Lords of the North | Page 8

a husband may be, there are things worse for
his wife than death which he may well dread, and it was one of these
tragedies which almost drove poor Hamilton out of his reason and
changed the whole course of my own life. In broad daylight, his young
wife and infant son disappeared as suddenly and completely as if
blotted out of existence.
That morning, Eric light-heartedly kissed wife and child good-by and
waved them a farewell that was to be the last. He rode down the
winding forest path to Quebec and they stood where the Chateau
garden merged into the forest of Charlesbourg Mountain. At noon,
when he returned, for him there existed neither wife nor child. For any
trace of them that could be found, both might have been supernaturally
spirited away. The great house, that had re-echoed to the boy's prattle,
was deathly still; and neither wife, nor child, answered his call. The
nurse was summoned. She was positive Madame was amusing the boy
across the hall, and reassuringly bustled off to find mother and son in
the next room, and the next, and yet the next; to discover each in
succession empty.
Alarm spread to the Chateau servants. The simple habitant maids were
questioned, but their only response was white-faced, blank amazement.
Madame not returned!
Madame not back!
Mon Dieu! What had happened? And all the superstition of hillside lore
added to the fear on each anxious face. Shortly after Monsieur went to
the city, Madame had taken her little son out as usual for a morning
airing, and had been seen walking up and down the paths tracked

through the garden snow. Had Monsieur examined the clearing
between the house and the forest? Monsieur could see for himself the
snow was too deep and crusty among the trees for Madame to go
twenty paces into the woods. Besides, foot-marks could be traced from
the garden to the bush. He need not fear wild animals. They were
receding into the mountains as spring advanced. Let him take another
look about the open; and Hamilton tore out-doors, followed by the
whole household; but from the Chateau in the center of the glade to the
encircling border of snow-laden evergreens there was no trace of wife
or child.
Then Eric laughed at his own growing fears. Miriam must be in the
house. So the search of the old hall, that had once resounded to the
drunken tread of gay French grandees, began again. From hidden
chamber in the vaulted cellar to attic rooms above, not a corner of the
Chateau was left unexplored. Had any one come and driven her to the
city? But that was impossible. The roads were drifted the height of a
horse and there were no marks of sleigh runners on either side of the
riding path. Could she possibly have ventured a few yards down the
main road to an encampment of Indians, whose squaws after Indian
custom made much of the white baby? Neither did that suggestion
bring relief; for the Indians had broken camp early in the morning and
there was only a dirty patch of littered snow, where the wigwams had
been.
The alarm now became a panic. Hamilton, half-crazed and unable to
believe his own senses, began wondering whether he had nightmare.
He thought he might waken up presently and find the dead weight
smothering his chest had been the boy snuggling close. He was vaguely
conscious it was strange of him to continue sleeping with that noise of
shouting men and whining hounds and snapping branches going on in
the forest. The child's lightest cry generally broke the spell of a
nightmare; but the din of terrified searchers rushing through the woods
and of echoes rolling eerily back from the white hills convinced him
this was no dream-land. Then, the distinct crackle of trampled
brushwood and the scratch of spines across his face called him back to
an unendurable reality.

"The thing is utterly impossible, Hamilton," I cried, when in short jerky
sentences, as if afraid to give thought rein, he had answered my uncle's
questioning. "Impossible! Utterly impossible!"
"I would to God it were!" he moaned.
"It was daylight, Eric?" asked Mr. Jack MacKenzie.
He nodded moodily.
"And she couldn't be lost in Charlesbourg forest?" I added, taking up
the interrogations where my uncle left off.
"No trace--not a footprint!"
"And you're quite sure she isn't in the house?" replied my relative.
"Quite!" he answered passionately.
"And there was an Indian encampment a few yards down the road?"
continued Mr. MacKenzie, undeterred.
"Oh! What has that to do with it?" he asked petulantly, springing to his
feet. "They'd moved off long before I went back. Besides, Indians don't
run off with white women. Haven't I spent my life