The last letter of the year brought him the word that she was alone. That night Jack French packed his buckboard with grub for his six-hundred-mile journey, and at the end of the third week, for the trail was heavy on the Portage Plains, he drove his limping broncho up the muddy Main Street of Winnipeg.
When the barber had finished with him, he set forth to find his brother's wife, who, seeing him, turned deadly pale and stood looking sadly at him, her hand pressed hard upon her heart.
"Oh, Jack!" she said at length, with a great pity in her voice,--"poor Jack! why did you come?"
"To make you a home with me," said Jack, looking at her with eyes full of longing, "and wherever you choose, here or yonder at the Night Hawk Ranch, which is much better,"--at which her tears began to flow.
"Poor Jack! Dear Jack!" she cried, "why did you come?"
"You know why," he said. "Can you not learn to love me?"
"Love you, Jack? I could not love you more."
"Can you not come to me?"
"Dear Jack! Poor Jack!" she said again, and fell to sobbing bitterly till he forgot his own grief in hers. "I love my husband still."
"And I too," said Jack, looking pitifully at her.
"And I must keep my heart for him till I see him again." Her voice sank to a whisper, but she stood bravely looking into his eyes, her two hands holding down her fluttering heart as if in fear that it might escape.
"And is that the last word?" said Jack wearily.
"Yes, Jack, my brother, my dear, dear brother," she said, "it is the last. And oh, Jack, I have had much sorrow, but none more bitter than this!" And sobbing uncontrollably, she laid herself on his breast.
He held her to him, stroking her beautiful hair, his brown hand trembling and his strong face twisting strangely.
"Don't cry, dear Margaret. Don't cry like that. I won't make you weep. Never mind. You could not help it. And--I'll--get--over it--somehow. Only don't cry."
Then when she grew quiet again he kissed her and went out, smiling back at her as he went, and for fifteen years never saw her face again.
But month by month there came a letter telling him of her and her work, and this helped him to forget his pain. But more and more often as the years went on, Jack French and his man Mackenzie sat long nights in the bare ranch house with a bottle between them, till Mackenzie fell under the table and Jack with his hard head and his lonely heart was left by himself, staring at the fire if in winter, or out of the window at the lake if in summer, till the light on the water grew red, to his great hurt in body and in soul.
One spring day in the sixteenth year, in the middle of the month of May, when Jack had driven to the Crossing for supplies, an unexpected letter met him, which gave him much concern and changed forever the even current of his life. And this was the letter:
'MY DEAR JACK,--You have not yet answered my last, you bad boy, but you know I do not wait for answers, or you would seldom hear from me.' "And that's true enough," murmured Jack. 'But this is a special letter, and is to ask you to do a great thing for me, a very great thing. Indeed, you may not be able to do it at all.'
"Indeed!" said Jack. 'And if you cannot do it, I trust you to tell me so.' "Trust me! well rather," said Jack again.
'You know something of my work among the Galicians, but you do not know just how sad it often is. They are poor ignorant creatures, but really they have kind hearts and have many nice things.' "By Jove! She'd find good points in the very devil himself!" 'And I know you would pity them if you knew them, especially the women and the children. The women have to work so hard, and the children are growing up wild, learning little of the good and much of the bad that Winnipeg streets can teach them.' "Heaven help them of their school!" cried Jack.
'Well, I must tell you what I want. You remember seeing in the papers that I sent you some years ago, the account of that terrible murder by a Russian Nihilist named Kalmar, and you remember perhaps how he nearly killed a horrid man who had treated him badly, very badly, named Rosenblatt. Well, perhaps you remember that Kalmar escaped from the penitentiary, and has not been heard of since.
His wife and children have somehow come under the power of this Rosenblatt again. He has got a mortgage on her house and forces the woman to do his will. The woman is a poor stupid creature, and she has just slaved away for this man. The boy is different. He is a fine handsome little fellow, thirteen or fourteen years old, who makes his living selling newspapers and, I am afraid, is learning a great many things that he would be better without.'
