d 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, we would have killed our own
brothers had they as much as spoken a word against them or cast at the
mother even as much as a look