"Sh-h-h-h-h!" admonished Jean, pressing him back gently. "There is no need of telling what is out there on the lake. Only the Blessed Virgin made me dream last night that you would like to see with your own eyes that the missioner is dead. The thaw will open up the lake in a few days. Then he will go down in the first slush. And"—Jean looked about him cautiously again, and whispered low—"if you see anything about the dead missioner that you do not understand—THINK OF JEAN DE GRAVOIS!"
He rose to his feet and bent over Jan's white face.
"I am going the Athabasca way to-day," he finished. "Perhaps, Jan Thoreau, you will hear after a time that it would be best for Jean de Gravois never to return again to this Post Lac Bain. If so, you will find him between Fond du Lac and the Beaver River, and you can make it in four days by driving your dogs close to the scrub-edge of the barrens, keeping always where you can see the musk-ox to the north." He turned to the door, and hesitated there for a moment, smiling and shrugging his shoulders. "Jean de Gravois wonders if Jan Thoreau understands?" he said, and passed out.
When Cummins returned, he found Jan's cheeks flushed and the boy in a fever.
"Devil take that Gravois!" he growled.
"He has been a brother to me," said Jan simply. "I love him."
On the second day after the Frenchman's departure, Jan rose free of the fever which had threatened him for a time, and in the afternoon he harnessed Cummins' dogs. The last of the trappers had started from the post that morning, their sledges and dogs sinking heavily in the deepening slush; and Jan set off over the smooth toboggan trail made by the company's agent in his return to Fort Churchill.
This trail followed close along the base of the ridge upon which he had fought the missionary, joining that of Jean de Gravois miles beyond. Jan climbed the ridge. From where he had made his attack, he followed the almost obliterated trail of the Frenchman and his Malemutes until he came to the lake; and then he knew that Jean de Gravois had spoken the truth, for he found the missionary with his face half buried in the slush, stark dead.
He no longer had to guess at the meaning of Jean's words. The bullet-hole under the dead man's arms was too large to escape eyes like Jan's. Into the little hidden world which he treasured in his heart there came another face, to remain always with him—the face of the courageous little forest dandy who was hurrying with his bride back into the country of the Athabasca.
Jan allowed his dogs to walk all the way back to the post, and it was dusk before they arrived. Maballa had prepared supper, and Cummins was waiting for him. He glanced sharply at the boy. There was a smile on Jan's lips, and there was something in his eyes which Cummins had never seen there before. From that night they were no longer filled with the nervous, glittering flashes which at times had given him an appearance almost of madness. In place of their searching suspicions, there was a warmer and more companionable glow, and Cummins felt the effect of the change as he ate his caribou steak and talked once more entirely of Mélisse.