"Jean, Jean!" she sobbed, running to him.
"He has insulted you," he said softly, smiling into her white face.
"Run along to the post, ma belle Melisse."
He watched her, half turned from the astonished Englishman, until she
disappeared in a twist of the trail a hundred yards away. Then he
faced Dixon.
"It is the first time that our Melisse has ever suffered insult," he
said, speaking as coolly as if to a child. "If Jan Thoreau were here,
he would kill you. He is gone, and I will kill you in his place!"
He advanced, his white teeth still gleaming in a smile, and not until
he launched himself like a cat at Dixon's throat was the Englishman
convinced that he meant attack. In a flash Dixon stepped a little to
one side, and sent out a crashing blow that caught Jean on the side of
the head and sent him flat upon his back in the trail.
Half stunned, Gravois came to his feet. He did not hear the shrill cry
of terror from the twist in the trail. He did not look back to see
Melisse standing there. But Dixon both saw and heard, and he laughed
tauntingly over Jean's head as the little Frenchman came toward him
again, more cautiously than before.
It was the first time that Jean had ever come into contact with
science. He darted in again, in his quick, cat-like way, and received
a blow that dazed him.
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