"They have sent you this, M'seur," he said. "'At the very last,' they
told me, 'let him read this.'"
With his eyes on the parcel, scarcely breathing, Howland waited while
with exasperating slowness Croisset's brown fingers untied the cord that
secured it.
"First you must understand what this meant to us in the North, M'seur,"
said Jean, his hands covering the parcel after he had finished with the
cord. "We are different who live up here--different from those who live
in Montreal, and beyond. With us a lifetime is not too long to spend in
avenging a cruel wrong. It is our honor of the North. I was fifteen
then, and had been fostered by the Factor and his wife since the day my
mother died of the smallpox and I dragged myself into the post, almost
dead of starvation. So it happened that I was like a brother to Meleese
and the other three. The years passed, and the desire for vengeance grew
in us as we became older, until it was the one thing that we most
desired in life, even filling the gentle heart of Meleese, whom we sent
to school in Montreal when she was eleven, M'seur. It was three years
later--while she was still in Montreal--that I went on one of my
wandering searches to a post at the head of the Great Slave, and there,
M'seur--there--"
Croisset had risen.
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