"It will thaw very soon," he said to himself, looking again at the dead man, "and then he will go into the lake."
He headed his Malemutes back to the forest. Then he ran out and cut the traces of the exhausted huskies, and with his whip scattered them in freedom over the ice.
"Go to the wolves!" he shouted in Cree. "Hide yourselves from the post, or Jean de Gravois will cut out your tongues and take your skins off alive!"
When he came back to the top of the mountain, Jean found Iowaka making hot coffee, while Jan was bundled up in furs near the fire.
"It is as I said," she called. "He is alive!"
Thus it happened that the return of Jean de Gravois to the post was even more dramatic than he had schemed it to be, for he brought back with him not only a beautiful wife from Churchill, but also the half dead Jan Thoreau from the scene of battle on the mountain. And in the mystery of it all he reveled for two days; for Jean de Gravois said not a word about the dead man on the lake beyond the forest, nor did the huskies come back into their bondage to give a hint of the missing missionary.
CHAPTER X
RED SNOW-FLOWERS
From the day after the caribou roast the fur-gatherers began scattering. The Eskimos left the next morning. On the second day Mukee's people from the west set off along the edge of the barrens. Most of the others left by ones and twos into the wildernesses to the south and east.
Less than a dozen still put off their return to the late spring trapping, and among these were Jean de Gravois and his wife. Jean waited until the third day. Then he went to see Jan. The boy was bolstered up in his cot, with Cummins balancing the little Mélisse on the edge of the bed when he came in.