With the pa.s.sing of the hours gloomier thoughts shadowed these antic.i.p.ations. In some mysterious way Meleese was closely a.s.sociated 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? In answer to his question there flashed through his mind the words of Jean Croisset: "M'seur, I know of a hundred men between Athabasca and the bay who would kill you for what you have said." Yes, she would go into the North. Somewhere in that vast desolation of which Jean had spoken he would find her, even though he spent half of his life in the search!

It was past midnight when he spread out the furs and undressed for bed.

He opened the stove door and from the bunk watched the faint flickerings of the dying firelight on the log walls. As slumber closed his eyes he was conscious of a sound--the faint, hungerful, wailing cry to which he had listened that first night near Prince Albert. It was a wolf, and drowsily he wondered how he could hear the cry through the thick log walls of his prison. The answer came to him the moment he opened his eyes, hours later. A bit of pale sunlight was falling into the room and he saw that it entered through a narrow aperture close up to the ceiling. After he had prepared his breakfast he dragged the table under this aperture and by standing on it was enabled to peer through. A hundred yards away was the black edge of the spruce and balsam forest.

Between him and the forest, half smothered in the deep snow, was a cabin, and he shuddered as he saw floating over it the little red signal of death of which Croisset had told him the night before.

With the breaking of this day the hours seemed of interminable length.

For a time he amused himself by searching every corner and crevice of his prison room, but he found nothing of interest beyond what he had already discovered. He examined the door which Croisset had barred on him, and gave up all hope of escape in that direction. He could barely thrust his arm through the aperture that opened out on the plague-stricken cabin. For the first time since the stirring beginning of his adventures at Prince Albert a sickening sense of his own impotency began to weigh on Howland. He was a prisoner--penned up in a desolate room in the heart of a wilderness. And he, Jack Howland, a man who had always taken pride in his physical prowess, had allowed one man to place him there.

His blood began to boil as he thought of it. Now, as he had time and silence in which to look back on what had happened, he was enraged at the pictures that flashed one after another before him. He had allowed himself to be used as nothing more than a p.a.w.n in a strange and mysterious game. It was not through his efforts alone that he had been saved in the fight on the Saskatchewan trail. Blindly he had walked into the trap at the coyote. Still more blindly he had allowed himself to be led into the ambush at the Wekusko camp. And more like a child than a man he had submitted himself to Jean Croisset!

He stamped back and forth across the room, smoking viciously, and his face grew red with the thoughts that were stirring venom within him. He placed no weight on circ.u.mstances; in these moments he found no excuse for himself. In no situation had he displayed the white feather, at no time had he felt a thrill of fear. His courage and recklessness had terrified Meleese, had astonished Croisset. And yet--what had he done?

From the beginning--from the moment he first placed his foot in the Chinese cafe--his enemies had held the whip-hand. He had been compelled to play a pa.s.sive part. Up to the point of the ambush on the Wekusko trail he might have found some vindication for himself. But this experience with Jean Croisset--it was enough to madden him, now that he was alone, to think about it. Why had _he_ not taken advantage of Jean, as Jackpine and the Frenchman had taken advantage of him?

He saw now what he might have done. Somewhere, not very far back, the sledge carrying Meleese and Jackpine had turned into the unknown. They two were alone. Why had he not made Croisset a prisoner, instead of allowing himself to be caged up like a weakling? He swore aloud as there dawned on him more and more a realization of the opportunity he had lost. At the point of a gun he could have forced Croisset to overtake the other sledge. He could have surprised Jackpine, as they had surprised him on the trail. And then? He smiled, but there was no humor in the smile. He at least would have held the whip-hand. And what would Meleese have done?

He asked himself question after question, answering them quickly and decisively in the same breath. Meleese loved him. He would have staked his life on that. His blood leaped as he felt again the thrill of her kisses when she had come to him as he lay bound and gagged beside the trail. She had taken his head in her arms, and through the grief of her face he had seen shining the light of a great love that had glorified it for all time for him. She loved him! And he had let her slip away from him, had weakly surrendered himself at a moment when everything that he had dreamed of might have been within his grasp. With Jackpine and Croisset in his power--

He went no further. Was it too late to do these things now? Croisset would return. With a sort of satisfaction it occurred to him that his actions had disarmed the Frenchman of suspicion. He believed that it would be easy to overcome Croisset, to force him to follow in the trail of Meleese and Jackpine. And that trail? It would probably lead to the very stronghold of his enemies. But what of that? He loaded his pipe again, puffing out clouds of smoke until the room was thick with it.

That trail would take him to Meleese--wherever she was. Heretofore his enemies had come to him; now he would go to them. With Croisset in his power, and with none of his enemies aware of his presence, everything would be in his favor. He laughed aloud as a sudden thrilling thought flashed into his mind. As a last resort he would use Jean as a decoy.

He foresaw how easy it would be to bring Meleese to him--to see Croisset. His own presence would be like the dropping of a bomb at her feet. In that moment, when she saw what he was risking for her, that he was determined to possess her, would she not surrender to the pleading of his love? If not he would do the other thing--that which had brought the joyous laugh to his lips. All was fair in war and love, and theirs was a game of love. Because of her love for him Meleese had kidnapped him from his post of duty, had sent him a prisoner to this death-house in the wilderness. Love had exculpated her. That same love would exculpate him. He would make her a prisoner, and Jean should drive them back to the Wekusko. Meleese herself had set the pace and he would follow it. And what woman, if she loved a man, would not surrender after this? In their sledge trip he would have her to himself, for not only an hour or two, but for days. Surely in that time he could win. There would be pursuit, perhaps; he might have to fight--but he was willing, and a trifle anxious, to fight.

He went to bed that night, and dreamed of things that were to happen. A second day, a third night, and a third day came. With each hour grew his anxiety for Jean's return. At times he was almost feverish to have the affair over with. He was confident of the outcome, and yet he did not fail to take the Frenchman's true measurement. He knew that Jean was like live wire and steel, as agile as a cat, more than a match with himself in open fight despite his own superior weight and size. He devised a dozen schemes for Jean's undoing. One was to leap on him while he was eating; another to spring on him and choke him into partial insensibility as he knelt beside his pack or fed the fire; a third to strike a blow from behind that would render him powerless. But there was something in this last that was repugnant to him. He remembered that Jean had saved his life, that in no instance had he given him physical pain. He would watch for an opportunity, take advantage of the Frenchman, as Croisset had taken advantage of him, but he would not hurt him seriously. It should be as fair a struggle as Jean had offered him, and with the handicap in his favor the best man would win.

On the morning of the fourth day Howland was awakened by a sound that came through the aperture in the wall. It was the sharp yelping bark of a dog, followed an instant later by the sharper crack of a whip, and a familiar voice.

Jean Croisset had returned!

With a single leap he was out of his bunk. Half dressed he darted to the door, and crouched there, the muscles of his arms tightening, his body tense with the gathering forces within him.

The spur of the moment had driven him to quick decision. His opportunity would come when Jean Croisset pa.s.sed through that door!

CHAPTER XII

THE FIGHT

Beyond the door Howland heard Jean pause. There followed a few moments silence, as though the other were listening for sound within. Then there came a fumbling at the bar and the door swung inward.

"_Bon jour_, M'seur," called Jean's cheerful voice as he stepped inside.

"Is it possible you are not up, with all this dog-barking and--"

His eyes had gone to the empty bunk. Despite his cheerful greeting Howland saw that the Frenchman's face was haggard and pale as he turned quickly toward him. He observed no further than that, but flung his whole weight on the unprepared Croisset, and together they crashed to the floor. There was scarce a struggle and Jean lay still. He was flat on his back, his arms pinioned to his sides, and bringing himself astride the Frenchman's body so that each knee imprisoned an arm Howland coolly began looping the babeesh thongs that he had s.n.a.t.c.hed from the table as he sprang to the door. Behind Howland's back Jean's legs shot suddenly upward. In a quick choking clutch of steel-like muscle they gripped about his neck like powerful arms and in another instant he was twisted backward with a force that sent him half neck-broken to the opposite wall. He staggered to his feet, dazed for a moment, and Jean Croisset stood in the middle of the floor, his caribou skin coat thrown off, his hands clenched, his eyes darkening with a dangerous fire. As quickly as it had come, the fire died away, and as he advanced slowly, his shoulders punched over, his white teeth gleamed in a smile. Howland smiled back, and advanced to meet him. There was no humor, no friendliness in the smiles. Both had seen that flash of teeth and deadly scintillation of eyes at other times, both knew what it meant.

"I believe that I will kill you, M'seur," said Jean softly. There was no excitement, no tremble of pa.s.sion in his voice. "I have been thinking that I ought to kill you. I had almost made up my mind to kill you when I came back to this _Maison de Mort Rouge_. It is the justice of G.o.d that I kill you!"

The two men circled, like beasts in a pit, Howland in the att.i.tude of a boxer, Jean with his shoulders bent, his arms slightly curved at his side, the toes of his moccasined feet bearing his weight. Suddenly he launched himself at the other's throat.

In a flash Howland stepped a little to one side and shot out a crashing blow that caught Jean on the side of the head and sent him flat on his back. Half-stunned Croisset came to his feet. It was the first time that he had ever come into contact with science. He was puzzled. His head rang, and for a few moments he was dizzy. He darted in again, in his old, quick, cat-like way, and received a blow that dazed him. This time he kept his feet.

"I am sure now that I am going to kill you, M'seur," he said, as coolly as before.

There was something terribly calm and decisive in his voice. He was not excited. He was not afraid. His fingers did not go near the weapons in his belt, and slowly the smile faded from Howland's lips as Jean circled about him. He had never fought a man of this kind; never had he looked on the appalling confidence that was in his antagonist's eyes. From those eyes, rather than from the man, he found himself slowly retreating. They followed him, never taking themselves from his face. 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. Howland was trained in his art. For sport Jean had played with wounded lynx; his was the quickness of sight, of instinct--the quickness of the great north loon that had often played this same game with his rifle-fire, of the sledge-dog whose ripping fangs carried death so quickly that eyes could not follow. A third and a fourth time he came within distance and Howland struck and missed.

"I am going to kill you," he said again.

To this point Howland had remained cool. Self-possession in his science he knew to be half the battle. But he felt in him now a slow, swelling anger. The smiling flash in Jean's eyes began to irritate him; the fearless, taunting gleam of his teeth, his audacious confidence, put him on edge. Twice again he struck out swiftly, but Jean had come and gone like a dart. His lithe body, fifty pounds lighter than Howland's, seemed to be that of a boy dodging him in some tantalizing sport. The Frenchman made no effort at attack; his were the tactics of the wolf at the heels of the bull moose, of the lynx before the p.r.o.ngs of a cornered buck--tiring, worrying, ceaseless.

Howland's striking muscles began to ache and his breath was growing shorter with the exertions which seemed to have no effect on Croisset.

For a few moments he took the aggressive, rushing Jean to the stove, behind the table, twice around the room--striving vainly to drive him into a corner, to reach him with one of the sweeping blows which Croisset evaded with the lightning quickness of a h.e.l.l-diver. When he stopped, his breath came in wind-broken gasps. Jean drew nearer, smiling, ferociously cool.

"I am going to kill you, M'seur," he repeated again.

Howland dropped his arms, his fingers relaxed, and he forced his breath between his lips as if he were on the point of exhaustion. There were still a few tricks in his science, and these, he knew, were about his last cards. He backed into a corner, and Jean followed, his eyes flashing a steely light, his body growing more and more tense.

"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. Then he leaped in, and as his fingers gripped at the other's throat Howland's right arm shot upward in a deadly short-arm punch that caught his antagonist under the jaw. Without a sound Jean staggered back, tottered for a moment on his feet, and fell to the floor. Fifty seconds later he opened his eyes to find his hands bound behind his back and Howland standing at his feet.

"_Mon Dieu_, but that was a good one!" he gasped, after he had taken a long breath or two. "Will you teach it to me, M'seur?"

"Get up!" commanded Howland. "I have no time to waste, Croisset." He caught the Frenchman by the shoulders and helped him to a chair near the table. Then he took possession of the other's weapons, including the revolver which Jean had taken from him, and began to dress. He spoke no word until he was done.

"Do you understand what is going to happen Croisset?" he cried then, his eyes blazing hotly. "Do you understand that what you have done will put you behind prison bars for ten years or more? Does it dawn on you that I'm going to take you back to the authorities, and that as soon as we reach the Wekusko I'll have twenty men back on the trail of these friends of yours?"

A gray pallor spread itself over Jean's thin face.

"The great G.o.d, M'seur, you can not do that!"

"_Can not!_" Howland's fingers dug into the edge of the table. "By this great G.o.d of yours, Croisset, but I will! And why not? Is it because Meleese is among this gang of cut-throats and murderers? Pish, my dear Jean, you must be a fool. They tried to kill me on the trail, tried it again in the coyote, and you came back here determined to kill me.

You've held the whip-hand from the first. Now it's mine. I swear that if I take you back to the Wekusko we'll get you all."

"_If_, M'seur?"

"Yes--_if_."

"And that 'if'--" Jean was straining against the table.

"It rests with you, Croisset. I will bargain with you. Either I shall take you back to the Wekusko, hand you over to the authorities and send a force after the others--or you shall take me to Meleese. Which shall it be?"

"And if I take you to Meleese, M'seur?"

Howland straightened, his voice trembling a little with excitement.