But it was
a long circle. The day passed. A second night fell upon him, and his hope
of finding Cummins was gone. A chill crept in where his heart had been so
warm, and somehow that soft pressure of a woman's hand upon his seemed to
become less and less real to him. The woman's prayers were following him,
her heart was throbbing with its hope in him--and he had failed! On the
third day, when the storm was over, Jan staggered hopelessly into the
post. He went straight to the woman, disgraced, heartbroken. When he came
out of the little cabin he seemed to have gone mad. A wondrously strange
thing had happened. He had spoken not a word, but his failure and his
sufferings were written in his face, and when Cummins' wife saw and
understood she went as white as the underside of a poplar leaf in a
clouded sun. But that was not all. She came to him, and clasped one of
his half-frozen hands to her bosom, and he heard her say, "God bless you
forever, Jan! You have done the best you could!" The Great God--was that
not reward for the risking of a miserable, worthless life such as his? He
went to his shack and slept long, and dreamed, sometimes of the woman,
and of Cummins and Mukee, the half-Cree.
On the first crust of the new snow came the Englishman up from Fort
Churchill, on Hudson's Bay. He came behind six dogs, and was driven by an
Indian, and he bore letters to the factor which proclaimed him something
of considerable importance at the home office of the Company, in London.
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