gripped him now, and when he faced the woman he knew why.  There had come a terrible change, but a quiet change, in Cummins’ wife.  The luster had gone from her eyes.  There was a dead whiteness in her face that went to the roots of her shimmering hair, and as she spoke to Jan she clutched one hand upon her bosom, which rose and fell as Jan had seen the breast of a mother lynx rise and fall in the last torture of its death.

“Jan,” she panted, “Jan—­you have lied to me!”

Jan’s head dropped.  The worn caribou skin of his coat crumpled upon his breast.  His heart died.  And yet he found voice, soft, low, simple.

“Yes, me lie!”

“You—­you lied to me!”

“Yes—­me—­lie—­”

His head dropped lower.  He heard the sobbing breath of the woman, and gently his arm crooked itself, and his fingers rose slowly, very slowly, toward the hilt of his hunting knife.

“Yes—­Mees Cummins—­me lie—­”

There came a sudden swift, sobbing movement, and the woman was at Jan’s feet, clasping his hand to her bosom as she had clasped it once before when he had gone out to face death for her.  But this time the snow veil was very thick before Jan’s eyes, and he did not see her face.  Only he heard.

“Bless you, dear Jan, and may God bless you evermore!  For you have been good to me, Jan—­so good—­to me—­”

And he went out into the day again a few moments later, leaving her alone in her great grief, for Jan was a man in the wild and mannerless ways of a savage world, and he knew not how to comfort in the fashion of that other world which had other conceptions and another understanding of what was to him the “honor of the Beeg Snows.”  A week later the woman announced her intention of returning to her people, for the dome of the earth had grown sad and lonely and desolate to her now that Cummins was forever gone.  Sometimes the death of a beloved friend brings with it the sadness that spread like a pall over Jan and those others who had lived very near to contentment and happiness for nearly two years, only each knew that this grief of his would be as enduring as life itself.  For a brief space the sweetest of all God’s things had come among them, a pure woman who brought with her the gentleness and beauty and hallowed thoughts of civilization in place of its iniquities, and the pictures in their hearts were imperishable.

The parting was as simple and as quiet as when the woman had come.  They went to the little cabin where the sledge dogs stood harnessed.  Hatless, silent, crowding back their grief behind grim and lonely countenances, they waited for Cummins’ wife to say good-bye.  The woman did not speak.  She held up her child for each man to kiss, and the baby babbled meaningless things into the bearded faces that it had come to know and love, and when it came to Williams’ turn he whispered, “Be a good baby, be a good baby.”  And when it was all over the woman crushed the child to her breast and dropped sobbing upon the sledge, and Jan cracked his whip and shouted hoarsely to the dogs, for it was Jan who was to drive her to civilization.  Long after they had disappeared beyond the clearing those who remained stood looking at the cabin; and then, with a dry, strange sob in his throat, Williams led the way inside.  When they came out Williams brought a hammer with him, and nailed the door tight.