The Danger Trail Read Online Free PDF

be safely imprisoned in the old cabin, Croisset's shifting eyes fell on the mass of torn wood under the aperture.
    "Too late, M'seur," he said meaningly. "They are waiting up there now. It is impossible for you to escape."
    "That is what I thought about you," replied Howland, forcing himself to speak coolly. "How did you manage it?"
    "They came up to free me soon after they got you, M'seur. I am grateful to you for thinking of me, for if you had not told them I might have stayed there and starved like a beast in a trap."
    "It was Meleese," said Howland. "I told her."
    Jean dropped his head in his hands.
    "I have just come from Meleese," he whispered softly. "She sends you her love, M'seur, and tells you not to give up hope. The great God, if she only knew-if she only knew what is about to happen! No one has told her. She is a prisoner in her room, and after that-after that out on the plain-when she came to you and fought like one gone mad to save you-they will not give her freedom until all is over. What time is it, M'seur?"
    A clammy chill passed over Howland as he read the time.
    "Half-past four."
    The Frenchman shivered; his fingers clasped and unclasped nervously as he leaned nearer his companion.
    "The Virgin bear me witness that I wish I might strike ten years off my life and give you freedom," he breathed quickly. "I would do it this instant, M'seur. I would help you to escape if it were in any way possible. But they are in the room at the head of the stair-waiting. At six-"
    Something seemed to choke him and he stopped.
    "At six-what then?" urged Howland. "My God, man, what makes you look so? What is to happen at six?"
    Jean stiffened. A flash of the old fire gleamed in his eyes, and his voice was steady and clear when he spoke again.
    "I have no time to lose in further talk like this, M'seur," he said almost harshly. "They know now that it was I who fought for you and for Meleese on the Great North Trail. They know that it is I who saved you at Wekusko. Meleese can no more save me than she can save you, and to make my task a little harder they have made me their messenger, and-"
    Again he stopped, choking for words.
    "What?" insisted Howland, leaning toward him, his face as white as the tallow in the little dish on the table.
    "Their executioner, M'seur."
    With his hands gripped tightly on the table in front of him Jack Howland sat as rigid as though an electric shock had passed through him.
    "Great God!" he gasped.
    "First I am to tell you a story, M'seur," continued Croisset, leveling his reddened eyes to the engineer's. "It will not be long, and I pray the Virgin to make you understand it as we people of the North understand it. It begins sixteen years ago."
    "I shall understand, Jean," whispered Howland. "Go on."
    "It was at one of the company's posts that it happened," Jean began, "and the story has to do with Le M'seur, the Factor, and his wife,L'Ange Blanc -that is what she was called, M'seur-the White Angel.Mon Dieu , how we loved her! Not with a wicked love, M'seur, but with something very near to that which we give our Blessed Virgin. And our love was but a pitiful thing when compared with the love of these two, each for the other. She was beautiful, gloriously beautiful as we know women up in the big snows; like Meleese, who was the youngest of their children.
    "Ours was the happiest post in all this great northland, M'seur," continued Croisset after a moment's pause; "and it was all because of this woman and the man, but mostly because of the woman. And when the little Meleese came-she was the first white girl baby that any of us had ever seen-our love for these two became something that I fear was almost a sacrilege to our dear Lady of God. Perhaps you can not understand such a love, M'seur; I know that it can not be understood down in that world which you call civilization, for I have been there and have seen. We would have died for the little Meleese, and the other Meleese, her mother. And also, M'seur,