And there was no one who noticed Jan the next day--except Mukee. He
was fed. His frozen blood grew warm. As life returned, he felt more
and more the pall of gloom that had settled over this spark of life in
the heart of the wilderness. He had seen the woman, in life and in
death, and he, too, loved her and grieved that she was no more. He
said nothing; he asked nothing; but he saw the spirit of adoration in
the sad, tense faces of the men. He saw it in the terror-stricken eyes
of the wild little children who had grown to worship Cummins' wife. He
read it in the slinking stillness of the dogs, in the terrible,
pulseless quiet that had settled about him.
It was not hard for Jan to understand, for he, too, worshiped the
memory of a white, sweet face like the one that he had seen in the
cabin. He knew that this worship at Lac Bain was a pure worship, for
the honor of the big snows was a part of his soul. It was his
religion, and the religion of these others who lived four hundred
miles or more from a southern settlement.
It meant what civilization could not understand--freezing and slow
starvation rather than theft, and respect for the tenth commandment
above all other things. It meant that up here, under the cold chill of
the northern skies, things were as God meant them to be, and that a
few of His creatures could live in a love that was neither possession
nor sin.
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