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Updated: June 7, 2025
"Shouldn't a man be happy when he is going to his wedding, Jean?" puffed Howland, gasping to get back the breath he had lost. "But not when he's going to his funeral, M'seur." "If I were one of your blessed saints I'd hit you over the head with a thunderbolt, Croisset. Good Lord, what sort of a heart have you got inside of your jacket, man?
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. Half-way down the ridge a low word from Croisset stopped the engineer. Jean had toggled his team with a stout length of babeesh on the mountain top and he was looking back when Howland turned toward him.
"I will take," interrupted Howland decisively. "I was going to say, M'seur," finished Jean quietly, "that unless accident has befallen those who left Wekusko yesterday that one chance is gone. If you go South you are safe. If you go into the North you are no better than a dead man." "There will at least be a little fun at the finish," laughed the young engineer. "Come, Jean, hit up the dogs!"
He strained Meleese 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 Croisset came between them, with the wild bearded man still staring over his shoulder. "M'seur, will you come with us?" said Jean.
With a nervous laugh he returned to Jean. "Deuce take it if I don't feel like apologizing to you," he exclaimed. "Does your ear hurt?" "No more than if I had scratched it with a thorn," returned Jean politely. "You are good with the pistol, M'seur."
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.
"As Our Blessed Lady is my witness, M'seur, 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 Francois made a great error when he sent word to his brothers suggesting that if either Gregson or Thorne was put out of the way you would probably be sent into the North.
"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.
"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.
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.
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