ad made for them to
respect. So they were quiet, evaded the Englishman as much as possible,
and watched--always watch ed.

These were days when something worse than disease was eating at the few
big honest hearts that made up the life at the post. The search for
Cummins never ceased, and always the woman was receiving hope. Now it
was Williams who went far into the South, and brought back word that a
strange white man had been seen among the Indians; then it was Thoreau,
the Frenchman, who skirted the edge of the Barren Lands three days into
the West, and said that he had found the signs of strange campfires.
And always Jan was on the move, to the South, the North, the East and
the West. The days began to lengthen. It was dawn now at eight o'clock
instead of nine, the silvery white of the sun was turning day by day
more into the glow of fire, and for a few minutes at midday the snow
softened and water dripped from the roofs.

Jan knew what it meant. Very soon the thick crust of the "Beeg Snow"
would drop in, and they would find Cummins. They would bring what was
left of him back to the post. And then--what would happen then?

Every day or two Jan found some pretext that took him to the little log
cabin. Now it was to convey to the woman a haunch of a caribou he had
slain. Again it was to bring her child a strange plaything from the
forest. More frequently it was to do the work that Cummins would have
done. He seldom went within the low door, but stood outside, speaking a
few words, while Cummins' wife talked to him. But one morning, when the
sun was shining down with the first promising warmth of spring, the
woman stepped hack from the door and asked him in.

"I want to tell you something, Jan," she said softly. "I have been
thinking about it for a long time. I must find some work to do. I must
do something--to earn--money."

Jan's eyes leaped straight to hers in sudden horror.

"Work!"

The word fell from him as if in its utterance there was something of
crime. Then he stood speechless, awed by the look in her eyes, the hard
gray pallor that came into her face.

"May God bless you for all you have done, Jan, and may God bless the
others! I want you to take that word to them from me. But he will never
come back, Jan--never. Tell the men that I love them as brothers, and
always shall love them, but now that I know he is dead I can no longer
live as a drone among them. I will do anything. I will make your coats,