A KISS AND THE CONSEQUENCES
During the week that followed, Jean's little black eyes were never far
distant from Cummins' cabin. Without being observed, he watched Mélisse
and Dixon, and not even to Iowaka did he give hint of his growing
suspicions. Dixon was a man whom most other men liked. There were a
fascinating frankness in his voice and manner, strength in his broad
shoulders, and a general air of comradeship about him which won all but
Jean.
The trap-line runners began leaving the post at the end of the second
week, and after this Mélisse and the young Englishman were more
together than ever. Dixon showed no inclination to accompany the
sledges, and when they were gone he and Mélisse began taking walks in
the forest, when the sun was high and warm.
It was on one of these days that Jean had gone along the edge of the
caribou swamp that lay between the barrens and the higher forest. As he
stopped to examine a fresh lynx trail that cut across the path beaten
down by dog and sledge, he heard the sound of voices ahead of him; and
a moment later he recognized them as those of Mélisse and Dixon. His
face clouded, and his eyes snapped fire.
"Ah, if I was only Jan Thoreau--a Jan Thoreau with the heart of Jean de
Gravois--what a surprise I'd give that foreigner!" he said to himself,
leaping quickly from the trail into the thicket.
He peered forth from the bushes, his loyal heart beating a wrathful
tattoo when he saw that Dixon dared put his hand on Mélisses arm. They
were coming very slowly, the Englishman bending low over the girl's
bowed head, talking to her with strange earnestness. Suddenly he
stopped, and before Jean could comprehend what had happened he had bent
down and kissed her.
With a low cry, Mélisse tore herself free. For an instant she faced
Dixon, who stood laughing into her blazing eyes. Then she turned and
ran swiftly down the trail.
A second cry fell from her startled lips when she found herself face to
face with Jean de Gravois. The little Frenchman was smiling. His eyes
glittered like black diamonds.
"Jean, Jean!" she sobbed, running to him.
"He has insulted you," he said softly, smiling into her white face.
"Run along to the post, ma belle Mélisse."
He watched her, half turned from the astonished Englishman, until she
disappeared in a twist of the trail a hundred yards away. Then he faced
Dixon.
"It is the first time that our Mélisse has ever suffered insult," he
said, speaking as coolly as if to a child. "If Jan Thoreau were here,
he would kill you. He is gone, and I will kill you in his place!"
He advanced, his white teeth still gleaming in a smile, and not until
he launched himself like a cat at Dixon's throat was the Englishman
convinced that he meant attack. In a flash Dixon stepped a little to
one side, and sent out a crashing blow that caught Jean on the side of
the head and sent him flat upon his back in the trail.
Half stunned, Gravois came to his feet. He did not hear the shrill cry
of terror from the twist in the trail. He did not look back to see
Mélisse standing there. But Dixon both saw and heard, and he laughed
tauntingly over Jean's head as the little Frenchman came toward him
again, more cautiously than before.
It was the first time that Jean had ever come into contact with
science. He darted in again, in his quick, cat-like way, and received a
blow that dazed him. This time he held to his feet.
"Bah, this is like striking a baby!" exclaimed Dixon. "What are you
fighting about, Gravois? Is it a crime up here to kiss a pretty girl?"
"I am going to kill you!" said Jean 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 long knife
in his belt. Slowly the laugh faded from Dixon's face, and tense lines
gathered around his mouth as Jean circled about him.
"Come, we don't want trouble like this," he urged. "I'm sorry--if
Mélisse didn't like it."
"I am going to kill you!" repeated Jean.
There was an appalling confidence in his eyes. From those eyes Dixon
found himself retreating rather than from the man. They followed him,
never taking themselves from his face. The fire in them grew deeper.
Two dull red spots began to glow in Jean's cheeks, and he laughed
softly when he suddenly leaped in so that the Englishman struck at
him--and missed.
It was the science of the forest man pitted against that of another
world. For sport Jean had played with wounded lynx; his was the
quickness of sight, of instinct--without the other's science; the
quickness of the great 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 striking distance, and
escaped. He half drew his knife, and at the movement Dixon sprang back
until his shoulders touched the brush. Smilingly Gravois unsheathed the
blade and tossed it behind him in the trail. His eyes were like a
serpent's in their steadiness, and the muscles of his body were drawn
as tight as steel springs, ready to loose themselves when the chance
came.
There were tricks in his fighting as well as in the other's, and a
dawning of it began to grow upon Dixon. He dropped his arms to his
side, inviting Jean within reach. Suddenly the little Frenchman
straightened. His glittering eyes shot from the Englishman's face to
the brush behind him, and a piercing yell burst from his lips.
Involuntarily Dixon started, half turning his face, and before he had
come to his guard Gravois flung himself under his arms, striking with
the full force of his body against his antagonist's knees.
Together they went down in the trail. There was only one science
now--that of the forest man. The lithe, brown fingers, that could have
crushed the life of a lynx, fastened themselves around the Englishman's
man's throat, and there came one gasping, quickly throttled cry as they
tightened in their neck-breaking grip.
"I will kill you!" said Jean again.
Dixon's arms fell limply to his side. His eyes bulged from their
sockets, his mouth was agape, but Jean did not see. His face was buried
on the other's shoulder, the whole life of him in the grip. He would
not have raised his head for a full minute longer had there not come a
sudden interruption--the terrified voice of Mélisse, the frantic
tearing of her hands at his hands.
"He is dead!" she shrieked. "You have killed him, Jean!"
He loosed his fingers and sat up. Mélisse staggered back, clutching
with her hands at her breast, her face as white as the snow.
"You have killed him!"
Jean looked into Dixon's eyes.
"He is not dead," he said, rising and going to her side. "Come, ma
chère, run home to Iowaka. I will not kill him." Her slender form shook
with agonized sobs as he led her to the turn in the trail. "Run home to
Iowaka," he repeated gently. "I will not kill him, Mélisse."
He went back to Dixon and rubbed snow over the man's face.
"Mon Dieu, but it was near to it!" he exclaimed, as there came a
flicker of life into the eyes. "A little more, and he would have been
with the missioner!"
He dragged the Englishman to the side of the trail, and set his back to
a tree. When he saw that fallen foeman's breath was coming more
strongly, he followed slowly after Mélisse.
Unobserved, he went into the store and washed the blood from his face,
chuckling with huge satisfaction when he looked at himself in the
little glass which hung over the wash-basin.
"Ah, my sweet Iowaka, but would you guess now that Jean de Gravois had
received two clouts on the side of the head that almost sent him into
the blessed hereafter? I would not have had you see it for all the gold
in this world!"
A little later he went to the cabin. Iowaka and the children were at
Croisset's, and he sat down to smoke a pipe. Scarce had he begun
sending up blue clouds of smoke when the door opened and Mélisse came
in.
"Hello, ma chère," he cried gaily, laughing at her with a wave of his
pipe.
In an instant she had flung the shawl from her head and was upon her
knees at his feet, her white face turned up to him pleadingly, her
breath falling upon him in panting, sobbing excitement.
"Jean, Jean!" she whispered, stretching up her hands to his face.
"Please tell me that you will never tell Jan--please tell me that you
never will, Jean--never, never, never!"
"I will say nothing, Mélisse."
"Never, Jean?"
"Never."
For a sobbing breath she dropped her head upon his knees. Then,
suddenly, she drew down his face and kissed him.
"Thank you, Jean, for what you have done!"
"Mon Dieu!" gasped Jean when she had gone. "What if Iowaka had been
here then?"