The Greatest Works of James Oliver Curwood (Illustrated Edition). James Oliver Curwood

of the final hour!

      Above him he heard faintly the sharp barking of dogs, the hollow sound of men's voices. A moment later there came to him an echo as of swiftly tramping feet, and after that silence.

      "Jean," he called tensely. "Ho, Jean--Jean Croisset--"

      He caught up the paper and ran from one black opening to another, calling the Frenchman's name.

      "As you love your God, Jean, as you have a hope of Heaven, take this note to Meleese!" he pleaded. "Jean--Jean Croisset--"

      There came no answer, no movement outside, and Howland stilled the beating of his heart to listen. Surely Croisset was there! He looked again at the watch he held in his hand. In four minutes the shot would be fired. A cold sweat bathed his face. He tried to cry out again, but something rose in his throat and choked him until his voice was only a gasp. He sprang back to the table and placed the note once more under the watch. Two minutes! One and a half! One!

      With a sudden fearless cry he sprang into the very center of his prison, and flung out his arms with his face to the hole next the door. This time his voice was almost a shout.

      "Jean Croisset, there is a note under my watch on the table. After you have killed me take it to Meleese. If you fail I shall haunt you to your grave!"

      Still no sound--no gleam of steel pointing at aim through the black aperture. Would the shot come from behind?

      Tick--tick--tick--tick--

      He counted the beating of his watch up to twenty. A sound stopped him then, and he closed his eyes, and a great shiver passed through his body.

      It was the tiny bell of his watch tinkling off the hour of six!

      Scarcely had that sound ceased to ring in his brain when from far through the darkness beyond the wall of his prison there came a creaking noise, as if a heavy door had been swung slowly on its hinges, or a trap opened--then voices, low, quick, excited voices, the hurrying tread of feet, a flash of light shooting through the gloom. They were coming! After all it was not to be a private affair, and Jean was to do his killing as the hangman's job is done in civilization--before a crowd. Howland's arms dropped to his side. This was more terrible than the other--this seeing and hearing of preparation, in which he fancied that he heard the click of Croisset's gun as he lifted the hammer.

      Instead it was a hand fumbling at the door. There were no voices now, only a strange moaning sound that he could not account for. In another moment it was made clear to him. The door swung open, and the white-robed figure of Meleese sprang toward him with a cry that echoed through the dungeon chambers. What happened then--the passing of white faces beyond the doorway, the subdued murmur of voices, were all lost to Howland in the knowledge that at the last moment they had let her come to him, that he held her in his arms, and that she was crushing her face to his breast and sobbing things to him which he could not understand. Once or twice in his life he had wondered if realities might not be dreams, and the thought came to him now when he felt the warmth of her hands, her face, her hair, and then the passionate pressure of her lips on his own. He lifted his eyes, and in the doorway he saw Jean Croisset, and behind him a wild, bearded face--the face that had been over him when life was almost choked from him on the Great North Trail. And beyond these two he saw still others, shining ghostly and indistinct in the deeper gloom of the outer darkness. He strained Meleese to him, and when he looked down into her face he saw her beautiful eyes flooded with tears, and yet shining with a great joy. Her lips trembled as she struggled to speak. Then suddenly she broke from his arms and ran to the door, and Jean Croisset came between them, with the wild bearded man still staring over his shoulder.

      "M'seur, will you come with us?" said Jean.

      The bearded man dropped back into the thick gloom, and without speaking Howland followed Croisset, his eyes on the shadowy form of Meleese. The ghostly faces turned from the light, and the tread of their retreating feet marked the passage through the blackness. Jean fell back beside Howland, the huge bulk of the bearded man three paces ahead. A dozen steps more and they came to a stair down which a light shone. The Frenchman's hand fell detainingly on Howland's arm, and when a moment later they reached the top of the stairs all had disappeared but Jean and the bearded man. Dawn was breaking, and a pale light fell through the two windows of the room they had entered. On a table burned a lamp, and near the table were several chairs. To one of these Croisset motioned the engineer, and as Howland sat down the bearded man turned slowly and passed through a door. Jean shrugged his shoulders as the other disappeared.

      "Mon Dieu, that means that he leaves it all to me," he exclaimed. "I don't wonder that it is hard for him to talk, M'seur. Perhaps you have begun to understand!"

      "Yes, a little," replied Howland. His heart was throbbing as if he had just finished climbing a long hill. "That was the man who tried to kill me. But Meleese--the--" He could go no further. Scarce breathing, he waited for Jean to speak.

      "It is Pierre Thoreau," he said, "eldest brother to Meleese. It is he who should say what I am about to tell you, M'seur. But he is too full of grief to speak. You wonder at that? And yet I tell you that a man with a better soul than Pierre Thoreau never lived, though three times he has tried to kill you. Do you remember what you asked me a short time ago, M'seur--if I thought that you were the John Howland who murdered the father of Meleese sixteen years ago? God's saints, and I did until hardly more than half an hour ago, when some one came from the South and exploded a mine under our feet. It was the youngest of the three brothers. M'seur we have made a great mistake, and we ask your forgiveness."

      In the silence the eyes of the two men met across the table. To Howland it was not the thought that his life was saved that came with the greatest force, but the thought of Meleese, the knowledge that in that hour when all seemed to be lost she was nearer to him than ever. He leaned half over the table, his hands clenched, his eyes blazing. Jean did not understand, for he went on quickly.

      "I know it is hard, M'seur. Perhaps it will be impossible for you to forgive a thing like this. We have tried to kill you--kill you by a slow torture, as we thought you deserved. But think for a moment, M'seur, of what happened up here sixteen years ago this winter. I have told you how I choked life from the man-fiend. So I would have choked life from you if it had not been for Meleese. I, too, am guilty. Only six years ago we knew that the right John Howland--the son of the man I slew--was in Montreal, and we sent to seek him this youngest brother, for he had been a long time at school with Meleese and knew the ways of the South better than the others. But he failed to find him at that time, and it was only a short while ago that this brother located you.

      "As Our Blessed Lady is my witness, M'seur, it is not strange that he should have taken you for the man we sought, for it is singular that you bear him out like a brother in looks, as I remember the boy. It is true that François made a great error when he sent word to his brothers suggesting that if either Gregson or Thorne was put out of the way you would probably be sent into the North. I swear by the Virgin that Meleese knew nothing of this, M'seur. She knew nothing of the schemes by which her brothers drove Gregson and Thorne back into the South. They did not wish to kill them, and yet it was necessary to do something that you might replace one of them, M'seur. They did not make a move alone but that something happened. Gregson lost a finger. Thorne was badly hurt--as you know. Bullets came through their window at night. With Jackpine in their employ it was easy to work on them, and it was not long before they sent down asking for another man to replace them."

      For the first time a surge of anger swept through Howland.

      "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