The Greatest Works of James Oliver Curwood (Illustrated Edition). James Oliver Curwood
"for I will stake my hope in the blessed hereafter that she has never done that to another man, M'seur. But it will never happen again."
"I believe that it will--unless you kill me."
"And I shall not hesitate to kill you if I think that it is likely to happen again. There are others who would kill you--knowing that it has happened but once. But you must stop this talk, M'seur. If you persist I shall put the rawhide over your mouth again."
"And if I object--fight?"
"You have given me your word of honor. Up here in the big snows the keeping of that word is our first law. If you break it I will kill you."
"Good Lord, but you're a cheerful companion," exclaimed Howland, laughing in spite of himself. "Do you know, Croisset, this whole situation has a good deal of humor as well as tragedy about it. I must be a most important cuss, whoever I am. Ask me who I am, Croisset?"
"And who are you, M'seur?"
"I don't know, Jean. Fact, I don't. I used to think that I was a most ambitious young cub in a big engineering establishment down in Chicago. But I guess I was dreaming. Funny dream, wasn't it? Thought I came up here to build a road somewhere through these infernal---no, I mean these beautiful snows--but my mind must have been wandering again. Ever hear of an insane asylum, Croisset? Am I in a big stone building with iron bars at the windows, and are you my keeper, just come in to amuse me for a time? It's kind of you, Croisset, and I hope that some day I shall get my mind back so that I can thank you decently. Perhaps you'll go mad some day, Jean, and dream about pretty girls, and railroads, and forests, and snows--and then I'll be your keeper. Have a cigar? I've got just two left."
"Mon Dieu!" gasped Jean. "Yes, I will smoke, M'seur. Is that moose steak good?"
"Fine. I haven't eaten a mouthful since years ago, when I dreamed that I sat on a case of dynamite just about to blow up. Did you ever sit on a case of dynamite just about to blow up, Jean?"
"No, M'seur. It must be unpleasant."
"That dream was what turned my hair white, Jean. See how white it is--whiter than the snow!"
Croisset looked at him a little anxiously as he ate his meat, and at the gathering unrest in his ayes Howland burst into a laugh.
"Don't be frightened, Jean," he spoke soothingly. "I'm harmless. But I promise you that I'll become violent unless something reasonable occurs pretty soon. Hello, are you going to start so soon?"
"Right away, M'seur," said Croisset, who was stirring up the dogs. "Will you walk and run, or ride?"
"Walk and run, with your permission."
"You have it, M'seur, but if you attempt to escape I must shoot you. Run on the right of the dogs--even with me. I will take this side."
Until Croisset stopped again in the middle of the afternoon Howland watched the backward trail for the appearance of the second sledge, but there was no sign of it. Once he ventured to bring up the subject to Croisset, who did no more than reply with a hunch of his shoulders and a quick look which warned the engineer to keep his silence. After their second meal the journey was resumed, and by referring occasionally to his compass Howland observed that the trail was swinging gradually to the eastward. Long before dusk exhaustion compelled him to ride once more on the sledge. Croisset seemed tireless, and under the early glow of the stars and the red moon he still led on the worn pack until at last it stopped on the summit of a mountainous ridge, with a vast plain stretching into the north as far as the eyes could see through the white gloom. The half-breed came back to where Howland was seated on the sledge.
"We are going but a little farther, M'seur," he said. "I must replace the rawhide over your mouth and the thongs about your wrists. I am sorry--but I will leave your legs free."
"Thanks," said Howland. "But, really, it is unnecessary, Croisset. I am properly subdued to the fact that fate is determined to play out this interesting game of ball with me, and no longer knowing where I am, I promise you to do nothing more exciting than smoke my pipe if you will allow me to go along peaceably at your side."
Croisset hesitated.
"You will not attempt to escape--and you will hold your tongue?" he asked.
"Yes."
Jean drew forth his revolver and deliberately cocked it.
"Bear in mind, M'seur, that I will kill you if you break your word. You may go ahead."
And he pointed down the side of the mountain.
CHAPTER XI
THE HOUSE OF THE RED DEATH
Half-way down the ridge a low word from Croisset stopped the engineer. Jean had toggled his team with a stout length of babeesh on the mountain top and he was looking back when Howland turned toward him. The sharp edge of that part of the mountain from which they were descending stood out in a clear-cut line against the sky, and on this edge the six dogs of the team sat squat on their haunches, silent and motionless, like strangely carved gargoyles placed there to guard the limitless plains below. Howland took his pipe from his mouth as he watched the staring interest of Croisset. From the man he looked up again at the dogs. There was something in their sphynx-like attitude, in the moveless reaching of their muzzles out into the wonderful starlit mystery of the still night that filled him with an indefinable sense of awe. Then there came to his ears the sound that had stopped Croisset--a low, moaning whine which seemed to have neither beginning nor end, but which was borne in on his senses as though it were a part of the soft movement of the air he breathed--a note of infinite sadness which held him startled and without movement, as it held Jean Croisset. And just as he thought that the thing had died away, the wailing came again, rising higher and higher, until at last there rose over him a single long howl that chilled the blood to his very marrow. It was like the wolf-howl of that first night he had looked on the wilderness, and yet unlike it; in the first it had been the cry of the savage, of hunger, of the unending desolation of life that had thrilled him. In this it was death. He stood shivering as Croisset came down to him, his thin face shining white in the starlight. There was no other sound save the excited beating of life in their own bodies when Jean spoke.
"M'seur, our dogs howl like that only when some one is dead or about to die," he whispered. "It was Woonga who gave the cry. He has lived for eleven years and I have never known him to fail."
There was an uneasy gleam in his eyes.
"I must tie your hands, M'seur."
"But I have given you my word, Jean--"
"Your hands, M'seur. There is already death below us in the plain, or it is to come very soon. I must tie your hands."
Howland thrust his wrists behind him and about them Jean twisted a thong of babeesh.
"I believe I understand," he spoke softly, listening again for the chilling wail from the mountain top. "You are afraid that I will kill you."
"It is a warning, M'seur. You might try. But I should probably kill you. As it is--" he shrugged his shoulders as he led the way down the ridge--"as it is, there is small chance of Jean Croisset answering the call."
"May those saints of yours preserve me, Jean, but this is all very cheerful!" grunted Howland, half laughing in spite of himself. "Now that I'm tied up again, who the devil is there to die--but me?"
"That is a hard question, M'seur," replied the half-breed with grim seriousness. "Perhaps it is your turn. I half believe that it is."
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth when there came again the moaning howl from the top of the ridge.
"You're getting on my nerves, Jean--you and that accursed dog!"
"Silence, M'seur!"
Out of the grim loneliness at the foot of the mountain there loomed a shadow which at first Howland took to be a huge mass of rock. A few steps farther