God's Country-And the Woman Part 23

With morning came a strangely clear sun. Out of the sky had gone the last haze of cloud. Jean crossed himself, and said:

"She knows--and has sent sunshine instead of storm."

Hours later it was Adare who stood over the little grave, and said words deep and strong, and quivering with emotion, and it was Jean and Metoosin who lowered the tiny casket into the frozen earth. Miriam was not there, but Josephine clung to Philip's side, and only once did her voice break in the grief she was fighting back. Philip was glad when it was over, and Adare was once more in his big room, and Josephine with her mother. He did not even want Jean's company. In his room he sat alone until supper time. He went to bed early, and strangely enough slept more soundly than he had been able to sleep for some time.

When he awoke the following morning his first thought was that this was the day of the third night. He had scarcely dressed when Adare's voice greeted him from outside the door. It was different now--filled with the old cheer and booming hopefulness, and Philip smiled as he thought how this stricken giant of the wilderness was rising out of his own grief to comfort Josephine and him. They were all at breakfast, and Philip was delighted to find Josephine looking much better than he had expected. Miriam had sunk deepest under the strain of the preceding hours. She was still white and wan. Her hands trembled. She spoke little. Tenderly Adare tried to raise her spirits.

During the rest of that day Philip saw but little of Josephine, and he made no effort to intrude himself upon her. Late in the afternoon Jean asked him if he had made friends with the dogs, and Philip told him of his experience with them. Not until nine o'clock that night did he know why the half-breed had asked.

At that hour Adare House had sunk into quiet. Miriam and her husband had gone to bed, the lights were low. For an hour Philip had listened for the footsteps which he knew he would hear to-night. At last he knew that Josephine had come out into the hall. He heard Jean's low voice, their retreating steps, and then the opening and closing of the door that let them out into the night. There was a short silence. Then the door reopened, and some one returned through the hall. The steps stopped at his own door--a knock--and a moment later he was standing face to face with Croisset.

"Throw on your coat and cap and come with me, M'sieur," he cried in a low voice. "And bring your pistol!"

Without a word Philip obeyed. By the time they stood out in the night his blood was racing in a wild antic.i.p.ation. Josephine had disappeared.

Jean gripped his arm.

"To-night something may happen," he said, in a voice that was as hard and cold as the blue lights of the aurora in the polar sky. "It is--possible. We may need your help. I would have asked Metoosin, but it would have made him suspicious of something--and he knows nothing.

You have made friends with the dogs? You know Captain?"

"Yes!"

"Then go to them--go as fast as you can, M'sieur. And if you hear a shot to-night--or a loud cry from out there in the forest, free the dogs swiftly, Captain first, and run with them to our trail, shouting 'KILL! KILL! KILL!' with every breath you take, and don't stop so long as there is a footprint in the snow ahead of you or a human bone to pick! Do you understand, M'sieur?"

His eyes were points of flame in the gloom.

"Do you understand?"

"Yes," gasped Philip. "But--Jean--"

"If you understand--that is all," interrupted Jean, "If there is a peril in what we are doing this night the pack will be worth more to us than a dozen men. If anything happens to us they will be our avengers.

Go! There is not one moment for you to lose. Remember--a shot--a single cry!"

His voice, the glitter in his eyes, told Philip this was no time for words. He turned and ran swiftly across the clearing in the direction of the dog pit, Ten minutes later he came into a gloom warm with the smell of beast. Eyes of fire glared at him. The snapping of fangs and the snarling of savage throats greeted him. One by one he called the names of the dogs he remembered--called them over and over again, advancing fearlessly among them, until he dropped upon his knees with his hand on the chain that held Captain. From there he talked to them, and their whines answered him.

Then he fell silent--listening. He could hear his own heart beat. Every fibre in his body was aquiver with excitement and a strange fear. The hand that rested on Captain's collar trembled. In the distance an owl hooted, and the first note of it sent a red-hot fire through him. Still farther away a wolf howled. Then came a silence in which he thought he could hear the rush of blood through his own throbbing veins.

With his fingers at the steel snap on Captain's collar he waited.

CHAPTER TWENTY

In the course of nearly every human life there comes an hour which stands out above all others as long as memory lasts. Such was the one in which Philip crouched in the dog pit, his hand at Captain's collar, waiting for the sound of cry or shot. So long as he lived he knew this scene could not be wiped out of his brain. As he listened, he stared about him and the drama of it burning into his soul. Some intuitive spirit seemed to have whispered to the dogs that these tense moments were heavy with tragic possibilities for them as well as the man. Out of the surrounding darkness they stared at him without a movement or a sound, every head turned toward him, forty pairs of eyes upon him like green and opal fires. They, too, were waiting and listening. They knew there was some meaning in the att.i.tude of this man crouching at Captain's side. Their heads were up. Their ears were alert. Philip could hear them breathing. And he could feel that the muscles of Captain's splendid body were tense and rigid.

Minutes pa.s.sed. The owl hooted nearer; the wolf howled again, farther away. Slowly the tremendous strain pa.s.sed and Philip began to breathe easier. He figured that Josephine and the half-breed had reached last night's meeting-place. He had given them a margin of at least five minutes--and nothing had happened. His knees were cramped, and he rose to his feet, still holding Captain's chain. The tension was broken among the beasts. They moved; whimpering sounds came to him; eyes shifted uneasily in the gloom. Fully half an hour had pa.s.sed when there was a sudden movement among them. The points of green and opal fire were turned from Philip, and to his ears came the clink of chains, the movement of bodies, a subdued and menacing rumble from a score of throats. Captain growled. Philip stared out into the darkness and listened.

And then a voice came, quite near:

"Ho, M'sieur Philip!"

It was Jean! Philip's hand relaxed its clutch at Captain's collar, and almost a groan of relief fell from his lips. Not until Jean's voice came to him, quiet and unexcited, did he realize under what a strain he had been.

"I am here," he said, moving slowly out of the pit.

On the edge of it, where the light shone down through an opening in the spruce tops, he found Jean. Josephine was not with him. Eagerly Philip caught the other's arm, and looked beyond him.

"Where is she?"

"Safe," replied Jean. "I left her at Adare House, and came to you. I came quickly, for I was afraid that some one might shout in the night, or fire a shot. Our business was done quickly to-night, M'sieur!"

He was looking straight into Philip's eyes, a cold, steady look that told Philip what he meant before he had spoken the words.

"Our business was done quickly!" he repeated. "And it is coming!"

"The fight?"

"Yes."

"And Josephine knows? She understands?"

"No, M'sieur. Only you and I know. Listen: To-night I kneeled down in darkness in my room, and prayed that the soul of my Iowaka might come to me. I felt her near, M'sieur! It is strange--you may not believe--but some day you may understand. And we were there together for an hour, and I pleaded for her forgiveness, for the time had come when I must break my oath to save our Josephine. And I could hear her speak to me, M'sieur, as plainly as you hear that breath of wind in the tree-tops yonder. Praise the Holy Father, I heard her! And so we are going to fight the great fight, M'sieur."

Philip waited. After a moment Jean said, as quietly as if he were asking the time of day:

"Do you know whom we went out to see last night--and met again to-night?" he asked.

"I have guessed," replied Philip. His face was white and hard.

Jean nodded.

"I think you have guessed correctly, M'sieur. It was the baby's father!"

And then, in amazement, he stared at Philip. For the other had flung off his arm, and his eyes were blazing in the starlight.

"And you have had all this trouble, all this mystery, all this fear because of HIM?" he demanded. His voice rang out in a harsh laugh. "You met him last night, and again to-night, and LET HIM GO? You, Jean Croisset? The one man in the whole world I would give my life to meet--and YOU afraid of him? My G.o.d, if that is all--"

Jean interrupted him, laying a firm, quiet hand on his arm.

"What would you do, M'sieur?"

"Kill him," breathed Philip. "Kill him by inches, slowly, torturingly.

And to-night, Jean. He is near. I will follow him, and do what you have been afraid to do."

"Yes, that is it, I have been afraid to kill him," replied Jean. Philip saw the starlight on the half-breed's face. And he knew, as he looked, that he had called Jean Jacques Croisset the one thing in the world that he could not be: a coward.

"I am wrong," he apologized quickly. "Jean, it is not that. I am excited, and I take back my words. It is not fear. It is something else. Why have you not killed him?"