God's Country—And the Woman

by James Oliver Curwood

"The friend I had sent brought a letter for Josephine," resumed Jean. "A runner on his way north gave it to him. It was from Le M'sieur Adare, and said they were not starting north. But they did start soon after the letter, and this same friend brought me the news that the master had passed along the westward waterway a few days behind the man I had planned to kill. Then we returned to Adare House, and you came with us. And after that—the face at the window, and the shot!"

Philip felt the half-breed's arm quiver.

"I must tell you about him or you will not understand," he went on, and there was effort in his voice now. "The man whose face you saw was my brother. Ah, you start! You understand now why I was glad you failed to kill him. He was bad, all that could be bad, M'sieur, but blood is thicker than water, and up here one does not forget those early days when childhood knows no sin. And my brother came up from the south as canoe-man for the man I wanted to kill! A few hours before you saw his face at the window I met him in the forest. He promised to leave. Then came the shot—and I understood. The man I was going to kill had sent him to assassinate the master of Adare. That is why I followed his trail that night. I knew that I would find the man I wanted not far away."

"And you found him?"

"Yes. I came upon my brother first. And I lied. I told him he had made a mistake, and killed you, that his life was not worth the quill from a porcupine's back if he remained in the country. I made him believe it was another who fought him in the forest. He fled. I am glad of that. He will never come back. Then I followed over the trail he had made to Adare House, and far back in the swamp I came upon them, waiting for him. I passed myself off as my brother, and I tricked the man I was after. We went a distance from the camp—alone—and I was choking the life from him, when the two others that were with him came upon us. He was dying, M'sieur! He was black in the face, and his tongue was out. Another second—two or three at the most—and I would have brought ruin upon every soul at Adare House. For he was dying. And if I had killed him all would have been lost!"

"That is impossible!" gasped Philip, as the half-breed paused. "If you had killed him—"

"All would have been lost," repeated Jean, in a strange, hard voice. "Listen, M'sieur. The two others leaped upon me. I fought. And then I was struck on the head, and when I came to my senses I was in the light of the campfire, and the man I had come to kill was over me. One of the other men was Thoreau, the Free Trader. He had told who I was. It was useless to lie. I told the truth—that I had come to kill him, and why. And then—in the light of that campfire, M'sieur—he proved to me what it would have meant if I had succeeded. Thoreau carried the paper. It was in an envelope, addressed to the master of Adare. They tore this open, that I might read. And in that paper, written by the man I had come to kill, was the whole terrible story, every detail—and it made me cold and sick. Perhaps you begin to understand, M'sieur. Perhaps you will see more clearly when I tell you—"

"Yes, yes," urged Philip.

"—that this man, the father of the baby, is the Lang who owns Thoreau, who owns that freebooters' hell, who owns the string of them from here to the Athabasca, and who lives in Montreal!"

Philip could only stare at Jean, who went on, his face the colour of gray ash in the starlight.