The Greatest Works of James Oliver Curwood (Illustrated Edition). James Oliver Curwood
clear away at least a part of the mystery. Vainly, as he watched and waited, he racked his mind to find some reason for the murderous attack on himself. Who was "the little Meleese," whom Croisset declared had sent the warning? So far as he could remember he had never known a person by that name. And yet the half-breed had uttered it as though it would carry a vital meaning to him. "Perhaps you will understand," he had said, and Howland strove to understand, until his brain grew dizzy and a nauseous sickness overcame him.
The first light of the day was falling faintly through the window when footsteps sounded outside the door again. It was not Croisset who appeared this time, but the proprietor himself, bearing with him a tray on which there was toast and a steaming pot of coffee. He nodded and smiled as he saw Howland half sitting up.
"Bad fall you had," he greeted, drawing a small table close beside the bed. "This snow is treacherous when you're climbing among the rocks. When it caves in with you on the side of a mountain you might as well make up your mind you're going to get a good bump. Good thing Croisset was with you!"
For a few moments Howland was speechless.
"Yes--it--was--a--bad--fall," he replied at last, looking sharply at the other. "Where is Croisset?"
"Gone. He left an hour ago with his dogs. Funny fellow--that Croisset! Came in yesterday from the Lac la Ronge country a hundred miles north; goes back to-day. No apparent reason for his coming, none for his going, that I can see."
"Do you know anything about him?" asked Howland a little eagerly.
"No. He comes in about once or twice a year."
The young engineer munched his toast and drank his coffee for some moments in silence. Then, casually, he asked,
"Did you ever hear of a person by the name of Meleese?"
"Meleese--Meleese--Meleese--" repeated the hotel man, running a hand through his hair. "It seems to me that the name is familiar--and yet I can't remember--" He caught himself in sudden triumph. "Ah, I have it! Two years ago I had a kitchen woman named Meleese."
Howland shrugged his shoulders.
"This was a young woman," he said.
"The Meleese we had is dead," replied the proprietor cheerfully, rising to go. "I'll send up for your tray in half an hour or so, Mr. Howland."
Several hours later Howland crawled from his bed and bathed his head in cold water. After that he felt better, dressed himself, and went below. His head pained him considerably, but beyond that and an occasional nauseous sensation the injury he had received in the fight caused him no very great distress. He went in to dinner and by the middle of the afternoon was so much improved that he lighted his first cigar and ventured out into the bracing air for a short walk. At first it occurred to him that he might make inquiries at the Chinese restaurant regarding the identity of the girl whom he had met there, but he quickly changed his mind, and crossing the river he followed the trail which they had taken the preceding night. For a few moments he contemplated the marks of the conflict in the snow. Where he had first seen the half-breed there were blotches of blood on the crust.
"Good for Croisset!" Howland muttered; "good for Croisset. It looks as though he used a knife."
He could see where the wounded man had dragged himself up the trail, finally staggering to his feet, and with a caution which he had not exercised a few hours before Howland continued slowly between the thick forest walls, one hand clutching the butt of the revolver in his coat pocket. Where the trail twisted abruptly into the north he found the charred remains of a camp-fire in a small open, and just beyond it a number of birch toggles, which had undoubtedly been used in place of tent-stakes. With the toe of his boot he kicked among the ashes and half-burned bits of wood. There was no sign of smoke, not a living spark to give evidence that human presence had been there for many hours. There was but one conclusion to make; soon after their unsuccessful attempt on his life his strange assailants had broken camp and fled. With them, in all probability, had gone the girl whose soft eyes and sweet face had lured him within their reach.
But where had they gone?
Carefully he examined the abandoned camp. In the hard crust were the imprints of dogs' claws. In several places he found the faint, broad impression made by a toboggan. The marks at least cleared away the mystery of their disappearance. Sometime during the night they had fled by dog-sledge into the North.
He was tired when he returned to the hotel and it was rather with a sense of disappointment than pleasure that he learned the work-train was to leave for Le Pas late that night instead of the next day. After a quiet hour's rest in his room, however, his old enthusiasm returned to him. He found himself feverishly anxious to reach Le Pas and the big camp on the Wekusko. Croisset's warning for him to turn back into the South, instead of deterring him, urged him on. He was born a fighter. It was by fighting that he had forced his way round by round up the ladder of success. And now the fact that his life was in danger, that some mysterious peril awaited him in the depths of the wilderness, but added a new and thrilling fascination to the tremendous task which was ahead of him. He wondered if this same peril had beset Gregson and Thorne, and if it was the cause of their failure, of their anxiety to return to civilization. He assured himself that he would know when he met them at Le Pas. He would discover more when he became a part of the camp on the Wekusko; that is, if the half-breed's warning held any significance at all, and he believed that it did. Anyway, he would prepare for developments. So he went to a gun-shop, bought a long-barreled six-shooter and a holster, and added to it a hunting-knife like that he had seen carried by Croisset.
It was near midnight when he boarded the work-train and dawn was just beginning to break over the wilderness when it stopped at Etomami, from which point he was to travel by hand-car over the sixty miles of new road that had been constructed as far north as Le Pas. For three days the car had been waiting for the new chief of the road, but neither Gregson nor Thorne was with it.
"Mr. Gregson is waiting for you at Le Pas," said one of the men who had come with it. "Thorne is at Wekusko."
For the first time in his life Howland now plunged into the heart of the wilderness, and as mile after mile slipped behind them and he sped deeper into the peopleless desolation of ice and snow and forest his blood leaped in swift excitement, in the new joy of life which he was finding up here under the far northern skies. Seated on the front of the car, with the four men pumping behind him, he drank in the wild beauties of the forests and swamps through which they slipped, his eyes constantly on the alert for signs of the big game which his companions told him was on all sides of them.
Everywhere about them lay white winter. The rocks, the trees, and the great ridges, which in this north country are called mountains, were covered with four feet of snow and on it the sun shone with dazzling brilliancy. But it was not until a long grade brought them to the top of one of these ridges and Howland looked into the north that he saw the wilderness in all of its grandeur. As the car stopped he sprang to his feet with a joyous cry, his face aflame with what he saw ahead of him. Stretching away under his eyes, mile after mile, was the vast white desolation that reached to Hudson Bay. In speechless wonder he gazed down on the unblazed forests, saw plains and hills unfold themselves as his vision gained distance, followed a frozen river until it was lost in the bewildering picture, and let his eyes rest here and there on the glistening, snow-smothered bosoms of lakes, rimmed in by walls of black forest. This was not the wilderness as he had expected it to be, nor as he had often read of it in books. It was not the wilderness that Gregson and Thorne had described in their letters. It was beautiful! It was magnificent! His heart throbbed with pleasure as he gazed down on it, the flush grew deeper in his face, and he seemed hardly to breathe in his tense interest.
One of the four on the car was an old Indian and it was he, strangely enough, who broke the silence. He had seen the look in Howland's face, and he spoke softly, close to his ear, "Twent' t'ousand moose down there--twent' t'ousand caribou-oo! No man--no house--more twent' t'ousand miles!"
Howland, even quivering in his new emotion, looked into the old warrior's eyes, filled with the curious, thrilling gleam of the spirit which was stirring within himself. Then again he stared straight out into the unending distance as though his vision would penetrate