"So you're in it, too, eh?--and that
lying girl--"
The smile left Croisset's face.
"Do you mean Meleese, M'seur Howland?"
"Yes."
Croisset leaned down with his black eyes gleaming like coals.
"Do you know what I would do if I was her, M'seur?" he said in a low
voice, and yet one filled with a threat which stilled the words of
passion which the engineer was on the point of uttering. "Do you know
what I would do? I would kill you--kill you inch by inch--torture you.
That is what I would do."
"For God's sake, Croisset, tell me why--why--"
Croisset had found Howland's pistol and freed his hands, and the
engineer stretched them out entreatingly.
"I would give my life for that girl, Croisset. I told her so back there,
and she came to me when I was in the snow and--" He caught himself,
adding to what he had left incomplete. "There is a mistake, Croisset. I
am not the man they want to kill!"
Croisset was smiling at him again.
"Smoke--and think, M'seur. It is impossible for me to tell you why you
should be dead--but you ought to know, unless your memory is shorter
than a child's."
He went to the dogs, stirring them up with the cracking of his whip, and
when Howland turned to look back he saw a bright flare of light where
the other sledge had stopped.
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