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Updated: June 8, 2025
He could beat Father Roland with either rifle or pistol, and in one day he had travelled forty miles on snow shoes. That was when they had arrived just in time to save the life of Jean Croisset's little girl, who lived over on the Big Thunder. The crazed father had led them a mad race, but they had kept up with him. And just in time. There had not been an hour to lose.
But I will come back, M'seur. Good-by!" Again the door was closed and bolted and the sound of Croisset's footsteps quickly died away beyond the log walls. Many minutes passed before Howland thought of his pipe, or a fire. Then, shiveringly, he went to seek the fuel which Jean had told him was behind the stove.
He felt no pleasure, no sense of exultation, that his suspicions of Croisset's feelings toward Josephine had been dispelled. Since the hour MacTavish had died up in the madness of Arctic night, deep and hopeless gloom had not laid its hand more heavily upon him. He bolted his door, drew the curtain to the window, and added a bit of wood to the few embers that still remained alive in the grate.
That the eavesdropper had seen them in the hall and had possibly overheard a part of their conversation he was quite certain from the fact that the window had been left open in a hurried flight. For some time the impulse was strong in him to acquaint both Josephine and her father with what had happened, and with Jean Croisset's apparent treachery.
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."
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.
"Now, M'seur, I am going to kill you," he said in the same low voice. "I am going to break your neck." Howland backed against the wall, partly turned as if fearing the other's attack, and yet without strength to repel it. There was a contemptuous smile on Croisset's lips as he poised himself for an instant.
In them the fire returned and grew deeper. Two dull red spots began to glow in Croisset's cheeks, and he laughed softly when he suddenly leaped in so that Howland struck at him and missed. He knew what to expect now. And Howland knew what to expect. It was the science of one world pitted against that of another the science of civilization against that of the wilderness.
Croisset's warning for him to turn back into the South, instead of deterring him, urged him on. He was born a fighter. It was by fighting that he had forced his way round by round up the ladder of success.
Without a word he then went outside, securely toggled the leading dog, and returning, closed the door and seated himself at the end of the table opposite Jean. The light from the open window fell full on Croisset's dark face and shone in a silvery streak along the top of Howland's revolver as the muzzle of it rested casually on a line with the other's breast.
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