tarvation. So it happened that I was like a brother to Meleese
and the other three. The years passed, and the desire for vengeance grew
in us as we became older, until it was the one thing that we most
desired in life, even filling the gentle heart of Meleese, whom we sent
to school in Montreal when she was eleven, M'seur. It was three years
later--while she was still in Montreal--that I went on one of my
wandering searches to a post at the head of the Great Slave, and there,
M'seur--there--"

Croisset had risen. His long arms were stretched high, his head thrown
back, his upturned face aflame with a passion that was almost that
of prayer.

"M'seur, I thank the great God in Heaven that it was given to Jean
Croisset to meet one of those whom we had pledged our lives to find--and
I slew him!"

He stood silent, eyes partly closed, still as if in prayer. When he sank
into his chair again the look of hatred had gone from his face.

"It was the father, and I killed him, M'seur--killed him slowly, telling
him of what he had done as I choked the life from him; and then, a
little at a time, I let the life back into him, forcing him to tell me
where I would find his son, the slayer of Meleese's father. And after
that I closed on his throat until he was dead, and my dogs dragged his
body through three hundred miles of snow that the others might look on
him and know that he was dead. That was six years ago, M'seur."

Howland was scarcely breathing.

"And the other--the son--" he whispered densely. "You found him,
Croisset? You killed him?"

"What would you have done, M'seur?"

Howland's hands gripped those that guarded the little parcel.

"I would have killed him, Jean."

He spoke slowly, deliberately.

"I would have killed him," he repeated.

"I am glad of that, M'seur."

Jean was unwrapping the buckskin, fold after fold of it, until at last
there was revealed a roll of paper, soiled and yellow along the edges.

"These pages are taken from the day-book at the post where the woman
lived," he explained softly, smoothing them under his hands. "Each day
the Factor of a post keeps a reckoning of incidents as they pass, as I
have heard that sea captains do on shipboard. It has been a company law
for hundreds of years. We have kept these pages to ourselves, M'seur.
They tell of what happened at our post sixteen years ago this winter."

As he spoke the half-breed came to Howland's side, smoothing the first
page on the t