So far as Cummins knew, there was not a white woman nearer than Fort
Churchill, two hundred miles away. In all that region he knew of only
two full-white men, and they were Williams and himself. The baby
Melisse was hopelessly lost in a world of savagery; honest, loyal,
big-souled savagery--but savagery for all that, and the thought of it
brought the shadows of fear and foreboding to the two into whose lives
the problem had just come.

Long into the night they talked seriously of the matter, while Melisse
slept; and the longer they talked, the greater loomed the problem
before them. Cummins fancied that he already began to see signs of the
transformation in Melisse. She was passionately fond of the gaudy
things Maballa gave her, which was a sign of savagery. She was charmed
by confinement in the papoose-sling, which was another sign of it; and
she had not died in the snow-wallows--which was still another.

So far back as he could remember, Cummins had never come into finger-
touch of a white baby. Jan was as blissfully ignorant; so they
determined upon immediate and strenuous action. Maballa would be
ceaselessly watched and checked at every turn. The Indian children
would not be allowed to come near Melisse. They two--John Cummins and
Jan Thoreau--would make her like the woman who slept under the
sentinel spruce.

"She ees ceevilize," said Jan with finality, "an' we mus' keep her
ceevilize!"

Cummins counted back gravely upon his fingers. The little Melisse was
four months and eighteen days old!