"I have not forgotten to love you, Melisse. I shall never cease to
love my little sister. But you are older now, and it is time for you
to do up your hair."
He turned, without looking at her again, leaving her standing with her
arms still half stretched out to him, and went from the cabin.
"Good-by, Jan!"
The words fell in a sobbing whisper from her, but he had gone too far
to hear. Through the window she saw him shake hands with Cummins in
front of the company's store. She watched him as he went to the cabin
of Iowaka and Jean. Then she saw him shoulder his pack, and, with
bowed head, disappear slowly into the depths of the black spruce
forest.
CHAPTER XXIII
JAN RETURNS
All that spring and summer Jan spent in the thick caribou swamps and
low ridge-mountains along the Barrens. It was two months before he
appeared at the post again, and then he remained only long enough to
patch himself up and secure fresh supplies.
Melisse had suffered quietly during these two months, a grief and
loneliness filling her heart which none knew but herself. Even from
Iowaka she kept her unhappiness a secret; and yet when the gloom had
settled heaviest upon her, she was still buoyed up by a persistent
hope. Until Jan's last visit to Lac Bain this hope never quite went
out.
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