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Updated: June 9, 2025
"Ours was the happiest post in all this great northland, M'seur," continued Croisset after a moment's pause; "and it was all because of this woman and the man, but mostly because of the woman. And when the little Meleese came she was the first white girl baby that any of us had ever seen our love for these two became something that I fear was almost a sacrilege to our dear Lady of God.
It was almost twenty years ago that the romance began in the lives of John and Meleese Cummins. Meleese was then ten years old; and she still remembers as vividly as though they were but memories of yesterday the fears and wild tales of that one terrible winter when the "Red Terror" the smallpox swept in a pitiless plague of death throughout the northern wilderness.
"That is what I thought about you," replied Howland, forcing himself to speak coolly. "How did you manage it?" "They came up to free me soon after they got you, M'seur. I am grateful to you for thinking of me, for if you had not told them I might have stayed there and starved like a beast in a trap." "It was Meleese," said Howland. "I told her." Jean dropped his head in his hands.
Six weeks Meleese and John Cummins spent in an Indian camp at this point, and when at last the two bade their primitive friends good-bye and left for home, the little Indian children and the women followed their canoe along the edge of a stream and flung handfuls of flowers after them.
With a sharp cry he sprang to his feet, overturning the stool, facing Croisset, his hands clenched, his body bent as if about to spring. Jean stood calmly, his white teeth agleam. Then, slowly, he stretched out a hand. "M'seur John Howland, will you read what happened to the father and mother of the little Meleese sixteen years ago?
"And you, Jean Croisset do you believe that I am that John Howland the John Howland the son who " He stopped, waiting for Jean to comprehend, to speak. "M'seur, it makes no difference what I believe now. I have but one other thing to tell you here and one thing to give to you," replied Jean. "Those who have tried to kill you are the three brothers. Meleese is their sister.
In their little cabin on the Gray Loon, one will hear John Cummins say but little about himself; but there is a glow in his eyes and a flush in his cheeks as he tells of that first day he came home from a three-days journey over a long trap line to find his home cold and fireless, and a note written by Meleese telling him that she had gone with a twelve-year-old boy who had brought her word through twenty miles of forest that his mother was dying.
But here there was no hope, there was to be no fighting. Through one of the black holes in the wall he was to be shot down, with no chance to defend himself, to prove himself innocent. And Meleese did she, too, believe him guilty of that crime? He groaned aloud, and picked up the note again.
When he was twenty and Meleese eighteen, the two were married by a missioner from Nelson House. The following autumn the young wife's mother died, and that winter Meleese began her remarkable work among her "people."
He was astonished at Croisset's words and more confused than ever at the half-breed's assurance that his life was no longer in immediate peril. To him this meant that Meleese had not only warned him but was now playing an active part in preserving his life, and this conclusion added to his perplexity.
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