The Honor of the Big Snows | Page 5

there was no one who noticed Jan the next day--except Mukee. He
was fed. His frozen blood grew warm. As life returned, he felt more
and more the pall of gloom that had settled over this spark of life in the
heart 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 said
nothing; he asked nothing; but he saw the spirit of adoration in the sad,
tense faces of the men. He saw it in the terror-stricken eyes of the wild
little children who had grown to worship Cummins' wife. He read 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 the
memory of a white, sweet face like the one that he had seen in the cabin.
He knew that this worship at Lac Bain was a pure worship, for the
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 more from
a southern settlement.
It meant what civilization could not understand--freezing and slow
starvation rather than theft, and respect for the tenth commandment
above all other things. It meant that up here, under the cold chill of the
northern skies, things were as God meant them to be, and that a few of
His creatures could live in a love that was neither possession nor sin.
A year after Cummins brought his wife into the North, a man came to
the post from Fort Churchill, on Hudson's Bay. He was an Englishman,
belonging to the home office of the Hudson's Bay Company in London.
He brought with him something new, as the woman had brought
something new; only in this instance it was an element of life which
Cummins' people could not understand.
It breathed of tragedy from the first, to the men of the post. To the
Englishman, on the other hand, it promised to be but an incident--a
passing adventure in pleasure. Here again was that difference of

viewpoint--the eternity of difference between the middle and the end of
the earth.
Cummins was away for a month on a trap-line that went into the Barren
Lands. At these times the woman fell as a heritage to those who
remained, 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.
The Englishman came from among women. For months he had been in
a torment of desolation. Cummins' wife was to him like a flower
suddenly come to relieve the tantalizing barrenness of a desert; and
with the wiles and ways of civilization he sought to breathe its
fragrance.
In the days and weeks that followed, he talked a great deal, when
heated by the warmth of the box stove and by his own thoughts; and
this was because he had not yet measured the hearts of Cummins'
people. And because the woman knew nothing of what was said about
the box stove, she continued in the even course of her pure life, neither
resisting nor encouraging the new-comer, yet ever tempting him with
that sweetness which she gave to all alike.
As yet there was no suspicion in her soul. She accepted the
Englishman's friendship, for he was a stranger among her people. She
did not hear the false note, she saw no step that promised evil. Only the
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 was good
and pure and beautiful to them; and yet, dumb in their devotion and
faith, they waited and watched for a sign from the woman. The blue
eyes of Cummins' wife, the words of her gentle lips, the touch of her
hands, had made law at the post. If she smiled upon the stranger and
talked with him, and was pleased with him, that was only one other law
that she had made for them to respect. So they were quiet, evaded the
Englishman as much as possible, and watched--always watched.

One day something happened. Cummins' wife came into the company's
store; and a quick flush shot into her cheeks, and the glitter of blue
diamonds into her eyes, when she saw the stranger standing there. The
man's red face grew redder, and he shifted his gaze. When Cummins'
wife passed him, she drew her skirt close to her; and there was the
poise of