"
"Even the things you played when I was a baby?"
"I think I have, Melisse. But you must never forget them."
"I shall remember them--always," she answered softly. "Some day it may
be that I will teach them to you again."
He did not see her again until six months later, when he came in to
the caribou roast, with his furs. Then he learned that another letter
had come to Melisse, and that Dixon had gone to London instead of
coming to Lac Bain.
The day after the carnival he went back into the country of the
Athabasca. Spring did not see him at Lac Bain. Early summer brought no
news of him. In the floods, Jean went by the water-way to the
Athabasca, and found Thoreau's cabin abandoned. There had not been
life in it for a long time. The Indians said that since the melting
snows they had not seen Jan. A half-breed whom Jean met at Fond du Lac
said that he had found the bones of a white man on the Beaver, with a
Hudson's Bay gun and a horn-handled knife beside them.
Jean came back to Lac Bain heavy at heart.
"There is no doubt but that he is dead," he told Iowaka. "I do not
believe that it will hurt very much if you tell Melisse."
One day early in September a lone figure came in to the post at noon,
when the company people were at dinner.
Pages:
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192