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Updated: June 9, 2025
It will never forget the great heart this woman has given to her "people" from the days of girlhood; it will not forget the thousand perils she faced to seek out the sick, the plague-stricken and the starving; in old age there will still be those who will remember the first prayers to the real God that she taught them in childhood; and children still to come, in cabin, tepee and hut, will live to bless the memory of L'ange Meleese, who made possible for them a new birthright and who in the wild places lived to the full measure and glory of the Golden Rule.
With the passing of the hours gloomier thoughts shadowed these anticipations. In some mysterious way Meleese was closely associated with those who sought his life, and if they disappeared she would disappear with them. He was convinced of that. And then could he find her again? Would she go into the South to civilization or deeper into the untraveled wildernesses of the North?
"My God, don't you see now how I love you?" he went on, taking her white face between his two hands. "Don't you understand, Meleese? Jean and I have fought he is bound hand and foot up there in the cabin and I am waiting for you for you " He pressed her face against him, her lips so close that he could feel their quavering breath.
"I 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!"
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.
"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.
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, M'seur, 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 Meleese. I, too, am guilty.
Anyway, you were detailed to come, and not until then did Meleese 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 Meleese, Jean. I would kill John Howland for her.
He gave no thought to Jean Croisset, bound hand and foot in the little cabin on the mountain. Even as he had clung to the window for that last moment it had occurred to him that it would be folly to return to the Frenchman. Meleese had promised to come to him, and he believed her, and for that reason Jean was no longer of use to him.
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.
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