She was to be like
her mother! Jan's soul rejoiced, and in his silent way Cummins offered
up wordless prayers of thankfulness.
So matters stood at Post Lac Bain in the beginning of Melisse's ninth
year, when up from the south there came a rumor. As civil war spreads
its deepest gloom, as the struggle of father against son and brother
against brother stifles the breathing of nations, so this rumor set
creeping a deep pall over the forest people.
Rumor grew into rumor. From the east, the south and the west they
multiplied, until on all sides the Paul Reveres of the wilderness
carried news that the Red Terror was at their heels, and the chill of
a great fear swept like a shivering wind from the edge of civilization
to the bay.
CHAPTER XIII
THE RED TERROR
Nineteen years before these same rumors had come up from the south,
and the Red Terror had followed. The horror of it still remained with
the forest people; for a thousand unmarked graves, shunned like a
pestilence, and scattered from the lower waters of James Bay to the
lake country of the Athabasca, gave evidence of the toll it demanded.
From DuBrochet, on Reindeer Lake, authentic word first came to Lac
Bain early in the winter. Henderson was factor there, and he passed up
the warning that had come to him from Nelson House and the country to
the southeast.
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