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This was the beginning of the problem, and it grew and burst forth in all its significance on the day before Cummins came in from the wilderness. For a week Maballa had been dropping sly hints of a wonderful thing which she and the factor's half-breed wife were making for the baby.
"Sacre bleu you keel keel ze leetle Melisse!" he cried shrilly, snatching up the half-frozen child, "Mon Dieu, she ees not papoose! She ees ceevilize ceevilize!" and he ran swiftly with her into the cabin, flinging back a torrent of Cree anathema at the dumbly bewildered Maballa. Jan left the rest of his musk-ox to the wolves and foxes.
The education of the little Melisse began at once, while the post was still deserted. It began, first of all, with Maballa. She stared dumbly and with shattered faith at these two creatures who told her of wonderful things in the upbringing of a child things of which she had never so much as heard rumor before. Her mother instincts were aroused, but with Cree stoicism she made no betrayal of them.
Jan had visions of a gorgeous garment covered with beads and gaudy braid, which would give the little Melisse unending delight. On the day before Cummins' arrival, Jan came in from chopping wood, and went to the cot. It was empty. Maballa was gone. A sudden fear thrilled him to the marrow, and he sprang back to the cabin door, ready to shriek out the Indian woman's name.
So far back as he could remember, Cummins had never come into finger- touch of a white baby. Jan was as blissfully ignorant; so they determined upon immediate and strenuous action. Maballa would be ceaselessly watched and checked at every turn. The Indian children would not be allowed to come near Melisse.
Drew and the princess mother, while Rod went in search of Mukoki and Wabigoon. That night the big event happened. George Newsome, the factor, gave a reluctant consent which meant that Wabi's sister and Maballa would accompany the adventurers on their next journey into the untraveled solitudes of Hudson Bay. For a week John Ball hovered between life and death.
Jan 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 Jan's lips, and there was something in his eyes which Cummins had never seen there before.
The boy held out his hand. "Let's shake on that, Minnetaki! I'll handle Mukoki, you take care of Maballa. What a picnic this next trip will be!" "And there'll be lots and lots of adventures, won't there?" asked the girl a little anxiously. "Plenty of them." Rod became immediately serious. "This will be the most important of all our trips, Minnetaki, that is, if John Ball lives.
He lost no time in revealing his fears, after Maballa had been sent to the factor's wife. With graphic gesture he told of what had happened. Cummins hobbled to the door to look upon the wallows in the snow, and hobbled back to the table when Jan ran there in excited imitation of the way in which he had found the little Melisse in Maballa's sling. "She ees ceevilize!" finished Jan hotly.
Melisse was not to be taken out and rolled in the snow; so she brought in the snow and rolled it over Melisse! When Jan discovered this, his tongue twisted itself into sounds so terrible, and his face writhed so fiercely, that Maballa began to comprehend that thereafter no snow at all, either out doors or in, was to be used in the physical development of the little Melisse.
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