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Updated: June 7, 2025
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.
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 Meleese as as almost a murderer." "Mon Dieu, M'seur, has she not saved your life! Listen to this!
Eh, which shall it be?" For a moment Howland stood motionless, stunned by the Frenchman's words. Quickly he recovered himself. His eyes burned with a metallic gleam as they met the half taunt in Croisset's cool smile. "If I had not stopped you we would have gone on?" he questioned tensely. "To be sure, M'seur," retorted Croisset, still smiling.
A deafening explosion filled the little cabin. From the lobe of Jean's ear there ran a red trickle of blood. His face had gone deathly pale. But even as the bullet had stung him within an inch of his brain he had not flinched. "Will you tell me, Croisset?" This time the black pit of the engineer's revolver centered squarely between the Frenchman's eyes. "Non, M'seur."
"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.
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.
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.
"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.
"For the life of me I don't know," replied Jean, as calmly as though a bullet had not nipped the edge of his ear a moment before. "There is only one way I can see, M'seur, and that is to wait and watch from this mountain top until Meleese drives out her dogs. She has her own team, and in ordinary seasons frequently goes out alone or with one of the women at the post.
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, M'seur if I thought that you were the John Howland who murdered the father of Meleese sixteen years ago?
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