be but an incident to the
Englishman, a passing adventure in pleasure common to the high and
glorious civilization from which he had come. Here again was that
difference of viewpoint, the eternity of difference between the middle
and the end of the earth. As the days passed, and the crust grew deeper
upon the "Beeg Snows," the tragedy progressed rapidly toward finality.
At first Jan did not understand. The others did not understand. When
the worm of the Englishman's sin revealed itself it struck them with a
dumb, terrible fear.

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 soft speech of his kind he sought to breathe its fragrance.
In the weeks that followed the flower seemed to come nearer to him, and
this was because Jan and his people had not as yet fully measured the
heart of the woman, and because the Englishman had not measured Jan and
his people he talked a great deal when enthused by the warmth of the
box stove and his thoughts. So human passions were set at play. 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 newcomer, yet ever tempting him with that sweetness
which she gave to all alike, and still praying in the still hours of
night that Cummins would return to her. As yet there was no suspicion
in her soul. She accepted the Englishman's friendship. His sympathy for
her won him a place in her recognition of things good and true. She did
not hear the false note, she saw no step that promised evil. Only Jan
and his people saw and understood the one-sided struggle, and shivered
at the monstrous evil of it. At least they thought they saw and
understood, which was enough. 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. She,
herself, had become the omniscience of all that was law to them, and if
she smiled upon the Englishman, and talked with him, and was pleased
with him, that was only one other law that she h