James Oliver Curwood

“ For an instant he thought that Thornton must have guessed his secret.
"Yes, m'sieur."
Thornton leaned toward him, gripping his knees, and the misery in his face was deeper than Jan had ever seen it before.
"I love a woman—like that," he went on tensely. "A girl—not a woman, and she is one of your people, Jan—of the north, as innocent as a flower, more beautiful to ME than—than all the women I have ever seen before. She is at Oxford House. I am going home to—to save myself." "Save yourself!" cried Jan. "Mon Dieu, m'sieur—does she not love you?" ”

“ A shrill, quavering cry came from the direction of Mukee's cabin, and the two recognized it as the voice of the half-breed's father—a wordless cry, rising and dying away again and again, like the wailing of a dog. Sudden lights flashed into the night, as they had flashed years ago when Cummins staggered forth from his home with word of the woman's death. He gripped Jan's arm in a sudden spasm of horror.
"The flag is up NOW!" he whispered huskily. "Go back to Mélisse. There is food in the house for a month, and you can bring the wood in to-night. Bar the door. ”

“ With a great sighing breath that was almost a sob, he bowed his head upon his arms.
"Jan Thoreau," whispered Jean softly, "have you forgotten that it was I who killed the missioner for you, and that through all of these years Jean de Gravois has never questioned you about the fight on the mountain top?" There was in his voice, as gentle as a woman's, the vibrant note of a comradeship which is next to love—the comradeship of man for man in a world where friendship is neither bought nor sold. "Have you forgotten, Jan Thoreau? If there is anything Jean de Gravois can do?" ”

“ Kazan laid his wolfish head across his master's knees, his one eye upon him steadily and questioningly. Never in all his years of life had Jan felt the depth of loneliness that swept upon him now, as he looked into the North. Below him the Saskatchewan lay white and silent; beyond it he could see the dark edge of the forest, and far, far, beyond that, hovering low in the sky, the polar star. It burned faintly now, almost like a thousand other stars that he saw, and the aurora was only a fading glow. ”

“ When he found it, he thrust in the papers, crowded them down, and filled the hole with chunks of bark.
"Always my sister—and never anything more to Jan Thoreau," he said gently in French, as if he were speaking to a spirit in the old tree. "That is the honor of these snows; it is what the great God means us to be." The strife had gone from his voice; it rose strong and clear as he stretched his arms high up along the shorn side of the spruce, his eyes upon the silent plume that heard his oath. "I swear that Jan Thoreau will never do wrong to the little Mélisse!" ”

“ He always spoke in French to Jan. "There is but one person in the world who looks better in it than your Mélisse, Jan Thoreau, and that is Iowaka, my wife. Blessed saints, man, but is she not growing more beautiful every day?"
"Yes," said Jan. "She will soon be a woman."
"A woman!" shouted Jean, who, not having his caribou whip, jumped up and down to emphasize his words. "She will soon be a woman, did you say, Jan Thoreau? And if she is not a woman at thirty, with two children—God send others like them!—when will she be, I ask you?" ”

“ Later, the restless spirit slumbering within his breast urged him to speak to Cummins.
"When Mélisse is a little older, should we not go with her into the
South?" he said. "She must not live for ever in a place like this."
Cummins looked at him for an instant as if he did not understand. When Jan's meaning struck home, his eyes hardened, and there was the vibrant ring of steel in his quiet voice.
"Her mother will be out there under the old spruce until the end of time," he said slowly; "and we will never leave her—unless, some day, Mélisse goes alone." ”

“ With a low cry Jean sprang to his feet.
"Do you mean that, Jan Thoreau? Do you mean to give the knife-challenge to one who has staked his life for you and who loves you as a brother?"
"Yes," said Jan deliberately. "I love you, Jean more than any other man in the world; and yet I will kill you if you betray me to Mélisse!" He rose to his feet and stretched out his hands to the little Frenchman. "Jean, wouldn't you do as I am doing? Wouldn't you have done as much for Iowaka?" ”

“ I will take this word for you, m'sieur, and I will take more, for I will tell her what it has been the kind fate for Jan Thoreau to find in the heart of M'sieur Thornton. She is one of my people, and she will forgive, and love you more for what you have done. For this, m'sieur, is what the Cree god has given to his people as the honor of the great snows. She will still love you, and if there is to be hope it will burn in HER breast, too. ”

“ There is a woman down there who—who is my wife. She would be glad if I never returned. She is happy now, when I am away, and I have been happy—for a time. I know what love is. I have felt it. I have lived it. God forgive me, but I am almost tempted to go back—to HER!"
He stopped at the change which had come in Jan, who stood as straight and as still as the blank spruce behind them, with only his eyes showing that there was life in him. Those eyes held Thornton's. They burned upon him through the gray gloom as he had never seen human eyes burn before. He waited, half startled, and Jan spoke. ”

“ The sounds filled him with fierce strength. He wiped away the warm trickle of blood that ran over his cheek, and began to run, slowly at first, swinging in the easy wolf-lope of the forest runner, with his elbows close to his sides.
At that pace he could have followed for hours, losing when the pack took a spurt, gaining when they lagged, an insistent Nemesis just behind when the weighted dogs lay down in their traces. But there was neither the coolness of Mukee nor the cleverness of Jean de Gravois in the manner of Jan's running. ”

“ It was a strange tree, weird and black, free of stub or bough for a hundred feet, and from far out on the barrens those who traveled their solitary ways east and west knew that it was a monument shaped by men. Mukee had told Jan its story. In the first autumn of the woman's life at Lac Bain, he and Per-ee had climbed the old spruce, lopping off its branches until only the black cap remained; and after that it was known far and wide as the "lobstick" of Cummins' wife. It was a voiceless cenotaph which signified that all the honor and love known to the wilderness people had been given to her. ”

“ There was no movement in the factor's office. The dogs were gone, and wolves and lynx sniffed closer each night. In the oppression of this desertion, the few Indian and half-breed children kept indoors, and Williams' Chippewayan wife, fat and lazy, left the company's store securely locked.
In this silence and lifelessness Jan Thoreau felt a new and ever-increasing happiness. To him the sound of life was a thing vibrant with harshness; quiet—the dead, pulseless quiet of lifelessness—was beautiful. He dreamed in it, and it was then that his fingers discovered new things in his violin. ”

“ And my Iowaka did nothing but laugh and call me a clumsy dear!"
"You're terribly in love, Jean," cried Mélisse, laughing until her eyes were wet; "just like some of the people in the books which Jan and I read."
"And I always shall be, my dear, so long as the daughter of a princess and the great-granddaughter of a chef de bataillon allows me to mix her dough!" ”

“ No man learned more of him than had Cummins. Even to Mukee, his history was equally simple and short. Always he said that he came from out of the north—which meant the Barren Lands; and the Barren Lands meant death. No man had ever come across them as Jan had come; and at another time, and under other circumstances, Cummins and his people would have believed him mad.
But others had listened to that strange, sweet music that came to them from out of the forest on the night when the woman died, and they, like Cummins, had been stirred by thrilling thoughts. ”

“ That same day he took the little cloth-covered roll from the violin and gave it another hiding-place. It recalled to him the strange spirit which had once moved him at Fort Churchill, and which had remained with him for a time at Lac Bain. That spirit was now gone, luring him no longer. Time had drawn a softening veil over things that had passed. He was happy.
The wilderness became more beautiful to him as Mélisse grew older. Each summer increased his happiness; each succeeding winter made it larger and more complete. ”

“ Thornton rose and stretched out a hand.
"It can't be too hard for me," he said. "I wish—"
He stopped, and something in his low voice made Jan look straight into his eyes. For a moment they gazed at each other in silence, and again Jan saw in Thornton's face the look of loneliness and grief which he had first seen in the half gloom of the hotel. It was the suppressed note in Thornton's voice, of despair almost, that struck him deepest, and made him hold the other's hand a moment longer. Then he turned to his pack upon the sledge. ”

“ 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.
Melisse's hair was brown and soft, and it shone with a sunny glory that reached far back into their conception of things dreamed of but never seen. ”

“ When he heard the cracking of the whip growing fainter, he dropped his arms straight to his sides and ran more swiftly, his brain reeling with the madness of his desire to reach the sledge—to drag from it the man who had struck him, to choke life from the face that haunted that mental picture of his, grinning at him and gloating always from the shadow world, just beyond the pale, sweet loveliness of the woman who lived in it. ”