The Honor of the Big Snows - James Oliver Curwood (best ereader for pdf and epub .txt) 📗

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. He carried a pack, and six dogs trailed at his heels. It was Jan Thoreau.
"I have been down to civilization," was his explanation. "I have returned to spend this winter at Lac Bain."


CHAPTER XXIV
THE RESCUE
On the first snow came young Dixon from Fort Churchill. Jean de Gravois met him on the trail near Ledoq's. When the Englishman recognized the little Frenchman he leaped from his sledge and advanced with outstretched hand, his face lighting up with pleasure.
"Bless me, if it isn't my old friend, Jean!" he cried. "I was just thinking of you, Gravois, and how you trimmed me to a finish two winters ago. I've learned a lot about you people up here in the snows since then, and I'll never do anything like that again." He laughed into Jean's face as they shook hands, and his voice was filled with unbounded sincerity. "How is Mrs. Gravois, and the little Gravois--and Melisse?" he added, before Jean had spoken.
"All well, M'seur Dixon," replied Jean. "Only the little Gravois have almost grown into a man and woman."
An hour or so later he said to Iowaka:
"I can't help liking this man Dixon, and yet I don't want to. Why is it, do you suppose?"
"Is it because you are afraid that Melisse will like him?" asked his wife, smiling over her shoulder.
"Blessed saints, I believe that it is!" said Jean frankly. "I hate foreigners--and Melisse belongs to Jan."
"She did, once, but that was a long time ago, Jean."
"It may be, and yet I doubt it, ma bien aimee. If Jan would tell her--"
"A woman will not wait always," interrupted Iowaka softly. "Jan Thoreau has waited too long!"
A week later, as they stood together in front of their door, they saw Dixon and Melisse walking slowly in the edge of the forest. The woman laughed into Jean's face.
"Did I not say that Jan had waited too long?"
Jean's face was black with disapprobation.
"Then you would have taken up with some foreigner if I had remained in the Athabasca country another year or two?" he demanded questioningly.
"Very likely," retorted Iowaka mischievously, running into the cabin.
"The devil!" said Jean sourly, stalking in the direction of the store.
He was angered at the coolness with which Jan accepted the situation.
"This Dixon is with Melisse afternoon and evening, and they walk together every day in the bush," he said to him. "Soon there will be a wedding at Lac Bain!"
"Melisse deserves a good man," replied Jan, unmoved. "I like Dixon."
Deep down in his soul he knew that each day was bringing the end of it all much nearer for him. He did not tell Melisse that he had returned to Lac Bain to be near her once more, nor did he confide in Jean. He had anticipated that this winter at the post would be filled with a certain painful pleasure for him--but he had not anticipated Dixon. Day after day he saw Melisse and the Englishman together, and while they awakened in him none of the fiery jealousy which might have rankled in the bosom of Jean de Gravois, the knowledge that the girl was at last passing from him for ever added a deeper grief to that which was already eating at his heart.
Dixon made no effort to conceal his feelings. He loved Melisse. Frankly he told this to Jean one day, when they were on the Churchill trail. In his honest way he said things which broke down the last of Jean's hereditary prejudices, and compelled him to admit that this was a different sort of foreigner than he had ever known before.
"Diable, I like him," he said to himself; "and yet I would rather see him in the blessed hereafter than have him take Melisse from Jan!"
The big snow decided.
It came early in December. Dixon had set out alone for Ledoq's early in the morning. By noon the sky was a leaden black, and a little later one could not see a dozen paces ahead of him for the snow. The Englishman did not return that day. The next day he was still gone, and Gravois drove along the top of the mountain ridge until he came to the Frenchman's, where he found that Dixon had started for Lac Bain the preceding afternoon. He brought word back to the post. Then he went to Melisse.
"It is as good as death to go out in search of him," he said. "We can no longer use the dogs. Snowshoes will sink like leaden bullets by morning, and to go ten miles from the post means that there will be bones to be picked by the foxes when the crust comes!"
It was dark when Jan came into the cabin. Melisse started to her feet with a little cry when he entered, covered white with the snow. A light pack was strapped to his back, and he carried his rifle in his hand.
"I am going to hunt for him," he said softly. "If he is alive, I will bring him back to you."
She came to him slowly, and the beating of Jan's heart sounded to him like the distant thrumming of partridge-wings. Ah, would he ever forget that look? The old glory was in her eyes, her arms were reaching out, her lips parted. Jan knew how the Great Spirit had once appeared to Mukee, and how a white mist, like a snow-veil, had come between the half-breed's eyes and the wondrous Thing he beheld. That same veil drifted between Jan and the girl. As in a vision, he saw her face so near to him that he felt the touch of her sweet breath, and he knew that one of his rough hands was clasped in both of her own, and that after a moment it was crushed tightly against her bosom.
"Jan, my hero--"
He struggled back, almost sobbing, as he plunged out into the night again. He heard her voice crying after him, but the wild wailing of the spruce, and the storm in his brain, drowned its words. He had seen the glorious light of love in her eyes--her love for Dixon! And he would find him! At last he, Jan Thoreau, would prove that the old love was not dead within him; he would do for Melisse this night--to- morrow--the next day, and until he fell down to die--what he had promised to do on their sledge-ride to Ledoq's. And then--
He went to Ledoq's now, following the top of the mountain, and reached his cabin in the late dawn. The Frenchman stared at him in amazement when he learned that he was about to set out on a search for Dixon.
"You will not find him," he said slowly in French; "but if you are determined to go, I will hunt with you. It is a big chance that we will not come back."
"I don't want you to go," objected Jan. "One will do as much as two, unless we search alone. I came your way to find if it had begun to snow before Dixon left."
"An hour after he had gone, you could not see your hand before your face," replied Ledoq, preparing his pack. "There is no doubt but that he circled out over Lac Bain. We will go that far together, and then search alone."
They went back over the mountain, and stopped when instinct told them that they were opposite the spruce forests of the lake. There they separated, Jan going as nearly as he could guess into the northwest, Ledoq trailing slowly and hopelessly into the south.
It was no great sacrifice for Jan, this struggle with the big snows for the happiness of Melisse. What it was to Ledoq no man ever guessed or knew, for it was not until the late spring snows had gone that the people at Lac Bain found what the foxes and the wolves had left of him, far to the south.
Fearlessly Jan plunged into the white world of the lake. There was neither rock nor tree to guide him, for everywhere was the heavy ghost-raiment of the Indian god. The balsams were bending under it, the spruces were breaking into hunchback forms, the whole world was twisted in noiseless torture under its increasing weight. Out through the still terror of it all Jan's voice went in wild, echoing shouts. Now and then he fired his rifle, and always he listened long and intently. The echoes came back to him, laughing, taunting, and then each time fell the mirthless silence of the storm.
Day came, only a little lighter than the night. He crossed the lake, his snow-shoes sinking ankle-deep at every step, and once each half- hour he fired a single shot from his rifle. He heard shots to the south, and knew that it was Ledoq; each report coming to him more faintly than the last, until they had died away entirely.
Across the lake he struck the forest again, and his shouts echoed in futile inquiry in its weird depths. About him there was no sign of life, no sound except the faint fluttering of falling snow. Under five feet of this snow the four-footed creatures of the wilderness were snugly buried; close against the trunks of the spruces, sheltered within their tent-like coverings, the birds waited like lifeless things for the breaking of the storm.
At noon Jan stopped and ate his lunch. Then he went on, carrying his rifle always upon his right shoulder, so that the steps of his right leg would be shortened, and he would travel in a circle, as he believed Dixon had done.
The storm thickened with the falling of night, and he burrowed himself a great hole in the soft snow and filled it with balsam boughs for a bed. When he awakened, hours later, he stood up, and thrust out his head, and found himself buried to the arm-pits. With the aid of his broad snow-shoes he drew himself out, until he stood knee-deep in the surface.
He lifted his pack. As he swung it before him, one arm thrust through a strap, he gave a startled cry. Half of one side of the pack was eaten away! He thrust his hands through the breach, and a moan of despair sobbed on his lips when he found that his food was gone. A thin trickle of flour ran through his fingers upon the snow. He pulled out a gnawed pound of bacon, a little tea--and that was all.
Frantically he ripped the rent wider in his search, and when he stood up, his wild face staring into the chaos about him, he held only the bit of bacon in his hand. In it were the imprints of tiny teeth--sharp little razor-edged teeth that told him what had happened. While he had slept a mink had robbed him of his food!
With one of his