 16 Jean's Story It was the candlelight 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 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. 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 Moruge, 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 arms distance away. It was his watch and close beside it lay his leather wallet. That money he had carried in the pocket-book 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 mountaintop soon after nightfall. It was not later than nine o'clock when he had seen Mélis. One hour? 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 and 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 Wacusco. He had no doubt that Jean was still a prisoner on the mountaintop. 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 Melyce would come to him, a way down at that little hotel in the Saskatchewan. He rose to his feet, his blood growing warm, his eyes shining in the candlelight. 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 dogs 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. "'Mond dear, I had hoped to find you dead,' he whispered huskily. He reached up to hang the big oil lamp he carried to a hook on 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 mountaintop 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, monsieur,' 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 turn 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, Quassé's shifting eyes fell on the mass of torn wood under the aperture. "'Too late, monsieur,' 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, monsieur. 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 Melyce,' said Howland. I told her.' Jean dropped his head in his hands. "'I have just come from Melyce,' he whispered softly. "'She sends you her love, monsieur, 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 plane, 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, monsieur?' 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, monsieur. 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 and further talk like this, monsieur,' he said almost harshly. "'They know now that it was I who fought for you and for Melyce on the Great North Trail. They know that it is I who saved you at Wacusko. Melyce 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 and the little dish on the table. "'They're executioner, monsieur.' 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, monsieur,' continued Quassé, leveling his reddened eyes to the engineers. "'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, John,' whispered Howland. "'Go on.' It was at one of the company's posts that it happened, John began. And the story has to do with Le Monsieur, the Factor, and his wife, Lange Blanc. That is what she was called, monsieur, the White Angel. Mon Dieu, how we loved her! Not with a wicked love, monsieur, 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 on the big snows, like Mélisse, who was the youngest of their children. Ours was the happiest post in all this great Northland, monsieur,' continued Quassé, 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 Mélisse 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 cannot understand such a love, monsieur. I know that it cannot 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 Mélisse and the other Mélisse, her mother. And also, monsieur, 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, monsieur, 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. Monsieur, shall I tell you how she died? Croix-Sais sprang to his feet, his eyes flashing, his live body twitching like a wolf as he stood for an instant half leaning over the engineer. Shall I tell you how she died, monsieur? He repeated, falling back on his stool, his long arms stretched over the table. It happened like this sixteen years ago when the little Mélisse 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. Monde Dieu, this man was from that glorious civilization of yours, monsieur, from that land to the south where they say that Christ's temple 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, monsieur, 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, monsieur, do you not understand what happened next? Croix-Sais 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, monsieur. The post was almost deserted. Do you understand? The woman was alone in her cabin with the little Mélis, and when we came back at night she was dead. Yes, monsieur, 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, monsieur? Just this. While the man-fiend urged on his dogs, the son fired back with the 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 Mélis was made both motherless and fatherless by these two whom the devil had sent to destroy the most beautiful thing we had ever known in this north. Ah, monsieur, you turn white. Does it bring a vision to you now? Do you hear the crack of that rifle? Can you see? My God, Gaston! 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 Quassé paused, his eyes glittered, his death-white face was set in tense, fierce lines. His fingernails dug into the board-table as he demanded. What happened then, Quassé? Jean was eyeing him like an animal. His voice was low. They escaped, monsieur. 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, monsieur, 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 Quassé's brown fingers untied the cord that secured it. First you must understand what this meant to us in the north, monsieur, 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 honour 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 me, Lise, 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 Mélis, whom we sent to school in Montreal when she was eleven, monsieur. 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, monsieur, there—Quassé 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. Monsieur, I thank the great God in heaven that it was given to Jean Quassé 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, monsieur, 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 Mélis'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, monsieur. Holland was scarcely breathing. And the other, the son, he whispered densely, you found him, Quassé? You killed him? What would you have done, monsieur? Holland's hands gripped those that guarded the little parcel. I would have killed him, Jean. He spoke slowly, deliberately. I would have killed him. I am glad of that, monsieur. 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, monsieur. 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, monsieur, 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 Quassé, his hands clenched, his body bent as if about to spring. John stood calmly, his white teeth agleamed. Then slowly he stretched out a hand. Monsieur John Howland, will you read what happened to the father and mother of the little Mélis 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 Wacusco Coyote? And why, with the coming of this morning's dawn, at six? He paused, shivering. Howland seemed not to notice the tremendous effort Quassé 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 a fire. And voluntarily John'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 Quassé, do you believe that I am that John Howland, the John Howland, the son who--" He stopped, waiting for Jean to comprehend, to speak. Monsieur, 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. Mélis is their sister. Ours is a strange country, Monsieur, 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 those holes in the dungeon walls. And this, this note from Mélis, 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. Mélis, he heard a movement and lifted his eyes. Jean was gone. The door was swinging slowly inward. He heard the wooden bolts slip into place. And after that there was not even the sound of a moccasin foot stealing through the outer darkness. End of chapter 16, recording by Roger Maline. Chapter 17 of the Danger Trail. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline. The Danger Trail by James Oliver Kerwood. Chapter 17. Mélis. For many minutes Howland stood waiting as if life had left him. His eyes were on the door, but unseeing. He made no sound, no movement again toward the aperture in the wall. Fate had dealt him the final blow. And when at last he roused himself from its first terrible effect, there remained no glimmering of hope in his breast, no thought of the battle he had been making for freedom a short time before. The note fluttered from his fingers and he drew his watch from his pocket and placed it on the table. It was a quarter after five. There still remained forty-five minutes. Three quarters of an hour and then death. There was no doubt in his mind this time. Even in the coyote with the Eternity stirring him in the face he had hoped and fought for life. But here there was no hope, there was to be no fighting. Through one of the black holes in the wall he was to be shot down with no chance to defend himself, to prove himself innocent. And Mélis, did she too believe him guilty of that crime? He groaned aloud and picked up the note again. Softly he repeated her last words to him. If God fails to answer my prayers I will still do as I have promised and follow you. Those words seemed to cry aloud his doom. Even Mélis had given up hope. And yet was there not a deeper significance in her words? He started as if someone had struck him, his eyes a gleam. I will follow you. He almost sobbed the words this time. His hands trembled and he dropped the paper again on the table, and turned his eyes in staring horror toward the door. What did she mean? Would Mélis kill herself if he was murdered by her brothers? He could see no other meaning in her last message to him, and for a time after the chilling significance of her words struck his heart he scarce restrained himself from calling aloud for Jean. If he could but send a word back to her, tell her once more of his great love that the winning of that love was ample reward for all he had lost and was about to lose, and that it gave him such happiness as he had never known even in this last hour of his torture. Twice he shouted for Croix-Sais, but there came no response, save the hollow echoings of his own voice in the subterranean chambers. After that he began to think more sanely. If Mélis was a prisoner in her room, it was probable that Croix-Sais, who is now fully recognized as a traitor at the post, could no longer gain access to her. In some secret way Mélis had contrived to give him the note, and he had performed his last mission for her. In Howlin's breast there grew strongly a feeling of sympathy for the Frenchman. Much that he had not understood was clear to him now. He understood why Mélis had not revealed the names of his assailants at Prince Albert and Wacusco. He understood why she had fled from him after his abduction, and why Jean had so faithfully kept secrecy for her sake. He had fought to save him from her own flesh and blood, and Jean had fought to save him, and in these last minutes of his life he would like to have had Croix-Sais with him, that he might have taken his hand and thanked him for what he had done. And because he had fought for him and Mélis the Frenchman's fate was to be almost as terrible as his own. It was he who would fire the fatal shot at six o'clock, not the brothers, but Jean Croix-Sais would be his executioner and murderer. The minutes passed swiftly, and as they went Howlin was astonished to find how coolly he awaited the end. He even began to debate with himself as to through which hole the fatal shot would be fired. No matter where he stood he was in the light of the big hanging lamp. There was no obscure or shadowy corner in which, for a few moments he might elude his executioner. He even smiled when the thought occurred to him that it was possible to extinguish the light and crawl under the table, thus gaining a momentary delay. But what would that delay avail him? He was anxious for the fatal minute to arrive and be over. There were moments of happiness when, in the damp horror of his death chamber, there came before him visions of Mélis, grown even sweeter and more lovable, now that he knew how she had sacrificed herself between two great loves, the love of her own people and the love of himself. And at last she had surrendered to him. Was it possible that she could have made that surrender if she, like her brothers, believed him to be the murderer of her father, the son of the manfiend who had robbed her of a mother? It was impossible, he told himself. She did not believe him guilty. And yet why had she not given him some such word in her last message to him? His eyes travelled to the note on the table and he began searching in his coat-pockets. In one of them he found the worn stub of a pencil, and for many minutes after that he was oblivious to the passing of time as he wrote his last words to Mélis. When he had finished he folded the paper and placed it under his watch. At the final moment, before the shot was fired, he would ask Jean to take it. His eyes fell on his watch-dial and a cry burst from his lips. It lacked but ten minutes of the final hour. Above him he heard faintly the sharp barking of dogs, the hollow sound of men's voices. A moment later there came to him an echo as of swiftly tramping feet, and after that silence. Jean, he called tensely. Oh, Jean! Jean-Croisset! He cut up the paper and ran from one black opening to another, calling the Frenchman's name. As you love your God, Jean, as you have a hope of heaven, take this note to Mélis, he pleaded. Jean! Jean-Croisset! There came no answer, no movement outside, and Howlin stilled the beating of his heart to listen. Surely Croisset was there. He looked again at the watch he held in his hand. In four minutes the shot would be fired. A cold sweat bathed his face. He tried to cry out again, but something rose in his throat and choked him until his voice was only a gasp. He sprang back to the table and placed the note once more under the watch. Two minutes. One and a half. One! With a sudden fearless cry he sprang into the very center of his prison and flung out his arms with his face to the hole next to the door. This time his voice was almost a shout. Jean Croisset! There is a note under my watch on the table. After you have killed me, take it to Mélis. If you fail I shall hunt you to your grave. Still no sound, no gleam of steel pointing at aim through the black aperture. Would the shot come from behind? Tick, tick, tick, tick. He counted the beating of his watch up to twenty. A sound stopped him then, and he closed his eyes, and a great shiver passed through his body. It was the tiny bell of his watch tinkling off the hour of six. Scarcely had that sound ceased to ring in his brain when from far through the darkness beyond the wall of his prison there came a creaking noise as if a heavy door had been swung slowly on its hinges, or a trap opened. Then voices, low, quick, excited voices. The hurrying tread of feet, a flash of light shooting through the gloom. They were coming. After all it was not to be a private affair, and Jean was to do his killing as the hangman's job is done in civilization, before a crowd. Howlin's arms dropped to his side. This was more terrible than the other, this seeing and hearing of preparation, in which he fancied that he heard the click of Quassé's gun as he lifted the hammer. Instead, it was a hand fumbling at the door. There were no voices now, only a strange moaning sound that he could not account for. In another moment it was made clear to him. The door swung open, and the white-robed figure of Mélis sprang toward him with a cry that echoed through the dungeon chambers. What happened then? The passing of white faces beyond the doorway, the subdued murmur of voices, were all lost to Howlin in the knowledge that at the last moment they had let her come to him, that he held her in his arms, and that she was crushing her face to his breast and sobbing things to him which he could not understand. Once or twice in his life he had wondered if realities might not be dreams, and the thought came to him now when he felt the warmth of her hands, her face, her hair, and then the passionate pressure of her lips on his own. He lifted his eyes, and in the doorway he saw Jean Quassé, and behind him a wild bearded face, the face that had been over him when life was almost choked from him on the Great North Trail. And beyond these two he saw still others, shining ghostly and indistinct in the deeper gloom of the outer darkness. He strained Mélis to him, and when he looked down into her face he saw her beautiful eyes flooded with tears, and yet shining with a great joy. Her lips trembled as she struggled to speak. Then suddenly she broke from his arms and ran to the door, and Jean Quassé came between them, with the wild bearded man still staring over his shoulder. "'Monsieur, will you come with us?' said Jean." The bearded man dropped back into the thick gloom, and without speaking Howland followed Quassé, his eyes on the shadowy form of Mélis. The ghostly faces turned from the light, and the tread of their retreating feet marked the passage through the blackness. Jean fell back beside Howland, the huge bulk of the bearded man three paces ahead. A dozen steps more, and they came to a stair down which a light shone. The Frenchman's hand fell detainingly on Howland's arm, and when a moment later they reached the top of the stairs, all had disappeared but Jean and the bearded man. Don was breaking, and a pale light fell through the two windows of the room they had entered. On a table burned a lamp, and near the table were several chairs. To one of these Quassé motioned the engineer, and as Howland sat down the bearded man turned slowly and passed through a door. Jean shrugged his shoulders as the other disappeared. �Mondieu! That means that he leaves it all to me!� he exclaimed. �I don't wonder that it is hard for him to talk, monsieur. Perhaps you have begun to understand? �Yes, a little,� replied Howland. His heart was throbbing as if he had just finished climbing a long hill. That was the man who tried to kill me. But Mélis, the� He could go no further. Scarce breathing he waited for Jean to speak. �It is Pierre Thoreau,� he said, eldest brother to Mélis. �It is he who should say what I am about to tell you, monsieur. But he is too full of grief to speak. You wonder at that? And yet I tell you that a man with a better soul than Pierre Thoreau never lived. Though three times he has tried to kill you. Do you remember what you asked me a short time ago, monsieur? If I thought that you were the John Howland who murdered the father of Mélis sixteen years ago? God-saint! And I did until hardly more than half an hour ago, when someone came from the south and exploded a mine under our feet. It was the youngest of the three brothers. �Monsieur, we have made a great mistake, and we ask your forgiveness.� In the silence the eyes of the two men met across the table. To Howland it was not the thought that his life was saved that came with the greatest force, but the thought of Mélis, the knowledge that in that hour, when all seemed to be lost, she was nearer to him than ever. He leaned half over the table, his hands clenched, his eyes blazing. �John did not understand, for he went on quickly. �I know it is hard, monsieur. Perhaps it will be impossible for you to forgive a thing like this. We have tried to kill you, kill you by a slow torture, as we thought you deserved. But think for a moment, monsieur, of what happened up here sixteen years ago this winter. I have told you how I choked life from the man-fiend. So I would have choked life from you if it had not been for Mélis. I too am guilty. Only six years ago we knew that the ripe John Howland, the son of the man I slew, was in Montreal, and we sent to seek him this youngest brother, for he had been a long time at school with Mélis and knew the ways of the south better than the others. But he failed to find him at that time, and it was only a short while ago that this brother located you. As our blessed lady is my witness, monsieur, it is not strange that he should have taken you for the man we sought, for it is singular that you bear him out like a brother in looks, as I remember the boy. It is true that François made a great error when he sent word to his brothers, suggesting that if either Gregson or Thorn was put out of the way, you would probably be sent into the north. I swear by the virgin that Mélis knew nothing of this, monsieur. She knew nothing of the schemes by which her brothers drove Gregson and Thorn back into the south. They did not wish to kill them, and yet it was necessary to do something that you might replace one of them, monsieur. They did not make a move alone, but that something happened. Gregson lost a finger. Thorn was badly hurt, as you know. Bullets came through their window at night. With Jack Pine and their employ, it was easy to work on them, and it was not long before they sent down asking for another man to replace them. For the first time a surge of anger swept through Howland. "'Their cowards,' he exclaimed. "'A pretty pair, Quassé, to crawl out from under a trap to let another in at the top.' "'Perhaps not so bad as that,' said Jean. "'They were given to understand that they, and they alone, were not wanted in the country. It may be that they did not think harm would come to you, and so kept quiet about what had happened. It may be, too, that they did not like to have it known that they were running away from danger. Is not that human, monsieur? Anyway, you were detailed to come, and not until then did me least know of all that had occurred.' The Frenchman stopped for a moment. The glare had faded from Howland's eyes. The tense lines in his face relaxed. "'I—I believe I understand everything now, Jean,' he said. "'You traced the wrong John Howland. That's all.' "'I love Mélise, Jean. I would kill John Howland for her. I want to meet her brothers and shake their hands. I don't blame them. They're men. But somehow it hurts to think of her, of Mélise, as—as almost a murderer.' "'My dear monsieur, has she not saved your life?' "'Listen to this. It was then, when she knew what had happened, that Mélise came to me, whom she had made the happiest man in the world, because it was she who brought my Marianne over from Churchill on a visit, especially that I might see her and fall in love with her, monsieur, which I did. Mélise came to me, to Jean Croix-Sais. And instead of planning your murder, monsieur, she schemed to save your life with me, who would have cut you into bits no larger than my finger and fed you to the carrion-ravens, who would have choked the life out of you until your eyes bulged in death, as I choked that one up in the great slave. "'Do you understand, monsieur? It was Mélise who came and pleaded with me to save your life, before you had left Chicago, before she had heard more of you than your name, before—' Croix-Sais hesitated and stopped. "'Before what, Jean? Before she had learned to love you, monsieur?' "'God bless her,' exclaimed Holland. "'You believe this, monsieur?' "'As I believe in a God.' "'Then I will tell you what she did, monsieur,' he continued, in a low voice. "'The plan of the brothers was to make you a prisoner near Prince Albert and bring you north. I knew what was to happen then. It was to be a beautiful vengeance, monsieur, a slow, torturing death, on the spot where the crime was committed sixteen years ago. But Mélise knew nothing of this. She was made to believe that, up here, where the mother and father died, you would be given over to the proper law, to the mounted police, who come this way now and then. She is only a girl, monsieur, easily made to believe strange things in such matters as these, else she would have wondered why you were not given to the officers in Prince Albert. It was the eldest brother who thought of her as a lure to bring you out of the town into their hands. And not until the last moment, when they were ready to leave for the south, did she overhear words that aroused her suspicions that they were about to kill you. It was then, monsieur, that she came to me. And you, Jean? On the day that Marianne promised to become my wife, monsieur, I promised, in our blessed lady's name, to repay my debt to Mélise, and the manner of payment came in this fashion. Jack Pine, too, was her slave, and so we worked together. Two hours after Mélise and her brothers had left for the south, I was following them, shaven of beard and so changed that I was not recognized in the fight on the Great North Trail. Mélise thought that her brothers would make you a prisoner that night without harming you. Her brothers told her how to bring you to their camp. She knew nothing of the ambush until they leaped on you from cover. Not until after the fight, when in their rage at your escape the brothers told her that they had intended to kill you, did she realize fully what she had done. That is all, monsieur. You know what happened after that. She dared not tell you at Wacusco who your enemies were. For those enemies were of her own flesh and blood and dearer to her than life. She was between two great loves, monsieur, the love for her brothers, and, again, Jean hesitated. And her love for me, finished Howland. Yes, her love for you, monsieur. The two men rose from the table, and for a moment stood with clasped hands in the smoky light of lamp and dawn. In that moment neither heard a tap at the door leading to the room beyond, nor saw the door move gently inward, and Mélise, hesitating, framed in the opening. It was Howland who spoke first. I thank God that all these things have happened, Jean, he said earnestly. I am glad that for a time you took me for that other, John Howland, and that Pierre Thoreau and his brothers schemed to kill me at Prince Albert and Wacusco. For if these things had not occurred as they have, I would never have seen Mélise. And now, Jean, his ears caught sound of movement, and he turned in time to see Mélise slipping quietly out. Mélise, he called softly, Mélise! In an instant he had darted after her, leaving Jean beside the table. Beyond the door there was only the breaking gloom of the gray mornings, but it was enough for him to see faintly the figure of the girl he loved, half turned, half waiting for him. With a cry of joy he sprang forward and gathered her close in his arms. Mélise! My Mélise! he whispered. After that there came no sound from the dawn-lit room beyond, but Jean Croiset, still standing by the table, murmured softly to himself, Our blessed lady be praised, for it is all as Jean Croiset would have it, and now I can go to my Marianne. END OF THE DANGER TRAIL by James Oliver Kerwood