this?"

Jan was at work in an instant, bandaging the wounded hand.

"It ees not deep," he said; and then, without looking up, he added:
"The missioner did not come."

"No," said Cummins shortly. "Neither has the mail. He is with that."

He did not notice the sudden tremble of Jan's fingers, nor did he see
the startled look that shot into the boy's down-turned eyes. Jan
finished his bandaging without betraying his emotion, and went back
with Cummins to the company's store.

The next morning, two Chippewayans trailed in with a team of mongrel
curs from the south. Thereafter Cummins found but little time to
devote to Melisse. The snow was softening rapidly, and the daily
increasing warmth of the sun hastened the movement of the trappers.
Mukee's people from the western Barren Lands arrived first, bringing
with them great loads of musk-ox and caribou skins, and an army of
big-footed, long-legged Mackenzie hounds that pulled like horses and
wailed like whipped puppies when the huskies and Eskimo dogs set upon
them.

From east and west and south all trails now led to the post. By the
end of the third day after the arrival of the company's supplies, a
babel of fighting, yelling, ceaselessly moving discord had driven
forth the peace and quiet in which Cummins' wife had died. The
fighting and discord were among the dogs, and the yelling was a
necessary human accompaniment. Half a hundred packs, almost as wild