Men dragged themselves into the posts, wifeless
and childless, leaving deep in the wilderness all that they had known
to love and give them comfort. Now and then came a woman, and around
the black scars of burned cabins and teepees dogs howled mournfully
for masters that were gone.
The plague had taken a thousand souls, and yet the laughing, dancing
millions in that other big world beyond the edge of the wilderness
caught only a passing rumor of what had happened.
Lac Bain suffered least of the far northern posts, with the exception
of Churchill, where the icy winds down-pouring from the Arctic had
sent the Red Terror shivering to the westward. In the late snows, word
came that Cummins was to take Williams' place as factor, and Per-ee at
once set off for the Fond du Lac to bring back Jean de Gravois as
"chief man." Croisset gave up his fox-hunting to fill Mukee's place.
The changes brought new happiness to Melisse. Croisset's wife was a
good woman who had spent her girlhood in Montreal, and Iowaka, now the
mother of a fire-eating little Jean and a handsome daughter, was a
soft-voiced young Venus who had grown sweeter and prettier with her
years--which is not usually the case with half-breed women.
"But it's good blood in her, beautiful blood," vaunted Jean proudly,
whenever the opportunity came.
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