“The cowards!” he exclaimed.  “A pretty pair, Croisset—­to crawl out from under a trap to let another in at the top!”

“Perhaps not so bad as that,” said Jean.  “They were given to understand that they—­and they alone—­were not wanted in the country.  It may be that they did not think harm would come to you, and so kept quiet about what had happened.  It may be, too, that they did not like to have it known that they were running away from danger.  Is not that human, M’seur?  Anyway, you were detailed to come, 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 she overhear words that aroused her suspicions that they were about to kill you.  It was then, M’seur, that she came to me.”