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There they separated, Jan going as nearly as he could guess into the northwest, Mukee trailing swiftly and hopelessly into the south, both inspired in the face of death by the thought of a woman with sunny hair, and with lips and eyes that had sent many a shaft of hope and gladness into their desolate hearts.
Partial order being restored, Mukee and Per-ee took charge of the snarling Malemutes, and, surrounded by Williams' men, the trapper stalked to the company's office. He was Jean de Gravois, the most important man in the Fond du Lac country, for whose good-will the company paid a small bonus.
Once Mukee had suffered a lynx-bite that went clear to the bone, and the woman had saved his hand. After that, the savage in him was enslaved to her like an invisible spirit. He crouched for a few minutes in the snow, looking at the pale filter of light that came through a hole in the curtain of the woman's window; and as he looked something came between him and the light.
In the half-Cree's eyes there was something of the wild beauty that gleamed in Jan's. For an instant those eyes had met in the savage recognition of blood; and when Jan's head fell weakly, and his violin slipped to the floor, Mukee lifted him in his strong arms and carried him to the shack in the edge of the spruce and balsam. And there was no one who noticed Jan the next day except Mukee.
This miracle came to be a matter of deep discussion, in which there were the few words but much thought of men born to silence. One day Mukee brought two little Indian babies and set them on the bearskin, where they continued to sit in stoic indifference a clear proof of the superior development of Melisse.
He felt the touch of her sweet breath, he heard her passionate prayer, he knew that one of his rough hands was clasped in both her own and he knew, too, that their soft, thrilling warmth would remain with him until he died, and still go into Paradise with him. When he trudged back into the snow, knee-deep now, he sought Mukee, the half-breed.
Mukee knew the trail to Churchill, and agreed to leave with him on the third day which gave Williams' wife time to make him a new coat of caribou skin. On the second evening he played for the last time in the little cabin; and after Melisse had fallen asleep he took her up gently in his arms and held her there for a long time, while Cummins looked on in silence.
Mukee, the half-Cree, went among his scattered tribesmen along the edge of the barrens, stirring them by the eloquence of new promises and by fierce condemnation of the interlopers to the west.
For a time Jan could not fully understand, and he still played his violin and romped joyfully with Melisse in the little cabin. He had not lived through the plague of nineteen years before. Most of the others had, even to Mukee, the youngest of them all.
"Oh, ze cariboo-oo-oo, ze cariboo-oo-oo, He brown 'n' juice 'n' sweet! Ze cariboo-oo-oo, he ver' polite He roas' on high, Jes' under ze sky, He ready now to come 'n' eat!" With yells that rose above the last words of the song, Mukee and his Crees tugged at their poles, and the roasted caribou fell upon the snow.
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