One morning the moose-horn called
Cummins to the door. It was the fifth day after Williams had gone
south.
"There was no smoke this morning, and I looked through the window,"
shouted Croisset. "Mukee and the old man are both dead. I'm going to
burn the cabin."
A stifled groan of anguish fell from Cummins' lips as he went like a
dazed man to his cot and flung himself face downward upon it. Melisse
could see his strong frame shaking, as if he were crying like a child;
and twining her arms tightly about his neck, she sobbed out her
passionate grief against his rough cheek. She did not know the part
that Mukee had played in the life of the sweet woman who had once
lived in this same little cabin; she knew only that he was dead; that
the terrible thing had killed him and that, next to her father and
Jan, she had loved him more than any one else in the world.
Soon she heard a strange sound, and ran to the window. Mukee's cabin
was in flames. Wild-eyed and tearless with horror, she watched the
fire as it burst through the broken windows and leaped high up among
the black spruce. In those flames was Mukee! She screamed, and her
father sprang to her with a strange cry, running with her from the
window into the little room where she slept.
The next morning, when Cummins went to awaken her, his face went as
white as death.
Pages:
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116