Louis Balenger laid down his cards, sprang to his feet and advanced to meet the visitors. He expressed the honor which he felt at this neighborly attention on the part of the distinguished Captain O’Dell. But Richard Sherwood did not move. John O’Dell was very polite and cold as ice and dry as sand. He bowed gravely to Madame Balenger and her daughters, refused a glass of punch from the hand of Louis on the plea that he was already overheated and requested Dick Sherwood to settle for the play and come along. Sherwood refused to budge. He was angry and sulky.
O’Dell’s Point saw nothing more of Richard Sherwood for nine long months. He appeared one August evening in a bark canoe, spent the night with the O’Dells and headed upriver again early next morning, swearing more like a river-bred “white-water boy” than an English gentleman. The captain told Jim McAllister something of what had passed between himself and Sherwood. Sherwood, it seems, had lost all his little property—the price of a good farm, at least—to Louis Balenger, and he had wanted a few hundred dollars to set about winning it all back with.
John had refused to lend him money for poker but had offered him land and stock and a home and help if he would cut his acquaintance with Louis Balenger and the entire Balenger tribe. Sherwood refused to consider any such offer, said that Delphine Balenger was worth more than all the other inhabitants of the country rolled together and that he would not lose sight of her even if he had to work his fingers to the bone in the service of Louis, and went away in a raging temper.
Once a year, for eight years, John O’Dell tried to get Sherwood away from the Balengers and French River but always in vain. Sherwood worked for Louis and according to Louis’ own methods; and as he was always the goat he was frequently on the run from the wardens of the game laws.
Down at O’Dell’s Point life went on evenly and honestly and yet with a fine dash of romance. Captain John O’Dell wooed and wed Flora McAllister and Jim McAllister was jilted by a girl at Hood’s Ferry and several elderly people died peacefully. Up on French River, Delphine Balenger ran away with a lumberman from the States after Dick Sherwood had spent ten years in slavery and disgrace for love of her; and Sherwood set out on the lumberman’s track with murder in his heart. He lost his way and was found and brought home by Delphine’s younger sister. Then Sherwood quarreled with Louis Balenger and Louis shot him twice, left the Englishman for dead and vanished from French River forever. Julie Balenger nursed poor Sherwood back to life and strength and, soon after, married him.