neer was on the point of uttering. "Do you know
what I would do? I would kill you--kill you inch by inch--torture you.
That is what I would do."

"For God's sake, Croisset, tell me why--why--"

Croisset had found Howland's pistol and freed his hands, and the
engineer stretched them out entreatingly.

"I would give my life for that girl, Croisset. I told her so back there,
and she came to me when I was in the snow and--" He caught himself,
adding to what he had left incomplete. "There is a mistake, Croisset. I
am not the man they want to kill!"

Croisset was smiling at him again.

"Smoke--and think, M'seur. It is impossible for me to tell you why you
should be dead--but you ought to know, unless your memory is shorter
than a child's."

He went to the dogs, stirring them up with the cracking of his whip, and
when Howland turned to look back he saw a bright flare of light where
the other sledge had stopped. A man's voice came from the farther gloom,
calling to Croisset in French.

"He tells me I am to take you on alone," said Croisset, after he had
replied to the words spoken in a patois which Howland could not
understand. "They will join us again very soon."

"They!" exclaimed Howland. "How many will it take to kill me, my dear
Croisset?" The half-breed smiled down into his face again.

"You may thank the Blessed Virgin that they are with us," he replied
softly. "If you have any hope outside of Heaven, M'seur, it is on that
sledge behind."

As he went again to the dogs, straightening the leader in his traces,
Howland stared back at the firelit space in the forest gloom. He could
see a man adding fuel to the blaze, and beyond him, shrouded in the deep
shadows of the trees, an indistinct tangle of dogs and sledge. As he
strained his eyes to discover more there was a movement beyond the
figure over the fire and the young engineer's heart leaped with a sudden
thrill. Croisset's voice sounded in a shrill shout behind him, and at
that warning cry in French the second figure sprang back into the gloom.
But Howland had recognized it, and the chilled blood in his veins leaped
into warm life again at the knowledge that it was Meleese who was
trailing behind them on the second sledge! "When you yell like that
give me a little warning if you please, Jean," he said, speaking as
coolly as though he had not recognized the figure that had come for an
instant into the firelight. "It is enough to startle the life out
of one!"