The Honor of the Big Snows Read online

  CHAPTER II

  MUKEE'S STORY

  For many minutes after the last gentle breath had passed from thewoman's lips, Jan Thoreau played softly upon his violin. It was thegreat, heart-broken sob of John Cummins that stopped him. As tenderlyas if she had fallen into a sweet sleep from which he feared to awakenher, the man unclasped his arms and lowered his wife's head to thepillow; and with staring black eyes Jan crushed his violin against hisragged breast and watched him as he smoothed back the shimmering hairand looked long and hungrily into the still, white face.

  Cummins turned to him, and, in the dim light of the cabin, their eyesmet. It was then that Jan Thoreau knew what had happened. He forgot hisstarvation. He crushed his violin closer, and whispered to himself:

  "The white angel ees--gone!"

  Cummins rose from the bedside, slowly, like a man who had suddenlygrown old. His moccasined feet dragged as he went to the door. Theystumbled when he went out into the pale star-glow of the night.

  Jan followed, swaying weakly, for the last of his strength had gone inthe playing of the violin. Midway in the cabin he paused, and his eyesglowed with a wild, strange grief as he gazed down upon the still faceof Cummins' wife, beautiful in death as it had been in life, and withthe sweet softness of life still lingering there. Some time, ages andages ago, he had known such a face, and had felt the great clutchinglove of it.

  Something drew him to where John Cummins had knelt, and he fell uponhis knees and gazed hungrily and longingly where John Cummins hadgazed. His pulse was beating feebly, the weakness of seven days'starvation blurred his eyes, and unconsciously he sank over the bed andone of his thin hands touched the soft sweep of the woman's hair. Astifled cry fell from him as he jerked himself rigidly erect; and as iffor the desecration of that touch there was but one way of forgiveness,he drew his violin half to his shoulder, and for a few moments playedso softly that none but the spirit of the woman and himself could hear.

  Cummins had partly closed the door after him; but watchers had seen theopening of it. A door opened here, and another there, and paths ofyellow light flashed over the hard-trodden snow as shadowy life cameforth to greet what message he brought from the little cabin.

  Beyond those flashes of light there was no other movement, and nosound. Dark figures stood motionless. The lonely howl of a sledge-dogended in a wail of pain as some one kicked it into terrified silence.The hollow cough of Mukee's father was smothered in the thick fur ofhis cap as he thrust his head from his little shack in the edge of theforest. A score of eyes watched Cummins as he came out into the snow,and the rough, loyal hearts of those who looked throbbed in fearfulanticipation of the word he might be bringing to them.

  Sometimes a nation ceases to breathe in the last moments of its dyingchief, and the black wings of calamity gather over its people,enshrouding them in a strange gloom and a stranger fear; and so,because the greatest of all tragedies had come into their little world,Cummins' people were speechless in their grief and their waiting forthe final word. And when the word came to them at last, and passed fromlip to lip, and from one grim, tense face to another, the doors closedagain, and the lights went out one by one, until there remained onlythe yellow eye of the factor's office and the faint glow from thelittle cabin in which John Cummins knelt with his sobbing face crushedclose to that of his dead.

  There was no one who noticed Jan Thoreau when he came through the doorof the factor's office. His coat of caribou-skin was in tatters. Hisfeet thrust themselves from the toes of his moccasins. His face was sothin and white that it shone with the pallor of death from its frame ofstraight dark hair. His eyes gleamed like black diamonds. The madnessof hunger was in him.

  An hour before, death had been gripping at his throat, when he stumbledupon the lights of the post, That night he would have died in the deepsnows. Wrapped in its thick coat of bearskin he clutched his violin tohis breast, and sank down in a ragged heap beside the hot stove. Hiseyes traveled about him in fierce demand. There is no beggary amongthese strong-souled men of the far North, and Jan's lips did not beg.He unwrapped the bearskin, and whispered:

  "For the museek of the violon--somet'ing to eat!"

  He played, even as the words fell from him, but only for a moment--forthe bow slipped from his nerveless grip and his head sank forward uponhis breast.

  In the half-Cree's eyes there was something of the wild beauty thatgleamed in Jan's. For an instant those eyes had met in the savagerecognition of blood; and when Jan's head fell weakly, and his violinslipped to the floor, Mukee lifted him in his strong arms and carriedhim to the shack in the edge of the spruce and balsam.

  And there was no one who noticed Jan the next day--except Mukee. He wasfed. His frozen blood grew warm. As life returned, he felt more andmore the pall of gloom that had settled over this spark of life in theheart of the wilderness. He had seen the woman, in life and in death,and he, too, loved her and grieved that she was no more. He saidnothing; he asked nothing; but he saw the spirit of adoration in thesad, tense faces of the men. He saw it in the terror-stricken eyes ofthe wild little children who had grown to worship Cummins' wife. Heread it in the slinking stillness of the dogs, in the terrible,pulseless quiet that had settled about him.

  It was not hard for Jan to understand, for he, too, worshiped thememory of a white, sweet face like the one that he had seen in thecabin. He knew that this worship at Lac Bain was a pure worship, forthe honor of the big snows was a part of his soul. It was his religion,and the religion of these others who lived four hundred miles or morefrom a southern settlement.

  It meant what civilization could not understand--freezing and slowstarvation rather than theft, and respect for the tenth commandmentabove all other things. It meant that up here, under the cold chill ofthe northern skies, things were as God meant them to be, and that a fewof His creatures could live in a love that was neither possession norsin.

  A year after Cummins brought his wife into the North, a man came to thepost from Fort Churchill, on Hudson's Bay. He was an Englishman,belonging to the home office of the Hudson's Bay Company in London. Hebrought with him something new, as the woman had brought something new;only in this instance it was an element of life which Cummins' peoplecould not understand.

  It breathed of tragedy from the first, to the men of the post. To theEnglishman, on the other hand, it promised to be but an incident--apassing adventure in pleasure. Here again was that difference ofviewpoint--the eternity of difference between the middle and the end ofthe earth.

  Cummins was away for a month on a trap-line that went into the BarrenLands. At these times the woman fell as a heritage to those whoremained, and they watched over her as a parent might guard its child.Yet the keenest eyes would not have perceived that this was so.

  With Cummins gone, the tragedy progressed swiftly toward finality. TheEnglishman came from among women. For months he had been in a tormentof desolation. Cummins' wife was to him like a flower suddenly come torelieve the tantalizing barrenness of a desert; and with the wiles andways of civilization he sought to breathe its fragrance.

  In the days and weeks that followed, he talked a great deal, whenheated by the warmth of the box stove and by his own thoughts; and thiswas because he had not yet measured the hearts of Cummins' people. Andbecause the woman knew nothing of what was said about the box stove,she continued in the even course of her pure life, neither resistingnor encouraging the new-comer, yet ever tempting him with thatsweetness which she gave to all alike.

  As yet there was no suspicion in her soul. She accepted theEnglishman's friendship, for he was a stranger among her people. Shedid not hear the false note, she saw no step that promised evil. Onlythe men at the post heard, and saw, and understood.

  Like so many faithful beasts, they were ready to spring, to rend flesh,to tear life out of him who threatened the desecration of all that wasgood and pure and beautiful to them; and yet, dumb in their devotionand faith, they waited and watched for a sign from the woman. The blueeyes of Cummins' wife
, the words of her gentle lips, the touch of herhands, had made law at the post. If she smiled upon the stranger andtalked with him, and was pleased with him, that was only one other lawthat she had made for them to respect. So they were quiet, evaded theEnglishman as much as possible, and watched--always watched.

  One day something happened. Cummins' wife came into the company'sstore; and a quick flush shot into her cheeks, and the glitter of bluediamonds into her eyes, when she saw the stranger standing there. Theman's red face grew redder, and he shifted his gaze. When Cummins' wifepassed him, she drew her skirt close to her; and there was the poise ofa queen in her head, the glory of wife and womanhood, the living,breathing essence of all that was beautiful in her people's honor ofthe big snows.

  That night Mukee, the half-Cree, slunk around in the edge of the forestto see that all was well in Cummins' little home. Once Mukee hadsuffered a lynx-bite that went clear to the bone, and the woman hadsaved his hand. After that, the savage in him was enslaved to her likean invisible spirit.

  He crouched for a few minutes in the snow, looking at the pale filterof light that came through a hole in the curtain of the woman's window;and as he looked something came between him and the light. Against thecabin he saw the shadow of a sneaking human form; and as silently asthe steely flash of the aurora over his head, as swiftly as a leandeer, he sped through the gloom of the forest's edge and came up behindthe woman's home.

  With the caution of a lynx, his head close to the snow, he peeredaround the logs. It was the Englishman who stood looking through thetear in that curtained window.

  Mukee's moccasined feet made no sound. His hand fell as gently as achild's upon the stranger's arm.

  "Thees is not the honor of the beeg snows," he whispered. "Come!"

  A sickly pallor filled the other man's face; but Mukee's voice was softand dispassionate, his touch was velvety in its hint, and he went withthe guiding hand away from the curtained window, smiling in acompanionable way. Mukee's teeth gleamed back. The Englishman chuckled.

  Then Mukee's hands changed. They flew to the thick, reddening throat ofthe man from civilization, and without a sound the two sank togetherupon the snow.

  The next day a messenger behind six dogs set out for Fort Churchill,with word for the company's home office that the Englishman had died inthe big snow--which was true.

  Mukee told this to Jan, for there was the bond of blood between them.It was a painting of life, and love, and purity. Deep down in theloneliness of his heart, Jan Thoreau, in his own simple way, thankedthe great God that it had been given to him to play his violin as thewoman died.