Jean's thrilling words burned into Philip's consciousness like
fire. They roused him from his stupor, and he began to take in
deep breaths of the chill night air, and to see more clearly. The
camp was empty now. The men were gone. Only Jean was with him, his
face darkly flushed and his eyes burning. Philip rose slowly to
his feet. There was no longer the sickening dizziness in his head,
He inhaled still deeper breaths, while Jean stood a step back and
watched. Far off in the forest he heard the faint barking of dogs.
"They are running like the wind!" breathed Jean. "Those are
Renault's dogs. They are two miles away!"
He took Philip by the arm.
"I have made a comfortable bed for you in Pierre's tepee, M'sieur.
You must lie down, and I will get your supper. You will need all
of your strength soon."
"But I must know what is happening," protested Philip. "My God, I
cannot lie down like a tired dog--with Josephine out there with
Lang! I am ready now, Jean. I am not hungry. And the pain is gone.
See--I am as steady as you!" he cried excitedly, gripping Jean's
hand. "God in Heaven, who knows what may be happening out there!"
"Josephine is safe for a time, M'sieur," assured Jean. "Listen to
me, Netootam! I feared this. That is why I warned you. Lang is
taking her to Thoreau's. He believes that we will not dare to
pursue, and that Josephine will send back word she is there of her
own pleasure. Why? Because he has sworn to give Le M'sieur the
confession if we make him trouble. Mon Dieu, he thinks we will not
dare! and even now, Netootam, six of the fastest teams and
swiftest runners within a hundred miles are gone to spread the
word among the forest people that L'Ange, our Josephine, has been
carried off by Thoreau and his beasts! Before dawn they will begin
to gather where the forks meet, twelve miles off there toward the
Devil's Nest, and to-morrow--"
Jean crossed himself.
"Our Lady forgive us, if it is a sin to take the lives of twenty
such men," he said softly. "Not one will live to tell the story.
And not a log of Thoreau House will stand to hold the secret which
will die forever with to-morrow's end."
Philip came near to Jean now. He placed his two hands on the half-
breed's shoulders, and for a moment looked at him without
speaking. His face was strangely white.
"I understand--everything, Jean," he whispered huskily, and his
lips seemed parched. "To-morrow, we will destroy all evidence, and
kill. That is the one way. And that secret which you dread, which
Josephine has told me I could not guess in a thousand years, will
be buried forever. But Jean--I HAVE GUESSED IT. I KNOW! It has
come to me at last, and--my God!--I understand!"
Slowly, with a look of horror in his eyes, Jean drew back from
him. Philip, with bowed head, saw nothing of the struggle in the
half-breed's face. When Jean spoke it was in a strange voice and
low.
"M'sieur!"
Philip looked up. In the fire-glow Jean was reaching out his hand
to him. In the faces of the two men was a new light, the birth of
a new brotherhood. Their hands clasped. Silently they gazed into
each other's eyes, while over them the beginning of storm moaned
in the treetops and the clouds raced in snow-gray armies under the
moon.
"Breathe no word of what may have come to you to-night," spoke
Jean then. "You will swear that?"
"Yes."
"And to-morrow we fight! You see now--you understand what that
fight means, M'sieur?"
"Yes. It means that Josephine--"
"Tsh! Even I must not hear what is on your lips, M'sieur! I cannot
believe that you have guessed true. I do not want to know. I dare
not. And now, M'sieur, will you lie down? I will go to Le M'sieur
and tell him I have received word that you and Josephine are to
stay at Breuil's overnight. He must not know what has happened. He
must not be at the big fight to-morrow. When it is all over we
will tell him that we did not want to terrify him and Miriam over
Josephine. If he should be at the fight, and came hand to hand
with Lang or Thoreau--"
"He must not go!" exclaimed Philip. "Hurry to him, Jean. I will
boil some coffee while you are gone. Bring another rifle. They
robbed me of mine, and the pistol."
Jean prepared to leave.
"I will return soon," he said. "We should start for the Forks
within two hours, M'sieur. In that time you must rest."
He slipped away into the gloom in the direction of the pit. For
several minutes Philip stood near the fire staring into the
flames. Then he suddenly awoke into life. The thought that had
come to him this night had changed his world for him. And he
wondered now if he was right. Jean had said: "I cannot believe
that you have guessed true," and yet in the half-breed's face, in
his horror-filled eyes, in the tense gathering of his body was
revealed the fear that he HAD! But if he had made a mistake! If he
had guessed wrong! The hot blood surged in his face. If he had
guessed wrong--his thought would be a crime. He had made up his
mind to drive the guess out of his head, and he went into the
tepee to find food and coffee. When Jean returned, an hour later,
supper was waiting in the heat of the fire. The half-breed had
brought Philip's rifle along with his own.
"What did he say?" asked Philip, as they sat down to eat. "He had
no suspicions?"
"None, M'sieur," replied Jean, a strange smile on his lips. "He
was with Miriam. When I entered they were romping like two
children in the music-room. Her hair was down. She was pulling
his beard, and they were laughing so that at first they did not
hear me when I spoke to them. Laughing, M'sieur!"
His eyes met Philip's.
"Has Josephine told you what the Indians call them?" he asked
softly.
"No."
"In every tepee in these forests they speak of them as Kah
Sakehewawin, 'the lovers.' Ah, M'sieur, there is one picture in my
brain which I shall never forget. I first came to Adare House on a
cold, bleak night, dying of hunger, and first of all I looked
through a lighted window. In a great chair before the fire sat Le
M'sieur, so that I could see his face and what was gathered up
close in his arms. At first I thought it was a sleeping child he
was holding. And then I saw the long hair streaming to the floor,
and in that moment La Fleurette--beautiful as the angels I had
dreamed of--raised her face and saw me at the window. And during
all the years that have passed since then it has been like that,
M'sieur. They have been lovers. They will be until they die."
Philip was silent. He knew that Jean was looking at him. He felt
that he was reading the thoughts in his heart. A little later he
drew out his watch and looked at it.
"What time is it, M'sieur?"
"Nine o'clock," replied Philip. "Why wait another hour, Jean? I am
ready."
"Then we will go," replied Jean, springing to his feet. "Throw
these things into the tepee, M'sieur, while I put the dogs in the
traces."
They moved quickly now. Over them the gray heavens seemed to drop
lower. Through the forest swept a far monotone, like the breaking
of surf on a distant shore. With the wind came a thin snow, and
the darkness gathered so that beyond the rim of fire-light there
was a black chaos in which the form of all things was lost. It was
not a night for talk. It was filled with the whisperings of storm,
and to Philip those whisperings were an oppressive presage of the
tragedy that lay that night ahead of them. The dogs were
harnessed, five that Jean had chosen from the pack; and straight
out into the pit of gloom the half-breed led them. In that
darkness Philip could see nothing. But not once did Jean falter,
and the dogs followed him, occasionally whining at the strangeness
and unrest of the night; and close behind them came Philip. For a
long time there was no sound but the tread of their feet, the
scraping of the toboggan, the patter of the dogs, and the wind
that bit down from out of the thick sky into the spruce tops. They
had travelled an hour when they came to a place where the
smothering weight of the darkness seemed to rise from about them.
It was the edge of a great open, a bit of the Barren that reached
down like a solitary finger from the North: treeless, shrubless,
the playground of the foxes and the storm winds. Here Jean fell
back beside Philip for a moment.
"You are not tiring, M'sieur?"
"I am getting stronger every mile," declared Philip. "I feel no
effects of the blow now, Jean. How far did you say it was to the
place where our people are to meet?"
"Eight miles. We have come four. In this darkness we could make it
faster without the dogs, but they are carrying a hundred pounds of
tepee, guns, and food."
He urged the dogs on in the open space. Another hour and they had
come again to the edge of forest. Here they rested.
"There will be some there ahead of us," said Jean. "Renault and
the other runners will have had more than four hours. They will
have visited a dozen cabins on the trap-lines. Pierre reached old
Kaskisoon and his Swamp Crees in two hours. They love Josephine
next to their Manitou. The Indians will be there to a man!"
Philip did not reply. But his heart beat like a drum at the
sureness and triumph that thrilled in the half-breed's voice. As
they went on, he lost account of time in the flashing pictures
that came to him of the other actors in this night's drama; of
those half-dozen Paul Reveres of the wilderness speeding like
shadows through the mystery of the night, of the thin-waisted,
brown-faced men who were spreading the fires of vengeance from
cabin to cabin and from tepee to tepee. Through his lips there
came a sobbing breath of exultation, of joy. He did not tire. At
times he wanted to run on ahead of Jean and the dogs. Yet he saw
that no such desire seized upon Jean. Steadily--with a precision
that was almost uncanny--the half-breed led the way. He did not
hurry, he did not hesitate. He was like a strange spirit of the
night itself, a voiceless and noiseless shadow ahead, an automaton
of flesh and blood that had become more than human to Philip. In
this man's guidance he lost his fear for Josephine.
At last they came to the foot of a rock ridge. Up this the dogs
toiled, with Jean pulling at the lead-trace. They came to the
top. There they stopped. And standing like a hewn statue, his
voice breaking in a panting cry, Jean Jacques Croisett pointed
down into the plain below.
Half a mile away a light stood out like a glowing star in the
darkness. It was a campfire.
"It is a fire at the Forks," spoke Jean above the wind. "Mon Dieu,
M'sieur--is it not something to have friends like that!"
He led the way a short distance along the face of the ridge, and
then they plunged down the valley of deeper gloom. The forest was
thick and low, and Philip guessed that they were passing through a
swamp. When they came out of it the fire was almost in their
faces. The howling of dogs greeted them. As they dashed into the
light half a dozen men had risen and were facing them, their
rifles in the crooks of their arms. From out of the six there
strode a tall, thin, smooth-shaven man toward them, and from
Jean's lips there fell words which he tried to smother.
"Mother of Heaven, it is Father George, the Missioner from
Baldneck!" he gasped.
In another moment the Missioner was wringing the half-breed's
mittened hand. He was a man of sixty. His face was of cadaverous
thinness, and there was a feverish glow in his eyes.
"Jean Croisset!" he cried. "I was at Ladue's when Pierre came with
the word. Is it true? Has the purest soul in all this world been
stolen by those Godless men at Thoreau's? I cannot believe it! But
if it is so, I have come to fight!"
"It is true, Father," replied Jean. "They have stolen her as the
wolves of white men stole Red Fawn from her father's tepee three
years ago. And to-morrow--"
"The vengeance of the Lord will descend upon them," interrupted
the Missioner. "And this, Jean, your friend?"
"Is M'sieur Philip Darcambal, the husband of Josephine," said
Jean.
As the Missioner gripped Philip's hand his thin fingers had in
them the strength of steel.
"Ladue told me that she had found her man," he said. "May God
bless you, my son! It was I, Father George, who baptized her years
and years ago. For me she made Adare House a home from the time
she was old enough to put her tiny arms about my neck and lisp my
name. I was on my way to see you when night overtook me at
Ladue's. I am not a fighting man, my son. God does not love their
kind. But it was Christ who flung the money-changers from the
temple--and so I have come to fight."
The others were close about them now, and Jean was telling of the
ambush in the forest. Purple veins grew in the Missioner's
forehead as he listened. There were no questions on the lips of
the others. With dark, tense faces and eyes that burned with
slumbering fires they heard Jean. There were the grim and silent
Foutelles, father and son, from the Caribou Swamp. Tall and
ghostlike in the firelight, more like spectre than man, was
Janesse, a white beard falling almost to his waist, a thick marten
skin cap shrouding his head, and armed with a long barrelled
smooth-bore that shot powder and ball. From the fox grounds out on
the Barren had come "Mad" Joe Horn behind eight huge malemutes
that pulled with the strength of oxen. And with the Missioner had
come Ladue, the Frenchman, who could send a bullet through the
head of a running fox at two hundred yards four times out of five.
Kaskisoon and his Crees had not arrived, and Philip knew that Jean
was disappointed.
"I heard three days ago of a big caribou herd to the west," said
Janesse in answer to the half-breed's inquiry. "It may be they
have gone for meat."
They drew close about the fire, and the Foutelles dragged in a
fresh birch log for the flames. "Mad" Joe Horn, with hair and
beard as red as copper, hummed the Storm Song under his breath.
Janesse stood with his back to the heat, facing darkness and the
west. He raised a hand, and all listened. For sixty years his
world had been bounded by the four walls of the forests. It was
said that he could hear the padded footfall of the lynx--and so
all listened while the hand was raised, though they heard nothing
but the wailing of the wind, the crackling of the fire, and the
unrest of the dogs in the timber behind them. For many seconds
Janesse did not lower his hand; and then, still unheard by the
others, there came slowly out of the gloom a file of dusky-faced,
silent, shadowy forms. They were within the circle of light before
Jean or his companions had moved, and at their head was Kaskisoon,
the Cree: tall, slender as a spruce sapling, and with eyes that
went searchingly from face to face with the uneasy glitter of an
ermine's. They fell upon Jean, and with a satisfied "Ugh!" and a
hunch of his shoulders he turned to his followers. There were
seven. Six of them carried rifles. In the hands of the seventh was
a shotgun.
After this, one by one, and two by two, there were added others to
the circle of waiting men about the fire. By two o'clock there
were twenty. They came faster after that. With Bernard, from the
south, came Renault, who had gone to the end of his run. From the
east, west, and south they continued to come--but from out of the
northwest there led no trail. Off there was Thoreau's place. Pack
after pack was added to the dogs in the timber. Their voices rose
above and drowned all other sound. Teams strained at their leashes
to get at the throats of rival teams, and from the black shelter
in which they were fastened came a continuous snarling and
gnashing of fangs. Over the coals of a smaller fire simmered two
huge pots of coffee from which each arrival helped himself; and on
long spits over the larger fire were dripping chunks of moose and
caribou meat from which they cut off their own helpings.
In the early dawn there were forty who gathered about Father
George to listen to the final words he had to say. He raised his
hands. Then he bowed his head, and there was a strange silence.
Words of prayer fell solemnly from his lips. Partly it was in
Cree, partly in French, and when he had finished a deep breath ran
through the ranks of those who listened to him. Then he told them,
beginning with Cree, in the three languages of the wilderness,
that they were to be led that day by Jean Jacques Croisset and
Philip Darcambal, the husband of Josephine. Two of the Indians
were to remain behind to care for the camp and dogs. Beyond that
they needed no instructions.
They were ready, and Jean was about to give the word to start when
there was an interruption. Out of the forest and into their midst
came a figure--the form of a man who rose above them like a giant,
and whose voice as it bellowed Jean's name had in it the wrath of
thunder.
It was the master of Adare!