God's Country—And the Woman

by James Oliver Curwood

"I told you this was coming, Boy," he said huskily. "But I didn't think it meant HER. My God, if they have harmed her—"

His breath seemed choking him.

"They dare not!" breathed Philip.

John Adare looked into the white fear of the other's face. There was no hiding of it: the same terrible dread that was in his own.

"If they should, we will kill them by inches, Philip!" he whispered. "We will cut them into bits that the moose-birds can carry away. Great God, they shall roast over fires!" He hurried toward the men who were already chopping at spruce timber. Philip looked about for Jean. He had disappeared. A hundred yards ahead of them he had caught up with Kaskisoon, and side by side the Indian and the half-breed were speeding now over the man-trail. Perhaps in the hearts of these two, of all those gathered in this hour of vengeance, there ran deepest the thirst for blood. With Kaskisoon it was the dormant instinct of centuries of forebears, roused now into fierce desire. With Jean it was necessity.

In the face of John Adare's words that there was to be no quarter, Jean still feared the possibility of a parley, a few minutes of truce, the meaning of which sent a shiver to the depths of his soul. He said nothing to the Cree. And Kaskisoon's lips were as silent as the great flakes of snow that began to fall about them now in a mantle so thick that it covered their shoulders in the space of two hundred yards. When the timber thinned out Kaskisoon picked his way with the caution of a lynx. At the edge of the clearing they crouched side by side behind a low windfall, and peered over the top.

Three hundred yards away was the Nest. The man whose trail they had followed had disappeared. And then, suddenly, the door opened, and there poured out a crowd of excited men. The lone hunter was ahead of them, talking and pointing toward the forest. Jean counted—eight, ten, eleven—and his eyes searched for Lang and Thoreau. He cursed the thick snow now. Through it he could not make them out. He had drawn back the hammer of his rifle.

At the click of it Kaskisoon moved. He looked at the half-breed. His breath came in a low monosyllable of understanding. Over the top of the windfall he poked the barrel of his gun. Then he looked again at Jean. And Jean turned. Their eyes met. They were eyes red and narrowed by the beat of storm. Jean Croisset knew what that silence meant. He might have spoken. But no word moved his lips. Unseen, his right hand made a cross over his heart. Deep in his soul he thought a prayer.

Jean looked again at the huddled group about the door. And beside him there was a terrible silence. He held his breath, his heart ceased to beat, and then there came the crashing roar of the Cree's heavy gun, and one of the group staggered out with a shriek and fell face downward in the snow. Even then Jean's finger pressed lightly on the trigger of his rifle as he tried to recognize Lang. Another moment, and half a dozen rifles were blazing in their direction. It was then that he fired. Once, twice—six times, as fast as he could pump the empty cartridges out of his gun and fresh ones into the chamber. With the sixth came again the thunderous roar of the Cree's single-loader.

"Pa, Kaskisoon!" cried Jean then. The last of Thoreau's men had darted back into the house. Three of their number they had carried in their arms. A fourth stumbled and fell across the threshold. "Pa! We have done. Quick—kistayetak!"