Chapter 25

THE END OF THE CHÂTEAU

Only one thing marred the happiness of our reunion, and that was the loss of Jacqueline's father.

We had talked much over what had happened, and ten days later, when Jacqueline had recovered from the shock and from what proved to be, after all, only a flesh-wound, we had visited the scene of our rescue by the old priest.

The Indian woman had met him as she was returning home, and had told him of our danger, and he had started out before dawn, to find that there was no longer any entrance to the tunnel. Wandering in bewilderment upon the mountains, he had reached the place where I was buried at the moment of my final effort to break through the débris overhead.

Although the explanation seemed an impossible one, there was none other.

The cliff, riddled with tunnels and eaten out by its numerous subterranean streams, had fallen. The charge of dynamite exploded, as it happened, beneath that part which buttressed the entire structure, combining with the pressure of the glacier above, had thrown the mountain on its side, filling the lake with several million tons of ice and obliterating all traces of the _château_, which lay buried beneath its waters.

That was Père Antoine's explanation, and we realized at once that it was useless to search for Charles Duchaine. The whole aspect of the region had been changed; there was neither glacier nor cataract, and the lake, swollen to twice its size and height, slept peacefully beneath its covering of ice and snow.

When we returned to the cabin we were amazed to see a sleigh standing outside, and dogs feeding. Two men were seated at the priests table, smoking.

"_Diable, monsieur_, don't you keep a stove in your house?" shouted a well-known voice to Père Antoine. Then, as Jacqueline and I approached the entrance, the man turned and sprang toward us with outstretched hands that gripped ours and wrung them till we cried out in pain.

It was Alfred Dubois.

But I was stupefied to see the second man who rose and advanced toward me with a shrewd smile. For it was Tom Carson!

Presently I was telling my story--except for that part which more intimately concerned myself and Jacqueline, and the narrative of the murder, which I gave only as Lacroix had confessed it to me.

A look of incredulity deepened on Tom's shrewd old face till, at the end, he burst out explosively at me:

"Hewlett, I didn't think I was a damned fool before--I beg your pardon, miss. If any man had told me that I would have knocked him down. But I am, I am, and want you to be my manager."

"Do you mean that I have lied to you?" I asked indignantly.

"Every word, Hewlett--every word, my son. That is why I want you back with me. First you leave my employment without offering any reason; then you take hold of my business affairs and try to pull off a deal over my head, and then you tell me a yarn about a castle falling into a lake."

"But, M. Carson," interposed the priest, "I myself have seen this _château_ many times. And I have gone to the entrance and looked from the mountain, too, and it is no longer there."

"Never was," said Carson. "You fellows get so lonesome up in these wilds that you have to see things."

"But I heard the explosion."

"Artillery practice down the Gulf."

"Listen to me, M. Carson!" exploded Dubois. "Did I not say that I would drive you here myself because I was anxious about a friend of mine and his young bride who were in the clutches of that scoundrel, Simon Leroux, who killed my brother? And did I not say that they were in the _Château Duchaine_?"

"Well, there may be a _château_, somewhere," Carson replied. "In fact, there probably is. This man, d'Epernay, who is said to be dead now, wanted to sell me the biggest gold mine in the world for fifty thousand dollars, and from what I know of Leroux I am ready to believe that he would try to hog it if it really exists. So, as I wanted to see how our lumber development at St. Boniface was getting along, I thought I'd come up here and investigate."

"But how about Leroux?" I cried, more amused now than vexed.

"That," answered Tom, "is precisely why I want to get hold of you again, Mr. Hewlett."

"But here is Mlle. Duchaine!" shouted the old priest in despair.

Tom Carson raised his fat old body about five inches and made Jacqueline what he took to be a bow.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, miss," he replied. "Ah, well, it doesn't matter. I guess that man, d'Epernay, was lying to me. He wanted to get a cash advance, and I got a little suspicious of him just about then. However, I am ready to look at your gold mine if you want me to."

"You'll have to do some blasting then," I said, nettled. "It's just about two hundred feet below the ground."

"Never mind," said Tom. "Lumber is better than gold. Next time I'm here I shall be glad to have another look around. And now, Hewlett, if you want a job at five thousand a year to start--to start, mind you, you play fair and tell me where Leroux is hiding himself."

I was too mortified to answer him. But I felt Jacqueline slip her hand into mine, and suddenly the memory of the past made Tom's raillery an insignificant affair.

"Mind you," he pursued, "he'll turn up soon. He's got to turn up, because the lumber company's all organized now and in fine running order. What do you say, Hewlett?"

"Nothing," I answered.

"All right," he said, turning away with a shrug of his shoulders. "Unpractical as ever, ain't you? Think it over, my son. Glad to have met you, Mr. Priest, and as I'm always busy I guess Dubois and I will start for home this afternoon."

Jacqueline looked at me, and I shook my head. I didn't want Tom to witness it. But a word from Père Antoine changed the hostile tenor of my thoughts to warm and human ones.

"Messieurs," he said, "doubtless you know what day this is?"

Tom started. "Why, good Lord, it--it's Christmas Day, isn't it?" he asked, a little sheepishly.

"It's a bigger day for us," I said to Tom.

He squinted at me in his shrewd manner; and then he got up from the table and wrung my hand.

"Good luck to you both," he said. "Say, Mr. Dubois, I guess we can pitch our tent here to-night--don't you?"

Alfred Dubois was grappling with our hands again; but his onset was less ferocious, because he had to loose us every now and then to slap me on the back and blow his nose.

"If only _la petite Madeleine_ could be here!" he shouted. And I am sure that was his dinner voice I heard.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Jacqueline of Golden River, by H. M. Egbert