A Cree trapper had found Jan's violin in the snow, and had brought it to Maballa. Before Cummins finished his supper, the boy began to play, and he continued to play until the lights at the post went out and both the man and the child were deep in sleep. Then Jan stopped. There was the fire of a keen wakefulness in his eyes as he carefully unfastened the strings of his instrument, and held it close to the oil lamp, so that he could peer down through the narrow aperture in the box.
He looked again at Cummins. The man was sleeping with his face to the wall. With the hooked wire which he used for cleaning his revolver Jan fished gently at the very end of the box, and after three or four efforts the wire caught in something soft, which he pulled toward him. Through the bulge in the F-hole he dragged forth a small, tightly rolled cylinder of faded red cloth.
For a few moments he sat watching the deep breathing of Cummins, unrolling the cloth as he watched, until he had spread out upon the table before him a number of closely written pages of paper. He weighted them at one end with his violin, and held them down at the other with his hands. The writing was in French. Several of the pages were in a heavy masculine hand, the words running one upon another so closely that in places they seemed to be connected; and from them Jan took his fingers, so that they rolled up like a spring. Over the others he bent his head, and there came from him a low, sobbing breath.
On these pages the writing was that of a woman, and from the paper there still rose a faint, sweet scent of heliotrope. For half an hour Jan gazed upon them, reading the words slowly, until he came to the last page.
When there came a movement from over against the wall, he lifted for an instant a pair of startled eyes. Cummins was turning in his sleep. Soundlessly Jan tiptoed across the floor, opened the door, without disturbing the slumbering man and went out into the night. In the south and east there glowed a soft blaze of fire where the big spring moon was coming up over the forest. As Jan turned his face toward it, a new and strange longing crept into his heart. He stretched out his arms, with the papers and his violin clutched in his hands, as if from out of that growing glory a wonderful spirit was calling to him.
For the first time in his lonely life it came to him—this call of the great world beyond the wilderness; and suddenly he crushed the woman's letter to his lips, and his voice burst from him in whispering, thrilling eagerness:
"I will come to you—some day—w'en ze leetle Mélisse come too!"
He rolled the written pages together, wrapped them in the faded red cloth, and concealed them again in the box of his violin before he reentered the cabin.
The next morning Cummins stood in the door, and said:
"How warm the sun is! The snow and ice are going, Jan. It's spring.
We'll house the sledges to-day, and begin feeding the dogs on fish."