and her cheeks glowed with animation whenever she thought of the joy of going home.  Seldom were her loved ones out of her mind, and she pictured her father’s delight when she opened the door and walked in, clad in her caribou-suit.  How the people of the settlement would throng around her, and what a story she would have to tell.  She wondered what had become of Dane.  She believed that he was frantically searching for her, and the hope dwelt in her heart that he might find her and they would go home together.

After a week of steady training Jean was anxious to begin the journey.  When she mentioned this to Sam he shook his head and looked up at the moon which was shining above the tree-tops.

“Pu-sa-nuts se-pa-wun-ok,” he said.

Seeing the puzzled expression upon the girl’s face, he laughed.

“Beeg snow soon.”

“How do you know?”

“Ni-pauk-set—­moon-tell Sam.”

“How does the moon tell you?”

“Ring round moon, see?  Bimeby no moon.  Beeg snow.”

And in this the Indian was right.  Toward morning a wind sprang up and wailed through the forest.  When Jean opened her eyes the next morning the trees were swaying beneath a strong nor’easter.  The sky was leaden, and the air already flecked with fine snow.  In another hour the storm was upon them in full intensity, driving across the lake, and blotting out the opposite shore from view.  It beat against the thicket in its frantic efforts to reach the little lodge.  To keep out the stray gusts which did occasionally escape the barricade of trees, Sam hung skins and blankets across the two ends of the abode.  Thus within all was snug and warm.  The fire burned brightly, and the smoke poured up through the wide space overhead.  The roar of the storm in the forest sounded like the raging of the sea, and the waving of the tree-tops resembled the rolling and heaving of mighty billows.  It was an exciting day to Jean.  Never before had she witnessed such a storm.  The fiercer it raged, and the more furiously it howled and beat against the sheltering trees, the more delighted she became.  From a small opening on the south of the lodge she could see the snow swirling along the shore of the lake and piling up in long drifts against several fallen trees.  It was good to be in such a cosy place where she could watch unharmed the trumpeting legions of the great nor’easter.

All through the day the storm continued, and night brought no abatement.  It was still raging when Jean curled herself up in her blankets and lay there watching the dancing flames and the two Indians quietly and contentedly smoking on the opposite side of the fire.  At length her eyes closed, and lulled by the tempest, she was soon fast asleep.

When she awoke the next morning the sun was shining brightly, and a great peace lay upon forest and lake.  It was a new world upon which she opened her eyes, a world of dazzling glory, somewhat akin to the vision vouchsafed to the ancient seer in his lonely island when he beheld a new heaven and a new earth.