"I believe that I will kill you, M'seur," said Jean softly. There was no excitement, no tremble of passion in his voice. "I have been thinking that I ought to kill you. I had almost made up my mind to kill you when I came back to this Maison de Mort Rouge. It is the justice of God that I kill you!"

The two men circled, like beasts in a pit, Howland in the attitude of a boxer, Jean with his shoulders bent, his arms slightly curved at his side, the toes of his moccasined feet bearing his weight. Suddenly he launched himself at the other's throat.

In a flash Howland stepped a little to one side and shot out a crashing blow that caught Jean on the side of the head and sent him flat on his back. Half-stunned Croisset came to his feet. It was the first time that he had ever come into contact with science. He was puzzled. His head rang, and for a few moments he was dizzy. He darted in again, in his old, quick, cat-like way, and received a blow that dazed him. This time he kept his feet.

"I am sure now that I am going to kill you, M'seur," he said, as coolly as before.

There was something terribly calm and decisive in his voice. He was not excited. He was not afraid. His fingers did not go near the weapons in his belt, and slowly the smile faded from Howland's lips as Jean circled about him. He had never fought a man of this kind; never had he looked on the appalling confidence that was in his antagonist's eyes. From those eyes, rather than from the man, he found himself slowly retreating. They followed him, never taking themselves from his face. In them the fire returned and grew deeper. Two dull red spots began to glow in Croisset's cheeks, and he laughed softly when he suddenly leaped in so that Howland struck at him—and missed. He knew what to expect now. And Howland knew what to expect.

It was the science of one world pitted against that of another—the science of civilization against that of the wilderness. Howland was trained in his art. For sport Jean had played with wounded lynx; his was the quickness of sight, of instinct—the quickness of the great north loon that had often played this same game with his rifle-fire, of the sledge-dog whose ripping fangs carried death so quickly that eyes could not follow. A third and a fourth time he came within distance and Howland struck and missed.

"I am going to kill you," he said again.

To this point Howland had remained cool. Self-possession in his science he knew to be half the battle. But he felt in him now a slow, swelling anger. The smiling flash in Jean's eyes began to irritate him; the fearless, taunting gleam of his teeth, his audacious confidence, put him on edge. Twice again he struck out swiftly, but Jean had come and gone like a dart. His lithe body, fifty pounds lighter than Howland's, seemed to be that of a boy dodging him in some tantalizing sport. The Frenchman made no effort at attack; his were the tactics of the wolf at the heels of the bull moose, of the lynx before the prongs of a cornered buck—tiring, worrying, ceaseless.

Howland's striking muscles began to ache and his breath was growing shorter with the exertions which seemed to have no effect on Croisset. For a few moments he took the aggressive, rushing Jean to the stove, behind the table, twice around the room—striving vainly to drive him into a corner, to reach him with one of the sweeping blows which Croisset evaded with the lightning quickness of a hell-diver. When he stopped, his breath came in wind-broken gasps. Jean drew nearer, smiling, ferociously cool.

"I am going to kill you, M'seur," he repeated again.

Howland dropped his arms, his fingers relaxed, and he forced his breath between his lips as if he were on the point of exhaustion. There were still a few tricks in his science, and these, he knew, were about his last cards. He backed into a corner, and Jean followed, his eyes flashing a steely light, his body growing more and more tense.

"Now, M'seur, I am going to kill you," he said in the same low voice. "I am going to break your neck."

Howland backed against the wall, partly turned as if fearing the other's attack, and yet without strength to repel it. There was a contemptuous smile on Croisset's lips as he poised himself for an instant. Then he leaped in, and as his fingers gripped at the other's throat Howland's right arm shot upward in a deadly short-arm punch that caught his antagonist under the jaw. Without a sound Jean staggered back, tottered for a moment on his feet, and fell to the floor. Fifty seconds later he opened his eyes to find his hands bound behind his back and Howland standing at his feet.

"Mon Dieu, but that was a good one!" he gasped, after he had taken a long breath or two. "Will you teach it to me, M'seur?"

"Get up!" commanded Howland. "I have no time to waste, Croisset." He caught the Frenchman by the shoulders and helped him to a chair near the table. Then he took possession of the other's weapons, including the revolver which Jean had taken from him, and began to dress. He spoke no word until he was done.

"Do you understand what is going to happen Croisset?" he cried then, his eyes blazing hotly. "Do you understand that what you have done will put you behind prison bars for ten years or more? Does it dawn on you that I'm going to take you back to the authorities, and that as soon as we reach the Wekusko I'll have twenty men back on the trail of these friends of yours?"

A gray pallor spread itself over Jean's thin face.

"The great God, M'seur, you can not do that!"

"Can not!" Howland's fingers dug into the edge of the table. "By this great God of yours, Croisset, but I will! And why not? Is it because Meleese is among this gang of cut-throats and murderers? Pish, my dear Jean, you must be a fool. They tried to kill me on the trail, tried it again in the coyote, and you came back here determined to kill me. You've held the whip-hand from the first. Now it's mine. I swear that if I take you back to the Wekusko we'll get you all."

"If, M'seur?"

"Yes—if."

"And that 'if'—" Jean was straining against the table.

"It rests with you, Croisset. I will bargain with you. Either I shall take you back to the Wekusko, hand you over to the authorities and send a force after the others—or you shall take me to Meleese. Which shall it be?"

"And if I take you to Meleese, M'seur?"

Howland straightened, his voice trembling a little with excitement.

"If you take me to Meleese, and swear to do as I say, I shall bring no harm to you or your friends."

"And Meleese—" Jean's eyes darkened again, "You will not harm her, M'seur?"

"Harm her!" There was a laughing tremor in Howland's voice. "Good God, man, are you so blind that you can't see that I am doing this because of her? I tell you that I love her, and that I am willing to die in fighting for her. Until now I haven't had the chance. You and your friends have played a cowardly underhand game, Croisset. You have taken me from behind at every move, and now it's up to you to square yourself a little or there's going to be hell to pay. Understand? You take me to Meleese or there'll be a clean-up that will put you and the whole bunch out of business. Harm her—" Again Howland laughed, leaning his white face toward Jean. "Come, which shall it be, Croisset?"

A cold glitter, like the snap of sparks from striking steels, shot from the Frenchman's eyes. The grayish pallor went from his face. His teeth gleamed in the enigmatic smile that had half undone Howland in the fight.

"You are mistaken in some things, M'seur," he said quietly. "Until to-day I have fought for you and not against you. But now you have left me but one choice. I will take you to Meleese, and that means—"

"Good!" cried Howland.

"La, la, M'seur—not so good as you think. It means that as surely as the dogs carry us there you will never come back. Mon Dieu, your death is certain!"

Howland turned briskly to the stove.

"Hungry, Jean?" he asked more companionably. "Let's not quarrel, man. You've had your fun, and now I'm going to have mine. Have you had breakfast?"

"I was anticipating that pleasure with you, M'seur," replied Jean with grim humor.

"And then—after I had fed you—you were going to kill me, my dear Jean," laughed Howland, flopping a huge caribou steak on the naked top of the sheet-iron stove. "Real nice fellow you are, eh?"

"You ought to be killed, M'seur."

"So you've said before. When I see Meleese I'm going to know the reason why, or—"

"Or what, M'seur?"

"Kill you, Jean. I've just about made up my mind that you ought to be killed. If any one dies up where we're going, Croisset, it will be you first of all."

Jean remained silent. A few minutes later Howland brought the caribou steak, a dish of flour cakes and a big pot of coffee to the table. Then he went behind Jean and untied his hands. When he sat down at his own side of the table he cocked his revolver and placed it beside his tin plate. Jean grimaced and shrugged his shoulders.

"It means business," said his captor warningly. "If at any time I think you deserve it I shall shoot you in your tracks, Croisset, so don't arouse my suspicions."

"I took your word of honor," said Jean sarcastically.

"And I will take yours to an extent," replied Howland, pouring the coffee. Suddenly he picked up the revolver. "You never saw me shoot, did you? See that cup over there?" He pointed to a small tin pack-cup hanging to a nail on the wall a dozen paces from them. Three times without missing he drove bullets through it, and smiled across at Croisset.

"I am going to give you the use of your arms and legs, except at night," he said.

"Mon Dieu, it is safe," grunted Jean. "I give you my word that I will be good, M'seur."

The sun was up when Croisset led the way outside. His dogs and sledge were a hundred yards from the building, and Howland's first move was to take possession of the Frenchman's rifle and eject the cartridges while Jean tossed chunks of caribou flesh to the huskies. When they were ready to start Jean turned slowly and half reached out a mittened hand to the engineer.

"M'seur," he said softly, "I can not help liking you, though I know that I should have killed you long ago. I tell you again that if you go into the North there is only one chance in a hundred that you will come back alive. Great God, M'seur, up where you wish to go the very trees will fall on you and the carrion ravens pick, out your eyes! And that chance—that one chance in a hundred, M'seur—"

"I will take," interrupted Howland decisively.

"I was going to say, M'seur," finished Jean quietly, "that unless accident has befallen those who left Wekusko yesterday that one chance is gone. If you go South you are safe. If you go into the North you are no better than a dead man."

"There will at least be a little fun at the finish," laughed the young engineer. "Come, Jean, hit up the dogs!"

"Mon Dieu, I say you are a fool—and a brave man," said Croisset, and his whip twisted sinuously in mid-air and cracked in sharp command over the yellow backs of the huskies.



CHAPTER XIII

THE PURSUIT

Behind the sledge ran Howland, to the right of the team ran Jean. Once or twice when Croisset glanced back his eyes met those of the engineer. He cracked his whip and smiled, and Howland's teeth gleamed back coldly in reply. A mutual understanding flashed between them in these glances. In a sudden spurt Howland knew that the Frenchman could quickly put distance between them—but not a distance that his bullets could not cover in the space of a breath. He had made up his mind to fire, deliberately and with his greatest skill, if Croisset made the slightest movement toward escape. If he was compelled to kill or wound his companion he could still go on alone with the dogs, for the trail of Meleese and Jackpine would be as plain as their own, which they were following back into the South.

For the second time since coming into the North he felt the blood leaping through his veins as on that first night in Prince Albert when from the mountain he had heard the lone wolf, and when later he had seen the beautiful face through the hotel window. Howland was one of the few men who possess unbounded confidence in themselves, who place a certain pride in their physical as well as their mental capabilities, and he was confident now. His successful and indomitable fight over obstacles in a big city had made this confidence a genuine part of his being. It was a confidence that flushed his face with joyous enthusiasm as he ran after the dogs, and that astonished and puzzled Jean Croisset.

"Mon Dieu, but you are a strange man!" exclaimed the Frenchman when he brought the dogs down to a walk after a half mile run. "Blessed saints, M'seur, you are laughing—and I swear it is no laughing matter."

"Shouldn't a man be happy when he is going to his wedding, Jean?" puffed Howland, gasping to get back the breath he had lost.

"But not when he's going to his funeral, M'seur."

"If I were one of your blessed saints I'd hit you over the head with a thunderbolt, Croisset. Good Lord, what sort of a heart have you got inside of your jacket, man? Up there where we're going is the sweetest little girl in the whole world. I love her. She loves me. Why shouldn't I be happy, now that I know I'm going to see her again very soon—and take her back into the South with me?"

"The devil!" grunted Jean.

"Perhaps you're jealous, Croisset," suggested Howland. "Great Scott, I hadn't thought of that!"

"I've got one of my own to love, M'seur; and I wouldn't trade her for all else in the world."

"Damned if I can understand you," swore the engineer. "You appear to be half human; you say you're in love, and yet you'd rather risk your life than help out Meleese and me. What the deuce does it mean?"

"That's what I'm doing, M'seur—helping Meleese. I would have done her a greater service if I had killed you back there on the trail and stripped your body for those things that would be foul enough to eat it. I have told you a dozen times that it is God's justice that you die. And you are going to die—very soon, M'seur."

"No, I'm not going to die, Jean. I'm going to see Meleese, and she's going back into the South with me. And if you're real good you may have the pleasure of driving us back to the Wekusko, Croisset, and you can be my best man at the wedding. What do you say to that?"

"That you are mad—or a fool," retorted Jean, cracking his whip viciously.

The dogs swung sharply from the trail, heading from their southerly course into the northwest.

"We will save a day by doing this," explained Croisset at the other's sharp word of inquiry. "We will hit the other trail twenty miles west of here, while by following back to where they turned we would travel sixty miles to reach the same point. That one chance in a hundred which you have depends on this, M'seur. If the other sledge has passed—"

He shrugged his shoulders and started the dogs into a trot.

"Look here," cried Howland, running beside him. "Who is with this other sledge?"

"Those who tried to kill you on the trail and at the coyote, M'seur," he answered quickly.

Howland fell half a dozen paces behind. By the end of the first hour he was compelled to rest frequently by taking to the sledge, and their progress was much slower. Jean no longer made answer to his occasional questions. Doggedly he swung on ahead to the right and a little behind the team leader, and Howland could see that for some reason Croisset was as anxious as himself to make the best time possible. His own impatience increased as the morning lengthened. Jean's assurance that the mysterious enemies who had twice attempted his life were only a short distance behind them, or a short distance ahead, set a new and desperate idea at work in his brain. He was confident that these men from the Wekusko were his chief menace, and that with them once out of the way, and with the Frenchman in his power, the fight which he was carrying into the enemy's country would be half won. There would then be no one to recognize him but Meleese.

His heart leaped with joyous hope, and he leaned forward on the sledge to examine Croisset's empty gun. It was an automatic, and Croisset, glancing back over the loping backs of the huskies, caught him smiling. He ran more frequently now, and longer distances, and with the passing of each mile his determination to strike a decisive blow increased. If they reached the trail of Meleese and Jackpine before the crossing of the second sledge he would lay in wait for his old enemies; if they had preceded them he would pursue and surprise them in camp. In either case he would possess an overwhelming advantage.

With the same calculating attention to detail that he would have shown in the arrangement of plans for the building of a tunnel or a bridge, he drew a mental map of his scheme and its possibilities. There would be at least two men with the sledge, and possibly three. If they surrendered at the point of his rifle without a fight he would compel Jean to tie them up with dog-traces while he held them under cover. If they made a move to offer resistance he would shoot. With the automatic he could kill or wound the three before they could reach their rifles, which would undoubtedly be on the sledge. The situation had now reached a point where he no longer took into consideration what these men might be to Meleese.

As they continued into the northwest Howland noted that the thicker forest was gradually clearing into wide areas of small banskian pine, and that the rock ridges and dense swamps which had impeded their progress were becoming less numerous. An hour before noon, after a tedious climb to the top of a frozen ridge, Croisset pointed down into a vast level plain lying between them and other great ridges far to the north.

"That is a bit of the Barren Lands that creeps down between those mountains off there, M'seur," he said. "Do you see that black forest that looks like a charred log in the snow to the south and west of the mountains? That is the break that leads into the country of the Athabasca. Somewhere between this point and that we will strike the trail. Mon Dieu, I had half expected to see them out there on the plain."

"Who? Meleese and Jackpine, or—"

"No, the others, M'seur. Shall we have dinner here?"

"Not until we hit the trail," replied Howland. "I'm anxious to know about that one chance in a hundred you've given me hope of, Croisset. If they have passed—"

"If they are ahead of us you might just as well stand out there and let me put a bullet through you, M'seur."

He went to the head of the dogs, guiding them down the rough side of the ridge, while Howland steadied the toboggan from behind. For three-quarters of an hour they traversed the low bush of the plain in silence. From every rising snow hummock Jean scanned the white desolation about them, and each time, as nothing that was human came within his vision, he turned toward the engineer with a sinister shrug of his shoulders. Once three moving caribou, a mile or more away, brought a quick cry to his lips and Howland noticed that a sudden flush of excitement came into his face, replaced in the next instant by a look of disappointment. After this he maintained a more careful guard over the Frenchman. They had covered less than half of the distance to the caribou trail when in a small open space free of bush Croisset's voice rose sharply and the team stopped.

"What do you think of it, M'seur?" he cried, pointing to the snow. "What do you think of that?"

Barely cutting into the edge of the open was the broken crust of two sledge trails. For a moment Howland forgot his caution and bent over to examine the trails, with his back to his companion. When he looked up there was a curious laughing gleam in Jean's eyes.

"Mon Dieu, but you are careless!" he exclaimed. "Be more careful, M'seur. I may give myself up to another temptation like that."

"The deuce you say!" cried Howland, springing back quickly. "I'm much obliged, Jean. If it wasn't for the moral effect of the thing I'd shake hands with you on that. How far ahead of us do you suppose they are?"

Croisset had fallen on his knees in the trail.

"The crust is freshly broken," he said after a moment. "They have been gone not less than two or three hours, perhaps since morning. See this white glistening surface over the first trail, M'seur, like a billion needle-points growing out of it? That is the work of three or four days' cold. The first sledge passed that long ago."

Howland turned and picked up Croisset's rifle. The Frenchman watched him as he slipped a clip full of cartridges into the breech.

"If there's a snack of cold stuff in the pack dig it out," he commanded. "We'll eat on the run, if you've got anything to eat. If you haven't, we'll go hungry. We're going to overtake that sledge sometime this afternoon or to-night—or bust!"

"The saints be blessed, then we are most certain to bust, M'seur," gasped Jean. "And if we don't the dogs will. Non, it is impossible!"

"Is there anything to eat?"

"A morsel of cold meat—that is all. But I say that it is impossible. That sledge—"

Howland interrupted him with an impatient gesture.

"And I say that if there is anything to eat in there, get it out, and be quick about it, Croisset. We're going to overtake those precious friends of yours, and I warn you that if you make any attempt to lose time something unpleasant is going to happen. Understand?"

Jean had bent to unstrap one end of the sledge pack and an angry flash leaped into his eyes at the threatening tone of the engineer's voice. For a moment he seemed on the point of speech, but caught himself and in silence divided the small chunk of meat which he drew from the pack, giving the larger share to Howland as he went to the head of the dogs. Only once or twice during the next hour did he look back, and after each of these glances he redoubled his efforts at urging on the huskies. Before they had come to the edge of the black banskian forest which Jean had pointed out from the farther side of the plain, Howland saw that the pace was telling on the team. The leader was trailing lame, and now and then the whole pack would settle back in their traces, to be urged on again by the fierce cracking of Croisset's long whip. To add to his own discomfiture Howland found that he could no longer keep up with Jean and the dogs, and with his weight added to the sledge the huskies settled down into a tugging walk.

Thus they came into the deep low forest, and Jean, apparently oblivious of the exhaustion of both man and dogs, walked now in advance of the team, his eyes constantly on the thin trail ahead. Howland could not fail to see that his unnecessary threat of a few hours before still rankled in the Frenchman's mind, and several times he made an effort to break the other's taciturnity. But Jean strode on in moody silence, answering only those things which were put to him directly, and speaking not an unnecessary word. At last the engineer jumped from the sledge and overtook his companion.

"Hold on, Jean," he cried. "I've got enough. You're right, and I want to apologize. We're busted—that is, the dogs and I are busted, and we might as well give it up until we've had a feed. What do you say?"

"I say that you have stopped just in time, M'seur," replied Croisset with purring softness. "Another half hour and we would have been through the forest, and just beyond that—in the edge of the plain—are those whom you seek, Meleese and her people. That is what I started to tell you back there when you shut me up. Mon Dieu, if it were not for Meleese I would let you go on. And then—what would happen then, M'seur, if you made your visit to them in broad day? Listen!"

Jean lifted a warning hand. Faintly there came to them through the forest the distant baying of a hound.

"That is one of our dogs from the Mackenzie country," he went on softly, an insinuating triumph in his low voice. "Now, M'seur, that I have brought you here what are you going to do? Shall we go on and take dinner with those who are going to kill you, or will you wait a few hours? Eh, which shall it be?"

For a moment Howland stood motionless, stunned by the Frenchman's words. Quickly he recovered himself. His eyes burned with a metallic gleam as they met the half taunt in Croisset's cool smile.

"If I had not stopped you—we would have gone on?" he questioned tensely.

"To be sure, M'seur," retorted Croisset, still smiling. "You warned me to lose no time—that something would happen if I did."

With a quick movement Howland drew his revolver and leveled it at the Frenchman's heart.

"If you ever prayed to those blessed saints of yours, do it now, Jean Croisset. I'm going to kill you!" he cried fiercely.



CHAPTER XIV

THE GLEAM OF THE LIGHT

In a single breath the face of Jean Croisset became no more than a mask of what it had been. The taunting smile left his lips and a gray pallor spread over his face as he saw Howland's finger crooked firmly on the trigger of his revolver. In another instant there came the sound of a metallic snap.

"Damnation! An empty cartridge!" Howland exclaimed. "I forgot to load after those three shots at the cup. It's coming this time, Jean!"

Purposely he snapped the second empty cartridge.

"The great God!" gasped Jean. "M'seur—"

From deep in the forest came again the baying of the Mackenzie hound. This time it was much nearer, and for a moment Howland's eyes left the Frenchman's terrified face as he turned his head to listen.

"They are coming!" exclaimed Croisset. "M'seur, I swear to—"

Again Howland's pistol covered his heart.

"Then it is even more necessary that I kill you," he said with frightful calmness. "I warned you that I would kill you if you led me into a trap, Croisset. The dogs are bushed. There is no way out of this but to fight—if there are people coming down the trail. Listen to that!"

This time, from still nearer, came the shout of a man, and then of another, followed by the huskies' sharp yelping as they started afresh on the trail. The flush of excitement that had come into Howland's face paled until he stood as white as the Frenchman. But it was not the whiteness of fear. His eyes were like blue steel flashing in the sunlight.

"There is nothing to do but fight," he repeated, even more calmly than before. "If we were a mile or two back there it could all happen as I planned it. But here—"

"They will hear the shots," cried Jean. "The post is no more than a gunshot beyond the forest, and there are plenty there who would come out to see what it means. Quick, M'seur—follow me. Possibly they are hunters going out to the trap-lines. If it comes to the worst—"

"What then?" demanded Howland.

"You can shoot me a little later," temporized the Frenchman with a show of his old coolness. "Mon Dieu, I am afraid of that gun, M'seur. I will get you out of this if I can. Will you give me the chance—or will you shoot?"

"I will shoot—if you fail," replied the engineer.

Barely were the words out of his mouth when Croisset sprang to the head of the dogs, seized the leader by his neck-trace and half dragged the team and sledge through the thick bush that edged the trail. A dozen paces farther on the dense scrub opened into the clearer run of the low-hanging banskian through which Jean started at a slow trot, with Howland a yard behind him, and the huskies following with human-like cleverness in the sinuous twistings of the trail which the Frenchman marked out for them. They had progressed not more than three hundred yards when there came to them for a third time the hallooing of a voice. With a sharp "hup, hup," and a low crack of his whip Jean stopped the dogs.

"The Virgin be praised, but that is luck!" he exclaimed. "They have turned off into another trail to the east, M'seur. If they had come on to that break in the bush where we dragged the sledge through—" He shrugged his shoulders with a gasp of relief. "Sacre, they would not be fools enough to pass it without wondering!"

Howland had broken the breech of his revolver and was replacing the three empty cartridges with fresh ones.

"There will be no mistake next time," he said, holding out the weapon. "You were as near your death a few moments ago as ever before in your life, Croisset—and now for a little plain understanding between us. Until we stopped out there I had some faith in you. Now I have none. I regard you as my worst enemy, and though you are deuced near to your friends I tell you that you were never in a tighter box in your life. If I fail in my mission here, you shall die. If others come along that trail before dark, and run us down, I will kill you. Unless you make it possible for me to see and talk with Meleese I will kill you. Your life hangs on my success; with my failure your death is as certain as the coming of night. I am going to put a bullet through you at the slightest suspicion of treachery. Under the circumstances what do you propose to do?"

"I am glad that you changed your mind, M'seur, and I will not tempt you again. I will do the best that I can," said Jean. Through a narrow break in the tops of the banskian pines a few feathery flakes of snow were falling, and Jean lifted his eyes to the slit of gray sky above them. "Within an hour it will be snowing heavily," he affirmed. "If they do not run across our trail by that time, M'seur, we shall be safe."

He led the way through the forest again, more slowly and with greater caution than before, and whenever he looked over his shoulder he caught the dull gleam of Howland's revolver as it pointed at the hollow of his back.

"The devil, but you make me uncomfortable," he protested. "The hammer is up, too, M'seur!"

"Yes, it is up," said Howland grimly. "And it never leaves your back, Croisset. If the gun should go off accidentally it would bore a hole clean through you."

Half an hour later the Frenchman halted where the banskians climbed the side of a sloping ridge.

"If you could trust me I would ask to go on ahead," whispered Jean. "This ridge shuts in the plain, M'seur, and just over the top of it is an old cabin which has been abandoned for many years. There is not one chance in a thousand of there being any one there, though it is a good fox ridge at this season. From it you may see the light in Meleese's window at night."

He did not stop to watch the effect of his last words, but began picking his way up the ridge with the dogs tugging at his heels. At the top he swung sharply between two huge masses of snow-covered rock, and in the lee of the largest of these, almost entirely sheltered from the drifts piled up by easterly winds, they came suddenly on a small log hut. About it there were no signs of life. With unusual eagerness Jean scanned the surface of the snow, and when he saw that there was trail of neither man nor beast in the unbroken crust a look of relief came into his face.

"Mon Dieu, so far I have saved my hide," he grinned. "Now, M'seur, look for yourself and see if Jean Croisset has not kept his word!"

A dozen steps had taken him through a screen of shrub to the opposite slope of the ridge. With outstretched arm he pointed down into the plain, and as Howland's eyes followed its direction he stood throbbing with sudden excitement. Less than a quarter of a mile away, sheltered in a dip of the plain, were three or four log buildings rising black and desolate out of the white waste. One of these buildings was a large structure similar to that in which Howland had been imprisoned, and as he looked a team and sledge appeared from behind one of the cabins and halted close to the wall of the large building. The driver was plainly visible, and to Howland's astonishment he suddenly began to ascend the side of this wall. For the moment Howland had not thought of a stair.

Jean's attitude drew his eyes. The Frenchman had thrust himself half out of the screening bushes and was staring through the telescope of his hands. With an exclamation he turned quickly to the engineer.

"Look, M'seur! Do you see that man climbing the stair? I don't mind telling you that he is the one who hit you over the head on the trail, and also one of those who shut you up in the coyote. Those are his quarters at the post, and possibly he is going up to see Meleese. If you were much of a shot you could settle a score or two from here, M'seur."

The figure had stopped, evidently on a platform midway up the side of the building. He stood for a moment as if scanning the plain between him and the mountain, then disappeared. Howland had not spoken a word, but every nerve in his body tingled strangely.

"You say Meleese—is there?" he questioned hesitatingly. "And he—who is that man, Croisset?"

Jean shrugged his shoulders and drew himself back into the bush, turning leisurely toward the old cabin.

"Non, M'seur, I will not tell you that," he protested. "I have brought you to this place. I have pointed out to you the stair that leads to the room where you will find Meleese. You may cut me into ribbons for the ravens, but I will tell you no more!"

Again the threatening fire leaped into Howland's eyes.

"I will trouble you to put your hands behind your back, Croisset," he commanded. "I am going to return a certain compliment of yours by tying your hands with this piece of babeesh, which you used on me. After that—"

"And after that, M'seur—" urged Jean, with a touch of the old taunt in his voice, and stopping with his back to the engineer and his hands behind him. "After that?"

"You will tell me all that I want to know," finished Howland, tightening the thong about his wrists.

He led the way then to the cabin. The door was closed, but opened readily as he put his weight against it. The single room was lighted by a window through which a mass of snow had drifted, and contained nothing more than a rude table built against one of the log walls, three supply boxes that had evidently been employed as stools, and a cracked and rust-eaten sheet-iron stove that had from all appearances long passed into disuse. He motioned the Frenchman to a seat at one end of the table. Without a word he then went outside, securely toggled the leading dog, and returning, closed the door and seated himself at the end of the table opposite Jean.

The light from the open window fell full on Croisset's dark face and shone in a silvery streak along the top of Howland's revolver as the muzzle of it rested casually on a line with the other's breast. There was a menacing click as the engineer drew back the hammer.

"Now, my dear Jean, we're ready to begin the real game," he explained. "Here we are, high and dry, and down there—just far enough away to be out of hearing of this revolver when I shoot—are those we're going to play against. So far I've been completely in the dark. I know of no reason why I shouldn't go down there openly and be welcomed and given a good supper. And yet at the same time I know that my life wouldn't be worth a tinker's damn if I did go down. You can clear up the whole business, and that's what you're going to do. When I understand why I am scheduled to be murdered on sight I won't be handicapped as I now am. So go ahead and spiel. If you don't, I'll blow your head off."

Jean sat unflinching, his lips drawn tightly, his head set square and defiant.

"You may shoot, M'seur," he said quietly. "I have sworn on a cross of the Virgin to tell you no more than I have. You could not torture me into revealing what you ask."

Slowly Howland raised his revolver.

"Once more, Croisset—will you tell me?"

"Non, M'seur—"

A deafening explosion filled the little cabin. From the lobe of Jean's ear there ran a red trickle of blood. His face had gone deathly pale. But even as the bullet had stung him within an inch of his brain he had not flinched.

"Will you tell me, Croisset?"

This time the black pit of the engineer's revolver centered squarely between the Frenchman's eyes.

"Non, M'seur."

The eyes of the two men met over the blue steel. With a cry Howland slowly lowered his weapon.

"Good God, but you're a brave man, Jean Croisset!" he cried. "I'd sooner kill a dozen men that I know than you!"

He rose to his feet and went to the door. There was still but little snow in the air. To the north the horizon was growing black with the early approach of the northern night. With a nervous laugh he returned to Jean.

"Deuce take it if I don't feel like apologizing to you," he exclaimed. "Does your ear hurt?"

"No more than if I had scratched it with a thorn," returned Jean politely. "You are good with the pistol, M'seur."

"I would not profit by killing you—just now," mused Howland, seating himself again on the box and resting his chin in the palm of his hand as he looked across at the other. "But that's a pretty good intimation that I'm desperate and mean business, Croisset. We won't quarrel about the things I've asked you. What I'm here for is to see Meleese. Now—how is that to happen?"

"For the life of me I don't know," replied Jean, as calmly as though a bullet had not nipped the edge of his ear a moment before. "There is only one way I can see, M'seur, and that is to wait and watch from this mountain top until Meleese drives out her dogs. She has her own team, and in ordinary seasons frequently goes out alone or with one of the women at the post. Mon Dieu, she has had enough sledge-riding of late, and I doubt if she will find pleasure in her dogs for a long time."

"I had planned to use you," said Howland, "but I've lost faith in you. Honestly, Croisset, I believe you would stick me in the back almost as quickly as those murderers down there." "Not in the back, M'seur," smiled the Frenchman, unmoved. "I have had opportunities to do that. Non, since that fight back there I do not believe that I want to kill you."

"But I would be a fool to trust you. Isn't that so?"

"Not if I gave you my word. That is something we do not break up here as you do down among the Wekusko people, and farther south."

"But you murder people for pastime—eh, my dear Jean?"

Croisset shrugged his shoulders without speaking.

"See here, Croisset," said Howland with sudden earnestness, "I'm almost tempted to take a chance with you. Will you go down to the post to-night, in some way gain access to Meleese, and give her a message from me?"

"And the message—what would it be?"

"It would bring Meleese up to this cabin—to-night."

"Are you sure, M'seur?"

"I am certain that it would. Will you go?"

"Non, M'seur."

"The devil take you!" cried Howland angrily. "If I was not certain that I would need you later I'd garrote you where you sit."

He rose and went to the old stove. It was still capable of holding fire, and as it had grown too dark outside for the smoke to be observed from the post, he proceeded to prepare a supper of hot coffee and meat. Jean watched him in silence, and not until food and drink were on the table did the engineer himself break silence.

"Of course, I'm not going to feed you," he said curtly, "so I'll have to free your hands. But be careful."

He placed his revolver on the table beside him after he had freed Croisset.

"I might assassinate you with a fork!" chuckled the Frenchman softly, his black eyes laughing over his coffee cup. "I drink your health, M'seur, and wish you happiness!"

"You lie!" snapped Howland.

Jean lowered the cup without drinking.

"It's the truth, M'seur," he insisted. "Since that bee-utiful fight back there I can not help but wish you happiness. I drink also to the happiness of Meleese, also to the happiness of those who tried to kill you on the trail and at the coyote. But, Mon Dieu, how is it all to come? Those at the post are happy because they believe that you are dead. You will not be happy until they are dead. And Meleese—how will all this bring happiness to her? I tell you that I am as deep in trouble as you, M'seur Howland. May the Virgin strike me dead if I'm not!"

He drank, his eyes darkening gloomily. In that moment there flashed into Howland's mind a memory of the battle that Jean had fought for him on the Great North Trail.

"You nearly killed one of them—that night—at Prince Albert," he said slowly. "I can't understand why you fought for me then and won't help me now. But you did. And you're afraid to go down there—"

"Until I have regrown a beard," interrupted Jean with a low chuckling laugh. "You would not be the only one to die if they saw me again like this. But that is enough, M'seur. I will say no more."

"I really don't want to make you uncomfortable, Jean," Howland apologized, as he secured the Frenchman's hands again after they had satisfied their hearty appetites, "but unless you swear by your Virgin or something else that you will make no attempt to call assistance I shall have to gag you. What do you say?"

"I will make no outcry, M'seur. I give you my word for that."

With another length of babeesh Howland tied his companion's legs.

"I'm going to investigate a little," he explained. "I am not afraid of your voice, for if you begin to shout I will hear you first. But with your legs free you might take it into your head to run away."

"Would you mind spreading a blanket on the floor, M'seur? If you are gone long this box will grow hard and sharp."

A few minutes later, after he had made his prisoner as comfortable as possible in the cabin, Howland went again through the fringe of scrub bush to the edge of the ridge. Below him the plain was lost in the gloom of night. He could see nothing of the buildings at the post but two or three lights gleaming faintly through the darkness. Overhead there were no stars; thickening snow shut out what illumination there might have been in the north, and even as he stood looking into the desolation to the west the snow fell faster and the lights grew fainter and fainter until all was a chaos of blackness.

In these moments a desire that was almost madness swept over him. Since his fight with Jean the swift passing of events had confined his thoughts to their one objective—the finding of Meleese and her people. He had assured himself that his every move was to be a cool and calculating one, that nothing—not even his great love—should urge him beyond that reason which had made him a master-builder among men. As he stood with the snow falling heavily on him he knew that his trail would be covered before another day—that for an indefinite period he might safely wait and watch for Meleese on the mountain top. And yet, slowly, he made his way down the side of the ridge. A little way out there in the gloom, barely beyond the call of his voice, was the girl for whom he was willing to sacrifice all that he had ever achieved in life. With each step the desire in him grew—the impulse to bring himself nearer to her, to steal across the plain, to approach in the silent smother of the storm until he could look on the light which Jean Croisset had told him would gleam from her window.

He descended to the foot of the ridge and headed into the plain, taking the caution to bury his feet deep in the snow that he might have a trail to guide him back to the cabin. At first he found himself impeded by low bush. Then the plain became more open, and he knew that there was nothing but the night and the snow to shut out his vision ahead. Still he had no motive, no reason for what he did. The snow would cover his tracks before morning. There would be no harm done, and he might get a glimpse of the light, of her light.

It came on his vision with a suddenness that set his heart leaping. A dog barked ahead of him, so near that he stopped in his tracks, and then suddenly there shot through the snow-gloom the bright gleam of a lamp. Before he had taken another breath he was aware of what had happened. A curtain had been drawn aside in the chaos ahead. He was almost on the walls of the post—and the light gleamed from high, up, from the head of the stair!

For a space he stood still, listening and watching. There was no other light, no other sound after the barking of the dog. About him the snow fell with fluttering noiselessness and it filled him with a sensation of safety. The sharpest eyes could not see him, the keenest ears could not hear him—and he advanced again until before him there rose out of the gloom a huge shadowy mass that was blacker than the night itself. The one lighted window was plainly visible now, its curtain two-thirds drawn, and as he looked a shadow passed over it. Was it a woman's shadow? The window darkened as the figure within came nearer to it, and Howland stood with clenched hands and wildly beating heart, almost ready to call out softly a name. A little nearer—one more step—and he would know. He might throw a chunk of snow-crust, a cartridge from his belt—and then—

The shadow disappeared. Dimly Howland made out the snow-covered stair, and he went to it and looked up. Ten feet above him the light shone out.

He looked into the gloom behind him, into the gloom out of which he had come. Nothing—nothing but the storm. Swiftly he mounted the stair.



CHAPTER XV

IN THE BEDROOM CHAMBER

Flattening himself closely against the black logs of the wall Howland paused on the platform at the top of the stair. His groping hand touched the jam of a door and he held his breath when his fingers incautiously rattled the steel of a latch. In another moment he passed on, three paces—-four—along the platform, at last sinking on his knees in the snow, close under the window, his eyes searched the lighted room an inch at a time. He saw a section of wall at first, dimly illuminated; then a small table near the window covered with books and magazines, and beside it a reclining chair buried thick under a great white bear robe. On the table, but beyond his vision, was the lamp. He drew himself a few inches more through the snow, leaning still farther ahead, until he saw the foot of a white bed. A little more and he stopped, his white face close to the window-pane.

On the bed, facing him, sat Meleese. Her chin was buried in the cup of her hands, and he noticed that she was in a dressing-gown and that her beautiful hair was loosed and flowing in glistening waves about her, as though she had just brushed it for the night. A movement, a slight shifting of her eyes, and she would have seen him.

He was filled with an almost mastering impulse to press his face closer, to tap on the window, to draw her eyes to him, but even as his hand rose to do the bidding of that impulse something restrained him. Slowly the girl lifted her head, and he was thrilled to find that another impulse drew him back until his ghostly face was a part of the elusive snow-gloom. He watched her as she turned from him and threw back the glory of her hair until it half hid her in a mass of copper and gold; from his distance he still gazed at her, choking and undecided, while she gathered it in three heavy strands and plaited it into a shining braid.

For an instant his eyes wandered. Beyond her presence the room was empty. He saw a door, and observed that it opened into another room, which in turn could be entered through the platform door behind him. With his old exactness for detail he leaped to definite conclusion. These were Meleese's apartments at the post, separated from all others—and Meleese was preparing to retire for the night. If the outer door was not locked, and he entered, what danger could there be of interruption? It was late. The post was asleep. He had seen no light but that in the window through which he was staring.

The thought was scarcely born before he was at the platform door. The latch clicked gently under his fingers; cautiously he pushed the door inward and thrust in his head and shoulders. The air inside was cold and frosty. He reached out an arm to the right and his hand encountered the rough-hewn surface of a wall; he advanced a step and reached out to the left. There, too, his hand touched a wall. He was in a narrow: corridor. Ahead of him there shone a thin ray of light from under the door that opened into Meleese's room. Nerving himself for the last move, he went boldly to the door, knocked lightly to give some warning of his presence, and entered. Meleese was gone. He closed the door behind him, scarce believing his eyes. Then at the far end of the room he saw a curtain, undulating slightly as if from the movement of a person on the other side of it.

"Meleese!" he called softly.

White and dripping with snow, his face bloodless in the tense excitement of the moment, he stood with his arms half reaching out when the curtain was thrust aside and the girl stood before him. At first she did not recognize him in his ghostly storm-covered disguise. But before the startled cry that was on her lips found utterance the fear that had blanched her face gave place to a swift sweeping flood of color. For a space there was no word between them as they stood separated by the breadth of the room, Howland with his arms held out to her in pleading silence, Meleese with her hands clutched to her bosom, her throat atremble with strange sobbing notes that made no more sound than the fluttering of a bird's wing.

And Howland, as he came across the room to her, found no words to say—none of the things that he had meant to whisper to her, but drew her to him and crushed her close to his breast, knowing that in this moment nothing could tell her more eloquently than the throbbing of his own heart, the passionate pressure of his face to her face, of his great love which seemed to stir into life the very silence that encompassed them.

It was a silence broken after a moment by a short choking cry, the quick-breathing terror of a face turned suddenly up to him robbed of its flush and quivering with a fear that still found no voice in words. He felt the girl's arms straining against him for freedom; her eyes were filled with a staring, questioning horror, as though his presence had grown into a thing of which she was afraid. The change was tonic to him. This was what he had expected—-the first terror at his presence, the struggle against his will, and there surged back over him the forces he had reserved for this moment. He opened his arms and Meleese slipped from them, her hands clutched again in the clinging drapery of her bosom.

"I have come for you, Meleese," he said as calmly as though his arrival had been expected. "Jean is my prisoner. I forced him to drive me to the old cabin up on the mountain, and he is waiting there with the dogs. We will start back to-night—now." Suddenly he sprang to her again, his voice breaking in a low pleading cry. "My God, don't you see now how I love you?" he went on, taking her white face between his two hands. "Don't you understand, Meleese? Jean and I have fought—he is bound hand and foot up there in the cabin—and I am waiting for you—for you—" He pressed her face against him, her lips so close that he could feel their quavering breath. "I have come to fight for you—if you won't go," he whispered tensely. "I don't know why your people have tried to kill me, I don't know why they want to kill me, and it makes no difference to me now. I want you. I've wanted you since that first glimpse of your face through the window, since the fight on the trail—every minute, every hour, and I won't give you up as long as I'm alive. If you won't go with me—if you won't go now—to-night—" He held her closer, his voice trembling in her hair. "If you won't go—I'm going to stay with you!"

There was a thrillingly decisive note in his last words, a note that carried with it more than all he had said before, and as Meleese partly drew away from him again she gave a sharp cry of protest.

"No—no—no—" she panted, her hands clutching at his arm. "You must go back now—now—" She pushed him toward the door, and as he backed a step, looking down into her face, he saw the choking tremble of her white throat, heard again the fluttering terror in her breath. "They will kill you if they find you here," she urged. "They think you are dead—that you fell through the ice and were drowned. If you don't believe me, if you don't believe that I can never go with you, tell Jean—"

Her words seemed to choke her as she struggled to finish.

"Tell Jean what?" he questioned softly.

"Will you go—then?" she cried with sobbing eagerness, as if he already understood her. "Will you go back if Jean tells you everything—everything about me—about—"

"No," he interrupted.

"If you only knew—then you would go back, and never see me again. You would understand—"

"I will never understand," He interrupted again. "I say that it is you who do not understand, Meleese! I don't care what Jean would tell me. Nothing that has ever happened can make me not want you. Don't you understand? Nothing, I say—nothing that has happened—that can ever happen—unless—"

For a moment he stopped, looking straight into her eyes.

"Nothing—nothing in the world, Meleese," he repeated almost in a whisper, "unless you did not tell me the truth back on the trail at Wekusko when you said that it was not a sin to love you."

"And if I tell you—if I confess that it is a sin, that I lied back there—then will you go?" she demanded quickly.

Her eyes flamed on him with a strange light.

"No," he said calmly. "I would not believe you."

"But it is the truth. I lied—lied terribly to you. I have sinned even more terribly, and—and you must go. Don't you understand me now? If some one should come—and find you here—"

"There would be a fight," he said grimly. "I have come prepared to fight." He waited a moment, and in the silence the brown head in front of him dropped slowly and he saw a tremor pass through the slender form, as if it had been torn by an instant's pain. The pallor had gone from Howland's face. The mute surrender in the bowed head, the soft sobbing notes that he heard now in the girl's breath, the confession that he read in her voiceless grief set his heart leaping, and again he drew her close into his arms and turned her face up to his own. There was no resistance now, no words, no pleading for him to go; but in her eyes he saw the prayerful entreaty with which she had come to him on the Wekusko trail, and in the quivering red mouth the same torture and love and half-surrender that had burned themselves into his soul there. Love, triumph, undying faith shone in his eyes, and he crushed her face closer until the lovely mouth lay pouted like a crimson rose for him to kiss.

"You—you told me something that wasn't true—once—back there," he whispered, "and you promised that you wouldn't do it again. You haven't sinned—in the way that I mean, and in the way that you want me to believe." His arms tightened still more about her, and his voice was suddenly filled with a tense quick eagerness. "Why don't you tell me everything?" he asked. "You believe that if I knew certain things I would never want to see you again, that I would go back into the South. You have told me that. Then—if you want me to go—why don't you reveal these things to me? If you can't do that, go with me to-night. We will go anywhere—to the ends of the earth—"

He stopped at the look that had come into her face. Her eyes were turned to the window. He saw them filled with a strange terror, and involuntarily his own followed them to where the storm was beating softly against the window-pane. Close to the lighted glass was pressed a man's face. He caught a flashing glimpse of a pair of eyes staring in at them, of a thick, wild beard whitened by the snow. He knew the face. When life seemed slipping out of his throat he had looked up into it that night of the ambush on the Great North Trail. There was the same hatred, the same demoniac fierceness in it now.

With a quick movement Howland sprang away from the girl and leveled his revolver to where the face had been. Over the shining barrel he saw only the taunting emptiness of the storm. Scarcely had the face disappeared when there came the loud shout of a man, the hoarse calling of a name, and then of another, and after that the quick, furious opening of the outer door.

Howland whirled, his weapon pointing to the only entrance. The girl was ahead of him and with a warning cry he swung the muzzle of his gun upward. In a moment she had pushed the bolt that locked the room from the inside, and had leaped back to him, her face white, her breath breaking in fear. She spoke no word, but with a moan of terror caught him by the arm and pulled him past the light and beyond the thick curtain that had hidden her when he had entered the room a few minutes before. They were in a second room, palely lighted by a mass of coals gleaming through the open door of a box stove, and with a second window looking out into the thick night. Fiercely she dragged him to this window, her fingers biting deep into the flesh of his arm.

"You must go—through this!" she cried chokingly. "Quick! O, my God, won't you hurry? Won't you go?"

Howland had stopped. From the blackness of the corridor there came the beat of heavy fists on the door and the rage of a thundering voice demanding admittance. From out in the night it was answered by the sharp barking of a dog and the shout of a second voice.

"Why should I go?" he asked. "I told you a few moments ago that I had come prepared to fight, Meleese. I shall stay—and fight!"

"Please—please go!" she sobbed, striving to pull him nearer to the window. "You can get away in the storm. The snow will cover your trail. If you stay they will kill you—kill you—"

"I prefer to fight and be killed rather than to run away without you," he interrupted. "If you will go—"

She crushed herself against his breast.

"I can't go—now—this way—" she urged. "But I will come to you. I promise that—I will come to you." For an instant her hands clasped his face. "Will you go—if I promise you that?"

"You swear that you will follow me—that you will come down to the Wekusko? My God, are you telling me the truth, Meleese?"

"Yes, yes, I will come to you—if you go now." She broke from him and he heard her fumbling at the window. "I will come—I will come—but not to Wekusko. They will follow you there. Go back to Prince Albert—to the hotel where I looked at you through the window. I will come there—sometime—as soon as I can—"

A blast of cold air swept into his face. He had thrust his revolver into its holster and now again for an instant he held Meleese close in his arms.

"You will be my wife?" he whispered.

He felt her throbbing against him. Suddenly her arms tightened around his neck.

"Yes, if you want me then—if you want me after you know what I am. Now, go—please, please go!"

He pulled himself through the window, hanging for a last moment to the ledge.

"If you fail to come—within a month—I shall return," he said.

Her hands were at his face again. Once more, as on the trail at Le Pas, he felt the sweet pressure of her lips.

"I will come," she whispered.

Her hands thrust him back and he was forced to drop to the snow below. Scarcely had his feet touched when there sounded the fierce yelp of a dog close to him, and as he darted away into the smother of the storm the brute followed at his heels, barking excitedly in the manner of the mongrel curs that had found their way up from the South. Between the dog's alarm and the loud outcry of men there was barely time in which to draw a breath. From the stair platform came a rapid fusillade of rifle shots that sang through the air above Howland's head, and mingled with the fire was a hoarse voice urging on the cur that followed within a leap of his heels.

The presence of the dog filled the engineer with a fear that he had not anticipated. Not for an instant did the brute give slack to his tongue as they raced through the night, and Howland knew now that the storm and the darkness were of little avail in his race for life. There was but one chance, and he determined to take it. Gradually he slackened his pace, drawing and cocking his revolver; then he turned suddenly to confront the yelping Nemesis behind him. Three times he fired in quick succession at a moving blot in the snow-gloom, and there went up from that blot a wailing cry that he knew was caused by the deep bite of lead.

Again he plunged on, a muffled shout of defiance on his lips. Never had the fire of battle raged in his veins as now. Back in the window, listening in terror, praying for him, was Meleese. The knowledge that she was there, that at last he had won her and was fighting for her, stirred him with a joy that was next to madness. Nothing could stop him now. He loaded his revolver as he ran, slackening his pace as he covered greater distance, for he knew that in the storm his trail could be followed scarcely faster than a walk.

He gave no thought to Jean Croisset, bound hand and foot in the little cabin on the mountain. Even as he had clung to the window for that last moment it had occurred to him that it would be folly to return to the Frenchman. Meleese had promised to come to him, and he believed her, and for that reason Jean was no longer of use to him. Alone he would lose himself in that wilderness, alone work his way into the South, trusting to his revolver for food, and to his compass and the matches in his pocket for life. There would be no sledge-trail for his enemies to follow, no treachery to fear. It would take a thousand men to find him after the night's storm had covered up his retreat, and if one should find him they two would be alone to fight it out.

For a moment he stopped to listen and stare futilely into the blackness behind him. When he turned to go on his heart stood still. A shadow had loomed out of the night half a dozen paces ahead of him, and before he could raise his revolver the shadow was lightened by a sharp flash of fire. Howland staggered back, his fingers loosening their grip on his pistol, and as he crumpled down into the snow he heard over him the hoarse voice that had urged on the dog. After that there was a space of silence, of black chaos in which he neither reasoned nor lived, and when there came to him faintly the sound of other voices. Finally all of them were lost in one—a moaning, sobbing voice that was calling his name again and again, a voice that seemed to reach to him from out of an infinity of distance, and that he knew was the voice of Meleese. He strove to speak, to lift his arms, but his tongue was as lead, his arms as though fettered with steel bands.

The voice died away. He lived through a cycle of speechless, painless night into which finally a gleam of dawn returned. He felt as if years were passing in his efforts to move, to lift himself out of chaos. But at last he won. His eyes opened, he raised himself. His first sensation was that he was no longer in the snow and that the storm was not beating into his face. Instead there encompassed him a damp dungeon-like chill. Everywhere there was blackness—everywhere except in one spot, where a little yellow eye of fire watched him and blinked at him. At first he thought that the eye must be miles and miles away. But it came quickly nearer—and still nearer—until at last he knew that it was a candle burning with the silence of a death taper a yard or two beyond his feet.



CHAPTER XVI

JEAN'S STORY

It was the candle-light that dragged Howland quickly back into consciousness and pain. He knew that he was no longer in the snow. His fingers dug into damp earth as he made an effort to raise himself, and with that effort it seemed as though a red-hot knife had cleft him from the top of his skull to his chest. The agony of that instant's pain drew a sharp cry from him and he clutched both hands to his head, waiting and fearing. It did not come again and he sat up. A hundred candles danced and blinked before him like so many taunting eyes and turned him dizzy with a sickening nausea. One by one the lights faded away after that until there was left only the steady glow of the real candle.

The fingers of Howland's right hand were sticky when he drew them away from his head, and he shivered. The tongue of flame leaping out of the night, the thunderous report, the deluge of fire that had filled his brain, all bore their meaning for him now. It had been a close call, so close that shivering chills ran up and down his spine as he struggled little by little to lift himself to his knees. His enemy's shot had grazed his head. A quarter of an inch more, an eighth of an inch even, and there would have been no awakening. He closed his eyes for a few moments, and when he opened them his vision had gained distance. About him he made out indistinctly the black encompassing walls of his prison.

It seemed an interminable time before he could rise and stand on his feet and reach the candle. Slowly he felt his way along the wall until he came to a low, heavy door, barred from the outside, and just beyond this door he found a narrow aperture cut through the decaying logs. It was a yard in length and barely wide enough for him to thrust through an arm. Three more of these narrow slits in his prison walls he found before he came back again to the door. They reminded him of the hole through which he had looked out on the plague-stricken cabin at the Maison de Mort Rouge, and he guessed that through them came what little fresh air found its way into the dungeon.

Near the table on which he replaced the candle was a stool, and he sat down. Carefully he went through his pockets. His belt and revolver were gone. He had been stripped of letters and papers. Not so much as a match had been left him by his captors.

He stopped in his search and listened. Faintly there came to him the ticking of his watch. He felt in his watch pocket. It was empty. Again he listened. This time he was sure that the sound came from his feet and he lowered the candle until the light of it glistened on something yellow an arm's distance away. It was his watch, and close beside it lay his leather wallet. What money he had carried in the pocketbook was untouched, but his personal cards and half a dozen papers that it had contained were gone.

He looked at the time. The hour hand pointed to four. Was it possible that he had been unconscious for more than six hours? He had left Jean on the mountain top soon after nightfall—it was not later than nine o'clock when he had seen Meleese. Seven hours! Again he lifted his hands to his head. His hair was stiff and matted with blood. It had congealed thickly on his cheek and neck and had soaked the top of his coat. He had bled a great deal, so much that he wondered he was alive, and yet during those hours his captors had given him no assistance, had not even bound a cloth about his head.

Did they believe that the shot had killed him, that he was already dead when they flung him into the dungeon? Or was this only one other instance of the barbaric brutishness of those who so insistently sought his life? The fighting blood rose in him with returning strength. If they had left him a weapon, even the small knife they had taken from his pocket, he would still make an effort to settle a last score or two. But now he was helpless.

There was, however, a ray of hope in the possibility that they believed him dead. If they who had flung him into the dungeon believed this, then he was safe for several hours. No one would come for his body until broad day, and possibly not until the following night, when a grave could be dug and he could be carried out with some secrecy. In that time, if he could escape from his prison, he would be well on his way to the Wekusko. He had no doubt that Jean was still a prisoner on the mountain top. The dogs and sledge were there and both rifles were where he had concealed them. It would be a hard race—a running fight perhaps—but he would win, and after a time Meleese would come to him, away down at the little hotel on the Saskatchewan.

He rose to his feet, his blood growing warm, his eyes shining in the candle-light. The thought of the girl as she had come to him out in the night put back into him all of his old fighting strength, all of his unconquerable hope and confidence. She had followed him when the dog yelped at his heels, as the first shots had been fired; she had knelt beside him in the snow as he lay bleeding at the feet of his enemies. He had heard her voice calling to him, had felt the thrilling touch of her arms, the terror and love of her lips as she thought him dying. She had given herself to him; and she would come to him—his lady of the snows—if he could escape.

He went to the door and shoved against it with his shoulder. It was immovable. Again he thrust his hand and arm through the first of the narrow ventilating apertures. The wood with which his fingers came in contact was rotting from moisture and age and he found that he could tear out handfuls of it. He fell to work, digging with the fierce eagerness of an animal. At the rate the soft pulpy wood gave way he could win his freedom long before the earliest risers at the post were awake.

A sound stopped him, a hollow cough from out of the blackness beyond the dungeon wall. It was followed an instant later by a gleam of light and Howland darted quickly back to the table. He heard the slipping of a bolt outside the door and it flashed on him then that he should have thrown himself back into his old position on the floor. It was too late for this action now. The door swung open and a shaft of light shot into the chamber. For a space Howland was blinded by it and it was not until the bearer of the lamp had advanced half-way to the table that he recognized his visitor as Jean Croisset. The Frenchman's face was wild and haggard. His eyes gleamed red and bloodshot as he stared at the engineer.

"Mon Dieu, I had hoped to find you dead," he whispered huskily.

He reached up to hang the big oil lamp he carried to a hook in the log ceiling, and Howland sat amazed at the expression on his face. Jean's great eyes gleamed like living coals from out of a death-mask. Either fear or pain had wrought deep lines in his face. His hands trembled as he steadied the lamp. The few hours that had passed since Howland had left him a prisoner on the mountain top had transformed him into an old man. Even his shoulders were hunched forward with an air of weakness and despair as he turned from the lamp to the engineer.

"I had hoped to find you dead, M'seur," he repeated in a voice so low it could not have been heard beyond the door. "That is why I did not bind your wound and give you water when they turned you over to my care. I wanted you to bleed to death. It would have been easier—for both of us."

From under the table he drew forth a second stool and sat down opposite Howland. The two men stared at each other over the sputtering remnant of the candle. Before the engineer had recovered from his astonishment at the sudden appearance of the man whom he believed to be safely imprisoned in the old cabin, Croisset's shifting eyes fell on the mass of torn wood under the aperture.

"Too late, M'seur," he said meaningly. "They are waiting up there now. It is impossible for you to escape."

"That is what I thought about you," replied Howland, forcing himself to speak coolly. "How did you manage it?"

"They came up to free me soon after they got you, M'seur. I am grateful to you for thinking of me, for if you had not told them I might have stayed there and starved like a beast in a trap."

"It was Meleese," said Howland. "I told her."

Jean dropped his head in his hands.

"I have just come from Meleese," he whispered softly. "She sends you her love, M'seur, and tells you not to give up hope. The great God, if she only knew—if she only knew what is about to happen! No one has told her. She is a prisoner in her room, and after that—after that out on the plain—when she came to you and fought like one gone mad to save you—they will not give her freedom until all is over. What time is it, M'seur?"

A clammy chill passed over Howland as he read the time.

"Half-past four."

The Frenchman shivered; his fingers clasped and unclasped nervously as he leaned nearer his companion.

"The Virgin bear me witness that I wish I might strike ten years off my life and give you freedom," he breathed quickly. "I would do it this instant, M'seur. I would help you to escape if it were in any way possible. But they are in the room at the head of the stair—waiting. At six—"

Something seemed to choke him and he stopped.

"At six—what then?" urged Howland. "My God, man, what makes you look so? What is to happen at six?"

Jean stiffened. A flash of the old fire gleamed in his eyes, and his voice was steady and clear when he spoke again.

"I have no time to lose in further talk like this, M'seur," he said almost harshly. "They know now that it was I who fought for you and for Meleese on the Great North Trail. They know that it is I who saved you at Wekusko. Meleese can no more save me than she can save you, and to make my task a little harder they have made me their messenger, and—"

Again he stopped, choking for words.

"What?" insisted Howland, leaning toward him, his face as white as the tallow in the little dish on the table.

"Their executioner, M'seur."

With his hands gripped tightly on the table in front of him Jack Howland sat as rigid as though an electric shock had passed through him.

"Great God!" he gasped.

"First I am to tell you a story, M'seur," continued Croisset, leveling his reddened eyes to the engineer's. "It will not be long, and I pray the Virgin to make you understand it as we people of the North understand it. It begins sixteen years ago."

"I shall understand, Jean," whispered Howland. "Go on."

"It was at one of the company's posts that it happened," Jean began, "and the story has to do with Le M'seur, the Factor, and his wife, L'Ange Blanc—that is what she was called, M'seur—the White Angel. Mon Dieu, how we loved her! Not with a wicked love, M'seur, but with something very near to that which we give our Blessed Virgin. And our love was but a pitiful thing when compared with the love of these two, each for the other. She was beautiful, gloriously beautiful as we know women up in the big snows; like Meleese, who was the youngest of their children.

"Ours was the happiest post in all this great northland, M'seur," continued Croisset after a moment's pause; "and it was all because of this woman and the man, but mostly because of the woman. And when the little Meleese came—she was the first white girl baby that any of us had ever seen—our love for these two became something that I fear was almost a sacrilege to our dear Lady of God. Perhaps you can not understand such a love, M'seur; I know that it can not be understood down in that world which you call civilization, for I have been there and have seen. We would have died for the little Meleese, and the other Meleese, her mother. And also, M'seur, we would have killed our own brothers had they as much as spoken a word against them or cast at the mother even as much as a look which was not the purest. That is how we loved her sixteen years ago this winter, M'seur, and that is how we love her memory still."

"She is dead," uttered Howland, forgetting in these tense moments the significance Jean's story might hold for him.

"Yes; she is dead. M'seur, shall I tell you how she died?"

Croisset sprang to his feet, his eyes flashing, his lithe body twitching like a wolf's as he stood for an instant half leaning over the engineer.

"Shall I tell you how she died, M'seur?" he repeated, falling back on his stool, his long arms stretched over the table. "It happened like this, sixteen years ago, when the little Meleese was four years old and the oldest of the three sons was fourteen. That winter a man and his boy came up from Churchill. He had letters from the Factor at the Bay, and our Factor and his wife opened their doors to him and to his son, and gave them all that it was in their power to give.

"Mon Dieu, this man was from that glorious civilization of yours, M'seur—from that land to the south where they say that Christ's temples stand on every four corners, but he could not understand the strange God and the strange laws of our people! For months he had been away from the companionship of women, and in this great wilderness the Factor's wife came into his life as the flower blossoms in the desert. Ah, M'seur, I can see now how his wicked heart strove to accomplish the things, and how he failed because the glory of our womanhood up here has come straight down from Heaven. And in failing he went mad—mad with that passion of the race I have seen in Montreal, and then—ah, the Great God, M'seur, do you not understand what happened next?"

Croisset lifted his head, his face twisted in a torture that was half grief, half madness, and stared at Howland, with quivering nostrils and heaving chest. In his companion's face he saw only a dead white pallor of waiting, of half comprehension. He leaned over the table again, controlling himself by a mighty effort.

"It was at that time when most of us were out among the trappers, just before our big spring caribou roast, when the forest people came in with their furs, M'seur. The post was almost deserted. Do you understand? The woman was alone in her cabin with the little Meleese—and when we came back at night she was dead. Yes, M'seur, she killed herself, leaving a few written words to the Factor telling him what had happened.

"The man and the boy escaped on a sledge after the crime. Mon Dieu, how the forest people leaped in pursuit! Runners carried the word over the mountains and through the swamps, and a hundred sledge parties searched the forest trails for the man-fiend and his son. It was the Factor himself and his youngest boy who found them, far out on the Churchill trail. And what happened then, M'seur? Just this: While the man-fiend urged on his dogs the son fired back with a rifle, and one of his bullets went straight through the heart of the pursuing Factor, so that in the space of one day and one night the little Meleese was made both motherless and fatherless by these two whom the devil had sent to destroy the most beautiful thing we have ever known in this North. Ah, M'seur, you turn white! Does it bring a vision to you now? Do you hear the crack of that rifle? Can you see—"

"My God!" gasped Howland. Even now he understood nothing of what this tragedy might mean to him—forgot everything but that he was listening to the terrible tragedy that had come to the woman who was the mother of the girl he loved. He half rose from his seat as Croisset paused; his eyes glittered, his death-white face was set in tense fierce lines, his finger-nails dug into the board table, as he demanded, "What happened then, Croisset?"

Jean was eying him like an animal. His voice was low.

"They escaped, M'seur."

With a deep breath Howland sank back. In a moment he leaned again toward Jean as he saw come into the Frenchman's eyes a slumbering fire that a few seconds later blazed into vengeful malignity when he drew slowly from an inside pocket of his coat a small parcel wrapped and tied in soft buckskin.

"They have sent you this, M'seur," he said. "'At the very last,' they told me, 'let him read this.'"

With his eyes on the parcel, scarcely breathing, Howland waited while with exasperating slowness Croisset's brown fingers untied the cord that secured it.

"First you must understand what this meant to us in the North, M'seur," said Jean, his hands covering the parcel after he had finished with the cord. "We are different who live up here—different from those who live in Montreal, and beyond. With us a lifetime is not too long to spend in avenging a cruel wrong. It is our honor of the North. I was fifteen then, and had been fostered by the Factor and his wife since the day my mother died of the smallpox and I dragged myself into the post, almost dead of starvation. So it happened that I was like a brother to Meleese and the other three. The years passed, and the desire for vengeance grew in us as we became older, until it was the one thing that we most desired in life, even filling the gentle heart of Meleese, whom we sent to school in Montreal when she was eleven, M'seur. It was three years later—while she was still in Montreal—that I went on one of my wandering searches to a post at the head of the Great Slave, and there, M'seur—there—"

Croisset had risen. His long arms were stretched high, his head thrown back, his upturned face aflame with a passion that was almost that of prayer.

"M'seur, I thank the great God in Heaven that it was given to Jean Croisset to meet one of those whom we had pledged our lives to find—and I slew him!"

He stood silent, eyes partly closed, still as if in prayer. When he sank into his chair again the look of hatred had gone from his face.

"It was the father, and I killed him, M'seur—killed him slowly, telling him of what he had done as I choked the life from him; and then, a little at a time, I let the life back into him, forcing him to tell me where I would find his son, the slayer of Meleese's father. And after that I closed on his throat until he was dead, and my dogs dragged his body through three hundred miles of snow that the others might look on him and know that he was dead. That was six years ago, M'seur."

Howland was scarcely breathing.

"And the other—the son—" he whispered densely. "You found him, Croisset? You killed him?"

"What would you have done, M'seur?"

Howland's hands gripped those that guarded the little parcel.

"I would have killed him, Jean."

He spoke slowly, deliberately.

"I would have killed him," he repeated.

"I am glad of that, M'seur."

Jean was unwrapping the buckskin, fold after fold of it, until at last there was revealed a roll of paper, soiled and yellow along the edges.

"These pages are taken from the day-book at the post where the woman lived," he explained softly, smoothing them under his hands. "Each day the Factor of a post keeps a reckoning of incidents as they pass, as I have heard that sea captains do on shipboard. It has been a company law for hundreds of years. We have kept these pages to ourselves, M'seur. They tell of what happened at our post sixteen years ago this winter."