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....
"Ah, the Great God!" cried Jan's tortured soul when it was all over. "At
least she shall not work for the dirty Englishman."
First he awoke the factor, and told him what he had done. Then he went to
Williams, and after that, one by one, these three visited the four other
white and part white men at the post. They lived very near to the earth,
these seven, and the spirit of the golden rule was as natural to their
living as green sap to the trees.
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