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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 Melisse 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.
Sometimes Melisse listened as if she understood the wonderful things he was telling her. She would lie upon her back with her eyes fixed upon him, her little red fists doubled over his bow, or a thumb thrust into her mouth.
Jan was the happiest youth in the world. It was certain that the little Melisse 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 Mukee and Per-ee, and even Williams himself, would squat for an hour at a time in the snow near Melisse, marveling at the early knowledge which the great God saw fit to put into a white baby's brain.
He took down the instrument, and his fingers traveled clumsily over the strings. His teeth gleamed at her from out his half-inch growth of beard, as he said: "Ah, you must play for me now, Melisse! It has surely gone from Jan Thoreau." He held out the violin to her. "Not now, Jan," she said tremulously. "I will play for you to-night."
"You wait till you're spoke to," sez Jabez; but at that moment the buckboard came in with old Melisse, an' the very first thing she did was to chase the three punchers out o' the house, fix up a mess of her own to put on Jabez's head an' arm, an' then she picks up Barbie in her arms an' I saw the little chap's lip begin to quiver; I saw Jabez wink his eyes too fast for comfort; I saw the tears rollin' down the cheeks of old Melisse, an' I went out into the starlight to look up toward Mount Savage where Monody was sleepin'. It's a funny thing, life.
At last he, Jan Thoreau, would prove that the old love was not dead within him; he would do for Melisse this night to- morrow the next day, and until he fell down to die what he had promised to do on their sledge-ride to Ledoq's. And then He went to Ledoq's now, following the top of the mountain, and reached his cabin in the late dawn.
We talked it all over there in the starlight, until ol' Melisse came an' called us in. I didn't want to go; I was tryin' to cut myself out of the game entirely an' forget that I even existed; for the' was a cry in my heart that wouldn't hush, an' I wanted to be alone; but when Jim insisted I braced up an' went in.
After a while I went back inside an' they were purty cozy again. "You been away purt nigh a year," sez Jabez, "where you been?" Melisse grinned; she was a Mexican an' had been good lookin' a century or so before. She was the silent sort, but she could do a heap sight keener thinkin' 'an lots of 'em 'at kicks up more dust at it.
His face was buried on the other's shoulder, the whole life of him in the grip. He would not have raised his head for a full minute longer had there not come a sudden interruption the terrified voice of Melisse, the frantic tearing of her hands at his hands. "He is dead!" she shrieked. "You have killed him, Jean!" He loosed his fingers and sat up.
The first evening after his arrival from the swamps to the west, he came to the cabin. His beard had grown again. His hair was long and shaggy, and fell in shining dishevelment upon his shoulders. The sensitive beauty of his great eyes, once responsive to every passing humor in Melisse, flashing fun at her laughter, glowing softly in their devotion, was gone.
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