do your washing and mend your moccasins. To-morrow I begin my first
work--for money."

He heard what she said after that as if in a dream. When he went out
into the day again, with her word to his people, he knew that in some
way which he could not understand this big, cold world had changed for
him. To-morrow Cummins' wife was to begin writing letters for the
Englishman! His eyes glittered, his hands clenched themselves upon his
breast, and all the blood in him submerged itself in one wild
resistless impulse. An hour later Jan and his four dogs were speeding
swiftly into the South.

The next day the Englishman went to the woman's cabin. He did not
return in the afternoon. And that same afternoon, when Cummins' wife
came into the Company's store, a quick flush shot into her cheeks and
the glitter of blue diamonds into her eyes when she saw the Englishman
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 a queen in her head, the glory of mother and
wife and womanhood, the living, breathing essence of all that was
beautiful in Jan's "honor of the Beeg Snows." But Jan, twenty miles to
the south, did not know.

He returned on the fourth night and went quietly to his little shack in
the edge of the balsam forest. In the glow of the oil lamp which he
lighted he rolled up his treasure of winter-caught furs into a small
pack. Then he opened his door and walked straight and fearlessly toward
the cabin of Cummins' wife. It was a pale, glorious night, and Jan
lifted his face to its starry skies and filled his lungs near to
bursting with its pure air, and when he was within a few steps of the
woman's door he burst into a wild snatch of triumphant forest song. For
this was a new Jan who was returning to her, a man who had gone out
into the solitudes and fought a great battle with the elementary things
in him, and who, because of his triumph over these things, was filled
with the strength and courage to live a great lie. The woman heard his
voice, and recognized it. The door swung open, wide and brimful of
light, and in it stood Cummins' wife, her child hugged close in her
arms.

Jan crowed close up out of the starry gloom.

"I fin' heem, Mees Cummins--I fin' heem nint' miles back in Cree
wigwam--with broke leg. He come home soon--he sen' great love--an'
THESE!"

And he dropped his furs at the woman's feet....