rose to his feet and went to the door. There was still but little snow in the air. To the north the horizon was growing black with the early approach of the northern night. 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."
"I would not profit by killing you--just now," mused Howland, seating himself again on the box and resting his chin in the palm of his hand as he looked across at the other. "But that's a pretty good intimation that I'm desperate and mean business, Croisset. We won't quarrel about the things I've asked you. What I'm here for is to see Meleese. Now--how is that to happen?"
"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. Mon Dieu, she has had enough sledge-riding of late, and I doubt if she will find pleasure in her dogs for a long time."
"I had planned to use you," said Howland, "but I've lost faith in you. Honestly, Croisset, I believe you would stick me in the back almost as quickly as those murderers down there." "Not in the back, M'seur," smiled the Frenchman, unmoved. "I have had opportunities to do that. Non, since that fight back there I do not believe that I want to kill you."
"But I would be a fool to trust you. Isn't that so?"
"Not if I gave you my word. That is something we do not break up here as you do down among the Wekusko people, and farther south."
"But you murder people for pastime--eh, my dear Jean?"
Croisset shrugged his shoulders without speaking.
"See here, Croisset," said Howland with sudden earnestness, "I'm almost tempted to take a chance with you. Will you go down to the post to-night, in some way gain access to Meleese, and give her a message from me?"
"And the message--what would it be?"
"It would bring Meleese up to this cabin--to-night."
"Are you sure, M'seur?"
"I am certain that it would. Will you go?"
"Non, M'seur."
"The devil take you!" cried Howland angrily. "If I was not certain that I would need you later I'd garrote you where you sit."
He rose and went to the old stove. It was still capable of holding fire, and as it had grown too dark outside for the smoke to be observed from the post, he proceeded to prepare a supper of hot coffee and meat. Jean watched him in silence, and not until food and drink were on the table did the engineer himself break silence.
"Of course, I'm not going to feed you," he said curtly, "so I'll have to free your hands. But be careful."
He placed his revolver on the table beside him after he had freed Croisset.
"I might assassinate you with a fork!" chuckled the Frenchman softly, his black eyes laughing over his coffee cup. "I drink your health, M'seur, and wish you happiness!"
"You lie!" snapped Howland.
Jean lowered the cup without drinking.
"It's the truth, M'seur," he insisted. "Since that bee-utiful fight back there I can not help but wish you happiness. I drink also to the happiness of Meleese, also to the happiness of those who tried to kill you on the trail and at the coyote. But, Mon Dieu, how is it all to come? Those at the post are happy because they believe that you are dead. You will not be happy until they are dead. And Meleese--how will all this bring happiness to her? I tell you that I am as deep in trouble as you, M'seur Howland. May the Virgin strike me dead if I'm not!"
He drank, his eyes darkening gloomily. In that moment there flashed into Howland's mind a memory of the battle that Jean had fought for him on the Great North Trail.
"You nearly killed one of them--that night--at Prince Albert," he said slowly. "I can't understand why you fought for me then and won't help me now. But you did. And you're afraid to go down there--"
"Until I have regrown a beard," interrupted Jean with a low chuckling laugh. "You would not be the only one to die if they saw me again like this. But that is enough, M'seur. I will say no more."
"I really don't want to make you uncomfortable, Jean," Howland apologized, as he secured the Frenchman's hands again after they had satisfied their hearty appetites, "but unless you swear by your Virgin or something else that you will make no attempt to call assistance I shall have to gag you. What do you say?"
"I will make no outcry, M'seur. I give you my word for that."
With another length of babeesh Howland tied his companion's legs.
"I'm going to investigate a little," he explained. "I am not afraid of your voice, for if you begin to shout I will hear you first. But with your legs free you might take it into your head to run away."
"Would you mind spreading a blanket on the floor, M'seur? If you are gone long this box will grow hard and sharp."
A few minutes later, after he had made his prisoner as comfortable as possible in the cabin, Howland went again through the fringe of scrub bush to the edge of the ridge. Below him the plain was lost in the gloom of night. He could see nothing of the buildings at the post but two or three lights gleaming faintly through the darkness. Overhead there were no stars; thickening snow shut out what illumination there might have been in the north, and even as he stood looking into the desolation to the west the snow fell faster and the lights grew fainter and fainter until all was a chaos of blackness.
In these moments a desire that was almost madness swept over him. Since his fight with Jean the swift passing of events had confined his thoughts to their one objective--the finding of Meleese and her people. He had assured himself that his every move was to be a cool and calculating one, that nothing--not even his great love--should urge him beyond that reason which had made him a master-builder among men. As he stood with the snow falling heavily on him he knew that his trail would be covered before another day--that for an indefinite period he might safely wait and watch for Meleese on the mountain top. And yet, slowly, he made his way down the side of the ridge. A little way out there in the gloom, barely beyond the call of his voice, was the girl for whom he was willing to sacrifice all that he had ever achieved in life. With each step the desire in him grew--the impulse to bring himself nearer to her, to steal across the plain, to approach in the silent smother of the storm until he could look on the light which Jean Croisset had told him would gleam from her window.
He descended to the foot of the ridge and headed into the plain, taking the caution to bury his feet deep in the snow that he might have a trail to guide him back to the cabin. At first he found himself impeded by low bush. Then the plain became more open, and he knew that there was nothing but the night and the snow to shut out his vision ahead. Still he had no motive, no reason for what he did. The snow would cover his tracks before morning. There would be no harm done, and he might get a glimpse of the light, of her light.
It came on his vision with a suddenness that set his heart leaping. A dog barked ahead of him, so near that he stopped in his tracks, and then suddenly there shot through the snow-gloom
