ll
staring he followed Croisset--entered--and disappeared in it. About them
was the stillness and the damp smell of desertion. There was no visible
sign of life, no breathing, no movement but their own, and yet Howland
could feel the half-breed's hand clutch him nervously by the arm as they
went step by step into the black and silent mystery of the place. Soon
there came a fumbling of Croisset's hand at a latch and they passed
through a second door. Then Jean struck a match.

Half a dozen steps away was a table and on the table a lamp. Croisset
lighted it, and with a quiet laugh faced the engineer. They were in a
low, dungeon-like chamber, without a window and with but the one door
through which they had entered. The table, two chairs, a stove and a
bunk built against one of the log walls were all that Howland could see.
But it was not the barrenness of what he imagined was to be his new
prison that held his eyes in staring inquiry on Croisset. It was the
look in his companion's face, the yellow pallor of fear--a horror--that
had taken possession of it. The half-breed closed and bolted the door,
and then sat down beside the table, his thin face peering up through the
sickly lamp-glow at the engineer.

"M'seur, it would be hard for you to guess where you are."

Howland waited.

"If you had lived in this country long, M'seur, you would have heard of
_la Maison de Mort Rouge_--the House of the Red Death, as you would call
it. That is where we are--in the dungeon room. It is a Hudson Bay post,
abandoned almost since I can remember. When I was a child the smallpox
plague came this way and killed all the people. Nineteen years ago the
red plague came again, and not one lived through it in this _Poste de
Mort Rouge._ Since then it has been left to the weasels and the owls. It
is shunned by every living soul between the Athabasca and the bay. That
is why you are safe here."

"Ye gods!" breathed Howland. "Is there anything more, Croisset? Safe
from what, man? Safe from what?"

"From those who wish to kill you, M'seur. You would not go into the
South, so _la belle_ Meleese has compelled you to go into the North,
_Comprenez-vous?_"

For a moment Howland sat as if stunned.

"Do you understand, M'seur?" persisted Croisset, smiling.

"I--I--think I do," replied Howland tensely. "You mean--Meleese--"

Jean took the words from him.

"I mean that you would have died last night, M'seur, had it not been for
Meleese. You esca