ight hand or
shoulder, for he knew this weight would shorten the distance traveled
at each step by his right foot, and would make him go in a circle that
would bring him back to the lake. But it was a long circle. The day
passed. A second night fell upon him, and his hope of finding Cummins
was gone. A chill crept in where his heart had been so warm, and
somehow that soft pressure of a woman's hand upon his seemed to become
less and less real to him. The woman's prayers were following him, her
heart was throbbing with its hope in him--and he had failed! On the
third day, when the storm was over, Jan staggered hopelessly into the
post. He went straight to the woman, disgraced, heartbroken. When he
came out of the little cabin he seemed to have gone mad. A wondrously
strange thing had happened. He had spoken not a word, but his failure
and his sufferings were written in his face, and when Cummins' wife saw
and understood she went as white as the underside of a poplar leaf in a
clouded sun. But that was not all. 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.

On the first crust of the new snow came the Englishman up from Fort
Churchill, on Hudson's Bay. He came behind six dogs, and was driven by
an Indian, and he bore letters to the factor which proclaimed him
something of considerable importance at the home office of the Company,
in London. As such he was given the best bed in the factor's rude home.
On the second day he saw Cummins' wife at the Company's store, and very
soon learned the history of Cummins' disappearance.

That was the beginning of the real tragedy at the post. The wilderness
is a grim oppressor of life. To those who survive in it the going out
of life is but an incident, an irresistible and natural thing,
unpleasant but without horror. So it was with the passing of Cummins.
But the Englishman brought with him something new, as the woman had
brought something new, only in this instance it was an element of life
which Jan and his people could not understand, an element which had
never found a place, and never could, in the hearts and souls of the
post. On the other hand, it promised to