
The Danger Trail
James Oliver Curwood
Howland Was Glad That For A Time There Was An Excuse For His silence. It began to dawn on him that this was an extraordinary adventure for a man on whose shoulders rested the responsibilities of one of the greatest engineering tasks on the continent, and who was due to take a train for the seat of his operations at eight o'clock in the morning. Inwardly he was experiencing some strange emotions; outwardly he smiled as he thought of what Van Horn would say if he knew the circumstances. He looked down at his companion; saw the sheen of her hair as it rippled out from under her fur turban, studied the soft contour of her cheek and chin, without himself being observed, and noticed, incidentally, that the top of the bewitching head beside him came just about to a level with his cigar which he was smoking. He wondered if he were making a fool of himself. If so, he assured himself that there was at least one compensation. This night in Prince Albert would not be so uninteresting as it had promised to be earlier in the evening.
Where the river ferry was half drawn up on the shore, its stern frozen in the ice, he paused and looked down at the girl in quiet surprise. She nodded, smiling, and motioned across the river.
"I was over there once to-night," said Howland aloud. "Didn't see any houses and heard nothing but wolves. Is that where we're going?"
Her white teeth gleamed at him and he was conscious of a warm pressure against his arm as the girl signified that they were to cross. His perplexity increased. On the farther shore the forest came down to the river's edge in a black wall of spruce and balsam. Beyond that edge of the wilderness he knew that no part of Prince Albert intruded. It was possible that across from them was a squatter's cabin; and yet if this were so, and the girl was going to it, why had she told him that she was a stranger in the town? And why had she come to him for the assistance she promised to request of him instead of seeking it of those whom she knew?
He asked himself these questions without putting them in words, and not until they were climbing up the frozen bank of the stream, with the shadows of the forest growing deeper about them, did he speak again.
"You told me you were a stranger," he said, stopping his companion where the light of the stars fell on the face which she turned up to him. She smiled, and nodded affirmatively.
"You seem pretty well acquainted over here," he persisted. "Where are we going?"
This time she responded with an emphatic negative shake of her head, at the same time pointing with her free hand to the well-defined trail that wound up from the ferry landing into the forest. Earlier in the day Howland had been told that this was the Great North Trail that led into the vast wildernesses beyond the Saskatchewan. Two days before, the factor from Lac Bain, the Chippewayan and the Crees had come in over it. Its hard crust bore the marks of the sledges of Jean Croisset and the men from the Lac la Ronge country. Since the big snow, which had fallen four feet deep ten days before, a forest man had now and then used this trail on his way down to the edge of civilization; but none from Prince Albert had traveled it in the other direction. Howland had been told this at the hotel, and he shrugged his shoulders in candid bewilderment as he stared down into the girl's face. She seemed to understand his thoughts, and again her mouth rounded itself into that bewitching red O, which gave to her face an expression of tender entreaty, of pathetic grief that the soft lips were powerless to voice, the words which she wished to speak. Then, suddenly, she darted a few steps from Howland and with the toe of her shoe formed a single word in the surface of the snow. She rested her hand lightly on Howland's shoulder as he bent over to make it out in the elusive starlight.
"Camp!" he cried, straightening himself. "Do you mean to say you're camping out here?"
She nodded again and again, delighted that he understood her. There was something so childishly sweet in her face, in the gladness of her eyes, that Howland stretched out both his hands to her, laughing aloud. "You!" he exclaimed. "You-camping out here!" With a quick little movement she came to him, still laughing with her eyes and lips, and for an instant he held both her hands tight in his own. Her lovely face was dangerously near to him. He felt the touch of her breath on his face, for an instant caught the sweet scent of her hair. Never had he seen eyes like those that glowed up at him softly, filled with the gentle starlight; never in his life had he dreamed of a face like this, so near to him that it sent the blood leaping through his veins in strange excitement. He held the hands tighter, and the movement drew the girl closer to him, until for no more than a breath he felt her against his breast. In that moment he forgot all sense of time and place; forgot his old self-Jack Howland-practical, unromantic, master-builder of railroads; forgot everything but this presence of the girl, the warm pressure against his breast, the lure of the great brown eyes that had come so unexpectedly into his life. In another moment he had recovered himself. He drew a step back, freeing the girl's hands.
"I beg your pardon," he said softly. His cheeks burned hotly at what he had done, and turning squarely about he strode up the trail. He had not taken a dozen paces, when far ahead of him he saw the red glow of a fire. Then a hand caught his arm, clutching at it almost fiercely, and he turned to meet the girl's face, white now with a strange terror.
"What is it?" he cried. "Tell me-"
He caught her hands again, startled by the look in her eyes. Quickly she pulled herself away. A dozen feet behind her, in the thick shadows of the forest trees, something took shape and movement. In a flash Howland saw a huge form leap from the gloom and caught the gleam of an uplifted knife. There was no time for him to leap aside, no time for him to reach for the revolver which he carried in his pocket. In such a crisis one's actions are involuntary, machine-like, as if life, hovering by a thread, preserves itself in its own manner and without thought or reasoning on the part of the creature it animates.
For an instant Howland neither thought nor reasoned. Had he done so he would probably have met his mysterious assailant, pitting his naked fists against the knife. But the very mainspring of his existence-which is self-preservation-called on him to do otherwise. Before the startled cry on his lips found utterance he flung himself face downward in the snow. The move saved him, and as the other stumbled over his body, pitching headlong into the trail, he snatched forth his revolver. Before he could fire there came a roar like that of a beast from behind him and a terrific blow fell on his head. Under the weight of a second assailant he was crushed to the snow, his pistol slipped from his grasp, and two great hands choked a despairing cry from his throat. He saw a face over him, distorted with passion, a huge neck, eyes that named like angry garnets. He struggled to free his pinioned arms, to wrench off the death-grip at his throat, but his efforts were like those of a child against a giant. In a last terrible attempt he drew up his knees inch by inch under the weight of his enemy; it was his only chance, his only hope. Even as he felt the fingers about his throat, sinking like hot iron into his flesh, and the breath slipping from his body, he remembered this murderous knee-punch taught to him by the rough fighters of the Inland Seas, and with all the life that remained in him he sent it crushing into the other's abdomen. It was a moment before he knew that it had been successful, before the film cleared from his eyes and he saw his assailant groveling in the snow. He rose to his feet, dazed and staggering from the effect of the blow on his head and the murderous grip at his throat. Half a pistol shot down the trail he saw indistinctly the twisting of black objects in the snow, and as he stared one of the objects came toward him.
"Do not fire, M'seur Howland," he heard a voice call. "It ees I-Jean Croisset, a friend! Blessed Saints, that was-what you call heem?-close heem?-close call?"
The half-breed's thin dark face came up smiling out of the white gloom. For a moment Howland did not see him, scarcely heard his words. Wildly he looked about him for the girl. She was gone.
"I happened here-just in time-with a club," continued Croisset. "Come, we must go."
The smile had gone from his face and there was a commanding firmness in the grip that fell on the young engineer's arm. Howland was conscious that things were twisting about him and that there was a strange weakness in his limbs. Dumbly he raised his hands to his head, which hurt him until he felt as if he must cry out in his pain.
"The girl-" he gasped weakly.
Croisset's arm tightened about his waist.
"She ees gone!" Howland heard him say; and there was something in the half-breed's low voice that caused him to turn unquestioningly and stagger along beside him in the direction of Prince Albert.
And yet as he went, only half-conscious of what he was doing, and leaning more and more heavily on his companion, he knew that it was more than the girl's disappearance that he wanted to understand. For as the blow had fallen on his head he was sure that he had heard a woman's scream; and as he lay in the snow, dazed and choking, spending his last effort in his struggle for life, there had come to him, as if from an infinite distance, a woman's voice, and the words that it had uttered pounded in his tortured brain now as his head dropped weakly against Croisset's shoulder.
"Mon Dieu, you are killing him-killing him!"
He tried to repeat them aloud, but his voice sounded only in an incoherent murmur. Where the forest came down to the edge of the river the half-breed stopped.
"I must carry you, M'seur Howland," he said; and as he staggered out on the ice with his inanimate burden, he spoke softly to himself, "The saints preserve me, but what would the sweet Meleese say if she knew that Jean Croisset had come so near to losing the life of this M'seur le engineer?Ce monde est plein de fous! "
\*
It still lacked nearly an hour of the appointed time when Howland came to the secluded spot in the trail where he was to meet Meleese. Concealed in the deep shadows of the bushes he seated himself on the end of a fallen spruce and loaded his pipe, taking care to light it with the flare of the match hidden in the hollow of his hands. For the first time since his terrible experience in the coyote he found himself free to think, and more than ever he began to see the necessity of coolness and of judgment in what he was about to do. Gradually, too, he fought himself back into his old faith in Meleese. His blood was tingling at fever heat in his desire for vengeance, for the punishment of the human fiends who had attempted to blow him to atoms, and yet at the same time there was no bitterness in him toward the girl. He was sure that she was an unwilling factor in the plot, and that she was doing all in her power to save him. At the same time he began to realize that he should no longer be influenced by her pleading. He had promised-in return for her confidence this night-to leave unpunished those whom she wished to shield. He would take back that promise. Before she revealed anything to him he would warn her that he was determined to discover those who had twice sought to kill him.
It was nearly midnight when he looked at his watch again. Was it possible that Meleese would not come? He could not bring himself to believe that she knew of his imprisonment in the coyote-of this second attempt on his life. And yet-if she did-
He rose from the log and began pacing quickly back and forth in the gloom, his thoughts racing through his brain with increasing apprehension. Those who had imprisoned him had learned of his escape an hour ago. Many things might have happened in that time. Perhaps they were fleeing from the camp. Frightened by their failure, and fearing the punishment which would be theirs if discovered, it was not improbable that even now they were many miles from the Wekusko, hurrying deeper into the unknown wilderness to the north. And Meleese would be with them!
Suddenly he heard a step, a light, running step, and with a recognizing cry he sprang out into the starlight to meet the slim, panting, white-faced figure that ran to him from between the thick walls of forest trees.
"Meleese?" he exclaimed softly.
He held out his arms and the girl ran straight into them, thrusting her hands against his breast, throwing back her head so that she looked up into his face with great, staring, horror-filled eyes.
"Now-now-" she sobbed, "nowwill you go?"
Her hands left his breast and crept to his shoulders; slowly they slipped over them, and as Howland pressed her closer, his lips silent, she gave an agonized cry and dropped her head against his shoulder, her whole body torn in a convulsion of grief and terror that startled him.
"You will go?" she sobbed again and again. "You will go-you will go-"
He ran his fingers through her soft hair, crushing his face close to hers.
"No, I am not going, dear," he replied in a low, firm voice. "Not after what happened to-night."
She drew away from him as quickly as if he had struck her, freeing herself even from the touch of his hands.
"I heard-what happened-an hour ago," she said, her voice choking her. "I overheard-them-talking." She struggled hard to control herself. "You must leave the camp-to-night."
In the gloom she saw Howland's teeth gleaming. There was no fear in his smile; he laughed gently down into her eyes as he took her face between his hands again.
"I want to take back the promise that I gave you last night, Meleese. I want to give you a chance to warn any whom you may wish to warn. I shall not return into the South. From this hour begins the hunt for the cowardly devils who have tried to murder me. Before dawn every man on the Wekusko will be in the search, and if we find them there shall be no mercy. Will you help me, or-"
She struck his hands from her face, springing back before he had finished. He saw a sudden change of expression; her lips grew tense and firm; from the death whiteness of her face there faded slowly away the look of soft pleading, the quivering lines of fear. There was a strangeness in her voice when she spoke-something of the hard determination which Howland had put in his own, and yet the tone of it lacked his gentleness and love.
"Will you please tell me the time?" The question was almost startling. Howland held the dial of his watch to the light of the stars.
"It is a quarter past midnight."
The faintest shadow of a smile passed over the girl's lips.
"Are you certain that your watch is not fast?" she asked.
In speechless bewilderment Howland stared at her.
"Because it will mean a great deal to you and to me if it is not a quarter past midnight," continued Meleese, a growing glow in her eyes. Suddenly she approached him and put both of her warm hands to his face, holding down his arms with her own. "Listen," she whispered. "Is there nothing-nothing that will make you change your purpose, that will take you back into the South-to-night?"
The nearness of the sweet face, the gentle touch of the girl's hands, the soft breath of her lips, sent a maddening impulse through Howland to surrender everything to her. For an instant he wavered.
"There might be one-justone thing that would take me away to-night," he replied, his voice trembling with the great love that thrilled him. "For you, Meleese, I would give up everything-ambition, fortune, the building of this road. If I go to-night will you go with me? Will you promise to be my wife when we reach Le Pas?"
A look of ineffable tenderness came into the beautiful eyes so near to his own.
"That is impossible. You will not love me when you know what I am-what I have done-"
He stopped her.
"Have you done wrong-a great wrong?"
For a moment her eyes faltered; then, hesitatingly, there fell from her lips, "I-don't-know. I believe I have. But it's not that-it's notthat! "
"Do you mean that-that I have no right to tell you I love you?" he asked. "Do you mean that it is wrong for you to listen to me? I-I-took it for granted that you were a-girl-that-"
"No, no, it is not that," she cried quickly, catching his meaning. "It is not wrong for you to love me." Suddenly she asked again, "Will you please tell me what time it is-now?"
He looked again.
"Twenty-five minutes after midnight."
"Let us go farther up the trail," she whispered. "I am afraid here."
She led the way, passing swiftly beyond the path that branched out to his cabin. Two hundred yards beyond this a tree had fallen on the edge of the trail, and seating herself on it Meleese motioned for him to sit down beside her. Howland's back was to the thick bushes behind them. He looked at the girl, but she had turned away her face. Suddenly she sprang from the log and stood in front of him.
"Now!" she cried. "Now!" and at that signal Howland's arms were seized from behind, and in another instant he was struggling feebly in the grip of powerful arms which had fastened themselves about him like wire cable, and the cry that rose to his lips was throttled by a hand over his mouth. For an instant he caught a glimpse of the girl's white face as she stood in the trail; then strong hands pulled him back, while others bound his wrists and still others held his legs. Everything had passed in a few seconds. Helplessly bound and gagged he lay on his back in the snow, listening to the low voices that came faintly to him from beyond the bushes. He could understand nothing that they said-and yet he was sure that he recognized among them the voice of Meleese.
The voices became fainter; he heard retreating footsteps, and at last they died away entirely. Through a rift in the trees straight above him the white, cold stars of the night gleamed down on him, and Howland stared up at them fixedly until they seemed to be hopping and dancing about in the skies. He wanted to swear-yell-fight. In these moments that he lay on his back in the freezing snow a million demons were born in his blood. The girl had betrayed him again! This time he could find no excuse-no pardon for her. She had accepted his love-had allowed him to kiss her, to hold her in his arms-while beneath that hypocrisy she had plotted his downfall a second time. Deliberately she had given the signal for attack, and now-
He heard again the quick, running step that he had recognized on the trail. The bushes behind him parted, and in the white starlight Meleese fell on her knees at his side, her glorious face bending over him in a grief that he had never seen in it before, her eyes shining on him with a great love. Without speaking she lifted his head in the hollow of her arm and crushed her own down against it, kissing him, and softly sobbing his name.
"Good-by," he heard her breathe. "Good-by-good-by-"
He struggled to cry out as she lowered his head back on the snow, to free his hands, to hold her with him-but he saw her face only once more, bending over him; felt the warm pressure of her lips to his forehead, and then again he could hear her footsteps hurrying away through the forest.
\*
That Meleese loved him, that she had taken his head in her arms, and had kissed him, was the one consuming thought in Howland's brain for many minutes after she had left him bound and gagged on the snow. That she had made no effort to free him did not at first strike him as significant. He still felt the sweet, warm touch of her lips, the pressure of her arms, the smothering softness of her hair. It was not until he again heard approaching sounds that he returned once more to a full consciousness of the mysterious thing that had happened. He heard first of all the creaking of a toboggan on the hard crust, then the pattering of dogs' feet, and after that the voices of men. The sounds stopped on the trail a dozen feet away from him.
With a strange thrill he recognized Croisset's voice.
"You must be sure that you make no mistake," he heard the half-breed say. "Go to the waterfall at the head of the lake and heave down a big rock where the ice is open and the water boiling. Track up the snow with a pair of M'seur Howland's high-heeled boots and leave his hat tangled in the bushes. Then tell the superintendent that he stepped on the stone and that it rolled down and toppled him into the chasm. They could never find his body-and they will send down for a new engineer in place of the lost M'seur."
Stupefied with horror, Howland strained his ears to catch the rest of the cold-blooded scheme which he was overhearing, but the voices grew lower and he understood no more that was said until Croisset, coming nearer, called out:
"Help me with the M'seur before you go, Jackpine. He is a dead weight with all those rawhides about him."
As coolly as though he were not more than a chunk of stovewood, Croisset and the Indian came through the bushes, seized him by the head and feet, carried him out into the trail and laid him lengthwise on the sledge.
"I hope you have not caught cold lying in the snow, M'seur," said Croisset, bolstering up the engineer's head and shoulders and covering him with heavy furs. "We should have been back sooner, but it was impossible. Hoo-la, Woonga!" he called softly to his lead-dog. "Get up there, you wolf-hound!"
As the sledge started, with Croisset running close to the leader, Howland heard the low snapping of a whip behind him and another voice urging on other dogs. With an effort that almost dislocated his neck he twisted himself so he could look back of him. A hundred yards away he discerned a second team following in his trail; he saw a shadowy figure running at the head of the dogs, but what there was on the sledge, or what it meant, he could not see or surmise. Mile after mile the two sledges continued without a stop. Croisset did not turn his head; no word fell from his lips, except an occasional signal to the dogs. The trail had turned now straight into the North, and soon Howland could make out no sign of it, but knew only that they were twisting through the most open places in the forests, and that the play of the Polar lights was never over his left shoulder or his right, but always in his face.
They had traveled for several hours when Croisset gave a sudden shrill shout to the rearmost sledge and halted his own. The dogs fell in a panting group on the snow, and while they were resting the half-breed relieved his prisoner of the soft buckskin that had been used as a gag.
"It will be perfectly safe for you to talk now, M'seur, and to shout as loudly as you please," he said. "After I have looked into your pockets I will free your hands so that you can smoke. Are you comfortable?"
"Comfortable-be damned!" were the first words that fell from Howland's lips, and his blood boiled at the sociable way in which Croisset grinned down into his face. "So you're in it, too, eh?-and that lying girl-"
The smile left Croisset's face.
"Do you mean Meleese, M'seur Howland?"
"Yes."
Croisset leaned down with his black eyes gleaming like coals.
"Do you know what I would do if I was her, M'seur?" he said in a low voice, and yet one filled with a threat which stilled the words of passion which the engineer was on the point of uttering. "Do you know what I would do? I would kill you-kill you inch by inch-torture you. That is what I would do."
"For God's sake, Croisset, tell me why-why-"
Croisset had found Howland's pistol and freed his hands, and the engineer stretched them out entreatingly.
"I would give my life for that girl, Croisset. I told her so back there, and she came to me when I was in the snow and-" He caught himself, adding to what he had left incomplete. "There is a mistake, Croisset. I am not the man they want to kill!"
Croisset was smiling at him again.
"Smoke-and think, M'seur. It is impossible for me to tell you why you should be dead-but you ought to know, unless your memory is shorter than a child's."
He went to the dogs, stirring them up with the cracking of his whip, and when Howland turned to look back he saw a bright flare of light where the other sledge had stopped. A man's voice came from the farther gloom, calling to Croisset in French.
"He tells me I am to take you on alone," said Croisset, after he had replied to the words spoken in a patois which Howland could not understand. "They will join us again very soon."
"They!" exclaimed Howland. "How many will it take to kill me, my dear Croisset?" The half-breed smiled down into his face again.
"You may thank the Blessed Virgin that they are with us," he replied softly. "If you have any hope outside of Heaven, M'seur, it is on that sledge behind."
As he went again to the dogs, straightening the leader in his traces, Howland stared back at the firelit space in the forest gloom. He could see a man adding fuel to the blaze, and beyond him, shrouded in the deep shadows of the trees, an indistinct tangle of dogs and sledge. As he strained his eyes to discover more there was a movement beyond the figure over the fire and the young engineer's heart leaped with a sudden thrill. Croisset's voice sounded in a shrill shout behind him, and at that warning cry in French the second figure sprang back into the gloom. But Howland had recognized it, and the chilled blood in his veins leaped into warm life again at the knowledge that it was Meleese who was trailing behind them on the second sledge! "When you yell like that give me a little warning if you please, Jean," he said, speaking as coolly as though he had not recognized the figure that had come for an instant into the firelight. "It is enough to startle the life out of one!"
"It is our way of saying good-by, M'seur," replied Croisset with a fierce snap of his whip. "Hoo-la, get along there!" he cried to the dogs, and in half a dozen breaths the fire was lost to view.
Dawn comes at about eight o'clock in the northern mid-winter; beyond the fiftieth degree the first ruddy haze of the sun begins to warm the southeastern skies at nine, and its glow had already risen above the forests before Croisset stopped his team again. For two hours he had not spoken a word to his prisoner and after several unavailing efforts to break the other's taciturnity Howland lapsed into a silence of his own. When he had brought his tired dogs to a halt, Croisset spoke for the first time.
"We are going to camp here for a few hours," he explained. "If you will pledge me your word of honor that you will make no attempt to escape I will give you the use of your legs until after breakfast, M'seur. What do you say?"
"Have you a Bible, Croisset?"
"No, M'seur, but I have the cross of our Virgin, given to me by the missioner at York Factory."
"Then I will swear by it-I will swear by all the crosses and all the Bibles in the world that I will make no effort to escape. I am paralyzed, Croisset! I couldn't run for a week!"
Croisset was searching in his pockets.
"Mon Dieu!" he cried excitedly, "I have lost it! Ah, come to think, M'seur, I gave the cross to my Mariane before I went into the South, But I will take your word."
"And who is Mariane, Jean? Will she also be in at the 'kill?'"
"Mariane is my wife, M'seur. Ah,ma belle Mariane-ma cheri-the daughter of an Indian princess and the granddaughter of achef de bataillon , M'seur! Could there be better than that? And she is be-e-e-utiful, M'seur, with hair like the top side of a raven's wing with the sun shining on it, and-"
"You love her a great deal, Jean."
"Next to the Virgin-and-it may be a little better."
Croisset had severed the rope about the engineer's legs, and as he raised his glowing eyes Howland reached out and put both hands on his shoulders.
"And in just that way I love Meleese," he said softly. "Jean, won't you be my friend? I don't want to escape. I'm not a coward. Won't you think of what your Mariane might do, and be a friend to me? You would die for Mariane if it were necessary. And I would die for the girl back on that sledge."
He had staggered to his feet, and pointed into the forests through which they had come.
"I saw her in the firelight, Jean. Why is she following us? Why do they want to kill me? If you would only give me a chance to prove that it is all a mistake-that I-"
Croisset reached out and took his hand.
"M'seur, I would like to help you," he interrupted. "I liked you that night we came in together from the fight on the trail. I have liked you since. And yet, if I was intheir place, I would kill you even though I like you. It is a great duty to kill you. They did not do wrong when they tied you in the coyote. They did not do wrong when they tried to kill you on the trail. But I have taken a solemn oath to tell you nothing; nothing beyond this-that so long as you are with me, and that sledge is behind us, your life is not in danger. I will tell you nothing more. Are you hungry, M'seur?"
"Starved!" said Howland.
He stumbled a few steps out into the snow, the numbness in his limbs forcing him to catch at trees and saplings to save himself from falling. He was astonished at Croisset's words and more confused than ever at the half-breed's assurance that his life was no longer in immediate peril. To him this meant that Meleese had not only warned him but was now playing an active part in preserving his life, and this conclusion added to his perplexity. Who was this girl who a few hours before had deliberately lured him among his enemies and who was now fighting to save him? The question held a deeper significance for him than when he had asked himself this same thing at Prince Albert, and when Croisset called for him to return to the camp-fire and breakfast he touched once more the forbidden subject.
"Jean, I don't want to hurt your feelings," he said, seating himself on the sledge, "but I've got to get a few things out of my system. I believe this Meleese of yours is a bad woman."
Like a flash Croisset struck at the bait which Howland threw out to him. He leaned a little forward, a hand quivering on his knife, his eyes flashing fire. Involuntarily the engineer recoiled from that animal-like crouch, from the black rage which was growing each instant in the half-breed's face. Yet Croisset spoke softly and without excitement, even while his shoulders and arms were twitching like a forest cat about to spring.
"M'seur, no one in the world must say that about my Mariane, and next to her they must not say it about Meleese. Up there-" and he pointed still farther into the north-"I know of a hundred men between the Athabasca and the bay who would kill you for what you have said. And it is not for Jean Croisset to listen to it here. I will kill you unless you take it back!"
"God!" breathed Howland. He looked straight into Croisset's face. "I'm glad-it's so-Jean," he added slowly. "Don't you understand, man? I love her. I didn't mean what I said. I would kill for her, too, Jean. I said that to find out-what you would do-"
Slowly Croisset relaxed, a faint smile curling his thin lips.
"If it was a joke, M'seur, it was a bad one."
"It wasn't a joke," cried Howland. "It was a serious effort to make you tell me something about Meleese. Listen, Jean-she told me back there that it was not wrong for me to love her, and when I lay bound and gagged in the snow she came to me and-and kissed me. I don't understand-"
Croisset interrupted him.
"Did she do that, M'seur?"
"I swear it."
"Then you are fortunate," smiled Jean softly, "for I will stake my hope in the blessed hereafter that she has never done that to another man, M'seur. But it will never happen again."
"I believe that it will-unless you kill me."
"And I shall not hesitate to kill you if I think that it is likely to happen again. There are others who would kill you-knowing that it has happened but once. But you must stop this talk, M'seur. If you persist I shall put the rawhide over your mouth again."
"And if I object-fight?"
"You have given me your word of honor. Up here in the big snows the keeping of that word is our first law. If you break it I will kill you."
"Good Lord, but you're a cheerful companion," exclaimed Howland, laughing in spite of himself. "Do you know, Croisset, this whole situation has a good deal of humor as well as tragedy about it. I must be a most important cuss, whoever I am. Ask me who I am, Croisset?"
"And who are you, M'seur?"
"I don't know, Jean. Fact, I don't. I used to think that I was a most ambitious young cub in a big engineering establishment down in Chicago. But I guess I was dreaming. Funny dream, wasn't it? Thought I came up here to build a road somewhere through these infernal--no, I mean these beautiful snows-but my mind must have been wandering again. Ever hear of an insane asylum, Croisset? Am I in a big stone building with iron bars at the windows, and are you my keeper, just come in to amuse me for a time? It's kind of you, Croisset, and I hope that some day I shall get my mind back so that I can thank you decently. Perhaps you'll go mad some day, Jean, and dream about pretty girls, and railroads, and forests, and snows-and then I'll be your keeper. Have a cigar? I've got just two left."
"Mon Dieu!" gasped Jean. "Yes, I will smoke, M'seur. Is that moose steak good?"
"Fine. I haven't eaten a mouthful since years ago, when I dreamed that I sat on a case of dynamite just about to blow up. Did you ever sit on a case of dynamite just about to blow up, Jean?"
"No, M'seur. It must be unpleasant."
"That dream was what turned my hair white, Jean. See how white it is-whiter than the snow!"
Croisset looked at him a little anxiously as he ate his meat, and at the gathering unrest in his ayes Howland burst into a laugh.
"Don't be frightened, Jean," he spoke soothingly. "I'm harmless. But I promise you that I'll become violent unless something reasonable occurs pretty soon. Hello, are you going to start so soon?"
"Right away, M'seur," said Croisset, who was stirring up the dogs. "Will you walk and run, or ride?"
"Walk and run, with your permission."
"You have it, M'seur, but if you attempt to escape I must shoot you. Run on the right of the dogs-even with me. I will take this side."
Until Croisset stopped again in the middle of the afternoon Howland watched the backward trail for the appearance of the second sledge, but there was no sign of it. Once he ventured to bring up the subject to Croisset, who did no more than reply with a hunch of his shoulders and a quick look which warned the engineer to keep his silence. After their second meal the journey was resumed, and by referring occasionally to his compass Howland observed that the trail was swinging gradually to the eastward. Long before dusk exhaustion compelled him to ride once more on the sledge. Croisset seemed tireless, and under the early glow of the stars and the red moon he still led on the worn pack until at last it stopped on the summit of a mountainous ridge, with a vast plain stretching into the north as far as the eyes could see through the white gloom. The half-breed came back to where Howland was seated on the sledge.
"We are going but a little farther, M'seur," he said. "I must replace the rawhide over your mouth and the thongs about your wrists. I am sorry-but I will leave your legs free."
"Thanks," said Howland. "But, really, it is unnecessary, Croisset. I am properly subdued to the fact that fate is determined to play out this interesting game of ball with me, and no longer knowing where I am, I promise you to do nothing more exciting than smoke my pipe if you will allow me to go along peaceably at your side."
Croisset hesitated.
"You will not attempt to escape-and you will hold your tongue?" he asked.
"Yes."
Jean drew forth his revolver and deliberately cocked it.
"Bear in mind, M'seur, that I will kill you if you break your word. You may go ahead."
And he pointed down the side of the mountain.
\*
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 theMaison 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."
As he spoke the half-breed came to Howland's side, smoothing the first page on the table in front of him, his slim forefinger pointing to the first few lines.
"They came on this day," he said, his breath close to the engineer's ear. "These are their names, M'seur-the names of the two who destroyed the paradise that our Blessed Lady gave to us many years ago."
In an instant Howland had read the lines. His blood seemed to dry in his veins and his heart to stand still. For these were the words he read: "On this day there came to our post, from the Churchill way, John Howland and his son."
With a sharp cry he sprang to his feet, overturning the stool, facing Croisset, his hands clenched, his body bent as if about to spring. Jean stood calmly, his white teeth agleam. Then, slowly, he stretched out a hand.
"M'seur John Howland, will you read what happened to the father and mother of the little Meleese sixteen years ago? Will you read, and understand why your life was sought on the Great North Trail, why you were placed on a case of dynamite in the Wekusko coyote, and why, with the coming of this morning's dawn-at six-"
He paused, shivering. Howland seemed not to notice the tremendous effort Croisset was making to control himself. With the dazed speechlessness of one recovering from a sudden blow he turned to the table and bent over the papers that the Frenchman had laid out before him. Five minutes later he raised his head. His face was as white as chalk. Deep lines had settled about his mouth. As a sick man might, he lifted his hand and passed it over his face and through his hair. But his eyes were afire. Involuntarily Jean's body gathered itself as if to meet attack.
"I have read it," he said huskily, as though the speaking of the words caused him a great effort. "I understand now. My name is John Howland. And my father's name was John Howland. I understand."
There was silence, in which the eyes of the two men met.
"I understand," repeated the engineer, advancing a step. "And you, Jean Croisset-do you believe that I amthat John Howland-the John Howland-the son who-"
He stopped, waiting for Jean to comprehend, to speak.
"M'seur, it makes no difference what I believe now. I have but one other thing to tell you here-and one thing to give to you," replied Jean. "Those who have tried to kill you are the three brothers. Meleese is their sister. Ours is a strange country, M'seur, governed since the beginning of our time by laws which we have made ourselves. To those who are waiting above no torture is too great for you. They have condemned you to death. This morning, exactly as the minute hand of your watch counts off the hour of six, you will be shot to death through one of these holes in the dungeon walls. And this-this note from Meleese-is the last thing I have to give you."
He dropped a folded bit of paper on the table. Mechanically Howland reached for it. Stunned and speechless, cold with the horror of his death sentence, he smoothed out the note. There were only a few words, apparently written in great haste.
"I have been praying for you all night. If God fails to answer my prayers I will still do as I have promised-and follow you."
"Meleese."
He heard a movement and lifted his eyes. Jean was gone. The door was swinging slowly inward. He heard the wooden bolt slip into place, and after that there was not even the sound of a moccasined foot stealing through the outer darkness.
\*
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