ome, and not until then did
Meleese know of all that had occurred."

The Frenchman stopped for a moment. The glare had faded from Howland's
eyes. The tense lines in his face relaxed.

"I--I--believe I understand everything now, Jean," he said. "You traced
the wrong John Howland, that's all. I love Meleese, Jean. I would kill
John Howland for her. I want to meet her brothers and shake their hands.
I don't blame them. They're men. But, somehow, it hurts to think of
her--of Meleese--as--as almost a murderer."

"_Mon Dieu_, M'seur, has she not saved your life! Listen to this! It
was then--when she knew what had happened--that Meleese came to me--whom
she had made the happiest man in the world because it was she who
brought my Mariane over from Churchill on a visit especially that I
might see her and fall in love with her, M'seur--which I did. Meleese
came to me--to Jean Croisset--and instead of planning your murder,
M'seur, she schemed to save your life--with me--who would have cut you
into bits no larger than my finger and fed you to the carrion ravens,
who would have choked the life out of you until your eyes bulged in
death, as I choked that one up on the Great Slave! Do you understand,
M'seur? It was Meleese who came and pleaded with me to save your
life--before you had left Chicago, before she had heard more of you than
your name, before--"

Croisset hesitated, and stopped.

"Before what, Jean?"

"Before she had learned to love you, M'seur."

"God bless her!" exclaimed Howland.

"You believe this, M'seur?"

"As I believe in a God."

"Then I will tell you what she did, M'seur," he continued in a low
voice. "The plan of the brothers was to make you a prisoner near Prince
Albert and bring you north. I knew what was to happen then. It was to be
a beautiful vengeance, M'seur--a slow torturing death on the spot where
the crime was committed sixteen years ago. But Meleese knew nothing of
this. She was made to believe that up here, where the mother and father
died, you would be given over to the proper law--to the mounted police
who come this way now and then. She is only a girl, M'seur, easily made
to believe strange things in such matters as these, else she would have
wondered why you were not given to the officers in Prince Albert. It was
the eldest brother who thought of her as a lure to bring you out of the
town into their hands, and not until the last moment, when they were
ready to leave for the South, did