 CHAPTER IX Half a mile down the ridge, where it sloped up gradually from the forests and swamps of the plain, a team of powerful malamutes were running at the head of a toboggan. On the sledge was a young half-cree woman. Now beside the sledge, now at the lead of the dogs, cracking his whip and shouting joyously, ran Jean de Gravois. "'Is it not beautiful, my Iowaka?' he cried for the hundredth time, in Cree, leaping over a three-foot boulder in his boundless enthusiasm. "'Is this not the glorious world, with the sun just rising off there, and spring only a few days away? It is not like the cold Chilsa Churchill, which come up with the icebergs and stay there all summer. What do you think of your Jean de Gravois and his country now?' Jean was bringing back with him a splendid young woman, with big, lustrous eyes and hair that shone with the gloss of a raven's wing in the sun. She laughed at him proudly as he danced and leaped beside her, replying softly in Cree, which is the most beautiful language in the world, to everything that he said. Jean leaped and ran, cracked his caribou whip, and shouted and sang until he was panting and red in the face. Just as Iowaka had called upon him to stop and to get a second wind, the melamutes dropped back upon their haunches where Yontarole twisted in bleeding in the snow. "'What is this?' cried Jean. She caught Yont's limp head and shoulders up in his arms, and called shrilly to Iowaka, who was disentangling herself from the thick furs in which he had wrapped her. "'It is the fiddler I told you about, who lives with Williams at Post-Lakban,' he shouted excitedly in Cree. "'He has been murdered. He has been choked to death and torn to pieces in the face as if by an animal.' Jean's eyes roved about as Iowaka kneeled beside him. "'What a fight!' he gasped. "'See the footprints? A big man and a small boy, and the murderer has gone on a sledge.' "'He is warm,' said Iowaka. "'It may be that he is not dead.' Jean de Gravois sprang to his feet, his little black eyes flashing with a dangerous fire. In a single leap he was at the side of the sledge, throwing off the furs and bundles and all other objects except his rifle. "'He is dead, Iowaka. Look at the purple and black in his face. It is Jean de Gravois who will catch the murderer, and you will stay here and make yourself a camp.' "'Hi-oh!' he shouted to the malamute. The team twisted sinuously and swiftly in the trail as he sped over the edge of the mountain. Upon the plain below he knelt upon the toboggan with his rifle in front of him, and at his low, hissing commands, which reached no farther than the dog's ears, the team stretched their long bodies in pursuit of the missioner and his huskies. Jean knew that whoever was ahead of him was not far away, and he laughed and hunched his shoulders when he saw that his magnificent malamutes were making three times the speed of the huskies. It was a short chase. It led across the narrow plain and into a dense tangle of swamp, where the huskies had picked their way in aimless wandering until they came out in thick balsam and banction pine. Half a mile farther on, and the trail broke into an open which led down to the smooth surface of a lake, and two-thirds across the lake was the fleeing missioner. The malamute leader flung open his jaws in a deep, baying triumph, and with a savage yell Jean cracked his caribou whip over his back. He saw the man ahead of him lean over the end of his sledge as he urged his dogs, but the huskies went no faster, and then he cut the glitter of something that flashed for a moment in the sun. Ah! said Jean softly as a bullet sang over his head. He fires a gendogrivois. He dropped his whip, and there was the warm glow of happiness in his little dark face as he leveled his rifle over the backs of his malamutes. He fires a gendogrivois, and it is Jean who can hamstring a caribou at three hundred yards on the run. For an instant, at the crack of his rifle, there was no movement ahead. Then something rolled from the sledge and lay doubled up in the snow. A hundred yards beyond it the huskies stopped in a rabble and turned to look at the approaching strangers. Beside it Jean stopped, and when he saw the face that stared up at him, he clutched his thin hands in his long black hair and cried out in shrill amazement and horror, The Saints in Heaven! It is the Missioner from Churchill! He turned the man over and found where his bullet had entered under one arm and come out from under the other. There was no spark of life left. The Missioner was already dead. The Missioner from Churchill! He gasped again. He looked up at the warm sun and kicked the melting snow under his moccasin feet. It will thaw very soon, he said to himself, looking again at the dead man, and then he will go into the lake. He headed his malamutes back to the forest. Then he ran out and cut the traces of the exhausted huskies, and with his whip scattered them in freedom over the ice. Go to the wolves! he shouted in creed. Hide yourselves from the post, or Jean de Gravois will cut out your tongues and take your skins off alive. When he came back to the top of the mountain, Jean found Iawaka making hot coffee, while Yann was bundled up in furs near the fire. It is as I said, she called, he is alive! Thus it happened that the return of Jean de Gravois to the post was even more dramatic than he had schemed it to be, for he brought back with him not only a beautiful wife from Churchill, but also the half-dead Yann Thoreau from the scene of battle on the mountain. And in the mystery of it all he reveled for two days. For Jean de Gravois said not a word about the dead man on the lake beyond the forest, nor did the huskies come back into their bondage to give a hint of the missing missionary. CHAPTER X From the day after the caribou roast the fur-gatherers began scattering. The Eskimos left the next morning. On the second day, mookies people from the west set off along the edge of the barrens. Most of the others left by ones and twos into the wilderness to the south and east. Less than a dozen still put off their return to the late spring trapping, and among these were Jean de Gravois and his wife. Jean waited until the third day. Then he went to see Yann. The boy was bolstered up in his cot, with Cummins balancing the little melise on the edge of the bed when he came in. For a time Jean sat and watched them in silence. Then he made a sign to Cummins who joined him at the door. I am going the Athabasca way today, he said. I wish to talk with the boy before I go. I have a word to say to him which no ear should hear but his own. Will it be right? Talk to him as long as you like, said Cummins. But don't worry him about the missionary, you'll not get a word from him. Yann's eyes spoke with a devotion greater than words as Jean de Gravois came and sat close beside him. He knew that it was Jean who had brought him alive into the post, and now there was something in the suggestive grimacing of the Frenchman's face and in the eagerness with which he looked over his shoulder, as if he was not quite sure but that the walls held ears, that caused the boy's heart to beat a little faster as he speculated upon what Jean was going to say. For a few moments Jean looked at the other steadily, with his thin, black face propped in his hands and a curious smile on his lips. He twisted his face into a dozen expressions of a language as valuable as that of his tongue, hunched his shoulders up to his ears as he grinned at Yann, and chuckled between his grimaces. Ah! it was one beautiful fight, he said softly. You are a brave boy, Yann-terreau. You did not see it? asked Yann. Unconsciously the words came from him in French. Jean caught one of his thin hands and laughed joyfully, for the spirit of him was French to the bottom of his soul. I see it? No, neither I nor Iowaka, but there it was in the snow, as plain as the eyes in your face. And did I not follow the trail that staggered down the mountain, while Iowaka brought you back to life? And when I came to the lake, did I not see something black out upon it, like a charred log? And when I came to it, was it not the dead body of the missioner from Churchill, eh, Yann-terreau? Yann sat up in his bed with a sharp cry. Sh! admonished Jean, pressing him back gently. There is no need of telling what is out there on the lake. Only the Blessed Virgin made me dream last night that you would like to see with your own eyes that the missioner is dead. The thaw will open up the lake in a few days. Then he will go down in the first slush. And Jean looked about him cautiously again, and whispered low, If you see anything about the dead missioner that you do not understand, think of Jean de Gravois. He rose to his feet and bent over Yann's white face. I am going the Athabasca way today, he finished. Perhaps, Yann-terreau, you will hear after a time that it would be best for Jean de Gravois never to return again to this post Lac-Bain. If so, you will find him between Fond de Lac and the Beaver River, and you can make it in four days by driving your dogs close to the scrub edge of the barrens, keeping always where you can see the musk ox to the north. He turned to the door and hesitated there for a moment, smiling and shrugging his shoulders. Jean de Gravois wonders if Yann-terreau understands, he said, and passed out. When Cummins returned, he found Yann's cheeks flushed and the boy in a fever. Ah, devil take that Gravois, he growled. He has been a brother to me, said Yann simply. I love him. On the second day after the Frenchman's departure, Yann rose free of the fever which had threatened him for a time, and in the afternoon he harnessed Cummins' dogs. The last of the trappers had started from the post that morning, their sludges and dogs sinking heavily in the deepening slush, and Yann set off over the smooth Toboggan trail made by the company's agent in his return to Fort Churchill. This trail followed close along the base of the ridge upon which he had fought the missionary, joining that of Jean de Gravois miles beyond. Yann climbed the ridge. From where he had made his attack, he followed the almost obliterated trail of the Frenchman and his malamute until he came to the lake, and then he knew that Jean de Gravois had spoken the truth. Where he found the missionary, with his face half buried in the slush, stark dead. He no longer had to guess at the meaning of Jean's words. The bullet hole under the dead man's arms was too large to escape eyes like Yann's. Into the little hidden world which he treasured in his heart there came another face, to remain always with him, the face of the courageous little forest dandy who was hurrying with his bride back into the country of the Athabasca. Yann allowed his dogs to walk all the way back to the post, and it was dusk before they arrived. Maballa had prepared supper, and Cummins was waiting for him. He glanced sharply at the boy. There was a smile on Yann's lips, and there was something in his eyes which Cummins had never seen there before. From that night they were no longer filled with the nervous, glittering flashes which at times had given him an appearance almost of madness. In place of their searching suspicions there was a warmer and more companionable glow, and Cummins felt the effect of the change as he ate his caribou steak and talked once more entirely of Melyce. A cre-trapper had found Yann's violin in the snow, and had brought it to Maballa. Before Cummins finished his supper the boy began to play, and he continued to play until the lights at the post went out and both the man and the child were deep in sleep. Then Yann stopped. There was the fire of a keen wakefulness in his eyes as he carefully unfastened the strings of his instrument and held it close to the oil lamp so that he could peer down through the narrow aperture in the box. He looked again at Cummins. The man was sleeping with his face to the wall. With the hooked wire which he used for cleaning his revolver, Yann fished gently at the very end of the box, and after three or four efforts the wire caught in something soft which he pulled toward him. Through the bulge in the f-hole he dragged forth a small, tightly rolled cylinder of faded red cloth. For a few moments he sat watching the deep breathing of Cummins, unrolling the cloth as he watched, until he had spread out upon the table before him a number of closely written pages of paper. He waited them at one end with his violin and held them down at the other with his hands. The writing was in French. Several of the pages were in a heavy masculine hand, the words running one upon another so closely that in places they seemed to be connected, and from them Yann took his fingers so that they rolled up like a spring. Over the others he bent his head, and there came from him a low sobbing breath. On these pages the writing was that of a woman, and from the paper there still rose a faint, sweet scent of heliotrope. For half an hour Yann gazed upon them, reading the words slowly until he came to the last page. When there came a movement from over against the wall he lifted for an instant a pair of startled eyes. Cummins was turning in asleep. Finally Yann tiptoed across the floor, opened the door without disturbing the slumbering man, and went out into the night. In the south and east there glowed a soft blaze of fire where the big spring moon was coming up over the forest. As Yann turned his face toward it, a new and strange longing crept into his heart. He stretched out his arms, with the papers and his violin clutched in his hands, as if from out of that growing glory a wonderful spirit was calling to him. For the first time in his lonely life it came to him, this call of the great world beyond the wilderness, and suddenly he crushed the woman's letter to his lips, and his voice burst from him in whispering, thrilling eagerness, I will come to you, some day, whence little Melisse come too. He rolled the written pages together, wrapped them in the faded red cloth, and concealed them again in the box of his violin before he re-entered the cabin. The next morning Cummins stood in the door and said, How warm the sun is! The snow and ice are going, Yann, it's spring! We'll house the sledges to-day, and begin feeding the dogs on fish. Each day thereafter the sun rose earlier, the day was longer, and the air was warmer, and with the warmth there now came the sweet scents of the budding earth and the myriad sounds of the deep unseen life of the forest, awakening from its long slumber in its bed of snow. Moose birds chirped their mating songs and flirted from morning until night in bow and air, ravens fluffed themselves in the sun, and snowbirds, little black and white beauties that were want to whisk about like so many flashing gems, changed their color from day to day until they became new creatures in a new world. The poplar buds swelled in their joy until they split like over-fat peas. The mother-bears came out of their winter dens, accompanied by little ones born weeks before, and taught them how to pull down the slender saplings for these same buds. The moose returned from the blizzardy tops of the great ridges, where, for good reasons they had passed the winter, followed by the wolves who fed upon their weak and sick. Everywhere were the rushing torrents of melting snow, the crackle of crumbling ice, the dying frost cries of rock and earth and tree, and each night the pale glow of the aurora borealis crept farther and farther toward the pole in its fading glory. The post fell back into its old ways. Now and then a visitor came in from out of the forest, but he remained for only a day or two, taking back into the solitude with him a few of the necessaries of life. Williams was busy preparing his books for the coming of the company's chief agent from London, and Cummins, who was helping the Factor, had a good deal of extra time on his hands. Before the last of the snow was gone, he and Jan began dragging in logs for an addition which they planned for the little cabin. Basking out in the sun with a huge bearskin for a floor, May Lease looked upon the new home-building with wonderful demonstrations of interest. Williams's face glowed with pleasure as she kicked and scrambled on the bearskin and gave shrill-voiced approval of their efforts. Jan was the happiest youth in the world. It was certain that the little May Lease understood what they were doing, and the word passed from Cummins and Jan to the others at the post, so that it happened frequently during the building operations that Mookie and Parie, and even Williams himself, would squat for an hour at a time in the snow near May Lease, marveling at the early knowledge which the great God saw fit to put into a white baby's brain. This miracle came to be a matter of deep discussion in which there were the few words but much thought of men born to silence. One day Mookie brought two little Indian babies and set them on the bearskin, where they continued to sit in stoic indifference, a clear proof of the superior development of May Lease. I wouldn't be surprised to hear her begin talking at any time, confided Cummins to Jan one evening when the boy was tuning his violin. She is nearly six months old. Do you suppose she would begin in French? asked Jan, suddenly stopping the tightening of his strings. Cummins stared. Why? Jan dropped his voice to an impressive whisper. Because I have heard her many times say, Bon, bon, bon, bon, which means candy, and always I have given her candy, and now the little Milly say, Bon, bon, all of the time. Well, said Cummins, eyeing him in half-belief, could it happen? Like a shot Jan replied, I began in English, and Jan toro is French. He began playing, but Cummins did not hear much of the music. He went to the door and stared in lonely grief at the top of the tall spruce over the grave. Later he said to Jan, it would be bad if that were so. Give her no more sweet stuff when she says, Bon, bon, Jan, she must forget. The next day Jan tore down the sapling barricade around the woman's grave. And from noon until almost sunset he skirted the sunny side of a great ridge to the south. When he came back he brought with him a basket of the early red snow flowers, with earth clinging to their roots. These he planted thickly over the mound under the spruce, and around its edge he put rows of the young shoots of Labrador tea and Bacniche. As the weather grew warmer and spring changed into summer, he took Melyce upon short excursions with him into the forests, and together they picked great armfuls of flowers and arctic ferns. The grave was never without fresh offerings, and the cabin, with its new addition complete, was always filled with the beautiful things that spring up out of the earth. Jan and Melyce were happy, and in the joys of these two there was pleasure for the others of the post, as there had been happiness in the presence of the woman. Only upon Cummins had there settled a deep grief. The changes of spring and summer, bringing with them all that this desolate world held of warmth and beauty, filled him with the excruciating pain of his great grief, as if the woman had died but yesterday. When he first saw the red flowers glowing upon her grave, he buried his head in his arms and sobbed like a child. The woman had loved them. She had always watched for the first red blooms to shoot up out of the wet earth. A hundred times he had gone with her to search for them, and had fastened the first flower in the soft beauty of her hair. Those were the days when, like happy children, they had romped and laughed together out there beyond the black spruce. Often he had caught her up in his strong arms and carried her, tired and hungry, but gloriously happy, back to their little home in the clearing, where she would sit and laugh at him as he clumsily prepared their supper. Thoughts and pictures like these choked him and drove him off alone into the depths of the wilderness. When this spirit impelled him, his moccasin feet would softly tread the paths they had taken in their wanderings, and at every turn a new memory would spring up before him, and he longed to fling himself down there with the sweet spirit of the woman and die. Little did he dream, at these times, that Yan and Melyce were to cherish these same paths, that out of the old dead joys there were to spring new joys, and that the new joys were to wither and die, even as his own, for a time. Beyond his own great sorrow he saw nothing in the future. He gave up Melyce to Yan. At last his gaunt frame thinned by sleepless nights and days of mental torture. He said that the company's business was calling him to Churchill, and early in August he left for the bay. CHAPTER XI. OF THE HONOR OF THE BIG SNOWS. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline. THE HONOR OF THE BIG SNOWS. By James Oliver Kerwood. CHAPTER XI. FOR HER. Upon Yan now fell a great responsibility. Melyce was his own. Days passed before he could realize the fullness of his possession. He had meant to go by the Athabasca water-route to see Jean de Gravois, leaving Melyce to Cummins for a fortnight or so. Now he gave this up. Day and night he guarded the child, and to Yan's great joy it soon came to pass that whenever he was compelled to lever for a short time Melyce would cry for him. At least Mabala assured him that this was so, and Melyce gave evidence of it by her ecstatic joy when he returned. When Cummins came back from Fort Churchill in the autumn, he brought with him a pack full of things for Melyce, including new books and papers for which he had spent a share of his season's earnings. As he was freeing these treasures from their wrapping of soft caribou skin, with Yan and Melyce both looking on, he stopped suddenly and glanced from his knees up at the boy. There wondering over at Churchill what became of the missionary who left with the mail, Yan, they say he was last seen at the Itani. �And not here?� replied Yan quickly. �Not that they know of,� said Cummins, still keeping his eyes on the boy. The man who drove him never got back to Churchill. They're wondering where the driver went, too. A company officer has gone up to the Itani, and it is possible he may come over to LacBan. I don't believe he'll find the missionary. �Neither do I,� said Yan, quite coolly. He is probably dead, and the wolves and foxes have eaten him before this, or maybe Zeefish.� Cummins resumed his task of unpacking, and among the books which he brought forth there were two which he gave to Yan. The supply ship from London came in while I was at Churchill, and those came with it. He explained, �There's school books. There's going to be a school at Churchill next winter, and the winter after that it'll be at York Factory, down in the Hayes.� He settled back on his heels and looked at Yan. �It's the first school that's ever come nearer than four hundred miles of us. That's at Prince Albert. For many succeeding days Yan took long walks alone in the forest trails, and silently thrashed out the two problems which Cummins had brought back from Churchill for him.� Should he warn Jean de Gravois that a company officer was investigating the disappearance of the missionary? At first his impulse was to go at once into Jean's haunts beyond the fond de Lac and give him the news. But even if the officer did come to post LacBan, how would he know that the missionary was at the bottom of the lake and that Jean de Gravois was accountable for it? So in the end Yan decided that it would be folly to stir up the little hunter's fears, and he thought no more of the company's investigator who had gone up to the Yatani. But the second problem was one whose perplexities troubled him. Cummins' word of the school at Churchill had put a new and thrilling thought into his head, and always with that thought he coupled visions of the growing Mélis. This year the school would be at Churchill, and the next at York Factory, and after that it might be gone forever, so that when Mélis grew up there would be none nearer than what Yan looked upon as the other end of the world. Why could not he go to school for Mélis, and store up treasures which in time he might turn over to her? The scheme was a colossal one, by all odds the largest that had ever entered into his dreams of what life held for him, that he, Yan Taro, should learn to read and write, and do other things like the people of the far South, so that he might help to make the little creature in the cabin like her who slept under the watchful sprues. He was stirred to the depths of his soul, now with fear, again with hope and desire and ambition, and it was not until the first cold chills of approaching winter crept down from the North and East that the ultimate test came, and he told Cummins of his intention. Once his mind was settled, Yan lost no time in putting his plans into action. Mookie knew the trail to Churchill, and agreed to leave with him on the third day, which gave William's wife time to make him a new coat of caribou skin. On the second evening he played for the last time in the little cabin, and after Mélis had fallen asleep he took her up gently in his arms and held her there for a long time, while Cummins looked on in silence. When he replaced her in the little bed against the wall, Cummins put one of his long arms about the boy's shoulders and led him to the door, where they stood, looking out upon the grim desolation of the forest that rose black and silent against the starlit background of the sky. High above the thick tops of the spruce rose the lone tree over the grave, like a dark finger pointing up into the night, and Cummins' eyes rested there. "'She heard you first that night, Yan,' he spoke softly. "'She knew that you were coming long before I could hear anything but the crackling in the skies. I believe she knows now.' The arm about Yan's shoulder tightened, and Cummins' head dropped until his rough cheek rested upon the boy's hair. There was something of the gentleness of love in what he did, and in response to it, Yan caught the hand that was hanging over his shoulder in both his own. "'Boy, won't you tell me who you are and why you came that night?' "'I will tell you, now, that I come from Ze great bear,' whispered Yan. "'I am only Yan Taro, and Ze great God made me come that night because,' his heart throbbed with sudden inspiration as he looked up into his companion's face. "'Because Ze little melise was here,' he finished. For a time Cummins made no move or sound. Then he drew the boy back into the cabin, and from the little gingham-covered box in the corner he took a buckskin bag. "'You are going to Churchill for melise, and for her,' he said in a voice, pitched low that it might not awaken the baby. "'Take this!' Yan drew a step back. "'No, I've been work with Ze company at Churchill. That is Ze gold for melise when Ze grow up. Yan Taro is no—what you call him?' His teeth gleamed in a smile, but it lasted only for an instant. Cummins' face darkened, and he caught him firmly, almost roughly by the arm. "'Then Yan Taro will never come back to melise,' he exclaimed with finality. "'You are going to Churchill to be at school, and not to work with your hands. "'They are sending you. Do you understand, boy? They!' There was a fierce tremor in his voice. "'Which will it be? Will you take the bag, or will you never again come back to lock-ban?' Dumbly Yan reached out and took the buckskin pouch. A dull flush burned in his cheeks. Cummins looked in wonder upon the strange look that came into his eyes. "'I pay back this gold to you and melise a hundred times,' he cried tensely. "'I swear it, and I swear that Yan Taro make no lie!' Unconsciously, with the buckskin bag clutched in one hand, he had stretched out his other arm to the violin hanging against the wall. Cummins turned to look. When he faced him again the boy's arm had fallen to his side and his cheeks were white. The next day he left. No one heard his last words to melise or witnessed his final leave taking of her. For Cummins sympathized with the boy's grief and went out of the cabin an hour before Mookie was ready with his pack. The last that he heard was Yan's violin playing low, sweet music to the child. Three weeks later, when Mookie returned to Lakhvah, he said that Yan had travelled a Churchill like one who had lost his tongue and that far into the nights he had played lonely dirges upon his violin. CHAPTER 12 OF THE HONOR OF THE BIG SNOWS It was a long winter for Cummins and Melise. It was a longer one for Yan. He had taken with him a letter from the Factor at Lakhvah to the Factor at Churchill and he found quarters with the chief clerk's assistant at the post, a young, red-faced man who had come over on the ship from England. He was a cheerful, good-natured young fellow and when he learned that his new associate had tramped all the way from the barren land to attend the new public school, he at once invested himself with the responsibilities of a private tutor. He taught Yan, first of all, to say, is in place of ease. It was a tremendous lesson for Yan, but he struggled with it manfully and a week after his arrival, when, one evening, he was tuning his violin to play for young MacDonald, he said with eager gravity, Ah, I have it now, Mr. MacDonald. It is not ease, it is EASE. MacDonald roared but persisted and in time Yan began to get the twist out of his tongue. The school opened in November and Yan found himself one of twenty or so, gathered there from forty thousand square miles of wilderness. Two white youths and a half-breed had come from the Atani, the factor at Nelson House sent up his son, and from the upper waters of the little Churchill there came three others. From the first, Yan's music found him a premier place in the interest of the tutor sent over by the company. He studied by night as well as by day, and by the end of the second month his only competitor was the youth from Nelson House. His greatest source of knowledge was not the teacher, but MacDonald. There was in him no inherent desire for the learning of the people to the South. That he was storing away like a faithful machine for the use of Mellise. But MacDonald gave him that for which his soul longed, a picture of life as it existed in the wonderful world beyond the wilderness, to which some strange spirit within him, growing stronger as the weeks and months passed, seemed projecting his hopes and his ambitions. Between his thoughts of Mellise and LacBen, he dreamed of that other world, and several times during the winter he took the little roll from the box of his violin and read again and again the written pages that it contained. Some time I will go, he assured himself always, some time when Mellise is a little older and can go too. To young MacDonald the boy from LacBen was a find. The Scottish youth was filled with an immense longing for home, and as his homesickness grew he poured more and more into Yan's attempt of years his knowledge of the world from which he had come. He told him the history of the old brass cannon that lay abandoned among the vines and bushes where a fort had stood at Churchill many years before. He described the coming of the first ship into the Great Bay, told of Hudson and his men, of great wars that his listener had never dreamed of, of kings and queens and strange nations. At night he read a great deal to Yan out of books that he had brought over with him. As the weeks and months passed the strange spirit that was calling to the forest boy out of that other world stirred more restlessly within him. At times it urged him to confide in MacDonald what was hidden away in the box of his violin. The secret nearly burst from him one Sunday when MacDonald said, I'm going back on the ship that comes over next summer. What do you say to going back with me, Yan? The spirit surged through Yan in a hot flood, and it was only an accident that kept him from saying what was in his heart. They were standing with the icy bay stretching off in interminable miles toward the pole. A little away from them the restless tide was beating up through the broken ice and eating deeper into the frozen shore. From out of the bank they're projected here and there the ends of dark, box-like objects which, in the earlier days of the company, had been gun cases. In them were the bones of men who had lived and died an age ago, and as Yan looked at the silent coffins now falling into the sea, another spirit, the spirit that bound him to Mellise, entered into him, and he shuddered as he thought of what might happen in the passing of a year. It was this spirit that won. In the spring Yan went back to Lac Ban with the company's supplies. The next autumn he followed the school to York Factory, and the third year he joined it at Nelson House. Then the company's teacher died and no one came to fill his place. In midwinter of this third year Yan returned to Lac Ban and hugging the delighted Mellise close in his arms, he told her that never again would he go away without her. Mellise, tightening her arms around his neck, made his promise sacred by offering her little rose-bud of a mouth for him to kiss. Later the restless spirit slumbering within his breast urged him to speak to Cummins. When Mellise is a little older, should we not go with her into the south? he said. She must not live forever in a place like this. Cummins looked at him for an instant as if he did not understand. When Yan's meaning struck home, his eyes hardened, and there was the vibrant ring of steel in his quiet voice. Her mother will be out there under the old spruce until the end of time, he said slowly, and we will never leave her unless, some day, Mellise goes alone. From that hour Yan no longer looked into the box of his violin. He struggled against the desire that had grown with his years until he believed that he had crushed it and stamped it out of his existence. In his life there came to be but one rising and one setting of the sun. Mellise was his universe. She crowded his heart until beyond her he began to lose visions of any other world. Each day added to his joy. He called her my little sister, and with sweet gravity Mellise called him Brother Yan and returned in full measure his boundless love. He marked the slow turning of her flaxen hair into sunny gold, and month by month watched joyfully the deepening of that gold into warm shades of brown. She was to be like her mother. Yan's soul rejoiced, and in his silent way Cummins offered up wordless prayers of thankfulness. So matter stood at post-Lacbe in the beginning of Mellise's ninth year when up from the south there came a rumor. As civil war spreads its deepest gloom, as the struggle of father against son and brother against brother stifles the breathing of nations, so this rumor set creeping a deep pall over the forest people. Rumor grew into rumor. From the east, the south, and the west they multiplied, until on all sides the paw-reveres of the wilderness carried news that the red terror was at their heels, and the chill of a great fear swept like a shivering wind from the edge of civilization to the bay. CHAPTER XIII Nineteen years before these same rumors had come up from the south, and the red terror had followed. The horror of it still remained with the forest people. For a thousand unmarked graves shunned like a pestilence, and scattered from the lower waters of James Bay to the lake country of the Athabasca gave evidence of the toll it demanded. From Dubrochet on Reindeer Lake authentic word first came to Lacbe early in the winter. Anderson was factored there, and he passed up the warning that had come to him from Nelson House and the country to the southeast. There's a smallpox on the Nelson, his messenger informed Williams, and it has struck the Crees and Walliston Lake. God only knows what it is doing to the bay Indians, but we hear that it is wiping out the Chippewaians between the Albany and the Churchill. He left the same day with his winded dogs. I'm off for the revion, people, to the west, with the compliments of our company," he explained. Three days later word came from Churchill that all of the company's servants and Her Majesty's subjects west of the bay should prepare themselves for the coming of the red terror. Williams' thick face went as white as the paper he held as he read the words of the Churchill factor. It means, dig graves," he said. That's the only preparation we can make. He read the paper aloud to the men at Lacbe, and every available man was detailed to spread the warning throughout the post-territory. There was a quick harnessing of dogs, and on each sledge that went out was a roll of red cotton cloth. Williams' face was still white as he passed these rolls out from the company store. They were ominous of death, lurid signals of a pestilence and horror, and the touch of them sent shuddering chills through the men who were about to scatter them among the forest people. Yann went over the Churchill trail, and then swung southward along the Hasebala, where the country was crisscrossed with traplines of the half-breeds in the French. First he struck the cabin of Quasset and his wife, and left part of his cloth. Then he turned westward, while Quasset harnessed his dogs and hurried with a quarter of the roll to the south. Between the Hasebala and Clocal Lake, Yann found three other cabins, and at each he left a bit of the red cotton. Forty miles to the south, somewhere on the porcupine, were the lines of Henry Langlois, the post's greatest fox-hunter. On the morning of the third day Yann set off in search of Langlois, and late in the afternoon of the same day he came upon a well- beaten snowshoe trail. On this he camped until morning. When dawn came he began following it. He passed half a dozen of Langlois's trap-houses. In none of them was their bait. In three the traps were sprung. In the seventh he found the remains of a red fox that had been eaten until there was little but the bones left. Two houses beyond there was an ermine in a trap with its head eaten off. With growing perplexity Yann examined the snowshoe trails in the snow. The most recent of them were days old. He urged on his dogs, stopping no more at the trap-houses, until, with a shrieking command, he brought them to a halt at the edge of a clearing cut in the forest. A dozen rods ahead of him was the trapper's cabin. Over it, hanging limply to a sapling pole, was the red signal of horror. With a terrified cry to the dogs, Yann ran back and the team turned about and followed him in a tangled mass. Then he stopped. There was no smoke rising from the clay chimney in the little cabin. Its one window was white with frost. Again and again he shouted, but no sign of life responded to his cries. He fired his rifle twice and waited with his mittened hand over his mouth and nostrils. There was no reply. Then, abandoning hope, he turned back into the north and gave his dogs no rest until he had reached Lakban. His team came in half dead. Both Cummins and Williams rushed out to meet him as he drove up before the company's store. The red flag is over Langlua's cabin, he cried. I fired my rifle and shouted, there is no life. Langlua is dead. Great God, groaned Williams. His red face changed to a sickly pallor and he stood with his thick hands clenched while Cummins took charge of the dogs and Yon went into the store for something to eat. Mookie and Paris returned to the post the next day. Young Williams followed close after them, filled with terror. He had found the plague among the creeds of the water found. Each day added to the gloom at Lakban. For a time Yon could not fully understand and he still played as violin and romped joyfully with Melisse in the little cabin. He had not lived through the plague of nineteen years before. Most of the others had, even to Mookie, the youngest of them all. Yon did not know that it was this red terror that came like a nemesis of the gods to cut down the people of the Great Northland until they were fewer and number than those of the Sahara Desert. But he learned quickly. In February the creeds along the Walliston Lake were practically wiped out. Red flags marked the trail of the Nelson. Death leaped from cabin to cabin in the wilderness to the west. By the middle of the month Lakban was hemmed in by the plague on all sides but the north. The post's trap lines had been shortened. Now they were abandoned entirely and the great fight began. Williams assembled his men and told them how that same battle had been fought nearly two decades before. For sixty miles about the post every cabin and wigwam that floated a red flag must be visited and burned if the occupants were dead. In learning whether life or death existed in these places lay the peril for those who undertook the task. It was a dangerous mission. It meant facing a death from which those who listened to the old factor shrank with dread. Yet when the call came they responded to a man. Cummins and Yann ate their last supper together with Melyce sitting between them and wondering at their silence. When it was over the two went outside. He wasn't at the store, said Cummins in a thick, strained voice, halting Yann in the gloom behind the cabin. Williams thought he was off to the south with his dogs. But he isn't. I saw him drag himself into his shack like a sick dog an hour before dusk. There'll be a red flag over Lakban in the morning. Cummins stifled the sharp cry on his lips. Ah, there's a light, cried Cummins. It's a pitch torch burning in front of his door. A shrill, quavering cry came from the direction of Mookie's cabin and the two recognized it as the voice of the half-breed's father, a wordless cry rising and dying away again and again like the wailing of a dog. Sudden lights flashed into the night as they had flashed years ago when Cummins staggered forth from his home with word of the woman's death. He gripped Yann's arm in a sudden spasm of horror. The flag is up now, he whispered huskily. Go back to Melyce. There is food in the house for a month and you can bring the wood in tonight. Bar the door. Open only the back window for air. Stay inside with her until it is all over. Go. To the red flags, that is where I will go, cried Yann fiercely, wrenching his arm free. It is your place to stay with Melyce. My place is with the men. And mine, Yann drew himself up rigid. One of us must shut himself up with her, pleaded Cummins. It must be you, his face gleamed white in the darkness. You came that night because Melyce was here. Something sent you. Something. Don't you understand? And since then she has never been near to death until now. You must stay with Melyce, with your vial in. Melyce herself shall choose, replied Yann. We will go into the cabin, and the one to whom she comes first goes among the red flags. The other shuts himself in the cabin until the plague is gone. He turns swiftly back to the door. As he opened it he stepped aside to let Cummins enter first, and behind the others broad back he leaped quickly to one side, his eyes glowing, his white teeth gleaming in a smile. Unseen by Cummins, he stretched out his arms to Melyce, who was playing with the strings of his vial in on the table. He had done this a thousand times, and Melyce knew what it meant. A kiss and a joyous toss halfway to the ceiling. She jumped from her stool and ran to him. But this time, instead of hoisting her above his head, he hugged her up close to his breast, and buried his face in her soft hair. His eyes looked over her in triumph to Cummins. "'Up, Yann! up! way up!' cried Melyce. He tossed her until she half turned in mid-air, kissed her again as he caught her in his arms, and set her laughing and happy on the edge of the table. "'I am going down among the sick Crees in Cummins' place,' said Yann to Williams half an hour later. "'Now that the plague has come to Lacben, he must stay with Melyce.' CHAPTER XIV The next morning Yann struck out over his old trail to the Hassaballah. The Crees were gone. He spent a day swinging east and west, and found old trails leading into the north. "'They have gone up among the Eskimos,' he said to himself. "'Ah, Kazan! What in the name of the saints is that?' The leading dog dropped upon his haunches with a menacing growl, as a lone figure staggered across the snow toward them. It was Qase. With a groan he dropped upon the sledge. "'I am sick and starving,' he wailed. The fiend himself has got into my cabin, and for three days I've had nothing but snow and a raw whiskey-jack.' "'Sick!' cried Yann, drawing a step away from him. "'Yes, sick from an empty belly, and this, and this!' He showed a forearm done up in a bloody rag, and pointed to his neck, from which the skin was peeling. "'I was gone ten days with that red cloth you gave me, and when I came back, if there wasn't the horror itself grinning at me from the top of my own shanty. I tried to get in, but my wife barred the door, and said that she would shoot me if I didn't get back into the woods. I tried to steal in at night through a window, but she drenched me in hot water. I built a wig-wam at the edge of the forest, and stayed there for five days. Hungry! Blessed saints, I had no matches, no grub! And when I got close enough to yell these things to her, she kept her word, and plunked me through a crack in the door, so that I lost a pint of blood from this arm. "'I'll give you something to eat,' laughed Yon, undoing his pack. How long has the red flag been up?' "'I've lost count of time, but it's twelve days if an hour, and I swear it's going to take all winter to get it down.' "'It's not the plague. Go back and tell your wife so.' "'And get shot for my pains,' groaned Quassé, digging into meat and biscuit. "'I'm bound for Lac ban, if you'll give me a dozen matches. "'That whiskey-jack will remain with me until I die, "'for when I ate him, I forgot to take out his insides.' "'You're a lucky man, Quassé. It's good proof that she loves you.' "'If bullets and hot water and an empty belly are proofs, "'she loves me a great deal, Yon, to roll.' "'Though I don't believe she meant to hit me, "'it was a woman's bad aim.' Yon left him beside a good fire and turned into the south-west to burn Langlois and his cabin. The red flag still floated where he had seen it weeks before. The windows were thicker with frost. He shouted, beat upon the door with the butt of his rifle, and broke in the windows. The silence of death quickened the beating of his heart when he stopped to listen. There was no doubt that Langlois lay dead in his little home. Yon brought dry brushwood from the forest and piled it high against the logs. Upon his sledge he sat and watched the fire until the cabin was a furnace of leaping flame. He continued westward. At the head of the porcupine he found the remains of three burned wigwams, and from one of them he dug out charred bones. Down the porcupine he went slowly, doubling to the east and west, until, at its junction with Grey Otter Creek, he met a Cree who told him that twenty miles farther on there was an abandoned village of six tepees. Toward these he boldly set forth, praying as he went that the angels were guarding Millece at Post-Lacbain. Quassé reached the post forty-eight hours after he had encountered Yon. The red flag is everywhere! He cried, catching sight of the signal over Mookie's cabin. It is to the east and west of the Haasaballa as thick as jays and springtime. The Cree from the Grey Otter drove in on his way north. Six wigwams with dead in them he reported in his own language to Williams. A company man with a one-eyed leader and four trailers left the Grey Otter to burn them. Williams took down his birch bark moose-horn and bellowed a weird signal to Cummins, who opened a crack of his door to listen with Millece close beside him. Thoreau was in the thick of it to the south, he called. There's too much of it for him, and I'm going down with the dogs. Quassé will stay in the store for a few days. Millece heard the words, and her eyes were big with fear when her father turned from closing and bolting the door. In more than a childish way she knew that Yon had gone forth to face a great danger. The grim laws of the savage world in which she lived had already begun to fix their influence upon her, quickening her instinct and reason, just as they hastened the lives of Indian children into the responsibilities of men and women before they had reached fifteen. She knew what the red flag over Mookie's cabin meant. She knew that the air of this world of hers had become filled with peril to those who breathed it, and that people were dying out in the forests, that all about them there was a terrible unseen thing which her father called the plague, and that Yon had gone forth to fight it, to breathe it, and perhaps to die in it. Their own door was locked and bolted against it. She dared not even thrust her head from the window which was opened for a short time each day, and until Cummins assured her that there was no danger in the sunshine, she shunned the few pale rays that shot through the cabin window at midday. Unconsciously Cummins added to her fears in more ways than one, and as he answered her questions truthfully her knowledge increased day by day. She thought more and more of Yon. She watched for him through the two windows of her home. She's sound from outside brought her to them with eager hope, and always her heart sank with disappointment, and the tears would come very near to her eyes when she saw nothing but the terrible red flag clinging to the pole over Mookie's cabin. In the little Bible which her mother had left there was written on the ragged fly-leaf a simple prayer. Each night as she knelt beside her cot and repeated this prayer she paused at the end and added, Dear Father in Heaven, please take care of Yon. The days brought quick changes now. One morning the moose-horn called Cummins to the door. It was the fifth day after Williams had gone south. There was no smoke this morning, and I looked through the window, shouted Closet. Mookie and the old man are both dead. I'm going to burn the cabin. A stifled groan of anguish fell from Cummins' lips as he went like a dazed man to his cot and flung himself face downward upon it. Maleyse could see his strong frame shaking as if he were crying like a child, and twining her arms tightly about his neck she sobbed out her passionate grief against his rough cheek. She did not know the part that Mookie had played in the life of the sweet woman who had once lived in this same little cabin. She knew only that he was dead, that the terrible thing had killed him, and that next to her father and Yon she had loved him more than anyone else in the world. Soon she heard a strange sound and ran to the window. Mookie's cabin was in flames. While dead and tearless with horror, she watched the fire as it burst through the broken windows and leaped high up among the black spruce. In those flames was Mookie. She screamed, and her father sprang to her with a strange cry, running with her from the window into the little room where she slept. The next morning, when Cummins went to awaken her, his face was as white as death. Elise was not asleep. Her eyes were wide open and staring at him, and her soft cheeks burned with the hot glow of fire. "'You are sick, Maley's,' he whispered hoarsely. "'You are sick!' He fell upon his knees beside her and lifted her face in his hands. The touch of it sent a chill to his heart such as he had not felt since many years ago in that other room a few steps away. "'I want Yan,' she pleaded. "'I want Yan to come back to me.' "'I will send for him, dear. He will come back soon. I will go out and send Quassé.' He hid his face from her as he dragged himself away. Quassé saw him coming and came out of the store to meet him. A hundred yards away Cummins stopped. "'Quassé, for the love of God, take a team and go after Yan Taro,' he called. Tell him that Maley's is dying of the plague. Hurry! Hurry!' "'Night and day,' shouted Quassé. Twenty minutes later, from the cabin window, Cummins saw him start. "'Yan will be here very soon, Maley,' he said, running his fingers gently through her hair. It fell out upon the pillow in thick brown waves, and the sight of it choked him with the memory of another vision which would remain with him until the end of time. It was her mother's hair shining softly in the dim light. Her mother's eyes looked up at him as he sat beside her through all this long day. Around evening there came a change. The fever left the child's cheeks. Her eyes closed and she fell asleep. Through the night Cummins sat near the door, but in the gray dawn overcome by his long vigil his head dropped upon his breast and he slumbered. When he awoke the cabin was filled with light. He heard a sound and startled, sprang to his feet. Maleyce was at the stove, building a fire. "'I'm better this morning, Father. Why didn't you sleep until breakfast was ready?' Cummins stared. Then he gave a shout, made a rush for her, and, catching her up in his arms, danced about the cabin like a great bear, overturning the chairs and allowing the room to fill with smoke in his wild joy. "'It's what you saw through the window that made you sick, Maleyce?' he cried, putting her down at last. "'I thought,' he paused and added, his voice trembling, "'I thought you were going to be sick for more than one day, my sweet little woman.' He opened one of the windows to let in the fresh air of the morning. When Quassé returned he did not find a red flag over Cummins' nor did he bring word of yawn. For three days he had followed the trails to the south without finding the boy. But he brought back other news. Williams was sick with the plague in a kree wigwam on the lower porcupine. It was the last they ever heard of the factor except that he died some time in March and was burned by the krees. Quassé went back over the Churchill trail and found his wife ready to greet him with open arms. After that he joined Paris, who came in from the north, in another search for yawn. They found neither trace nor word of him after passing the gray odder, and Cummins gave up hope. It was not for long that their fears could be kept from Maleyce. This first bitter grief that had come into her life fell upon her with a force which alarmed Cummins and cast him into deep gloom. She no longer loved to play with her things in the cabin. For days at a time she would not touch the books which yawn had brought from Churchill and which he had taught her to read. She found little to interest her in the things which had been her life a few weeks before. With growing despair Cummins saw his own efforts fail. As the days passed Maleyce mingled more and more with the Indian and half-breed children and spent much of her time at the company's store listening to the talk of the men, silent, attentive, unresponsive to any efforts they might make to engage her smiles. From her own heart she looked out upon a world that had become a void for her. Yawn had been mother, brother, and everything that was tender and sweet to her, and he was gone. Mookie, whom she had loved, was gone. Williams was gone. The world was changed terribly and suddenly, and it added years to her perspective of things. Each day as the weeks went on and the spring sun began to soften the snow, she became a little more like the wild children at Lac-Ben and in the forest. For Yawn she had kept her hair soft and bright because he praised her for it and told her it was pretty. Now it hung in tangles down her back. There came a night when she forgot her prayer and Cummins did not notice it. He failed to notice it the next night and the next. Plunged deep into his own gloom he was unobservant of many other things so that in place of laughter and joy and merry rompings only gloomy and oppressive shadows of things that had come and gone filled the life of the little cabin. They were eating dinner one day in the early spring with the sunshine flooding in upon them when a quick low footfall caused Melyce to lift her eyes in the direction of the open door. A strange figure stood there, with bloodless face, staring eyes, and garments hanging in tatters. But its arms were stretched out as those same arms had been held out to her a thousand times before and with the old glad cry Melyce darted with the swiftness of a sun-shadow beyond Cummins crying, YAN! YAN! MY YAN! Words choked in Cummins throat when he saw the white-faced figure clutching Melyce to its breast. At last he gasped, YAN! and threw out his arms so that both were caught in their embrace. For an instant YAN turned his face up to the light. The other stared and understood. You have been sick, he said, but it has left no marks. Thank God! breathed YAN. Melyce raised her head and stroked his cheeks with her two hands. That night she remembered her prayer and at its end she added, Dear Father in Heaven, thank you for sending back YAN! Peace followed in the blighted trails of the Red Terror. Again the forest world breathed without fear. But from Hudson's Bay to Athabasca, and as far south as the thousand waters of the reindeer country, the winds whispered of a terrible grief that would remain until babes were men and men went to their graves. Life had been torn and broken in a cataclysm more fearful than that which levels cities and disrupts the earth. Slowly it began its readjustment. There was no other life to give aid or sympathy, and just as they had suffered alone, so now the forest people struggled back into life alone, building up from the wreck of what had been the things that were to be. For months the Crees wailed their death-durges as they sought out the bones of their dead. Men dragged themselves into the posts, wifeless and childless, leaving deep in the wilderness all that they had known to love and give them comfort. Now and then came a woman, and around the black scars of burned cabins and tepees, dogs howled mournfully for masters that were gone. The plague had taken a thousand souls, and yet the laughing, passing millions in that other big world beyond the edge of the wilderness, caught only a passing rumor of what had happened. Lac Bass suffered least of the far northern posts, with the exception of Churchill, where the icy winds downpouring from the Arctic had sent the red terror shivering to the westward. In the late snows word came that Cummins was to take William's place as factor, and Paris at once set off for the fond du lac to bring back Jean de Gravois as chief man. Croix-Sais gave up his foxhunting to fill Mookie's place. The changes brought new happiness to Mélise. Croix-Sais's wife was a good woman who had spent her girlhood in Montreal, and Iowaka, now the mother of a fire-eating little Jean, and a handsome daughter, was a soft voice young Venus who had grown sweeter and prettier with her years, which is not usually the case with half-breed women. "'Bud is good blood in her, beautiful blood,' vaunted Jean proudly whenever the opportunity came. Her mother was a princess, and her father a pure Frenchman, whose father's father was a chef de bataillon. What's better than that, eh? I say, what better could there be than that?' So for the first time in her life Mélise discovered the joys of companionship with those of her own kind. This new companionship, pleasant as it was, did not come between her and Jean. If anything, they were more to each other than ever. The terrible months through which they had passed had changed them both, and had given them, according to their years, the fruits which are often ripened in the black bloom of disaster rather than in the sunshine of prosperity. To Mélise they had opened up a new world of thought, a new vision of the things that existed about her. The sternest teacher of all had brought to her the knowledge that comes of grief, of terror, and of death, and she had passed beyond her years just as the cumulative processes of generations made the Indian children pass beyond theirs. She no longer looked upon Yann as a mere playmate, a being whose diversion was to amuse and to love her. He had become a man. In her eyes he was a hero who had gone forth to fight the death of which she still heard word and whisper all about her. Croix-Sais's wife and Iawaka told her that he had done the bravest thing that a man might do on earth. She spoke proudly of him to the Indian children, who called him the torchbearer. She noticed that he was as tall as Croix-Sais, and taller by half ahead than Jean, and that he lifted her now with one arm as easily as if she were no heavier than a stick of wood. Later they resumed their studies, devoting hours to them each day, and through all that summer he taught her to play upon his violin. The warm months were a time of idleness at Lac-Bas, and Yann had made the most of them in his teaching of Mélise. She learned to read the books which he had used at Fort Churchill, and by mid-summer she could read those which he had used at York Factory. That night they wrote letters to each other, and delivered them across the table in the cabin, while Cummins looked on and smoked, laughing happily at what they read aloud to him. One night, late enough in the season for a fire to be crackling merrily in the stove, Yann was reading one of these letters when Mélise cried, Stop, Yann! Stop there! Yann caught himself, and he blushed mightily when he read the next lines. I think you have beautiful eyes. I love them. What is it? cried Cummins, interestingly. Read on, Yann. Don't, commanded Mélise, springing to her feet and running around the table. I didn't mean you to read that. She snatched the paper from Yann's hand and threw it into the fire. Yann's blood filled with pleasure, and at the bottom of his next letter he wrote back, I think you have beautiful hair. I love it. That winter Yann was appointed post-hunter, and this gave him much time at home, for meat was plentiful along the edge of the barrens. The two continued at their books until they came to the end of what Yann knew in them. After that, like searchers in strange places, they felt their way onward slowly and with caution. During the next summer they labored through all the books which were in the little box in the corner of the cabin. It was Mélise who now played most on the violin, and Yann listened, his eyes glowing proudly as he saw how cleverly her little fingers danced over the strings. His face flushed with a joy that was growing stronger in him every day. One day she looked curiously into the F-hole of the instrument, and her pretty mouth puckered itself into a round, red O of astonishment when Yann quickly snatched the violin from her hands. Excusez-moi, ma belle Mélise! he laughed at her in French. I am going to play you something new. That same day he took the little cloth-covered roll from the violin and gave it another hiding place. It recalled to him the strange spirit which had once moved him at Fort Churchill and which had remained with him for a time at Lac Banh. That spirit was now gone, luring him no longer. Time had drawn a softening veil over things that had passed. He was happy. The wilderness became more beautiful to him as Mélise grew older. Each summer increased his happiness. Each succeeding winter made it larger and more complete. Every fiber of his being sang in joyful response as he watched Mélise pass from childhood into young girlhood. He marked every turn in her development the slightest change in her transformation as if she had been a beautiful flower. He possessed none of the quick impetuosity of Jean de Gravois. Years gave the silence of the north to his tongue and his exultation was quiet and deep in his own heart. With an eagerness which no one guessed he watched the growing beauty of her hair, marked its brightening luster when he saw it falling in thick waves over her shoulders and he knew that at last it had come to be like the woman's. The changing lights in her eyes fascinated him and he rejoiced again when he saw that they were deepening into the violet blue of the Bakhnish flowers that bloomed on the tops of the ridges. To him Mélise was growing into everything that was beautiful. She was his world, his life, and at post-Lacbein there was nothing to come between the two. Jean noticed that in her thirteenth year she could barely stand under his outstretched arm. The next year she had grown so tall that she could not stand there at all. Very soon she would be a woman. The thought leaped from his heart and he spoke it aloud. It was on the girl's fifteenth birthday. They had come up to the top of the ridge in which he had fought the missionary, together red sprigs of the Bakhnish for the festival that they were to have in the cabin that night. High up in the face of a jagged rock, Jean saw a bit of the crimson vine thrusting itself out into the sun, and with Mélise laughing and encouraging him from below he climbed up until he had secured it. He tossed it down to her. "'It's the last one,' she cried, seeing his disadvantage, "'and I'm going home. You can't catch me!' She darted away swiftly along the snow-covered ridge, taunting him with merry laughter as she left him clamoring in cautious descent down the rock. Jean followed in pursuit, shouting to her in French, in Cree, and in English, and their two voices echoed happily in their wild frolic. Jean slackened his steps. It was a joy to see Mélise springing from rock to rock and darting across the thin openings close ahead of him, her hair loosening and sweeping out in the sun, her slender figure fleeing with the lightness of the pale sun-shadows that ran up and down the mountain. She would not have overtaken her of his own choosing, but at the foot of the ridge Mélise gave up. She returned toward him, panting and laughing, shimmering like a sea niad under the glistening veil of her dishevelled hair. Her face glowed with excitement, her eyes filled with the light of the sun dazzled Jean and their laughing defiance. Before her he stopped and made no effort to catch her. Never had he seen her so beautiful, still daring him with her laugh, quivering and panting, flinging back her hair. Half reaching out his arms he cried, Mélise, you are beautiful, you are almost a woman! The flush deepened in her cheeks and there was no longer the sweet taunting mischief in her eyes. He made no effort to run from him when he came to her. Do you think so, brother Jean? If you did your hair up like the pictures we have in the books, you would be a woman, he answered softly. You are more beautiful than the pictures! He drew a step back and her eyes flashed at him again with the sparkle of the old fun in them. You say that I am pretty and that I am almost a woman, she shouted, and yet she shrugged her shoulders at him in mocked a stain. Jean Tareau, this is the third time in the last week that you have not played the game right. I won't play with you any more. In a flash he was at her side, her face between his two hands, and bending down he kissed her upon the mouth. There, she said, as he released her, isn't that the way we have played it ever since I can remember? Whenever you catch me, you may have that. I am afraid, Mélis, he said seriously. You are growing so tall and so pretty that I am afraid. Afraid? My brother afraid to kiss me. And what will you do when I get to be a woman, Yann, which will be very soon, you say? I don't know, Mélis. She turned her back to him and flung out her hair. And Yann, who had done the same thing for her a hundred times before, divided the silk and mass into three strands and plated them into a braid. I don't believe that you care for me as much as you used to, Yann. I wish I were a woman, so that I might know if you are going to forget me entirely. Her shoulders trembled, and when he had finished his task he found that she was laughing and that her eyes were swimming with a new mischief which she was trying to hide from him. In that laugh there was something which was not like me, Mélis. Slight as the change was, he noticed it. But instead of displeasing him, it set a vague sensation of pleasure trilling like a new song within him. When they reached the post, Mélis went to the cabin with her baknish and Yann to the company's store. Tossing the vines upon the table, Mélis ran back to the door and watched him until he disappeared. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips half-parted in excitement, and no sooner had he gone from view than she hurried to Iowaka's home across the clearing. It was fully three quarters of an hour later when Yann saw Mélis, with Iowaka's red shawl over her head, walking slowly and with extreme precision of step back to the cabin. I wonder if she has the earache, he said to himself, watching her curiously. That is Iowaka's shawl, and she has it all about her head. A clear half-inch of the rarest wool from London, added the cheery voice of Jean de Gravois, whose Markessons had made no sound behind him. He always spoke in French to Yann. There is but one person in the world who looks better in it than your Mélis, Yann Thoreau, and that is Iowaka, my wife. Blessed Saint's man, but is she not growing more beautiful every day? Yes, said Yann, she will soon be a woman. A woman, shouted Jean, who, not having his caribou whip, jumped up and down to emphasize his words. She will soon be a woman, did you say, Yann Thoreau? And if she is not a woman at thirty with two children, God send others like them, when will she be, I ask you? I meant Mélis, laughed Yann. And I meant Iowaka, said Jean. Ah, there she is now. Come out to see if her Jean de Gravois is on his way home with the sugar for which she sent him something like an hour ago. For you know she is Chef de Crisine in this affair tonight. Ah, she sees me not, and she turns back heartily disappointed. I'll swear by all the saints in the calendar. Did you ever see a figure like that, Yann Thoreau? And did you ever see hair that shines so, like the top feathers of a raven who's nibbling at himself in the hottest bit of sunshine he can find? Deliver us, but I'll go with the sugar this minute. The happy Jean hopped out like a cricket overburdened with life, calling loudly to his wife, who came to meet him. A few minutes later, Yann thrust his head in at their door as he was passing. I knew I should get a beating, or something worse, for forgetting that sugar, cried the little Frenchman, holding up his baird arms. Do, do, do, I'm rolling, do, do for the bread, do for the cakes, do for the pies, do, Yann Thoreau, just common flour and water mixed and swabbed. I, Jean de Gravois, chief man at Postlac Ben, am mixing do. She is as beautiful as an angel and sweeter than sugar, my Iowaka, I mean. But there is more flesh in her earthly tabernacles than in mine, so I am compelled to mix this do, mon ami. Iowaka, my dear, tell Yann what you were telling me about Mélis, and— Hush! cried Iowaka in her sweet creed. That is for Yann to find out for himself. So, so it is, exclaimed the irrepressible Jean, plunging himself to the elbows in his pan of do. Then hurry to the cabin, Yann, and see what sort of a birthday gift Mélis has got for you. End of Chapter 15. Recording by Roger Moline. Chapter 16 of The Honour of the Big Snows. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Moline. The Honour of the Big Snows by James Oliver Kerwood. Chapter 16 Birth Days. The big room was empty when Yann came quietly through the open door. He stopped to listen, and caught a faint laugh from the other room, and then another, and to give warning of his presence he coughed loudly and scraped a chair along the floor. A moment's silence followed. The farther door opened a little, and then it opened wide, and Mélis came out. Now what do you think of me, brother Yann? She stood in the light of the window through which came the afternoon sun. Her hair piled in glistening coils upon the crown of her head, as they had seen them in the pictures. Her cheeks flushed, her eyes glowing questioningly at Yann. Do I look as you thought I would, Yann? She persisted, a little doubtful at his silence. She turned so that he saw the cluster of soft curls that fell upon her shoulder, with sprigs of bachniche half smothered in them. Do I? You are prettier than I have ever seen, you Mélis," he replied softly. There was a seriousness in his voice that made her come to him in her old, impulsive, half-childish way. She lifted her hands and rested them on his shoulders, as she had always done when inviting him to toss her above his head. If I am prettier, and you like me this way, why don't you—? She finished with a sweet, upturned pouting of her mouth, and with a sudden laughing cry, Yann caught her in his arms and kissed the lips she held up to him. It was but an instant, and he freed her, a hot blush burning in his brown cheeks. My dear brother! She laughed at him, gathering up the bachniche on the table. I love to have you kiss me, and now I have to make you do it. Father kisses me every morning when he goes to the store. I remember when you used to kiss me every time you came home. But now you forget to do it at all. Do brothers love their sisters less as they grow older? Sometimes they love the sister less, and the other girl more, Mabel Mélise, came a quick voice from the door, and Jean de Gravois bounded in like a playful cat, scraping and bowing before Mélise, until his head nearly touched the floor. Lovely saints, Yann Thoreau! But she is a woman, just as my Iewaka told me. The cakes, the bread, the pies! You must delay the supper, my lady, for the good Lord deliver me if I haven't spilled all the dough on the floor. Swoosh! Such a mess! And my Iewaka did nothing but laugh and call me a clumsy dear. You're terribly in love, Jean, cried Mélise, laughing until her eyes were wet. It's like some of the people in the books which Yann and I read. And I always shall be, my dear, so long as the daughter of a princess and the great-granddaughter of a chef de bétillon allows me to mix her dough. Mélise flung the red shawl over her head, still laughing. I will go and help her, Jean. Mondieu, gasped Gravois, looking searchingly at Yann when she had left. Shall I give you my best wishes, Yann Thoreau? Does it signify? Signify what? The little Frenchman's eyes snapped. Why, when our pretty Cree maiden becomes engaged, she puts up her hair for the first time. That is all, my dear Yann. When I asked my blessed Iawaka to be my wife, she answered by running away from me, taunting me until I thought my heart had shriveled into a bit of salt-blubber. But she came back to me before I had completely died, with her braids done up in the top of her head. He stopped suddenly, startled into silence by the strange look that had come into the other's face. For a full minute, Yann stood as if the power of movement had gone from him. He was staring over the Frenchman's head, a ghastly pallor growing in his cheeks. No, it means nothing, he said finally, speaking as if the words were forced from him one by one. He dropped into a chair beside the table, like one whose senses had been dulled by an unexpected blow. With a great sighing breath that was almost a sob, he bowed his head upon his arms. —Yann Thoreau! whispered Jean softly. Have you forgotten that it was I who killed the missioner for you, and that through all of these years Jean de Gravois has never questioned you about the fight on the mountaintop? There was, in his voice, as gentle as a woman's, the vibrant note of a comradeship which is next to love, the comradeship of man for man in a world where friendship is neither bought nor sold. Have you forgotten, Yann Thoreau? If there is anything Jean de Gravois can do? He sat down opposite Yann, his thin, eager face propped in his hands, and watched silently until the other lifted his head. Their eyes met, steady, unflinching, and in that look there were the oath and the seal of all the honour of the big snows held for those two. Still without words, Yann reached within his breast and drew forth the little roll which he had taken from his violin. One by one he handed the pages over to Jean de Gravois. —Mondier! —said Jean when he had finished reading. He spoke no other words. Light-faced, the two men stared, Yann's throat twitching, Gravois's brown fingers crushing the rolls he held. —That was why I tried to kill the missioner, said Yann at last. He pointed to the more coarsely written pages under Jean's hand. And that, that is why it could not signify that Mélisse has done up her hair. He rose to his feet, straining to keep his voice even, and gathered up the papers so that they shot back into the little cylinder-shaped roll again. —Now do you understand? —I understand! —replies Jean in a low voice. But his eyes glittered like dancing dragonflies as he raised his elbows slowly from the table and stretched his arms above his head. —I understand, Yann Thoreau, and I praise the blessed virgin that it was Jean de Gravois who killed the missioner out upon the ice of Lac-Bain. —But the other, persisted Yann, the other, which says that I— —Stop! —cried Jean sharply. He came around the table and seized Yann's hands in the iron grip of his lithe brown fingers. —That is something for you to forget. —It means nothing, nothing at all, Yann Thoreau. —Does anyone know but you and me? —No one. I intended that someday Mélisse and her father should know, but I waited too long. I waited until I was afraid, until the horror of telling her frightened me. I made myself forget, burying it deeper each year until today on the mountain. And today, in this cabin, you will forget again, and you will bury it so deep that it will never come back. —I am proud of you, Yann Thoreau. I love you, and it is the first time that Jean de Gravois has ever said this to a man. Ah! I hear them coming. With an absurd bow in the direction of the laughing voices which they now heard, the melodramatic little Frenchman pulled Yann to the door. Halfway across the open were Mélisse and Iowaka, carrying a large Indian basket between them and making merry over the task. When they saw Gravois and Yann, they set down their burden and waved an invitation for the two men to come to their assistance. —You should be the second happiest man in the world, Yann Thoreau, exclaimed Jean. The first is Jean de Gravois. He set off like a bolt from a spring-gun in the direction of the two who were waiting for them. He had hoisted the basket upon his shoulder by the time Yann arrived. —Are you growing old, too, Yann? bantered Mélisse as she dropped a few steps behind Jean and his wife. —You come so slowly. —I think I'm twenty-nine. —You think—her dancing eye shot up to his, bubbling over with the mischief which she had been unable to suppress that day. —Why, Yann—he had never spoken to Mélisse as he did now. —I was born some time in the winter, Mélisse, like you. Perhaps it was yesterday, perhaps it is tomorrow. That is all I know. She looked at her steadily, the grief which she was fighting to keep back tightening the muscles about his mouth. Like the quick passing of sunshine the fun swept from her face, leaving her blue eyes staring up at him, filled with a pain which he had never seen in them before. In a moment he knew that she had understood him, and he could have cut out his tongue. Her hand reached his arm, and she stopped him. Her face lifted pleadingly, the tears slowly gathering in her eyes. —Forgive me—she whispered, her voice breaking into a sob. —Dear, dear, Yann, forgive me—she caught one of his hands in both her own, and for an instant held it so that he could feel the throbbing of her heart. —Today is your birthday, Yann—yours and mine—mine and yours, and we will always have it that way—always, won't we, Yann?