways. Another dovetailed it, more clambered like lining things on its ridge, and a second jam was threatened. Paul worked steadily, deftly, while the men shouted to him of his danger, there on the very brink of the falls. When the logs parted,’ he might be swept to certain death with them. And suddenly Lois started out towards him over the logs. Sfce had no thought of Having him, rather a desperate, longing to *go with him when he went over. But the shout from the shore unnerved him, and as he looked back to catch its cause, he lost his footing, and fell backwards into the water. At any second the jam might give way and stveep them over,’ but Lot* reached the place, and as he rose she caught him, and hauled him half way up on the logs. He had been struck on the back of the head and was hilf unconscious, but she held him until Morgan and another lumberman had come to the rescue. And just as they reached the shore In safety with their burden the Jam gave way with a mighty rqar and the logs dashed over the falls like Jackstraws. It was the next week after Constance bad gone back to the convent that Paul opened his eyes and looked at the figure beside his bed. His bead was bandaged and his whole body throbbed with pain. One thing In all the world seemed to stand out clearly —Lola’ uplifted face, with the deep blue eyes, and dark curly mass of hair around It, and her l|ps, a wonderful deep coral red against the clear olive of her face. , "Was it not punishment enough to know he had killed the one be loved?” he asked slowly. “He suffered most, Lois. I can remember. He was not my father, but my father’s younger brother. We came down from the Straits to care for him after he lost his mind. I can always see him pacing up and down the sand on the lake shore, calling to Lois to come hack and set him free from torment I did not know that I would love Lois too—another Lois." Lois knelt beside the bed and laid her face against his bead, as sbe had loved to do to her father's, and both knew the bar of red could cast no flame of ruin over their young lives. Loye bad turned it to living gold.