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Updated: August 21, 2024
She thought more and more of Jan. She watched for him through the two windows of her home. Every sound from outside brought her to them with eager hope; and always, her heart sank with disappointment, and the tears would come very near to her eyes, when she saw nothing but the terrible red flag clinging to the pole over Mukee's cabin.
In the late snows, word came that Cummins was to take Williams' place as factor, and Per-ee at once set off for the Fond du Lac to bring back Jean de Gravois as "chief man." Croisset gave up his fox-hunting to fill Mukee's place. The changes brought new happiness to Melisse.
On the second day Mukee's people from the west set off along the edge of the barrens. Most of the others left by ones and twos into the wildernesses to the south and east. Less than a dozen still put off their return to the late spring trapping, and among these were Jean de Gravois and his wife. Jean waited until the third day. Then he went to see Jan.
She did not know the part that Mukee had played in the life of the sweet woman who had once lived in this same little cabin; she knew only that he was dead; that the terrible thing had killed him and that, next to her father and Jan, she had loved him more than any one else in the world. Soon she heard a strange sound, and ran to the window. Mukee's cabin was in flames.
He looked to the white cross which marked Mukee's grave in the edge of the forest, where the shadow of the big spruce fell across it at the end of summer evenings. "And he died," said Jean de Gravois, his dark hands clenched. "God forgive me, but I hate these red-necked men from across the sea." Croisset shrugged his shoulders. "Breeders of two-legged carrion-eaters!" he exclaimed fiercely.
The hollow cough of Mukee's father was smothered in the thick fur of his cap as he thrust his head from his little shack in the edge of the forest. A score of eyes watched Cummins as he came out into the snow, and the rough, loyal hearts of those who looked throbbed in fearful anticipation of the word he might be bringing to them.
The snow was softening rapidly, and the daily increasing warmth of the sun hastened the movement of the trappers. Mukee's people from the western Barren Lands arrived first, bringing with them great loads of musk-ox and caribou skins, and an army of big-footed, long-legged Mackenzie hounds that pulled like horses and wailed like whipped puppies when the huskies and Eskimo dogs set upon them.
That night, when Jan picked up his violin to go back to Mukee's cabin, Cummins put his two big hands on the boy's shoulders and said: "Jan, who are you, and where did you come from?" Jan stretched his arm vaguely to the north. "Jan Thoreau," he replied simply. "Thees is my violon. We come alone through the beeg snow." Cummins stared as if he saw a wonderful picture in the boy's eyes.
There were polar bears' teeth, brought down by the little black men who in turn had got them from the coast people; strange gods carved from wood; bits of fur, bushy fox tails, lynx paws, dried fruits, candy bought at fabulous prices in the store, and musk always and incessantly musk from Mukee's people of the west barrens. To Jan this homage to Melisse was more than gratifying.
It was the Englishman who stood looking through the tear in that curtained window. Mukee's moccasined feet made no sound. His hand fell as gently as a child's upon the stranger's arm. "Thees is not the honor of the beeg snows," he whispered. "Come!"
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