The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-08-19

| ing few written words to the factor | telling him what had happened.
 "The man and the boy escaped ou a sledge after the crime. Mon Dieu. how the forest people leaped in pur- suiti It was the factor himself and | his youngest boy who found them far out on the Churchill trail. And what happened then. m'seur? Just this: While the man fiend urged on his dogs the son fired back with rifle, and one of his bullets went straight through the heart of the pursuing factor, so that in the space of one day and one night the little Meleese was made both motherless and fatherless by these two whom the devil had sent to destroy the most beautiful thing we have ever ] known in this north. An, m'Seur, you turn white! Does it bring vision to you now? Do you hear the crack of that rife? Can you see"-
 My Godw gasped Rowland. Even ] now he understood nothing of what this tragedy might mean to him-for- got everything but that he was listen- az to the terrible tragedy that had 1 ome to the woman who was the moth of the girl he loved.
 "They escaped. m'seur"
 With a deep breath Rowland sank hack. In a moment he leaned again i toward Jean as he saw come into the Frenchman's eyes a slumbering fire l that a few seconds later blazed into sengeful malignity when he drew slow ly from an inside pocket of his coat small parcel wrapped and tied in soft buckskin.
 '"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, scarce ly breathing. Rowland waited while with .exasperating slowness Croisset's brown fingers united the cord that se- eured it.
 First you must understand what this meant to us in the north. m'seur." said Jean. his hands covering the par eel after he had finished with the cord. I've are different who live up here different from those who live in Mont real and beyond. With us lifetime is not too long to spend in averaging cruel wrong. 1t is our honor of the north. I was fifteen then and had, been fostered by tf1e factor and his wife since the day my mother died of | the smallpox and I dragged myself into the post almost dead of starva- ton. So it happened that was like l brother to Meleese and the other three. The years passed, and the de sire 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 Me l leese, whom i've sent to school in Montreal when she was eleven. m'seur. It was three yeaN later. while she was still in Montreal. that l went on one of my wandering searches to post at the head of the Great Slave, and there. m'seur- I there"-
 1 Croisset had risen. His long arms were stretched high. his head thrown back. his upturned face af1ame with a l passion that was almost that of 1 prayer.
 ''M'seur. I thank the great God of heaven that it was given to Jean Crois- set to meet one of those whom we had pledged our lives to find, and I slew him. It WIS the father. and killed him. m'seur-killed him slowly. tell ing him of what he had done as chok- ed the life from him-and then, little at time, ] let the life back into him, forcing him to tell me where I would find his son. the slayer of Meleese's fa- ther And after that I closed son his throat until he was dead. and my dogs dragged his body through 300 miles of l snow that the others might look on him and know that he was dead. That was six years ago. m'seur." l Rowland was scarcely breathing.
 And the other. the son." he whis- pered tensely-"you found him. Crois- set? You killed him?'
 What would you have done. m'seur?" Howland's hands gripped those that guarded the little parcel.
 II would have killed him. Jean." He spoke slowly. deliberately.
 .I would have killed him." he repeat ed.
 'I am glad of that, m'seur."
 Jean was unwrapping the buckskin. fold after fold of it. until at last there was revealed roll of paper, soiled and lsyellow along the edges.
 These pages are taken from the daybook at the post where the woman lived" he explained softly. smoothing them under his hands. Each day the factor of post keeps a reckoning of incidents as they pass, as have heard 1 that sea captains do on shipboard. 1t [ has been company law for hundreds of years. We have kept these pages to ourselves. m'seur. They tell of what happened at our post sixteen years ago this winter"
 As he spoke the half breed came to Howlands side. smoothing the first page on the table in front of him, his slim forefnger pointing to the first few lines.
 They came on this day." he said, his breath close to the engineers ear.