THE PURSUIT
Behind the sledge ran Howland, to the right of the team ran Jean. Once
or twice when Croisset glanced back his eyes met those of the engineer.
He cracked his whip and smiled, and Howland's teeth gleamed back coldly
in reply. A mutual understanding flashed between them in these glances.
In a sudden spurt Howland knew that the Frenchman could quickly put
distance between them--but not a distance that his bullets could not
cover in the space of a breath. He had made up his mind to fire,
deliberately and with his greatest skill, if Croisset made the slightest
movement toward escape. If he was compelled to kill or wound his
companion he could still go on alone with the dogs, for the trail of
Meleese and Jackpine would be as plain as their own, which they were
following back into the South.
For the second time since coming into the North he felt the blood
leaping through his veins as on that first night in Prince Albert when
from the mountain he had heard the lone wolf, and when later he had seen
the beautiful face through the hotel window. Howland was one of the few
men who possess unbounded confidence in themselves, who place a certain
pride in their physical as well as their mental capabilities, and he was
confident now. His successful and indomitable fight over obstacles in a
big city had made this confidence a genuine part of his being. It was a
confidence that flushed his face with joyous enthusiasm as he ran after
the dogs, and that astonished and puzzled Jean Croisset.
"_Mon Dieu_, but you are a strange man!" exclaimed the Frenchman when he
brought the dogs down to a walk after a half mile run. "Blessed saints,
M'seur, you are laughing--and I swear it is no laughing matter."
"Shouldn't a man be happy when he is going to his wedding, Jean?"
puffed Howland, gasping to get back the breath he had lost.
"But not when he's going to his funeral, M'seur."
"If I were one of your blessed saints I'd hit you over the head with a
thunderbolt, Croisset. Good Lord, what sort of a heart have you got
inside of your jacket, man? Up there where we're going is the sweetest
little girl in the whole world. I love her. She loves me. Why shouldn't
I be happy, now that I know I'm going to see her again very soon--and
take her back into the South with me?"
"The devil!" grunted Jean.
"Perhaps you're jealous, Croisset," suggested Howland. "Great Scott, I
hadn't thought of _that!_"
"I've got one of my own to love, M'seur; and I wouldn't trade her for
all else in the world."
"Damned if I can understand you," swore the engineer. "You appear to be
half human; you say you're in love, and yet you'd rather risk your life
than help out Meleese and me. What the deuce does it mean?"
"That's what I'm doing, M'seur--helping Meleese. I would have done her a
greater service if I had killed you back there on the trail and stripped
your body for those things that would be foul enough to eat it. I have
told you a dozen times that it is God's justice that you die. And you
are going to die--very soon, M'seur."
"No, I'm not going to die, Jean. I'm going to see Meleese, and she's
going back into the South with me. And if you're real good you may have
the pleasure of driving us back to the Wekusko, Croisset, and you can be
my best man at the wedding. What do you say to that?"
"That you are mad--or a fool," retorted Jean, cracking his whip
viciously.
The dogs swung sharply from the trail, heading from their southerly
course into the northwest.
"We will save a day by doing this," explained Croisset at the other's
sharp word of inquiry. "We will hit the other trail twenty miles west of
here, while by following back to where they turned we would travel sixty
miles to reach the same point. That one chance in a hundred which you
have depends on this, M'seur. If the other sledge has passed--"
He shrugged his shoulders and started the dogs into a trot.
"Look here," cried Howland, running beside him. "Who is with this other
sledge?"
"Those who tried to kill you on the trail and at the coyote, M'seur," he
answered quickly.
Howland fell half a dozen paces behind. By the end of the first hour he
was compelled to rest frequently by taking to the sledge, and their
progress was much slower. Jean no longer made answer to his occasional
questions. Doggedly he swung on ahead to the right and a little behind
the team leader, and Howland could see that for some reason Croisset was
as anxious as himself to make the best time possible. His own
impatience increased as the morning lengthened. Jean's assurance that
the mysterious enemies who had twice attempted his life were only a
short distance behind them, or a short distance ahead, set a new and
desperate idea at work in his brain. He was confident that these men
from the Wekusko were his chief menace, and that with them once out of
the way, and with the Frenchman in his power, the fight which he was
carrying into the enemy's country would be half won. There would then be
no one to recognize him but Meleese.
His heart leaped with joyous hope, and he leaned forward on the sledge
to examine Croisset's empty gun. It was an automatic, and Croisset,
glancing back over the loping backs of the huskies, caught him smiling.
He ran more frequently now, and longer distances, and with the passing
of each mile his determination to strike a decisive blow increased. If
they reached the trail of Meleese and Jackpine before the crossing of
the second sledge he would lay in wait for his old enemies; if they had
preceded them he would pursue and surprise them in camp. In either case
he would possess an overwhelming advantage.
With the same calculating attention to detail that he would have shown
in the arrangement of plans for the building of a tunnel or a bridge, he
drew a mental map of his scheme and its possibilities. There would be at
least two men with the sledge, and possibly three. If they surrendered
at the point of his rifle without a fight he would compel Jean to tie
them up with dog-traces while he held them under cover. If they made a
move to offer resistance he would shoot. With the automatic he could
kill or wound the three before they could reach their rifles, which
would undoubtedly be on the sledge. The situation had now reached a
point where he no longer took into consideration what these men might be
to Meleese.
As they continued into the northwest Howland noted that the thicker
forest was gradually clearing into wide areas of small banskian pine,
and that the rock ridges and dense swamps which had impeded their
progress were becoming less numerous. An hour before noon, after a
tedious climb to the top of a frozen ridge, Croisset pointed down into a
vast level plain lying between them and other great ridges far to
the north.
"That is a bit of the Barren Lands that creeps down between those
mountains off there, M'seur," he said. "Do you see that black forest
that looks like a charred log in the snow to the south and west of the
mountains? That is the break that leads into the country of the
Athabasca. Somewhere between this point and that we will strike the
trail. Mon Dieu, I had half expected to see them out there on
the plain."
"Who? Meleese and Jackpine, or--"
"No, the others, M'seur. Shall we have dinner here?"
"Not until we hit the trail," replied Howland. "I'm anxious to know
about that one chance in a hundred you've given me hope of, Croisset. If
they have passed--"
"If they are ahead of us you might just as well stand out there and let
me put a bullet through you, M'seur."
He went to the head of the dogs, guiding them down the rough side of the
ridge, while Howland steadied the toboggan from behind. For
three-quarters of an hour they traversed the low bush of the plain in
silence. From every rising snow hummock Jean scanned the white
desolation about them, and each time, as nothing that was human came
within his vision, he turned toward the engineer with a sinister shrug
of his shoulders. Once three moving caribou, a mile or more away,
brought a quick cry to his lips and Howland noticed that a sudden flush
of excitement came into his face, replaced in the next instant by a look
of disappointment. After this he maintained a more careful guard over
the Frenchman. They had covered less than half of the distance to the
caribou trail when in a small open space free of bush Croisset's voice
rose sharply and the team stopped.
"What do you think of it, M'seur?" he cried, pointing to the snow.
"What do you think of that?"
Barely cutting into the edge of the open was the broken crust of two
sledge trails. For a moment Howland forgot his caution and bent over to
examine the trails, with his back to his companion. When he looked up
there was a curious laughing gleam in Jean's eyes.
"_Mon Dieu_, but you are careless!" he exclaimed. "Be more careful,
M'seur. I may give myself up to another temptation like that."
"The deuce you say!" cried Howland, springing back quickly. "I'm much
obliged, Jean. If it wasn't for the moral effect of the thing I'd shake
hands with you on that. How far ahead of us do you suppose they are?"
Croisset had fallen on his knees in the trail.
"The crust is freshly broken," he said after a moment. "They have been
gone not less than two or three hours, perhaps since morning. See this
white glistening surface over the first trail, M'seur, like a billion
needle-points growing out of it? That is the work of three or four
days' cold. The first sledge passed that long ago."
Howland turned and picked up Croisset's rifle. The Frenchman watched him
as he slipped a clip full of cartridges into the breech.
"If there's a snack of cold stuff in the pack dig it out," he commanded.
"We'll eat on the run, if you've got anything to eat. If you haven't,
we'll go hungry. We're going to overtake that sledge sometime this
afternoon or to-night--or bust!"
"The saints be blessed, then we are most certain to bust, M'seur,"
gasped Jean. "And if we don't the dogs will. Non, it is impossible!"
"Is there anything to eat?"
"A morsel of cold meat--that is all. But I say that it is impossible.
That sledge--"
Howland interrupted him with an impatient gesture.
"And I say that if there is anything to eat in there, get it out, and be
quick about it, Croisset. We're going to overtake those precious
friends of yours, and I warn you that if you make any attempt to lose
time something unpleasant is going to happen. Understand?"
Jean had bent to unstrap one end of the sledge pack and an angry flash
leaped into his eyes at the threatening tone of the engineer's voice.
For a moment he seemed on the point of speech, but caught himself and in
silence divided the small chunk of meat which he drew from the pack,
giving the larger share to Howland as he went to the head of the dogs.
Only once or twice during the next hour did he look back, and after each
of these glances he redoubled his efforts at urging on the huskies.
Before they had come to the edge of the black banskian forest which Jean
had pointed out from the farther side of the plain, Howland saw that the
pace was telling on the team. The leader was trailing lame, and now and
then the whole pack would settle back in their traces, to be urged on
again by the fierce cracking of Croisset's long whip. To add to his own
discomfiture Howland found that he could no longer keep up with Jean
and the dogs, and with his weight added to the sledge the huskies
settled down into a tugging walk.
Thus they came into the deep low forest, and Jean, apparently oblivious
of the exhaustion of both man and dogs, walked now in advance of the
team, his eyes constantly on the thin trail ahead. Howland could not
fail to see that his unnecessary threat of a few hours before still
rankled in the Frenchman's mind, and several times he made an effort to
break the other's taciturnity. But Jean strode on in moody silence,
answering only those things which were put to him directly, and speaking
not an unnecessary word. At last the engineer jumped from the sledge and
overtook his companion.
"Hold on, Jean," he cried. "I've got enough. You're right, and I want to
apologize. We're busted--that is, the dogs and I are busted, and we
might as well give it up until we've had a feed. What do you say?"
"I say that you have stopped just in time, M'seur," replied Croisset
with purring softness. "Another half hour and we would have been through
the forest, and just beyond that--in the edge of the plain--are those
whom you seek, Meleese and her people. That is what I started to tell
you back there when you shut me up. _Mon Dieu_, if it were not for
Meleese I would let you go on. And then--what would happen then, M'seur,
if you made your visit to them in broad day? Listen!"
Jean lifted a warning hand. Faintly there came to them through the
forest the distant baying of a hound.
"That is one of our dogs from the Mackenzie country," he went on softly,
an insinuating triumph in his low voice. "Now, M'seur, that I have
brought you here what are you going to do? Shall we go on and take
dinner with those who are going to kill you, or will you wait a few
hours? 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. "You warned me
to lose no time--that something would happen if I did."
With a quick movement Howland drew his revolver and leveled it at the
Frenchman's heart.
"If you ever prayed to those blessed saints of yours, do it now, Jean
Croisset. I'm going to kill you!" he cried fiercely.