thing over which an Indian woman watched. The boy stood beside John
Cummins, looking down upon it, and trembling.

"Ah," he whispered, his great eyes glowing. "It ees the LEETLE white
angel!"

"It is the little Melisse," replied the man.

He dropped upon his knees, with his sad face close to the new life
that was to take the place of the one that had just gone out. Jan felt
something tugging in a strange way at his heart, and he, too, fell
upon his knees beside John Cummins in this first worship of the child.

From this hour of their first kneeling before the little life in the
cabin, something sprang up between Jan Thoreau and John Cummins which
it would have been hard for man to break. Looking up after many
moments' contemplation of the little Melisse, Jan gazed straight into
Cummins' face, and whispered softly the word which in Cree means
"father." This was Jan's first word for Melisse.

When he looked back, the baby was wriggling and kicking as he had seen
tiny wolf-whelps wriggle and kick before their eyes were open. His
beautiful eyes laughed. As cautiously as if he were playing with hot
iron, he reached out a thin hand, and when one of his fingers suddenly
fell upon something very soft and warm, he jerked it back as quickly
as if he had been burned.

That night, when Jan picked up his violin to go back to Mukee's cabin,
Cummins put his two big hands on the boy's shoulders and said: