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Updated: June 30, 2025


"A clear half-inch of the rarest wool from London," added the cheery voice of Jean de Gravois, whose moccasins had made no sound behind him. He always spoke in French to Jan. "There is but one person in the world who looks better in it than your Melisse, Jan Thoreau, and that is Iowaka, my wife. Blessed saints, man, but is she not growing more beautiful every day?" "Yes," said Jan.

Half-way across the open were Melisse and Iowaka, carrying a large Indian basket between them, and making merry over the task. When they saw Gravois and Jan, 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, Jan Thoreau," exclaimed Jean. "The first is Jean de Gravois!"

"I have traveled far since leaving Lac Bain," he said. "I went first to Nelson House, and from here to the Wholdaia. I found them at Nelson House, but not on the Wholdaia." "What?" asked Jean, though he knew well what the other meant. "My brothers, Jean de Gravois," answered Jan, drawing his lips until his teeth gleamed in a sneering smile. "My brothers, les betes de charogne!"

Faintly she said: "I've kept your dinner for you, Jan. Why didn't you come sooner?" "I had dinner with Gravois," he replied. "Jean said that you would hardly be prepared for five, Melisse, so I accepted his invitation." He took down from the wall a fur sledge-coat, in which Melisse had mended a rent a day or two before, and, throwing it over his arm, turned to leave. "Jan!"

He looked to the white cross which marked Mukee's grave in the edge of the forest, where the shadow of the big spruce fell across it at the end of summer evenings. "And he died," said Jean de Gravois, his dark hands clenched. "God forgive me, but I hate these red-necked men from across the sea." Croisset shrugged his shoulders. "Breeders of two-legged carrion-eaters!" he exclaimed fiercely.

"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 Iowaka making hot coffee, while Jan was bundled up in furs near the fire. "It is as I said," she called. "He is alive!"

First, there was Madame Gravois' story to listen to as she bustled about giving orders to a kinky-haired negro girl concerning my dinner. Then came the dinner, excellent if I could have eaten it. The virtues of the former Monsieur Gravois were legion. He had come to Louisiana from Toulon, planted indigo, fought a duel, and Madame was a widow. So I condense two hours into two lines.

With a great cry he flung open the door and leaped in, with his arms reaching out, his eyes blinded for a moment by the sudden light and with a cry as piercing as his own, something ran through that light to meet him Melisse, the old, glorious Melisse, crushing her arms about his neck, sobbing his name, pleading with him in her old, sweet voice to kiss her, kiss her, kiss her while Jan Thoreau for the first time in his life felt sweeping over him a resistless weakness, and in this vision he knew that Jean de Gravois came to him, too, and held him in his arms, and that as the light faded away from about him he still heard Melisse calling to him, felt her arms about him, her face crushed to his own.

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. From the day after the caribou roast the fur-gatherers began scattering. The Eskimos left the next morning.

Glancing at my watch, which I had bought in Philadelphia, I saw that the hands pointed to half after seven. I had scarcely finished my toilet before there was a knock at the door, and Madame Gravois entered with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and her bottle of medicine in the other. "I did not wake Monsieur," she said, "for he was tired."

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