The Flaming Forest eBook

James Oliver Curwood
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 290 pages of information about The Flaming Forest.

The Flaming Forest eBook

James Oliver Curwood
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 290 pages of information about The Flaming Forest.
up like a child in the chimpanzee-like arms of the half-breed.  The moonlight showed him a scow bigger than he had ever seen on the upper river, and two-thirds of it seemed to be cabin.  Into this cabin Bateese carried him, and in darkness laid him upon what Carrigan thought must be a cot built against the wall.  He made no sound, but let himself fall limply upon it.  He listened to Bateese as he moved about, and closed his eyes when Bateese struck a match.  A moment later he heard the door of the cabin close behind the half-breed.  Not until then did he open his eyes and sit up.

He was alone.  And what he saw in the next few moments drew an exclamation of amazement from him.  Never had he seen a cabin like this on the Three Rivers.  It was thirty feet long if an inch, and at least eight feet wide.  The walls and ceiling were of polished cedar; the floor was of cedar closely matched.  It was the exquisite finish and craftsmanship of the woodwork that caught his eyes first.  Then his astonished senses seized upon the other things.  Under his feet was a soft rug of dark green velvet.  Two magnificent white bearskins lay between him and the end of the room.  The walls were hung with pictures, and at the four windows were curtains of ivory lace draped with damask.  The lamp which Bateese had lighted was fastened to the wall close to him.  It was of polished silver and threw a brilliant light softened by a shade of old gold.  There were three other lamps like this, unlighted.  The far end of the room was in deep shadow, but Carrigan made out the thing he was staring at—­a piano.  He rose to his feet, disbelieving his eyes, and made his way toward it.  He passed between chairs.  Near the piano was another door, and a wide divan of the same soft, green upholstery.  Looking back, he saw that what he had been lying upon was another divan.  And dose to this were book-shelves, and a table on which were magazines and papers and a woman’s workbasket, and in the workbasket—­sound asleep—­a cat!

And then, over the table and the sleeping cat, his eyes rested upon a triangular banner fastened to the wall.  In white against a background of black was a mighty polar bear holding at bay a horde of Arctic wolves.  And suddenly the thing he had been fighting to recall came to Carrigan—­the great bear—­the fighting wolves—­the crest of St. Pierre Boulain!

He took a quick step toward the table—­then caught at the back of a chair.  Confound his head!  Or was it the big bateau rocking under his feet?  The cat seemed to be turning round in its basket.  There were half a dozen banners instead of one; the lamp was shaking in its bracket; the floor was tilting, everything was becoming hideously contorted and out of place.  A shroud of darkness gathered about him, and through that darkness Carrigan staggered blindly toward the divan.  He reached it just in time to fall upon it like a dead man.

VI

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Project Gutenberg
The Flaming Forest from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.