The Honor of the Big Snows Part 20

He dragged the Englishman to the side of the trail, and set his back to a tree. When he saw that fallen foeman's breath was coming more strongly, he followed slowly after Melisse.

Un.o.bserved, he went into the store and washed the blood from his face, chuckling with huge satisfaction when he looked at himself in the little gla.s.s which hung over the wash-basin.

"Ah, my sweet Iowaka, but would you guess now that Jean de Gravois had received two clouts on the side of the head that almost sent him into the blessed hereafter? I would not have had you see it for all the gold in this world!"

A little later he went to the cabin. Iowaka and the children were at Croisset's, and he sat down to smoke a pipe. Scarce had he begun sending up blue clouds of smoke when the door opened and Melisse came in.

"h.e.l.lo, ma chere," he cried gaily, laughing at her with a wave of his pipe.

In an instant she had flung the shawl from her head and was upon her knees at his feet, her white face turned up to him pleadingly, her breath falling upon him in panting, sobbing excitement.

"Jean, Jean!" she whispered, stretching up her hands to his face.

"Please tell me that you will never tell Jan--please tell me that you never will, Jean--never, never, never!"

"I will say nothing, Melisse."

"Never, Jean?"

"Never."

For a sobbing breath she dropped her head upon his knees. Then, suddenly, she drew down his face and kissed him.

"Thank you, Jean, for what you have done!"

"Mon Dieu!" gasped Jean when she had gone. "What if Iowaka had been here then?"

CHAPTER XXI

A BROKEN HEART

The day following the fight in the forest, Dixon found Jean de Gravois alone, and came up to him.

"Gravois, will you shake hands with me?" he said. "I want to thank you for what you did to me yesterday. I deserved it. I have asked Miss Melisse to forgive me--and I want to shake hands with you."

Jean was thunderstruck. He had never met this kind of man.

"Que diantre!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, when he had come to his senses. "Yes, I will shake hands!"

For several days after this Jean could see that Melisse made an effort to evade him. She did not visit Iowaka when he was in the cabin.

Neither did she and Dixon go again into the forest. The young Englishman spent more of his time at the store; and just before the trappers began coming in, he went on a three-days' sledge-trip with Croisset.

The change delighted Jean. The first time he met Melisse after the fight, his eyes flashed pleasure.

"Jan will surely be coming home soon," he greeted her. "What if the birds tell him what happened out there on the trail?"

She flushed scarlet.

"Perhaps the same birds will tell us what has happened down on the Nelson House trail, Jean," she retorted.

"Pouf! Jan Th.o.r.eau doesn't give the snap of his small finger for the MacVeigh girl!" Jean replied, warm in defense of his friend.

"She is pretty," laughed Melisse, "and I have just learned that is why men like to--like them, I mean."

Jean strutted before her like a peac.o.c.k.

"Am I pretty, Melisse?"

"No-o-o-o."

"Then why"--he shrugged his shoulders suggestively--"in the cabin--"

"Because you were brave, Jean. I love brave men!"

"You were glad that I pummeled the stranger, then?"

Melisse did not answer, but he caught a laughing sparkle in the corner of her eye as she left him.

"Come home, Jan Th.o.r.eau," he hummed softly, as he went to the store.

"Come home, come home, come home, for the little Melisse has grown into a woman, and is learning to use her eyes!"

Among the first of the trappers to come in with his furs was MacVeigh.

He brought word that Jan had gone south, to spend the annual holiday at Nelson House, and c.u.mmings told Melisse whence the message came. He did not observe the slight change that came into her face, and went on:

"I don't understand this in Jan. He is needed here for the carnival.

Did you know that he was going to Nelson House?"

Melisse shook her head.

"MacVeigh says they have made him an offer to go down there as chief man," continued the factor. "It is strange that he has sent no explanation to me!"

It was a week after the big caribou roast before Jan returned to Lac Bain. Melisse saw him drive in from the Churchill trail; but while her heart fluttered excitedly, she steeled herself to meet him with at least an equal show of the calm indifference with which he had left her six weeks before. The coolness of his leave-taking still rankled bitterly in her bosom. He had not kissed her; he had not even pa.s.sed his last evening with her.

But she was not prepared for the changed Jan Th.o.r.eau who came slowly through the cabin door. His hair and beard had grown, covering the smooth cheeks which he had always kept closely shaven. His eyes glowed with dull pleasure as she stood waiting for him, but there was none of the old flash and fire in them. There was a strangeness in his manner, an uneasiness in the shifting of his eyes, which caused the half-defiant flush to fade slowly from her cheeks before either had spoken. She had never known this Jan before, and her fort.i.tude left her as she approached him, wonderingly, silent, her hands reaching out to him.

"Jan!" she said.

Her voice trembled; her lips quivered. There was the old glorious pleading in her eyes, and before it Jan bowed his unkempt head, and crushed her hands tightly in his own. For a half-minute there was silence, and in that half-minute there came a century between them. At last Jan spoke.

"I'm glad to see you again, Melisse. It has seemed like a very long time!"

He lifted his eyes. Before them the girl involuntarily shrank back, and Jan freed her hands. In them she saw none of the old love-glow, nothing of their old comradeship. Inscrutable, reflecting no visible emotion, they pa.s.sed from her to the violin hanging on the wall.

"I have not played in so long," he said, turning from her, "that I believe I have forgotten."

He took down the instrument, and his fingers traveled clumsily over the strings. His teeth gleamed at her from out his half-inch growth of beard, as he said: