At last he gasped "Jan!" and threw out his arms, so that both were
caught in their embrace.
For an instant Jan turned his face up to the light The other stared
and understood.
"You have been sick," he said, "but it has left no marks."
"Thank God!" breathed Jan.
Melisse raised her head, and stroked his cheeks with her two hands.
That night she remembered her prayer, and at its end she added:
"Dear Father in Heaven, thank you for sending back Jan!"
CHAPTER XV
ALMOST A WOMAN
Peace followed in the blighted trails of the Red Terror. Again the
forest world breathed without fear; but from Hudson's Bay to
Athabasca, and as far south as the thousand waters of the Reindeer
country, the winds whispered of a terrible grief that would remain
until babes were men and men went to their graves.
Life had been torn and broken in a cataclysm more fearful than that
which levels cities and disrupts the earth. Slowly it began its
readjustment. There was no other life to give aid or sympathy; and
just as they had suffered alone, so now the forest people struggled
back into life alone, building up from the wreck of what had been, the
things that were to be.
For months the Crees wailed their death dirges as they sought out the
bones of their dead.
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