en between the Athabasca
and the bay who would kill you for what you have said. And it is not for
Jean Croisset to listen to it here. I will kill you unless you take
it back!"

"God!" breathed Howland. He looked straight into Croisset's face. "I'm
glad--it's so--Jean," he added slowly. "Don't you understand, man? I
love her. I didn't mean what I said. I would kill for her, too, Jean. I
said that to find out--what you would do--"

Slowly Croisset relaxed, a faint smile curling his thin lips.

"If it was a joke, M'seur, it was a bad one."

"It wasn't a joke," cried Howland. "It was a serious effort to make you
tell me something about Meleese. Listen, Jean--she told me back there
that it was not wrong for me to love her, and when I lay bound and
gagged in the snow she came to me and--and kissed me. I don't
understand--"

Croisset interrupted him.

"Did she do that, M'seur?"

"I swear it."

"Then you are fortunate," smiled Jean softly, "for I will stake my hope
in the blessed hereafter that she has never done that to another man,
M'seur. But it will never happen again."

"I believe that it will--unless you kill me."

"And I shall not hesitate to kill you if I think that it is likely to
happen again. There are others who would kill you--knowing that it has
happened but once. But you must stop this talk, M'seur. If you persist I
shall put the rawhide over your mouth again."

"And if I object--fight?"

"You have given me your word of honor. Up here in the big snows the
keeping of that word is our first law. If you break it I will kill you."

"Good Lord, but you're a cheerful companion," exclaimed Howland,
laughing in spite of himself. "Do you know, Croisset, this whole
situation has a good deal of humor as well as tragedy about it. I must
be a most important cuss, whoever I am. Ask me who I am, Croisset?"

"And who are you, M'seur?"

"I don't know, Jean. Fact, I don't. I used to think that I was a most
ambitious young cub in a big engineering establishment down in Chicago.
But I guess I was dreaming. Funny dream, wasn't it? Thought I came up
here to build a road somewhere through these infernal---no, I mean these
beautiful snows--but my mind must have been wandering again. Ever hear
of an insane asylum, Croisset? Am I in a big stone building with iron
bars at the windows, and are you my keeper, just come in to amuse me for
a time? It's kind of you, Croisset, and I hope that some day I shall get
my mind back