The Danger Trail by James Oliver Curwood (english readers txt) 📕

little farther, M'seur," he said. "I must replace the rawhide over your mouth and the thongs about your wrists. I am sorry--but I will leave your legs free."
"Thanks," said Howland. "But, really, it is unnecessary, Croisset. I am properly subdued to the fact that fate is determined to play out this interesting game of ball with me, and no longer knowing where I am, I promise you to do nothing more exciting than smoke my pipe if you will allow me to go along peaceably at your side."
Croisset hesitated.
"You will not attempt to escape--and you will hold your tongue?" he asked.
"Yes."
Jean drew forth his revolver and deliberately cocked it.
"Bear in mind, M'seur, that I will kill you if you break your word. You may go ahead."
And he pointed down the side of the mountain.


CHAPTER XI
THE HOUSE OF THE RED DEATH
Half-way down the ridge a low word from Croisset stopped the engineer. Jean had toggled his team with a stout length of babeesh on the mountain top and he was looking back when Howland turned toward him. The sharp edge of that part of the mountain from which they were descending stood out in a clear-cut line against the sky, and on this edge the six dogs of the team sat squat on their haunches, silent and motionless, like strangely carved gargoyles placed there to guard the limitless plains below. Howland took his pipe from his mouth as he watched the staring interest of Croisset. From the man he looked up again at the dogs. There was something in their sphynx-like attitude, in the moveless reaching of their muzzles out into the wonderful starlit mystery of the still night that filled him with an indefinable sense of awe. Then there came to his ears the sound that had stopped Croisset--a low, moaning whine which seemed to have neither beginning nor end, but which was borne in on his senses as though it were a part of the soft movement of the air he breathed--a note of infinite sadness which held him startled and without movement, as it held Jean Croisset. And just as he thought that the thing had died away, the wailing came again, rising higher and higher, until at last there rose over him a single long howl that chilled the blood to his very marrow. It was like the wolf-howl of that first night he had looked on the wilderness, and yet unlike it; in the first it had been the cry of the savage, of hunger, of the unending desolation of life that had thrilled him. In this it was death. He stood shivering as Croisset came down to him, his thin face shining white in the starlight. There was no other sound save the excited beating of life in their own bodies when Jean spoke.
"M'seur, our dogs howl like that only when some one is dead or about to die," he whispered. "It was Woonga who gave the cry. He has lived for eleven years and I have never known him to fail."
There was an uneasy gleam in his eyes.
"I must tie your hands, M'seur."
"But I have given you my word, Jean--"
"Your hands, M'seur. There is already death below us in the plain, or it is to come very soon. I must tie your hands."
Howland thrust his wrists behind him and about them Jean twisted a thong of babeesh.
"I believe I understand," he spoke softly, listening again for the chilling wail from the mountain top. "You are afraid that I will kill you."
"It is a warning, M'seur. You might try. But I should probably kill you. As it is--" he shrugged his shoulders as he led the way down the ridge--"as it is, there is small chance of Jean Croisset answering the call."
"May those saints of yours preserve me, Jean, but this is all very cheerful!" grunted Howland, half laughing in spite of himself. "Now that I'm tied up again, who the devil is there to die--but me?"
"That is a hard question, M'seur," replied the half-breed with grim seriousness. "Perhaps it is your turn. I half believe that it is."
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth when there came again the moaning howl from the top of the ridge.
"You're getting on my nerves, Jean--you and that accursed dog!"
"Silence, M'seur!"
Out of the grim loneliness at the foot of the mountain there loomed a shadow which at first Howland took to be a huge mass of rock. A few steps farther and he saw that it was a building. Croisset gripped him firmly by the arm.
"Stay here," he commanded. "I will return soon."
For a quarter of an hour Howland waited. Twice in that interval the dog howled above him. He was glad when Croisset appeared out of the gloom.
"It is as I thought, M'seur. There is death down here. Come with me!"
The shadow of the big building shrouded them as they approached. Howland could make out that it was built of massive logs and that there seemed to be neither door nor window on their side. And yet when Jean hesitated for an instant before a blotch of gloom that was deeper than the others, he knew that they had come to an entrance. Croisset advanced softly, sniffing the air suspiciously with his thin nostrils, and listening, with Howland so close to him that their shoulders touched. From the top of the mountain there came again the mournful death-song of old Woonga, and Jean shivered. Howland stared into the blotch of gloom, and still staring he followed Croisset--entered--and disappeared in it. About them was the stillness and the damp smell of desertion. There was no visible sign of life, no breathing, no movement but their own, and yet Howland could feel the half-breed's hand clutch him nervously by the arm as they went step by step into the black and silent mystery of the place. Soon there came a fumbling of Croisset's hand at a latch and they passed through a second door. Then Jean struck a match.
Half a dozen steps away was a table and on the table a lamp. Croisset lighted it, and with a quiet laugh faced the engineer. They were in a low, dungeon-like chamber, without a window and with but the one door through which they had entered. The table, two chairs, a stove and a bunk built against one of the log walls were all that Howland could see. But it was not the barrenness of what he imagined was to be his new prison that held his eyes in staring inquiry on Croisset. It was the look in his companion's face, the yellow pallor of fear--a horror--that had taken possession of it. The half-breed closed and bolted the door, and then sat down beside the table, his thin face peering up through the sickly lamp-glow at the engineer.
"M'seur, it would be hard for you to guess where you are."
Howland waited.
"If you had lived in this country long, M'seur, you would have heard of _la Maison de Mort Rouge_--the House of the Red Death, as you would call it. That is where we are--in the dungeon room. It is a Hudson Bay post, abandoned almost since I can remember. When I was a child the smallpox plague came this way and killed all the people. Nineteen years ago the red plague came again, and not one lived through it in this _Poste de Mort Rouge._ Since then it has been left to the weasels and the owls. It is shunned by every living soul between the Athabasca and the bay. That is why you are safe here."
"Ye gods!" breathed Howland. "Is there anything more, Croisset? Safe from what, man? Safe from what?"
"From those who wish to kill you, M'seur. You would not go into the South, so _la belle_ Meleese has compelled you to go into the North, _Comprenez-vous?_"
For a moment Howland sat as if stunned.
"Do you understand, M'seur?" persisted Croisset, smiling.
"I--I--think I do," replied Howland tensely. "You mean--Meleese--"
Jean took the words from him.
"I mean that you would have died last night, M'seur, had it not been for Meleese. You escaped from the coyote--but you would not have escaped from the other. That is all I can tell you. But you will be safe here. Those who seek your life will soon believe that you are dead, and then we will let you go back. Is that not a kind fate for one who deserves to be cut into bits and fed to the ravens?"
"You will tell me nothing more, Jean?" the engineer asked.
"Nothing--except that while I would like to kill you I have sympathy for you. That, perhaps, is because I once lived in the South. For six years I was with the company in Montreal, where I went to school."
He rose to his feet, tying the flap of his caribou skin coat about his throat. Then he unbolted and opened the door. Faintly there came to them, as if from a great distance, the wailing grief of Woonga, the dog.
"You said there was death here," whispered Howland, leaning close to his shoulder.
"There is one who has lived here since the last plague," replied Croisset under his breath. "He lost his wife and children and it drove him mad. That is why we came down so quietly. He lived in a little cabin out there on the edge of the clearing, and when I went to it to-night there was a sapling over the house with a flag at the end of it. When the plague comes to us we hang out a red flag as a warning to others. That is one of our laws. The flag is blown to tatters by the winds. He is dead."
Howland shuddered.
"Of the smallpox?"
"Yes."
For a few moments they stood in silence. Then Croisset added, "You will remain here, M'seur, until I return."
He went out, closing and barring the door from the other side, and Howland seated himself again in the chair beside the table. Fifteen minutes later the half-breed returned, bearing with him a good-sized pack and a two-gallon jug.
"There is wood back of the stove, M'seur. Here is food and water for a week, and furs for your bed. Now I will cut those thongs about your wrists."
"Do you mean to say you're going to leave me here alone--in this wretched prison?" cried Howland.
"_Mon Dieu_, is it not better than a grave, M'seur? I will be back at the end of a week."
The door was partly open and for the last time there came to Howland's ears the mourning howl of the old dog on the mountain top. Almost threateningly he gripped Croisset's arm.
"Jean--if you don't come back--what will happen?"
He heard the half-breed chuckling.
"You will die, M'seur, pleasantly and taking your own time at it, which is much better than dying over a case of dynamite. But I will come back, M'seur. Good-by!"
Again the door was closed and bolted and the sound of Croisset's footsteps quickly died away beyond the log walls. Many minutes passed before Howland thought of his pipe, or a fire. Then, shiveringly, he went to seek the fuel which Jean had told him was behind the stove. The old bay stove was soon roaring with the fire which he built, and as the soothing fumes of his pipe impregnated the damp air of the room he experienced a sensation of comfort which was in strange contrast to the exciting happenings of the past few days.
At last he was alone, with nothing to do for a week but eat, sleep and smoke. He had plenty of tobacco and an inspection of the pack showed that Croisset had left him