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Croisset'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-voiced young Venus who had grown sweeter and prettier with her years which is not usually the case with half-breed women. "But it's good blood in her, beautiful blood," vaunted Jean proudly, whenever the opportunity came.
"Only the little Gravois have almost grown into a man and woman." An hour or so later he said to Iowaka: "I can't help liking this man Dixon, and yet I don't want to. Why is it, do you suppose?" "Is it because you are afraid that Melisse will like him?" asked his wife, smiling over her shoulder. "Blessed saints, I believe that it is!" said Jean frankly.
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, Jan Thoreau?" Jan sat up in his bed with a sharp cry. "Sh-h-h-h-h!" admonished Jean, pressing him back gently.
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!"
He was there to meet her when she appeared a little later. They went to Moanne. And at last all things were done, and the lights were turned low in Adare House. Philip did not take off his clothes that night, nor did Jean and Metoosin. In the early dawn they went out together to the little garden of crosses. Close to the side of Iowaka, Jean pointed out a plot.
You are the only one to whom the god of my people bids me make all sacrifice." "But you do not believe in that god, Iowaka!" "Sometimes it is better to believe in the god of my people than in yours," she replied gently. "I believed in him fifteen years ago at Churchill. Do you wish me to take back what I gave to you then?" With a low cry of happiness Jean crushed his face against her soft cheek.
"Two fools!" he went on communing with himself. "Cummins Jan Thoreau both fools!" During the week that followed, Jean's little black eyes were never far distant from Cummins' cabin. Without being observed, he watched Melisse and Dixon, and not even to Iowaka did he give hint of his growing suspicions. Dixon was a man whom most other men liked.
He caught Jan'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 Lac Bain!" 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!"
And his son, who has come along for fun, he says; and I believe he will get what he's after if he remains here very long, Jan Thoreau, for he looked a little too boldly at my Iowaka when she came into the store just now!" "Mon Dieu!" laughed Jan, as Gravois took in the four quarters of the earth with a terrible gesture. "Can you blame him, Jean?
Melisse had suffered quietly during these two months, a grief and loneliness filling her heart which none knew but herself. Even from Iowaka she kept her unhappiness a secret; and yet when the gloom had settled heaviest upon her, she was still buoyed up by a persistent hope. Until Jan's last visit to Lac Bain this hope never quite went out.
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