"Victor's gone up to the hills 'way back ther'," he said. "Ther's been a herd o' moose come down, from the moose-yard, further north, an' he's after their pelts. Say, he left word fer you to git right on loadin' the furs, an' when ye hit the trail ye're to take three bottles o' the Rye, an' some o' the rum. He says he ain't like to be back fer nigh on three days."
And while he was speaking the two men supped their coffee, and, as they moistened their parched and burning throats, they nodded assent to all Jean had to say. At that moment Victor, or any one else, might go hang. All they thought of was the awful thirst that assailed them.
Breakfast over, the work of loading the sleds proceeded with the utmost dispatch. Thus it was that at noon, without question, without the smallest suspicion of the night's doings, they set out for the weary "long trail."
Jean saw them go. He stood at the door of the store and watched them until they disappeared behind the rising ground of the great Divide. Then his solemn eyes turned away indifferently, and he gazed out into the hazy distance. His gaunt face showed nothing of what was passing in the brain behind it. He rarely displayed emotion of any sort. The Indian blood in his veins preponderated, and much of the stoical calm of the Redskin was his. Now he could wait, undisturbed, for the return of Davia. He felt that he had mastered the situation. He could not make Victor marry the sister he had wronged, but at least he could pay off the wrong in his own way, and to his entire satisfaction. Two years he had waited for the adjustment of these matters. He was glad that he had exercised patience. He might have slain Victor a hundred times over, but he had refrained, vainly hoping to see his sister righted. Besides, he knew that Davia had loved Victor, and women are peculiar. Who might say but that she would have fled from the murderer of her lover? Jean felt well satisfied on the whole. So he stood thinking and waiting with a calm mind.
But the tragedy was working itself out in a manner little suspected, little expected, by him. This he was soon to learn.
The grey spring snow spread itself out on every hand, only was the wood-lined hill, which stretched away to the right and left of him, and behind the hut, bare of the wintry pall. The sky was brilliant in contrast with the greyness of the world beneath it, and the sun shone high in the blue vault. Everywhere was the deadly calm of the Silent North. The presence of any moving forest beast in that brooding picture, however distant, must surely have caught the eye. There was not a living thing to be seen. These woful wastes have much to do with the rugged nature of those who dwell in the north.