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Half a mile down the ridge, where it sloped up gradually from the forests and swamps of the plain, a team of powerful Malemutes were running at the head of a toboggan. On the sledge was a young half-Cree woman. Now beside the sledge, now at the lead of the dogs, cracking his whip and shouting joyously, ran Jean de Gravois.
When Cummins' wife passed him, she drew her skirt close to her; and there was the poise of a queen in her head, the glory of wife and womanhood, the living, breathing essence of all that was beautiful in her people's honor of the big snows. That night Mukee, the half-Cree, slunk around in the edge of the forest to see that all was well in Cummins' little home.
She came to him, and clasped one of his half-frozen hands to her bosom, and he heard her say, "God bless you forever, Jan! You have done the best you could!" The Great God was that not reward for the risking of a miserable, worthless life such as his? He went to his shack and slept long, and dreamed, sometimes of the woman, and of Cummins and Mukee, the half-Cree.
From the edge of the frozen river there came the sound of a wheezy accordion in a Chinese cafe, and the howling of a dog, either struck by man or worsted in a fight. Where the more numerous lights of the one street shone red against the black background of forest, a drunken half-breed was chanting in half-Cree, half-French, the chorus of the caribou song.
It was no great sacrifice for Jan, this struggle with the "Beeg Snows" for the woman's sake. What it was to Mukee, the half-Cree, no man ever guessed or knew, for it was not until the late spring snows had gone that they found what the foxes and the wolves had left of him, far to the south. A hand, soft and gentle, guided Jan.
Perhaps she was not strictly beautiful, as most people judge; but she was beautiful here, four hundred miles beyond civilization. Mukee, the half-Cree, had never seen a white woman, for even the factor's wife was part Chippewayan; and no one of the others went down to the edge of the southern wilderness more than once each twelvemonth or so.
But she was beautiful here four hundred miles beyond civilization. Mukee, the half-Cree, had never seen a white woman, for even the factor's wife was part Chippewayan, and no one of the others went down to the edge of the southern wilderness more than once each twelve-month or so.
Having left home at an early age, he entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, and had every reason to expect to become one of its leading members, when his family so strongly expressed their annoyance at hearing of his marriage with a beautiful half-Cree girl, that he ceased to hold any communication with them.
She was coming to him, a new glory in her eyes, her arms reaching out, her lips parted! Jan knew how the Great Spirit had once appeared to Mukee, the half-Cree, and how a white mist, like a snow veil, had come between the half-breed's eyes and the wondrous thing he beheld. And that same snow veil drifted between Jan and the woman.
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.
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