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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Whelps of the Wolf, by George Marsh
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Whelps of the Wolf
+
+Author: George Marsh
+
+Release Date: May 21, 2010 [EBook #32465]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHELPS OF THE WOLF ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joseph R. Hauser and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.fadedpage.com
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               THE WHELPS
+                              OF THE WOLF
+
+
+                            By GEORGE MARSH
+
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+
+                           A. L. BURT COMPANY
+       Publishers                                       New York
+       Published by arrangement with The Penn Publishing Company
+                          Printed in U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+                               COPYRIGHT
+                                1922 BY
+                                THE PENN
+                               PUBLISHING
+                                COMPANY
+
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+
+                         The Whelps of the Wolf
+
+
+
+
+                         Made in the U. S. of A.
+
+
+
+
+                                 Contents
+
+
+                    I. THE LAND OF THE WINDIGO              9
+
+                   II. THE END OF THE TRAIL                16
+
+                  III. THE FRIEND OF DEMONS                30
+
+                   IV. HOME AND JULIE BRETON               38
+
+                    V. THE MOON OF FLOWERS                 44
+
+                   VI. FOR LOVE OF A DOG                   51
+
+                  VII. THE LONG TRAIL TO THE SOUTH COAST   64
+
+                 VIII. THE MEETING IN THE MARSHES          69
+
+                   IX. IN THE TEETH OF THE WINDS           79
+
+                    X. THE CAMP ON THE GHOST               88
+
+                   XI. THE WARNING IN THE WIND             94
+
+                  XII. THE WORK OF THE WHITE WOLVES        98
+
+                 XIII. POOR FLEUR                         103
+
+                  XIV. THE MARK OF THE BREED              108
+
+                   XV. FOR LOVE OF A MAN                  111
+
+                  XVI. THE STARVING MOON                  119
+
+                 XVII. THE TURN OF THE TIDE               131
+
+                XVIII. SPRING AND FLEUR                   135
+
+                  XIX. WHEN THE ICE GOES SOFT             145
+
+                   XX. THE DEAD MAN TELLS HIS TALE        150
+
+                  XXI. THE BLIND CLUTCH OF CIRCUMSTANCE   157
+
+                 XXII. IN THE DEPTHS                      170
+
+                XXIII. IN THE EYES OF THE CREES           175
+
+                 XXIV. ON THE CLIFFS                      181
+
+                  XXV. INSPECTOR WALLACE TAKES CHARGE     188
+
+                 XXVI. THE WHELPS OF THE WOLF             193
+
+                XXVII. THE TRAP IS SPRUNG                 198
+
+               XXVIII. BITTER-SWEET                       212
+
+                 XXIX. THE FANGS OF THE HALF-BREEDS       216
+
+                  XXX. CREE JUSTICE                       224
+
+                 XXXI. THE WAY OF A DOG                   228
+
+                XXXII. FROM THE FAR FRONTIERS             234
+
+               XXXIII. RENUNCIATION                       238
+
+                XXXIV. THE VOICE OF THE WINDIGO           243
+
+                 XXXV. RAW WOUNDS                         253
+
+                XXXVI. DREAMS                             259
+
+               XXXVII. FOR LOVE OF A GIRL                 264
+
+              XXXVIII. THE WHITE TRAIL TO FORT GEORGE     270
+
+                XXXIX. THE HATE OF THE LONG SNOWS         280
+
+                   XL. "HE'S GOT HIS MAN!"                290
+
+                  XLI. AS YE SOW                          296
+
+
+
+
+The Whelps of the Wolf
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE LAND OF THE WINDIGO
+
+
+The solitudes of the East Coast had shaken off the grip of the long
+snows. A thousand streams and rivers choked with snow water from bleak
+Ungava hills plunged and foamed and raced into the west, seeking the
+salt Hudson's Bay, the "Big Water" of the Crees. In the lakes the
+honeycombed ice was daily fading under the strengthening sun. Already,
+here and there the buds of the willows reddened the river shores, while
+the southern slopes of sun-warmed ridges were softening with the pale
+green of the young leaves of birch and poplar. Long since, the armies of
+the snowy geese had passed, bound for far Arctic islands; while marshes
+and muskeg were vocal with the raucous clamor of the nesting gray goose.
+In the air of the valleys hung the odor of wood mold and wet earth.
+
+And one day, with the spring, returned Jean Marcel from his camp on the
+Ghost, the northernmost tributary of the Great Whale to the bald ridge,
+where, in March, he had seen the sun glitter on a broad expanse of level
+snow unbroken by trees, in the hills to the north. His eyes had not
+deceived him. The lake was there.
+
+From his commanding position on the bare brow of the isolated mountain,
+he looked out on a wilderness of timbered valleys, and high barrens
+which rolled away endlessly into the north. Among these lay a large body
+of water partly free of ice. Into the northeast he could trace the
+divide--even make out where a small feeder of the Ghost headed on the
+height of land. And he now knew that he looked upon the dread valleys of
+the forbidden country of the Crees--the demon-haunted solitudes of the
+land of the Windigo, whose dim, blue hills guarded a region of mystery
+and terror--a wilderness, peopled in the tales of the medicine men, with
+giant eaters of human flesh and spirits of evil, for generations, taboo
+to the hunters of Whale River.
+
+There was no doubt of it. The large lake he saw was a headwater of the
+Big Salmon, the southern sources of which tradition placed in the
+bad-lands north of the Ghost. Once his canoe floated in this lake, he
+could work into the main river and find the Esquimos on the coast.
+
+"Bien!" muttered the Frenchman, "I will go!"
+
+Two days later, back in camp on the Ghost, Marcel announced to his
+partners, Antoine Beaulieu and Joe Piquet, his intention of returning to
+the Bay by the Big Salmon.
+
+"W'at you say, Jean; you go home tru de Windigo countree?" cried Piquet,
+his swart face blanched by the fear which the very mention of the
+forbidden land aroused, while Antoine, speechless, stared wide-eyed.
+
+"Oui, nord of de divide, I see beeg lac. Eet ees Salmon water for sure.
+I portage cano' to dat lac and reach de coast by de riviere. You go wid
+me an' get some dog?" Marcel smiled coolly into the sober faces of his
+friends.
+
+"Are you crazee, Jean Marcel?" protested Antoine. "De spirit have run de
+game an' feesh away. De Windigo eat you before you fin' de Salmon, an'
+eef he not get you first, you starve."
+
+"Ver' well, you go back by de Whale; I go by Salmon an' meet de Husky. I
+nevaire hunt anoder long snow widout dogs."
+
+"Ah-hah! Dat ees good joke! You weel nevaire see de Husky," broke in
+Piquet. "W'en _Matchi-Manitou_ ees tru wid you, de raven an' wolf peek
+your bones, w'ile Antoine an' Joe dance at de spreeng trade wid de Cree
+girl."
+
+Ignoring the dire prediction, Marcel continued: "Good dog are all gone
+at Whale Riviere Post from de maladie. De Husky have plenty dog. I meet
+dem on de coast before dey reach Whale Riviere an' want too much fur for
+dem. Maybe I starve; maybe I drown een de strong-water; maybe de Windigo
+get me; but I go."
+
+And he did.
+
+With a shrug of contempt for the tales of the medicine men, dramatically
+rehearsed with all the embellishment which the imagination of his
+superstitious partners could invent, the following day Marcel started.
+
+"Bo'-jo', Antoine!" he said, as he gripped his friend's hand. "I meet
+you at Whale Riviere."
+
+The face of Beaulieu only too patently reflected his thoughts as he
+shook his head.
+
+"Bo'-jo', Jean, I nevaire see you again."
+
+"You are dead man, Jean," added Piquet; "we tell Julie Breton dat your
+bones lie up dere." And the half-breed pointed north to the dim, blue
+hills of dread.
+
+So with fur-pack and outfit, and as much smoked caribou as he dared
+carry, Marcel poled his canoe up the Ghost, later to portage across the
+divide into the trailless land where, in the memory of living man, the
+feet of no hunter of the Hudson's Bay Company had strayed.
+
+It was a reckless venture--this attempt to reach the Bay through an
+unknown country. The demons of the Cree conjurors he did not fear, for
+his father and his mother's father, who had journeyed, starved, and
+feasted in trailless lands, from Labrador to the great Barren Grounds,
+had never seen one or heard the wailing of the Windigo in the night. But
+what he did fear was the possibility of weeks of wandering in his search
+for the main stream, lost in a labyrinth of headwater lakes where game
+might be scarce and fish difficult to net. For his smoked meat would
+take him but a short way, when his rifle and net would have to see him
+through.
+
+But the risk was worth taking. If he could reach the Esquimos on their
+spring journey south to the post, before they learned of the scarcity of
+dogs at Whale River, he could obtain huskies at a fair trade in fur. And
+a dog-team was his heart's desire.
+
+Portaging over the divide to the large lake, now clear of ice, Marcel
+followed its winding outlet into the northwest. There were days when,
+baffled by a maze of water routes in a network of lakes, he despaired of
+finding the main stream. There were nights when he lay supperless by his
+fire thinking of Julie Breton, the black-eyed sister of the Oblat
+Missionary at Whale River--nights when the forebodings of his partners
+returned to mock him as a maniacal mewing broke the silence of the
+forest, or, across the valleys, drifted low wailing sobs, like the
+grieving of a Cree mother for her dead child.
+
+But in the veins of Jean Marcel coursed the blood of old
+_coureurs-de-bois_. His parents, victims of the influenza which had
+swept the coast the year previous, had left him the heritage of a
+dauntless spirit. Lost and starving though he was, he smiled grimly as
+the roving wolverine and the lynx turned the night into what would have
+been a thing of horror to the superstitious breeds.
+
+When, gaunt from toil and the lack of food, Marcel finally found the
+main stream and shot a bear, he knew he would reach the Esquimos. Two
+hundred miles of racing river he rapidly put behind him and one June day
+rounded the bend above a long white-water. The _voyageur_ ran the
+rapids, rode the "boilers" at the foot of the last pitch and shot into
+deep water again. But as he swung inshore to rid the craft of the slop
+picked up in the churning "strong-water" behind him, Marcel's eyes
+widened in surprise. He was nearer the sea than he had guessed. His last
+rapids had been run. He had reached his goal, for on the shore stood the
+squat skin lodges of an Esquimo camp, and moving about on the beach, he
+saw the shaggy objects of his quest.
+
+The lean face of the youth who had bearded the dreaded Windigo in their
+lair shaped a wide smile. He, too, would dance at the spring trade at
+Whale River, and lashed to stakes by his tent in the post clearing, a
+pair of priceless Ungavas would add their howls to the chorus when the
+dogs pointed their noses at the new moon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE END OF THE TRAIL
+
+
+In his joy at his good luck, Marcel had momentarily forgotten the
+ancient feud between the Esquimo and the Cree. Then he realized his
+position. These rapids of the Salmon were an age-old fishing ground of
+the Esquimos, who, with their dogs, are called "Huskies." No birch-bark
+had ever run the broken waters behind him--no Indian hunted so far
+north. If among these people there were any who traded at Whale River
+where Cree and Esquimo met in amity, they would recognize the son of the
+old Company head man, André Marcel, and welcome him. But should they
+chance to be wild Huskies who did not come south to the post, they would
+mistake him for a Cree, and resenting his entering their territory,
+attack him.
+
+Drawing his rifle from its skin case, he placed it at his feet and poled
+slowly toward the shore where a bedlam of howls from the dogs signalled
+his approach. The clamor quickly emptied the lodges scattered along the
+beach. A group of Huskies, armed with rifle and seal spear, now watched
+the strange craft. So close was the canoe that only by a miracle could
+Marcel hope to escape down-stream if they started shooting.
+
+Alive to his danger, the Frenchman snubbed his boat, leaning on his
+pole, while his anxious eyes searched for a familiar figure in the
+skin-clad throng, who talked and gesticulated in evident excitement. But
+among them he found no friendly face.
+
+Was it for this he had slaved overland to the Salmon and starved through
+the early spring--a miserable death; when he had won through to his
+goal--when the yelps of the dogs he sought rang in his ears? Surely,
+among these Huskies, there were some who traded at the post.
+
+"Kekway!" he called, "I am white man from Whale River!"
+
+The muscles of Jean Marcel set, tense as wire cables, as he watched for
+a hostile movement from the Huskies, silenced by his shout. Seemingly
+surprised by his action, no answer was returned from the shore. Slowly
+his hopes died. They were wild Esquimos and would show no mercy to the
+supposed Cree invader of their hereditary fishing ground.
+
+But still the movement which the Frenchman's roving eyes awaited, was
+delayed. Not a gun in the whispering throng on the beach was raised;
+not a word in Esquimo addressed to the stranger. Mystified, desperate
+from the strain of the suspense, Marcel called again, this time in post
+Husky:
+
+"I am white man, from the fort at Whale River. Is there one among you
+who trades there?"
+
+At the words, the tension of the sullen group seemed to relax. Pointing
+to a thick-set figure striding up the beach, a Husky shouted:
+
+"There is one who goes to Whale River!"
+
+The _voyageur_ expelled the air from his lungs with relief. Too long,
+with pounding heart, he had steeled himself to face erect, swift death
+from the near shore. A wrong move, and a hail of lead would have emptied
+his canoe. Then to his joy he recognized the man who approached.
+
+"Kovik!" he shouted. "Eet ees Jean Marcel from Whale Riviere!"
+
+The Husky waved his hand to Marcel, joined his comrades, and, for a
+space, there was much talk and shaking of heads; then he called to Jean
+to come ashore.
+
+Grounding his canoe, Marcel gripped the hand of the grinning Kovik while
+the Huskies fell back eying them with mingled curiosity and fear.
+
+"Husky say you bad spirit, Kovik say you son little chief, Whale River.
+W'ere you come?"
+
+It was clear, now, why the Esquimos had not wiped him out. They had
+thought him a demon, for Esquimo tradition, as well as Cree, made the
+upper Salmon the abode of evil spirits.
+
+"I look for hunteen ground, on de head of riviere," explained Jean, for
+the admission that he was in search of dogs would only defeat the
+purpose of his journey.
+
+"Good dat Kovik come," returned the Esquimo. "Some say shoot you; some
+say you eat de bullet an' de Husky."
+
+To this difference of opinion Marcel owed his life.
+
+As Kovik finished his explanation, Jean laughed: "No, I camp wid no
+Windigo up riviere; but I starve."
+
+At this gentle hint, Marcel was invited to join in the supper of boiled
+seal and goose which was waiting at the tepee. When Kovik had prevailed
+upon some of the older Esquimos to forget their fears and shake hands
+with the man who had appeared from the land of spirits, Jean stowed his
+outfit on the cache of the Husky, freed his canoe of water and placing
+it beside his packs, joined the family party. Shaking hands in turn with
+Kovik's grinning wife and children, who remembered him at Whale River,
+Marcel hungrily attacked the kettle, into which each dipped fingers and
+cup indiscriminately. Finishing, he passed a plug of Company
+nigger-head to his hosts and lit his own pipe.
+
+"W'ere you' woman?" abruptly inquired the thick-set mother of many.
+
+"No woman," replied Marcel, thinking of three spruce crosses in the
+Mission cemetery at Whale River.
+
+"No woman, you? No dog?" pressed the curious wife of Kovik.
+
+"No famile." And Jean told of the deaths of parents and younger brother,
+from the plague of the summer before. But he failed to mention the fact
+that most of the dogs at the post had been wiped out at the same time.
+
+"Ah! Ah!" groaned the Huskies at the Frenchman's tale of the scourge
+which had swept the Hudson's Bay posts to the south.
+
+"He good man--Marcel! He fr'en' of me!" lamented Kovik. Sucking his
+pipe, he gravely nodded again and again. Surely, he intimated, the
+Company had displeased the spirits of evil to have been so punished.
+Then he asked: "W'ere you dog?"
+
+"On Whale Riviere," returned Jean grimly, referring to their bones; his
+eyes held by the great dogs sprawled about the beach. No such sled-dogs
+as these had he ever seen at the post, even with the Esquimos. But his
+grave face betrayed no sign of what was in his mind.
+
+Massive of bone and frame, with coats unusually heavy, even for the
+far-famed Ungava breed, Jean noted the strength and size of these
+magnificent beasts as a horseman marks the points of a blooded colt.
+Somewhat apart from the other dogs of Kovik, tumbling and roughing each
+other, frolicked four clumsy puppies, while the mother, a great
+slate-gray and white animal, lay near, watching her progeny through eyes
+whose lower lids, edged with red, marked the wolf strain. While those
+slant eyes kept restless guard, to molest one of her leggy, yelping imps
+of Satan would have been the bearding of a hundred furies. The older
+dogs, evidently knowing the power in the snap of her white fangs,
+avoided the puppies.
+
+One, in particular, Marcel noticed as they romped and roughed each other
+on the shore, or with a brave show of valor, noisily charged their
+recumbent mother, only to be sent about their business with the mild
+reprimand of a nip from her long fangs. Larger, and of sturdier build
+than her brothers, this puppy, in marking, was the counterpart of the
+mother, having the same slate-gray patches on head and back and wearing
+white socks. As he watched her bully her brothers, Jean resolved to buy
+that four-months'-old puppy.
+
+As the northern twilight filled the river valley, the Huskies returned
+to the lodge, where Jean squeezed in between two younger members of the
+family whose characteristic aroma held sleep from the fatigued
+_voyageur_ long enough for him to decide on a plan of action. Before he
+started to trade for dogs he must learn if the Esquimos knew that they
+were scarce at the fur-posts. If rumor of this relayed up the coast from
+Husky hunting party to hunting party, had reached them, he would be
+lucky to get even a puppy. They would send their spare dogs to the
+posts.
+
+The following morning, at the suggestion of Kovik, Marcel set his
+gill-net for whitefish on the opposite shore of the wide river, as the
+younger Esquimos showed unmistakably by their actions that his presence
+at the salmon fishing, soon to begin, was resented. But Jean needed food
+for his journey down the coast and for the dogs he hoped to buy, so
+ignored the dark looks cast at the mysterious white man, the friend of
+Kovik. But not until evening did he casually suggest to the Husky that
+he had more dogs than he could feed through the summer.
+
+The broad face of Kovik widened in a mysterious smile as he asked: "You
+geeve black fox for dog?"
+
+Marcel's hopes fell at the words. It was an unheard of price for a dog.
+The Husky knew.
+
+Masking his chagrin, the Frenchman laughed in ridicule:
+
+"I geeve otter for dog."
+
+Kovik shook his head, his narrowed eyes wrinkling in amusement. "No
+husky W'ale Riv'--For' Geor'. Me trade husky W'ale Riv'."
+
+It was useless to bargain further. The Husky knew the value of his dogs
+at the posts, and Jean could not afford to rob his fur-pack to get one.
+There was much that he needed at Whale River--and then there was Julie.
+It was necessary to increase his credit with the Company to pay for the
+home he would some day build for Julie and himself. So, when Kovik
+promptly refused a valuable cross-fox pelt for a dog, the disheartened
+boy gave it up.
+
+But after the toil and lean days of the long trail he had taken to meet
+the Esquimos, he could not return to Whale River empty handed. He
+coveted the slate-gray and white puppy. Never had he seen a husky of her
+age with such bone--such promise as a sled dog. And her spirit--at four
+months she would bare her puppy fangs at an infringement of her rights
+by an old dog, as though she already wore the scars of many a brawl.
+Handsomer than her brothers, leader of the litter by virtue of a build
+more rugged, a stronger will, she was the favorite of Kovik's children.
+That they would object to parting with her; that the Husky would demand
+an exorbitant price he now knew; but he was determined to have the
+puppy. However, he resolved to wait until the following day, renew the
+bargaining for a grown dog, then suddenly make an offer for the puppy.
+
+The next morning Jean Marcel again offered a high price for a dog, but
+the smiling Husky would not relent. Then Marcel, pointing at the female
+puppy, offered the pelt of a marten for her.
+
+To Jean's surprise, the owner refused to part with any of the litter.
+They would be better than the adult dogs--these children of the
+slate-gray husky--he said, and he would sell but one or two, even at
+Whale River, where the Company needed dogs badly and would pay more than
+Marcel could offer.
+
+It was a bitter moment for the lad who had swung his canoe inshore at
+the Husky camp with such high hopes. And he realized that it would be
+useless to turn north from the mouth of the Salmon in search of dogs.
+Now that they had learned of conditions at the fur-posts, no Esquimos
+bound south for the spring trade would sell a dog at a reasonable price.
+
+As the disheartened Marcel watched with envious eyes the puppies, which
+he realized were beyond his means to obtain, the cries from the shore of
+the eldest son of his host aroused the camp. Above them, in the chutes
+at the foot of the white-water, flashes of silver marked the leaping
+vanguards of the salmon run, on their way to spring-fed streams at the
+river's head.
+
+Seizing their salmon spears the Esquimos hurried up-stream to take their
+stands on rocks which the fish might pass. Having no spear Jean watched
+the younger Kovik wade through the strong current out to a rock within
+spearing reach of a deep chute of black water. Presently the crouching
+lad drove his spear into the flume at his feet and was struggling on the
+rock with a large salmon. Killing the fish with his knife, he threw it,
+with a cry of triumph, to the beach. Again he waited, muscles tense, his
+right arm drawn back for the lunge. Again, as a silvery shape darted up
+the chute, the boy struck with his spear. But so anxious was he to drive
+the lance home, that, missing the fish, his lunge carried him head-first
+into the swift water.
+
+With a shout of warning to those above, Jean Marcel ran down the beach.
+His canoe was out of reach on the cache with the Husky's kayak, and the
+clumsy skin umiak of the family was useless for quick work. In his
+sealskin boots and clothes the lad would be carried to the foot of the
+rapids and drowned. Jean reached the "boilers" below the white-water
+before the body of the helpless Esquimo appeared. Plunging into the
+ice-cold river he swam out into the current below the tail of the
+chute, and when the half-drowned lad floundered to the surface, seized
+him by his heavy hair. As they were swept down-stream an eddy threw
+their bodies together, and in spite of Marcel's desperate efforts, the
+arms of the Husky closed on him in vise-like embrace. Strong as he was,
+the Frenchman could not break the grip, and they sank.
+
+The _voyageur_ rose to the surface fighting to free himself from the
+clinging Esquimo, but in vain; then his sinewy fingers found the throat
+of the half-conscious boy and taking a long breath, he again went down
+with his burden. When the two came up Marcel was free. With a grip on
+the long hair of the now senseless lad he made the shore, and dragging
+the Husky from the water, stretched exhausted on the beach.
+
+Shaking with cold he lay panting beside the still body of the boy, when
+the terrified Esquimos reached them.
+
+The welcome heat of a large fire soon thawed the chill from the bones of
+Marcel; but the anxious parents desperately rolled and pounded the
+Husky, starting his blood and ridding his stomach of water, before he
+finally regained his voice, begging them to cease.
+
+With the boy out of danger they turned to his rescuer, and only by
+vigorous objection did Marcel escape the treatment administered the
+Husky. He would prefer drowning, he protested with a grimace, to the
+pounding they had given the boy.
+
+"You lak' seal in de water," cried the relieved father with admiration,
+when he had lavished his thanks upon Jean; for the Esquimos, although
+passing their lives on or near the water, because of its low
+temperature, never learn to swim.
+
+"My fader taught me to swim een shallow lak' by Fort George," explained
+the modest Frenchman.
+
+"He die, eef you no sweem lak' seal," added the grateful mother, her
+round face oily with sweat from the vigorous rubbing of her son, now
+snoring peacefully by the fire.
+
+Then the Huskies returned to their fishing, for precious time was being
+wasted. The boy's spear was found washed up on the beach and loaned to
+Jean, who labored the remainder of the day spearing salmon for his
+journey down the coast.
+
+That evening, after supper, Jean sat on a stone in front of the tepee
+watching the active puppies. Inside the skin lodge the Esquimo and his
+wife conversed in low tones. Shortly they appeared and Kovik, grinning
+from long side-lock to side-lock, said:
+
+"You good man! You trade dat dog?" He pointed at the large slate-gray
+puppy sprawled near them.
+
+The dark features of Jean Marcel lighted with eagerness.
+
+"I geeve two marten for de dog," he said, rising quickly.
+
+The Husky turned to the woman, shaking his head.
+
+Marcel's lip curled at the avarice of these people whose son he had so
+recently snatched from death.
+
+Then Kovik, seemingly changing his mind, seized the puppy by the loose
+skin of her neck and dragged her, protesting vigorously, to Jean, while
+the mother dog came trotting up, ears erect, curious of what the master
+she feared was doing with her progeny.
+
+"Dees you' dog!" said the Esquimo.
+
+Marcel patted the back of the puppy, still in the grasp of her owner,
+while she muttered her wrath at the touch of the stranger. Although they
+owed him much, he thought, yet these Huskies wished to make him pay
+dearly for the dog. Still he was glad to get her, even at such a price.
+So he went to the cache, loosened the lashings of his fur-pack, and
+returned with two prime marten pelts, offering them to the Esquimo.
+
+Again Kovik's round face was divided by a grin. The wrinkles radiated
+from the narrow eyes which snapped.
+
+"You lak' seal in riv'--ketch boy. Tak' de dog--we no want skin." And
+shaking his head, the Husky pushed away the pelts.
+
+Slowly the face of Marcel changed with surprise as he sensed the import
+of Kovik's words. They were making him a present of the dog.
+
+"You--you geeve to me--dese puppy?" he stammered, staring into the
+grinning face of the Esquimo, delighted with the success of his little
+ruse.
+
+Kovik nodded.
+
+"T'anks, t'anks!" cried Jean, his eyes suspiciously moist as he wrung
+the Husky's hand, then seized that of the chuckling woman. "You are good
+people; I not forget de Kovik."
+
+He had done these honest Esquimos a wrong. Now, after the fear of
+defeat, and the bitterness, the puppy he had coveted was his. He was not
+to return to Whale River empty handed, the laughing-stock of his
+partners. It had been indeed worth while, his plunge into the bad-lands,
+for in two years he would have the dog-team of his dreams. Some day this
+four-months-old puppy should make the fortune of Jean Marcel.
+
+But little he realized, as he exulted in his good luck, how vital a part
+in his life, and in the life of Julie Breton, this wild puppy with the
+white socks was to play.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE FRIEND OF DEMONS
+
+
+When Marcel put his canoe into the water the following morning, to cross
+to his net, three young Esquimos, who had been loitering near Kovik's
+lodge, followed him to the beach, and as he left the shore, hurled at
+his back a torrent of Husky abuse.
+
+What he had hoped to avoid had come. It would have been better to listen
+to Kovik's warning against delaying his departure and attempting to fish
+at the rapids after the salmon arrived. The use of the boy's spear, the
+day previous, had brought the feeling among the younger men to a head.
+They meant to drive him down river.
+
+Removing the whitefish and small salmon, Jean lifted his net and
+stretching it to dry on the shore, recrossed the stream. On the beach
+awaiting his return were the Huskies. Clearly, they had decided that he
+was possessed of no supernatural powers and could now be bullied with
+impunity. As he did not wish to embroil his friend Kovik in his defense,
+when he had smoked his last catch he would leave. But the blood of the
+fighting Marcels was slowly coming to a boil. If these raw fish-eaters
+thought that they could frighten the grandson of the famous Étienne
+Lacasse, and the son of André Marcel, whose strength was a tradition on
+the East Coast, he could show them their mistake. Still, avoid trouble
+he must, for a fight would be suicide.
+
+So ignoring the Huskies, who talked together in low tones, Marcel
+landed, cleaned some fish for the Koviks' kettle, and carried them up to
+the tepee where the family were still asleep. Returning, the hot blood
+rose to the bronzed face of the Frenchman at what he saw.
+
+The three Esquimos were coolly feeding his fish to the dogs.
+
+Reckless of the consequences, in the blind rage which choked him, Marcel
+reached the pilferers of his canoe before they realized that he was on
+them. Seizing one by his long hair, with a wrench he hurled the
+surprised Husky backward into the water and sent a second reeling to the
+stony beach with a fierce blow in the face. The third, retreating from
+the fury of the attack of the maddened white man, drew his skinning
+knife; but seizing his paddle, Marcel sent the knife spinning with a
+vicious slash which doubled the screaming Husky over a broken wrist.
+Turning, he saw his first victims making down the beach toward the
+tepees, while the uproar of the dogs was swiftly arousing the camp.
+
+Then, as his blood cooled and his judgment returned, the youth, who had
+suffered and dared much that he might have dogs for the next long snows,
+realized the height of his folly. They had baited him into furnishing
+them with an excuse for attacking him. Now even the faithful Kovik would
+be helpless against them. He would never see Whale River and Julie
+Breton again. Already the Huskies were emerging from their tepees, to
+hear the tale of his late antagonists. There was no time to lose before
+they rushed him.
+
+Bounding up the beach to Kovik's tepee for his rifle, he rapidly
+explained the situation to the Esquimo, while in his ears rang the
+shouts of the excited Huskies and the yelping of the dogs. Jean did not
+hope to escape alive from this bedlam, but of one thing he was sure, he
+would die like a Marcel, with a smoking gun in his hands.
+
+Urging Jean to get his fur-pack and smoked fish to his canoe at once,
+Kovik hurried down the shore to the knot of wildly excited Esquimos.
+
+With the aid of the grateful wife and son of Kovik, Marcel's canoe was
+swiftly loaded and his treasured puppy lashed in the bow. But the rush
+up the beach of an infuriated throng bent on his death, which Marcel
+stoically awaited beside a large boulder, was delayed. Not a hundred
+yards distant, the doughty Kovik, the center of an arguing mob, was
+fighting with all the wits he possessed for the man who had saved his
+son. For Marcel to attempt to escape by water would only have drawn the
+fire of the Huskies and nullified Kovik's efforts, and their kayaks,
+faster than any canoe, were below him. A break for the "bush," even if
+successful, in the end, meant starvation. So with extra cartridges
+between his teeth, and in his hands, Jean Marcel grimly fingered the
+trigger-guard of his rifle, as he waited at the boulder for the turn of
+the dice down the shore.
+
+Minutes, each one an eternity to the man at bay, passed. But Kovik still
+held his men, and Marcel clearly noted a change in the manner of the
+Huskies. The shouting had ceased. His friend was winning.
+
+Shortly, Kovik left the group and walked rapidly toward Marcel, followed
+at a distance by his people.
+
+"Dey keel you, but Kovik say you fr'en' wid spirit; he come down riv'
+an' eat Husky," explained the worried defender of Jean. "Kovik say you
+shoot wid spirit gun, all de Husky; so you go, queek!"
+
+The broad face of Kovik split in a grim smile as he gripped the hand of
+the relieved Marcel and pushed off his canoe. Thus, doubly, had the
+loyal Esquimo paid for the life of his son.
+
+With the emotions of a man suddenly reprieved from a sentence of death,
+Marcel poled his canoe out into the current. Behind him, the Esquimos
+had already joined Kovik on the shore, when, warned by a shout from his
+friend, Marcel instinctively ducked as a seal spear whistled over his
+head. Some doubter was testing the magic of the white demon.
+
+Seizing his paddle Jean swiftly crossed the river and secured his
+precious net. But he was not yet rid of his enemies. If the young men,
+conquering their fear of his friendship with demons, at once launched
+their kayaks, they could overhaul his loaded canoe. But once clear of
+the last tepees, with his pursuers behind him, he was confident that he
+could pick them off with his rifle as fast as they came up in their
+rocking craft.
+
+With all the power of his iron back and shoulders, Jean drove his canoe
+on the strong current; but Kovik had the Huskies in hand and they did
+not follow. Shortly he had passed the last lodge on the shore and the
+camp was soon in the distance. It seemed like a dream--his peril of the
+last hour; and now, a free man again, with his puppy in the bow, he was
+on his way to the coast and Julie Breton.
+
+Suddenly two rifles cracked in the rocks on the near beach. The paddle
+of Marcel dropped from his limp hands. Headlong he lurched to the floor
+of the canoe. Again the guns spat from the boulders. Two bullets whined
+over the birch-bark. But save for the yelping puppy in the bow, there
+was no movement in the canoe, as it slid, the cat's-paw of the current.
+
+Waving their arms in triumph at the collapse of the feared white man,
+whose magic had been impotent before their bullets, the Huskies hurried
+along shore after the canoe. Carried by breeze and current, with its
+whimpering puppy and silent human freight the craft grounded a half-mile
+below the ambush. On came the chattering pair of assassins, already
+quarrelling over the division of the outfit of the dead man--delirious
+with the sweetness of their vengeance for the rough handling the
+stricken one in the canoe had meted out to them but an hour before. The
+dog, although lashed to the bow thwart, had managed to crawl out of the
+boat and was struggling with the thongs which held her, when the Huskies
+came running up. Staring into the birch-bark, they turned to each other
+gray faces on which was written ghastly fear.
+
+The canoe was empty!
+
+The white man they had thought to find a bloodied heap, was, after all,
+a maker of magic--a friend of demons. Kovik had told the truth. They
+were lost!
+
+Palsied with dread, their feet frozen to the beach, the young ruffians
+awaited the swift vengeance of their enemy. And it came.
+
+Hard by, a rifle crashed in the boulders. With a scream, a Husky reeled
+backward with a shattered hand, as his gun, torn from his grasp by the
+impact of the bullet, rattled on the stones. A second shot, splintering
+the butt of his rifle, hurled the other to his knees. Then with a
+demonical yell, Marcel sprang from his ambush.
+
+Running like caribou jumped by barren-ground wolves, the panic-stricken
+Huskies fled from the place of horror, pursued by the ricochetting
+bullets of the white demon, until they disappeared up the shore.
+
+"A'voir, M'sieurs!" cried Marcel. "De nex' tam you ambush cano', don'
+let eet dref behin' de point." And shaking with laughter, turned to his
+yelping puppy, frenzied with excitement.
+
+"De Husky t'ink we not go to Whale Riviere, eh?" he said, stroking the
+trembling shoulders of the worrying dog. "But Jean and hees petite
+chienne, dey see Julie Breton jus' de same."
+
+Putting his puppy in the canoe, Marcel continued on down the river.
+
+When the shots from ambush whined past his face, Marcel had flattened to
+the floor of the craft, both for cover and to deceive the Huskies. The
+second shots convinced him that he had but two to deal with. Slitting
+the bark skin near the gunwale, that he might watch the shore without
+betraying the fact that he was conscious, and thereby draw their fire,
+while they were protected from his by the boulders, he learned that the
+craft was working toward the beach.
+
+His plan was swiftly made. Driven by the racing current, the canoe had
+already left the Esquimos, following the shore, in the rear. He would
+allow the craft to ground and hold his fire until they were on top of
+him. But the boat finally reached the beach at a point hidden from the
+pursuing Huskies. With a bound Marcel was out of the canoe and concealed
+among the rocks. Great as was the temptation to leave the men who had
+ambushed him in cold blood, shot upon the beach, a sinister warning to
+their fellows, the thought of Kovik's position at the camp forced him to
+content himself with disarming and sending them shrieking up the shore
+with his bullets worrying their heels.
+
+Often, during the day, as Marcel put mile after mile of the Salmon
+between himself and the camp at the rapids, the puppy cocked curious
+ears as the new master ceased paddling, to roar with laughter at the
+memory of two flying Esquimos.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HOME AND JULIE BRETON
+
+
+That night Marcel camped at the river's mouth and watched the gray
+waters of the great Bay drown the sinking sun. Somewhere, far down the
+bold East Coast the Great Whale emptied into the salt "Big Water" of the
+Crees. He remembered having heard the old men at the post say that the
+Big Salmon lay four "sleeps" of fair weather to the north--four days of
+hard paddling, as the Company canoes travel, if the sea was flat and the
+wind light. But if he were wind-bound, as was likely heading south in
+the spring, it might take weeks. He had a hundred pounds of cured fish
+and could wait out the wind, but the thought of Julie, who by this time
+must have learned from his partners of his mad journey, made Jean
+anxious to reach the post. He preferred to be welcomed living than
+mourned as dead. He wondered how deeply she would feel it--his death.
+Ah, if she only cared for him as he loved her! Well, she should love him
+in time, when he had become a _voyageur_ of the Company, with a house at
+the post, he told himself, as he patted his shy puppy before turning
+into his blankets.
+
+The second day out he was driven ashore under gray cliffs by a
+south-wester and spent the succeeding three days in overcoming the
+shyness of the hulking puppy, who, in the gentleness of the new master,
+found swift solace for the loss of her shaggy kinsmen of the Husky camp.
+Already she had learned that the human hand could caress as well as
+wield a stick, and for the first time in her short existence, was
+initiated into the mystery and delight of having her ears rubbed and
+back scratched by this master who did not kick her out of the way when
+she sprawled in his path. And because of her beauty, and in memory of
+Fleur Marcel, the mother he had loved, he named her Fleur.
+
+When the sea flattened out after the blow, Marcel launched his canoe,
+and, with his dog in the bow, continued south. Not a wheeling gull,
+flock of whistling yellow-legs, or whiskered face of inquisitive seal,
+thrust from the water only as quickly to disappear, escaped the notice
+of the eager puppy. Passing low islands where teal and pin-tail rose in
+clouds at his approach, driving Fleur into a frenzy of excitement, at
+last he turned in behind a long island paralleling the coast.
+
+For two days Jean travelled down the strait in the lee of this island
+and knew when he passed out into open water and saw in the distance the
+familiar coast of the Whale River mouth, that he had travelled through
+the mystic Manitounuk, the Esquimos' Strait of the Spirit. The following
+afternoon off Sable Point he entered the clear water of the Great Whale
+and once again, after ten months' absence, saw on the bold shore in the
+distance the roofs of Whale River.
+
+There was a lump in the throat of Jean Marcel as he gazed at the distant
+fur-post. That little settlement, with its log trade-house and church of
+the Oblat Fathers, the last outpost of the Great Company on the bleak
+East Coast, which for two centuries had defied the grim north, stood for
+all he held most dear--was home. There, in the church burial ground
+enclosed by a slab fence, three spruce crosses marked the graves of his
+father, mother and brother. There in the Mission House, built by Cree
+converts, lived Julie Breton.
+
+As the young flood swept him up-stream he wondered if already he had
+been counted as lost by his friends at the post--for it was July;
+whether the thoughts of Julie Breton sometimes wandered north to the lad
+who had disappeared into the Ungava hills on a mad quest; or if, with
+the others, she had given him up as starved or drowned--numbered him
+with that fated legion who had gone out into the wide north never to
+return.
+
+Nearing the post, the canoe began to pass the floats of gill-nets set
+for whitefish and salmon. He could now see the tepees of the Whale
+River Crees, dotting the high shores, and below, along the beach, the
+squat skin lodges of the Huskies, with their fish scaffolds and umiaks.
+The spring trade was on.
+
+Beaching his canoe at the Company landing, where he was welcomed as one
+returned from the dead by two post Crees, Marcel, leading his dog by a
+rawhide thong, sought the Mission House.
+
+At his knock the door was opened by a girl with dusky eyes and masses of
+black hair, who stared in amazement at the _voyageur_.
+
+"Julie!" he cried.
+
+Then she found her voice, while the blood flushed her olive skin.
+
+"Jean Marcel! _vous ętes revenu!_ You have come back!" exclaimed the
+girl, continuing the conversation in French.
+
+"Oh, Jean! We had great fear you might not return." He was holding both
+her hands but, embarrassed, she did not meet his eager eyes seeking to
+read her thoughts.
+
+"Come in, _M'sieu le voyageur_!" and she led him gayly into the Mission.
+"Henri, Pčre Henri!" she called. "Jean Marcel has returned from the
+dead!"
+
+"Jean, my son!" replied a deep voice, and Pčre Breton was vigorously
+embracing the man he had thought never to see again.
+
+"Father, your greeting is somewhat warmer than that of Julie," laughed
+the happy youth, as the bearded priest surveyed him at arm's length.
+
+"Ah, she has spoken much of you, Jean, this spring. None the worse for
+the long voyage, my son?" he continued. "You will be the talk of Whale
+River; the Crees said you could not get through. And you got your dogs?
+We have only curs here, except those of the Huskies, and they are very
+dear."
+
+"The Huskies would not sell their dogs, Father. They were bringing them
+to Whale River."
+
+Then Marcel sketched briefly to his wondering friends the history of his
+wanderings and his meeting with the Huskies on the Big Salmon.
+
+As he finished the tale of his escape from the camp with his puppy, and
+later from the ambush, Julie Breton's dark eyes were wet with tears.
+
+"Oh, Jean Marcel, why did you take such risks? You might have
+starved--they might have killed you!"
+
+His eyes lighted with tenderness as they met the girl's questioning
+face.
+
+"I had to have dogs, Julie. I must save my credit with the Company. It
+was the only way."
+
+"Let me see your puppy! Where is she?" demanded the girl.
+
+Jean led his friends outside the Mission, where he had fastened his
+dog. The wild puppy shrank from the strangers, the hair bristling on her
+neck, as Julie impulsively thrust a hand toward the dog's handsome head.
+
+"Oh, but she is cross!" she exclaimed. "What is her name?"
+
+"Fleur; it was my mother's."
+
+"Too nice a name for such an impolite dog!"
+
+Jean stroked Fleur's head as she crouched against his legs muttering her
+dislike of strangers. At his caress, her warm tongue sought his hand.
+
+"There," he said proudly, his white teeth flashing in a grin at Julie,
+"you see here is one who loves Jean Marcel."
+
+At the invitation of Pčre Breton, the _voyageur_ shut his dog in the
+Mission stockade, where she would be free from attack by the post
+Huskies and safe from some covetous Cree, and gladly took possession of
+an empty room in the building.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE MOON OF FLOWERS
+
+
+As the grim fastnesses reaching away to the north and east and south in
+limitless, ice-locked solitude, had wakened to the magic touch of
+spring, so the little post at Whale River had quickened with life at the
+advent of June with the spring trade. For weeks, before the return of
+Marcel, the canoes of the Crees had been coming in daily from winter
+trapping grounds in far valleys. Around the tepees, which dotted the
+post clearing like mushrooms, groups of dark-skinned women, heads
+wrapped in gaudy shawls, laughed and gossiped, while the shrill voices
+of romping children filled the air, for the lean moons of the long snows
+had passed and the soft days returned.
+
+Swart hunters from Lac d'Iberville, half-breed Crees from the Whispering
+Hills and the Little Whale watershed, belted with colored Company
+sashes, wearing beaded leggings and moccasins, smoked and talked of the
+trade with wild _voyageurs_ from Lac Bienville, the Lakes of the Winds,
+and the Starving River headwaters in the caribou barrens. From a hundred
+unmapped valleys they had journeyed to the Bay to trade their fox and
+lynx, their mink and fisher and marten, for the goods of the Company.
+
+Below, along the beach, Huskies from Richmond Gulf and the north coast,
+from the White Bear and the Sleeping Islands, who had brought ivory of
+the walrus, pelts of the white fox, seal, and polar bear, and sealskin
+boots, which only their women possess the art of making waterproof, were
+camped in low skin tepees, their priceless dogs tied up and under
+constant guard. But while the camp of the Esquimos was a bedlam of noisy
+huskies, the quarters of the Crees in the post clearing, formerly
+overrun by brawling sled-dogs, were now a place of peace. The plague of
+the previous summer had left the Indians but a scattering of curs.
+
+Carrying his fur-pack and outfit to the Mission, Marcel sought the
+trade-house. Passing the tepees of the Crees, he was forced to stop and
+receive the congratulations of the admiring hunters on his safe return
+from his "_longue traverse_" through the land of demons, which had been
+the gossip of the post since the arrival of Joe and Antoine.
+
+When his partners appeared, to stare in amazement at the man they had
+announced as dead, Jean made them wince as he gripped their hands.
+
+"Bo'-jo', Joe! Bo'-jo', Antoine!" he laughed. "You see de Windigo foun'
+Jean Marcel too tough to eat! He ees good fr'en' to me now. De Husky
+t'ink me devil too."
+
+"I nevaire t'ink to see you alive at Whale Riviere, Jean Marcel!" cried
+the delighted Antoine.
+
+"Did you get de dog?" asked the practical Piquet.
+
+"Onlee one petite pup; de Husky would not trade." Then Jean hurriedly
+described his weeks on the Salmon.
+
+As he entered the door of the long trade-house he was seized by a giant
+Company man.
+
+"By Gar! Jean Marcel!" cried Jules Duroc, his swart face lighting with
+joy as he crushed the wanderer in a bear hug. "We t'ink you sure starve
+out een de bush! You fin' de Beeg Salmon headwater? You see de Windigo?"
+
+"Oui, I fin' de riviere for sure, Jules; but de Windigo he scared of me.
+I tell heem Jean Marcel ees fr'en' of Jules Duroc."
+
+The laughter in the doorway drew the attention of two men descending the
+ladder from the fur-loft.
+
+"Well, as I live, Jean Marcel!" cried Colin Gillies, the factor, and he
+wrung the hand of the son of his old head man until Marcel grimaced with
+pain.
+
+"You're sure good for sore eyes, Jean; we were about giving you up!"
+added Andrew McCain, the clerk, seizing Jean's free hand.
+
+"Bon jour, M'sieu Gillies! Bon jour, Andrew! Dey say I leeve my bones on
+de Beeg Salmon; de Husky shoot at me; but--Tiens! I am here!"
+
+"What? You had trouble with the Huskies?"
+
+"Oui, dey t'o't I was a devil, because I come down riviere from de
+Bad-Lands, but Kovik, he talk to dem an' I stay. Tell dem I come from
+Whale Riviere. Den dey get mad because I feesh salmon at de rapide and
+mak' trouble; and poor Kovik, he tell dem dat I am bad spirit, so I can
+get away."
+
+Jean laughed heartily at the memory of Kovik's dilemma. "Dey mus' t'ink
+poor Kovik ees damn liar by dees tam." Then he added soberly, "But he
+save my life."
+
+Seated with his three friends, Marcel told of his struggle to reach the
+Salmon, his meeting with the Esquimos, and escape with his dog.
+
+"So you got a dog after all, Jean? But you were crazy to take a chance
+with those Huskies; they won't stand trespassing on their fisheries and
+they were shy of you because you came from the headwaters. I'm glad you
+didn't kill that pair, much as they deserved it. It would have made
+trouble later."
+
+"Good old Kovik! We won't forget him," added McCain.
+
+"No, that we will not," agreed Gillies. "He thought a lot of your
+father, Jean."
+
+"Wal," said Jean proudly, "I weel have good dog-team een two year. Dat
+pup, she ees wort' all de work an' trouble to get her."
+
+"You're lucky," said Gillies. "It's mighty hard on our hunters not to
+have good dogs, but they couldn't pay the Huskies' price. The Crees only
+took three for breeding purposes, and six cost us a thousand in trade.
+The rest were taken to Fort George and East Main."
+
+The days at the Mission with Pčre Breton and Julie raced by--hours of
+unalloyed happiness for Jean after ten months in the "bush." Not a day
+passed that did not find him romping with the great puppy who had
+learned to gaze at her tall master through slant eyes eloquent with
+love. Each morning when he visited the Mission fish nets and his own,
+the puppy rode in the bow of the canoe. Each afternoon, often
+accompanied by Julie Breton, they went for a run up the river shore. Man
+and dog were inseparable.
+
+When he heard that Kovik had arrived, Jean brought Fleur down to the
+shore, to find the family absent from their lodge. To Marcel's
+amazement, his puppy at first failed to recognize her brothers, who,
+yelping madly, rushed her in a mass.
+
+With flattened ears, and mane stiffened on neck and back, their doughty
+sister met them half-way. Bowling one over, she shouldered another to
+the ground, where she threatened him with a fierce display of teeth. And
+not until their worried mother, made fast to a stake, had recognized her
+lost daughter and lured her within reach of her tongue, did the nose of
+Jean's puppy reveal to her the identity of her kin. Then there was a mad
+frolic in which she bullied and roughed her brothers as in the forgotten
+days before the master with the low voice and the hand that never struck
+her, took her away in his canoe.
+
+When Kovik appeared in his umiak with his squat wife and family, there
+was a general handshaking.
+
+"How you leeve my fr'en' on de Salmon, Kovik?"
+
+The Husky gravely shook his head.
+
+"Kovik have troub' wid young men you shoot. Dey say Kovik bad spirit
+too. You not hurt by dem?"
+
+"Dey miss me an' I dreef down riviere an' ambush dem. I could keel dem
+easy but eet mak' eet bad for you. Here ees tabac, an' tea an' sugar for
+de woman. I tell M'sieu Gillies w'at you do for Jean Marcel."
+
+When Jean had distributed his gifts, Fleur came trotting up, but to his
+delight refused to allow Kovik to touch her.
+
+"Huh! Dat you' dog!" chuckled the Husky.
+
+"Oui, she ees my dog, now," laughed Jean, and his heart went out to the
+puppy who already knew but one allegiance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FOR LOVE OF A DOG
+
+
+The spring trade at Whale River was nearing its end. One by one the
+tepees in the post clearing disappeared as, each day, canoes of Cree
+hunters started up-river for lakes of the interior, to net fish for the
+coming winter. Already the umiaks of the Esquimos peopled with women and
+children had followed the ebb-tide down to the great Bay, bound for
+their autumn hunting camps along the north coast.
+
+When Jean Marcel had traded his fur and purchased what flour, ammunition
+and other supplies he needed to carry him through the long snows of the
+coming winter, he found that a substantial balance remained to his
+credit on the books of the Company; a nest egg, he hoped, for the day
+when, perchance, as a _voyageur_ of the Company with a house at the
+post, he might stand with Julie at his side and receive the blessing of
+the good Pčre Breton. But Jean realized that that day was far away.
+Before he might hope to be honored by the Company with the position and
+trust his father had so long enjoyed, he knew he must prove his mettle
+and his worth; for the Company crews and dog-runners, entrusted with
+the mails, the fur-brigades and Company business in general, are men
+chosen for their intelligence, stamina and skill as canoemen and
+dog-drivers.
+
+When he had packed his last load of winter supplies from the trade-house
+to the Mission, he said with a laugh to Julie:
+
+"Julie, we have made a good start, you and I. We have credit of three
+hundred dollars with the Company."
+
+The olive skin of Julie Breton flushed to the dusky crown of hair, but
+she retorted with spirit:
+
+"You are counting your geese before they are shot, M'sieu Jean. Merci!
+But I am very happy with Pčre Henri."
+
+Pčre Breton's laugh interrupted Jean's reply. "Yes, my son. Julie is
+right. You are too young, you two, to think of anything but your souls."
+
+"Some day, Julie, I will be a Company man and then you will listen to
+Jean Marcel," and the lad who had cherished the memory of the girl's
+oval face through the long winter and taken it with him into the dim,
+blue Ungava hills, left the Mission with head erect and swinging stride.
+
+"Jean, when are you going back to the bush?" inquired Gillies, as Marcel
+entered the trade-house.
+
+"My partners and I go next week, maybe."
+
+"Well, I want you to take a canoe to Duck Island for me. We're
+short-handed here, and you have just come down that coast. I promised
+some Huskies to leave a cache of stuff there this summer."
+
+Marcel's dark features reddened with pride. He had been put in charge of
+a canoe bound on Company business. His crossing to the Big Salmon had
+marked him at Whale River as a canoeman of daring--a chip of the old
+block, worthy of the name Marcel.
+
+"Bien! M'sieu Gillies, when do we start?"
+
+"To-day, after dinner!"
+
+Returning to the Mission elated, Marcel ate his dinner, made up his pack
+while they wished him "Bon-voyage!" then went out to the stockade.
+
+At the gate he was met simultaneously by the impact of a shaggy body and
+the swift licks of an eager tongue. Then Fleur circled him at full
+speed, yelping her delight, while she worked off the excitement of
+seeing her playmate again, until, at length, she trotted up and nosed
+his hand, keen for the daily rubbing of her ears which drew from her
+deep throat grateful mutterings of content.
+
+"I leave my petite chienne for a few days," he whispered into a hairy
+ear. "She will be a good dog and obey Ma'm'selle Julie, who will feed
+her?"
+
+The puppy broke away and ran to the gate, turning to him with pricked
+ears as she whined for the daily stroll into the scrub after snow-shoe
+rabbits.
+
+"Non, ma petite! We walk not to-day!" He stroked the slate-gray back
+which trembled with her desire for a run with the master, then circling
+her shaggy neck with his arms, his face against hers, while she fretted
+as though she knew Jean was leaving her, said: "A'voir, Fleur!" and
+closed the gate.
+
+She stood grieving, her black nose thrust between the slab pickets, the
+slant eyes following Marcel's back until he disappeared. Then she raised
+her head and, in the manner of her kind, voiced her disappointment in a
+long howl. And the wail of his puppy struck with strange insistence upon
+the ears of Jean Marcel--like a premonition of misfortune which the
+future held for him and which he often recalled in the weeks to come.
+
+As the canoe of the Company journeyed through the Strait of the Spirit,
+flocks of gray geese, which were now leading their broods out to the
+coast islands from the muskegs of the interior, rose ahead, to sail away
+in their geometric formations, while clouds of pin-tail and black duck
+patrolled the low beaches.
+
+Jean left his cargo for the Huskies in a stone cache and running into a
+south-wester, while homeward bound, did not reach Whale River for a
+fortnight. As he approached the post, he made out at the log landing
+the Company steamer _Inenew_, loaded with trade goods from the depot at
+Charlton Island. Through the clearing, now almost bare of tepees, for
+the trade was over, he walked to the Mission. The door was opened by
+Julie Breton.
+
+"Bon-jour, Ma'm'selle Breton!" and he seized the unresponsive hand of
+the girl.
+
+"I am glad to see you home safely, Jean." Something in the face and
+voice of the girl checked him.
+
+"What is the matter, Julie?" he asked. "Pčre Henri; he is not ill?"
+
+"No, Jean. Pčre Henri is well, but----"
+
+"You do not seem glad to see me again, Julie!"
+
+"I am glad. You know that----"
+
+"Well," he flung out, hurt at the girl's constrained manner, "I'll go
+and see someone who will welcome Jean Marcel with no sober face----"
+
+"Jean!" she said as he turned away.
+
+"What is it, Ma'm'selle Breton?" and he smiled into her troubled eyes.
+"Fleur has missed me, I know. She will give Jean Marcel a true welcome
+home."
+
+"Jean--she is not there--they stole her!"
+
+The face of Jean Marcel twisted with pain.
+
+"Mon Dieu! Stole my Fleur--my puppy?"
+
+"Yes, they took her from the stockade, two nights ago--two men who came
+up the coast after dogs."
+
+With face buried in his arms to hide the tears misting his eyes, he
+leaned against the door jamb, while the girl rested a sympathetic hand
+on his shoulder.
+
+"Poor Jean!"
+
+"I worked so hard to get her. I loved that puppy, Julie; she was my
+child," he groaned.
+
+"I know, Jean, how you feel; after what you have been through--to have
+lost her----"
+
+"But I have not lost her!" the boy exclaimed fiercely, drawing a deep
+breath and facing the girl with features set like stone. "I have not
+lost her, Julie Breton! I will follow them and bring back my dog if I
+have to trail those men to Rupert House."
+
+The tears had gone and in the eyes of Jean Marcel was a glint she had
+never known--a glitter of hate for the men who had taken his dog, so
+intense, so bitter, that she thrilled inwardly as she gazed at his
+transformed face. Instinctively, Julie Breton knew that the lad who
+faced her was no longer the playmate of old to be treated as a boy, but
+the possessor of a high courage and unbreakable will that men in the
+future would reckon with.
+
+Jean entered the trade-house to find Gillies in conversation with a tall
+stranger, who, Jules whispered, was Mr. Wallace, the new inspector of
+the East Coast posts, who had come with the steamer.
+
+"A few days after you left, Jean," explained Gillies, "two half-breeds
+dropped in here with the story that they had travelled up the coast from
+Rupert House to buy dogs from the Huskies. There were no dogs for sale
+here, and they seemed pretty sore at missing the York-boat bound south
+with the dogs bought by the Company for East Main and Fort George. Why,
+we didn't know, for they couldn't get any of those dogs. They were a
+weazel-faced, mean-looking pair and when Jules found them feeding two of
+our huskies one day, there was trouble."
+
+"What did they do to you, Jules?" asked Jean, smiling faintly at the big
+Company bowman.
+
+"What did Jules do to them, you mean," broke in Angus McCain.
+
+"Well," continued Gillies, "we got outside in time to see Jules break
+his paddle over the head of one and pile into the other who had a knife
+out and looked mean.
+
+"Then I kicked them out of the post. They left that night with your dog,
+for the next day at Little Bear Island they passed a canoe of
+goose-hunters bound for Whale River and the Indians noticed the puppy
+who seemed to be muzzled and tied."
+
+During the recital, Marcel walked the floor of the trade-house, his
+blood hot with rage.
+
+"French half-breeds, M'sieu Gillies, or Scotch?" he asked.
+
+"Scotch, Jean, medium sized; one had lost half an ear and the other had
+a scar on his chin and the first finger gone on his right hand. But
+you're not going after them, lad; they've two days' start on you and
+it's August!"
+
+"M'sieu Gillies, I took de _longue traverse_ for dat dog. She was de
+best pup in dees place. I love dat husky, M'sieu. I start to-night."
+
+The import and finality of Jean's words startled his hearers.
+
+"Why, you won't make your trapping-grounds before the freeze-up, if you
+head down the coast now. You're crazy, man! Besides, they are two days
+ahead of you, to start with, and with two paddles will keep gaining,"
+objected the factor.
+
+"M'sieu Gillies," the boy ignored the factor's protest, "will you geeve
+me letter of credit for de Company posts?"
+
+"Why, yes, Jean, you've got three hundred dollars credit here, but, man,
+stop and think! You can't overhaul those breeds alone, and if they
+belong in the East Main or Rupert River country they'll be back in the
+bush by the time you reach the posts, even if you can trail them that
+far. It's three hundred and fifty miles to Rupert House; you might be a
+month on the way."
+
+Jean Marcel shook his head doggedly, determination written in the
+stone-hard muscles of his dark face. Then he suddenly demanded of the
+factor:
+
+"What would my father, André Marcel, do eef he leeved? Because of de
+freeze-up would he geeve hees pup to dose dog-stealer? I ask you dat,
+M'sieu?"
+
+Gillies' honest eyes frankly met the questioner's.
+
+"André Marcel was the best canoeman on this coast, and no man ever did
+him a wrong who didn't pay." The factor hesitated.
+
+"Well, M'sieu!" demanded Jean.
+
+"André Marcel," Gillies continued, "would have followed the men who
+stole his dog down this coast and west to the Barren Grounds."
+
+Jules Duroc nodded gravely as he added: "By Gar! André Marcel, he would
+trail dose men into de muskegs of Hell."
+
+"Well," said Jean, smiling proudly at the encomiums of his father's
+prowess, "Jean Marcel, hees son, will start to-night."
+
+Argument was futile to dissuade Marcel from his mad venture. His
+partners of the previous winter who had waited impatiently for his
+return refused to delay longer their start for Ghost River and left at
+once.
+
+Then Jules took Marcel aside and quietly talked to him as would a
+brother.
+
+"Jean, you stay here wid Ma'm'selle Julie till de steamer go. Dat M'sieu
+Wallace, he sweet on you' girl w'en you were up de coast. You stay till
+he leeve."
+
+For this Jean had an outward shrug of contempt, but the rumored
+attentions of Wallace to Julie Breton, during his absence, sickened his
+heart with fear. Was he to lose her, too, as well as Fleur?
+
+Before supper, at the Mission, Pčre Breton urged him to return to his
+trapping grounds and spare himself the toil of a hopeless quest down the
+coast in the face of the coming winter. Julie was adding her objections
+to her brother's, when a knock on the door checked her. Her face colored
+slightly as Jean glanced up, when she turned to the door.
+
+"Bon soir, Monsieur!" she greeted the newcomer, a note of embarrassment
+in her voice.
+
+"Good evening, Mademoiselle. I hope I'm not late?" And Inspector Wallace
+entered the room.
+
+The Inspector, a handsome, well-built man of thirty-five, was dressed in
+the garb of civilization and wore shoes, a rarity at Whale River. Chief
+of the East Coast posts of the Great Company, he had been sent the year
+previous, from western Ontario, and put in command of men older in years
+and experience who had passed their lives in the far north. And
+naturally much resentment had manifested itself among the traders. But
+that the new chief officer looked and acted like a man of ability, the
+disgruntled factors had been forced to admit.
+
+As Wallace sat conversing of the great world outside with Pčre Breton,
+who was evidently much pleased by his attentions to Julie, he seemed to
+Jean Marcel to embody all that the young Frenchman lacked. How, indeed,
+he asked himself, could he now aspire to the love of Julie Breton when
+so great a man chose to smile upon her?
+
+Wallace seemed surprised at the presence of a humble Company hunter as a
+member of the priest's family, but Pčre Breton privately informed him
+that Jean was as a son and brother at the Mission.
+
+While the black eyes of Julie flashed in response to the admiring
+glances of Wallace, Jean Marcel ate in silence his last meal at Whale
+River for many a long week, torn by his longing for the dog carried down
+the coast in the canoe of the thieves and by the hopelessness of his
+love for this girl who was manifestly thrilling to the compliments of a
+man who knew the world of men and cities, who had seen many women, yet
+found this rose of the north fair. But as he ate in silence, the young
+Frenchman made a vow that should this man, who was taking her from him,
+treat her innocence lightly, Inspector though he was, he should feel
+the cold steel of the knife of Jean Marcel.
+
+After the meal, as Jean prepared to leave, Pčre Breton renewed his
+protests against the trip, but in vain. If he had luck, Marcel insisted,
+he could beat the "freeze-up" home; if not, he would travel up the
+coast, later, on the ice, or--well, it did not much matter what became
+of Jean Marcel.
+
+So, with the letter of the factor, on which he could draw supplies at
+the southern posts, Jean Marcel shook the hands of his friends and,
+sliding his canoe into the ebb tide, started south as the dying sun
+gilded the flat Bay to the west. He waved his hand in farewell to the
+group of Company men on the shore, when he saw above them the figures of
+Julie Breton and the priest. As Julie held aloft something white, she
+and her brother were joined by a man. It was Inspector Wallace. Jean
+swung his paddle to and fro, in response to Julie's Godspeed, then
+dropping to his knees, drove the craft swiftly down-stream on the long
+pursuit which might take him four hundred miles down the coast to the
+white-waters of the great Rupert and beyond, he knew not where. And with
+him he carried the thought that Julie, his Julie, would daily, for a
+week, see this great man of the Company. It was a heavy heart that
+Marcel that night took down to the sea.
+
+With the vision of Fleur, strangely sensing the impending separation
+from her master, as her wail of despair rose from the stockade the night
+he left her to go north, constantly before his eyes, Jean Marcel reached
+the coast and turned south. The thought of his puppy muzzled and bound
+in the canoe two days ahead of him lent power to every lunge of his
+paddle. While the knowledge that, back at Whale River, instead of
+walking the river shore in the long twilight with Jean Marcel, as he had
+dreamed, Julie would have Wallace at her side, added to the viciousness
+of his stroke. The sea was flat and when at daylight he saw looming
+ahead the shores of Big Island, he knew he had won a deserved rest, so
+went ashore, cooked some food and slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE LONG TRAIL TO THE SOUTH COAST
+
+
+A day's hard paddle past Big Island the dreaded Cape of the Four Winds
+thrust its bold buttresses far out into the sea toward the White Bear,
+and Marcel knew that wind here meant days of delay, for no canoe could
+round this grim headland feared by all _voyageurs_, except in fair
+weather. So, after a few hours' sleep, he toiled all day down the coast
+and at midnight had put the gray cape behind him.
+
+Two days later when Marcel went ashore on the Isle of Graves of the
+Esquimos, to boil his kettle, he found, to his delight, a Fort George
+goose-boat on the same errand. The Crees who had just left the post to
+shoot the winter's supply of gray and snowy geese, or "wavies," as they
+are called from their resemblance in flight to a white banner waving in
+the sun, had met, two nights before off the mouth of Big River, the
+canoe he was following. The dog-thieves, who were strangers, did not
+stop at the post, but had continued south.
+
+With two paddles they were not holding their lead, he laughed to
+himself, but were coming back. If he hurried he would overhaul them
+before they reached Rupert. He did not know the Rupert River, and if
+once they started inland he would be caught by the "freeze-up" in a
+strange country, so he continued on late into the night.
+
+Then followed day after day of endless toil at the paddle, for he knew
+he must travel while the weather held. He could not hope to make Rupert,
+or even East Main before the wind changed; which might mean idling for
+days on a beach pounded by seas in which no canoe could live. At times,
+with a stern breeze, he rigged a piece of canvas to a spruce pole and
+sailed. But one thought dominated him as mile after mile of the gray
+East Coast slid past; the thought of having his puppy once more in his
+canoe, fretting at the gulls and ducks and geese, as he headed north.
+
+Only through necessity did he stop to shoot geese, whose gray and white
+legions were gathering on the coast for the annual migration. At dawn
+the "gou-luk!" of the gray ganders marshalling their families out to the
+feeding grounds, which once sent his blood leaping, now left him cold.
+He was hunting bigger game, and his heart hungered for his puppy, beaten
+and half-starved, in all likelihood, travelling somewhere ahead down
+that bleak coast in the canoe of two men who did not know that close on
+their heels followed an enemy as dogged, as relentless, as a wolf on
+the trail of an old caribou abandoned by the herd.
+
+And so, after days of ceaseless dip and swing, dip and swing, which at
+night left his back and arms stiff and his fingers numb, Jean Marcel
+turned into the mouth of the East Main River and paddled up to the post,
+where he learned that the canoe of the half-breeds had not been seen,
+and that no hunters of their description traded there. So he turned
+again to the Bay and headed south for Rupert House. Off the Wild Geese
+Islands he met what he had for days been dreading, the first September
+north-wester, and was driven ashore. For the following three days he
+rested and hunted geese, and when the storm whipped itself out, went on,
+and at last, crossing Boatswain's Bay, rounded Mount Sherrick and
+paddled up Rupert Bay to the famous old post, which, since the days of
+the Merry Monarch and his favorite, Prince Rupert, the first Governor of
+the "Company of Merchants-Adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay," has
+guarded the river mouth--an uninterrupted history of two centuries and a
+half of fair dealing with the red fur-hunters of Rupert Land.
+
+"So you're the son of André Marcel? Well, well! Time does fly! Why,
+André and I made many a camp together in the old days. There was a man,
+my lad!"
+
+Jean straightened his wide shoulders in pride at this praise of his
+father by Alec Cameron, factor at Rupert. When he had explained the
+object of his long journey south in the fall, the latter raised his
+bushy eyebrows in amazement.
+
+"You mean to tell me that you paddled from Whale River in fifteen days,
+after a dog?"
+
+"Oui, M'sieu Cameron."
+
+"Well, you didn't waste the daylight or the moon either. You're sure a
+son of André Marcel. It must be a record for a single paddle; and all
+for a pup, eh?"
+
+"Oui, all for a pup!"
+
+"You deserve to get that dog. Now, these half-breeds you describe
+dropped in here in June behind the Mistassini brigade, and traded their
+fur. Then they started north after dogs."
+
+"Dey were onlee a day ahead of me up de coast."
+
+"Queer I haven't seen 'em here yet. Pierre!" Cameron called to a Company
+man passing the trade-house. "Have those two Mistassini strangers who
+went north in June, got back yet?"
+
+"No, but Albert meet dem in Gull Bay two day back. Dey have one pup dey
+trade from Huskee!"
+
+"There you are, Marcel! Your men crossed over to Hannah Bay to hunt
+geese. They'll be here in a week or two on their way up-river. You wait
+here and we'll get your dog when they show up."
+
+"T'anks, M'sieu Cameron!" The dark eyes of Jean Marcel snapped. At last
+he was closing in on his quarry. "I weel go to Hannah Bay now and get my
+dog."
+
+"Two to one, lad! They may get the best of you, and I've no men to
+spare; they're all away goose hunting. You'd better wait here."
+
+"M'sieu, André Marcel would go alone and tak' his dog. I, hees son, also
+weel tak' mine."
+
+"Good Lord! André Marcel would have skinned them alive--those two. Well,
+good luck, Jean! but I don't like your tackling those breeds alone."
+
+Jean shook hands with the factor.
+
+"Bon-jour, M'sieu Cameron, and t'anks!"
+
+"If you don't drop in here on your way back, give my regards to Gillies
+and his family, and be careful," said the factor as Marcel left him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE MEETING IN THE MARSHES
+
+
+Two days later, after rounding Point Comfort, Marcel was crossing the
+mud-flats of Gull Bay. At last the stalk was on, for somewhere in the
+vast marshes of the Hannah Bay coast, camped the men he had followed
+four hundred miles to meet face to face and fight for his dog. Somewhere
+ahead, through the gray mist, back in the juniper and alder scrub beyond
+the wide reaches of tide-flats and goose-grass, was Fleur, a prisoner.
+
+That night in camp at East Point, while he cleaned the action and bore
+of his rifle, the clatter of the geese in the muskeg behind the far
+lines of spruce edging the marshes, filled him with wonder. Never on the
+bold East Coast had he heard such a din of geese gathering for the long
+flight. At dawn, for it was windy, lines of gray Canadas passing
+overhead bound out to the shoals, waked him with their clamor. The tide
+was low, and he carried his canoe across the mud-flats through flocks of
+plover, snipe and yellow-legs, feeding behind the ebb, while teal and
+black-duck swarmed along the beaches.
+
+As he poled his canoe south through the shoals, he recalled the tales
+his father had told him of the marshes of Hannah Bay, the greatest
+breeding ground of the gray goose and black duck in all the wide north.
+Everywhere along the bars and sand-spits the gray Canadas were idling,
+always with an erect, keen-eyed sentinel on guard. Farther out, white
+islands of snowy geese flashed in the sun, as here and there a "wavy"
+rose on the water to flap his black-tipped wings. Just in from their
+Arctic breeding-grounds, they were lingering for a month's feast on
+toothsome south-coast goose-grass before seeking their winter home on
+the great Gulf two thousand miles away.
+
+Slowly throughout the morning Marcel travelled along the mud-flats bared
+for miles by the retreating tide. At times the breeze carried to his
+ears the faint sound of firing, but there were goose-boats from Moose
+and Rupert House on the coast, and it meant little. That night as the
+tide covered the marshes he ran up a channel of the Harricanaw delta
+seeking a camp-ground on its higher shores.
+
+Landing he was looking for drift-wood for his fire when suddenly he
+stopped.
+
+"Ah! You have been here, my friends."
+
+In the soft mud of the shore ran the clearly marked tracks of a man and
+dog. The footprints of the dog seemed large for Fleur, but Marcel had
+not seen her in six weeks and the puppy was growing fast.
+
+"Fleur!" he said aloud, "will you remember Jean Marcel after all these
+weeks with them?"
+
+He had seen no smoke of a fire and the tracks were at least two days
+old. His men were doubtless on the west shore of the bay where the water
+for miles inland to the spruce networked the marshes, and the rank grass
+grew to the height of a man's head; but he would find them. The guns of
+the hunters would betray their whereabouts.
+
+He drew a long breath of relief. At last he had reached the end of the
+trail. He could now come to grips with his enemies. To the thief, the
+law of the north is ruthless, and ruthlessly Jean Marcel was prepared to
+exact, if need be, the last drop of the blood of these men in payment
+for this act. It was now his nerve and wit against theirs, with Fleur as
+the stake. The blood of André Marcel and the _coureurs-de-bois_, which
+stirred in his veins, was hot for the fight which the days would bring.
+
+Before dawn Jean was taking advantage of the high tide, and when the
+first light streaked the east, was well on his way. As the sun lifted
+over the muskeg behind the bay he saw, hanging in the still air, the
+smoke of a fire.
+
+Quickly turning inshore, he ran his canoe up a waterway and into the
+long grass. There he waited until the tide went out, listening to the
+faint reports of the guns of the hunters. At noon, having eaten some
+cold goose and bannock, he took his rifle and started back over the
+marsh. Slowly he worked his way, keeping to the cover of the grass and
+alders, circling around the wide, open spaces, pock-marked with
+water-holes and small ponds.
+
+Knowing that the breeds would not take the dog with them to their blinds
+but would tie her up, he planned to stalk the camp up-wind, in order not
+to alarm Fleur, who might betray his presence to his enemies if by
+accident they were in camp, in the afternoon, when the geese were
+moving. After that--well, he should see.
+
+At last he lay within sight of the tent, which was pitched on a tongue
+of high ground running out into the rush-covered mud-flats. The camp was
+deserted. His eyes strained wistfully for the sight of the shaggy shape
+of his puppy. Pain stabbed at his heart. She was not there. What could
+it mean? Distant shots from the marsh to the west marked the absence of
+at least one of the breeds. But where was Fleur?
+
+Marcel was too "bush-wise" to take any chances. Still keeping to cover,
+he made his approach up-wind until he lay within a stone's throw of the
+tent, when a shift in the breeze warned a pair of keen nostrils that
+some living thing skulked not far off.
+
+The heart of Jean Marcel leaped as the howl of Fleur betrayed his
+presence, for huskies never bark. Grasping his rifle, he waited. The
+uproar of the dog brought no response. The breeds were both away.
+Rising, he ran to the excited puppy lashed to a stake back of the tent.
+
+"Fleur! _Ma petite chienne!_" Dropping his rifle, he approached his dog
+with outstretched arms. With flattened ears, the puppy crouched,
+growling at the stranger, her mane bristling.
+
+"Fleur! Don't you know me, pup?" continued Marcel in soothing tones,
+holding out his hand.
+
+The puppy's ears went forward. She sniffed long at the hand that had
+once caressed her. Slowly the growl died in her throat.
+
+"Fleur! Fleur! My poor puppy! Don't you remember Jean Marcel?"
+
+Again the puzzled dog drew deep whiffs through her black nostrils. Back
+in her brain memory was at work. Slowly the soothing tones of the voice
+of Marcel stirred the ghosts of other days; vague hints, blurred by the
+cruelty of weeks, of a time when the hand of a master caressed her and
+did not strike, when a voice called to her as this voice--then another
+sniff, and she knew. With a whimper her warm tongue licked his hand, and
+Jean Marcel had his puppy in his arms. Mad with joy, the yelping husky
+strained at her rawhide bonds as her anxious master examined a great
+lump on her head, and her ribs, ridged with welts from kick and blow.
+
+"So they tied her up and beat her, my Fleur? Well, she not leave Jean
+Marcel again. Were he go, Fleur go!"
+
+Suddenly in his ears were hissed the words:
+
+"W'at you do wid dat dog?" And a fierce blow on the back of the head
+hurled the kneeling Marcel flat on his face.
+
+For a space he lay stunned, his numbed senses blurred beyond thought or
+action. Then, as his dazed brain cleared, the realization that life hung
+on his presence of mind, for he would receive no mercy from the thieves,
+held him limp on the ground as though unconscious.
+
+Snarling curses at the crumpled body of his victim, the half-breed was
+busy with the joining of some rawhide thongs. Then Jean's dizziness
+faded. Cautiously he raised an eyelid. The breed was bending over him
+with a looped thong. Not a muscle moved as the Frenchman waited. Nearer
+leaned the thief. He reached to slip the looped rawhide over one of
+Marcel's outstretched hands, when, with a lunge from the ground, the
+arms of the latter clamped on his legs like a sprung trap. With a
+wrench, the surprised thief was thrown heavily.
+
+Cat-like, the hunter was on his man, bearing him down. And then began a
+battle in which quarter was neither asked nor given. Heavier but slower
+than the younger man, the thief vainly sought to reach Marcel's throat,
+for the Frenchman's arms, having the under grip, blocked the half-breed
+from Jean's knife and his own. Over and over they rolled, locked
+together; so evenly matched in strength that neither could free a hand.
+Near them yelped Fleur, frantic with excitement, plunging at her stake.
+
+Then the close report of a gun sounded in Marcel's startled ears. A
+great fear swept him. The absent thief was working back to camp. It was
+a matter of minutes. Was it to this that he had toiled down the coast in
+search of his dog--a grave in the Harricanaw mud? And the face of Julie
+Breton flashed across his vision.
+
+Desperate with the knowledge that he must win quickly, if at all, he
+strained until the fingers of his left hand reached the haft of the
+breed's knife. But a twinge shot through his shoulder like the stab of
+steel, as the teeth of his enemy crunched into his flesh, and he lost
+his grip. Maddened by pain, Marcel wrenched his right arm free and had
+his own knife before the fingers of the thief closed on his wrist,
+holding the blade in the sheath. Then began a duel of sheer strength.
+For a time the straining arms lifted and pushed, at a dead lock. With
+veins swelling on neck and forehead, Marcel fought to unsheath his
+knife; but the half-breed's arm was iron, did not give. Again a gun was
+fired--still nearer the camp.
+
+With help at hand, the thief, safe so long as he held his grip, snarled
+in triumph in the ear of his trapped enemy. But his peril only increased
+the Frenchman's strength. The fighting blood of the Marcels boiled in
+his veins. With a fierce heave of the shoulders the hand gripping the
+knife moved upward. The arm of the thief gave way, only to straighten.
+Then with a wrench that would not be denied, Jean tore the blade from
+the sheath.
+
+Frantically now, the breed, white with sudden fear, fought the sinewy
+wrist, advancing inexorably, on its grim mission. In short jerks, Marcel
+hunched the knife toward its goal. As he weakened, the knotted features
+of the one who felt death creeping to him, inch by inch, went gray. The
+hand fighting Marcel's wrist dripped with sweat. Panting hoarsely, like
+a beast at bay, the thief twisted and writhed from the pitiless steel.
+Then in his ears rang the voice of the approaching hunter.
+
+With a cry of despair, the doomed half-breed called to the man who had
+come too late. Already the knuckles of Marcel were high on his ribs.
+With a final wrench, the blade was lunged home.
+
+The cry was smothered in a cough. The man who had beaten his last puppy
+gasped, quivered convulsively; then lay still.
+
+Bathed in sweat, shaking from the strain and exertion of the long
+battle, Marcel got stiffly to his feet and seized his rifle. Again the
+camp was hailed from the marsh. It was evident that the goose-hunter had
+not sensed the cry of his partner or he would not have betrayed his
+position. Doubtless he was poling up a reed-masked waterway with a load
+of geese.
+
+Jean smiled grimly, for the thief would have only his shotgun loaded
+with fine shot, for large shot is not used for geese in the north.
+Hurriedly searching the tent, he found a rifle which he threw into the
+rushes; then loosed Fleur.
+
+The half-breed was in his power, but he wanted no prisoner. To stay and
+beat this man as Fleur had been beaten would have been sweet, but of
+blood he had had enough. For an instant his eyes rested on the ghastly
+evidence of his visit, awaiting the return of the hunter; then he took
+Fleur and started across the marsh for his canoe.
+
+To the dead man, who, to the theft of Fleur would have lightly added the
+death of her master, Marcel gave no thought. As for the other, when he
+found his dead partner, fear of an ambush would prevent him from
+following their trail.
+
+Reaching his canoe, Jean divided a goose with Fleur and, when it became
+dark, started for East Point. That the half-breed's partner might
+attempt to follow him and seek revenge, he had no doubt, but with the
+shotgun alone, for Jean had taken the only rifle at their camp, the
+thief's sole chance would be to stalk Marcel while he slept. However, as
+the sea was flat and the tide ebbing, Marcel was confident that daylight
+would find him well up the coast toward Point Comfort.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+IN THE TEETH OF THE WINDS
+
+
+It was the first week in September. This meant a race with the
+"freeze-up" into Whale River, for with the autumn headwinds, it would
+take him a month, travel as he might. Though he sorely needed geese for
+food on his way north, there was no time to waste at Hannah Bay, so
+Marcel paddled steadily all night. At dawn, in the mist off Gull Bay,
+Fleur became so restless with the scent of the shoals of geese, which
+the canoe was raising, that Jean was forced to put a gag of hide in her
+mouth while he drifted with the tide on the "wavies" and shot a week's
+supply of food.
+
+At daylight he went ashore, concealed his canoe behind some boulders,
+and trusting to Fleur's nose and ears to guard him from surprise, slept
+the sleep of exhaustion. Later, while his breakfast was cooking, Jean
+revelled in his reunion with his dog. In the weeks since he had last
+seen her she had fairly leaped in height and weight. Food had been
+plenty with the half-breeds and Fleur was not starved, but his blood
+boiled at the evidence she bore of the breeds' brutality. He now
+regretted that he had not ambushed the confederate of the man he had
+beaten, and branded him, also, as the puppy had been marked.
+
+Though Fleur was but six months old, the heavy legs and already massive
+lines of her head gave promise of a maturity, unusual, even in the
+Ungava breed. Some day, mused Marcel, as Fleur looked her love of the
+master through her slant, brown eyes, her head on his knee, he would
+have a dog-team equal to the famous huskies of his grandfather, Pierre
+Marcel, who once took the Christmas mail from Albany to Fort Hope, four
+hundred and fifty miles, over a drifted trail, in twelve days.
+
+"Yes, some day Fleur will give Jean Marcel a team," he said aloud, and
+rubbed the gray ears while Fleur's hairy throat rumbled in delight as
+though she were struggling to answer: "Some day, Jean Marcel; for Fleur
+will not forget how you came from the north and brought her home." And
+then the muscles of his lean face twisted with pain as he went on: "But
+who will there be to work for with Julie gone?"
+
+That day, holding the nose of his canoe on Mount Sherrick, Jean crossed
+the mouth of Rupert Bay and headed up the coast. In three days he was at
+East Main, where he bought dried whitefish for Fleur, for huskies thrive
+on whitefish as on no other food, and salt to cure geese; then started
+the same night for Fort George. Two days out he was driven ashore by
+the first north-wester and held prisoner, while he added to his supply
+of geese, which he salted down.
+
+After the storm he toiled on day after day, praying that the stinging
+northers bringing the "freeze-up" would hold off until he sighted Whale
+River. At night, seated beneath the sombre cliffs by his drift-wood fire
+with Fleur at his side, he often watched the wonder of the Northern
+Lights, marvelling at their mystery, as they pulsed and waned and flared
+again over the sullen Bay, then streamed up across the heavens, and
+diffusing, veiled the stars, which twinkled through with a mystic blue
+light. The "Spirits of the Dead at Play," the Esquimos called those
+dancing phantoms of the skies; and he thought of his own dead and
+wondered if their spirits were at peace.
+
+And then, as he lay, a blanketed shape beside his sleeping puppy, came
+dreams to mock him--dreams of Julie Breton, always happy, and beside
+her, smiling into her face, the handsome Inspector of the East Coast
+posts. Night after night he dreamed of the girl who was slipping away
+from him--who had forgotten Jean Marcel in his mad race south for his
+dog.
+
+On and on he fought his way north through the head-seas, defying
+cross-winds; landing to empty his canoe, and then on to the lee of the
+next island. While his boat would live he travelled, for September was
+drawing to a close and over him hung the menace of the first stinging
+northers which for days would anchor his frail craft to the beach. Hard
+on their heels would follow the nipping nights of the "freeze-up," which
+would shackle the waterways, locking the land in a grip of ice.
+
+Past the beetling shoulders of the Black Whale, past the Earthquake
+Islands and Fort George he journeyed, for the brant and blue geese were
+on the coast and he needed no supplies; leaving Caribou Point astern, at
+last the dreaded Cape of the Four Winds loomed through the mist which
+blanketed the flat sea.
+
+It was to this gray headland that he had raced the northers which would
+have held him wind-bound. And he had won.
+
+Rounding the Cape, in five days he stood, a drawn-faced tattered figure
+with Fleur at his side, at the door of the Mission House.
+
+"Jean Marcel! Thank God!" and Julie Breton impulsively kissed the lean
+cheek of the _voyageur_. A whine of protest followed by a smothered
+rumble at such familiarity with her master drew her glance to the great
+puppy. "Fleur! You brought Fleur with you, Jean, as you said you would.
+Oh, we have had much worry about you, Jean Marcel--and how thin you
+are!"
+
+She led man and dog into the building.
+
+"Henri! Come quick and see whom we have with us!"
+
+"Jean, my son!" cried the priest, embracing the returned _voyageur_,
+"and you brought back your dog! It will be a brave tale we shall hear
+to-night!"
+
+The appearance of Marcel and Fleur at the trade-house was greeted with:
+
+"Nom de Dieu! Jean Marcel! And de dog! He return wid hees dog, by Gar!"
+as Jules Duroc sprang to meet him with a bear hug.
+
+"Welcome back, my lad!" cried Colin Gillies, tearing a hand of Jean from
+the emotional Company man. While Angus McCain, joining in the chorus of
+congratulations, was clapping the helpless Marcel on the shoulder, the
+perplexed puppy, worried by the uproar of strangers about her master,
+leaped, tearing the back out of McCain's coat, and was relegated by Jean
+to the stockade outside.
+
+"Well, well, how far did they take you, Jean? Did you have a fuss
+getting your dog?" asked the factor.
+
+"I was one day behind dem at Rupert Bay----"
+
+"What, you've been to Rupert?" interrupted the amazed Gillies.
+
+"Oui, M'sieu. I go to Rupert and see M'sieu Cameron."
+
+"And with one paddle you gained a day on them? Lad, you've surely got
+your father's staying power. Where did you come up with them?"
+
+Then Jean related the details of his capture of Fleur to an open-mouthed
+audience.
+
+"So there's one less dog-stealer on the Bay," drily commented Gillies,
+when Marcel had finished his grim tale.
+
+"Why you not put de bullet een dat oder t'ief, Jean?" demanded the
+bloodthirsty Jules.
+
+"Eet ees not easy to keel a man, onless he steal your dog an' try to
+keel you. I had de dog. One of dem was enough," gravely answered the
+trapper.
+
+"That's right; you had your dog which I thought you'd never see again,"
+approved Gillies. "But your travelling this time of year, with the
+headwinds and sea, up the coast in thirty days, beats me. I was five
+weeks, once, making it with two paddles. You must have your father's
+back, lad. It was the best on this coast in his day; and you've surely
+got his fighting blood."
+
+Basking for three days in the hospitality of the Mission; resting from
+the strain and wear of six weeks' constant toil at the paddle, Marcel
+revelled in Julie's good cooking. To watch her trim figure moving about
+the house; to talk to her while her dusky head bent over her sewing,
+after the loneliness of his long journey, would have been all the heaven
+he asked, had it not been that over it all hung the knowledge that Julie
+Breton was lost to him. Kind she was as a sister is kind, but her heart
+he knew was far in the south at East Main in the keeping of Inspector
+Wallace, to do with it as his manhood prompted. And knowing what he did,
+Marcel kept silence.
+
+On his return he had learned the story from big Jules. All Whale River
+had watched the courting of Julie. All Whale River had seen Wallace and
+the girl walking nightly in the long twilight, and had shaken their
+heads sadly, in sympathy with the lad who was travelling down the coast
+on the mad quest of his puppy. Yes, he had lost her. It was over, and he
+manfully fought the bitterness and despair that was his; tried to forget
+the throbbing pain at his heart, as he made the most of those three
+short days with the girl he loved, and might never see again, as a girl,
+for Marcel was not returning from the Ghost at Christmas.
+
+His dreams were dead. Ambitions for the future had been stripped from
+him, as the withering winds strip a tree of leaves. The home he had
+pictured at Whale River when, in the spring, he fought through to the
+Salmon for a dog-team which should make his fortune, was now a phantom.
+There was nothing left him but the love of his puppy. She would never
+desert Jean Marcel.
+
+But Jean Marcel was a trapper, and the precious days before the ice
+would close the upper Whale and the Ghost to canoe travel were slipping
+past. Before he went south his partners of the previous winter had
+agreed to take with them the supplies, which he had drawn from the post,
+but that they would not net fish for his dog he was certain. Exasperated
+at his determination to go south, they would hardly plan for the dog
+they were confident he would not recover.
+
+So Marcel bade his friends good-bye and with as much cured whitefish as
+he could carry without being held up on the portages by extra trips,
+started with Fleur on the long up-river trail to his trapping grounds.
+
+When he left, he said to Julie in French: "I have not spoken to you of
+what I have heard since my return."
+
+The girl's face flushed but her eyes bravely met his.
+
+"They tell me that you are to marry M'sieu Wallace," he hazarded.
+
+"They do not know, who tell you that!" she exclaimed with spirit.
+"M'sieu Wallace has not asked me to marry him, and beside, he is still a
+Protestant."
+
+Ignoring the evasion, he went on slowly: "But you love him, Julie; and
+he is a great man----"
+
+"Ah, Jean," she broke in, "you are hurt. But you will always be my
+friend, won't you?"
+
+"Yes, I shall always be that." And he was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE CAMP ON THE GHOST
+
+
+Although the stinging winds with swirls of fine snow were already
+driving down the valleys, and nightly the ice filmed the eddies and the
+backwaters, yet the swift river remained open to the speeding canoe
+until, one frosty morning, Marcel waked in camp at the Conjuror's Falls
+to find that the ice had over-night closed in on the quiet reaches of
+the Ghost just above, shackling the river for seven months against canoe
+travel.
+
+Caching his boat and supplies on spruce saplings, he circled each peeled
+trunk with a necklace of large inverted fish-hooks, to foil the raids of
+that arch thief and defiler of caches, the wolverine. That night he
+reached the camp of his partners.
+
+Antoine Beaulieu and Joe Piquet, like Marcel, had lost their immediate
+families in the plague, and the year before, had been only too glad to
+join the Frenchman in a trapping partnership of mutual advantage. For
+while Marcel, son of the former Company head man, with a schooling at
+the Mission, and a skill and daring as canoeman and hunter, beyond their
+own, was looked upon as leader by the half-breeds, Antoine was a good
+hunter, while Joe Piquet's manual dexterity in fashioning snow-shoes,
+making moccasins and building bark canoes rendered him particularly
+useful. Marcel's feat of the previous spring in finding the headwaters
+of the Salmon and his appearance at Whale River with a pure bred Ungava
+husky, to the amazement of the Crees, had increased his influence with
+his partners; but his determination to go south after his dog when it
+was already high time for the three men to start for their
+trapping-grounds had left them in a sullen mood. Because they could use
+them, if he did not return from the south, they had packed his supplies
+over the portages of the Whale and up the Ghost to their camp, but had
+netted no extra whitefish for the dog they felt he would not bring home.
+
+That night they sat long over the fire in the shack they had built the
+autumn previous, listening to Marcel's tale of the rescue of Fleur and
+of the great goose grounds of the south coast.
+
+In the morning Jean waked with the problem of a supply of fish for Fleur
+and himself troubling him, for one of the precepts of André Marcel had
+been, "Save your fish for the tail of the winter, for no one knows where
+the caribou will be." Down at Conjuror's Falls, he had cached less than
+two months' rations for his dog, and they were facing seven months of
+the long snows. To be sure, she could live on meat, if meat was to be
+had, but a husky thrives on fish, and Marcel determined that she should
+have it.
+
+Confident of finding game plentiful, his partners, with the usual lack
+of foresight of the Crees, had netted less than three months' supply of
+whitefish and lake-trout. This emergency store Marcel knew would be
+consumed by February, however plentiful the caribou proved to be, for
+the Crees seldom possess the thrift to save against the possible spring
+famine. So he determined to set his net at once.
+
+Borrowing Joe's canoe, he packed it through the "bush" to a good fish
+lake where he set the net under the young ice, and baited lines; then
+taking Fleur, he started cruising out locations for his trap-lines in
+new country, far toward the blue hills of the Salmon watershed, where
+game signs had been thick the previous spring.
+
+Toward the last of October when the snow began to make deep, Fleur's
+education as a sled-dog began. Already the fast growing puppy was
+creeping up toward one hundred pounds in weight, and soon, under the
+kind but firm tutelage of the master, was as keen to be harnessed for a
+run as a veteran husky of the winter trails.
+
+When he had set and baited his traps over a wide circle of new country
+to the north, Jean returned to his net and lines, and at the end of ten
+days had a supply of trout and whitefish for Fleur, which he cached at
+the lake. On his return, Antoine and Joe derided his labors when the
+caribou trails networked the muskegs, but Marcel ignored them.
+
+It looked like a good winter for game. Snow-shoe rabbits were plentiful
+and wherever their runways led in and out of the scrub-spruce and fir
+covers, there those furred assassins of the forest, the fox and the
+lynx, the fisher and the marten, were sure to make their
+hunting-grounds. During November and December, when pelts are at their
+best, the men made a harvest at their traps. The caribou were still on
+the barrens feeding on the white moss from which they scraped the snow
+with their large, round-toed hoofs, and the rabbit snares furnished stew
+whenever the trappers craved a change from caribou steaks. But no Indian
+will eat rabbit as a regular diet while he can get red meat. This
+varying hare of the north, which, so often, in the spring, from Labrador
+to the Yukon, stands between the red trapper and starvation, has a
+flavor which quickly palls on the taste, and never quite seems to
+satisfy hunger. The Crees often speak of "starving on rabbits."
+
+During these weeks following the trap-lines, learning the ways of the
+winter forest after a puppyhood on the coast, as Fleur grew in bulk and
+strength, so her affection deepened for Jean Marcel. Now nearly a year
+old, she easily drew the sled loaded with the meat of a caribou into
+camp, on a beaten trail. At night in the tent Marcel had pitched and
+banked with snow, as a half-way camp on the round of his trap-lines, she
+would sit with hairy ears pointed, watching his every movement, looking
+unutterable adoration as he scraped his pelts, stretching them on frames
+to dry or mended his clothes and moccasins. Then, before he turned in to
+his plaited, rabbit-skin blankets, warmer by far than any fur robes
+known in the north, Fleur invariably demanded her evening romp. Taking a
+hand in her jaws which never closed, she would lift her lips, baring her
+white fangs in a snarl of mimic anger, as she swung her head from side
+to side, until, seizing her, Jean rolled her on her back, while rumbles
+and growls from her shaggy throat voiced her delight.
+
+Back at the main camp, Fleur, true to her breed, merely tolerated the
+presence of Antoine and Joe, indifferent to all offers of friendship.
+Moving away at their approach, she suffered neither of them to place
+hand upon her. At night she slept outside in the snow, where the thick
+mat of fine fur under the long hair rendered her immune to cold.
+
+And all these weeks Jean Marcel was fighting out his battle with self.
+Always, the struggle went ceaselessly on--the struggle with his heart
+to give up Julie Breton. Reason though he would, that he had nothing to
+give her, while this great man of the Company had everything, his love
+for the girl kept alive the embers of hope. He carried the memory of her
+sweetness over the white trails by day and at night again wandered with
+her in the twilight as in the days before the figure of Wallace darkened
+his life.
+
+As Christmas approached, Jean wondered whether Wallace would spend it in
+Whale River, and was glad that they had not intended, because of the
+great distance, to go back for the festivities at the post. Should he
+ever see her again as Julie Breton? he asked himself. Wallace would
+change his religion. Surely no man would balk at that, to get Julie. And
+the spring would see them married. Well, he should go on loving her--and
+Fleur; there was no one else.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE WARNING IN THE WIND
+
+
+One afternoon toward the end of the year when the early dusk had turned
+Marcel back toward camp from his most northerly line of marten traps, he
+suddenly stopped in his tracks on the ridge from which he had seen the
+lake on the Salmon headwaters the spring previous. Pushing back the hood
+of his caribou capote to free his ears, he listened, motionless. Beside
+him, with black nostrils quivering, Fleur sniffed the stinging air.
+
+Again the faint, far, wailing chorus which had checked him, reached
+Marcel's ears. The dog stiffened, her mane rising as she bared her white
+fangs.
+
+"You heard it too, Fleur?" muttered the man, softly, resting a
+rabbit-skin mitten on the broad head of the nervous husky. Marcel gazed
+long at the floor of snow to the north through wind-whipped ridges.
+
+"Ah-hah!" he exclaimed, "dey turn dees way." Clearer now the stiff
+breeze carried the call of the hunting wolves. Fleur burst into a frenzy
+of yelping. Seizing the dog, Marcel calmed her into silence. Then, after
+an interval, the cry of the pack slowly faded, and shortly, the man's
+straining ears caught no sound save the fretting of the wind through the
+spruce.
+
+Wolves he had often heard, singly, and in groups of four and five, but
+the hunting howl which had been brought to him through the hills by the
+wind, he knew was not the clamor of a handful of timber-wolves, but the
+blood chorus of a pack. None but the white-wolves which, far to the
+north, hung on the flanks of the caribou herds could raise such a
+hunting cry and there was but one reason for their drifting south from
+the great Ungava barrens.
+
+It was a sober face that Jean Marcel wore back to his camp. Large
+numbers of arctic wolves in the country meant the departure of the
+trapper's chief source of meat--the caribou. With the caribou gone, they
+had their limited supply of fish, and the rabbits, eked out by the
+flour, which would not carry them far, for the half-breeds, in spite of
+his warnings, had already consumed half of it. To be sure, the rabbits
+would pull them through to the "break-up" of the long snows in April;
+would keep them from actual starvation. Then he cursed his partners for
+failing to make themselves independent of meat by netting more fish in
+September.
+
+"To-morrow," said Marcel, on his return next day to the main camp, "we
+start for de barren and hunt de deer hard while dey stay in dees
+countree." The partners spoke, at times, in French patois and Cree, at
+times in broken English.
+
+"Wat you say, Jean? I got trap-line to travel to-morrow," objected
+Antoine Beaulieu.
+
+"I say dis," returned Marcel, commanding the attention of the two men by
+the gravity of his face. "De deer will not be in dis countree een
+t'ree--four day."
+
+"Ha! Ha! dat ees good joke, Jean Marcel!" exclaimed Piquet.
+
+"Oui, dat ees good joke!" returned Marcel, rising and shaking a finger
+in the grinning faces of his partners. "But I say dis to you, Antoine
+Beaulieu an' Joe Piquet. We go to de barren and hunt deer to-morrow or I
+tak' my share of flour and mak' my own camp."
+
+Marcel's threat sobered the half-breeds. They had no desire to break
+with the Frenchman, whose initiative and daring they respected.
+
+"De deer are plentee, I count seexteen to-day," argued Antoine.
+
+"Oui, to-day de deer are here, but, whiff!" Jean waved his hand, "an'
+dey are gone; for las' night I hear de white wolves, not t'ree or four,
+but manee, ver' manee, drive de deer in de hills. Dey starve in de nord
+and come here for meat. To-morrow we go!"
+
+Piquet and Beaulieu readily admitted that the white wolves, if they
+appeared in numbers, would drive the caribou--called deer, in the
+north--out of the country, but they insisted that what Jean had heard
+was the echoing of the call and answer of three or four timber wolves
+gathering for a hunt. Never in his life had Joe Piquet, who was thirty,
+heard of arctic wolves appearing on the Great Whale headwaters. Thus
+they argued, but Jean was obdurate. On the following day the three men
+started back into the barrens with Fleur and the sled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE WORK OF THE WHITE WOLVES
+
+
+The first day, by hard hunting they shot three caribou, but to the
+surprise and chagrin of Antoine and Joe, on the second day, in a country
+where they had never failed to get meat earlier in the winter, the
+hunters got but one. After that not a caribou was seen on the wide
+barrens, while many trails were crossed, all heading south, and
+following the signs of the fleeing caribou were the tracks of wolves,
+not singly or in couples, but in packs.
+
+When the hunters had satisfied themselves that the caribou had left the
+country, they relayed their meat into camp with the help of Fleur and
+lines attached to the sled to aid her.
+
+That night the trappers took council. The caribou meat, flour and
+remaining fish, counting Jean's cache at Conjuror's Falls, would take
+them into February. After that, it would be rabbits through March and
+April until the fish began to move. In the meantime a few lake trout and
+pike could be caught with lines through holes in the ice. Also, setting
+the net under three feet of ice could be accomplished with infinite
+labor, but the results in midwinter were always a matter of doubt.
+
+"You had all September to net fish, but what did you do? You grew fat on
+deer meat," flung out Jean bitterly, thinking of his hungry puppy who
+required nourishing food in these months of rapid growth.
+
+"How much feesh you got in dat cache?" demanded Piquet, ignoring the
+remark.
+
+"About one hundred fifty pound," replied Marcel.
+
+"Not on Conjur' Fall, I mean at de lac."
+
+The fish Jean had netted and cached at the lake, on arriving in October,
+were designed for his dog and already had been partly used.
+
+"Only little left at de lac," he replied.
+
+"Dat feesh belong to us all; de dog can leeve on rabbit."
+
+Piquet's remark brought the blood to Jean's face.
+
+"De dog gets her share of feesh, do you hear dat, Joe?" rasped Marcel,
+his eyes blazing. "You and Antoine got no right to dat feesh; you refuse
+to help me and you laugh when I net dat feesh. De dog gets her share,
+Joe Piquet!" Marcel rose, facing the others with a glitter in his eyes
+that had its effect on Piquet.
+
+"We have bad tam, dees spreeng, for sure," moaned Antoine. "I weesh we
+net more feesh."
+
+"Well, I tell you what to do," said Jean. "Eef de feesh do not bite tru
+de ice or come to de net, we travel over to de Salmon, plentee beaver
+dere."
+
+At the suggestion of moving into the unknown country to the north, with
+its dread valleys peopled with spirits, the superstitious half-breeds
+shook their heads. Rather starve on the Whale, they said, than in the
+haunted valleys where the voices of the Windigo filled the nights with
+fear.
+
+With a disgusted shrug of his wide shoulders, Marcel dismissed the
+subject. "All right, starve on de Ghost, de Windigo get you on de
+Salmon."
+
+With the disappearance of the caribou the partners began setting rabbit
+snares to save their meat and flour. Jean brought up the last of his
+fish from Conjuror's Falls but refused to touch his cache at the lake.
+With strict economy and a liberal diet of rabbit, they decided that
+their food could carry them into March. Jean wished to keep the flour
+untouched for emergency, but the half-breeds, characteristically
+optimistic, counted on a return of the caribou, and they always had
+rabbit to fall back upon.
+
+During the last week in January while following his trap-lines, Jean
+made a discovery the gravity of which drove him in haste back to the
+camp on the Ghost.
+
+"How many long snows since de plague, Joe?" he asked.
+
+His comrades turned startled eyes on the speaker. Piquet slowly counted
+on his fingers the winters since the last plague all but exterminated
+the snow-shoe rabbits, then leaping to his feet, cried: "By Gar! eet ees
+not dees year. No, no! de ole man at de trade said de nex' long snow
+after dees will be de plague."
+
+"Well, de old men were wrong," Marcel calmly insisted, as his companions
+paled at the meaning of his words. "Eet ees dees year w'en you net
+leetle feesh, dat de rabbits die."
+
+"No, eet ees a meestake!" they protested as the lean features of the
+Frenchman hardened in a bitter smile.
+
+"On de last trip to my traps," went on the imperturbable Marcel, "I find
+four rabbit dead from de plague an' since de last snow I cross few fresh
+tracks."
+
+"I fin' none een two days myself," echoed Antoine.
+
+The stark truth of Marcel's contention drove itself home. At last,
+convinced, they gazed with blanched faces into each others' eyes from
+which looked fear--fear of the dread weeks of the March moon and the
+slow death which starvation might bring. The grim spectre which ever
+hovers over the winter camps in the white silences now menaced the
+shack on the Ghost.
+
+Shortly, fresh rabbit tracks became rare. After years of plenty, the
+days of lean hunting for lynx and fox had returned. The plague, which
+periodically sweeps the north, would bring starvation, as well, to many
+a tepee of the improvident children of the snows.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+POOR FLEUR
+
+
+As the weeks went by, the food cache at the camp on the Ghost steadily
+shrank. The nets under the ice and the set-lines were now bringing no
+fish. More and more Jean slept in his half-way camp ten miles north, for
+although the short rations he fed Fleur had been obtained solely by his
+own efforts, Joe and Antoine objected to the well-nourished look of the
+puppy while they grew thin and slowly weakened. But, for generations,
+the huskies have been accustomed to starvation, and if not slaving with
+the sleds, will for weeks show but slight effect from short rations.
+Besides, Fleur had, from necessity and instinct, become a hunter, and
+many a ptarmigan and stray rabbit she picked up foraging for herself.
+
+To increase the difficulty of hunting for food, January had brought
+blizzard after blizzard, piling deep with drifts the trails to their
+trap-lines, which they still visited regularly, for the starved lynxes
+were coming to the bait of the flesh of their kin in greater and greater
+numbers. Twice, seeking the return of the caribou, the desperate men
+travelled far into the barrens beaten by the withering January winds,
+returning with wind-burned, frost-blackened faces, for no man may face
+for long the needle-pointed scourge of the midwinter northers off the
+Straits.
+
+Finally, in desperation, when the flour was gone, and the food cache
+held barely enough meat and fish for two weeks, Joe and Antoine insisted
+that, while they had food to carry them through, they make for the post.
+
+"You can crawl into de post lak a starving Cree because you were too
+lazy to net feesh. I will stay in de bush with my dog," was Jean's
+scornful reply.
+
+But the situation was desperate. With two months remaining before the
+big thaw in April, when they could rely on plenty of fish, there seemed
+but one alternative, unless the caribou returned or the fish began to
+move. A few trout and an occasional rabbit and ptarmigan would not keep
+them alive until the "break-up," when the bear would leave their
+"washes" and the caribou start north. Already with revolting stomachs
+they had begun to eat starved lynx. If only they could get beaver, but
+there were no beaver on the Ghost. It was clear that they must find game
+shortly or retreat to Whale River.
+
+One night Jean reached his fish cache on his return from a three days'
+hunt toward the Salmon waters. At last he had found beaver, and caching
+two at his tent, with his heart high with hope, was bringing the
+carcasses of three more to his partners. As he approached the cache in
+the gathering dusk, to his surprise he found the fresh tracks of
+snow-shoes.
+
+"Ah-hah!" he muttered, his mouth twisted in a grim smile, "so dey rob de
+cache of Jean Marcel while he travel sixty mile to get dem beaver!"
+
+The last of Fleur's pitiful little store of fish was gone. The cache was
+stripped.
+
+Jean shook his head sadly. So he could no longer trust these men whose
+hunger had made them thieves, he mused. Well, he would break with them
+at once. "Poor Fleur!" He patted the sniffing nose of his dog.
+
+Bitter with the discovery, Marcel drove Fleur over the trail to the
+camp. Opening the slab-door he surprised the half-breeds gorging
+themselves from a steaming kettle of trout. But hunger had driven them
+past all sense of shame. Looking up sullenly, they waited for him to
+speak.
+
+"Bon soir, my friends! I see you have had luck at de lines," he
+surprised them with. "I have three nice fat beaver for you."
+
+The hollow eyes of Joe and Antoine met in a questioning look. Then
+Piquet brazened it out.
+
+"Beaver, eh? Dat soun' good, fat beaver!" and he smacked his thin lips
+greedily.
+
+"W'ere you get beaver, Jean?" asked Antoine, now that the tension due to
+Jean's appearance had relaxed.
+
+"W'ere I tell you I would fin' dem, nord, een de valley of de spirits,"
+he laughed.
+
+Marcel heaped a tin dish from the kettle, and slipping outside, fed
+Fleur.
+
+"Here, Fleur!" he called, "ees some of feesh dat Joe has boiled for you.
+Wat, you lak' eet bettair raw? Well, Joe he lak' eet boiled."
+
+Returning, Jean ate heartily of the lake trout. When he had finished and
+lighted his pipe, he said: "You weel fin' de beaver on de cache. I leeve
+een de morning for Salmon riviere country."
+
+"W'at, you goin' leave us, Jean?" cried Antoine visibly disturbed.
+
+"Oui, I don't trap wid t'ief!" The cold eyes of Marcel bored into those
+of Beaulieu which wavered and fell. But Piquet accepted the challenge.
+
+"W'at you t'ink, Jean Marcel, you geeve dose feesh to de dog w'en we
+starve?" he sullenly demanded. "We eat de dog, also, before we starve."
+
+"You eat de dog, eh, Joe Piquet? Dat ees good joke. You 'av' to keel de
+dog and Jean Marcel first, my frien'," sneered Marcel. "I net feesh for
+my dog and you not help me but laugh; now you tak' dem from my dog.
+Bien! I am tru wid you both! I geeve you de beaver and bid you, bon
+jour, to-morrow!"
+
+Antoine was worried, for he knew too well what the loss of Marcel would
+mean to them in the days to come. But the sullen Piquet in whom toil and
+starvation were bringing to the surface traits common to the half-breed,
+treated Marcel's going with seeming indifference.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE MARK OF THE BREED
+
+
+Deep in the night, Marcel waked cold. Lifting his head from the
+blankets, his face met an icy draft driving through the open door of the
+shack which framed a patch of sky swarming with frozen stars.
+
+Wondering why the door was open, he rose to close it, when the starlight
+fell on Piquet's empty bunk.
+
+"Ah-hah! Joe he steal some more, maybe!" he muttered, hastily drawing on
+his moccasins.
+
+Then stepping into the thongs of his snow-shoes which stood in the snow
+beside the door, he hurried to the cache.
+
+Beneath the food scaffold crouched a dark form.
+
+"So you steal my share of de meat and hide eet, before I go, eh? You
+t'ief!"
+
+Caught in the act, Piquet rose from the provision bags as Marcel reached
+him, to take full in the face a blow backed by the concentrated fury of
+the Frenchman. Reeling back against a spruce support to the cache, the
+dazed half-breed sank to his snow-shoes, then, slowly struggling to his
+knees, lunged wildly with his knife at the man sneering down at him.
+Missing, Piquet's thrust carried him head-first into the snow, his arms
+buried to the shoulders. In a flash, Marcel fell on the prostrate breed
+with his full weight, driving both knees hard into Piquet's back. With a
+smothered grunt the half-breed lay limp in the snow.
+
+"Get up, Antoine!" called Marcel, returning to the shack with Fleur, who
+had left her bed under a spruce, "you fin' a cache-robber, widout fur on
+heem, out dere. I tak' my grub an' go."
+
+"W'ere ees Joe?" asked the confused Beaulieu, rubbing his eyes.
+
+"Joe, he got w'at t'ieves deserve. Go an' see."
+
+Antoine appeared shortly, followed by the muttering Piquet.
+
+"Ah, bo'-jo', M'sieu Carcajou! You have wake up," Jean jeered.
+
+One of Piquet's beady eyes was swollen shut, but the other snapped
+evilly as he limped to his bunk.
+
+Taking his share of the food, Marcel loaded his sled, hitched Fleur,
+then looked into the shack, where he found the two men arguing
+excitedly.
+
+"A'voir, Antoine! Better hide your grub or M'sieu Wolverine weel steal
+eet w'ile you sleep."
+
+With an oath, Piquet was on his feet with his knife, but Beaulieu hurled
+him back on his bunk and held him, as he cursed the man who stood
+coolly in the doorway, sneering at the helpless breed blocked in his
+attempt at revenge.
+
+"A'voir, Antoine!" Jean repeated, as the troubled face of Beaulieu
+turned to the old partner he respected, "don' let de carcajou keel you
+for de grub." And ignoring the proffered hand of the hunter who followed
+him out to the sled, took the trail north.
+
+As dawn broke blue over the bald ridges to the east, Marcel raised his
+set-lines and net at the lake and pushed on toward the silent hills of
+the Salmon headwaters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+FOR LOVE OF A MAN
+
+
+It had been with the feeling of a heavy load loosed from his shoulders
+that the Frenchman left the Ghost. Disgusted with the laziness and lack
+of foresight of his partners in the autumn; through the strain and worry
+of the winter he had gradually lost all confidence in their capacity to
+fight through until spring brought back the fishing; and now this
+robbery of his cache and the affair with Piquet had made him a free man.
+
+For Antoine, the friend of his youth, ever easily led but at heart,
+honest enough, he held only feelings of disgust; but with the
+crooked-souled Piquet, henceforth it should be war to the knife. Knowing
+that there were more beaver in the white valleys of the Salmon country,
+Marcel faced with hope the March crust and the long weeks of the April
+thaws, when rotting ice would bar the waterways and soggy snow, the
+trails, to all travel. Somehow, he and Fleur would pull through and see
+Julie Breton and Whale River again. Somehow, they would live, but it
+meant a dogged will and day after day, many a white mile of drudgery for
+himself and the dog he loved. Crawl starved and beaten into Whale
+River--caught like a mink in a trap by the pinch of the pitiless
+snows--no Marcel ever did, and he would not be the first.
+
+The February dusk hung in the spruce surrounding the half-way camp of
+Marcel beside a pond in the hills dividing the watershed of the Ghost
+from the Salmon. For three days Jean had been picking up his traps
+preparatory to making the break north to the beaver country. With a
+light load, for Fleur could not haul much over her weight on a freshly
+broken trail in the soft snow, the toboggan-sled stood before the tent
+ready for an early start under the stars. From the smoke-hole of the
+small tepee the sign of cooking rose straight into the biting air, for
+there was no wind. But the half-ration of trout and beaver which was
+simmering in the kettle would leave the clamoring stomach of the man
+unsatisfied. With the three beaver he had brought from the north and the
+fish and caribou from the Ghost, Marcel still had food for himself and
+his dog for a fortnight, but he was not an Indian and was husbanding his
+scanty store. Fleur had already bolted her fish, more supper than her
+master allowed himself, for Fleur was still growing fast and her need
+was greater.
+
+Disliking the smoke from the fire which often filled the tepee, Fleur
+slept outside under the low branches of a fir, and when it snowed,
+waked warm beneath a white blanket. For, enured to the cold, the husky
+knows no winter shelter and needs none, sleeping curled, nose in bushy
+tail, in a hole dug in the snow, through the bitter nights without frost
+bite.
+
+As the dusk slowly blanketed the forest, here and there stars pricked
+out of the dark canopy of sky to light gradually the white hills rolling
+away north to the dread valleys of the forbidden land of the Crees.
+Later, as the night deepened, the Milky Way drew its trail across the
+swarming stars. In the pinch of the strengthening cold, spruce and
+jack-pine snapped in the encircling forest, while the ice of lake and
+river, contracting, boomed intermittently, like the shot of distant
+artillery.
+
+On the northern horizon, the camp-fires of the giants flickered and
+glowed, fitfully; then, at length, loosing their bonds, snake-like
+ribbons of light writhed and twisted from the sky-line to the high
+heavens, in grotesque traceries; and across the white wastes of the
+polar stage swept the eerie "Dance of the Spirits."
+
+For a space Jean stood outside the tepee watching the never-ceasing
+wonder of the aurora; then sending Fleur to her bed, sought his
+blankets. But no sting of freezing air might keep the furred and
+feathered marauders of the night from their hunting; for faintly on the
+tense silence floated the "hoo-hoo!" of the snowy owl, patrolling the
+haunts of the wood-mice. Out of the murk of a cedar swamp rose the
+scream of a starving lynx. Presently, over star-lit ridges drifted the
+call of a mating timber wolf.
+
+The Northern Lights had dimmed and faded. Sentinel stars alone guarded
+the white solitudes, when, from the gloom of the spruce out into the
+lighted snow moved a dark shape. Noiselessly the muffled racquettes of
+the skulker advanced. As the figure crept nearer the tent, it suddenly
+stopped, frozen into rigidity, head forward, as though listening. After
+a space, it stirred again. Something held in the hands glinted in the
+starlight, like steel. It was the action of a rifle, made bright by
+wear.
+
+When the creeping shape reached the banking of the tepee, again it
+stopped, stiff as a spruce. The seconds lengthened into minutes. Then a
+hand reached out to the canvas. In the hand was a knife. Slowly the keen
+edge sawed at the frozen fabric. At last the tent was slit.
+
+Leaning forward the hunter of sleeping men enlarged the opening and
+pressed his face to the rent. Long he gazed into the darkened tepee.
+Then withdrawing his hooded head, he shook it slowly as if in doubt.
+Finally, as though decided on his course, he thrust the barrel of his
+rifle through the opening and dropped his head as if to aim; when, from
+the rear a gray shape catapulted into his back, flattening him on the
+snow. As the weight of the dog struck the crouching assassin, his rifle
+exploded inside the tent, followed by a scream of terror.
+
+Again and again the long fangs of the husky slashed at the throat of the
+writhing thing in the snow. Again and again the massive jaws snapped and
+tore, first the capote, then the exposed neck, to ribbons. Then with
+cocked rifle the dazed Marcel, waked by the gun fired in his ears,
+reached them.
+
+With difficulty dragging his dog from the crumpled shape, Marcel looked,
+and from the bloodied face grimacing horribly in death above the mangled
+throat, stared the glazed eyes of Joe Piquet.
+
+"By Gar! You travel far for de grub and de _revanche_, Joe Piquet," he
+exclaimed. Turning to the dog, snarling with hate of the prowling thing
+she had destroyed, Jean led her away.
+
+"Fleur, ma petite!" he cried, "she took good care of Jean Marcel while
+he sleep. Piquet, he thought he keel us both in de tent. He nevaire see
+Fleur under de fir." The great dog trembling with the heat of battle,
+her mane stiff, yelped excitedly. "She love Jean Marcel, my Fleur; and
+what a strength she has!" Rearing, Fleur placed her massive fore-paws
+on Marcel's chest, whining up into his face; then seizing a hand in her
+jaws, proudly drew him back to the dead man in the snow. There, raising
+her head, as if in warning to all enemies of her master, she sent out
+over the white hills the challenging howl of the husky.
+
+When Jean Marcel had buried the frozen body of Joe Piquet in a drift
+over the ridge, where the April thaws would betray him to the mercy of
+his kind, the forest creatures of tooth and beak and claw, he started
+back to the Ghost with Fleur, taking Piquet's rifle to be returned to
+his people with his fur and outfit. Confident that Antoine had had no
+part in the attempt to kill him and get his provisions, he wished
+Beaulieu to know Piquet's fate, as Antoine would now in all probability
+make for Whale River and could carry a message. Furthermore if anything
+had by chance happened to Beaulieu, Marcel wished to know it before
+starting north.
+
+As Fleur drew him swiftly over the trail, ice-hard from much travelling,
+Jean decided that if Antoine wished to fight out the winter in the
+Salmon country, for the sake of their old friendship he would overlook
+the half-breed's weakness under Piquet's influence, and offer to take
+him.
+
+Dawn was wavering in the gray east when Marcel reached the silent camp.
+He called loudly to wake the sleeping man inside; but there was no
+response.
+
+Marcel's heavy eyebrows contracted in a puzzled look.
+
+"Allo, Antoine!" Still no answer. Was he to find here more of the work
+of Joe Piquet? he wondered, as he swung back the slab-door of the shack
+and peered into the dim interior.
+
+There in his bunk lay the half-breed.
+
+"Wake up, Antoine!" Marcel cried, approaching the bunk; then the faint
+light from the open door fell on the gray face of Antoine Beaulieu,
+stiff in death.
+
+"Tiens!" muttered Marcel. "Stabbed tru de heart w'en he sleep. Joe
+Piquet, he t'ink to get our feesh and beaver and fur, den he tell dem at
+Whale Riviere we starve out. Poor Antoine!"
+
+Sick with the discovery, Jean sat beside the dead man, his head in his
+hands. Bitterly now, he regretted that he had refused the hand of his
+old friend in parting; that he had not taken him with him when he left
+the Ghost. It was clear that before starting to stalk Marcel's camp,
+Piquet had deemed it safer to seal the lips of Beaulieu forever as to
+the fate of the man he planned to kill.
+
+"Poor Antoine!" Marcel sadly repeated. Outside, Fleur, fretting at the
+presence of death, whined to be off.
+
+In the cold sunrise, Jean lashed the body of his boyhood friend, which
+he had sewed in some canvas, on the food cache, that it might rest in
+peace undefiled by the forest creatures, until on his return in May he
+might give it decent burial. Beside it he placed the fur-packs, rifles
+and outfits of the two men.
+
+"Adieu, Antoine!" he called, waving his hand at the shrouded shape on
+the cache, and turned north.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE STARVING MOON
+
+
+March, the Crees' "Moon of the Crust on the Snow," was old. Camped on a
+chain of lakes in the Salmon country Marcel had been following the few
+traps for which he had bait and at the same time hunting widely for
+food. Soon, the sun, mounting higher and higher each day at noon, would
+begin to soften the surface of the snow which the freezing nights would
+harden into crust. Then he could travel far and fast. With much
+searching he had found another beaver lodge, postponing for a space the
+days when man and dog would have not even half rations to stay their
+hunger. The Frenchman's drawn face and loose capote evidenced the weeks
+of under-nourishment; but, though Fleur's great bones and the ropes of
+muscle, banding her back and shoulders, thrust through her shaggy coat
+with undue prominence, still she had as yet suffered little from the
+famine. So long as Jean Marcel had had fish or meat, his growing puppy
+had received the greater share, for she had already attained in that
+winter on the Ghost a height and bulk of bone equal to that of her
+slate-gray mother now far on the north coast.
+
+For days Jean had been praying for the coming of the crust. With it he
+planned to make a wide circle back into the high barrens in search of
+returning caribou. Once the crust had set hard, travelling with the sled
+into new country would be easy. Food he must accumulate to take them
+through the April thaws, or perish miserably, with no one to carry the
+news of their fate to Whale River. Since the heart-breaking days when
+the white wolves drove the caribou south and the rabbits disappeared, he
+had, in moments of depression, sat by the fire at night, wondering, when
+June again came to Whale River and one by one the canoes of the Crees
+appeared, if, by chance, a pair of dark eyes would ever turn to the
+broad surface of the river for the missing craft of Jean Marcel--whether
+in the joy of her love for another the heart of the girl would sadden
+for one whose bones whitened in far Ungava hills.
+
+At last the crust came. With eyes shielded by snow goggles made by
+cutting slits in flat pieces of spruce, for the glare of the sun on the
+barrens was intense, Jean started with his dog. All the food he had was
+on his sled. He had burned his bridges, for if he failed in his hunt,
+they would starve, but as well starve in the barrens, he thought, as
+back at camp.
+
+They were passing through the thick spruce of a sheltered valley,
+travelling up-wind, when Fleur, sniffing hard, grew excited. There was
+something ahead, probably fur, so he did not tie his dog. Shortly Fleur
+started to bolt with the sled and Jean turned her loose. Following his
+yelping husky, who broke through the new crust at every leap, Marcel
+entered a patch of cedar scrub. There Fleur distanced him.
+
+Shortly, a scream, followed by a din of snarls and squalls filled the
+forest. Close ahead a bitter struggle of creatures milling to the death
+was on. "Tiens!" exclaimed Jean, fearing for the eyes of his raw puppy,
+battling for the first time with the great cat of the north. He broke
+through the scrub to see the lynx spring backward from the rush of the
+dog and leap for the limbs of a low cedar. But the cat was too slow, for
+at the same instant, Fleur's jaws snapped on his loins, and with a
+wrench of her powerful neck, the husky threw the animal to the snow with
+a broken back. In a flash she changed her grip, the long fangs crunching
+through the neck of the helpless beast, and with a quiver, the lynx was
+dead.
+
+Hot with the lust of battle, Fleur worried the body of her enemy.
+Reaching her, Jean proudly patted his dog's back.
+
+"My Fleur! She make de _loup-cervier_ run!" he cried, delighted with
+the courage and power of his puppy.
+
+Then he anxiously examined the slashes of rapier claws on Fleur's muzzle
+and shoulders.
+
+"Bon!" he said, relieved. "De lynx he very weak or he cut you deeper dan
+dese scratch."
+
+As Jean hastily skinned the dead cat he marvelled at its emaciation.
+
+"Ah! He also miss de rabbit. Lucky he starve or you get de beeg scratch,
+Fleur."
+
+For answer the hot tongue of the dog sought his hands as she raised her
+brown eyes to his. With arms around her shaggy shoulders her proud
+master muttered into the ears of the delighted husky love words that
+would have been strange indeed to any but Fleur, who found them sweet
+beyond measure.
+
+"My Fleur, she grow to be de dog, de most _sauvage_!" he cried. "Some
+day she keel de wolf, eh?"
+
+Owing to the weakened condition of the lynx, Fleur's were but surface
+scratches. So furious had been the husky's assault on the starved cat
+that she had left no opening to the knife-like claws of the powerful
+hind legs.
+
+Continuing east, four days later Marcel camped in a valley on the flank
+of a great barren. In the morning, tying Fleur with a rawhide thong
+which she could have chewed through with ease but had been taught to
+respect, he followed the scrub along the edge of the barren searching
+for caribou signs. Often he stopped to gaze out across the white waste
+reaching away east to the horizon, seeking for blue-gray objects whose
+movements in scraping away the snow to the moss beneath, would alone
+mark them as caribou. In places the great winds had swept the plateau
+almost bare, beating down the snow to a depth of less than a foot. All
+day he skirted the barren but at last turned back to his camp sick at
+heart and spent with the long day on the crust, following his meagre
+breakfast. Deep in the shelter of the thick timber of the valley, he had
+dug away the snow for his fire and sleeping place, lashing above his bed
+of spruce boughs a strip of canvas which acted both as windbreak and
+heat reflector. When they had eaten their slim supper, he freshened the
+fire with birch logs, and sat down with Fleur's head between his knees.
+The "Starving Moon" of the Montagnais hung over Jean Marcel.
+
+"Fleur, you know we got onlee two day meat left? W'en dat go, Jean
+Marcel go too--een few day, a week maybe; and Fleur, w'at she do?"
+
+The husky's slant eyes shone with her dog love into the set face of her
+master. She whined, wrinkling her gray nose, then her jaw dropped,
+which was her manner of laughing, while her hot breath steamed in the
+freezing air. Vainly she waited for the smile that had never failed to
+light Marcel's face in the old days at such advances.
+
+Dropping his mittens Jean held the massive head between his naked hands.
+
+"Jean Marcel feel ver' bad to leave Fleur alone. Wid no game she starve
+too, w'en he go," he said.
+
+Fleur's deep throat rumbled in ecstasy as the hands of the master rubbed
+her ears.
+
+"Back on de Ghost, Fleur, ees some feesh and meat Joe and Antoine left;
+not much, but eet tak' us to Whale Riviere, maybe."
+
+The lips of Fleur lifted from her white teeth at the names of Jean's
+partners.
+
+"You remember Joe Piquet, Fleur? Joe Piquet!"
+
+The husky growled. She knew only too well the name, Joe Piquet.
+
+"Eet ees four--five sleep to de Ghost, Fleur, shall we go? W'at you
+t'ink?"
+
+The strained face in the fur-lined hood approached the dog's, whose eyes
+shifted uneasily from the fixed look of her master.
+
+"We go back to de Ghost, Fleur, or mak' one beeg hunt for de deer?"
+
+The perplexed husky, unable to meet Marcel's piercing eyes, sprang to
+her feet with a yelp.
+
+"Bon!" he cried. "We mak' de beeg hunt!" He had had his answer and on
+the yelp of his dog had staked their fate. To-morrow he would push on
+into the barrens and find the caribou drifting north again, or flicker
+out with his dog as men for centuries had perished, beaten by the long
+snows.
+
+In the morning he divided his remaining food into four parts; a
+breakfast and a supper for himself and Fleur, for two days. After
+that--strips of caribou hide and moss, boiled in snow water, to ease the
+throbbing ache of their stomachs.
+
+Eating his thin stew, he shortened his belt still another hole over his
+lean waist, and harnessing Fleur, turned resolutely east into country no
+white man had ever seen, on his bold gamble for food or an endless sleep
+in the blue Ungava hills.
+
+In his weakened state, black spots and pin-points of light danced before
+his eyes. Distant objects were often magnified out of all proportion. So
+intense was the glare of the high March sun on the crust that his wooden
+goggles alone saved him from snow-blindness. He travelled a few miles
+until dizziness forced him to rest. Later he continued on, to rest
+again, while the black nose of Fleur, who was still comparatively
+strong, sought his face, as she wondered at the reason for the master's
+strange actions.
+
+By noon he had crossed no trail except that of a wolverine seeking food
+like himself, and finally went down into the timbered valley of a brook
+where he left Fleur and the sled. Then he started again on his hopeless
+search. As the streams flowed northeast, he was certain that he had
+crossed the Height of Land to the Ungava Bay watershed, and was now in
+the headwater country of the fabled River of Leaves, the Koksoak of the
+Esquimos, into which no hunter from Whale River had ever penetrated.
+
+Marcel was snow-shoeing through the scrub at the edge of the plateau
+when far out on the barren he saw two spots. Shortly he was convinced
+that the objects moved.
+
+"By Gar, deer! At last they travel nord!" he gasped, gazing with
+bounding pulses at the distant spots almost indistinguishable against
+the snow. Meat out there on the barren awaited him--food and life, if
+only he could get within range.
+
+Cutting back into the scrub, that he might begin his stalk of the
+caribou from the nearest cover with the wind in his face, he moved
+behind a rise in the ground slowly out into the barren. With a caution
+he had never before exercised, lest the precious food now almost within
+reach should escape him, the starving man advanced.
+
+At last he crawled up behind a low knoll, and stretched out on the snow.
+Cocking and thrusting his rifle before him, he wormed his way to the
+top of the rise and looked.
+
+There a hundred yards off, playing on the crust, were two arctic foxes.
+Distorting their size, the barren ground mirage had cruelly deceived
+him.
+
+With a groan the spent hunter dropped his head on his arms. "All dees
+for fox!" he murmured. Then, because foxes were meat, he took careful
+aim and shot one, wounding the other, which he killed with the second
+bullet. Hanging the carcasses in a spruce, Marcel continued to skirt the
+barren toward the east.
+
+As dusk fell he returned to Fleur and made camp. Cutting up and boiling
+one of the foxes, he and the dog ate ravenously of the rank flesh, but
+hope was low in the breast of Jean Marcel. A day or two more of half
+rations and he was done. The spring migration of the caribou was not yet
+on. And when the deer did come, it would be too late. Jean Marcel would
+be past aid and Fleur--what would become of her? True, she could live on
+the flanks of the caribou herds like the wolves, but the wolves would
+find and destroy her.
+
+Tortured by such thoughts, he sat by his fire, the husky's great head on
+his knee, her eyes searching his, mutely demanding the reason for his
+strange silence.
+
+Another day of fruitless wandering in which he had pushed as far east
+as his fading strength would take him, and Jean shared the last of the
+food with his dog. He had fought hard to find the deer, had already
+travelled one hundred miles into the barrens, but he felt that it was no
+use; he was beaten. The spirit of the coureurs whose blood coursed his
+veins would drive him on and on, but without food the days of his
+hunting would be few. Henceforth it would be caribou hide boiled with
+moss from the barrens to ease the pinch of his hunger, but his strength
+would swiftly go. Then, when hope died, rather than leave his dog to the
+wolves, he would shoot Fleur and lying down beside her in his blanket,
+place the muzzle of his rifle against his own head.
+
+Two days, in which Marcel and Fleur drank the liquor from stewed caribou
+hide and moss while he continued to hunt, followed. As he staggered into
+camp at the end of the second day the man was so weak that he scarcely
+found strength to gather wood for his fire. Fleur now showed signs of
+slow starvation in her protruding ribs and shoulders. Her heavy coat no
+longer shone with gloss but lay flat and lusterless. Vainly she
+whimpered for the food that her heart-sick master could not give her.
+With the dog beside him, Marcel lay by the fire numbed into indifference
+to his fate. The torment of hunger had vanished leaving only great
+weakness and a dazed brain. He thought of the three wooden crosses at
+Whale River; how restful it would be to lie beside them behind the
+Mission, instead of sleeping far in the barrens where the great winds
+beat ceaselessly by over the treeless snows. There Julie Breton might
+have planted forest flowers on the mound that marked the grave of Jean
+Marcel. But no, he had forgotten; Julie Breton would not be at Whale
+River. Julie would live at East Main and some day at her feet would play
+the children of Wallace. Julie would be married in the spring at Whale
+River, while the wolves and ravens were scattering the whitened bones of
+Jean Marcel over the valley, and there would be no rest--no rest.
+
+What hopes he had had of a little house of their own at Whale River when
+he entered the service of the Company and drove the mail packet down the
+coast, with the team that Fleur would give him. How often he had
+pictured that home where Julie and the children would wait his return
+from summer voyage and winter trail; Julie Breton, whom he had loved
+from boyhood and whom, he had once prided himself, should love him, some
+day, when he had proved his manhood among the swart men of the East
+Coast.
+
+All a dream--a dream. Julie was happy. She would soon marry the great
+man at East Main, while in a few days Jean Marcel was going to snuff
+out--smoulder a while, as a fire from lack of wood, dying by inches--by
+inches; and then two shots.
+
+Poor Fleur! It had all come to pass because he had dared to follow and
+bring her home--had had no time to cache fish and game in the fall. She
+would have been better off with the half-breeds on the Rupert, where the
+caribou had gone. They would have kicked her, but fed her too. Yes, she
+would have been better there. Now he would take her with him, his own
+dog, when the time came. No more starvation for her, and a death in the
+barrens when she met the white wolves. Yes, he would take her with him.
+
+So rambled the thoughts of Jean Marcel, as he lay with his dog facing
+the creeping death his rifle would cheat, until kindly sleep brought him
+surcease--sleep, followed by dreams of the wide barrens trampled by
+herds of the returning caribou, of juicy steaks sizzling over the fire,
+while Fleur gnawed contentedly at huge thigh bones.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE TURN OF THE TIDE
+
+
+Before dawn, a cold nose nuzzling his face buried in his robe, waked
+Marcel.
+
+"Fleur, hungry? Eet ees better to sleep w'en dere ees no breakfast," he
+protested.
+
+The warm tongue sought the face of the drowsy man, and the dog, not to
+be put off, thrust her nose roughly into his robe, whimpering as she
+pulled at his capote.
+
+"Poor Fleur!" he muttered. "No more meat for de pup! Lie down! Jean ees
+ver' tired."
+
+But the dog, bent on arousing the master, grew only the more insistent.
+Seizing an arm in her jaws, she dragged Marcel from his rabbit-skin
+blankets.
+
+As he sat upright, wide awake, Fleur sniffed long at the frosty air,
+then dashed yelping into the dusk up the trail toward the barren.
+Turning, she ran back to camp, whining excitedly.
+
+"Tiens! W'at you smell, Fleur?" cried Marcel tearing his rifle with
+shaking hands from its skin case and cramming cartridges into a pocket.
+Could it be, he wondered, could it be the deer at last? No, only a
+starving wolf or lynx, prowling near the camp, likely. But still he
+would go! The love of life was yet strong in Jean Marcel now that a
+gleam of hope warmed his heart.
+
+Slipping his toes into the thongs of his snow-shoes, he made Fleur fast
+to a tree, and started. He was so weak from lack of food that often he
+was forced to stop in the climb, shaken by his hammering heart. At last,
+exhausted, he dragged himself to the shoulder of the barren and on
+unsteady legs moved along the edge of the scrub, his eyes straining to
+pierce the wall of dusk which shut the plateau from his sight. But the
+shadows still blanketed the barren; so testing the light wind, that he
+might move directly out toward the game when the light grew stronger, he
+sat down to save his strength for the stalk. Only too clearly, his
+weakness warned him that it was his last hunt. By another day, even
+though he managed the climb, his trembling hands would prevent the
+lining of his sights on game.
+
+As opal and rose faintly streaked the east, the teeth of the hunter,
+waiting to read the fate daylight would disclose, chattered in the
+stinging air. But a space now, and he would know whether he were to
+creep back to his blankets and wait for stark despair to steady the hand
+which would bring swift release for Fleur and himself, or whether meat,
+food, life, were scraping with round-toed hooves the snow from the
+caribou moss out there in the dim dawn.
+
+Daylight filtered over the floor of snow to meet Marcel lying at the top
+of a rise out on the barren, waiting. As the light at length opened up
+the treeless miles, a sob shook the lean frame of the hunter. Tears
+welled in the deep-set eyes to course down and freeze upon his face, for
+there, on the snow before him, were the _blue-gray shapes of caribou_.
+
+Three deer were feeding almost within range while farther out, gray
+patches, moving on the snow, marked other bands. At last the spring
+migration had reached him, and barely in time. He would see Whale River
+again when June came north. And Fleur, fretting back there in camp at
+his absence, after the lean days would revel and grow gigantic on deer
+meat.
+
+Painfully Marcel crawled within easy range of the nearest caribou. As he
+attempted to line his sights in order to hit two with the first shot, as
+he had often done, the waving of his gun barrel in his trembling hands
+swept him cold with fear. The exertion of crawling to his position had
+cruelly shaken his nerves. So he rested.
+
+Then he carefully took aim. As he fired, his heart skipped a beat, for
+he thought he had missed. But to his joy a caribou bounded from the
+snow, ran a few feet and fell, while another, stopping to scent the air
+before circling up-wind, gave him a second shot. The deer was badly hit
+and the next shot brought it down.
+
+The tension of the crisis passed, the shattered nerves relaxed, and for
+a space the starving hunter lay limp in the snow. But warned by his
+rapidly numbing fingers, he forced himself to his feet and went to the
+deer. Out on the barren beyond the sound of his rifle scattered bands of
+caribou were feeding. Meat to take them through the big "break-up" of
+April was at hand. The lean face of Jean Marcel twisted into a grim
+smile.
+
+_He had beaten the long snows._
+
+Stopping only to take the tongues and a piece of haunch, Marcel returned
+to his hungry dog. Frantic with the faint scent of caribou brought by
+the breeze off the barren, the famished Fleur chafed and fretted for his
+return.
+
+"Here, Fleur, see what Jean Marcel got for you!"
+
+The husky, maddened by the scent of the blood-red meat, plunged at her
+leash, her jaws dripping with slaver. Throwing her a chunk of frozen
+haunch which she bolted greedily, Marcel filled his kettle with snow and
+putting in a tongue and strips of steak to boil, lay down by his fire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+SPRING AND FLEUR
+
+
+At intervals during the day Jean drank the strengthening broth, too
+"bush-wise" to sicken himself by gorging. By late afternoon he was able
+to drive the rejuvenated Fleur to the barren and bring back the meat on
+the sled. The days following were busy ones. At first his weakness
+forced him to husband his strength while the stew and roasted red meat
+were thickening his blood, but as the food began to tell, he was able to
+hunt farther and farther into the barrens where the main migration of
+the caribou was passing. When he was strong enough, he took Fleur with a
+load of meat back to his old winter camp, returning with traps. These he
+set at the carcasses he had shot, for foxes, lynxes and wolverines were
+drawn from the four winds to his kill. So while he hunted meat to carry
+him through April, and home, at the same time he added materially to his
+fur-pack.
+
+Toward the end of March, before the first thaws softened his back trail
+and made sled-travel heart-breaking for Fleur, Jean began relaying west
+the meat he had shot. He had now, cached in the barrens, ample food to
+supply Fleur and himself until the opening of the waterways when fish
+would be a most welcome change. His sledding over, he returned to his
+camp in the barrens to get his traps and take one last hunt, for the
+lean weeks of the winter had made him over-cautious and he wished to
+make the trip back with a loaded sled.
+
+By the coming of April, Fleur, in whom an abundance of red caribou meat
+had swiftly worked a metamorphosis, had increased in bone and weight. As
+Jean watched her throw her heavy shoulders into her collar and trot
+lightly off over the hard trail with a two hundred pound load his heart
+leaped with love of the beautiful beast who worshipped him with every
+red drop in her shaggy body. What a team she would give him some day! he
+thought. There would be nothing like them south of Hudson's Straits. And
+the Company would need them for the winter mail packet, with Jean Marcel
+to drive them.
+
+Lately he had noticed a new trait in his dog. Several times, deep in the
+night when he waked to renew the fire, he had found that Fleur was not
+sleeping near him but had wandered off into the "bush." As she needed no
+food, he thought these night hunts of the husky peculiar. But at dawn,
+he always found Fleur back in camp sleeping beside him.
+
+It was Marcel's last night in the barren-ground camp. Leaving Fleur, he
+had, as usual, hunted all day, returning with a sled load of meat which
+he drew himself. As he approached the camp he crossed the trail of a
+huge timber wolf and hurried to learn if his dog had been attacked, for
+tied as she was, she would fight with a cruel handicap. But Fleur
+greeted him as usual with yelps of delight. In the vicinity of the camp
+there were no tracks to show that the wolf had approached the husky.
+However, Marcel decided that he would not leave her again bound in camp
+unable to chew through the rawhide thongs in time to protect herself
+from sudden attacks of the wolves which roamed the country.
+
+After supper man and dog sat by the fire, but Fleur was manifestly
+restless. Time and again she left his side to take long sniffs of the
+air. Not even the rubbing of her ears which usually brought grunts of
+pleasure had the magic to hold her long.
+
+The early moon hung on the white brow of a distant ridge, and Jean,
+finishing his pipe, was about to renew his fire and roll into his
+blankets, when a long, wailing howl floated across the valley.
+
+Fleur bounded to her feet, her quivering nostrils sucking in the keen
+air. Again the call of the timber wolf drifted out on the silent night.
+Fleur, alive with excitement, trotted into the "bush." In a moment she
+returned to the fire, whimpering. Then sitting down, she pointed her
+nose at the stars and her deep throat swelled with the long-drawn howl
+of the husky. Shortly, when the timber wolf replied, the lips of Fleur
+did not lift from her white fangs in a snarl nor did her thick mane rise
+as her ears pricked eagerly forward.
+
+At dawn Jean waked with a sense of loneliness. Pushing together the
+embers of his fire, he put on fresh wood, and not seeing Fleur, called
+to her but she did not appear. She had a habit of prowling around the
+neighboring "bush" at dawn, inspecting fresh tracks of mice, searching
+for ptarmigan or for the snow-shoe rabbits that were not there. But when
+Marcel's breakfast was cooked Fleur was still absent. Thinking that a
+fresh game trail had led her some distance, he ate, then started to
+break camp. Finally he put his index and middle fingers between his
+teeth and blew the piercing whistle which had never failed to bring her
+leaping home. Intently, he listened for her answer somewhere in the
+valley of the stream or on the edge of the barren, but the yelp of his
+dog did not come to his straining ears.
+
+Curious as to the cause of her absence Jean smoked his pipe and waited.
+He was anxious to start back with his traps and meat; but where was
+Fleur? Becoming alarmed by the middle of the morning, he made a wide
+circle of the camp hoping to pick up her trail. Two days previous there
+had been a flurry of snow sufficient to enable him to follow her tracks
+on the stiff crust. In the vicinity of the camp were traces of Fleur's
+recent footprints but finally, at a distance, Marcel ran into a fresh
+trail leading down into the brook-bottom. There he lost it, and after
+hours of search returned to camp to wait for her return. But the day
+wore away and the husky did not appear. Night came and visions of his
+dog lying somewhere stiff in the snow slashed and torn by wolves,
+tortured his thoughts. If only he could pick up her trail at daylight,
+he thought, for she might still live, crippled, unable to come to him,
+waiting for Jean Marcel who had never failed her.
+
+As he sat brooding by his fire, he came to realize, now that he had lost
+her, what a part of him the dog had become. His thoughts drifted back
+over their life together, months of gruelling toil and--delight. Tears
+traced their way down the wind-burned cheeks of Marcel as he recalled
+her early puppy ways and antics, how she had loved to nibble with her
+sharp milk teeth at his moccasins and sit in the bow of the canoe, on
+their way down the coast, scolding at the seals and ducks; with what mad
+delight she had welcomed his visits to the stockade at Whale River
+circling him at full speed, until breathless and panting, she leaped
+upon him, her hot tongue seeking his hands and face. Then on the long
+trail home from the south coast marshes, how closely she would snuggle
+to his back as they lay on the beaches, as if fearing to lose him while
+she slept. And the winter on the Ghost, with its ghastly end--what a
+rock his dog had been when his partners failed him! In the moment of his
+peril, how savagely she had battled for Jean Marcel! Through the lean
+weeks of starvation when hope had died, to the dawn when she had waked
+him at the coming of the caribou, his thoughts led him. And now, when
+spring and Whale River were near, it was all over. Their life together
+with its promise of the future had been snapped short off. He should
+never again look into the slant, brown eyes of Fleur. He had lost his
+all; first Julie, and now, Fleur. There was nothing left.
+
+At daybreak, without hope, he took up the search along the stream. Where
+the wind had driven, the crust now stiff with alternate freezing and
+thawing and swept clean of snow, would show little sign of the passing
+of the dog, but in the sheltered areas where the crust was softer and
+the young snow lay, he hoped to cross the tracks of Fleur. At length,
+miles from the camp, he picked up the trail of the dog in some light
+drift. Following the tracks across the brook-bottom and into the scrub
+of the opposite slope, he suddenly stopped, wide-eyed with amazement at
+the evidence written plainly in the light covering of the crust. Fleur's
+tracks had been joined by, and ran side by side with, the trail of a
+wolf.
+
+"By Gar!" gasped the surprised Frenchman. "She do not fight wid de
+wolf!"
+
+As he travelled, he found no marks of battle in the snow, simply the
+parallel trails of the two, dog and wolf, now trotting, now lengthening
+out into the long, wolf lope.
+
+"Fleur leave Jean Marcel for de wolf!" the trapper rubbed his eyes as
+though suspicious of a trick of vision. His Fleur, whom he loved as his
+life and who adored Jean Marcel, to desert him this way in the
+night--and for a timber wolf.
+
+It was strange indeed. Yet he had heard of such things. It was this way
+that the Esquimos kept up the marvellous strain to which Fleur belonged.
+He recalled the peculiar actions of the dog during the previous
+days--the wolf tracks near the camp; her excitement of the night before
+when the call had sounded over the valley. This wolf had been dogging
+their trail for a week and Fleur had known it.
+
+"Ah!" he murmured, nodding his head. "Eet ees de spreeng!"
+
+Yes, the spring was slowly creeping north and the creatures of the
+forest had already answered its call. It was April, and Fleur, too, had
+succumbed to an urge stronger for the moment than the love of the
+master. April, the Crees' "Moon of the Breaking of the Snow-Shoes,"
+when, at last, the wind would begin to shift to the south and the nights
+lose their edge, only to shift back again, with frost. Then the snow
+would melt hard at noon, softening the trails, and later on, rain and
+sleet would drive in from the great Bay turning the white floor of the
+forest to slush, flooding the ice of the rivers which later would break
+up and move out, overrunning the shell of pond and lake which late in
+May would honeycomb and disappear.
+
+Marcel followed the trails of wolf and dog until he lost them on the
+wind-packed snow of the barren. There was nothing to do but wait. He
+knew his dog had not forgotten him--would come home; but when? It was
+high time for his return to the camp in the Salmon country, to his
+precious cache of meat, which would attract lynxes and wolverines for
+miles around. The bears would soon leave their "washes" and the uprights
+of his cache were not proof against bear. But he would not go without
+Fleur, and she was away, somewhere in the hills.
+
+Three days he waited, continuing to hunt that he might take a full
+sled-load back to his cache. But the weather was softening and any day
+now might mean the start of the big "break-up." It was deep in the
+third night that a great gray shape burst out of the forest and pounced
+upon the muffled figure under the shed-tent by the fire. As the dog
+pawed at the blanketed shape, Marcel, drugged with sleep and bewildered
+by the attack, was groping for his knife, when a familiar whine and the
+licks of a warm tongue proclaimed the return of Fleur, and the man threw
+his arms around his dog.
+
+"Fleur come back to Jean?" Breaking from him, in sheer delight, the dog
+repeatedly circled the fire, then rearing on her hind legs put her
+fore-paws on his chest.
+
+"Fleur bad dog to run away wid de wolf!" Marcel seized her by the jowls
+and shook the massive head, peering into the slant eyes in the dim
+starlight. And Fleur, as though ashamed of her desertion of the master,
+pushed her nose under his arm, the rumbling in her throat voicing her
+joy to be with him again. Then Marcel gave her meat from the cache which
+she bolted greedily.
+
+It had not entered his mind once he had found her tracks that Fleur
+would not return to him, but during her long absence the condition of
+the snow had been a source of worry. Each day's delay meant the chance
+of the bottom suddenly falling out of the trail before he could freight
+his load of meat and traps back to his old camp far to the west. Once
+the big thaw was on, all sledding would be over. So, hurriedly eating
+his breakfast, he started under the stars, for at noon he would be held
+up by the softening trail. Toward mid-afternoon, when it turned colder,
+he would again travel.
+
+Back at his old camp, Marcel found that the fish-hook necklace with
+which he had circled each of the peeled spruce uprights of his cache had
+baffled the wolverines and lynxes lured for miles by the odor of meat.
+Resetting short trap-lines, he waited for the "break-up" with tranquil
+mind, for his cache groaned with meat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+WHEN THE ICE GOES SOFT
+
+
+The snows were fading fast before the rain and sleet of the big thaw.
+Often, at night, the softening winds shifted, to drive in raw from the
+north, again tightening the land with frost. But each day, as May
+neared, the sun swung higher and higher, slowly scattering the snow to
+flood the ice of myriad lakes and rivers. Already, Marcel had thrilled
+to the trumpets of the gray vanguards of the Canadas. On fair days the
+sun flashed from white fleets of "wavies," bound through seas of April
+skies to far Arctic ports.
+
+With May the buds of birch and poplar began to swell, later to light
+with the soft green of their young leaves the sombre reaches of upland
+jack-pine and spruce. Rimming the rivers with red, the new shoots of the
+willows appeared. At dawn, now, from dripping spires, white-throats and
+hermit thrush, fleeter than the spring, startled the drowsing forest
+with a reveille of song.
+
+One afternoon in May on his return from picking up a line of traps to be
+cached for use the following winter, Marcel went to the neighboring
+pond to lift his net. For safety on the rapidly sponging ice he wore his
+snow-shoes and carried a twelve-foot spruce pole. He had reset the net
+and was lashing an anchor line to a stake when suddenly the honeycombed
+shell crumbled beneath his feet.
+
+As he sank, he lunged for the pole he had dropped to set the net, but
+the surface settled under his leap carrying him into the water. Fighting
+in the mush ice for the pole almost within reach, to his horror he found
+his right foot trapped. He could not move farther in that direction. The
+snow-shoe was caught in the net.
+
+Marcel turned back floundering to the edge of firm ice, where he held
+himself afloat. Fast numbing with cold, as he clung, caught like a
+beaver in a trap, he knew that it was but a matter of minutes. Fleur, if
+only Fleur were there! But Fleur was hunting in the "bush."
+
+With a great effort he braced himself on his elbows, got his frozen
+fingers between his teeth, and blew the signal, once heard, his dog had
+never failed to answer.
+
+To the joy of the man slowly chilling to the bone, a yelp sounded in the
+forest. Rallying his ebbing strength, again Marcel whistled. Shortly
+Fleur appeared on the shore, sighted the master and bounded through the
+surface slop out to the fishing hole. Reaching Marcel, the husky seized
+a skin sleeve of his capote and arching her great back, fought the
+slippery footing in a mad effort to drag him from the water. But the net
+held him fast.
+
+"De stick, Fleur! De stick dere!" Marcel pointed toward the pole.
+
+Sensing his gesture, the dog brought the pole to the ice edge. Then with
+the pole bridging the hole, its ends on firm ice, Marcel worked his way
+to the submerged net, but the sinkers had hopelessly tangled the meshes
+with his snow-shoe. Under his soggy capote was his knife. His stiff
+fingers fumbled desperately with the knot of his sash but failed to
+loose it. Again Fleur seized his sleeve and pulled until she rolled
+backward with a patch of the tough hide in her teeth.
+
+The situation of the trapped man seemed hopeless. The chill of the water
+was fast numbing his senses. Already his heart slowed with the torpor of
+slow freezing. With difficulty now he kept the excited Fleur from
+plunging beside him into the mush ice.
+
+Then with a final effort he got his free leg with its snow-shoe, over
+the pole, and seizing the husky's tail with both hands, cried:
+
+"Marche, Fleur! Marche!"
+
+Settling low between wide-spread fore-legs, the dog dug her nails into
+the soft ice and hurled her weight into a fierce lunge. As her feet
+slipped, the legs of the husky worked like piston rods showering
+Marcel's face with water, her nails gouging the ice, while she fought
+the drag of the net.
+
+At last, something gave way, Marcel felt himself move. Slowly the great
+dog drew her master over the pole and upon the ice with the net still
+anchored to his right foot.
+
+Still gripping Fleur's tail in his left hand, with the other he finally
+reached his knife and groping in the icy water slashed the heel thong of
+the caught shoe. Free, Marcel limped to his camp, Fleur, now leaping
+beside him, now marching proudly with his sleeve in her teeth.
+
+The heat of the fire and the hot broth soon started the blood of the
+half-frozen Frenchman, who lay muffled in a blanket. Near him sprawled
+the husky, who had sensed only too acutely on the ice the danger
+menacing her master and would not now leave his sight, but with head on
+paws watched the blanketed figure through eyes which spoke the thoughts
+she could not express: "Jean may need Fleur again. She will stay with
+him by the fire."
+
+Once too often, Marcel mused, he had gambled with the rotten spring ice,
+and now had barely missed paying for his rashness. To drown in a hole
+like a muskrat, after pulling out of the starvation days with a cache
+heavy with meat and fish, was unthinkable. But, after all, what did it
+matter? Life would be of small value now with Julie out of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE DEAD MAN TELLS HIS TALE
+
+
+When, late in May, the snow had left the open places reached by the sun
+and the ice cleared the rivers, Marcel was ready to make his first trip
+to the camp on the Ghost. Poor Antoine would have to lie content in a
+shallow grave among the boulders of the river shore, for the frost was
+still in the ground. Before the weather softened Jean had smoked the
+remainder of his meat and now he faced a ten-mile portage with his
+outfit. Before the trails went bad he could have freighted on the sled
+sufficient food for his journey home but had preferred to face the
+"break-up" in his own camp near a fish-lake and relay his meat over on
+his back in May. The memories of the winter aroused by the camp on the
+Ghost were too grim to attract him to the comfortable shack.
+
+One morning at sunrise, after lashing a pack on Fleur's broad back, he
+threw his tump-line over a bag of smoked meat and swinging it to his
+shoulders, started over the trail. In the middle of the forenoon he
+walked into the clearing on the Ghost and pushing off the head strap of
+his line, dropped his load.
+
+Glancing at the cache where he had left the body of Antoine Beaulieu
+lashed in canvas with the fur-packs and rifles of the dead men, Marcel
+muttered in surprise:
+
+"By Gar! Dat ees strange t'ing!"
+
+The scaffold was empty; the body of Antoine had been removed and not a
+vestige remained of the fur-packs and outfits of Jean's partners.
+Neither wolverines, lynxes nor bears, had they been able to overcome the
+fish-hook barriers guarding the uprights, would have stripped the
+platform in such fashion. Searching the soft earth, he found the faint
+tracks of moccasins which the recent rain had not obliterated. But down
+on the river shore the mud told the story. A canoe had landed there
+within a week, for in spite of the rain the deep impress of the feet of
+men carrying heavy loads still marked the beach. Since the ice went out
+someone who knew that the three men were wintering there, had travelled
+up the Ghost from the Whale, but why? They could not have been starving,
+for fish could then be had on the Whale for the setting of a net.
+Evidently they had buried Antoine and taken the fur-packs, rifles, and
+outfits of the two men to Whale River. Marcel searched for a message, in
+the phonetic writing employed throughout the north, burned into a blazed
+tree, or on a scrap of birch-bark, left in the shack, but found
+nothing. The cabin was as he had last seen it. They had thought him,
+also, dead somewhere in the "bush" and had left no word, or----Then the
+situation opened to him from the angle of view of the Cree visitors.
+
+A camp on the verge of starvation, witnessed by the depleted cache; a
+dead man stabbed to the heart, with his rifle and outfit beside him;
+also, the rifle and personal belongings, easily identified by his
+relatives, of a second man, who, if he were still alive, would have had
+them in his possession. Of the third man, who was to winter with them,
+no trace at the camp. Two dead and the third, possibly alive, if he had
+not starved out. And that third man was Jean Marcel.
+
+That was the grim tale which was travelling down the river ahead of him
+to the spring trade. Who killed Antoine Beaulieu, and where is Piquet?
+This was the question he would have to answer. This the factor and the
+kinsmen of his partners would demand of the third man, if he survived to
+reach the post. Yes, Whale River would anxiously await the return of
+Jean Marcel that spring, but would Whale River believe his story? Of the
+people of the post he had no doubt. Julie, Pčre Breton, the factor,
+Angus, Jules, he could count on. They knew him--were his friends. But
+the Crees, and half-breds; would they believe that Joe Piquet had been
+the evil genius of the tragedy on the Ghost, Joe Piquet, now dead and
+helpless to speak in his own defense? Would they believe in the
+innocence of the man who alone of the three partners had fought free of
+the long famine? Marcel's knowledge of the Indians' mental make-up told
+him that since the visit of the Crees to the camp his case was hopeless.
+
+They would readily believe that he had killed his partners for the
+remaining food, and, not anticipating the coming of a canoe in the
+spring to the camp, had gone after caribou, planning to secrete the body
+of Antoine, with its evidence of violence, on his return.
+
+Of those who had peopled the canoes starting for the up-river summer
+camps in July, many a face would now be absent when the Crees returned
+for this year's trade. Famine surely had come to more than one camp of
+the red hunters that winter; and doubtless, swift death in the night,
+also, among some of those, who, when caught by the rabbit plague and the
+absence of wintering caribou, like Piquet, went mad with hunger.
+Disease, too, as a hawk strikes a ptarmigan, would have struck down many
+a helpless child and woman marooned in snow-drifted tepee in the silent
+places. Old age would have claimed its toll in the bitter January
+winds.
+
+To the red hunters, starvation and tragic death wore familiar faces. In
+the wide north they were common enough. So, when in the spring, men
+loosed from the maw of the pitiless snows returned without comrade, wife
+or child, seeking succor at the fur-posts, with tales of death by
+starvation or disease, the absence of witnesses or evidence compelled
+the acceptance of their stories however suspicious the circumstances.
+There being no proof of guilt, and because, moreover, their tales were
+often true, there could be no punishment, except the covert condemnation
+of their fellows or the secret vengeance of kinsman or friend in the
+guise of a shot from the "bush" or knife thrust in the dark. He recalled
+the cases he knew or which he had heard discussed over many a camp-fire,
+of men on the East Coast, sole survivors of starvation camps, who would
+go to their graves privately branded as murderers by their fellows.
+
+Grim tales of his father returned to him; of the half-breed from
+Nichicun who, it was commonly believed, had eaten his partner; of Crees
+who had appeared in the spring at the posts without parents, or wives
+and children, to tell conflicting stories of death through disease or
+starvation; of the Frenchman at Mistassini--still a valued servant of
+the Company--who was known from Fort Albany to Whale River and from
+Rupert to the Peribonka, as the squaw-man who saved himself on the
+Fading Waters by deserting his Montagnais girl wife. These and many
+more, through lack of any proof of guilt, had escaped the long arm of
+the government which, through the fur-posts, reached to the uttermost
+valleys of the north.
+
+And so it must have been with Jean Marcel, however suspicious his story,
+had he buried Antoine somewhere in the snow, as he had Piquet, instead
+of lashing the body on the cache with its telltale death wound. As it
+was he already saw himself, though innocent, condemned in the court of
+Cree opinion as the slayer of his friend.
+
+As he came to a realization of how his case would look, even to the
+whites at Whale River, he cursed the dead man Piquet for bringing all
+this upon a guiltless man--for leaving him this black legacy of
+suspicion.
+
+Well, he swore to himself, they should believe his story at the post,
+for it was the truth; and if any man, white or red, openly doubted his
+innocence, he would have to answer to Jean Marcel. To be branded on the
+East Coast as the assassin of his partners was a bitter draught for the
+palate of the proud Frenchman. For generations the Marcels had borne an
+honored name in the Company's service and now for the last of them to be
+suspected of foul murder, was disgrace unthinkable.
+
+So ran his thoughts as he hurried back over the trail to his camp. Of
+one thing he felt sure. The situation brought about by the visit of the
+Crees demanded his presence at the post as soon after their arrival as
+his paddle could drive his canoe. From the appearance of the tracks on
+the beach they already had a good start and it would take two days for
+him to pack to the Ghost what meat and outfit he needed for the trip,
+besides his furs. The rest he could cache.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE BLIND CLUTCH OF CIRCUMSTANCE
+
+
+Three days later, he had run the strong-water of the Ghost to Conjuror's
+Falls, where he exchanged Beaulieu's canoe for his own, cached the
+previous fall, and continued on to the Whale until the moon set, when he
+camped.
+
+Then next morning, long before the rising sun, reaching the smoking
+surface in his path, rolled the river mists back to fade on the
+ridges, Marcel, with Fleur in the bow, was well started on his
+three-hundred-mile journey. Travel as he might, he could not hope to
+overtake the canoe bearing the tale of the tragedy to Whale River; but
+each day when once the news had reached the post, the story, passed
+from mouth to mouth among the Crees, would gather size and distortion
+with Marcel not present to refute it. There was great need for speed,
+so he drove his canoe to the limit of his strength, running all rapids
+which skill and daring could outwit.
+
+Different, far, from the home-coming he had pictured through the last
+weeks, would be his return to Whale River. True, there would have been
+no long June days with Julie Breton, as in previous summers, no walks
+up the river shore when the low sun turned the Bay to burnished copper,
+and later, the twilight held deep into the night. If she were not
+already married her days would be too full to spare much time to her old
+friend Jean Marcel. But there would have been rest and ease, after the
+months of toil and famine--long talks with Jules and Angus, with worry
+behind him in the hills. Instead he was returning to his friends branded
+as a criminal by the evidence of the cache on the Ghost.
+
+At times, when the magic of the young spring, in the air, the forest,
+the hills, for a space swept clean his troubled brain of dark memory, he
+dreamed that the water-thrushes in the river willows called to him:
+"Sweet, sweet, sweet, Julie Breton!" That yellow warblers and friendly
+chickadees, from the spruces of the shore, hailed him as one of the
+elect, for was he not also a lover? That the kingfishers which scurried
+ahead of his boat gossiped to him of hidden nests. Deeply, as he
+paddled, he inhaled the scent of the flowering forest world, the
+fragrance of the northern spring, while his birch-bark rode the choked
+current. And then, the stark realization that he had lost her, and the
+shadow of his new trouble, would bring him rough awakening.
+
+Meeting no canoes of Cree hunters bound for the trade, for it was yet
+early, in nine days Marcel turned into the post. He smiled bitterly as
+he saw in the clearing a handful of tepees. Around the evening fires
+they had doubtless already convicted Jean Marcel, alive or dead.
+Familiar with the half-breed weakness for exaggeration, he wondered in
+what form the story of the cache on the Ghost had been retailed at the
+trade-house. Well, he should soon know.
+
+The howling of the post dogs announced his arrival, stirring Fleur after
+her long absence from the sight of her kind to a strenuous reply.
+Leaving his canoe on the beach Marcel went at once to the Mission, where
+the door was opened by the priest.
+
+"Jean Marcel!" The bearded face of the Oblat lighted with pleasure as he
+opened his arms to the wanderer. "You are back, well and strong? The
+terrible famine did not reach you?" he asked in French.
+
+Jean's deep-set eyes searched the priest's face for evidence of a change
+toward him but found the same frank, kindly look he had always known.
+
+"Yes, Father, I beat the famine but I have bad news. Antoine is dead. He
+was----"
+
+"Yes, I know," Pčre Breton hastily broke in. "They brought the word. It
+is terrible! And Piquet, is he dead also?"
+
+"Yes, Father," Marcel said quietly. "Joe Piquet was killed by Fleur,
+here, after he stabbed Antoine!"
+
+"_Juste Ciel!_ Killed by Fleur after he stabbed Antoine?" repeated the
+priest, staring at the husky.
+
+"Yes, I wish to tell you all first, Father, before I go to the
+trade-house--and Julie?" Jean inquired, his voice vibrant with fear of
+what the answer might be.
+
+"Put the dog in the stockade and I will call Julie."
+
+Ah, then she was not married. Marcel breathed with relief.
+
+"We have been very sad here, wondering whether you had starved--were
+alive," continued the priest. "The tale Piquet's uncle, Gaspard Lelac,
+and sons brought in day before yesterday made us think you also might
+have----"
+
+"Did they say Antoine had been stabbed?" interrupted Marcel, for the
+priest had avoided mention of the cause of Beaulieu's death.
+
+"They said they found his body." Pčre Henri still shunned the issue.
+
+"Where?" demanded Marcel.
+
+"Buried on the river shore!"
+
+"They lie!" As Marcel had anticipated, the half-breeds had embellished
+the sufficiently damning evidence of the cache. He realized that he
+faced a battle with men who would not scruple to lie when the stark
+facts already looked badly enough.
+
+"They never were truthful people, my son. We have hoped and prayed for
+your coming to clear up the mystery."
+
+Jean put Fleur in the stockade and returned to the house. Julie Breton
+stood in the doorway.
+
+"Welcome home, Jean!" she cried in French, giving him both hands.
+"Why--you are not thin!" She looked wonderingly at his face. "We
+thought--you also--had starved." Her eyes filled with tears as she gazed
+at the man already numbered with the dead.
+
+Swept by conflicting emotions, Marcel swallowed hard. Were these
+sisterly tears of joy at his safe return or did she weep for the Jean
+Marcel she once knew, now dishonored?
+
+"There, there! _Ma petite!_" consoled Pčre Henri, stroking the dark
+head. "We have Jean here again, safe; all will be well in time."
+
+"Julie had you starved out in the 'bush,' Jean, when we heard their
+story," explained the priest.
+
+But the puzzled youth wondered why Pčre Henri did not mention the
+charges that the half-breeds must have made on reaching Whale River.
+
+Recovering her self-control Julie excused herself to prepare supper.
+Then before asking what the Lelacs had told the factor, Marcel related
+to the priest the grim details of the winter on the Ghost; of the
+deaths of Antoine and Piquet, of his fortunate meeting with the
+returning caribou, and of his discovery, on his return to the old camp,
+of the visit of the Lelacs' canoe.
+
+"Father, it looks bad for me. They found Antoine stabbed and Piquet's
+fur and outfit. I brought his rifle back to the camp and cached it with
+his stuff and Antoine's to bring it all down river in the spring to
+their people."
+
+At this the heavy brows of the priest lifted in surprise. Marcel
+continued:
+
+"The cache was empty. It was a starvation camp. Antoine was dead, and
+Piquet also, for his outfit was there. Seeing these things, what could
+anyone think? That the third man, Jean Marcel, did this and then went
+into the barrens for caribou. There he starved out, or else found meat
+and would return, when he could clear himself if able. Father, it was my
+wish to tell you my story before I heard the tale the Lelacs brought to
+the post. Then you could judge between us."
+
+The priest leaned forward in his chair and rested his hands on Marcel's
+shoulders. His eyes sought those of the younger man which met his gaze
+unwaveringly. "Jean Marcel," he said, "I have known you since your
+father brought you to Whale River as a child. You have never lied to me.
+True, the circumstances are unfortunate; but you have told me the
+truth. We did not believe that you had killed your comrades; you would
+have starved first; nor did Gillies or McCain or Jules believe in the
+truth of the charge of the Lelacs. They are waiting to hear your story.
+Also, since hearing your side, I see why the Lelacs are anxious to have
+it believed at the trade-house that you were responsible for the deaths
+of these men. They are grinding an axe of their own. It is not alone
+because they are kin of Piquet that they wish to discredit and injure
+you."
+
+"How do you mean, Father?" Marcel asked, curious as to the significance
+of the priest's last statement.
+
+"I will tell you later, my son. You should report at the trade-house
+now. They are waiting for you."
+
+Cheered with the knowledge that his old friends were still staunch, that
+the factor had waited for his return before expressing even an opinion,
+Marcel hurried to the trade-house.
+
+Meeting no one as he passed the scattered tepees, he flung open the
+slab-door of the log-building and with head high, entered.
+
+"Jean Marcel! By Gar, we hear you arrive!" roared the big Jules, rushing
+upon the youth with open arms. "You not starve out, eh?"
+
+Then Gillies and McCain, wringing his hand, added their welcome. Surely,
+he thought, with choked emotion, these men had not turned against him
+because of the tales of Lelac.
+
+"Jean, you had a hard winter with the rabbits gone," suggested Gillies.
+"You must have found the caribou this spring?"
+
+"Yes, I find de caribou, M'sieu, but I travel far for dem; eet was hard
+time een Mars."
+
+"And the dog, you didn't have to eat your dog, Jean?" asked McCain.
+
+Marcel's face hardened.
+
+"De dog and Jean, dey feast and dey starve togeder. I am no Cree
+dog-eater. Dat dog she save my life, one, two tam, dees winter, M'sieu."
+
+Never had the thought of sacrificing Fleur as a last resort entered the
+mind of Marcel in the lean days on the barrens.
+
+"Well, my lad," said Gillies heartily, "we are sure glad to have you
+back alive. We hear there was much starvation on the East Coast this
+year, with the rabbit plague and the scarcity of deer."
+
+They also, Marcel saw, were waiting to hear his story before alluding to
+the charges of the half-breed kinsmen of Piquet.
+
+"M'sieu Gillies," Jean began. "I weesh to tell you what happen on de
+Ghost. De Lelacs bring a tale to Whale Riviere dat ees not true."
+
+"We have paid no attention to them, Jean, trusting you would show up and
+could explain it all then. I know you and I know the Lelacs. I was sorry
+to hear about Antoine and Piquet but I don't think you had any part in
+it, lad. Be sure of that!"
+
+"T'anks, M'sieu." Then slowly and in great detail Marcel related to the
+three men, sitting with set faces, the gruesome history of the past
+winter. When he came to the night that Fleur had destroyed the crazed
+Piquet, the Hudson's Bay men turned to each other with exclamations of
+wonder and admiration.
+
+"That's a dog for you! She got his wind just in time!" muttered Gillies.
+
+"Tiens! Dat Fleur she is lak de wolf," added Jules.
+
+"You ask eef I eat her, M'sieu," Marcel turned on McCain grimly. "Could
+you eat de dog dat save your life?"
+
+"No, by God! I'd starve first!" thundered the Scotchman.
+
+"I love dat dog," said Jean quietly, and went on with his tale.
+
+Breathless, they heard how he had pushed deeper and deeper beyond the
+hunting grounds of the Crees into the nameless barrens until he reached
+streams flowing northeast into Ungava Bay, and at last met the
+returning caribou; how the great strength of Fleur beat the drag of the
+net, when he was slowly freezing in the lake; and then he came to his
+return to the Ghost.
+
+In detail Marcel enumerated the articles belonging to Antoine and Piquet
+which he had placed on the stage of the cache beside Beaulieu's body
+when he left for the Salmon country and which had been taken by the
+Lelacs to Whale River.
+
+"I lashed Antoine een hees shed-tent and put heem on de cache, for the
+wolverine and lynx would get heem een de snow." As Marcel talked McCain
+and Gillies exchanged significant looks.
+
+"Um!" muttered the factor, when Jean had finished. "Something queer
+here!"
+
+"What, M'sieu?" Marcel demanded.
+
+"Why, Lelac says he found the body of Antoine buried under stones on the
+shore and that there was nothing on the cache except the empty grub
+bags."
+
+"Dey say de fur and rifle was not dere?"
+
+"Yes, nothing on the cache!"
+
+"Den I must have de rifle and de fur; ees dat eet?"
+
+"Yes, that's what they insinuate."
+
+"Ah-hah!" Marcel scowled, thinking hard. "Dey say dey fin' noding, so do
+not turn over to you de rifle and fur-pack."
+
+"Yes, they claim you must have hidden them as you hid the body."
+
+"Den how do dey know Piquet ees dead too?" Marcel's dark features
+relaxed in a dry smile. It was not, then, solely the desire for
+vengeance on the murderer of their kin that had prompted the half-breeds
+to distort the facts.
+
+"They say his extra clothes and his outfit were in the cabin, only his
+rifle and fur missing. Now, Jean," he continued, "I am perfectly
+satisfied with your story. I believe every word of it. I knew your
+father and I know you. The Marcels are not liars. But the Lelacs are
+going to make trouble over the evidence they found at your camp.
+Suspicion always points to the survivor in a starvation camp, and you
+know the circumstances are against you, my lad."
+
+"M'sieu," Marcel protested. "Eef I keel Antoine, I would tak' heem into
+de bush and hide heem, I would not worry ovair de fox and wolverine."
+
+"Of course you would have hidden the body somewhere. We appreciate that.
+But as they are trying to put this thing on you they ignore that side of
+it. What you admit they found,--Antoine's body with a stab wound, and
+Piquet's outfit, makes it look bad to people who don't know you as we
+do. They won't believe that the famine got Piquet in the head. They'll
+say that's a tale you made up to get yourself off."
+
+Marcel went hot with anger. His impulse was to seek the Lelacs and have
+it out, then and there. But he possessed the cool judgment of a long
+line of ancestors whose lives had often depended on their heads, so he
+choked back his rage.
+
+"Now I don't want it carried down the coast that you killed your
+partners, Jean," went on Gillies. "Young as you are, you'll never live
+it down. And besides, there's no knowing what the government might do.
+I'll have to make a report, you know. So we've got to do some tall
+thinking between us before the hunters get in."
+
+While the factor talked, the swift brain of Marcel had struck upon a
+plan to trap and discredit the Lelacs, but he wished to think it over,
+alone, before proposing it at the trade-house, so held his tongue. When
+he was ready he would ask the factor to hold a hearing. Then he could
+put some questions to his accusers that would make them squirm. One
+question he did ask before packing his fur and outfit from the beach up
+to the Mission.
+
+"Have de Lelac traded dere fur, M'sieu?"
+
+"No, we haven't started the trade yet."
+
+"W'en dey trade dere fur weel you hold it from de oder fur, separate?"
+
+"Why, yes, I'll do that for you, but you can't hope to identify skins,
+Jean."
+
+A corner of Marcel's mouth curled in a quizzical smile. "Wait, M'sieu
+Gillies; I tell you later," and with a "Bon-soir!" he went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+IN THE DEPTHS
+
+
+Although it would have been pure suicide for anyone to attempt to take
+Fleur from the stockade against her will, Marcel feared that some dark
+night those who wished his disgrace might loose their venom in an injury
+to his dog. So, refusing a room in the Mission House, he pitched his
+tent on the grass inside the spruce pickets where Fleur might lie beside
+him.
+
+Here his staunch friend Jules sought Jean out. It seemed that Inspector
+Wallace had been up the coast at Christmas, had stayed a week, and
+although no one knew exactly what had transpired, whether he had as yet
+become a Catholic, there was no doubt in the minds of the curious that
+the Scotchman would shortly remove the sole obstacle to his marriage to
+Julie Breton.
+
+With head in hands, Jean Marcel listened to the news, none the less
+bitter because anticipated. The loyal Jules' crude attempt to console
+the brokenhearted hunter went unheard. Fate had made him its cat's-paw.
+Not only had he lost his heart's desire, but his name was now a byword
+at Whale River; the woman he held dear and his honor, both gone. There
+was nothing left to lose. He was indeed bankrupt.
+
+During supper, Jean was plied with questions by Julie, who, in his
+absence, had had his story from her brother. To the half-breeds she
+never once alluded, seemingly interested solely in the long hunt for
+caribou on the barrens and in Fleur's rescue of her master from the
+lake.
+
+For the delicacy of the girl in avoiding the tragedy which was plainly
+claiming his thoughts, he was deeply grateful. Clearly from the first,
+she had believed in the honor of Jean Marcel. But with what was
+evidently a forced gaiety, the girl sought, on the night of his return,
+to banish from his mind thoughts of the cloud blackening the future--of
+the trying days ahead.
+
+"Come, Jean Marcel," she laughed, speaking to him, as always, in French,
+"are you not glad to see us that you wear a face so dismal? You have not
+told me how you like this muslin gown." She pirouetted on her shapely
+moccasined feet challenging his approval. "Henri says I'm growing thin.
+Is it not becoming? No? Then I shall eat and grow as fat as big Marie,
+the Montagnais cook at the Gillies'."
+
+The sober face of Jean Marcel lighted at her pleasantry. His brooding
+eyes softened as they followed the trim figure in the simple muslin
+gown. It was a rare picture indeed for a man who had but just finished
+seven months in the "bush," half the time with the spectre of starvation
+haunting his heels--this girl with the dusky eyes and hair, the vivid
+memory of whose face he had carried with him into the nameless barrens.
+But she belonged to another and he, Jean Marcel, was branded as a
+murderer at Whale River, even if he escaped the law.
+
+Presently, when Pčre Breton was called from the room to minister to a
+Cree convert, Julie became serious.
+
+"Jean Marcel, I have much to say to you; but it is hard--to begin."
+
+"I should think you would have little to say to Jean Marcel."
+
+"Why, because some half-breeds have brought a story to Whale River which
+was not true?"
+
+"Well, enough of it is true, Julie, to make the Indians believe, when
+they hear it, that Jean Marcel killed his partners to save himself from
+starvation."
+
+"Not if Pčre Breton and Monsieur Gillies have any influence with the
+Crees. They will not allow them to believe such a cruel falsehood,"
+protested Julie, vehemently.
+
+Marcel smiled indulgently at the girl's ignorance of Cree psychology.
+
+"The harm is already done," he said. "One man is found stabbed; also the
+outfit of another gone. The third man comes back. No matter what M'sieu
+Gillies and Pčre Henri tell them they will believe the man guilty who
+got out alive."
+
+"They will not believe these Lelacs, when they are shown to be liars,"
+she insisted, stamping her foot impatiently.
+
+"They have lied about the rifle and fur only, Julie. They are telling
+the truth when they say they found Antoine and some of Piquet's outfit.
+The rest does not matter except to make me a thief as well as murderer."
+
+"Oh, but it is all so unjust, so terrible to be accused like this when
+because of your good heart you wished to bury Antoine decently in the
+spring instead of leaving him in the snow where they would never have
+found him. It is too----" Julie Breton's voice broke with emotion.
+Through tears her dark eyes flashed in protest at the pass to which a
+blind fate had brought an innocent man.
+
+Marcel was deeply touched by this revelation of the girl's loyalty; but
+her tears roused his heart to a wild beating. Unable to speak, he faced
+her, his dark features illumined with the gratitude and love he could
+not voice. For a space he sat fighting for the mastery of his emotions.
+Then he said huskily:
+
+"Julie Breton, you give me great happiness--when you say you believe
+me--are still my friend."
+
+"Oh, la, la! Nonsense!" she cried, dabbing with, a handkerchief at her
+wet eyes as she recovered her poise, "you are a boy, so foolish, Jean.
+Do you think that we, your friends who know you, will permit this thing?
+It is impossible!" And changed the subject, nor did she allow him to
+return to it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+IN THE EYES OF THE CREES
+
+
+Day by day the ebb-tide brought in the canoes of returning Crees.
+Gradually tepees filled the post clearing. And with the coming of the
+hunters from the three winds, was heard many a tale of famine in far
+valleys; of families blotted out; of little victims of starvation and
+disease; of the aged too frail to endure through the lean moons of the
+rabbit-plague until the return of the caribou, which had spelt life to
+those who waited.
+
+Tragedy there had been, as in every winter of famine; but however
+sinister were the secrets which, that spring, many a mute valley held
+locked in its green forests, no rumors of such, except the tale of the
+murders on the Ghost, had reached Whale River. Pitiless desertion of the
+aged and the helpless, death by violence, doubtless, the starving moon
+had shone upon; but none had lived to tell the tale, none had seen the
+evidence, except those who had profited with their lives, and their lips
+were forever sealed. And so, as Marcel had foreseen, to the gathering
+families of Crees who themselves had but lately escaped the maw of the
+winter, the tale of the Lelacs, expanding as it travelled, found ready
+acceptance.
+
+As yet, Jean, chafing under the odium of his position at the post, had
+not faced his accusers. But the plan of his defense which had been
+decided on after a conference with Gillies and Pčre Breton, depended for
+its success on the trading of their fur by the Lelacs, and the uncle and
+cousins of Joe Piquet for some reason had traded no fur. So the proud
+Frenchman went his way among the hunters at Whale River with a high head
+and silent tongue.
+
+Many of those who, the spring previous, had lauded his daring in
+entering the land of the Windigo and voyaging to the coast by the Big
+Salmon, now, at his appearance exchanged significant glances, avoiding
+the steady eyes of the man they had condemned without a hearing. Shawled
+women and girls, who formerly, at the trade, had cast approving glances
+at the wide-shouldered youth with the clean-cut features, now whispered
+pointedly as he passed and children often shrank from him in terror as
+from one defiled. But Marcel had been prepared for the effect of the
+tale of the Lelacs upon the mercurial red men, in the memories of many
+of whom still lurked the ghosts of deeds of their own whose ghastly
+details the ears of no man would ever hear.
+
+Since his return he had not once met the Lelacs face to face. Always
+they had hastily avoided him when he appeared on the way to his canoe or
+the trade-house. Jean had been strictly ordered by Gillies under no
+circumstances to seek trouble with his accusers or their friends, so he
+ignored them. And their disinclination to encounter the son of the
+famous André Marcel had not gone unmarked by the keen eyes of more than
+one old hunter. Many a red man and half-breed, friends of the father,
+who respected the son, had frankly expressed to him their disbelief in
+the charges of the Lelacs, accepting his story which Gillies had
+published to the Crees, that Beaulieu had been stabbed by Joe Piquet
+while Marcel was absent and Piquet killed later by the dog. Strongly
+they had urged him to make the Lelacs eat their lies, promising their
+support; but Jean had explained that it was necessary to wait; later his
+day would come.
+
+Occasionally when Marcel crossed the post clearing, pulsing with the
+varied life of the spring trade, to descend the cliff trail to his
+canoe, there marched by his side one whose name, also, was anathema with
+many of the Crees. That comrade was Fleur. The story of Piquet's death
+as told by Jean at the trade-house, though scouted by the Lelacs, had,
+nevertheless, left a deep impression; and the great dog, now called the
+"man-killer," who towered above the scrub huskies of the Indians as a
+mastiff over a poodle, was given a wide berth. But to avoid trouble
+with the Cree dogs, Jean kept Fleur for the most part in the Mission
+stockade. There Gillies and McCain and Jules had come to admire the bulk
+and bone of the husky they had last seen as a lumbering puppy, now in
+size and beauty far surpassing the Ungavas bought by the Company of the
+Esquimos. There, Crees, still friendly to Jean, lingered to gossip of
+the winter's hardships and stare in admiration at his dog. There, too,
+Julie romped with Fleur, grown somewhat dignified with the gravity of
+her approaching responsibilities. For, to the delight of Jean, Fleur was
+soon to present him with the dog-team of his dreams.
+
+Then when the umiaks of the Esquimos began to arrive from the coast,
+packed with tousle-headed children and the priceless sled-dogs, taking
+Fleur, Jean sought out his old friend Kovik of the Big Salmon. As he
+approached the skin lodge on the beach, beside which the kin of Fleur
+were made fast to prevent promiscuous fighting with strange dogs, she
+answered their surly greeting with so stiff a mane, so fierce a show of
+fangs, that Jean pulled her away by her rawhide leash, lest her
+reputation suffer further by adding fratricide to her crimes.
+
+Playmates of her puppyhood, mother who suckled her, she had forgotten
+utterly; vanished was all memory of her kin. She held but one
+allegiance, one love; the love approaching idolatry she bore the young
+master who had taken her in that far country from the strange men who
+beat her with clubs; who had brought her north again through wintry
+seas; who had companioned her through the long snows and in the dread
+days of the famine had shared with her his last meat. The center and sum
+of her existence was Jean Marcel. All other living things were as
+nothing.
+
+"Kekway!" cried the squat pair of Huskies, delighted at the appearance
+of the man who had given them back their first born. "Kekway!" chuckled
+a half-dozen round-faced children, shaking Jean's hand in turn.
+
+"Huh!" grunted the father, his eyes wide with wonder at the sight of
+Fleur, ears flat, muttering dire threats at her yelping brethren
+straining at their stakes, "dat good dog!"
+
+"Oui, she good dog," agreed Jean. "Soon I have dog-team lak Husky!"
+
+Shifting a critical eye from Fleur to his own dogs the Esquimo nodded.
+
+"Ha! Ha! You ketch boy in water, you get bes' dog."
+
+The Esquimo had not erred in his judgment of puppies. He had indeed
+given the man who had cheated the Big Salmon of his son the best of the
+litter. At sixteen months, Fleur stood inches higher at the shoulder
+and weighed twenty pounds more than her brothers. Truly, with the speed
+and stamina of their sire, the timber wolf, coupled with Fleur's courage
+and power, these puppies, whose advent he awaited, should make a
+dog-team unrivalled on the East Coast.
+
+"Cree up dere," continued the Esquimo, pointing toward the post
+clearing, "say de dog keel man."
+
+Marcel nodded gravely. "Oui, man try kill me, she kill heem."
+
+"Huh! De ol' dog keel bad Husky, on Kogaluk one tam."
+
+Fleur indeed had come from a fighting strain--dogs that would battle to
+the death or toil in the traces until they crumpled on the snow, for
+those they loved or to whom they owed allegiance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+ON THE CLIFFS
+
+
+Marcel was walking on the high river shore above the post with Julie
+Breton and Fleur. Like a floor below them the surface of the Great Whale
+moved without ripple in the still June afternoon. Out over the Bay the
+sun hung in a veil of haze. Back at the post, even the huskies were
+quiet, lured into sleep by the softness of the air. It was such a day as
+Jean Marcel had dreamed of more than a year before, in January, back in
+the barrens, when powdery snow crystals danced in the air as the lifting
+sun-dogs turned white wastes of rolling tundra into a shimmering sea. He
+was again with Julie on the cliffs, but there was no joy in his heart.
+
+"The Lelacs have traded their fur," he said, breaking a long silence;
+"the hearing will take place soon, now."
+
+"Yes, I know, you were with Monsieur Gillies and Henri very late last
+night," she replied, watching the antics of an inquisitive Canada jay in
+an adjacent birch.
+
+"Yes, we had some work to do. The Lelacs will not like what we have to
+tell them."
+
+"I knew that you would be able to show the Crees what bad people these
+Lelacs are."
+
+"Yes, Julie, we shall prove them liars and thieves; but the stain on the
+name of Jean Marcel will remain. I cannot deny that Antoine was killed;
+the Crees will not believe my story."
+
+"Nonsense, Jean," she burst out, "you must make them believe you!"
+
+"Julie," he said, ignoring her words, "since my return I have wanted to
+tell you--that I wish you all happiness,"--he swallowed hard at the lump
+in his throat,--"I have heard that you leave Whale River soon."
+
+At the words the girl flushed but turned a level gaze on the man, who
+looked at the dim, blue shapes of the White Bear Hills far on the
+southern horizon.
+
+"You have not heard the truth," she said. "Monsieur Wallace has done me
+the honor to ask me to marry him, but Monsieur Wallace is still a
+Protestant."
+
+The words from Julie's own lips stung Marcel like the lash of a whip,
+but his face masked his emotion.
+
+Then she went on:
+
+"I wanted to talk to you last summer, for you are my dear friend, but
+you were here for so short a while and we had but a word when you
+left." Then the girl burst out impulsively, "Ah, Jean; don't look that
+way! Won't you ever forgive me? I am--so sorry, Jean. But--you are a
+boy. It could never be that way. Why, you are as a brother."
+
+Marcel's eyes still rested on the silhouetted hills to the south. He
+made no answer.
+
+"Won't you forget, Jean, and remain a friend--a brother?"
+
+He turned his sombre eyes to the girl.
+
+"Yes, I shall always be your friend--your brother, Julie," he said. "But
+I shall always love you--I can't help that. And there is nothing to
+forgive. I hoped--once--that you might--love Jean Marcel; but now--it is
+over. God bless you, Julie!"
+
+As he finished, Julie Breton's eyes were wet. Again Marcel gazed long
+into the south but with unseeing eyes. The girl was the first to break
+the silence.
+
+"Jean," she said, returning to the charges of the Lelacs, "you must not
+brood over what the Crees are saying. What matters it that the ignorant
+Indians, some of whom, if the truth were known, have eaten their own
+flesh and blood in starvation camps, do not believe you. For shame! You
+are a brave man, Jean Marcel. Show your courage at Whale River as you
+have shown it elsewhere."
+
+Sadly Marcel shook his head. "They will speak of me now, from Fort
+George to Mistassini, as the man who killed his partners." And in spite
+of Julie Breton's words of cheer he refused to see his case in any other
+light.
+
+They had turned and were approaching the post when the practised eye of
+Marcel caught the far flash of paddles toward the river mouth. For a
+space he watched the rhythmic gleams of light from dripping blades
+leaving the water in unison, which alone marked the approaching canoe on
+the flat river. Then he said:
+
+"There are four or six paddles. It must be a big Company boat from Fort
+George. I wonder what they come for during the trade."
+
+As Jean and Julie Breton entered the post clearing the great red flag of
+the Company, carrying the white letters H. B. C., was broken out at the
+flagpole in honor of the approaching visitors. The canoe, now but a
+short way below the post, was receiving the undivided attention of
+Esquimos, Crees and howling huskies crowding the shore. The boat was not
+a freighter for she rode high. No one but an officer of the Company
+travelled light with six paddles. It was an event at Whale River, and
+Indians and white men awaited the arrival of the big Peterborough with
+unconcealed interest.
+
+"It must be Inspector Wallace," said Jean.
+
+With a face radiant with joy in the unexpected arrival of Wallace, Julie
+Breton hastened to the high shore, while Marcel turned slowly back to
+the Mission stockade where his dog awaited him at the gate.
+
+As the canoe neared the beach the swart _voyageurs_, conscious of their
+Cree and Esquimo audience, put on a brave burst of speed. At each lunge
+of the narrow Cree blades, swung in unison with a straight arm, the
+craft buried its nose, pushing out a wide ripple. On they came spurred
+by the shouts from the shore, then at the order of the man in the bow,
+the crew raised their paddles and bow and stern men deftly swung the
+boat in to the Whale River landing amid the cheers of the Indians.
+
+"How ar' yuh, Gillies?" said Wallace, stepping from the canoe; and,
+looking past the factor to a woman's figure on the high shore, waved his
+cap.
+
+"Well, well, Mr. Wallace; we hardly expected to see you at Whale River
+so early," answered Gillies, drily, smiling at the eagerness of Wallace.
+"Anything happened to the steamer?"
+
+"Oh, no! The steamer is all right. She'll be here on time. I thought I'd
+run up the coast during the trade this year."
+
+Gillies winked surreptitiously at McCain. It was most peculiar for the
+Inspector of the East Coast to arrive before the accounts of the spring
+trade were made up.
+
+"How has the famine affected the fur with you, Gillies?" asked Wallace,
+as they proceeded up the cliff trail to the post clearing. "The Fort
+George and East Main people were hit pretty hard, a number of families
+wiped out."
+
+"Yes, I expected as much," said Gillies. "A few of our people were
+starved out or died of disease. Nine, all told, have been reported, four
+of them old and feeble. It was a tough winter with both the rabbits and
+the caribou gone; we have done only fairly well with the trade,
+considering."
+
+"What's this I hear about a murder by one of your Frenchmen?" Wallace
+suddenly demanded. "We met a canoe at the mouth of the river and heard
+that the bodies of two half-breeds who had met foul play were found this
+spring and that you have the third man here now?"
+
+"That's pure Indian talk, Mr. Wallace," Gillies protested forcibly. "I
+will give you the details later. A half-breed killed one of his partners
+and attempted to kill the other, Jean Marcel, the son of André Marcel;
+you remember André, our old head man. You saw Jean here last summer. He
+is one of our best men. In fact, I'm going to take him on here at the
+post, although he's only a boy. He's too valuable to keep in the bush."
+
+"Oh, yes! I remember him; friend of Father Breton. But we've got to put
+a stop to this promiscuous murder, Gillies. There's too much of this
+thing on the Bay, this killing and desertion in famine years, and no one
+punished for lack of evidence."
+
+"But this was no murder, Mr. Wallace," Gillies answered hotly. "You'll
+hear the story to-night from Marcel's lips, if you like. We have some
+pretty strong evidence against his accusers, also. This is a tale
+started by the relatives of one of the men to cover their own thieving."
+
+"Well, Gillies, your man may be innocent, but I want to catch one of
+these hunters who come into the posts with a tale of starvation as
+excuse for the disappearance of their partners or family. When the grub
+goes they desert, or do away with their people, and get off on their own
+story. I'd like to get some evidence against one of them. The government
+has sent pretty stiff orders to Moose for us to investigate these cases,
+and where we have proof, send the accused 'outside' for trial."
+
+"When you've talked to him, Mr. Wallace, I think you'll agree that he
+tells a straight story and that these Lelacs are lying."
+
+"I hope so," answered Wallace, and started for the Mission, where Julie
+Breton awaited him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+INSPECTOR WALLACE TAKES CHARGE
+
+
+That night when Inspector Wallace had heard the story of the murders on
+the Ghost, he sent for Jean Marcel, to whom it was quite evident, on
+reporting at the trade-house, that the relations between the former and
+Gillies had recently become somewhat strained. The face of the Inspector
+was noticeably red and Gillies' heavy brows contracted over eyes blazing
+with wrath.
+
+"Sit down!" said the Inspector as Marcel reported. "Now, Marcel,"
+Wallace began, severely, "this case looks pretty bad for you. You go
+into the bush in the fall with two partners, and the body of one is
+found with a knife wound, together with the effects of the other, in the
+spring."
+
+"Yes, M'sieu!" assented Jean.
+
+"You say Piquet killed Beaulieu and was killed by your dog when he
+attacked you. All right! But suppose when you began to starve you had
+killed Beaulieu and Piquet to get the remaining grub, how would that, if
+it had happened, have changed the evidence at the camp?"
+
+"De bodee of Antoine on de cache," replied Jean coolly, "proves to any
+smart man dat I did not keel heem. Eef I keel heem I would geeve de
+bodee to de lynx and wolverines out in de snow. Den I would say he died
+of de famine, lak de Cree do, and no one could deny it."
+
+Marcel's narrowed eyes bored into those of the Inspector. He tried to
+forget that before him sat the man who had taken from him all he held
+dear, this man who now had it in his power to dishonor him as well--send
+him south for trial among strangers.
+
+"Well, the Lelacs say you did hide the body. But suppose you left it on
+the cache. You were safe. Why should anyone come to your camp and see
+it? You were two days' travel up the Ghost from Whale River. They
+surprised you while you were away hunting."
+
+With a look of disgust but retaining his self-control, Jean answered:
+"Eet was a ver' hard winter. De Cree were starve' and knew we camp up de
+Ghost. Dey might come tru de bush for grub any tam. Eef I keel heem
+would I wait till spring to hide him under stones, as Lelac say?"
+
+"Um!" The face of Inspector Wallace assumed a judicial expression. "The
+circumstantial evidence is against you. Of course, you have something in
+your favor, but if I were on a jury I'd have to convict you," Wallace
+said with an air of finality.
+
+"One moment, Mr. Wallace," growled Gillies. "How about the previous
+reputation of Marcel and the character of the whole Lelac tribe? Hasn't
+that got any weight with you? I believe this boy because I've always
+found him honest and straight, as his father was. We thought a lot of
+his father on this coast. I don't believe the Lelacs because they always
+were liars. But you've missed the real point of the whole matter."
+
+"What do you mean? The case is clear as a bell to me, Gillies." The
+Inspector colored, frowning on the stiff-necked factor.
+
+"Why, putting the previous reputation, here, of Marcel aside, if he had
+killed Beaulieu, would he have told us that Beaulieu was stabbed?
+Clearly not! He would have said that Antoine died of starvation and was
+not stabbed, for as soon as he heard they had not turned in the fur, he
+knew he had the Lelacs in his power and could prove them thieves and
+liars, and we all would have believed him. The story of the Lelacs as to
+the man having been murdered would not have held water a minute after
+the hearing proves them thieves.
+
+"Furthermore, he knew they could not prove their tale by the body of
+Beaulieu, either, left to rot on the shore there in the spring freshets.
+There would be no evidence for a canoe from the post to find." The
+Scotchman rose and pounded the slab table as he drove home his final
+point.
+
+"Why, Jean Marcel had it in his power, if he had been guilty, to have
+walked out of this trouble by simply giving the Lelacs the lie. But what
+did he do? He told his tale to Pčre Breton, here, before he learned what
+the Lelacs had said.
+
+"He freely admitted that Beaulieu had been stabbed when he might have
+denied it and got off scot free. Does that look like a guilty man?
+Answer me that!" thundered Gillies to his superior officer.
+
+The force of Gillies' argument was not lost on the unreceptive Wallace.
+
+The stone-hard features of Marcel reflected no emotion but deep in his
+heart smoldered a hatred of this Inspector of the Company, who, not
+satisfied with taking Julie Breton from him, now flouted his honor as a
+Marcel and a man.
+
+"Well?" demanded Gillies, impatiently, his frank glance holding the pale
+eyes of Wallace.
+
+"Yes, what you say, Gillies, has its weight, no doubt. If he had wanted
+to avoid this thing, he might have done it, when he learned that the
+Lelacs had held the fur. Still, I'll think it over. It may be best to
+send him 'outside' to be tried, as a warning to these people. I can't
+seem to swallow that tale of the dog killing Piquet, however. Sounds
+fishy to me!"
+
+"Have you seen the dog?" demanded Gillies.
+
+"No!"
+
+"Well, when you see her, you won't doubt it. She's the most powerful
+husky I've ever seen--weighs a hundred and forty pounds. She's got a
+litter due soon."
+
+"Oh, I'd like to take a pup or two back with me."
+
+"Well, you'll have to see Marcel about that," chuckled Gillies. "Her
+pups are worth a black fox skin. We'll have this hearing to-morrow,
+then, if it's agreeable to you, Mr. Wallace. When you see the Lelacs you
+may understand why we believe so strongly in Marcel."
+
+As Wallace went out, Gillies drew Jean aside.
+
+"I have little faith in Inspector Wallace, Jean. He would send you south
+for trial if he could find sufficient reason for it."
+
+"M'sieu Gillies, Jean Marcel will never go south to be tried by strange
+men for the thing he did not do."
+
+"What do you mean, my son? You would not make yourself an outlaw? It
+would be better to go."
+
+"I shall not go, M'sieu." And Colin Gillies believed in his heart that
+Marcel spoke the truth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE WHELPS OF THE WOLF
+
+
+The following morning Jean Marcel forgot the cloud hanging over him in
+his joy at the event which had taken place since dawn. Rousing Julie and
+her brother, he led them to the stockade. There in all the pride of
+motherhood lay the great Fleur with five blind, roly-poly puppies,
+whimpering at her side.
+
+"Oh, the little dears!" cried Julie. "How pretty they are!"
+
+First speaking to Fleur and patting her head, Jean picked up a squirming
+ball of fur and as the mother whined anxiously, put it in Julie's arms.
+
+"Oh, mon cher!" cried the girl, nestling the warm little body to her
+cheek. "What a morsel of softness!" But when Pčre Breton reached to
+touch the puppy a rumble from Fleur's deep throat warned him that Julie
+alone was privileged to take such liberties with her offspring.
+
+Jean quieted the anxious mother, whose nose sought his hand. "See,
+Father, what a dog-team she has given me."
+
+One after another he proudly exhibited the puppies. "Mark the bone of
+their legs. They will make a famous team with Fleur as leader. Is it not
+so?"
+
+"They are a possession to be proud of, Jean," agreed the priest,
+standing discreetly out of reach, for Fleur's slant eyes never left him.
+
+"Which of them do you wish, Julie?" Jean asked. "One, you know, is for
+you."
+
+"Oh, Jean; you are too good!" cried the girl. "I should love this one,
+marked like Fleur," and she stooped to take the whimpering puppy in her
+arms, while Jean's hand rested on Fleur's massive head, lest the fear of
+the mother dog for the safety of her offspring should overpower her
+friendship for Julie.
+
+As the girl fearlessly reached and lifted the puppy, Fleur suddenly
+thrust forward her long muzzle and licked her hand.
+
+"_Bon!_" cried Jean, delighted. "Fleur would allow no one on earth to do
+that except you. The puppy's name must be Julie."
+
+In his joy at the coming of Fleur's family Marcel had forgotten, for the
+time being, the hearing. But later in the morning at the trade-house,
+Gillies, whose obstinacy had been deeply aroused by the attitude of
+Inspector Wallace, planned with the accused man how they should handle
+the Lelacs.
+
+For the factor had no intention of permitting Jean's exoneration to
+hang in the balance of the prejudiced mind of Wallace. The canny Scot
+realized that if the Lelacs were thoroughly discredited at the hearing
+at which the leaders of the Crees would be present; were shown to have
+an ulterior motive in their attempt to fix the crime upon Marcel, there
+would be a strong reaction in favor of Jean--that his story would be
+generally accepted; so to this end he carefully laid his plans. Wallace,
+busy prying into the books of the post, he did not take into his
+confidence, wishing to surprise him as well as the Crees by the
+bomb-shell the defense had in store for the Lelacs.
+
+At noon Wallace overheard Jules and McCain talking of Fleur's puppies
+which they had just seen.
+
+"By the way, McCain, where are these remarkable Ungava pups which you
+say were sired by a timber wolf?"
+
+"Over in the Mission stockade, sir."
+
+"I want to see them and the old dog, too. I'm rather curious to put my
+eyes on the husky that could kill a man with a loaded gun in his hands.
+That part of Marcel's story needs a bit of salt."
+
+"You won't doubt it when you see her! She's a whale of a husky," said
+McCain.
+
+"Well, I never saw the dog that could kill me with a rifle handy. I'll
+stroll over and take a look at her."
+
+"I'll show you the way." And McCain and Wallace went to the Mission.
+
+Arrived at the tent in the stockade they were greeted by a fierce
+rumble, like the muttering of an August south-wester making on the Bay.
+
+"We'd better not go near the tent, Mr. Wallace. I'll see if Jean's in
+the house. The dog won't allow anyone but Marcel near her."
+
+Ignoring the warning, Wallace approached the tent opening to look
+inside, but so fierce a snarl warned him off that he stepped back with
+considerably more speed than his dignity admitted. Red in the face, he
+glanced around to learn if his precipitous flight had had an audience.
+
+Shortly, McCain returned with Marcel, and Wallace, now that the dog's
+owner was near, again approached and peered into the tent.
+
+There was a deep growl from within, and with a cry of surprise the
+Inspector was hurled backward to the ground by the rush of a great, gray
+body. At the same instant, Jean Marcel, calling to Fleur, leaped
+headlong at his dog, seizing her before she could strike at the neck of
+the prostrate Wallace. Calming the husky, he held her while the
+discomfited Inspector got to his feet.
+
+"You should not go so near, M'sieu. She ees not use to stranger," said
+Jean brusquely.
+
+"I--I didn't think she was so cross," sputtered the ruffled Inspector.
+"Why, she's a regular wolf of a dog!"
+
+"Now, sir," demanded the secretly delighted McCain, "do you believe she
+could kill a man?"
+
+Surveying Fleur's gigantic frame critically as Jean stroked her glossy
+neck, soothing her with low words crooned into a hairy ear, the
+enlightened Inspector of the East Coast posts admitted:
+
+"Well, I don't know but what she could. I never saw such a beast for
+size and strength. Let's have a look at the pups."
+
+Jean brought from the tent the blind, squirming balls of fur.
+
+"They are beauties, Marcel! I'll buy a couple of them. They can go down
+by the steamer if they're weaned by that time. What do you want for
+them?"
+
+Marcel smiled inscrutably at Inspector Wallace and said:
+
+"M'sieu, dese pups are not to sell."
+
+"I know, but you don't want all of them. That would give you six dogs.
+All you need for a team is four."
+
+But Jean Marcel only shook his head, repeating:
+
+"Dey are not to sell!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE TRAP IS SPRUNG
+
+
+The trading-room at Whale River was crowded with the treaty chiefs and
+older men among the Cree hunters chosen by the factor to be present at
+the hearing. Behind a huge table made from hewn spruce slabs, sat
+Inspector Wallace, Colin Gillies and McCain. In front and to one side
+were the swart half-breeds, Gaspard Lelac and his two sons. Facing them
+on the opposite side of the table was Jean Marcel, and behind him, his
+advisor, Pčre Breton, with Julie; for she had insisted on being present,
+and the smitten Wallace had readily agreed. The remainder of the room
+was occupied by the Crees, expectant, consumed with curiosity, for it
+had leaked out that certain matters connected with the tragedy on the
+Ghost which, heretofore, had not been divulged, would that afternoon be
+given light.
+
+Among the assembled half-breeds and Crees there were two distinct
+factions. Those who had readily accepted the story of the Lelacs with
+its sinister indictment of Marcel, among whom were the kinsmen of
+Antoine Beaulieu; and those, who, knowing Jean Marcel, as well as his
+unsavory accusers, had refused to accept the half-breeds' tale, and were
+waiting with eagerness to hear Marcel's defense; for as yet, Marcel,
+under orders from Gillies, had refused to discuss the case. Outside the
+trade-house, chattering groups of young men and Cree women were
+gathered, awaiting the outcome of the proceedings.
+
+Rising, Colin Gillies called for silence and addressed the Crees in
+their picturesque tongue:
+
+"The long snows have come and gone. Famine and suffering have again
+visited the hunters of Whale River. With the return of the rabbit
+plague, and the lack of deer, many of those who were here last year at
+the spring trade have gone to join their fathers. The Company is sad
+that its hunters and their families have suffered. Last autumn, three
+hunters went from this post to winter on the Ghost River. This spring
+but one returned. He is here now, for the reason that he travelled far
+into the great barrens to streams which join the Big Water many, many
+sleeps to the northeast, where at last he found the returning deer.
+
+"This spring, when the Ghost was free of ice, Gaspard Lelac and his
+sons, wishing to visit their kinsman, Joe Piquet, travelled to the camp
+of the three hunters. What they found there they will now tell as they
+told it to me when they came to Whale River. After you have learned
+their story, Jean Marcel, the man who returned, will relate what
+happened on the Ghost under the moons of the long snows.
+
+"The Company has sent to visit Whale River its chief of the East Coast,
+Inspector Wallace. He will hear the stories of these men and decide
+which of them speaks with a double tongue. It is for you, also, when
+they have spoken, to say whether Gaspard Lelac and his sons bring the
+truth to Whale River, or Jean Marcel. You know these men. Hear their
+talk and judge in your hearts between them. Gaspard Lelac has put the
+blood of Antoine Beaulieu and Joe Piquet on the head of Jean Marcel. The
+fathers at Ottawa and the Chiefs of the Company at Winnipeg will not
+suffer one of their children to go unpunished who takes the life of
+another.
+
+"Listen to the speech of these men. Look with your eyes into their faces
+and upon what will be shown here, and judge who speaks with a double
+tongue and who from an honest heart. Gaspard Lelac will now tell what he
+saw and did."
+
+As Gillies finished, a murmur of approval filled the room, followed by a
+tense silence.
+
+Lelac, a grizzled French half-breed with small, closely-set eyes, which
+shifted here and there as he spoke, then rose and told in the Cree
+tongue the story he had retailed daily for the previous month.
+
+Wishing to visit his nephew Piquet, he said, and learn how he had
+weathered the hard winter, in May Lelac and his sons had poled up the
+Ghost to the camp. There they found an empty cache and part of the
+outfits of Beaulieu and Piquet, the latter of which they at once
+recognized. Alarmed, they searched the vicinity of the camp, and by
+chance, discovered the body of Beaulieu buried under stones on the
+shore. There was a knife wound in his chest. They continued the search
+in hope of finding Piquet, as his blankets and outfit, evidently unused
+for months and eaten by mice, were strong proof of his death, also; but
+failed to find the body. Of the fur-packs and rifles of the two men
+there was no trace, but a knife, identified later as belonging to
+Antoine, they brought back. There were no signs of the third man's
+outfit about the camp. If the third man was alive, what were they to
+believe? Antoine was dead, and Piquet, also, for his blankets were
+there. Someone had killed Antoine and Piquet. There was but one other,
+Marcel. So they travelled to Whale River with the news.
+
+The sons of Lelac glibly corroborated the story of their father. When
+they had finished, the trade-room buzzed with whispered comment.
+
+At a nod from Wallace, Gillies questioned the older Lelac in Cree for
+the benefit of the Indians.
+
+"You say that these blankets here, this knife and cooking kit, and the
+clothes and bags, were all that you found at the camp--that there were
+no fur and rifles on the cache?"
+
+"These were all we found--nothing else," replied Lelac, his small eyes
+wavering before the gaze of the factor.
+
+"You swear that you found nothing but these things," repeated Gillies,
+pointing to the articles on the floor in front of the table.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+The set face of Jean Marcel, which had remained expressionless during
+the Lelacs' statement, relaxed in a wide smile which did not escape many
+a shrewd pair of Cree eyes.
+
+"Jean Marcel will now relate what passed on the Ghost through the moons
+of the long snows."
+
+With the announcement, there was much stirring and shuffling of
+moccasins accompanied by suppressed exclamations and muttering, among
+the expectant Crees. But when Marcel rose, squared his wide shoulders,
+and with head high ran his eyes over the assembled Crees, friendly and
+hostile, to rest at length on the Lelacs, his lips curled with an
+expression of contempt, while the Indians and breeds relapsed into
+silence.
+
+Slowly, and in detail, Jean told in the Cree language how his partners
+had gone up-river when he started south on the trail of the dog-thieves;
+how he recaptured Fleur, and later reached the Ghost at the
+"freeze-up." The tale of his nine-hundred-mile journey to the south
+coast drew many an "Ah-hah!" of mingled surprise and admiration from
+those who remembered Marcel's voyage of the previous spring through the
+spirit-haunted valleys of the Salmon headwaters. With his familiarity
+with the Cree mental make-up and his French instinct for dramatic
+values, he held them breathless by the narration of this Odyssey of the
+north.
+
+Then Marcel described the long weeks when the three men fought
+starvation, with the deer and rabbits gone; how he travelled far into
+the land of the Windigo in search of beaver; and finally, he came to the
+break with his partners. The hard feeling which developed at the camp on
+the Ghost, Jean made no attempt to gloss over, but boldly told how the
+others had not played fair with the food, and he had left them to fight
+out the winter alone. Of the death of Piquet he spoke as one speaks of
+the extermination of vermin. An assassin in the night, Piquet had come
+to the tent of a sleeping man and the dog alone had saved his life.
+
+They called his dog the "man-killer." Would they have asked less of
+their own huskies? he demanded. But if any of them doubted, and he
+understood that the Lelacs were among these, that his dog could have
+killed Piquet, let them come to the tent in the Mission stockade by
+night--and learn for themselves.
+
+"_Nama_, no!" some Indian audibly protested, and for a space the room
+was a riot of laughter, for the Crees had seen Fleur, the "man-killer."
+
+But when the narrative of Marcel reached the discovery of the dead
+Antoine, stabbed to the heart in the shack on the Ghost, his voice broke
+with emotion. When he had found Antoine, killed in his sleep by Piquet,
+Marcel said that he had bitterly regretted that he had not taken
+Beaulieu with him, leaving Piquet to work out his own fate.
+
+Then Jean described how he had lashed the body of Antoine, sewed in a
+tent, on the platform cache, and placed the fur-packs and rifles beside
+it, when he left to go into the barrens for deer. Turning, the Frenchman
+pointed his finger at the scowling Lelacs, and cried dramatically, "When
+you came to the camp this spring, you did not find the body of Antoine
+Beaulieu buried on the shore; you found it on the cache sewed in a tent.
+If I had killed him would I not have hidden him somewhere in the snow
+where the starving lynx and wolverines would have done the rest? No, you
+found Antoine on the cache, and beside him were his rifle and fur-pack
+with those of Joe Piquet. What did you do with them?"
+
+His evil face distorted with rage, the elder Lelac snarled:
+
+"You lie, you got de fur and rifle hid."
+
+Suppressing the half-breeds, Wallace ordered Marcel to continue.
+
+Jean finished his story with the account of his long journey into the
+barrens beyond the Height-of-Land where the streams flowed northeast
+instead of west, his meeting with the returning deer, when weak with
+starvation, and his return to the Ghost to find that a canoe had
+preceded him there.
+
+As he resumed his seat, the eyes of Julie Breton were bright with tears.
+The priest leaned and grasped Jean's hand, whispering: "Well done, Jean
+Marcel!"
+
+It had been a dramatic narration and the audience, including Inspector
+Wallace to whom it was interpreted by Gillies, had been impressed by the
+frank and fearless manner of its telling.
+
+Angus McCain and big Jules smiled widely as they caught Marcel's eyes.
+
+Again Gillies rose. "Jules!" he called, and Duroc brought from an
+adjoining room a bundle of pelts, placing them on the long table.
+
+Again the room hummed with the whispering of the curious audience. The
+surprised Lelacs, now in a panic, talked excitedly, heads together.
+
+"Marcel, examine these pelts and if you notice anything about them,
+make a statement," said Gillies, conducting the examination for the
+benefit of the Crees, in their native tongue, and translating to
+Wallace.
+
+With great care, as his Cree audience craned their necks to watch what
+the Frenchman was doing, Jean, first examining each pelt, slowly divided
+the bundle of skins into three separate heaps.
+
+"Have you anything to say?"
+
+"Yes, M'sieu. This large pile here, I know nothing about; but this heap
+here, were all pelts trapped last winter by Antoine Beaulieu."
+
+A murmur passed through the crowded room. Here surely was something of
+interest. Lelac rose and started to look at the pelts when big Jules
+pushed him roughly back on the bench.
+
+"You stay where you are, Lelac, or I'll put a guard over you!" rasped
+Gillies.
+
+"This pile here," continued Jean, "belonged to Joe Piquet."
+
+"How do you recognize them?" demanded Gillies.
+
+"All these have Antoine's mark, one little slit behind the right
+fore-leg. These with two slits behind the left fore-leg were the pelts
+of Piquet. My mark was three slits in front of the left hind leg. When
+we started trapping from the same camp, we agreed on these marks."
+
+The air of the trade-room was heavy with suspense.
+
+"You swear to these marks?"
+
+"Yes, M'sieu."
+
+"François Maskigan!" The treaty-chief of the South Branch Crees, a man
+of middle age, with great authority among the Indians, stepped forward.
+
+"François, you have heard what Marcel says of the marks on these skins?"
+
+The chief nodded, "_Enh_, yes."
+
+"Look at them and see if he speaks rightly."
+
+It took the Indian but a few minutes to check the distinguishing marks
+on the pelts and examine the large pile which Marcel had said possessed
+none.
+
+"Are the marks on these pelts as Marcel says?"
+
+"Yes, they are there, these marks as he says."
+
+The cowed Lelacs, their dark faces now twisted with fear, awaited the
+next words of Gillies. Then the irate factor turned on them.
+
+"Gaspard Lelac!" he roared. The face of Lelac paled to a sickly white as
+his furtive eyes met the factor's.
+
+"All this fur, here, you and your sons traded in last week; your own
+fur, and the pelts of Beaulieu and Joe Piquet, dead men. I have held
+them separate from the rest. You are thieves and liars!"
+
+The bomb had exploded. At the words of the factor, the trade-room became
+a bedlam of chattering and excited Indians. In the north, to steal the
+fur of another is one of the cardinal sins. The supporters of Marcel
+loudly exulted in the turn the hearing had taken, while the deluded
+adherents of the Lelacs, maddened by the villainy of men who had stolen
+from the dead and accused another, loudly cursed the half-breeds.
+
+Nonplussed, paralyzed by the trick of the factor, instigated by the
+adroit Marcel, the Lelacs sent murderous looks at Jean who smiled
+contemptuously in their faces.
+
+Gillies' deep bass quieted the uproar.
+
+"Jules!" he called the second time. All were on tiptoe to learn what
+further surprise the stalwart Jules had in store for them, when he
+entered the room with two rifles, which he laid on the table, while the
+Lelacs stared in wide-eyed amazement.
+
+"Where did you get these rifles?" asked Gillies.
+
+"In the tepee of Lelac, just now, hidden under blankets."
+
+"Whose rifles were they, Marcel?"
+
+Marcel examined the guns.
+
+"This 30-30 gun belonged to Piquet. This is the rifle of Antoine."
+
+With a cry, a tall half-breed roughly shouldered his way to the front of
+the excited Crees.
+
+"You thieves!" he cried, straining to reach the Lelacs with the knife
+which he held in his hand. But sinewy arms seized him and the frenzied
+uncle of Antoine Beaulieu was pushed, struggling, from the room.
+
+It was the final straw. The mercurial Crees had turned as quickly from
+the Lelacs to Marcel as, in the first instance, they had credited the
+tale of the half-breeds. Now, with the Lelacs proven liars and thieves,
+Jean's explanation of the deaths of his partners, as Gillies foresaw,
+had, without corroboration, and on his word as a man, only, been at once
+accepted.
+
+Calling for silence Gillies again spoke to the hunters.
+
+"You have heard the words of these men. You have judged who has spoken
+with a double tongue; who, with the guns of dead men hidden in a tepee,
+have traded their fur and put their blood upon the head of another. Do
+you believe Jean Marcel when he says that Piquet killed Antoine Beaulieu
+and went out to kill him also, or do you believe the men who stole the
+guns and fur of a dead man which belong to his kinsmen?"
+
+"_Enh! Enh!_ Jean Marcel speaks truth!" cried the Crees, and the
+chattering mob poured into the post clearing to carry the news to the
+curious young men and the women, who waited.
+
+Meanwhile Pčre Breton embraced the happy Marcel while the unchecked
+tears welled in Julie's eyes. Then Gillies and McCain wrung the
+Frenchman's hand until he grimaced. But the big Jules, patiently waiting
+his turn, pounced upon Jean with a fierce hug and, in spite of his
+protests carrying him like a child in his great arms from the
+trade-house, showed the man they had maligned, to the Crees, who now
+loudly cheered him.
+
+Turning to Gillies, the Inspector said gravely: "These Lelacs go south
+for trial. I'll make an example of their thieving."
+
+But Colin Gillies had no intention of having the half-breeds sent
+"outside" for trial, if he could prevent it. It would mean that Jean and
+he, himself, with Jules, would have to go as witnesses. He could take
+care of the Lelacs in his own way. He had punished men before.
+
+"That would leave us very short-handed here. The famine has reduced the
+trade this year a third. If we want to make a showing next season, we
+can't spend six months travelling down below for a trial."
+
+"Yes, that would mean your going and we can't afford to injure the
+trade; but I ought to make a report on this murder business in famine
+years."
+
+"If you get the government into this, it will hurt us, Mr. Wallace. Why
+can't we handle this matter as we have handled it for two centuries?"
+protested Gillies. "A report will only place the Company in a bad
+light--make them think we can't control the Crees."
+
+"Well, perhaps you're right," admitted Wallace. "I'm out to make a
+showing on the East Coast and I don't want to handicap you."
+
+So Gillies had his way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+BITTER-SWEET
+
+
+To Jean Marcel it had been a happy moment--that of his exoneration by
+the hunters of Whale River. For weeks, with rage in his heart, he had
+silently borne the black looks of the Crees whom he could not avoid in
+going to his net and crossing the post clearing to the trade-house. For
+weeks his name had been a byword at the spring trade--Marcel, the man
+who had murdered his partners. But now the stain of infamy had been
+washed clean from an honored name. In his humble grave in the Mission
+Cemetery, André Marcel could now sleep in peace, for in the eyes of the
+small world of the East Coast, his son had come scathless through the
+long snows. The tale would not now travel down the coast in the
+Inspector's canoe that another white man had turned murderer for the
+scanty food of his friends.
+
+And with his acquittal by the Company and the Crees, his love for Julie
+Breton, more poignant from its very hopelessness, gave him no rest. As
+he struggled with renunciation, he brought himself to realize that,
+after all, it had been but presumption on his part to hope that this
+girl with her education of years in a Quebec convent, her acquaintance
+with the ways of the great world "outside," should look upon a humble
+Company hunter as a possible husband. He had all along mistaken her
+kindness, her friendship, for something more which she had never felt.
+In comparison with Wallace who, Jean had heard Gillies say, might some
+day go to Winnipeg as Assistant Commissioner of the Company, he was as
+nothing. Doomed by his inheritance and his training to a life beyond the
+pale of civilization, he could offer Julie Breton little but a love that
+knew no bounds, no frontiers; that would find no trail, which led to
+her, too long; no water too vast; no height too sheer; to separate them,
+did she but call him.
+
+So, in the hour of his triumph, the soul-sick Marcel went to one who
+never had failed him; who loved him with a singleness of heart but
+rarely paralleled by human kind; who, however humble his lot, would give
+him the worship accorded to no king--his dog.
+
+Seated beside Fleur with her squealing children crawling over him, he
+circled her great neck with his arms and told his troubles to a hairy
+ear. She sought his hand with her tongue, her throat rumbling with
+content, for had she not there on the grass in the soft June sun, all
+her world--her puppies and her God, Jean Marcel?
+
+There, Julie Breton, having in vain announced supper from the Mission
+door, found them, man and dog, and led Marcel away, protesting. The girl
+wore the frock she had donned in honor of his return, and never to Jean
+had she seemed so vibrant with life, never had the color bathed her dark
+face so exquisitely, nor the tumbled masses of her hair so allured him.
+But as he entered the Mission, he saw Inspector Wallace seated in
+conversation with the priest, and his heart went cold.
+
+During the meal, served by a Cree woman, the admiring eyes of Wallace
+seldom left Julie's face. At first he seemed surprised at the presence
+of Marcel at the table but the priest made it quite evident to the
+Company man that Jean was as one of the family. However, as the
+Frenchman rarely joined in the conversation and early excused himself,
+leaving Wallace a free field, the Inspector's temper at what might have
+seemed presumption in a Company hunter was unmarred.
+
+July came and to the surprise of Gillies and Whale River, the big
+Company canoe still remained under its tarpaulin on the post landing.
+That the priest looked kindly on the possibility of such a
+brother-in-law was evident from his hospitality to Wallace, but what
+piqued the curiosity of Colin Gillies and McCain was whether Wallace, a
+Scotch Protestant, had as yet accepted the Catholic faith, for the
+Oblat, Pčre Breton, could not marry his sister to a man of another
+religious belief. However, deep in the spell of the charming Julie,
+Inspector Wallace stayed on after the trade was over, giving as his
+reason his desire to go south with the Company steamer which shortly
+would be due.
+
+Although to Jean she was the same merry Julie, each morning visiting the
+stockade to play with Fleur's puppies, who now had their eyes well open
+and were beginning to find an uncertain balance, he avoided her, rarely
+seeing her except at meal time. Of the change in their relations he
+never spoke, but man-like he was hurt that she failed to take him to
+task for his moodiness. In the evening, now, she walked on the
+river-shore with Wallace, and talked through the twilight when the sun
+lingered below the rim of the world in the west. Jean Marcel had gone
+out of her life. He ceased to mention the Inspector's name, and absented
+himself from meals when the Scotchman was expected.
+
+Julie had said: "Jean, you are one of us, always welcome. Why do you
+stay away when Monsieur Wallace comes?" And he had answered: "You know
+why I stay away, Julie Breton."
+
+That was all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE FANGS OF THE HALF-BREEDS
+
+
+One night when Jean returned late from his nets after a long paddle,
+seeking the exhaustion that would bring sleep and temporary respite from
+his grief, a canoe manned by three men drifted alongshore toward his
+beached canoe. Occupied with his thoughts, Marcel took no notice of the
+craft. Removing from the boat the fish he had caught, he was about to
+lift and place it bottom up on the beach when the bow of the approaching
+birch-bark suddenly swung sharply and jammed into the stern of his own.
+
+With an exclamation of irritation at the clumsiness of the people in the
+offending canoe, Jean looked up to stare into the faces of the three
+Lelacs.
+
+"You are good canoeman," he sneered, roughly pushing with his paddle the
+half-breeds' canoe from his own. That the act was intentional, he knew,
+but he was surprised that the Lelacs, convicted of theft, and on parole
+at the post awaiting the Company's decision as to their punishment,
+would dare to start trouble.
+
+As Jean shoved off the Lelacs' canoe, the half-breeds, as if at a
+preconcerted signal, shouted loudly:
+
+"W'at you do to us, Jean Marcel? Ough! Why you beat me wid de paddle? He
+try to keel us!"
+
+The near beach was deserted, but the shouts in the still night were
+audible on the post clearing above. The uproar waked the sleeping
+huskies at the few remaining Esquimo tepees on the shore, whose howling
+quickly aroused the post dogs.
+
+It was evident to Jean that his enemies had chosen their time and place.
+Obeying scrupulously the orders of Gillies since the trial, Marcel had
+avoided the Lelacs, holding in check the just wrath which had prompted
+him to take personal vengeance upon his traducers. Now, instead, they
+had sought him, but from their actions, intended to make him seem the
+aggressor.
+
+"Bon!" he muttered between his teeth. Life had little value to him now,
+he would give these thieves what they were after.
+
+"You 'fraid to come on shore? You squeal lak' rabbit; you t'ief!" he
+taunted.
+
+Continuing to shout that Marcel was attacking them, the Lelacs landed
+their canoe and the elder son, evidently drunk, lurched toward the man
+who waited.
+
+"Rabbit, am I?" roared the frenzied half-breed, and struck savagely at
+Jean with his paddle. Dodging the blow, before the breed could recover
+his balance, the Frenchman lunged with his one hundred and seventy
+pounds behind his fist into Lelac's jaw, hurling him reeling into the
+water ten feet away. Then the two Lelacs reached him.
+
+Gasping for breath, the younger brother fell backward, helpless from a
+kick in the pit of his stomach as the maddened Marcel grappled with the
+father. Over and over they rolled on the beach, Lelac, frenzied by
+drink, snarling with hate of the man he had tried to destroy, fighting
+like a trapped wolverine; the no less infuriated Marcel resolved now to
+rid Whale River forever of this vermin.
+
+It was not long before the bands of steel cable which swathed the arms,
+shoulders and back of Jean Marcel overcame the delirious strength of the
+crazed half-breed, and Lelac was forced down and held on his back. Then
+like the jaws of a wolf-trap, the fingers of Marcel's right hand shut on
+the throat of the under man. The bloodshot eyes of Lelac bulged from
+their sockets. Blood filled the distorted face. The mouth gaped for air,
+barred by the vise on his throat. In a last feeble effort to free
+himself, a helpless hand clawed limply at Marcel's wrist--then he
+relaxed, unconscious, on the beach.
+
+Getting to his feet, Jean looked for the others, to see the younger
+brother still nursing his stomach, when an oath sounded in his ears and,
+struck from the rear, a sharp twinge bit through his shoulder, as he
+stumbled forward.
+
+Leaping away from a second lunge, and drawing his knife with his left
+hand, Marcel slashed wildly, driving before him the half-breed whom the
+water had revived. Then, as he fought to reach him, the shape of his
+retreating enemy slowly faded from Marcel's vision; his strength ebbed;
+the knife slipped from his fingers as darkness shut down upon him, and
+he reeled senseless to the stones.
+
+With a snarl of triumph, Lelac, crouched on the defensive, sprang to the
+crumpled figure, a hand raised to drive home the knife-thrust, when
+something sang shrilly through the air. The upraised arm fell. With a
+groan, the half-breed pitched on his face, the slender shaft of a
+seal-spear quivering in his back.
+
+Close by, a kayak silently slid to the shore and a squat Husky, his
+broad face knotted with fear, ran to the unconscious Marcel. Swiftly
+cutting the shirt from the Frenchman's back, he was staunching the flow
+of blood from the knife wound, when people from the post clearing,
+headed by Jules Duroc, reached the beach.
+
+"By Gar! Jean Marcel!" gasped Jules recognizing his friend. "He ees cut
+bad?"
+
+The Husky shook his head. "He not kill."
+
+Staring at the dead man transfixed by the spear and his unconscious
+father, Jules roared: "De t'ief, dey try _revanche_ on Jean Marcel!"
+
+Stripping off his own shirt, Jules bandaged Marcel's shoulder. As he
+worked, one thing he told himself. Had they killed Marcel, the Lelacs
+would not have gone south for trial. Father and son would never have
+left the beach at Whale River alive.
+
+Then he said to the gathering Crees, "Tak' dem!" pointing to the younger
+Lelac now shedding maudlin tears over his dead brother, and to the
+half-choked father, resuscitated by a rough immersion in the river from
+unfriendly hands. Seizing the pair, rapidly sobering and now fearful for
+their fate, the Crees kicked them up the cliff trail.
+
+"Tiens!" exclaimed Jules to the Husky, finishing the bandaging. "Dey try
+keel Marcel but he lay out two w'en he get de cut?"
+
+The Husky nodded, "A-hah! I hear holler an' dey run on heem. He put all
+down. One in water, he get up an' cut heem wid knife. He fall and,
+whish! I spear dat one."
+
+"By Gar! You good man wid de seal-spear, John Kovik." And Jules wrung
+the Esquimo's hand.
+
+"I cum fast een kayak to fight for heem; I too slow," and the Husky
+shook his head sadly.
+
+"Ah, you cum jus' een time. You save hees life."
+
+The Husky placed a hand on the thick hair of the senseless man, as he
+said, "He ketch boy, Salmon Rive'. He frien' of me!"
+
+Jean Marcel's bread upon the waters had returned to him.
+
+With the unconscious Marcel in his arms, Jules Duroc climbed the cliff,
+the grateful Kovik at his heels, to meet the inhabitants of Whale River
+on the clearing. The news of the fight on the beach had spread swiftly
+through the post and many and fierce were the threats made against the
+Lelacs as they were shut in a small shack and placed under guard.
+
+In front of the trade-house, Gillies, followed by McCain and Wallace,
+met Jules with his burden.
+
+"How did this happen, Jules? Is he badly hurt?" demanded the factor.
+Jules explained briefly.
+
+"Stabbed in the back? Too bad! Too bad! Take him to the Mission
+Hospital."
+
+"Well, Gillies, this settles it! The Lelacs go south for trial, now, and
+they won't need you as a witness either," announced Wallace.
+
+"Yes, we'll have to get rid of them," admitted the factor. "They were
+crazy to do this after what has happened. I should have shut them up.
+Too bad Jean didn't use his knife instead of his hands on them!"
+
+"Or his feet!" added McCain. "The Husky says he put one Lelac out of
+business with a kick and choked the old man unconscious, when the one
+who was knocked into the river stabbed him. He fought them with his bare
+hands. I take off my hat to Jean Marcel."
+
+"Who started this affair, anyway?" asked Wallace. "The Lelacs, under a
+cloud here, couldn't have dared to."
+
+Gillies turned on his chief.
+
+"What do we care who started it? Haven't they tried to ruin Marcel? I
+ordered him to keep away from them, but didn't he have sufficient cause
+to start--anything?"
+
+"The Crees say the Lelacs got drunk on sugar-beer and were waiting for
+Jean to get back from down river," broke in McCain, fearing a row
+between Gillies and the Inspector. "John Kovik, the Husky, saw them rush
+him, and John got there in time to throw his seal-spear at young Lelac,
+after he had stabbed Marcel from behind."
+
+"Oh, that explains it; Marcel was defending himself," said the ruffled
+Inspector.
+
+"Yes, and you will notice, Mr. Wallace," rasped Gillies, "that Marcel
+fought them with his hands, until he was cut, one man against three. If
+he had used his knife on the old man, he wouldn't have been hurt. Does
+that prove what we've told you about him?"
+
+It was at this point that Julie Breton and her brother, late in hearing
+the news, reached Jules carrying his burden, whose bandages were now
+reddening with blood.
+
+"Oh, Jules, is he badly hurt?" cried the girl, peering in the dusk at
+the ashen face of Marcel. Then she noticed the bandages, and putting her
+hands to her face, moaned: "Jean Marcel, what have they done to you;
+what have they done to you?"
+
+"Eet bleed hard, Ma'm'selle," Jules said softly, "but eet ees onlee een
+de shouldair. Don' cry, Ma'm'selle Julie!"
+
+Supporting the sobbing girl, Pčre Breton ordered:
+
+"Carry him to the Mission, Jules."
+
+"Yes, Father!" And Jean Marcel returned again to a room in the Mission.
+
+Tenderly rough hands bathed and dressed the knife wound and through the
+night Pčre Breton sat by his patient, who moaned and tossed in the
+delirium which the fever brought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+CREE JUSTICE
+
+
+Deep in the night a long, mournful howl, repeated again and again,
+roused the sleeping post. Straightway the dogs of the factor and the
+Crees, followed by the Esquimos' huskies on the beach, were pointing
+their noses at the moon in dismal chorus. With muttered curse and
+protest from tepee, shack and factor's quarters, the wakened people of
+the post, covering their ears, sought sleep, for no hour is sacred to
+the moon-baying husky and no one may suppress him. One wakes, and
+lifting his nose, pours out his canine soul in sleep-shattering lament,
+when, promptly, every husky within hearing takes up the wail.
+
+The post dogs, having alternately and in chorus, to their hearts'
+content and according to the custom of their fathers, transformed the
+calm July night into a horror of sound, with noses buried in bushy tails
+again sought sleep. Once more the mellow light of the moon bathed the
+sleeping fur-post, when from the stockade behind the Mission rose a long
+drawn note of grief.
+
+The dark brows of Pčre Breton, watching beside the delirious Marcel,
+contracted.
+
+"Could it be?" he queried aloud. Curious, the priest glanced at his
+patient, then went outside to the stockade. There, with gray nose thrust
+between the pickets, stood Fleur. As he approached, the dog growled,
+then sniffing, recognized a friend of the master, who sometimes fed her,
+and whined.
+
+"What is the matter, Fleur? Do you miss Jean Marcel?"
+
+At the mention of the loved name, the dog lifted her massive head and
+the deep throat again vibrated with the utterance of her grief for one
+who had not returned.
+
+"She has waked to find the blanket of Jean Marcel empty," mused the
+priest, "and mourns for him." Pčre Breton returned to his vigil beside
+the wounded man.
+
+When the early dawn flushed the east, the grieving Fleur was still at
+her post at the stockade gate awaiting the return of Jean Marcel. And
+not until the sun lifted above the blue hills of the valley of the
+Whale, did she cease her lament to seek her complaining puppies.
+
+At daylight McCain and Jules coming to relieve the weary priest found
+Julie sitting with him. The wound was a long slashing one, but the lungs
+of Marcel seemed to have escaped. The fever would run its course. There
+was little to do but wait, and hope against infection.
+
+Greeting Julie, whose dark eyes betrayed a lack of sleep, whose face
+reflected an agony of anxiety, the men called Pčre Breton outside the
+Mission.
+
+"The Lelacs will not go south for trial, Father," said McCain, drily.
+
+"What do you mean? Won't go south; why not?" demanded the astonished
+priest.
+
+"Well, because there's no need of it now," went on McCain mysteriously.
+
+"No need of it! I don't understand. They have done enough harm here. If
+they don't go, the Crees will do something----"
+
+"The Crees _have_ done something," interrupted McCain.
+
+"You don't mean----" queried the priest, light slowly dawning upon him.
+
+"Yes, just that. They overpowered and bound the guard, last night,
+and--well, they made a good job of it!"
+
+"Killed the prisoners?" the priest slowly shook his head.
+
+McCain nodded. "We found them both knifed in the heart. On the old man
+was a piece of birch-bark, with the words: 'This work done by friends of
+Jean Marcel.'"
+
+The priest raised his hands. "It would have been better to send them
+south. Still, they were evil men, and deserved their fate. Tell nothing
+of it to Julie. She has taken this thing very hard."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE WAY OF A DOG
+
+
+When Wallace and Gillies had surveyed the bodies of the dead
+half-breeds, the factor turned grimly to his chief.
+
+"Well, Wallace, I don't see how we can send the Lelacs south for trial,
+now; they wouldn't keep that long."
+
+"Gillies," said the Inspector with a frown, ignoring the ghastly
+witticism, "I want you to run down the men who did this. Whether they
+deserved it or not, I won't have men murdered in this district without
+trial. The lawlessness of the East Coast has got to stop."
+
+Gillies turned away, suppressing with difficulty his anger. Shortly in
+control of his voice, he answered:
+
+"Mr. Wallace, I have put in many years, boy and man, on this coast and I
+think I understand the Crees. To punish the men who did this, provided
+we knew who they were, would be the worst thing the Company could do.
+When the Lelacs stole Beaulieu's fur and rifle, they put themselves
+outside the Cree law, and as sure as the sun will set in Hudson's Bay
+to-night, the Lelacs would never have got out of the bush alive this
+winter."
+
+"I know," objected Wallace, "but to overpower our guards and kill them
+under our noses----"
+
+"What of it? The Lelacs had robbed a dead man and would have killed Jean
+Marcel, if he hadn't been a son of André Marcel, who was a wolf in a
+fight. The Lelacs were three-quarter Cree and the Indians here have a
+way of meting out justice to their own people in a case like this that
+even Canadian officials might envy. You may be sure that the Lelacs were
+formally tried and condemned in some tepee last night before this thing
+happened."
+
+"These two guards must have been asleep," complained Wallace.
+
+"Well, we'll never know, Mr. Wallace. They say that they were thrown
+from behind and didn't recognize the men who did it. Even if they did,
+they wouldn't tell who they were, and it's useless to try to make them.
+The Crees have taken the Lelacs off our hands. They have saved us time
+and money by ridding us of these vermin. In my opinion we should thank
+rather than attempt to punish them."
+
+So Inspector Wallace slowly cooled off and in the afternoon went to the
+Mission to make his daily call on Julie Breton only to be informed, to
+his surprise, that she could not see him.
+
+Meanwhile the condition of the wounded man was unchanged, but Pčre
+Breton faced a problem which he deemed necessary to discuss with his
+friends Jules Duroc and McCain.
+
+Throughout the day, Fleur had fretted in the stockade, running back and
+forth followed by her complaining puppies, thrusting her nose between
+the pickets to whine and howl by turns, mourning the strange absence of
+Marcel.
+
+"Fleur will not grant sleep to Whale River to-night, unless something is
+done," said the priest to the two men who were acting in turn as
+assistant nurses.
+
+"Why can't we bring her in; let her see him and sniff his hand; it might
+quiet her?" suggested McCain. "It will only make her worse to shut her
+up somewhere else."
+
+"By Gar! Who weel tak' dat dog out again?" objected Jules. "Once she
+here, she nevaire leeve de room."
+
+"Yes, she will, Jules. She'll go back to her pups after a while. We'll
+bring them outside under the window and let 'em squeal. She'll go back
+to 'em then."
+
+"I am strong man," said Jules, "but I not love to hold dat dog. She weel
+eat Jean Marcel, she so glad to see heem, an' we mus' keep her off de
+bed."
+
+At that moment Julie entered the room. "I will take Fleur to see him;
+she will behave for me," volunteered the girl.
+
+So not without serious misgivings, it was arranged that the grieving
+Fleur should be shown her master.
+
+That night when Julie had fed Fleur, she opened the stockade gate and
+stroking the great head of the dog, said slowly:
+
+"Fleur would see Jean, Jean Marcel?"
+
+At the sound of the master's name, Fleur's ears went forward, her slant
+eyes turning here and there for a sight of the familiar figure. Then
+with a whine she looked at Julie as if for explanation.
+
+"Fleur will see Jean, soon. Will Fleur behave for Julie?"
+
+With a yelp the husky leaped through the gate and ran to and fro
+outside, sniffing the air; then as if she knew the master were not
+there, returned, shaggy body trembling, every nerve tense with
+anticipation, slant eyes eagerly questioning as she whimpered her
+impatience.
+
+Taking the dog by her plaited collar of caribou hide, to it Julie
+knotted a rope and led her into the Mission where McCain, Jules and Pčre
+Breton waited.
+
+"Fleur will be good and not hurt Jean. She must not leap on his bed. He
+is very sick."
+
+Seeming to sense that something was about to happen having to do with
+Marcel, Fleur met the girl's hand with a swift lick of her tongue. With
+the rope trailing behind, the end of which Jules and McCain seized to
+control the dog in case she became unmanageable, Julie Breton opened the
+door of Marcel's room, where with fever-flushed face the unconscious man
+lay on a low cot, one arm hanging limply to the floor. When the husky
+saw the motionless figure, she pricked her ears, thrusting her muzzle
+forward, and sniffed, and as her nose revealed the glad news that here
+at last lay the lost Jean Marcel, she raised her head and yelped wildly.
+Then swiftly muzzling Marcel's inert body she started to spring upon the
+bunk to wake him, when Julie Breton's arms circled her neck and aided by
+the drag on the rope, checked her.
+
+"Down, Fleur! No! No! You must not hurt Jean."
+
+Seeming to sense that the mute Marcel was not to be roughly played with,
+the intelligent dog, whimpering like one of her puppies, caressed the
+free hand of the sick man, then, ignoring the weight on the rope
+dragging her back, she strained forward to reach his neck with her
+tongue, for his head was turned from her. But Jean Marcel did not return
+her caress.
+
+Puzzled by his indifference, then sensing that harm had come to the
+unconscious Marcel, the dog raised her head over the cot and rocked the
+room with a wail of sorrow.
+
+The wounded man sighed and turning, moaned:
+
+"They took Fleur and now they take Julie. There is nothing left--nothing
+left!"
+
+At the words, the nose of the overjoyed dog reached the hot face of
+Marcel, but his eyes did not see her.
+
+Again Julie's strong arms circled Fleur's neck, restraining her. The
+slant eyes of the husky looked long into the pale face which showed no
+recognition; then she quietly sat down, resting her nose on his arm. And
+for hours, with Julie seated beside her, Fleur kept vigil beside the
+bed, until the priest and McCain insisted on the dog's removal.
+
+When Jules brought a crying puppy outside the window of the sick room,
+for a time Fleur listened to the call of her offspring without removing
+her eyes from Marcel's face. But at length, maternal instinct
+temporarily conquered the desire to watch by the stricken man. Her
+unweaned puppies depended on her for life and for the moment mother love
+prevailed. With a final caress of the limp hand of Marcel, reluctantly,
+with head down and tail dragging, she followed Julie to the stockade.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+FROM THE FAR FRONTIERS
+
+
+For days Marcel's youth and strength battled with the fever aggravated
+by infection in the deep wound. All that Gillies and Pčre Breton could
+do for the stricken man was done, but barring the simple remedies which
+stock the medicine chest of a post in the far north and the most limited
+knowledge of surgery possessed by the factors, the recovery of a patient
+depends wholly upon his vitality and constitution. With medical aid
+beyond reach, men die or fight back to health through the toughness of
+their fiber alone.
+
+There was a time when Jean Marcel journeyed far toward the dim hills of
+a land from which there is no trail home for the feet of the _voyageur_.
+There were nights when Julie Breton sat with her brother and Jules, or
+McCain, stark fear in their hearts that the sun would never again lift
+above the Whale River hills for Jean Marcel, never again his daring
+paddle flash in sunlit white-water, or his snow-shoes etch their webbed
+trail on the white floor of the silent places.
+
+And during these days the impatient Wallace chafed with longing for the
+society of Julie whose pity for the sick man had made of her an
+indefatigable nurse. A few words in the morning and an hour or two at
+night was all the time she allotted the man to whom she had given her
+heart.
+
+To the demand of the Inspector in the presence of Pčre Breton that Julie
+should substitute a Cree woman as nurse, she had replied:
+
+"He has no one but us. His people are dead. He has been like a brother
+to me. I can do no less than care for him, poor boy!"
+
+"Yes," added Pčre Breton, "he is as my son. Julie is right," and added,
+with a smile, "you two will have much time in the future to see each
+other."
+
+So Wallace had been forced to make the best of it.
+
+By the time that the steamer, _Inenew_, from Charlton Island, appeared
+with the English mail, and the supplies and trade-goods for the coming
+year, Jean Marcel had fought his way back from the frontiers of death.
+So relieved seemed the girl, who had given lavishly of her young
+strength, that she allowed Mrs. Gillies to take her place in the sick
+room while she spent with Wallace the last days of his stay at Whale
+River.
+
+Once more the post people saw the lovers constantly together and more
+than one head shook sadly at the thought of the one who had lost, lying
+hurt, in heart and body, on a cot at the Mission, while another took his
+place beside Julie Breton.
+
+At last, the steamer sailed for Fort George and no one in the group
+gathered at the landing doubted that the heart of Julie Breton went with
+it when they saw the light in her dark eyes as she bade the handsome
+Wallace good-bye.
+
+It was an open secret now, communicated by Wallace to the factor, that
+he was to become a Catholic that autumn, and in June take Julie Breton
+as a bride away to East Main.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the tense days when the fever heightened and the life of Jean
+Marcel hung on the turn of a leaf, there had been no repetition of the
+visit of Fleur to the sick room. But so loudly did she wail her
+complaint at her enforced absence from the man battling for his life, so
+near in the Mission house, that it was necessary to confine her with her
+puppies at a distance.
+
+Once again conscious of his surroundings and rapidly gaining strength,
+Marcel insisted on seeing his dog. So, daily, under watchful guard,
+Fleur was taken into the room, often with a clumsy puppy, round and
+fluffy, who alternately nibbled with needle-pointed milk-teeth at Jean's
+extended hand, making a great to-do of snarling in mock anger, or
+rolled squealing on its back on the floor, while Fleur sprawled
+contentedly by the cot, tail beating the floor, love in her slant eyes
+for the master who now had found his voice, whose face once more shone
+with the old smile, which was her life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+RENUNCIATION
+
+
+August drew to a close. The post clearing and the beach at Whale River
+were again bare of tepee and lodge of the hunters of fur who had
+repaired to their summer camps where fish were plentiful, to wait for
+the great flights of snowy geese that the first frosts would drive south
+from Arctic Islands. Daily the vitality and youth of Marcel were giving
+him back his strength, and no remonstrance of the Bretons availed to
+keep him quiet once his legs had mastered the distance to the
+trade-house. Except for a slight pallor in the lean face and the loss of
+weight, due to confinement, to his friends he was once more the Jean
+Marcel they had known, but for weeks, a sudden twisting of his firm
+mouth marking a twinge in the back, recalled only too vividly to them
+all the knife-thrust of Lelac.
+
+When, rid of the fever, and again conscious, Jean had become strong
+enough to talk, he repeatedly voiced his gratitude to Julie for her
+loyalty as nurse, but she invariably covered his mouth with her hand
+refusing to hear him. Grown stronger and sitting up, he had often
+repeated his thanks, raising his face to hers with a twinkle in his dark
+eyes, in the hope that her manner of suppressing him might be continued;
+but she had tantalizingly refused to humor the convalescent.
+
+"I shall close your mouth no longer, Monsieur," she had said with a
+grimace. "You will soon be the big, strong Jean Marcel we have always
+known and must not expect to be a helpless baby forever. And now that
+you can use your right arm, I shall no longer cut up your fish."
+
+"But it is with great pain that I move my arm, Julie," he had protested
+in a feeble effort to enlist her sympathy and so prolong the personal
+ministrations he craved.
+
+"Bah! When before has the great Jean Marcel feared pain? It is only a
+ruse, Monsieur. I am too busy, now that you can help yourself, to treat
+you as a child."
+
+And so, reluctantly, Marcel had resigned himself to doing without the
+aid of the nimble fingers of Julie Breton. The fierce bitterness in his
+heart, which, before the fight on the beach with the Lelacs had made of
+the days an endless torment, gave place, on his recovery, to a state of
+mind more sane. Deep and lasting as was his wound, the realization of
+the girl's devoted care of him had, during his convalescence, numbed the
+old rawness. Gratitude and his innate manhood shamed Marcel into a
+suppression of his grief and the showing of a brave face to Julie Breton
+and the little world of Whale River. In his extremity she had stood
+staunchly by his side. She had been his friend, indeed. He deserved no
+more. And now in his prayers, for he was a devout believer in the
+teachings of Pčre Breton, he asked for her happiness.
+
+One evening found three friends, Julie, Jean Marcel and Fleur, again
+walking on the shore of the Great Whale in the mellow sunset. Romping
+with puppy awkwardness, Fleur's progeny roved near them. The hush of an
+August night was upon the land. Below, the young ebb ran silently
+without ripple. Not a leaf stirred in the scrub edging the trail. The
+dead sun, master artist, had limned the heavens with all the varied
+magic of his palette, and the gray bay, often sullenly restless under
+low-banked clouds, or blanketed with mist, now reached out, a shimmering
+floor, to the rim of the world.
+
+In silence the two, mute with the peace of the moment, watched the
+heightening splendor of the western skies. Disdaining the alluring
+scents of the neighboring scrub, which her puppies were exploring, Fleur
+kept to Marcel's side where her nose might find his hand, for she had
+not forgotten the days of their recent separation.
+
+"What you did for me I can never repay." Marcel broke the silence, his
+eyes on the White Bear Hills, sapphire blue on southern horizon.
+
+The girl turned impatiently.
+
+"Monsieur Jean Marcel, what I have done, I would do for any friend. I am
+weary of hearing you speak of it. Have you no eyes for the sunset the
+good God has given us? Let us speak of that."
+
+He smiled as one smiles at a child.
+
+"_Bien!_ We shall speak no more of it then, Ma'm'selle Breton. But this
+you shall hear. I am sorry that I acted like a boy about M'sieu Wallace.
+You will forgive me?"
+
+"There is nothing to forgive," she answered. "I know you were hurt. It
+was natural for you to feel the way you did."
+
+"But I showed little of the man, Julie. I was hurt here," and he placed
+his hand on his heart, "and I was a child."
+
+She smiled wistfully, slowly shaking her head. "I fear you were very
+like a man, Jean. But you are going away and I may not be here in the
+spring--may not see you for a long time--so I want to tell you now how
+proud I have been of you this summer."
+
+He looked up quizzically.
+
+"Yes, you have made a great name on the East Coast this summer, Jean
+Marcel. When you were ill the Crees talked of little else--of your
+travelling where no Indian had dared to go until you found the caribou;
+your winning, over those terrible Lelacs and proving your innocence;
+your fighting them with bare hands, because you knew no fear."
+
+The face of Marcel reddened as the girl continued.
+
+"You are brave and you have a great heart and a wise head, Jean Marcel;
+some day you will be a factor of the Company. Wherever I may be, I shall
+think of you and always be proud that you are my friend."
+
+Inarticulate, numb with the torture of hopeless love, Marcel listened to
+Julie Breton's farewell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE VOICE OF THE WINDIGO
+
+
+When the first flight of snowy geese, southward bound, flashed in an
+undulating white cloud over Whale River, the canoe of Jean Marcel was
+loaded with supplies for a winter in the land of the Windigo. And in
+memory of Antoine Beaulieu, he was taking with him as comrade and
+partner the eighteen-year-old cousin of the dead man whose kinsmen had
+humbly made their amends for their stand against Marcel before the
+hearing. Young Michel Beaulieu, of stouter fibre than Antoine, had at
+length overcome his scruples against entering the land of dread, through
+his admiration for Marcel's daring and his confidence in the man whose
+reputation since the hearing and the fight with the Lelacs had been now
+firmly established with the Whale River Crees. When Marcel had
+repeatedly assured the boy that he had neither seen the trail of _Matchi
+Manito_, the devil, nor once heard the wailing of a giant Windigo
+through all the long snows of the past winter in the Salmon country,
+Michel's pride at the offer had finally conquered his fears. So leaving
+the puppy he had given Julie as the nucleus for a Mission dog-team, and
+presenting Gillies with another, Marcel packed the three remaining
+children of Fleur whom he had named in honor of his three staunch
+friends, Colin, Jules and Angus, into the canoe already deep with
+supplies, and gripping the hands of those who had assembled on the
+beach, eased the craft into the flood-tide.
+
+"Good-bye and good luck, Jean!" called Gillies.
+
+"De rabbit weel be few; net beeg cache of feesh before de freeze-up!"
+urged the practical Jules.
+
+"No fear, Jules. We ketch all de feesh en de lac," laughed Jean. Then
+his eyes sought Julie Breton's sober face as he said in French:
+
+"I will not come back for Christmas, Julie. The pups will not be old
+enough for the trail."
+
+With the conviction that he was saying good-bye to Julie Breton
+forever--that on his return in June, she would be far in the south with
+Wallace, he pushed off as she called, "_Bon voyage, Jean! Dieu vous
+benisse!_" (God bless you!)
+
+When the paddles of Jean and Michel drove the boat into the stream, the
+whining Fleur, beholding her world moving away from her, plunged into
+the river after the _voyageurs_.
+
+"Go back, Fleur!" ordered Jean sternly. "You travel de shore; de cano'
+ees too full wid de pup." So the protesting Fleur turned back to follow
+the shore. The puppies, yet too young and clumsy to keep abreast of the
+tide-driven canoe, on the broken beach of the river, had to be
+freighted.
+
+When the boat was well out in the flood, Marcel waved his cap with a
+last "A'voir!"
+
+Far up-stream, a half-hour later, rhythmic flashes, growing swiftly
+fainter and fainter, until they faded from sight, marked for many a long
+moon the last of Jean Marcel.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+September waned, and the laggard rear-guard of the brant and Hutchins
+geese, riding the first stinging northers, passed south in the wake of
+the wavies. On the heels of September followed a week of mellow October
+days lulling the north into temporary forgetfulness of the menace of the
+bitter months to come. Then the unleashed winds from the Arctic
+freighted with the first of the long snows beat down the coast and river
+valleys, locking the land with ice. But far in the Windigo-haunted hills
+of the forbidden land of the Crees a man and a boy, snug in snow-banked
+tepee, laughed as the winds whined through November nights and the snow
+made deep in the timber, for their cache was heaped high with frozen
+trout, whitefish and caribou.
+
+With the coming of the snow, the puppies, young as they were, soon
+learned that the life of a husky was not all mad pursuit of rabbit or
+wood-mouse and stalking of ptarmigan; not all rioting through the
+"bush," on the trail of some mysterious four-footed forest denizen; not
+alone the gulping of a supper of toothsome whitefish or trout, followed
+by a long nap curled in a cosy hole in the snow, gray noses thrust into
+bushy tails. Although their wolf-blood made them, at first, less
+amenable than the average husky puppy to the discipline of collar and
+traces, their great mother, through the force of her example as lead-dog
+and the swift punishment she meted out to any culprit, contributed as
+much as Jean's own efforts to the breaking of the puppies to harness.
+
+Jules, the largest, marked like his mother with slate-gray patches on
+head and back was all dog; but the rogues, Colin and Angus, mottled with
+the lighter gray of their sire, and with his rangier build, inherited
+much of his wolf nature. Many a whipping from the long lash of plaited
+caribou hide, many a sharp nip from Fleur's white teeth, were required
+to teach the young wolves the manners of camp and trail; to bend their
+wild wills to the habit of instant obedience to the voice of Jean
+Marcel. But Fleur was a conscientious mother and under her stern
+tutelage and the firm but kind treatment of Jean,--who loved to rough
+and wrestle the puppies in the dry snow, rolling them on their backs and
+holding them helpless in the grip of his sinewy hands--as the shaggy
+ruffians grew in the wisdom of trace and trail, so in their wild natures
+ripened love for the master who fed and romped with them, meting out
+punishment to him alone who had sinned.
+
+In search of black and silver foxes, whose pelts, worth in the world of
+cities their weight in gold, are the chief inspiration of the red
+hunter's dreams, Jean had run his new trap-lines far in the valleys of
+the Salmon watershed. But to the increasing satisfaction of the still
+worried Michel, the sole noises of the night which had yet met his
+fearful ears, had been the scream of lynx, the occasional caterwauling
+of wolverine and the hunting chorus of timber wolves. But darkness still
+held potential terror for the lad in whom, at his mother's knee, had
+been instilled dread of the demon-infested bad-lands north of the Ghost,
+and he never camped alone.
+
+January came with its withering winds, burning and cracking the faces of
+the hunters following their trap-lines; swirling with fine snow, which
+struck like shot, and stung like the lash of whips. Often when facing
+the drive of a blizzard even the hardy Fleur, wrinkling her nose with
+pain, would stop and turn her back on the needle-pointed barrage. At
+times when the fierce cold, freezing all moisture from the atmosphere,
+filled the air with powdery crystals of ice, the true sun, flanked by
+sun-dogs in a ringed halo, lifted above the shimmering barrens,
+dazzlingly bright.
+
+One night when Jean and Michel, camped in the timber at the end of the
+farthest line of fox traps, had turned into their robes before a hot
+fire, in front of which in a snow hole they had stretched a shed tent
+both as windbreak and heat-reflector, a low wail, more sob than cry of
+night prowler, drifted up the valley.
+
+"You hear dat?" whispered Michel.
+
+The hairy throat of Fleur, burrowed in the snow close to the tent,
+rumbled like distant thunder.
+
+Marcel, already fast drifting into sleep, muttered crossly:
+
+"Eet ees de Windigo come to eat you, Michel."
+
+Again upon the hushed valley under star-encrusted heavens where the
+borealis flickered and pulsed and streamed in fantastic traceries of
+fire, broke a wailing sob.
+
+With a cry Michel sat up turning a face gray with fear to the man beside
+him. Again Fleur growled, her lifted nose sniffing the freezing air, to
+send her awakened puppies into a chorus of snarls and yelps.
+
+Raised on an elbow, Marcel sleepily asked:
+
+"What de trouble, Michel? You and Fleur hear de Windigo?"
+
+"Listen!" insisted the boy. "I nevaire hear dat soun' before."
+
+Silencing the dog, Jean pushed back his hood to free his ears, smiling
+into the blanched face of the wild-eyed boy beside him.
+
+Shortly the noiseless night was marred by a sobbing moan, as if some
+stricken creature writhed under the torture of mangled flesh.
+
+Marcel knew that neither wolf, lynx, nor wolverine--the "Injun-devil" of
+the superstitious--was responsible for the sound. What could it be? he
+queried. No furred prowler of the night, and he knew the varied voices
+of them all, had such a muffled cry. Puzzled and curious he left his
+rabbit-skin robes and stood with the terrified Michel beside the fire.
+In an uproar, the dogs ran into the "bush" with manes bristling and
+bared fangs, to hurl the husky challenge down the valley at the
+invisible menace.
+
+"Eet ees de Windigo! Dey tell me at Whale Riviere not to come een dees
+countree! De Windigo an' Matchi Manito ees loose here," whimpered Michel
+through chattering teeth.
+
+Jean Marcel did not know what it was that made night horrible with its
+moaning but he intended to learn at once. The lungs behind that noise
+could be pierced by rifle bullet and the cold steel of his knife. There
+was not a creature in the north with which Fleur would not readily
+battle. He would soon learn if the hide of a Windigo was tough enough to
+turn the knife-like fangs of Fleur, and the bullets of his 30-30.
+
+Seizing Michel by the shoulders he shook the boy roughly.
+
+"I tell you, Michel, de devil dat mak' dat soun' travel on four feet.
+You tie up de pup an' wait here. Fleur an' I go an' breeng back hees
+skin."
+
+But the panic-stricken Michel would not be left alone, and when he had
+fastened the excited puppies, with shaking hands he drew his rifle from
+its skin case and joined Marcel.
+
+Holding with difficulty on her rawhide leash the aroused Fleur leaping
+ahead in the soft footing, Marcel snow-shoed through the timber in the
+direction from which the sound had come.
+
+After travelling some time they stopped to listen.
+
+From somewhere ahead, seemingly but a few hundred yards down the valley,
+floated the eerie sobbing. Michel's gun slipped to the snow from his
+palsied hands.
+
+Turning, Jean gripped the boy's arm.
+
+"Why you come? You no good to shoot. De Windigo eat you w'ile you hunt
+for your gun."
+
+Picking up the rifle, the boy threw off the mittens fastened to his
+sleeve by thongs, and gritting his teeth, followed Marcel and Fleur.
+
+Shortly they stopped again to listen. Straight ahead through the spruce
+the moaning rose and fell. Fleur, frantic to reach the mysterious enemy,
+plunged forward dragging Marcel, followed by the quaking boy who held
+his cocked rifle in readiness for the rush of beast or devil. Passing
+through scrub, a small clearing opened up before them. Checking Fleur,
+Marcel peered through the dim light of the forest into the opening lit
+by the stars, when the clearing echoed with the uncanny sound.
+
+Marcel's keen eyes strained across the star-lit snow into the murk
+beyond, as Michel gasped in his ears:
+
+"By Gar! I see noding dere! Eet ees de Windigo for sure!"
+
+But the Frenchman was staring fixedly at a clump of spruce on the
+opposite edge of the opening. As the unearthly sobbing rose again into
+the night, he loosed the maddened dog and followed.
+
+They were close to the spruce, when a great gray shape suddenly rose
+from the snow directly in their path. For an instant a pair of pale
+wings flapped wildly in their faces. Then a squawk of terror was
+smothered as the fangs of Fleur struck at the feathered shape of a huge
+snowy owl. A wrench of the dog's powerful neck, and the ghostly hunter
+of the northern nights had made his last patrol, victim of his own
+curiosity.
+
+With a loud laugh Jean turned to the dazed Michel:
+
+"Tak' good look at de Windigo, Michel. My fox trap hold heem fas' w'ile
+he seeng to de star."
+
+The amazed Michel stared at the white demon in the fox trap with open
+mouth. "I t'ink--dat h'owl--de Windigo for sure," he stuttered.
+
+"I nevaire hear de h'owl cry dat way myself, Michel, but I know dat
+Fleur and my gun mak' any Windigo een dees countree look whiter dan dat
+bird. W'en we come near dees place I expect somet'ing een dat fox trap."
+
+And strangely, through the remaining moons of the long snows, the sleep
+of the lad was not again disturbed by the wailing of Windigos seeking to
+devour a young half-breed Cree by the name of Michel Beaulieu.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+RAW WOUNDS
+
+
+June once again found Marcel paddling into Whale River. The sight of the
+high-roofed Mission, where, in the past, he had known so much of joy and
+pain, quickened his stroke. He wondered whether she had gone away with
+Wallace at Christmas, or whether there would be a wedding when the trade
+was over and the steamer would take them to East Main. Avoiding the
+Mission until he had learned from Jules what he so longed to know,
+Marcel went up to the trade-house where he found Gillies and McCain. Too
+proud to speak of what was nearest his heart, he told his friends of his
+winter in the Salmon country. It had paid him well, his long portage
+from the Ghost, the previous September, to the untrapped valleys to the
+north. When, unlashing his fur-pack, he tossed on the counter three
+glossy black-fox pelts and six skins of soft silver-gray, alone worth
+well over a thousand dollars, even at the low prices of the far north,
+the eyes of Gillies and Angus McCain bulged in amazement. Cross fox,
+shading from the black of the back and shoulder to rich mahogany,
+followed; dark sheeny marten--the Hudson's Bay sable of commerce--and
+thick gray pelts of the fisher. Otter, lynx and mink made up the balance
+of the fur.
+
+"Great Scott! the Salmon headwaters must be alive with fur!" exclaimed
+Gillies examining the skins, "and most of them are prime."
+
+"Dere ees much fur een dat country," laughed Jean, "eef de Windigo don'
+ketch you, eh, Michel?"
+
+Michel, proud of his part in so successful a winter and in having
+bearded the demons of the Salmon in their dens and lived to tell the
+tale, blushed at the memory of the snowy owl.
+
+"This is the largest catch of fur traded in my time at Whale River,
+Jean," said Gillies. "What are you going to do with all your credit? You
+can't use it on yourself; you'll have to get married and build a shack
+here."
+
+Blood darkened the bronzed face, but Marcel made no reply.
+
+He had indeed wrung a handsome toll from the haunted hills, which,
+tabooed by Cree trappers for generations, were tracked by the padded
+feet of countless fur-bearers. After allowing Michel a generous interest
+in the fur, Marcel found that he had increased his credit at the post
+by over two thousand dollars, giving him in all a trade credit of
+twenty-six hundred dollars with the Company. He could in truth afford to
+marry and build a shack if he were made a Company servant, but the
+girl----Then he heard Gillies' voice.
+
+"Jean, I want you and Angus to go up to the Komaluk Islands with a York
+boat. The whalers are getting the Husky trade which we ought to have.
+They will ruin them with whiskey."
+
+"Ver' well, M'sieu!"
+
+Marcel drew a breath of relief. If she were not already married, he
+would be only too glad to go north--to be spared seeing Julie Breton
+made the wife of Wallace. Then, at last, Jules appeared.
+
+After the customary hug, Jean drew the big head man outside, demanding
+in French:
+
+"Is she here still? They were not married at Christmas? When do they
+marry?"
+
+Jules shook his head. "A letter came by the Christmas mail. By the
+Company he was ordered at once to Winnipeg. He is there now and will not
+come this summer."
+
+"And Julie, is she well?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When, then, will they marry?"
+
+Jules shrugged his great shoulders. "Christmas maybe, perhaps next June.
+No one knows."
+
+Marcel was strangely elated at the news. Julie was not yet out of his
+life. She would be at Whale River on his return from the north. Even if
+he were held all summer she would be there as of old.
+
+The welcome of Julie and Pčre Breton at the Mission temporarily drove
+from Marcel's thoughts the coming separation. Far into the night the
+three friends talked while Julie's skillful fingers were busy with her
+trousseau. She spoke of the postponement of her wedding, due to the
+presence of Inspector Wallace at the headquarters of the Company at
+Winnipeg. Julie's olive skin flushed with her pride, as she said that he
+had been mentioned already as the next Chief Inspector. Wallace had
+already become a Catholic, but the uncertainty of the time of his return
+to the East Coast might cause the delay of the ceremony until the
+following June.
+
+Marcel's hungry eyes did not leave the girl's face as she talked of her
+future--the future he had dreamed of sharing. But the wound was still
+raw and he was glad to escape the acute suffering which her nearness
+caused, by leaving Fleur and her puppies in Julie's care, and starting
+with McCain the following morning, in a York boat loaded with
+trade-goods, for the north coast.
+
+In August the York boat returned from the Komaluk Islands and Jean drew
+his supplies for another winter on Big Salmon waters. To Gillies, who
+urged him to accept a regular berth, and put his team of half-breed
+wolves on the mail-route to Rupert, for the winter previous the scarcity
+of good dogs along the coast had been the cause of the Christmas mail
+not reaching Whale River until the second of January, Marcel turned a
+deaf ear. In another year, he said, he would carry the mail up the
+coast, but his puppies were still too young to be pushed hard through a
+blizzard. Another year and he would show the posts down the coast what a
+real dog-team could do.
+
+Glancing at McCain, Gillies shook his head resignedly, for he knew well
+why Jean Marcel wished to avoid Whale River.
+
+On the morning of his departure, as Jean stood with Michel on the beach
+by the canoe, surrounded by his four impatient dogs, Julie stooped and
+kissed the white marking between Fleur's ears, whispering a good-bye.
+Turning her head in response, the dog's moist nose and rough tongue
+reached the girl's hand.
+
+"Lucky Fleur!" Jean said to his friends.
+
+"It's sure worth while being a dog, sometimes," drawled Angus McCain
+with a grimace. But Julie Breton ignored the remarks, wishing Marcel
+Godspeed.
+
+Through the day as they travelled Marcel looked on the high shores of
+the Salmon with unseeing eyes, for in them was the vision of a girl
+bending over a great dog.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+DREAMS
+
+
+Christmas was but a week distant. For the first time in years Jean
+Marcel possessed a dog-team, and through the long December nights he had
+come to a decision to talk to Julie Breton once more, as in the old
+days, before she left Whale River forever.
+
+Led by Fleur, Colin, Angus and Jules, now grown to huge huskies, already
+abreast of their mother in height and bulk of bone, and showing the wolf
+strain in their rangy gait and in red lower-lids of their amber eyes,
+were jingling down the river trail to the festivities at the post. For,
+from Fort Chimo, west across the wide north, to Rampart House, Christmas
+and New Years are kept. From far and wide come dog-teams of the red
+hunters down the frozen river trails for the feasting and merrymaking at
+the fur-posts. Two weeks, "fourteen sleeps" on the trail, going and
+coming, is not held by many a hardy hunter and his family too high a
+price to pay for a few short days of trading and gossip and dancing.
+There are many who trap too far from the posts and in country too
+inaccessible to make the journey possible, but throughout the white
+desolation of the fur lands the spirit of Christmas is strong and yearly
+the frozen valleys echo to the tinkling of the bells of dog-teams and
+the laughter of the children of the snows.
+
+Over the beaten river trail, ice-hardened by the passage of many sleds
+preceding them, romped Fleur and her sons, toying with the weight of the
+two men and the food bags on the sled. At times, Jean and Michel ran
+behind the team to stretch their legs and start their chilled blood, for
+it was forty below zero. But to the dogs, travelling without wind at
+forty below on a beaten trail, was sheer delight. Often, on the high
+barrens of the Salmon they had slept soundly in their snow holes at
+minus sixty.
+
+As Jean watched his great lead-dog, her thick coat of slate-gray and
+white glossy with superb vitality, set a pace for her rangy sons which
+sent the white miles sliding swiftly past, his heart sang.
+
+Good all day for a thousand pounds, they were, on a broken trail, and
+since November he had in vain sought the limit of their staying power.
+Not yet the equals of their mother in pulling strength, at eighteen
+months their wolf-blood had already given the puppies her stamina. What
+a team to bring the Christmas mails up the coast from East Main! he
+thought, idly whirling the whip of plaited caribou hide which had never
+flecked the ears of Fleur, but which he sometimes needed when the
+excitable Colin or Angus scented game and, puppy-like, started to bolt.
+No dogs on the coast could take the trail from these sons of Fleur. No
+dog-team he had ever seen could break-out and trot away with a thousand
+pounds. That winter they had done it with a load of caribou meat on the
+barrens. Yes, next year he would accept Gillies' offer and put Fleur and
+her sons on the winter-mail--Fleur, and the team she had given him; his
+Fleur, whom he had followed and fought for: who had in turn battled for
+his life.
+
+"Marche, Fleur!" he called, his eyes bright with his thoughts.
+
+The lead-dog leaped from a swinging trot into a long lope, straightening
+the traces, followed by the team keen for a run. Away they raced in the
+good going of the hard trail. Then, in early afternoon when the sun hung
+low in the dim west, the men turned into the thick timber of the shores,
+where, sheltered from the wind, they shovelled out a camp ground with
+their snow-shoes and built a roaring fire while the puppies, ravenous
+for their supper, yelped and fretted until Jean threw them the frozen
+fish which they caught in the air and bolted.
+
+Before Jean and Michel had boiled their tea and caribou stew, four
+shaggy shapes with noses in tails were asleep in the snow, indifferent
+to the sting of the strengthening cold which made the spruces around
+them snap, and split the river ice with the boom of cannon.
+
+Wrapped in his fur robe before the fire, Marcel lay wondering if he
+should find Julie Breton still at Whale River.
+
+Hours later, waking with a groan, Marcel sat upright in his blankets.
+Near him the tired Michel snored peacefully. Throwing a circle of light
+on the surrounding spruce, huge embers of the fire still burned. The
+moon was dead, a veil of haze masking the dim stars. It was bitter cold.
+Half out of his covering, the startled _voyageur_ shivered, but it was
+not from the bite of the air. It was the stark poignancy of the dream
+from which he had escaped, that left him cold.
+
+He had stood by the big chute of the Conjuror's Falls on the Ghost,
+known as the "Chute of Death," and as he gazed into the boiling
+maelstrom of white-water, the blanched face of Julie Breton had looked
+up at him, her lips moving in hopeless appeal, as she was swept from
+sight.
+
+Into the roaring flume he had plunged headlong, frenziedly seeking her,
+as he vainly fought down through the gorge, buffeted and mauled by the
+churning water, but though he hunted the length of the river below,
+never found her.
+
+Again, he was travelling with Fleur and the team in a blizzard, when out
+of the smother of snow before him beckoned the wraith of Julie
+Breton--always just ahead, always beckoning to him. Pushing his dogs to
+their utmost he never drew nearer, never reached the wistful face he
+loved, luring him through the curtain of snow.
+
+Marcel freshened the fire and lighted his pipe. It was long before he
+threw off the grip of his dreams and slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+FOR LOVE OF A GIRL
+
+
+Two days before Christmas the team of Jean Marcel, its harness brave
+with colored worsted, meeting the snarls of hostile Cree curs with the
+like threat of white fangs, jingled gaily past sleep-house and tepees,
+and drew up before the log trade-house at Whale River. Returning the
+greeting of the Crees who hailed him, he threw open the slab-door of the
+building.
+
+"Bon jour, Jean, eet ees well dees Chreesmas you come." The grave face
+of Jules Duroc checked the jest on Marcel's lips as he shook his
+friend's hand.
+
+"You are sad, mon ami; what has happened to the merry Jules?" Jean
+asked.
+
+"Ah, Jean Marcel! Dere ees bad news for you at Whale River."
+
+Across Marcel's brain flashed the memory of his dreams. Julie! Something
+had happened to Julie Breton. His speeding heart shook him as an engine
+a boat. A vise on his throat smothered the questions he strove to ask.
+His lips twitched, but from them came no words, as his questioning eyes
+held those of Jules.
+
+"Yes, eet ees as you t'ink, Jean Marcel. She ees ver' seek."
+
+Marcel's hands closed on Jules' arms as he demanded hoarsely:
+
+"Mon Dieu! W'at ees eet, Jules? Tell me, w'at ees eet?"
+
+"She has de bad arm. Cut de han' wid a knife."
+
+Blood-poisoning, because of his medical ignorance, held less terror for
+Marcel than some strange fever, insidious and mysterious. He had feared
+that Julie Breton had a dread disease against which the crude skill of
+the north is helpless. So, as he hastened to the Mission where he found
+Mrs. Gillies installed as nurse, his hopes rose, for a wound in the hand
+could not be fatal.
+
+From the anxious-eyed Pčre Breton who met him at the door, Jean learned
+the story.
+
+Ten days before, Julie had cut her hand with a knife while preparing
+frozen fish for cooking. For days she had ignored the wound, when the
+hand, suddenly reddening, began to swell, causing much pain. Gillies and
+her brother had opened the inflamed wound, cleansing it with bichloride,
+but in spite of their efforts, the swelling had increased, advancing to
+the elbow.
+
+She was now running a high fever, suffering great pain and frequently
+delirious. They realized that the proper treatment was an opening of the
+lymphatic glands of forearm and elbow to reach the poison slowly working
+upward, but did not dare attempt it. The priest told Marcel that in such
+cases if the poison was not absorbed into the circulation or reached by
+operation, it would extend to the arm-pit, then to the neck, with fatal
+termination.
+
+Jean Marcel listened with head in hands to the despairing brother. Then
+he asked:
+
+"Is there at Fort George or East Main, no one who could help her?"
+
+"At Fort George, Monsieur Hunter who has been lately ordered there to
+the Protestant church, is a medical missionary. We learned this to-day
+when the Christmas mail arrived. But they were five days coming from
+Fort George with their poor dogs. It will take you eight days to make
+the round trip and even in a week it may be too late--too late----" He
+finished with a groan.
+
+"Father, I will go and bring this missionary. I shall return before a
+week."
+
+"God speed you, my son! The mail team is worn out and we were sending a
+team of the Crees, but they have no dogs like yours."
+
+Mrs. Gillies led Marcel into Julie Breton's room and left them. On her
+white bed, with wayward masses of dusky hair tumbled on her pillow, lay
+Julie Breton, moaning low in the delirium of high fever. On a pillow at
+her side lay her bandaged left arm. As Marcel looked long at the flushed
+face with its parted lips murmuring incoherently, the muscles of his jaw
+flexed through the frost-blackened skin as he clenched his teeth at his
+helplessness to aid her--this stricken girl for whom he would have given
+his life.
+
+Then he knelt, and lifting the limp hand on the coverlet, pressed it
+long to his lips, rose, and went out.
+
+When Mrs. Gillies returned she found the right hand of Julie Breton
+wet--and understood.
+
+First feeding and loosing his dogs in the stockade Marcel hurried to the
+trade-house. There he obtained from Jules five days' rations of
+whitefish for the dogs, and some pemmican, hard bread and tea.
+
+"You t'ink you can mak' For' George een t'ree day?" Jules shook his head
+doubtfully. "Eet nevaire been made een t'ree day, Jean."
+
+"No one evair before on de East Coast travel as I travel, Jules," was
+the low reply.
+
+Gillies, Pčre Breton and McCain, talking earnestly, entered the room to
+overhear Marcel's words.
+
+"Welcome back, Jean; you are going to Fort George instead of Baptiste?"
+the factor asked, shaking Marcel's hand.
+
+"Yes, M'sieu, my team ees stronger team dan Baptiste's."
+
+"When do you start?"
+
+"Een leetle tam; I jus' feed my dogs."
+
+"Are they in good shape? They must be tired from the river trail."
+
+"Dey will fly, M'sieu."
+
+"Thank heaven for that, lad. We've got just one good dog left in the
+mail team--the one you gave me. The rest are scrubs and they came in
+to-day dead beat. Two of our Ungavas died in November."
+
+"M'sieu," said Marcel quietly, "my dogs will make For' George een t'ree
+days."
+
+"It's never been done, Jean, but I hope you will."
+
+When Marcel brought his refreshed dogs to the trade-house an hour later
+for his rations, a silent group of men awaited him. As Fleur trotted up,
+ears pricked, mystified at being routed out and harnessed in the dark,
+after she had eaten and curled up for the night, they were eagerly
+inspected by the factor.
+
+"Why, the pups have grown inches since you left here in August, Jean.
+They're almost as big as Fleur, now," said Gillies, throwing the light
+from his lantern on the team.
+
+"Tiens! Dat two rear dog look lak' timber wolves," cried Jules, as
+Colin and Angus turned their red-lidded, amber eyes lazily toward him,
+opening cavernous mouths in wide yawns, for they were still sleepy.
+Fleur, alive to the subdued tones of Jean Marcel and sensing something
+unusual, muzzled her master's hand for answer.
+
+"What a team! What a team!" exclaimed McCain. "Never have the Huskies
+brought four such dogs here. They ought to walk away with a thousand
+pounds. Are they fast, Jean?"
+
+"Dey can take a thousand all day, M'sieu. W'en you see me again, you
+will know how fast dey are. A'voir!" Marcel gripped the hands of the
+others, then turned to Pčre Breton, the muscles of his dark face working
+with suffering.
+
+"Father," he said, "if she should wake and can understand, tell
+her--tell her to wait--a little longer till Jean and Fleur return.
+If--if she--cannot wait for us--tell her that Fleur and Jean Marcel will
+follow her--out to the sunset."
+
+Then he turned, cracked his whip, hoarsely shouted: "Marche, Fleur!" and
+disappeared with his dogs into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+THE WHITE TRAIL TO FORT GEORGE
+
+
+One hundred and fifty miles down the wind-harassed East Coast, was a man
+who could save Julie Breton. The mind of Marcel held one thought only as
+his hurrying dogs loped down the river trail to the Bay. Dark though it
+was, for the stars were veiled, Fleur never faltered, keeping the trail
+by instinct and the feel of her feet.
+
+Reaching the Bay the trail swung south skirting the beach, often cutting
+inland to avoid circling long points and shoulders of shore; at the Cape
+of the Winds--the midwinter vortex of unleashed Arctic blasts--making a
+deep cut to the sheltered valley of the Little Salmon. Marcel was too
+dog-wise to push his huskies as they swung south on the sea-ice, for no
+sled-dogs work well after eating.
+
+As the late moon slowly lifted, he shook his head, for it was a moon of
+snow. If only the weather held until he could bring his man from Fort
+George, but fate was against him. That he could average fifty miles a
+day going and coming, with the light sled, he was confident. He knew
+what hearts beat in those shaggy breasts in front--what stamina he had
+never put to the supreme test, lay in their massive frames. He knew that
+Fleur would set her sons a pace, at the call of Jean Marcel, that would
+eat the frozen miles to Fort George, as they had never before slid past
+a dog-runner. But once a December norther struck down upon them on their
+return, burying the trail in drift, with its shot-like drive in the
+teeth of man and dogs, it would kill their speed, as a cliff stops wind.
+
+He had intended to camp for a few hours, later in the night, to rest his
+dogs, but the warning of the ringed moon flicked him with fear, as a
+whiplash stings a lagging husky. It meant in December, snow and wind. He
+must race that wind to the lee of Big Island, so he pushed on through
+the night over the frozen shell of the Bay, stopping only once to boil
+tea and rest his over-willing dogs.
+
+As day broke blue and bitter in the ashen east, a team of spent huskies
+with ice-hung lips and flews swung in from the trail skirting the lee
+shore of Big Island and the driver in belted caribou capote, a rim of
+ice from his frozen breath circling his lean face, made a fire from
+cedar kindlings brought on the sled, boiled tea and pemmican, and
+feeding his dogs, lay down in his robes. In twelve hours of constant
+toil the dogs of Marcel had put Whale River sixty white miles behind.
+
+At noon he shook off the sleep which weighted his limbs, forced himself
+from his blankets, ate and pushed on. Although the air smelled of snow,
+and in the north, brooding, low-banked clouds hugged the Bay, snow and
+wind still held off.
+
+In early afternoon as the sun buried itself in the ice-fields, muffled
+rays lit the bald shoulders of the distant Cape of the Four Winds,
+seventy miles from his goal.
+
+"Haw, Fleur!" he called, and the lead-dog swung inland, to the left, on
+the short-cut across the Cape.
+
+As yet the tough Ungavas had shown no signs of lagging. With their
+superb vitality and staying power, they had travelled steadily through
+the night, after a half day on the river. Led by their tireless mother,
+each hour they had put five miles of snowy trail behind them. With the
+weather steady, Marcel had no doubt of when he would reach Whale River,
+for the weight of an extra man on the sled would be little felt on a
+hard trail and he would run much himself. But with the menace of snow
+and wind hanging over him, he travelled with a heavy heart.
+
+On Christmas Eve, again a ringed moon rose as the dogs raced down an icy
+trail into the valley of the Little Salmon. The conviction that a
+December blizzard, long overdue, was making in the north to strike down
+upon him, paralyzing his speed, drove him on through the night.
+Reckless of himself, he was equally reckless of his dogs, led by the
+iron Fleur. It was well that her still growing sons had the blood of
+timber wolves in their veins, for Fleur, sensing the frenzy of Marcel to
+push on and on, responded with all her matchless stamina.
+
+At last they camped at the Point of the Caribou and ate. To-morrow, he
+thought, would be Christmas. A Merry Christmas indeed for Jean Marcel.
+Then he slept. The next afternoon as they passed Wastikun, the Isle of
+Graves, the wind shifted to the northeast and the snow closed in on the
+dog-team nearing its goal. The blizzard had come, and Jean Marcel,
+knowing what miles of drifts; what toil breaking trail to give footing
+to his team in the soft snow; what days of battling the drive of the
+wind whipping their faces with needle-pointed fury, awaited their
+return, groaned aloud. For it meant, battle as he would, he might now
+reach Whale River too late; he might find that Julie Breton had not
+waited, but over weary, had gone out into the sunset.
+
+In the early evening, forty-eight hours out of Whale River, four white
+wraiths of huskies with a ghost-like driver, turned in to the
+trade-house at Fort George. The spent dogs lay down, dropping their
+frosted masks in the snow, the froth from their mouths rimming their
+lips with ice.
+
+Sheeted in white from hood to moccasins, the _voyageur_ entered the
+trade-house in a swirl of snow and called for the factor. A bearded man
+engaged in conversation with another white man, behind the trade
+counter, rose at Jean's entrance.
+
+"I am from Whale River, M'sieu. My name is Jean Marcel. Here ees a
+lettair from M'sieu Gillies." Marcel handed an oil-skin envelope to
+McKenzie, the factor, who surveyed with curiosity the ice-crusted
+stranger with haggard eyes who came to Fort George on Christmas night.
+
+At the mention of Whale River, the man who had been in conversation with
+McKenzie behind the counter, also rose to his feet. And Marcel, who had
+not seen his face, now recognized him. It was Inspector Wallace.
+
+"Too bad! Too bad!" muttered the factor, reading the note, "and we're in
+for a December blizzard."
+
+"What is it, McKenzie?" demanded Wallace, coming from behind the counter
+and reaching for Gillies' note.
+
+The narrowed eyes of Marcel watched the face of Wallace contract with
+pain as he read of the peril of the woman he loved.
+
+"Tell me what you know, Marcel!" Wallace demanded brokenly.
+
+Jean briefly explained Julie's desperate condition.
+
+"When did you leave Whale River?"
+
+"Two day ago."
+
+"What," cried McKenzie, "you came through in two days from Whale River?
+Lord, man! I never heard of such travelling. Your dogs must be marvels!"
+
+"I came in two day, M'sieu," repeated Marcel, "because she weel not
+leeve many day onless she have help."
+
+"Why, man, I can't believe it. It's never been done. When did you
+sleep?" The factor called to a Company Indian who entered the room,
+"Albert, take care of his dogs and feed them."
+
+"Dey are wild, M'sieu. I weel go wid heem."
+
+Marcel started to go out with the Indian, for his huskies sorely needed
+attention, then stopped to stare in wonder at Wallace, who had slumped
+into a chair, head in hands. For a moment the hunter looked at the inert
+Inspector; then his lip curled, his frost-blackened face reflecting his
+scorn, as he said:
+
+"W'ere ees dees missionary, M'sieu? We mus' start een a few hours, w'en
+my dogs have rest."
+
+"What, start in the teeth of this? Listen to it!" The drumming of wind
+and shot-like snow on the trade-house windows steadily increased in
+fury.
+
+The muscles of Marcel's face stiffened into stone as he grimly insisted:
+
+"We mus' start to-night."
+
+"You are crazy, man; you need sleep," protested McKenzie. "I know it's a
+life and death matter. But you wouldn't help that girl at Whale River by
+losing the trail to-night and freezing. I'll see Hunter at once, but I
+can't allow him to go to his death. If the blow eases by morning, he can
+start."
+
+Again Marcel turned, waiting for Wallace, who nervously paced the floor,
+to speak. Then with a shrug he said:
+
+"M'sieu Wallace weel wish to start to-night? I have de bes' lead-dog on
+dees coast. She weel not lose de trail."
+
+"What do you mean--Monsieur Wallace?" blurted the factor. Wallace raised
+a face on which agony and indecision were plainly written. But it was
+Jean Marcel who answered, with all the scorn of his tortured heart.
+
+"_She ees de fiancée--of M'sieu Wallace._"
+
+"Oh, I--I didn't--understand!" stumbled the embarrassed McKenzie,
+reddening to his eyes. "But--I can't advise you to start to-night, Mr.
+Wallace."
+
+The factor went to the door. As he lifted the heavy latch, in spite of
+his bulk the power of the wind hurled him backward. The door crashed
+against the log-wall, while the room was filled with driving snow.
+
+"You see what it's like, Wallace! No dog-team would have a chance on
+this coast to-night--not a chance."
+
+"Yes," agreed Wallace, avoiding Marcel's eyes. Then he went on, "You
+understand, McKenzie, I'm knocked clean off my feet by this news.
+But--we'll want to start, at least, by morning--sooner, if the dogs are
+rested--that is, of course, if it's possible."
+
+Deliberately ignoring the man who had thus bared his soul, Marcel drew
+the factor to one side.
+
+"Mon Dieu, M'sieu!" he pleaded in low tones. "She weel not leeve. Onless
+we start at once, we shall be too late. Tak' me to de doctor!"
+
+The agonized face of the hunter softened McKenzie.
+
+"Well, all right, if Hunter will go and Mr. Wallace insists, but it's
+madness. I'll go over to the Mission now and talk to the doctor."
+
+When Jean had seen to the feeding of his tired dogs whom he left asleep
+in a shack, he hurried through the driving snow with the Company Indian
+to the Protestant Mission House, where he found McKenzie alone with the
+missionary.
+
+As he entered the lighted room, the Reverend Hunter, a tall,
+athletic-looking man of thirty, welcomed him, bidding him remove his
+capote and moccasins and thaw out at the hot box-stove.
+
+"Mr. McKenzie has shown me Gillies' message, Marcel. Now tell me all you
+know about the case," said the missionary.
+
+Briefly Marcel described the condition of Julie Breton--Gillies' crude
+attempt at surgery; the advance toward the shoulder of the swelling and
+inflammation, with the increasing fever.
+
+When he had finished he cried in desperation:
+
+"M'sieu, I have at Whale River credit for t'ree t'ousand dollar. Eet ees
+all----"
+
+Hunter's lifted hand checked him.
+
+"Marcel, first I am a preacher of the gospel; also, I am a doctor of
+medicine. I came into the north to minister to the bodies as well as to
+the souls of its people. Do not speak of money. This case demands that
+we start at once. Have you good dogs?"
+
+The drawn face of Marcel lighted with gratitude.
+
+Troubled and mystified by the attitude of Wallace, McKenzie broke in,
+"He's surely got the best dogs on this coast--made a record trip down.
+But, Mr. Hunter, I'll not agree to your starting in this hell outside.
+You must wait until daylight. The Inspector has decided that it would be
+impossible to keep the trail."
+
+"I came here to aid those _in extremis_," replied the missionary. "I
+will take the risk to save this girl. It's a matter of days and we may
+be too late as it is."
+
+"T'anks, M'sieu, her brother, Pčre Breton, weel not forget your
+kindness; and I--I weel nevaire forget." The eyes of Marcel glowed with
+gratitude.
+
+"Then it's understood that you start at daylight, if the wind won't blow
+you off the ice. I'll see you then." And McKenzie, looking hard at
+Marcel and Hunter, went out.
+
+When the factor had closed the door, Jean turned to Dr. Hunter.
+
+"Thees man who marries her een June, ees afraid to go. Weel Mr. Hunter
+start wid me at midnight?"
+
+The big missionary gripped Marcel's hand as he said with a smile, "I did
+not promise McKenzie I would not go. At midnight we start for Whale
+River."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+THE HATE OF THE LONG SNOWS
+
+
+In the unwritten law of the north no one in peril shall ask for succor
+in vain. So universal is this creed, so general its acceptance and
+observance throughout the vast land of silence, that when word is
+brought in to settlement, fur-post, or lonely cabin, that help is
+needed, it is a matter of course that a relief party takes the trail,
+however long and hazardous. And so it was with John Hunter, clergyman,
+physician, and man. New to the north, he had come from England at the
+call for volunteers to shepherd the souls and bodies of the people of
+the solitudes, and without hesitation, he agreed to undertake a journey
+which the older heads at Fort George knew might well culminate in the
+discovery later, by a searching party, of two stiffened bodies buried
+beside a starved dog-team, somewhere in the drifts behind the Cape of
+the Four Winds.
+
+Marcel and the dogs were in sore need of a few hours' rest for the
+grilling duel with snow and wind, before them, so, when he had eaten,
+Jean turned into a bed in the Mission.
+
+At midnight Jean hitched his dogs and waked Hunter. Leaving Fort George
+asleep in the smother of snow, down to the river trail, into the white
+drive of the norther plunged the dog-team.
+
+Giving the trail-wise Fleur her head in the black night, Jean, with
+Hunter, followed the sled carrying their food and robes. Turning from
+the swept river ice into the Bay, dogs and men met the full beat of the
+blasts with heads lowered to ease the hammering of the pin-pointed
+scourge whipping their faces. With the neighboring shore smothered in
+murk, Marcel, trusting to Fleur's instinct to keep the trail over the
+blurred white floor which only increased the blackness above, followed
+the sled he could barely see. Speed against the wind was impossible, and
+at all hazards he must keep the trail, for if they swung to the west on
+the sea-ice they were doomed to wander until they froze. He would push
+on and camp, until daylight, in the lee of the Isle of Graves. With the
+light they would begin to travel. Then on the open ice, where there was
+little drift, he would give Fleur and her pups the chance to prove their
+mettle, for there would be little rest. And beyond, at the rendezvous of
+the winds, they would have ten miles inland through the drifts. The
+unproven sons of Fleur would indeed need the stamina of wolves to take
+them through the days to come.
+
+At last the trail, which the lead-dog had held solely by keeping her
+nose to the ice, ran in under the bold shore of Wastikun. There, after
+feeding the dogs, they burrowed into the snow in the lee of the cliffs
+wrapped in their fur robes. With the wind, the temperature had risen and
+men and dogs slept hard until dawn. Then, hot tea, bread and pemmican
+spurred the fighting heart of Marcel with hope. The wind had eased, but
+powdery snow still drove down blanketing the near shore.
+
+Daylight found them on their way. Due to the wind there was as yet
+little drift on the trail over the Bay ice and the freshened dogs, with
+lowered heads, swung up the coast at a trot. All day with but short
+respite, men and dogs battled on against the norther. The mouth of the
+Little Salmon was the goal Marcel had set for himself--the river valley
+from which they would cut overland behind the gray cape, to the north
+coast. Forty miles away it lay--forty cruel miles of the torturing beat
+of shot-like snow on the faces of men and dogs; forty miles of endless
+pull and drag for the iron thews of Fleur and the whelps of the wolf.
+This was the mark which the now ruthless Frenchman, with but one
+thought, one vision, set for the shaggy beasts he loved.
+
+Hunter, game though he was, at last was forced to ride on the sled, so
+fierce was their pace into the wind. Steadily the great beasts ate up
+the miles. At noon, floundering through drifts like the billows of a
+broken sea, with Marcel ahead breaking trail, they crossed Caribou
+Point, Hunter, refusing to burden the dogs, wallowing behind the sled.
+There they boiled tea, then pushed on to the mouth of the Roggan.
+
+At Ominuk, night fell like a tent, and again a white wraith of a
+lead-dog, blinded by the fury she faced, kept the trail by instinct,
+backed loyally by her brood of ice-sheathed wolves, foot-sore,
+trail-worn, following with low noises her tireless feet.
+
+The coast swung sharply. They were in the lee of the Cape. But a few
+miles farther and a long rest in the sheltered river valley awaited
+them. Marcel stopped his dogs and went to Fleur, lying on the trail, her
+hot breath freezing as it left her panting mouth. Kneeling on the snow
+beside her with his back to the drive, he examined each hairy paw for
+pad-cracks or balled snow between the toes, but the feet of the Ungava
+were iron; then he took in his hands her great head with its battered
+nose, blood-caked from the snow barrage she had faced all day. Rubbing
+the ice from her masked eyes, Jean placed his hooded face against his
+dog's; she turned her nose and her rough tongue touched his
+frost-blackened cheek.
+
+"Fleur," he said, "we are doing it for Julie--you and Jean Marcel. We
+mus' mak' de Salmon to-night. Some day we weel hav' de beeg sleep--you
+and Jean."
+
+Again he stroked her massive head with his red, unmittened hand, then
+for an instant resting his face against the scarred nose, sprang to his
+feet. With a glance at the paws and a word for each of the whining
+puppies whose white tails switched in answer, Jean cracked his whip and
+shouted, "Marche!"
+
+Late that night a huge fire burned in the timber of the sheltered mouth
+of the Little Salmon. Two men and a dog-team ate ravenously, then slept
+like the dead, while over them roared the norther, rocking the spruce
+and jack-pine in the river bottom, heaping the drifts high on the Whale
+River trail.
+
+In three days of gruelling toil Marcel had got within ninety miles of
+his goal--within a day and a half of Whale River had the trail been ice
+hard. But now it would be days longer--how many he dared not guess.
+
+Had the weather held for him, four days from the night of his starting
+would have seen him home; for on an iced trail, at his call, his great
+dogs would have run like wolves at the rallying cry of the pack. As he
+drew his stiffened legs from the rabbit-skins to freshen the fire at
+dawn, he bit his cracked lips until they bled, at the thought of what
+the blizzard had meant to Julie Breton, waiting, waiting for the
+dog-team creeping up the East Coast, hobbled and held back by head-wind
+and drift.
+
+The dogs had won a long rest and Marcel did not start breaking trail
+inland until after daylight. With the sunrise the wind had increased and
+the heart-sick Marcel groaned at the strength-sapping floundering in
+breast-high drifts which faced his devoted dogs, when he needed them
+fresh for the race up the sea-ice of the coast beyond. Before he slept,
+he had weighed the toil of ten miles of drift-barred short-cut across
+the Cape, against doubling the headland on the ice, but he had decided
+that no men or dogs could face the maelstrom of wind and snow which
+churned around its bald buttresses; no strength could force its way--no
+endurance prevail, against it.
+
+With Marcel in the lead as trail-breaker and the missionary, who took
+the punishment without murmur, like the man he was, following the sled,
+Fleur led her sons up to their Calvary in the hills.
+
+As they left the valley and reached the open tundra above, they met the
+full force of the wind. For an instant men and dogs stopped dead in
+their tracks, then with heads down they hurled themselves into the white
+fury which had buried the trail beyond all following.
+
+On pushed the desperate Frenchman in the direction of the north coast,
+followed by Fleur with her whitened nose at the tails of his snow-shoes.
+At times, when the force of the snow-swirls sucked their very breath,
+men and dogs threw themselves panting on the snow, until, with wind
+regained, they stumbled on. Often plunging to their collars in the new
+snow, the huskies travelled solely by leaps, until, stalled nose-deep,
+tangled in traces and held by the drag of the overturned sled, Marcel
+and the exhausted Hunter came to their rescue. Heart-breaking mile after
+mile of the country over which Marcel had sped two days before, they
+painfully put behind them.
+
+At noon, the man who lived his creed crumpled in the snow. Wrapping him
+in robes, Marcel lashed him on the sled and went on, the vision of a
+dying girl on a white cot at Whale River ever in his eyes.
+
+Through a break in the snow, before the light waned, Marcel made out,
+dim in the north, the silhouette of Big Island. He was over the divide
+and well on his way to the coast. With the night, the wind eased, though
+the snow held, and although he was off the trail, the new snow on the
+exposed north slope of the Cape was either wind-packed or swept from the
+frozen tundra, and again the exhausted dogs found good footing.
+
+For some time the team had been working easily down hill, Marcel often
+forced to brake the toboggan with his feet. He knew he had worked to the
+west of the trail, and was swinging in a circle to regain it. Worried by
+the sting of the cold, which was growing increasingly bitter as the wind
+fell off, he stopped to rub the muffled, frost-cracked face and hands of
+his spent passenger, cheering him with the promise of a roaring fire.
+When he started the team, Colin, stiffened by the rest, limped badly,
+and Jules, who had bucked the deep snow all day like a veteran of the
+mail-teams, gamely following his herculean mother, hobbled along, head
+and tail down, with a wrenched shoulder. It was high time they found a
+camping place. With the falling wind they would freeze in the open. So
+he pushed on through the murk, seeking the beach where there was wood
+and a lee.
+
+They were swiftly dropping down to the sea-ice but snow and darkness
+drew around them an impenetrable curtain. Seizing the gee-pole, Marcel
+had thrown his weight back on the sled to keep it off the dogs on a
+descent when suddenly Fleur, whose white back he could barely see moving
+in front, with a whine stopped dead in her tracks and flattened on the
+snow. Her tired sons at once lay down behind her. The sled slid into
+Angus and stopped.
+
+Mystified, Marcel called: "Marche, Fleur! Marche!" fearing to find,
+when she rose, that his rock and anchor had suddenly broken on the
+trail.
+
+But the great dog, ignoring the command, raised her nose in a low growl
+as Marcel reached her.
+
+"What troubles you, Fleur?" he asked, on his knees beside her, brushing
+the crusted snow from her ears and slant eyes. Again Fleur whined
+mysteriously.
+
+"Where ees de pain, Fleur? Get up!" he ordered sharply, thinking to
+learn where her iron body had received its hurt. But the dog lay rigid,
+her throat still rumbling.
+
+"By Gar, dis ees queer t'ing!" muttered Marcel, his mittened hand on the
+massive head.
+
+Then some strange impulse led him to advance into the black wall, when,
+with fierce protest, Fleur, jerking Jules to his feet, leaped forward,
+straining to reach him.
+
+The Frenchman, checked by the dog's action, stared into the darkness,
+until, at length, he saw that the white tundra at his feet fell away
+before his snow-shoes and he looked out into gray space.
+
+As he crouched peering ahead, his senses slowly warned him that he stood
+on a shoulder of cliff falling sheer to the invisible beach below.
+
+He had driven his dogs to the lip of a ghastly death; and Julie----
+
+Turning back, he flung himself beside the trembling Fleur and with his
+arm circling the great neck, kissed the battered nose. Fleur, with the
+uncanny instinct of the born lead-dog, had scented the open space,
+divined the danger, had known--and lain down, saving them all.
+
+Swinging his team off the brow of the cliff, he worked back and finally
+down to the beach, and his muffled passenger, drowsy, with swiftly
+numbing limbs, never knew that he had ridden calmly, that night, out to
+the doors of doom.
+
+In the lee of an island Marcel made camp and boiled life-giving
+tea,--the panacea of the north--and pemmican, on a hot fire, which soon
+revived the frozen Hunter.
+
+To his joy, he realized that the back of the blizzard was broken, for as
+the wind and snow eased, the temperature rapidly fell to an Arctic cold.
+With Whale River eighty miles away; his dogs broken by lack of rest and
+stiff from the wrenching and exhaustion of the battle with the deep
+snow; his own legs twinging with "mal raquette"; Marcel thanked God, for
+the dawn would see the wind dead and if his team did not fail him, in
+two days he would reach the post.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+"HE'S GOT HIS MAN!"
+
+
+Whale River was astir. Before the trade-house groups of Crees critically
+inspected the dogs of Baptiste Laval, who fretted and yelped, eagerly
+waiting the "_Marche!_" which would send them off on the river trail.
+Inside, the grave-faced Gillies gave big Jules his parting instructions.
+
+"He never started home in that blizzard, Jules; McKenzie wouldn't allow
+the missionary to take such a chance. But Jean surely left yesterday
+morning and with fresh dogs he'll come through in four days, even with a
+heavy trail. You ought to meet him this side the Cape."
+
+"Yes, M'sieu. But I t'ink he travel more fas' dan dat. I see heem
+to-morrow, maybe."
+
+"No, he never started that last day of the blow. It would have been
+suicide. Poor lad! he must have been half crazy, with her on his mind."
+
+"How ees she dis noon, M'sieu?"
+
+"The fever holds about the same--no worse; but she must be operated on
+very soon. The poison is extending. If you meet them at the Cape you
+ought to get the doctor here a day ahead of Jean, with his tired dogs."
+
+Surrounded by the Crees who were wishing them luck on their trip to meet
+and relay Marcel home, Baptiste had cracked his dog-whip with a loud,
+"_Marche!_" when an Indian with arms raised to attract attention came
+running from the shore across the clearing.
+
+"Whoa!" shouted Jules, and Baptiste checked his dogs.
+
+"What does he say?" called Angus McCain. "A dog-team down river? Do you
+hear that, Gillies?"
+
+"Husky," replied the factor drily. "Couldn't possibly be Marcel!"
+
+"No, he couldn't have come through that norther," agreed McCain.
+
+"What's that he says, Jules?" demanded Gillies.
+
+Jules Duroc, hands and shoulders in motion, was talking excitedly to the
+Cree who had joined the group by the sled. Turning suddenly, he ran back
+to the factor.
+
+"Felix say dat a team crawl up de riviere trail lak' dey ver' tired. He
+watch dem long tam."
+
+"That's queer, but it's some Husky--can't be Marcel. Why, good Lord,
+man! he hasn't been away six days."
+
+Angus disappeared, to return with an old brass-bound telescope and
+hurried to the river shore with Jules, followed by the scoffing
+Gillies. To the naked eye, a black spot was discernible on the river
+ice.
+
+"There are two men following a team," announced Angus, the glass at his
+eye. "They're barely moving. Now they've stopped; the dogs must be
+played out. The driver's trying to get them up! Now he's got them
+going!"
+
+Gillies took the telescope and looked for a long space. Suddenly to
+those who watched him, waiting for his report, his hand visibly shook.
+Turning to Jules, he bellowed:
+
+"Jules, you travel like all hell for that dog-team! God only knows how
+they got here alive, but there's only one lead-dog on this coast that
+reaches to a man's middle. That team crawling in out there is Jean
+Marcel's--God bless him!--_and he's got his man!_"
+
+With a roar Jules leaped on the sled and lashed the team headlong down
+the cliff trail to the ice. Madly they raced down-river under the spur
+of the rawhide goad.
+
+"Run to the Mission, someone, and tell Pčre Breton that Jean Marcel is
+back!" continued Gillies. At the words, willing feet started with the
+message.
+
+The eyes of Colin Gillies were blurred as he watched through the glass
+the slow approach of those who had but lately fought free from the maw
+of the pitiless snows. Now he could recognize the massive lead-dog,
+limping at a slow walk, her great head down. Behind her swayed the
+crippled whelps of the wolf, tails brushing the ice, tongues lolling as
+they swung their lowered heads from side to side, battling through the
+last mile on stiffened legs, giving their last ounce at the call of
+their gaunt master who reeled behind them. Far in the rear a tall figure
+barely moved along the trail.
+
+At the yelp of Jules' approaching team the dogs of Marcel pricked
+drooping ears. Stopping them, Jean waited for Hunter.
+
+"Dey sen' team. Eet ees ovair, M'sieu! We mak' Whale Riviere een t'ree
+day and half, but she--she may not be dere."
+
+Too tired to speak, Hunter slumped on the sled. With a yell, Jules
+reached Marcel and gathered him into his arms.
+
+"By Gar, Jean! You crazee fool; you stop for noding! Tiens! I damn glad
+to see you, Jean Marcel!"
+
+The fearful Marcel gasped out the question, "Julie! Ees she dere? Does
+she leeve?"
+
+"Oui, mon ami; she ees alive. You save her life."
+
+Staggering to his lead-dog the overjoyed man threw himself beside her on
+the trail where she sprawled panting.
+
+"We 'ave save her," he cried. "Julie--has waited for Jean and Fleur."
+
+Taking the missionary on his sled, Jules tried to force Marcel to ride
+as well, but the _voyageur_ threw him off.
+
+"No, no!" he cried. "We weel feenish on our feet--Fleur, de wolf and
+Jean Marcel."
+
+So back to the post Jules raced with Hunter. A cheering mob of Indians
+met dogs and master on the river ice and carried Marcel, protesting, up
+the cliff trail, where Gillies and Angus were waiting.
+
+"I reach For' George de night of second day, but de dreef and wind at de
+Cape----" He was checked by a hug from the blubbering McCain as Colin
+Gillies, with eyes blurred by tears, welcomed him home.
+
+"You have saved her, Jean," said the factor, "now you must sleep." With
+hands raised in wonder he turned to the group. "Shades of André Marcel!
+Two days to Fort George! It will never be done again." Then they took
+the swaying Marcel, asleep on his feet, and his dogs, away to a long,
+warm rest.
+
+But the Crees sat late that night smoking much Company plug as they
+shook their heads over the feat of the son of André Marcel who feared
+neither Windigo nor blizzard. And later, the tale travelled down to the
+southern posts and out to Fort Churchill on the west coast and from
+there on to the Great Slave and the Peace, of how the mad Marcel had
+driven his flying wolves one hundred and fifty miles in two sleeps, and
+returned, without rest, in three, in the teeth of a Hudson's Bay
+norther. And hearing it, old runners of the trails shook their heads in
+disbelief, saying it was not in dogs or men to do such a thing; but they
+did not know the love and despair in the heart of Jean Marcel which
+spurred him to his goal, nor did they fathom the blind devotion of his
+great lead-dog, who, with her matchless endurance and that of her sons,
+had made it possible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+AS YE SOW
+
+
+Fresh from a London hospital though he was, John Hunter found that the
+condition of Julie Breton demanded the exercise of all his skill as a
+surgeon. But the operation, aided by the girl's young strength and
+vitality, was successful, and she slowly overcame the grip of the
+infection.
+
+Four days after Marcel reeled into Whale River with his battered dogs,
+bringing the man who was winning back life for Julie Breton, an
+exhausted dog-team limped in from the south. Rushing into the
+trade-house the white-faced Wallace grasped Gillies' hand, hoarsely
+demanding:
+
+"Does she live, Gillies?"
+
+"She's all right, Mr. Wallace; doing well, the doctor says," answered
+Gillies. "She's going to pull through, thanks to Jean Marcel and Dr.
+Hunter. I take my hat off to those two men."
+
+Wallace's eyes shifted to the floor as he ventured:
+
+"When did they get in?"
+
+"Oh, they came through against that blow in three days and a half. The
+greatest feat of man and dogs in my time. When did you leave East Main?"
+
+Wallace stared incredulously at Colin Gillies' wooden face.
+
+"East Main? Why, didn't Marcel tell you?"
+
+"No," replied Gillies, but he did not say that his wife had been told by
+Hunter of the presence of Wallace at Fort George the night Marcel
+brought the news. However, the factor did not further embarrass his
+chief by questions. And Wallace did not see fit to inform him that not
+until the wind died, two days after the relief party started, had he
+left Fort George.
+
+"I suppose she's too sick to see me?" the nervous Inspector hazarded.
+
+"Yes, no one sees her except Mrs. Gillies and Hunter."
+
+"Well, I'll look up Father Breton," and Wallace went out followed by an
+expression in Colin Gillies' face which the Inspector would not have
+cared to see.
+
+For a week Wallace remained at Whale River and then, assured by Dr.
+Hunter of Julie's safety, left, to return later. When, meeting Marcel in
+the trade-house, he had attempted to thank him, the cold glitter in the
+eyes of the Frenchman as he listened with impassive face to the halting
+words of the Inspector of the East Coast, filled Colin Gillies with
+inward delight.
+
+When Gillies bade good-bye to his chief, he said casually, "Well, I
+suppose we'll have a wedding here in June, Mr. Wallace."
+
+"Yes, Gillies, Father Breton and I are only waiting for Julie to set the
+date. Good-bye; I'll be up the coast next month," and was off.
+
+But what piqued Gillies' curiosity was whether Dr. Hunter had told Pčre
+Breton just what happened at Fort George when the tragic call for help
+came in on Christmas night. Jean Marcel's mouth had been shut like a
+sprung trap, even Jules and Angus did not know; of that, Gillies was
+sure. But why had the doctor not told Pčre Breton, as well as Mrs.
+Gillies? He was Julie's brother and ought to know. If Hunter had
+enlightened the priest, then Colin Gillies was no judge of men, for he
+had always admired the Oblat.
+
+The first week in February Julie Breton was sitting up, and Mr. Hunter
+bade good-bye to the staunch friends he had made at Whale River. Not
+always are the relations between Oblat or Jesuit, and Protestant
+missionaries, unduly cordial in the land of their labors, but when the
+Reverend Hunter left the Mission House at Whale River, there remained in
+the hearts of Pčre Breton, his sister and Jean Marcel, a love for the
+doctor, clergyman and man which the years did not dim.
+
+One day, later on, Marcel and Fleur were making their afternoon call on
+Julie, who was propped in bed, her hair hanging in two thick braids.
+
+"We leave in a few days," Jean said in French. "Michel is anxious to get
+back to his traps."
+
+"Oh, don't go so soon, Jean. I haven't yet had an opportunity to talk to
+you as I wished."
+
+"If you mean to thank me, I am glad of that," he said, his lips curling
+in a faint smile.
+
+"Why should I not thank you, Jean Marcel, who risked your life like a
+madman to help me? I do now thank you with all my heart. But for you, I
+would not be here. Dr. Hunter told me I could not have lived had he
+arrived one day later."
+
+With a gesture of impatience Marcel turned in his chair and gazed
+through the window on the world of snow.
+
+The dark eyes in the pale face of the girl were strangely soft as they
+rested on the sinewy strength of the man's figure; then lifted to the
+strong profile, with its bony jaw and bold, aquiline nose.
+
+"You do not care for my thanks, Jean?" she asked.
+
+"Please!" he begged. "It is over, that! You are well again! I am happy;
+and will go back to my trap-lines."
+
+"But it is not all over with Julie Breton," she insisted.
+
+He turned with brows raised questioningly.
+
+"It has left her--changed. She will never be the same."
+
+"What do you mean? Dr. Hunter said you would be as strong as ever, by
+spring."
+
+"Ah, but I do not speak of my body, Jean Marcel."
+
+He gazed in perplexity at her wistful face. In a moment his eyes again
+sought the window.
+
+For a long space, she was silent. Then a suppressed sob roused him from
+his bitter thoughts and he heard the strained voice of the girl.
+
+"I know all," she said.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Mrs. Gillies, and Dr. Hunter--when I asked him--told me--long ago. We
+have kept it from Pčre Henri. It seems years, for I have been thinking
+much since then--lying awake, thinking."
+
+"Julie, what has been worrying you? Don't let what I did cause you
+pain," he pleaded, not catching the significance of her words. "It's all
+right, Julie. You owe me nothing--I understand."
+
+"Ah, but you do not understand," she said, smiling at the man's averted
+face.
+
+"Julie, I have suffered, but I want you to be happy. Don't think of Jean
+Marcel."
+
+"But it is of Jean Marcel of the great heart that I must think--have
+been thinking, for days and days." She was sitting erect, tense; her
+pale face drawn with emotion.
+
+"I tell you I know it all," she cried, "how they--_he_, feared to start
+in the storm--and waited--ordered you to wait. But no wind or snow could
+hold Jean Marcel, and in spite of them, he brought Dr. Hunter to Whale
+River--and saved Julie Breton."
+
+Dumb with surprise at her knowledge of what he thought he and Hunter
+alone knew--at the scorn in her voice, Marcel listened with pounding
+heart.
+
+"Yes, they told me," she went on, "how Jean Marcel heard the news when
+he reached Whale River and, without sleep, that night hurried south for
+help, swifter than men had ever travelled, because Julie Breton was in
+peril. Dr. Hunter has told me all; how you and Fleur fought wind and
+snow to bring him to Whale River--and Julie Breton. And now you ask her
+not to thank you--you who gave her back her life."
+
+Only the low sobbing of the girl broke the silence. In a moment the
+paroxysm passed, and she looked through tears at the man who sat with
+bowed head in hands, as she faltered:
+
+"Ah, will you not see--not understand? Must I tell you--that
+I--love--Jean Marcel?"
+
+Dazed, Jean rose. With a hoarse cry of "Julie!" he groped to the bed and
+took her in his yearning arms.
+
+After the years--she had come home.
+
+Later, Mrs. Gillies looked in to see a dusky head on the shoulder of the
+man who knelt by the bed, and on the coverlet beside them the great head
+of Fleur, who gazed up into two illumined faces through narrow eyes
+which seemed to comprehend as her bushy tail slowly swept to and fro.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In June there was a wedding at Whale River, with an honored guest who
+journeyed up the coast from Fort George for the ceremony, John Hunter.
+
+The Mission church overflowed with post people and the visiting Crees,
+few of whom but had known some kindness from Julie Breton. In the robes
+of his order, Pčre Breton faced the bride and groom. Beside the former,
+gravely stood the matron of honor; her gown of slate-gray and snowy
+white, carefully groomed for the occasion by the faithful Jules, glossy
+with superb vitality; her great neck circled by a white ribbon knotted
+in a bow--which it had required days to accustom her to wear--in strange
+contrast to the massive dignity of the head. From priest to bride and
+groom, curiously her slant eyes shifted, in wonder at the proceeding.
+
+The ceremony over, the bride impulsively kissed the slate-gray head of
+the dog while a hum of approval swept the church. Then, before repairing
+with their friends to the Mission House, where the groaning table
+awaited them, Julie and Jean Marcel, accompanied by Fleur, went to the
+stockade. Three gray noses thrust through the pickets whined a welcome.
+Three gigantic, wolfish huskies met them at the gate with wild yelps and
+the mad swishing of tails. Then the happy Jean and Julie gave the whelps
+of the wolf their share of the wedding feast.
+
+
+
+
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+
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+
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+
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+
+
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+
+    =Sinister Mark, The.= Lee Thayer.
+    =Sin That Was His, The.= Frank L. Packard.
+    =Sir or Madam.= Berta Ruck.
+    =Sisters-in-Law.= Gertrude Atherton.
+    =Sky Line of Spruce.= Edison Marshall.
+    =Slayer of Souls, The.= Robert W. Chambers.
+    =Smiles: A Rose of the Cumberlands.= Eliot H. Robinson.
+    =Snowdrift.= James B. Hendryx.
+    =Snowshoe Trail, The.= Edison Marshall.
+    =Son of His Father, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
+    =Son of Tarzan, The.= Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+    =Souls for Sale.= Rupert Hughes. (Photoplay Ed.).
+    =Speckled Bird, A.= Augusta Evans Wilson.
+    =Spirit of the Border, The.= Zane Grey. (New Edition).
+    =Spirit-of-Iron.= Harwood Steele.
+    =Spoilers, The.= Rex Beach. (Photoplay Ed.).
+    =Spoilers of the Valley, The.= Robert Watson.
+    =Star Dust.= Fannie Hurst.
+    =Steele of the Royal Mounted.= James Oliver Curwood.
+    =Step on the Stair, The.= Anna Katherine Green.
+    =Still Jim.= Honoré Willsie.
+    =Story of Foss River Ranch, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
+    =Story of Marco, The.= Eleanor H. Porter.
+    =Strange Case of Cavendish, The.= Randall Parrish.
+    =Strawberry Acres.= Grace S. Richmond.
+    =Strength of the Pines, The.= Edison Marshall.
+    =Subconscious Courtship, The.= Berta Ruck.
+    =Substitute Millionaire, The.= Hulbert Footner.
+    =Sudden Jim.= Clarence B. Kelland.
+    =Sweethearts Unmet.= Berta Ruck.
+    =Sweet Stranger.= Berta Ruck.
+    =Tales of Chinatown.= Sax Rohmer.
+    =Tales of Secret Egypt.= Sax Rohmer.
+    =Tales of Sherlock Holmes.= A. Conan Doyle.
+    =Talkers, The.= Robert W. Chambers.
+    =Talisman, The.= Sir Walter Scott (Photoplay Ed.).
+        Screened as Richard the Lion Hearted.
+    =Taming of Zenas Henry, The.= Sara Ware Basset.
+    =Tarzan of the Apes.= Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+    =Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar.= Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+    =Tattooed Arm, The.= Isabel Ostrander.
+    =Tempting of Tavernake, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+    =Tess of the D'Urbervilles.= Thomas Hardy. (Photoplay Ed.).
+    =Tex.= Clarence E. Mulford.
+    =Texan, The.= James B. Hendryx.
+    =Thankful's Inheritance.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
+    =That Affair at "The Cedars."= Lee Thayer.
+    =That Printer of Udell's.= Harold Bell Wright.
+    =Their Yesterdays.= Harold Bell Wright.
+    =Thief of Bagdad, The.= Achmed Abdullah. (Photoplay Ed.)
+    =Thieves' Wit.= Hulbert Footner.
+    =Thirteenth Commandment, The.= Rupert Hughes.
+    =This Side of Paradise.= F. Scott Fitzgerald.
+    =Thoroughbred, The.= Henry Kitchell Webster.
+    =Thread of Flame, The.= Basil King.
+    =Three Black Bags.= Marion Polk Angelloti.
+    =Three Men and a Maid.= P. G. Wodehouse.
+    =Three Musketeers, The.= Alexander Dumas.
+    =Three of Hearts, The.= Berta Ruck.
+    =Through the Shadows with O. Henry.= Al. Jennings.
+    =Thunderbolt, The.= Clyde Perrin.
+    =Timber.= Harold Titus.
+    =Timber Pirate.= Charles Christopher Jenkins.
+    =Tish.= Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+    =To Him That Hath.= Ralph Connor.
+    =Toilers of the Sea, The.= Victor Hugo. (Photoplay Ed.).
+    =Toll of the Sands.= Paul Delaney.
+    =Trail of the Axe, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
+    =Trailin'.= Max Brand.
+    =Trail to Yesterday, The.= Chas. A. Seltzer.
+    =Treasure of Heaven, The.= Marie Corelli.
+    =Trigger of Conscience, The.= Robert Orr Chipperfield.
+    =Triumph of John Kars, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
+    =Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel, The.= Baroness Orczy.
+    =Trodden Gold.= Howard Vincent O'Brien.
+    =Trooper O'Neill.= George Goodchild.
+    =Trouble at the Pinelands, The.= Ernest M. Porter.
+    =T. Tembarom.= Frances Hodgson Burnett.
+    =Tumbleweeds.= Hal G. Evarts.
+    =Turn of the Tide.= Eleanor H. Porter.
+    =Twenty-fourth of June.= Grace S. Richmond.
+    =Twins of Suffering Creek, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
+    =Two-Gun Man, The.= Chas. A. Seltzer.
+    =Two-Gun Man, The.= Robert Ames Bennet.
+    =Two-Gun Sue.= Douglas Grant.
+    =Typee.= Herman Melville.
+    =Tyrrel of the Cow Country.= Robert Ames Bennet.
+    =Under Handicap.= Jackson Gregory.
+    =Under the Country Sky.= Grace S. Richmond.
+    =Uneasy Street.= Arthur Somers Roche.
+    =Unlatched Door, The.= Lee Thayer.
+    =Unpardonable Sin, The.= Major Rupert Hughes.
+    =Unseen Ear, The.= Natalie Sumner Lincoln.
+    =Untamed, The.= Max Brand.
+    =Up and Coming.= Nalbro Bartley.
+    =Up From Slavery.= Booker T. Washington.
+    =Ursula Trent.= W. L. George.
+    =Valiants of Virginia, The.= Hallie Erminie Rives.
+    =Valley of Content, The.= Blanche Upright.
+    =Valley of Fear, The.= Sir A. Conan Doyle.
+    =Valley of Gold, The.= David Howarth.
+    =Valley of the Sun, The.= William M. McCoy.
+    =Vandemark's Folly.= Herbert Quick.
+    =Vanguards of the Plains.= Margaret Hill McCarter.
+    =Vanished Messenger, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+    =Vanishing of Betty Varian, The.= Carolyn Wells.
+    =Vanity Fair.= Wm. M. Thackeray. (Photoplay Ed.).
+    =Vashti.= Augusta Evans Wilson.
+    =Viola Gwyn.= George Barr McCutcheon.
+    =Virginia of Elk Creek Valley.= Mary Ellen Chase.
+    =Virtuous Wives.= Owen Johnson.
+    =Voice of the Pack, The.= Edison Marshall.
+    =Wagon Wheel, The.= William Patterson White.
+    =Wall Between, The.= Sara Ware Bassett.
+    =Wall of Men, A.= Margaret Hill McCarter.
+    =Wasted Generation, The.= Owen Johnson.
+    =Watchers of the Plains, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
+    =Way of an Eagle, The.= Ethel M. Dell.
+    =Way of the Strong, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
+    =Way of These Women, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+    =We Can't Have Everything.= Major Rupert Hughes.
+    =Weavers, The.= Gilbert Parker.
+    =West Broadway.= Nina Wilcox Putnam.
+    =West Wind Drift.= George Barr McCutcheon.
+    =What's the World Coming To?= Rupert Hughes.
+    =What Will People Say?= Rupert Hughes.
+    =Wheels Within Wheels.= Carolyn Wells.
+    =Whelps of the Wolf, The.= George Marsh.
+    =When a Man's a Man.= Harold Bell Wright. (Photoplay Ed.).
+    =When Egypt Went Broke.= Holman Day.
+    =Where the Sun Swings North.= Barnett Willoughby.
+    =Where There's a Will.= Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+  Page 41: Changed etes to ętes
+  Page 52: Changed Companee to Company
+  Page 66: Changed uninterruped to uninterrupted
+  Page 113: Changed eyrie to eerie
+  Page 273: Changed matchles to matchless
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Whelps of the Wolf, by George Marsh
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Whelps of the Wolf, by George Marsh
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Whelps of the Wolf
+
+Author: George Marsh
+
+Release Date: May 21, 2010 [EBook #32465]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHELPS OF THE WOLF ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joseph R. Hauser and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.fadedpage.com
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="centered">
+
+<div class="bb bl bt br">
+<h1>THE WHELPS<br />
+OF THE WOLF</h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class="bb bl bt br">
+<h2>By GEORGE MARSH</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="bb bl bt br">
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px; padding: 100px 0px;">
+<img src="images/001.png" width="100" height="99" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="bb bl bt br">
+<table border="0" summary="publisher">
+<tr>
+    <td align ="center" colspan="2">A. L. BURT COMPANY</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="left">Publishers</td>
+    <td align="right">New York</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align ="center" colspan="2">Published by arrangement with The Penn Publishing Company</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align ="center" colspan="2">Printed in U. S. A.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+
+<h4>COPYRIGHT<br />
+1922 BY<br />
+THE PENN<br />
+PUBLISHING<br />
+COMPANY</h4>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;">
+<img src="images/002.png" width="100" height="90" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div><br /></div>
+
+<h5>The Whelps of the Wolf</h5>
+
+<h5>Made in the U. S. of A.</h5>
+
+<div><br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table class="toc" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="table of contents">
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">I.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">The Land of the Windigo</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">II.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">The End of the Trail</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">16</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">III.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">The Friend of Demons</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">30</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">IV.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Home and Julie Breton</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">38</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">V.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">The Moon of Flowers</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">44</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">VI.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">For Love of a Dog</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">51</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">VII.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">The Long Trail to the South Coast</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">64</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">VIII.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">The Meeting in the Marshes</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">69</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">IX.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">In the Teeth of the Winds</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">79</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">X.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">The Camp on the Ghost</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">88</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XI.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">The Warning in the Wind</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">94</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XII.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">The Work of the White Wolves</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">98</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XIII.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">Poor Fleur</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">103</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XIV.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">The Mark of the Breed</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">108</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XV.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">For Love of a Man</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">111</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XVI.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">The Starving Moon</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">119</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XVII.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">The Turn of the Tide</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">131</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XVIII.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">Spring and Fleur</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">135</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XIX.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">When the Ice Goes Soft</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">145</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XX.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">The Dead Man Tells His Tale</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">150</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXI.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">The Blind Clutch of Circumstance</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">157</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXII.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">In the Depths</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">170</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXIII.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">In the Eyes of the Crees</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">175</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXIV.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">On the Cliffs</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">181</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXV.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">Inspector Wallace Takes Charge</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">188</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXVI.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">The Whelps of the Wolf</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">193</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXVII.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">The Trap is Sprung</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">198</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXVIII.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">Bitter-Sweet</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">212</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXIX.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">The Fangs of the Half-breeds</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">216</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXX.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">Cree Justice</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">224</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXXI.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">The Way of a Dog</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">228</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXXII.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">From the Far Frontiers</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">234</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXXIII.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">Renunciation</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">238</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXXIV.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">The Voice of the Windigo</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">243</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXXV.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">Raw Wounds</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">253</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXXVI.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">Dreams</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">259</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXXVII.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">For Love of a Girl</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">264</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXXVIII.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">The White Trail to Fort George</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">270</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XXXIX.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">The Hate of the Long Snows</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">280</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XL.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XL">"He's Got His Man!"</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">290</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="right">XLI.</td>
+    <td class="tocname"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">As Ye Sow</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpage">296</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="The_Whelps_of_the_Wolf" id="The_Whelps_of_the_Wolf"></a>The Whelps of the Wolf</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<h4>THE LAND OF THE WINDIGO</h4>
+
+
+<p>The solitudes of the East Coast had shaken off the grip of the long
+snows. A thousand streams and rivers choked with snow water from bleak
+Ungava hills plunged and foamed and raced into the west, seeking the
+salt Hudson's Bay, the "Big Water" of the Crees. In the lakes the
+honeycombed ice was daily fading under the strengthening sun. Already,
+here and there the buds of the willows reddened the river shores, while
+the southern slopes of sun-warmed ridges were softening with the pale
+green of the young leaves of birch and poplar. Long since, the armies of
+the snowy geese had passed, bound for far Arctic islands; while marshes
+and muskeg were vocal with the raucous clamor of the nesting gray goose.
+In the air of the valleys hung the odor of wood mold and wet earth.</p>
+
+<p>And one day, with the spring, returned Jean<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> Marcel from his camp on the
+Ghost, the northernmost tributary of the Great Whale to the bald ridge,
+where, in March, he had seen the sun glitter on a broad expanse of level
+snow unbroken by trees, in the hills to the north. His eyes had not
+deceived him. The lake was there.</p>
+
+<p>From his commanding position on the bare brow of the isolated mountain,
+he looked out on a wilderness of timbered valleys, and high barrens
+which rolled away endlessly into the north. Among these lay a large body
+of water partly free of ice. Into the northeast he could trace the
+divide&mdash;even make out where a small feeder of the Ghost headed on the
+height of land. And he now knew that he looked upon the dread valleys of
+the forbidden country of the Crees&mdash;the demon-haunted solitudes of the
+land of the Windigo, whose dim, blue hills guarded a region of mystery
+and terror&mdash;a wilderness, peopled in the tales of the medicine men, with
+giant eaters of human flesh and spirits of evil, for generations, taboo
+to the hunters of Whale River.</p>
+
+<p>There was no doubt of it. The large lake he saw was a headwater of the
+Big Salmon, the southern sources of which tradition placed in the
+bad-lands north of the Ghost. Once his canoe floated in this lake, he
+could work into the main river and find the Esquimos on the coast.</p>
+
+<p>"Bien!" muttered the Frenchman, "I will go!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>Two days later, back in camp on the Ghost, Marcel announced to his
+partners, Antoine Beaulieu and Joe Piquet, his intention of returning to
+the Bay by the Big Salmon.</p>
+
+<p>"W'at you say, Jean; you go home tru de Windigo countree?" cried Piquet,
+his swart face blanched by the fear which the very mention of the
+forbidden land aroused, while Antoine, speechless, stared wide-eyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oui, nord of de divide, I see beeg lac. Eet ees Salmon water for sure.
+I portage cano' to dat lac and reach de coast by de riviere. You go wid
+me an' get some dog?" Marcel smiled coolly into the sober faces of his
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you crazee, Jean Marcel?" protested Antoine. "De spirit have run de
+game an' feesh away. De Windigo eat you before you fin' de Salmon, an'
+eef he not get you first, you starve."</p>
+
+<p>"Ver' well, you go back by de Whale; I go by Salmon an' meet de Husky. I
+nevaire hunt anoder long snow widout dogs."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah-hah! Dat ees good joke! You weel nevaire see de Husky," broke in
+Piquet. "W'en <i>Matchi-Manitou</i> ees tru wid you, de raven an' wolf peek
+your bones, w'ile Antoine an' Joe dance at de spreeng trade wid de Cree
+girl."</p>
+
+<p>Ignoring the dire prediction, Marcel continued: "Good dog are all gone
+at Whale Riviere Post from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> de maladie. De Husky have plenty dog. I meet
+dem on de coast before dey reach Whale Riviere an' want too much fur for
+dem. Maybe I starve; maybe I drown een de strong-water; maybe de Windigo
+get me; but I go."</p>
+
+<p>And he did.</p>
+
+<p>With a shrug of contempt for the tales of the medicine men, dramatically
+rehearsed with all the embellishment which the imagination of his
+superstitious partners could invent, the following day Marcel started.</p>
+
+<p>"Bo'-jo', Antoine!" he said, as he gripped his friend's hand. "I meet
+you at Whale Riviere."</p>
+
+<p>The face of Beaulieu only too patently reflected his thoughts as he
+shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Bo'-jo', Jean, I nevaire see you again."</p>
+
+<p>"You are dead man, Jean," added Piquet; "we tell Julie Breton dat your
+bones lie up dere." And the half-breed pointed north to the dim, blue
+hills of dread.</p>
+
+<p>So with fur-pack and outfit, and as much smoked caribou as he dared
+carry, Marcel poled his canoe up the Ghost, later to portage across the
+divide into the trailless land where, in the memory of living man, the
+feet of no hunter of the Hudson's Bay Company had strayed.</p>
+
+<p>It was a reckless venture&mdash;this attempt to reach the Bay through an
+unknown country. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> demons of the Cree conjurors he did not fear, for
+his father and his mother's father, who had journeyed, starved, and
+feasted in trailless lands, from Labrador to the great Barren Grounds,
+had never seen one or heard the wailing of the Windigo in the night. But
+what he did fear was the possibility of weeks of wandering in his search
+for the main stream, lost in a labyrinth of headwater lakes where game
+might be scarce and fish difficult to net. For his smoked meat would
+take him but a short way, when his rifle and net would have to see him
+through.</p>
+
+<p>But the risk was worth taking. If he could reach the Esquimos on their
+spring journey south to the post, before they learned of the scarcity of
+dogs at Whale River, he could obtain huskies at a fair trade in fur. And
+a dog-team was his heart's desire.</p>
+
+<p>Portaging over the divide to the large lake, now clear of ice, Marcel
+followed its winding outlet into the northwest. There were days when,
+baffled by a maze of water routes in a network of lakes, he despaired of
+finding the main stream. There were nights when he lay supperless by his
+fire thinking of Julie Breton, the black-eyed sister of the Oblat
+Missionary at Whale River&mdash;nights when the forebodings of his partners
+returned to mock him as a maniacal mewing broke the silence of the
+forest, or, across the valleys, drifted low wailing sobs,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> like the
+grieving of a Cree mother for her dead child.</p>
+
+<p>But in the veins of Jean Marcel coursed the blood of old
+<i>coureurs-de-bois</i>. His parents, victims of the influenza which had
+swept the coast the year previous, had left him the heritage of a
+dauntless spirit. Lost and starving though he was, he smiled grimly as
+the roving wolverine and the lynx turned the night into what would have
+been a thing of horror to the superstitious breeds.</p>
+
+<p>When, gaunt from toil and the lack of food, Marcel finally found the
+main stream and shot a bear, he knew he would reach the Esquimos. Two
+hundred miles of racing river he rapidly put behind him and one June day
+rounded the bend above a long white-water. The <i>voyageur</i> ran the
+rapids, rode the "boilers" at the foot of the last pitch and shot into
+deep water again. But as he swung inshore to rid the craft of the slop
+picked up in the churning "strong-water" behind him, Marcel's eyes
+widened in surprise. He was nearer the sea than he had guessed. His last
+rapids had been run. He had reached his goal, for on the shore stood the
+squat skin lodges of an Esquimo camp, and moving about on the beach, he
+saw the shaggy objects of his quest.</p>
+
+<p>The lean face of the youth who had bearded the dreaded Windigo in their
+lair shaped a wide smile.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> He, too, would dance at the spring trade at
+Whale River, and lashed to stakes by his tent in the post clearing, a
+pair of priceless Ungavas would add their howls to the chorus when the
+dogs pointed their noses at the new moon.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<h4>THE END OF THE TRAIL</h4>
+
+
+<p>In his joy at his good luck, Marcel had momentarily forgotten the
+ancient feud between the Esquimo and the Cree. Then he realized his
+position. These rapids of the Salmon were an age-old fishing ground of
+the Esquimos, who, with their dogs, are called "Huskies." No birch-bark
+had ever run the broken waters behind him&mdash;no Indian hunted so far
+north. If among these people there were any who traded at Whale River
+where Cree and Esquimo met in amity, they would recognize the son of the
+old Company head man, André Marcel, and welcome him. But should they
+chance to be wild Huskies who did not come south to the post, they would
+mistake him for a Cree, and resenting his entering their territory,
+attack him.</p>
+
+<p>Drawing his rifle from its skin case, he placed it at his feet and poled
+slowly toward the shore where a bedlam of howls from the dogs signalled
+his approach. The clamor quickly emptied the lodges scattered along the
+beach. A group of Huskies, armed with rifle and seal spear, now watched
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> strange craft. So close was the canoe that only by a miracle could
+Marcel hope to escape down-stream if they started shooting.</p>
+
+<p>Alive to his danger, the Frenchman snubbed his boat, leaning on his
+pole, while his anxious eyes searched for a familiar figure in the
+skin-clad throng, who talked and gesticulated in evident excitement. But
+among them he found no friendly face.</p>
+
+<p>Was it for this he had slaved overland to the Salmon and starved through
+the early spring&mdash;a miserable death; when he had won through to his
+goal&mdash;when the yelps of the dogs he sought rang in his ears? Surely,
+among these Huskies, there were some who traded at the post.</p>
+
+<p>"Kekway!" he called, "I am white man from Whale River!"</p>
+
+<p>The muscles of Jean Marcel set, tense as wire cables, as he watched for
+a hostile movement from the Huskies, silenced by his shout. Seemingly
+surprised by his action, no answer was returned from the shore. Slowly
+his hopes died. They were wild Esquimos and would show no mercy to the
+supposed Cree invader of their hereditary fishing ground.</p>
+
+<p>But still the movement which the Frenchman's roving eyes awaited, was
+delayed. Not a gun in the whispering throng on the beach was raised;
+not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> a word in Esquimo addressed to the stranger. Mystified, desperate
+from the strain of the suspense, Marcel called again, this time in post
+Husky:</p>
+
+<p>"I am white man, from the fort at Whale River. Is there one among you
+who trades there?"</p>
+
+<p>At the words, the tension of the sullen group seemed to relax. Pointing
+to a thick-set figure striding up the beach, a Husky shouted:</p>
+
+<p>"There is one who goes to Whale River!"</p>
+
+<p>The <i>voyageur</i> expelled the air from his lungs with relief. Too long,
+with pounding heart, he had steeled himself to face erect, swift death
+from the near shore. A wrong move, and a hail of lead would have emptied
+his canoe. Then to his joy he recognized the man who approached.</p>
+
+<p>"Kovik!" he shouted. "Eet ees Jean Marcel from Whale Riviere!"</p>
+
+<p>The Husky waved his hand to Marcel, joined his comrades, and, for a
+space, there was much talk and shaking of heads; then he called to Jean
+to come ashore.</p>
+
+<p>Grounding his canoe, Marcel gripped the hand of the grinning Kovik while
+the Huskies fell back eying them with mingled curiosity and fear.</p>
+
+<p>"Husky say you bad spirit, Kovik say you son little chief, Whale River.
+W'ere you come?"</p>
+
+<p>It was clear, now, why the Esquimos had not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> wiped him out. They had
+thought him a demon, for Esquimo tradition, as well as Cree, made the
+upper Salmon the abode of evil spirits.</p>
+
+<p>"I look for hunteen ground, on de head of riviere," explained Jean, for
+the admission that he was in search of dogs would only defeat the
+purpose of his journey.</p>
+
+<p>"Good dat Kovik come," returned the Esquimo. "Some say shoot you; some
+say you eat de bullet an' de Husky."</p>
+
+<p>To this difference of opinion Marcel owed his life.</p>
+
+<p>As Kovik finished his explanation, Jean laughed: "No, I camp wid no
+Windigo up riviere; but I starve."</p>
+
+<p>At this gentle hint, Marcel was invited to join in the supper of boiled
+seal and goose which was waiting at the tepee. When Kovik had prevailed
+upon some of the older Esquimos to forget their fears and shake hands
+with the man who had appeared from the land of spirits, Jean stowed his
+outfit on the cache of the Husky, freed his canoe of water and placing
+it beside his packs, joined the family party. Shaking hands in turn with
+Kovik's grinning wife and children, who remembered him at Whale River,
+Marcel hungrily attacked the kettle, into which each dipped fingers and
+cup indiscriminately. Finishing, he passed a plug of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> Company
+nigger-head to his hosts and lit his own pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"W'ere you' woman?" abruptly inquired the thick-set mother of many.</p>
+
+<p>"No woman," replied Marcel, thinking of three spruce crosses in the
+Mission cemetery at Whale River.</p>
+
+<p>"No woman, you? No dog?" pressed the curious wife of Kovik.</p>
+
+<p>"No famile." And Jean told of the deaths of parents and younger brother,
+from the plague of the summer before. But he failed to mention the fact
+that most of the dogs at the post had been wiped out at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Ah!" groaned the Huskies at the Frenchman's tale of the scourge
+which had swept the Hudson's Bay posts to the south.</p>
+
+<p>"He good man&mdash;Marcel! He fr'en' of me!" lamented Kovik. Sucking his
+pipe, he gravely nodded again and again. Surely, he intimated, the
+Company had displeased the spirits of evil to have been so punished.
+Then he asked: "W'ere you dog?"</p>
+
+<p>"On Whale Riviere," returned Jean grimly, referring to their bones; his
+eyes held by the great dogs sprawled about the beach. No such sled-dogs
+as these had he ever seen at the post, even with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> Esquimos. But his
+grave face betrayed no sign of what was in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Massive of bone and frame, with coats unusually heavy, even for the
+far-famed Ungava breed, Jean noted the strength and size of these
+magnificent beasts as a horseman marks the points of a blooded colt.
+Somewhat apart from the other dogs of Kovik, tumbling and roughing each
+other, frolicked four clumsy puppies, while the mother, a great
+slate-gray and white animal, lay near, watching her progeny through eyes
+whose lower lids, edged with red, marked the wolf strain. While those
+slant eyes kept restless guard, to molest one of her leggy, yelping imps
+of Satan would have been the bearding of a hundred furies. The older
+dogs, evidently knowing the power in the snap of her white fangs,
+avoided the puppies.</p>
+
+<p>One, in particular, Marcel noticed as they romped and roughed each other
+on the shore, or with a brave show of valor, noisily charged their
+recumbent mother, only to be sent about their business with the mild
+reprimand of a nip from her long fangs. Larger, and of sturdier build
+than her brothers, this puppy, in marking, was the counterpart of the
+mother, having the same slate-gray patches on head and back and wearing
+white socks. As he watched her bully her brothers, Jean resolved to buy
+that four-months'-old puppy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>As the northern twilight filled the river valley, the Huskies returned
+to the lodge, where Jean squeezed in between two younger members of the
+family whose characteristic aroma held sleep from the fatigued
+<i>voyageur</i> long enough for him to decide on a plan of action. Before he
+started to trade for dogs he must learn if the Esquimos knew that they
+were scarce at the fur-posts. If rumor of this relayed up the coast from
+Husky hunting party to hunting party, had reached them, he would be
+lucky to get even a puppy. They would send their spare dogs to the
+posts.</p>
+
+<p>The following morning, at the suggestion of Kovik, Marcel set his
+gill-net for whitefish on the opposite shore of the wide river, as the
+younger Esquimos showed unmistakably by their actions that his presence
+at the salmon fishing, soon to begin, was resented. But Jean needed food
+for his journey down the coast and for the dogs he hoped to buy, so
+ignored the dark looks cast at the mysterious white man, the friend of
+Kovik. But not until evening did he casually suggest to the Husky that
+he had more dogs than he could feed through the summer.</p>
+
+<p>The broad face of Kovik widened in a mysterious smile as he asked: "You
+geeve black fox for dog?"</p>
+
+<p>Marcel's hopes fell at the words. It was an unheard of price for a dog.
+The Husky knew.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>Masking his chagrin, the Frenchman laughed in ridicule:</p>
+
+<p>"I geeve otter for dog."</p>
+
+<p>Kovik shook his head, his narrowed eyes wrinkling in amusement. "No
+husky W'ale Riv'&mdash;For' Geor'. Me trade husky W'ale Riv'."</p>
+
+<p>It was useless to bargain further. The Husky knew the value of his dogs
+at the posts, and Jean could not afford to rob his fur-pack to get one.
+There was much that he needed at Whale River&mdash;and then there was Julie.
+It was necessary to increase his credit with the Company to pay for the
+home he would some day build for Julie and himself. So, when Kovik
+promptly refused a valuable cross-fox pelt for a dog, the disheartened
+boy gave it up.</p>
+
+<p>But after the toil and lean days of the long trail he had taken to meet
+the Esquimos, he could not return to Whale River empty handed. He
+coveted the slate-gray and white puppy. Never had he seen a husky of her
+age with such bone&mdash;such promise as a sled dog. And her spirit&mdash;at four
+months she would bare her puppy fangs at an infringement of her rights
+by an old dog, as though she already wore the scars of many a brawl.
+Handsomer than her brothers, leader of the litter by virtue of a build
+more rugged, a stronger will, she was the favorite of Kovik's children.
+That they would object to parting with her; that the Husky would demand
+an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> exorbitant price he now knew; but he was determined to have the
+puppy. However, he resolved to wait until the following day, renew the
+bargaining for a grown dog, then suddenly make an offer for the puppy.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Jean Marcel again offered a high price for a dog, but
+the smiling Husky would not relent. Then Marcel, pointing at the female
+puppy, offered the pelt of a marten for her.</p>
+
+<p>To Jean's surprise, the owner refused to part with any of the litter.
+They would be better than the adult dogs&mdash;these children of the
+slate-gray husky&mdash;he said, and he would sell but one or two, even at
+Whale River, where the Company needed dogs badly and would pay more than
+Marcel could offer.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bitter moment for the lad who had swung his canoe inshore at
+the Husky camp with such high hopes. And he realized that it would be
+useless to turn north from the mouth of the Salmon in search of dogs.
+Now that they had learned of conditions at the fur-posts, no Esquimos
+bound south for the spring trade would sell a dog at a reasonable price.</p>
+
+<p>As the disheartened Marcel watched with envious eyes the puppies, which
+he realized were beyond his means to obtain, the cries from the shore of
+the eldest son of his host aroused the camp. Above<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> them, in the chutes
+at the foot of the white-water, flashes of silver marked the leaping
+vanguards of the salmon run, on their way to spring-fed streams at the
+river's head.</p>
+
+<p>Seizing their salmon spears the Esquimos hurried up-stream to take their
+stands on rocks which the fish might pass. Having no spear Jean watched
+the younger Kovik wade through the strong current out to a rock within
+spearing reach of a deep chute of black water. Presently the crouching
+lad drove his spear into the flume at his feet and was struggling on the
+rock with a large salmon. Killing the fish with his knife, he threw it,
+with a cry of triumph, to the beach. Again he waited, muscles tense, his
+right arm drawn back for the lunge. Again, as a silvery shape darted up
+the chute, the boy struck with his spear. But so anxious was he to drive
+the lance home, that, missing the fish, his lunge carried him head-first
+into the swift water.</p>
+
+<p>With a shout of warning to those above, Jean Marcel ran down the beach.
+His canoe was out of reach on the cache with the Husky's kayak, and the
+clumsy skin umiak of the family was useless for quick work. In his
+sealskin boots and clothes the lad would be carried to the foot of the
+rapids and drowned. Jean reached the "boilers" below the white-water
+before the body of the helpless Esquimo appeared. Plunging into the
+ice-cold river<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> he swam out into the current below the tail of the
+chute, and when the half-drowned lad floundered to the surface, seized
+him by his heavy hair. As they were swept down-stream an eddy threw
+their bodies together, and in spite of Marcel's desperate efforts, the
+arms of the Husky closed on him in vise-like embrace. Strong as he was,
+the Frenchman could not break the grip, and they sank.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>voyageur</i> rose to the surface fighting to free himself from the
+clinging Esquimo, but in vain; then his sinewy fingers found the throat
+of the half-conscious boy and taking a long breath, he again went down
+with his burden. When the two came up Marcel was free. With a grip on
+the long hair of the now senseless lad he made the shore, and dragging
+the Husky from the water, stretched exhausted on the beach.</p>
+
+<p>Shaking with cold he lay panting beside the still body of the boy, when
+the terrified Esquimos reached them.</p>
+
+<p>The welcome heat of a large fire soon thawed the chill from the bones of
+Marcel; but the anxious parents desperately rolled and pounded the
+Husky, starting his blood and ridding his stomach of water, before he
+finally regained his voice, begging them to cease.</p>
+
+<p>With the boy out of danger they turned to his rescuer, and only by
+vigorous objection did Marcel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> escape the treatment administered the
+Husky. He would prefer drowning, he protested with a grimace, to the
+pounding they had given the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"You lak' seal in de water," cried the relieved father with admiration,
+when he had lavished his thanks upon Jean; for the Esquimos, although
+passing their lives on or near the water, because of its low
+temperature, never learn to swim.</p>
+
+<p>"My fader taught me to swim een shallow lak' by Fort George," explained
+the modest Frenchman.</p>
+
+<p>"He die, eef you no sweem lak' seal," added the grateful mother, her
+round face oily with sweat from the vigorous rubbing of her son, now
+snoring peacefully by the fire.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Huskies returned to their fishing, for precious time was being
+wasted. The boy's spear was found washed up on the beach and loaned to
+Jean, who labored the remainder of the day spearing salmon for his
+journey down the coast.</p>
+
+<p>That evening, after supper, Jean sat on a stone in front of the tepee
+watching the active puppies. Inside the skin lodge the Esquimo and his
+wife conversed in low tones. Shortly they appeared and Kovik, grinning
+from long side-lock to side-lock, said:</p>
+
+<p>"You good man! You trade dat dog?" He pointed at the large slate-gray
+puppy sprawled near them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>The dark features of Jean Marcel lighted with eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"I geeve two marten for de dog," he said, rising quickly.</p>
+
+<p>The Husky turned to the woman, shaking his head.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel's lip curled at the avarice of these people whose son he had so
+recently snatched from death.</p>
+
+<p>Then Kovik, seemingly changing his mind, seized the puppy by the loose
+skin of her neck and dragged her, protesting vigorously, to Jean, while
+the mother dog came trotting up, ears erect, curious of what the master
+she feared was doing with her progeny.</p>
+
+<p>"Dees you' dog!" said the Esquimo.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel patted the back of the puppy, still in the grasp of her owner,
+while she muttered her wrath at the touch of the stranger. Although they
+owed him much, he thought, yet these Huskies wished to make him pay
+dearly for the dog. Still he was glad to get her, even at such a price.
+So he went to the cache, loosened the lashings of his fur-pack, and
+returned with two prime marten pelts, offering them to the Esquimo.</p>
+
+<p>Again Kovik's round face was divided by a grin. The wrinkles radiated
+from the narrow eyes which snapped.</p>
+
+<p>"You lak' seal in riv'&mdash;ketch boy. Tak' de dog<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>&mdash;we no want skin." And
+shaking his head, the Husky pushed away the pelts.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the face of Marcel changed with surprise as he sensed the import
+of Kovik's words. They were making him a present of the dog.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;you geeve to me&mdash;dese puppy?" he stammered, staring into the
+grinning face of the Esquimo, delighted with the success of his little
+ruse.</p>
+
+<p>Kovik nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"T'anks, t'anks!" cried Jean, his eyes suspiciously moist as he wrung
+the Husky's hand, then seized that of the chuckling woman. "You are good
+people; I not forget de Kovik."</p>
+
+<p>He had done these honest Esquimos a wrong. Now, after the fear of
+defeat, and the bitterness, the puppy he had coveted was his. He was not
+to return to Whale River empty handed, the laughing-stock of his
+partners. It had been indeed worth while, his plunge into the bad-lands,
+for in two years he would have the dog-team of his dreams. Some day this
+four-months-old puppy should make the fortune of Jean Marcel.</p>
+
+<p>But little he realized, as he exulted in his good luck, how vital a part
+in his life, and in the life of Julie Breton, this wild puppy with the
+white socks was to play.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<h4>THE FRIEND OF DEMONS</h4>
+
+
+<p>When Marcel put his canoe into the water the following morning, to cross
+to his net, three young Esquimos, who had been loitering near Kovik's
+lodge, followed him to the beach, and as he left the shore, hurled at
+his back a torrent of Husky abuse.</p>
+
+<p>What he had hoped to avoid had come. It would have been better to listen
+to Kovik's warning against delaying his departure and attempting to fish
+at the rapids after the salmon arrived. The use of the boy's spear, the
+day previous, had brought the feeling among the younger men to a head.
+They meant to drive him down river.</p>
+
+<p>Removing the whitefish and small salmon, Jean lifted his net and
+stretching it to dry on the shore, recrossed the stream. On the beach
+awaiting his return were the Huskies. Clearly, they had decided that he
+was possessed of no supernatural powers and could now be bullied with
+impunity. As he did not wish to embroil his friend Kovik in his defense,
+when he had smoked his last catch he would leave. But the blood of the
+fighting Marcels was slowly coming to a boil. If these raw fish-eaters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+thought that they could frighten the grandson of the famous Étienne
+Lacasse, and the son of André Marcel, whose strength was a tradition on
+the East Coast, he could show them their mistake. Still, avoid trouble
+he must, for a fight would be suicide.</p>
+
+<p>So ignoring the Huskies, who talked together in low tones, Marcel
+landed, cleaned some fish for the Koviks' kettle, and carried them up to
+the tepee where the family were still asleep. Returning, the hot blood
+rose to the bronzed face of the Frenchman at what he saw.</p>
+
+<p>The three Esquimos were coolly feeding his fish to the dogs.</p>
+
+<p>Reckless of the consequences, in the blind rage which choked him, Marcel
+reached the pilferers of his canoe before they realized that he was on
+them. Seizing one by his long hair, with a wrench he hurled the
+surprised Husky backward into the water and sent a second reeling to the
+stony beach with a fierce blow in the face. The third, retreating from
+the fury of the attack of the maddened white man, drew his skinning
+knife; but seizing his paddle, Marcel sent the knife spinning with a
+vicious slash which doubled the screaming Husky over a broken wrist.
+Turning, he saw his first victims making down the beach toward the
+tepees, while the uproar of the dogs was swiftly arousing the camp.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>Then, as his blood cooled and his judgment returned, the youth, who had
+suffered and dared much that he might have dogs for the next long snows,
+realized the height of his folly. They had baited him into furnishing
+them with an excuse for attacking him. Now even the faithful Kovik would
+be helpless against them. He would never see Whale River and Julie
+Breton again. Already the Huskies were emerging from their tepees, to
+hear the tale of his late antagonists. There was no time to lose before
+they rushed him.</p>
+
+<p>Bounding up the beach to Kovik's tepee for his rifle, he rapidly
+explained the situation to the Esquimo, while in his ears rang the
+shouts of the excited Huskies and the yelping of the dogs. Jean did not
+hope to escape alive from this bedlam, but of one thing he was sure, he
+would die like a Marcel, with a smoking gun in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Urging Jean to get his fur-pack and smoked fish to his canoe at once,
+Kovik hurried down the shore to the knot of wildly excited Esquimos.</p>
+
+<p>With the aid of the grateful wife and son of Kovik, Marcel's canoe was
+swiftly loaded and his treasured puppy lashed in the bow. But the rush
+up the beach of an infuriated throng bent on his death, which Marcel
+stoically awaited beside a large boulder, was delayed. Not a hundred
+yards distant, the doughty Kovik, the center of an argu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>ing mob, was
+fighting with all the wits he possessed for the man who had saved his
+son. For Marcel to attempt to escape by water would only have drawn the
+fire of the Huskies and nullified Kovik's efforts, and their kayaks,
+faster than any canoe, were below him. A break for the "bush," even if
+successful, in the end, meant starvation. So with extra cartridges
+between his teeth, and in his hands, Jean Marcel grimly fingered the
+trigger-guard of his rifle, as he waited at the boulder for the turn of
+the dice down the shore.</p>
+
+<p>Minutes, each one an eternity to the man at bay, passed. But Kovik still
+held his men, and Marcel clearly noted a change in the manner of the
+Huskies. The shouting had ceased. His friend was winning.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly, Kovik left the group and walked rapidly toward Marcel, followed
+at a distance by his people.</p>
+
+<p>"Dey keel you, but Kovik say you fr'en' wid spirit; he come down riv'
+an' eat Husky," explained the worried defender of Jean. "Kovik say you
+shoot wid spirit gun, all de Husky; so you go, queek!"</p>
+
+<p>The broad face of Kovik split in a grim smile as he gripped the hand of
+the relieved Marcel and pushed off his canoe. Thus, doubly, had the
+loyal Esquimo paid for the life of his son.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>With the emotions of a man suddenly reprieved from a sentence of death,
+Marcel poled his canoe out into the current. Behind him, the Esquimos
+had already joined Kovik on the shore, when, warned by a shout from his
+friend, Marcel instinctively ducked as a seal spear whistled over his
+head. Some doubter was testing the magic of the white demon.</p>
+
+<p>Seizing his paddle Jean swiftly crossed the river and secured his
+precious net. But he was not yet rid of his enemies. If the young men,
+conquering their fear of his friendship with demons, at once launched
+their kayaks, they could overhaul his loaded canoe. But once clear of
+the last tepees, with his pursuers behind him, he was confident that he
+could pick them off with his rifle as fast as they came up in their
+rocking craft.</p>
+
+<p>With all the power of his iron back and shoulders, Jean drove his canoe
+on the strong current; but Kovik had the Huskies in hand and they did
+not follow. Shortly he had passed the last lodge on the shore and the
+camp was soon in the distance. It seemed like a dream&mdash;his peril of the
+last hour; and now, a free man again, with his puppy in the bow, he was
+on his way to the coast and Julie Breton.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly two rifles cracked in the rocks on the near beach. The paddle
+of Marcel dropped from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> his limp hands. Headlong he lurched to the floor
+of the canoe. Again the guns spat from the boulders. Two bullets whined
+over the birch-bark. But save for the yelping puppy in the bow, there
+was no movement in the canoe, as it slid, the cat's-paw of the current.</p>
+
+<p>Waving their arms in triumph at the collapse of the feared white man,
+whose magic had been impotent before their bullets, the Huskies hurried
+along shore after the canoe. Carried by breeze and current, with its
+whimpering puppy and silent human freight the craft grounded a half-mile
+below the ambush. On came the chattering pair of assassins, already
+quarrelling over the division of the outfit of the dead man&mdash;delirious
+with the sweetness of their vengeance for the rough handling the
+stricken one in the canoe had meted out to them but an hour before. The
+dog, although lashed to the bow thwart, had managed to crawl out of the
+boat and was struggling with the thongs which held her, when the Huskies
+came running up. Staring into the birch-bark, they turned to each other
+gray faces on which was written ghastly fear.</p>
+
+<p>The canoe was empty!</p>
+
+<p>The white man they had thought to find a bloodied heap, was, after all,
+a maker of magic&mdash;a friend of demons. Kovik had told the truth. They
+were lost!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>Palsied with dread, their feet frozen to the beach, the young ruffians
+awaited the swift vengeance of their enemy. And it came.</p>
+
+<p>Hard by, a rifle crashed in the boulders. With a scream, a Husky reeled
+backward with a shattered hand, as his gun, torn from his grasp by the
+impact of the bullet, rattled on the stones. A second shot, splintering
+the butt of his rifle, hurled the other to his knees. Then with a
+demonical yell, Marcel sprang from his ambush.</p>
+
+<p>Running like caribou jumped by barren-ground wolves, the panic-stricken
+Huskies fled from the place of horror, pursued by the ricochetting
+bullets of the white demon, until they disappeared up the shore.</p>
+
+<p>"A'voir, M'sieurs!" cried Marcel. "De nex' tam you ambush cano', don'
+let eet dref behin' de point." And shaking with laughter, turned to his
+yelping puppy, frenzied with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"De Husky t'ink we not go to Whale Riviere, eh?" he said, stroking the
+trembling shoulders of the worrying dog. "But Jean and hees petite
+chienne, dey see Julie Breton jus' de same."</p>
+
+<p>Putting his puppy in the canoe, Marcel continued on down the river.</p>
+
+<p>When the shots from ambush whined past his face, Marcel had flattened to
+the floor of the craft, both for cover and to deceive the Huskies. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+second shots convinced him that he had but two to deal with. Slitting
+the bark skin near the gunwale, that he might watch the shore without
+betraying the fact that he was conscious, and thereby draw their fire,
+while they were protected from his by the boulders, he learned that the
+craft was working toward the beach.</p>
+
+<p>His plan was swiftly made. Driven by the racing current, the canoe had
+already left the Esquimos, following the shore, in the rear. He would
+allow the craft to ground and hold his fire until they were on top of
+him. But the boat finally reached the beach at a point hidden from the
+pursuing Huskies. With a bound Marcel was out of the canoe and concealed
+among the rocks. Great as was the temptation to leave the men who had
+ambushed him in cold blood, shot upon the beach, a sinister warning to
+their fellows, the thought of Kovik's position at the camp forced him to
+content himself with disarming and sending them shrieking up the shore
+with his bullets worrying their heels.</p>
+
+<p>Often, during the day, as Marcel put mile after mile of the Salmon
+between himself and the camp at the rapids, the puppy cocked curious
+ears as the new master ceased paddling, to roar with laughter at the
+memory of two flying Esquimos.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<h4>HOME AND JULIE BRETON</h4>
+
+
+<p>That night Marcel camped at the river's mouth and watched the gray
+waters of the great Bay drown the sinking sun. Somewhere, far down the
+bold East Coast the Great Whale emptied into the salt "Big Water" of the
+Crees. He remembered having heard the old men at the post say that the
+Big Salmon lay four "sleeps" of fair weather to the north&mdash;four days of
+hard paddling, as the Company canoes travel, if the sea was flat and the
+wind light. But if he were wind-bound, as was likely heading south in
+the spring, it might take weeks. He had a hundred pounds of cured fish
+and could wait out the wind, but the thought of Julie, who by this time
+must have learned from his partners of his mad journey, made Jean
+anxious to reach the post. He preferred to be welcomed living than
+mourned as dead. He wondered how deeply she would feel it&mdash;his death.
+Ah, if she only cared for him as he loved her! Well, she should love him
+in time, when he had become a <i>voyageur</i> of the Company, with a house at
+the post, he told himself, as he patted his shy puppy before turning
+into his blankets.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>The second day out he was driven ashore under gray cliffs by a
+south-wester and spent the succeeding three days in overcoming the
+shyness of the hulking puppy, who, in the gentleness of the new master,
+found swift solace for the loss of her shaggy kinsmen of the Husky camp.
+Already she had learned that the human hand could caress as well as
+wield a stick, and for the first time in her short existence, was
+initiated into the mystery and delight of having her ears rubbed and
+back scratched by this master who did not kick her out of the way when
+she sprawled in his path. And because of her beauty, and in memory of
+Fleur Marcel, the mother he had loved, he named her Fleur.</p>
+
+<p>When the sea flattened out after the blow, Marcel launched his canoe,
+and, with his dog in the bow, continued south. Not a wheeling gull,
+flock of whistling yellow-legs, or whiskered face of inquisitive seal,
+thrust from the water only as quickly to disappear, escaped the notice
+of the eager puppy. Passing low islands where teal and pin-tail rose in
+clouds at his approach, driving Fleur into a frenzy of excitement, at
+last he turned in behind a long island paralleling the coast.</p>
+
+<p>For two days Jean travelled down the strait in the lee of this island
+and knew when he passed out into open water and saw in the distance the
+familiar coast of the Whale River mouth, that he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> travelled through
+the mystic Manitounuk, the Esquimos' Strait of the Spirit. The following
+afternoon off Sable Point he entered the clear water of the Great Whale
+and once again, after ten months' absence, saw on the bold shore in the
+distance the roofs of Whale River.</p>
+
+<p>There was a lump in the throat of Jean Marcel as he gazed at the distant
+fur-post. That little settlement, with its log trade-house and church of
+the Oblat Fathers, the last outpost of the Great Company on the bleak
+East Coast, which for two centuries had defied the grim north, stood for
+all he held most dear&mdash;was home. There, in the church burial ground
+enclosed by a slab fence, three spruce crosses marked the graves of his
+father, mother and brother. There in the Mission House, built by Cree
+converts, lived Julie Breton.</p>
+
+<p>As the young flood swept him up-stream he wondered if already he had
+been counted as lost by his friends at the post&mdash;for it was July;
+whether the thoughts of Julie Breton sometimes wandered north to the lad
+who had disappeared into the Ungava hills on a mad quest; or if, with
+the others, she had given him up as starved or drowned&mdash;numbered him
+with that fated legion who had gone out into the wide north never to
+return.</p>
+
+<p>Nearing the post, the canoe began to pass the floats of gill-nets set
+for whitefish and salmon. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> could now see the tepees of the Whale
+River Crees, dotting the high shores, and below, along the beach, the
+squat skin lodges of the Huskies, with their fish scaffolds and umiaks.
+The spring trade was on.</p>
+
+<p>Beaching his canoe at the Company landing, where he was welcomed as one
+returned from the dead by two post Crees, Marcel, leading his dog by a
+rawhide thong, sought the Mission House.</p>
+
+<p>At his knock the door was opened by a girl with dusky eyes and masses of
+black hair, who stared in amazement at the <i>voyageur</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Julie!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>Then she found her voice, while the blood flushed her olive skin.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean Marcel! <i>vous ętes revenu!</i> You have come back!" exclaimed the
+girl, continuing the conversation in French.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jean! We had great fear you might not return." He was holding both
+her hands but, embarrassed, she did not meet his eager eyes seeking to
+read her thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, <i>M'sieu le voyageur</i>!" and she led him gayly into the Mission.
+"Henri, Pčre Henri!" she called. "Jean Marcel has returned from the
+dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"Jean, my son!" replied a deep voice, and Pčre Breton was vigorously
+embracing the man he had thought never to see again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>"Father, your greeting is somewhat warmer than that of Julie," laughed
+the happy youth, as the bearded priest surveyed him at arm's length.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, she has spoken much of you, Jean, this spring. None the worse for
+the long voyage, my son?" he continued. "You will be the talk of Whale
+River; the Crees said you could not get through. And you got your dogs?
+We have only curs here, except those of the Huskies, and they are very
+dear."</p>
+
+<p>"The Huskies would not sell their dogs, Father. They were bringing them
+to Whale River."</p>
+
+<p>Then Marcel sketched briefly to his wondering friends the history of his
+wanderings and his meeting with the Huskies on the Big Salmon.</p>
+
+<p>As he finished the tale of his escape from the camp with his puppy, and
+later from the ambush, Julie Breton's dark eyes were wet with tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jean Marcel, why did you take such risks? You might have
+starved&mdash;they might have killed you!"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes lighted with tenderness as they met the girl's questioning
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"I had to have dogs, Julie. I must save my credit with the Company. It
+was the only way."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see your puppy! Where is she?" demanded the girl.</p>
+
+<p>Jean led his friends outside the Mission, where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> he had fastened his
+dog. The wild puppy shrank from the strangers, the hair bristling on her
+neck, as Julie impulsively thrust a hand toward the dog's handsome head.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but she is cross!" she exclaimed. "What is her name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur; it was my mother's."</p>
+
+<p>"Too nice a name for such an impolite dog!"</p>
+
+<p>Jean stroked Fleur's head as she crouched against his legs muttering her
+dislike of strangers. At his caress, her warm tongue sought his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"There," he said proudly, his white teeth flashing in a grin at Julie,
+"you see here is one who loves Jean Marcel."</p>
+
+<p>At the invitation of Pčre Breton, the <i>voyageur</i> shut his dog in the
+Mission stockade, where she would be free from attack by the post
+Huskies and safe from some covetous Cree, and gladly took possession of
+an empty room in the building.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+<h4>THE MOON OF FLOWERS</h4>
+
+
+<p>As the grim fastnesses reaching away to the north and east and south in
+limitless, ice-locked solitude, had wakened to the magic touch of
+spring, so the little post at Whale River had quickened with life at the
+advent of June with the spring trade. For weeks, before the return of
+Marcel, the canoes of the Crees had been coming in daily from winter
+trapping grounds in far valleys. Around the tepees, which dotted the
+post clearing like mushrooms, groups of dark-skinned women, heads
+wrapped in gaudy shawls, laughed and gossiped, while the shrill voices
+of romping children filled the air, for the lean moons of the long snows
+had passed and the soft days returned.</p>
+
+<p>Swart hunters from Lac d'Iberville, half-breed Crees from the Whispering
+Hills and the Little Whale watershed, belted with colored Company
+sashes, wearing beaded leggings and moccasins, smoked and talked of the
+trade with wild <i>voyageurs</i> from Lac Bienville, the Lakes of the Winds,
+and the Starving River headwaters in the caribou barrens. From a hundred
+unmapped valleys they had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> journeyed to the Bay to trade their fox and
+lynx, their mink and fisher and marten, for the goods of the Company.</p>
+
+<p>Below, along the beach, Huskies from Richmond Gulf and the north coast,
+from the White Bear and the Sleeping Islands, who had brought ivory of
+the walrus, pelts of the white fox, seal, and polar bear, and sealskin
+boots, which only their women possess the art of making waterproof, were
+camped in low skin tepees, their priceless dogs tied up and under
+constant guard. But while the camp of the Esquimos was a bedlam of noisy
+huskies, the quarters of the Crees in the post clearing, formerly
+overrun by brawling sled-dogs, were now a place of peace. The plague of
+the previous summer had left the Indians but a scattering of curs.</p>
+
+<p>Carrying his fur-pack and outfit to the Mission, Marcel sought the
+trade-house. Passing the tepees of the Crees, he was forced to stop and
+receive the congratulations of the admiring hunters on his safe return
+from his "<i>longue traverse</i>" through the land of demons, which had been
+the gossip of the post since the arrival of Joe and Antoine.</p>
+
+<p>When his partners appeared, to stare in amazement at the man they had
+announced as dead, Jean made them wince as he gripped their hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Bo'-jo', Joe! Bo'-jo', Antoine!" he laughed. "You see de Windigo foun'
+Jean Marcel too tough<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> to eat! He ees good fr'en' to me now. De Husky
+t'ink me devil too."</p>
+
+<p>"I nevaire t'ink to see you alive at Whale Riviere, Jean Marcel!" cried
+the delighted Antoine.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you get de dog?" asked the practical Piquet.</p>
+
+<p>"Onlee one petite pup; de Husky would not trade." Then Jean hurriedly
+described his weeks on the Salmon.</p>
+
+<p>As he entered the door of the long trade-house he was seized by a giant
+Company man.</p>
+
+<p>"By Gar! Jean Marcel!" cried Jules Duroc, his swart face lighting with
+joy as he crushed the wanderer in a bear hug. "We t'ink you sure starve
+out een de bush! You fin' de Beeg Salmon headwater? You see de Windigo?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oui, I fin' de riviere for sure, Jules; but de Windigo he scared of me.
+I tell heem Jean Marcel ees fr'en' of Jules Duroc."</p>
+
+<p>The laughter in the doorway drew the attention of two men descending the
+ladder from the fur-loft.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as I live, Jean Marcel!" cried Colin Gillies, the factor, and he
+wrung the hand of the son of his old head man until Marcel grimaced with
+pain.</p>
+
+<p>"You're sure good for sore eyes, Jean; we were about giving you up!"
+added Andrew McCain, the clerk, seizing Jean's free hand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>"Bon jour, M'sieu Gillies! Bon jour, Andrew! Dey say I leeve my bones on
+de Beeg Salmon; de Husky shoot at me; but&mdash;Tiens! I am here!"</p>
+
+<p>"What? You had trouble with the Huskies?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oui, dey t'o't I was a devil, because I come down riviere from de
+Bad-Lands, but Kovik, he talk to dem an' I stay. Tell dem I come from
+Whale Riviere. Den dey get mad because I feesh salmon at de rapide and
+mak' trouble; and poor Kovik, he tell dem dat I am bad spirit, so I can
+get away."</p>
+
+<p>Jean laughed heartily at the memory of Kovik's dilemma. "Dey mus' t'ink
+poor Kovik ees damn liar by dees tam." Then he added soberly, "But he
+save my life."</p>
+
+<p>Seated with his three friends, Marcel told of his struggle to reach the
+Salmon, his meeting with the Esquimos, and escape with his dog.</p>
+
+<p>"So you got a dog after all, Jean? But you were crazy to take a chance
+with those Huskies; they won't stand trespassing on their fisheries and
+they were shy of you because you came from the headwaters. I'm glad you
+didn't kill that pair, much as they deserved it. It would have made
+trouble later."</p>
+
+<p>"Good old Kovik! We won't forget him," added McCain.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>"No, that we will not," agreed Gillies. "He thought a lot of your
+father, Jean."</p>
+
+<p>"Wal," said Jean proudly, "I weel have good dog-team een two year. Dat
+pup, she ees wort' all de work an' trouble to get her."</p>
+
+<p>"You're lucky," said Gillies. "It's mighty hard on our hunters not to
+have good dogs, but they couldn't pay the Huskies' price. The Crees only
+took three for breeding purposes, and six cost us a thousand in trade.
+The rest were taken to Fort George and East Main."</p>
+
+<p>The days at the Mission with Pčre Breton and Julie raced by&mdash;hours of
+unalloyed happiness for Jean after ten months in the "bush." Not a day
+passed that did not find him romping with the great puppy who had
+learned to gaze at her tall master through slant eyes eloquent with
+love. Each morning when he visited the Mission fish nets and his own,
+the puppy rode in the bow of the canoe. Each afternoon, often
+accompanied by Julie Breton, they went for a run up the river shore. Man
+and dog were inseparable.</p>
+
+<p>When he heard that Kovik had arrived, Jean brought Fleur down to the
+shore, to find the family absent from their lodge. To Marcel's
+amazement, his puppy at first failed to recognize her brothers, who,
+yelping madly, rushed her in a mass.</p>
+
+<p>With flattened ears, and mane stiffened on neck<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> and back, their doughty
+sister met them half-way. Bowling one over, she shouldered another to
+the ground, where she threatened him with a fierce display of teeth. And
+not until their worried mother, made fast to a stake, had recognized her
+lost daughter and lured her within reach of her tongue, did the nose of
+Jean's puppy reveal to her the identity of her kin. Then there was a mad
+frolic in which she bullied and roughed her brothers as in the forgotten
+days before the master with the low voice and the hand that never struck
+her, took her away in his canoe.</p>
+
+<p>When Kovik appeared in his umiak with his squat wife and family, there
+was a general handshaking.</p>
+
+<p>"How you leeve my fr'en' on de Salmon, Kovik?"</p>
+
+<p>The Husky gravely shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Kovik have troub' wid young men you shoot. Dey say Kovik bad spirit
+too. You not hurt by dem?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dey miss me an' I dreef down riviere an' ambush dem. I could keel dem
+easy but eet mak' eet bad for you. Here ees tabac, an' tea an' sugar for
+de woman. I tell M'sieu Gillies w'at you do for Jean Marcel."</p>
+
+<p>When Jean had distributed his gifts, Fleur came trotting up, but to his
+delight refused to allow Kovik to touch her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>"Huh! Dat you' dog!" chuckled the Husky.</p>
+
+<p>"Oui, she ees my dog, now," laughed Jean, and his heart went out to the
+puppy who already knew but one allegiance.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<h4>FOR LOVE OF A DOG</h4>
+
+
+<p>The spring trade at Whale River was nearing its end. One by one the
+tepees in the post clearing disappeared as, each day, canoes of Cree
+hunters started up-river for lakes of the interior, to net fish for the
+coming winter. Already the umiaks of the Esquimos peopled with women and
+children had followed the ebb-tide down to the great Bay, bound for
+their autumn hunting camps along the north coast.</p>
+
+<p>When Jean Marcel had traded his fur and purchased what flour, ammunition
+and other supplies he needed to carry him through the long snows of the
+coming winter, he found that a substantial balance remained to his
+credit on the books of the Company; a nest egg, he hoped, for the day
+when, perchance, as a <i>voyageur</i> of the Company with a house at the
+post, he might stand with Julie at his side and receive the blessing of
+the good Pčre Breton. But Jean realized that that day was far away.
+Before he might hope to be honored by the Company with the position and
+trust his father had so long enjoyed, he knew he must prove his mettle
+and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> worth; for the Company crews and dog-runners, entrusted with
+the mails, the fur-brigades and Company business in general, are men
+chosen for their intelligence, stamina and skill as canoemen and
+dog-drivers.</p>
+
+<p>When he had packed his last load of winter supplies from the trade-house
+to the Mission, he said with a laugh to Julie:</p>
+
+<p>"Julie, we have made a good start, you and I. We have credit of three
+hundred dollars with the Company."</p>
+
+<p>The olive skin of Julie Breton flushed to the dusky crown of hair, but
+she retorted with spirit:</p>
+
+<p>"You are counting your geese before they are shot, M'sieu Jean. Merci!
+But I am very happy with Pčre Henri."</p>
+
+<p>Pčre Breton's laugh interrupted Jean's reply. "Yes, my son. Julie is
+right. You are too young, you two, to think of anything but your souls."</p>
+
+<p>"Some day, Julie, I will be a Company man and then you will listen to
+Jean Marcel," and the lad who had cherished the memory of the girl's
+oval face through the long winter and taken it with him into the dim,
+blue Ungava hills, left the Mission with head erect and swinging stride.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean, when are you going back to the bush?" inquired Gillies, as Marcel
+entered the trade-house.</p>
+
+<p>"My partners and I go next week, maybe."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>"Well, I want you to take a canoe to Duck Island for me. We're
+short-handed here, and you have just come down that coast. I promised
+some Huskies to leave a cache of stuff there this summer."</p>
+
+<p>Marcel's dark features reddened with pride. He had been put in charge of
+a canoe bound on Company business. His crossing to the Big Salmon had
+marked him at Whale River as a canoeman of daring&mdash;a chip of the old
+block, worthy of the name Marcel.</p>
+
+<p>"Bien! M'sieu Gillies, when do we start?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-day, after dinner!"</p>
+
+<p>Returning to the Mission elated, Marcel ate his dinner, made up his pack
+while they wished him "Bon-voyage!" then went out to the stockade.</p>
+
+<p>At the gate he was met simultaneously by the impact of a shaggy body and
+the swift licks of an eager tongue. Then Fleur circled him at full
+speed, yelping her delight, while she worked off the excitement of
+seeing her playmate again, until, at length, she trotted up and nosed
+his hand, keen for the daily rubbing of her ears which drew from her
+deep throat grateful mutterings of content.</p>
+
+<p>"I leave my petite chienne for a few days," he whispered into a hairy
+ear. "She will be a good dog and obey Ma'm'selle Julie, who will feed
+her?"</p>
+
+<p>The puppy broke away and ran to the gate, turn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>ing to him with pricked
+ears as she whined for the daily stroll into the scrub after snow-shoe
+rabbits.</p>
+
+<p>"Non, ma petite! We walk not to-day!" He stroked the slate-gray back
+which trembled with her desire for a run with the master, then circling
+her shaggy neck with his arms, his face against hers, while she fretted
+as though she knew Jean was leaving her, said: "A'voir, Fleur!" and
+closed the gate.</p>
+
+<p>She stood grieving, her black nose thrust between the slab pickets, the
+slant eyes following Marcel's back until he disappeared. Then she raised
+her head and, in the manner of her kind, voiced her disappointment in a
+long howl. And the wail of his puppy struck with strange insistence upon
+the ears of Jean Marcel&mdash;like a premonition of misfortune which the
+future held for him and which he often recalled in the weeks to come.</p>
+
+<p>As the canoe of the Company journeyed through the Strait of the Spirit,
+flocks of gray geese, which were now leading their broods out to the
+coast islands from the muskegs of the interior, rose ahead, to sail away
+in their geometric formations, while clouds of pin-tail and black duck
+patrolled the low beaches.</p>
+
+<p>Jean left his cargo for the Huskies in a stone cache and running into a
+south-wester, while homeward bound, did not reach Whale River for a
+fort<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>night. As he approached the post, he made out at the log landing
+the Company steamer <i>Inenew</i>, loaded with trade goods from the depot at
+Charlton Island. Through the clearing, now almost bare of tepees, for
+the trade was over, he walked to the Mission. The door was opened by
+Julie Breton.</p>
+
+<p>"Bon-jour, Ma'm'selle Breton!" and he seized the unresponsive hand of
+the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to see you home safely, Jean." Something in the face and
+voice of the girl checked him.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, Julie?" he asked. "Pčre Henri; he is not ill?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Jean. Pčre Henri is well, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You do not seem glad to see me again, Julie!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad. You know that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he flung out, hurt at the girl's constrained manner, "I'll go
+and see someone who will welcome Jean Marcel with no sober face&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Jean!" she said as he turned away.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Ma'm'selle Breton?" and he smiled into her troubled eyes.
+"Fleur has missed me, I know. She will give Jean Marcel a true welcome
+home."</p>
+
+<p>"Jean&mdash;she is not there&mdash;they stole her!"</p>
+
+<p>The face of Jean Marcel twisted with pain.</p>
+
+<p>"Mon Dieu! Stole my Fleur&mdash;my puppy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they took her from the stockade, two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> nights ago&mdash;two men who came
+up the coast after dogs."</p>
+
+<p>With face buried in his arms to hide the tears misting his eyes, he
+leaned against the door jamb, while the girl rested a sympathetic hand
+on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Jean!"</p>
+
+<p>"I worked so hard to get her. I loved that puppy, Julie; she was my
+child," he groaned.</p>
+
+<p>"I know, Jean, how you feel; after what you have been through&mdash;to have
+lost her&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But I have not lost her!" the boy exclaimed fiercely, drawing a deep
+breath and facing the girl with features set like stone. "I have not
+lost her, Julie Breton! I will follow them and bring back my dog if I
+have to trail those men to Rupert House."</p>
+
+<p>The tears had gone and in the eyes of Jean Marcel was a glint she had
+never known&mdash;a glitter of hate for the men who had taken his dog, so
+intense, so bitter, that she thrilled inwardly as she gazed at his
+transformed face. Instinctively, Julie Breton knew that the lad who
+faced her was no longer the playmate of old to be treated as a boy, but
+the possessor of a high courage and unbreakable will that men in the
+future would reckon with.</p>
+
+<p>Jean entered the trade-house to find Gillies in conversation with a tall
+stranger, who, Jules whis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>pered, was Mr. Wallace, the new inspector of
+the East Coast posts, who had come with the steamer.</p>
+
+<p>"A few days after you left, Jean," explained Gillies, "two half-breeds
+dropped in here with the story that they had travelled up the coast from
+Rupert House to buy dogs from the Huskies. There were no dogs for sale
+here, and they seemed pretty sore at missing the York-boat bound south
+with the dogs bought by the Company for East Main and Fort George. Why,
+we didn't know, for they couldn't get any of those dogs. They were a
+weazel-faced, mean-looking pair and when Jules found them feeding two of
+our huskies one day, there was trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"What did they do to you, Jules?" asked Jean, smiling faintly at the big
+Company bowman.</p>
+
+<p>"What did Jules do to them, you mean," broke in Angus McCain.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," continued Gillies, "we got outside in time to see Jules break
+his paddle over the head of one and pile into the other who had a knife
+out and looked mean.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I kicked them out of the post. They left that night with your dog,
+for the next day at Little Bear Island they passed a canoe of
+goose-hunters bound for Whale River and the Indians noticed the puppy
+who seemed to be muzzled and tied."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>During the recital, Marcel walked the floor of the trade-house, his
+blood hot with rage.</p>
+
+<p>"French half-breeds, M'sieu Gillies, or Scotch?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Scotch, Jean, medium sized; one had lost half an ear and the other had
+a scar on his chin and the first finger gone on his right hand. But
+you're not going after them, lad; they've two days' start on you and
+it's August!"</p>
+
+<p>"M'sieu Gillies, I took de <i>longue traverse</i> for dat dog. She was de
+best pup in dees place. I love dat husky, M'sieu. I start to-night."</p>
+
+<p>The import and finality of Jean's words startled his hearers.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you won't make your trapping-grounds before the freeze-up, if you
+head down the coast now. You're crazy, man! Besides, they are two days
+ahead of you, to start with, and with two paddles will keep gaining,"
+objected the factor.</p>
+
+<p>"M'sieu Gillies," the boy ignored the factor's protest, "will you geeve
+me letter of credit for de Company posts?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, Jean, you've got three hundred dollars credit here, but, man,
+stop and think! You can't overhaul those breeds alone, and if they
+belong in the East Main or Rupert River country they'll be back in the
+bush by the time you reach the posts, even if you can trail them that
+far. It's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> three hundred and fifty miles to Rupert House; you might be a
+month on the way."</p>
+
+<p>Jean Marcel shook his head doggedly, determination written in the
+stone-hard muscles of his dark face. Then he suddenly demanded of the
+factor:</p>
+
+<p>"What would my father, André Marcel, do eef he leeved? Because of de
+freeze-up would he geeve hees pup to dose dog-stealer? I ask you dat,
+M'sieu?"</p>
+
+<p>Gillies' honest eyes frankly met the questioner's.</p>
+
+<p>"André Marcel was the best canoeman on this coast, and no man ever did
+him a wrong who didn't pay." The factor hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, M'sieu!" demanded Jean.</p>
+
+<p>"André Marcel," Gillies continued, "would have followed the men who
+stole his dog down this coast and west to the Barren Grounds."</p>
+
+<p>Jules Duroc nodded gravely as he added: "By Gar! André Marcel, he would
+trail dose men into de muskegs of Hell."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Jean, smiling proudly at the encomiums of his father's
+prowess, "Jean Marcel, hees son, will start to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Argument was futile to dissuade Marcel from his mad venture. His
+partners of the previous winter who had waited impatiently for his
+return refused to delay longer their start for Ghost River and left at
+once.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>Then Jules took Marcel aside and quietly talked to him as would a
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean, you stay here wid Ma'm'selle Julie till de steamer go. Dat M'sieu
+Wallace, he sweet on you' girl w'en you were up de coast. You stay till
+he leeve."</p>
+
+<p>For this Jean had an outward shrug of contempt, but the rumored
+attentions of Wallace to Julie Breton, during his absence, sickened his
+heart with fear. Was he to lose her, too, as well as Fleur?</p>
+
+<p>Before supper, at the Mission, Pčre Breton urged him to return to his
+trapping grounds and spare himself the toil of a hopeless quest down the
+coast in the face of the coming winter. Julie was adding her objections
+to her brother's, when a knock on the door checked her. Her face colored
+slightly as Jean glanced up, when she turned to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Bon soir, Monsieur!" she greeted the newcomer, a note of embarrassment
+in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening, Mademoiselle. I hope I'm not late?" And Inspector Wallace
+entered the room.</p>
+
+<p>The Inspector, a handsome, well-built man of thirty-five, was dressed in
+the garb of civilization and wore shoes, a rarity at Whale River. Chief
+of the East Coast posts of the Great Company, he had been sent the year
+previous, from western Ontario, and put in command of men older in years
+and experience who had passed their lives in the far north.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> And
+naturally much resentment had manifested itself among the traders. But
+that the new chief officer looked and acted like a man of ability, the
+disgruntled factors had been forced to admit.</p>
+
+<p>As Wallace sat conversing of the great world outside with Pčre Breton,
+who was evidently much pleased by his attentions to Julie, he seemed to
+Jean Marcel to embody all that the young Frenchman lacked. How, indeed,
+he asked himself, could he now aspire to the love of Julie Breton when
+so great a man chose to smile upon her?</p>
+
+<p>Wallace seemed surprised at the presence of a humble Company hunter as a
+member of the priest's family, but Pčre Breton privately informed him
+that Jean was as a son and brother at the Mission.</p>
+
+<p>While the black eyes of Julie flashed in response to the admiring
+glances of Wallace, Jean Marcel ate in silence his last meal at Whale
+River for many a long week, torn by his longing for the dog carried down
+the coast in the canoe of the thieves and by the hopelessness of his
+love for this girl who was manifestly thrilling to the compliments of a
+man who knew the world of men and cities, who had seen many women, yet
+found this rose of the north fair. But as he ate in silence, the young
+Frenchman made a vow that should this man, who was taking her from him,
+treat her innocence lightly, Inspector<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> though he was, he should feel
+the cold steel of the knife of Jean Marcel.</p>
+
+<p>After the meal, as Jean prepared to leave, Pčre Breton renewed his
+protests against the trip, but in vain. If he had luck, Marcel insisted,
+he could beat the "freeze-up" home; if not, he would travel up the
+coast, later, on the ice, or&mdash;well, it did not much matter what became
+of Jean Marcel.</p>
+
+<p>So, with the letter of the factor, on which he could draw supplies at
+the southern posts, Jean Marcel shook the hands of his friends and,
+sliding his canoe into the ebb tide, started south as the dying sun
+gilded the flat Bay to the west. He waved his hand in farewell to the
+group of Company men on the shore, when he saw above them the figures of
+Julie Breton and the priest. As Julie held aloft something white, she
+and her brother were joined by a man. It was Inspector Wallace. Jean
+swung his paddle to and fro, in response to Julie's Godspeed, then
+dropping to his knees, drove the craft swiftly down-stream on the long
+pursuit which might take him four hundred miles down the coast to the
+white-waters of the great Rupert and beyond, he knew not where. And with
+him he carried the thought that Julie, his Julie, would daily, for a
+week, see this great man of the Company. It was a heavy heart that
+Marcel that night took down to the sea.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>With the vision of Fleur, strangely sensing the impending separation
+from her master, as her wail of despair rose from the stockade the night
+he left her to go north, constantly before his eyes, Jean Marcel reached
+the coast and turned south. The thought of his puppy muzzled and bound
+in the canoe two days ahead of him lent power to every lunge of his
+paddle. While the knowledge that, back at Whale River, instead of
+walking the river shore in the long twilight with Jean Marcel, as he had
+dreamed, Julie would have Wallace at her side, added to the viciousness
+of his stroke. The sea was flat and when at daylight he saw looming
+ahead the shores of Big Island, he knew he had won a deserved rest, so
+went ashore, cooked some food and slept.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<h4>THE LONG TRAIL TO THE SOUTH COAST</h4>
+
+
+<p>A day's hard paddle past Big Island the dreaded Cape of the Four Winds
+thrust its bold buttresses far out into the sea toward the White Bear,
+and Marcel knew that wind here meant days of delay, for no canoe could
+round this grim headland feared by all <i>voyageurs</i>, except in fair
+weather. So, after a few hours' sleep, he toiled all day down the coast
+and at midnight had put the gray cape behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Two days later when Marcel went ashore on the Isle of Graves of the
+Esquimos, to boil his kettle, he found, to his delight, a Fort George
+goose-boat on the same errand. The Crees who had just left the post to
+shoot the winter's supply of gray and snowy geese, or "wavies," as they
+are called from their resemblance in flight to a white banner waving in
+the sun, had met, two nights before off the mouth of Big River, the
+canoe he was following. The dog-thieves, who were strangers, did not
+stop at the post, but had continued south.</p>
+
+<p>With two paddles they were not holding their lead, he laughed to
+himself, but were coming back.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> If he hurried he would overhaul them
+before they reached Rupert. He did not know the Rupert River, and if
+once they started inland he would be caught by the "freeze-up" in a
+strange country, so he continued on late into the night.</p>
+
+<p>Then followed day after day of endless toil at the paddle, for he knew
+he must travel while the weather held. He could not hope to make Rupert,
+or even East Main before the wind changed; which might mean idling for
+days on a beach pounded by seas in which no canoe could live. At times,
+with a stern breeze, he rigged a piece of canvas to a spruce pole and
+sailed. But one thought dominated him as mile after mile of the gray
+East Coast slid past; the thought of having his puppy once more in his
+canoe, fretting at the gulls and ducks and geese, as he headed north.</p>
+
+<p>Only through necessity did he stop to shoot geese, whose gray and white
+legions were gathering on the coast for the annual migration. At dawn
+the "gou-luk!" of the gray ganders marshalling their families out to the
+feeding grounds, which once sent his blood leaping, now left him cold.
+He was hunting bigger game, and his heart hungered for his puppy, beaten
+and half-starved, in all likelihood, travelling somewhere ahead down
+that bleak coast in the canoe of two men who did not know that close on
+their heels followed an enemy as dogged, as relent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>less, as a wolf on
+the trail of an old caribou abandoned by the herd.</p>
+
+<p>And so, after days of ceaseless dip and swing, dip and swing, which at
+night left his back and arms stiff and his fingers numb, Jean Marcel
+turned into the mouth of the East Main River and paddled up to the post,
+where he learned that the canoe of the half-breeds had not been seen,
+and that no hunters of their description traded there. So he turned
+again to the Bay and headed south for Rupert House. Off the Wild Geese
+Islands he met what he had for days been dreading, the first September
+north-wester, and was driven ashore. For the following three days he
+rested and hunted geese, and when the storm whipped itself out, went on,
+and at last, crossing Boatswain's Bay, rounded Mount Sherrick and
+paddled up Rupert Bay to the famous old post, which, since the days of
+the Merry Monarch and his favorite, Prince Rupert, the first Governor of
+the "Company of Merchants-Adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay," has
+guarded the river mouth&mdash;an uninterrupted history of two centuries and a
+half of fair dealing with the red fur-hunters of Rupert Land.</p>
+
+<p>"So you're the son of André Marcel? Well, well! Time does fly! Why,
+André and I made many a camp together in the old days. There was a man,
+my lad!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>Jean straightened his wide shoulders in pride at this praise of his
+father by Alec Cameron, factor at Rupert. When he had explained the
+object of his long journey south in the fall, the latter raised his
+bushy eyebrows in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to tell me that you paddled from Whale River in fifteen days,
+after a dog?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oui, M'sieu Cameron."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you didn't waste the daylight or the moon either. You're sure a
+son of André Marcel. It must be a record for a single paddle; and all
+for a pup, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oui, all for a pup!"</p>
+
+<p>"You deserve to get that dog. Now, these half-breeds you describe
+dropped in here in June behind the Mistassini brigade, and traded their
+fur. Then they started north after dogs."</p>
+
+<p>"Dey were onlee a day ahead of me up de coast."</p>
+
+<p>"Queer I haven't seen 'em here yet. Pierre!" Cameron called to a Company
+man passing the trade-house. "Have those two Mistassini strangers who
+went north in June, got back yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but Albert meet dem in Gull Bay two day back. Dey have one pup dey
+trade from Huskee!"</p>
+
+<p>"There you are, Marcel! Your men crossed over to Hannah Bay to hunt
+geese. They'll be here in a week or two on their way up-river. You wait
+here and we'll get your dog when they show up."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>"T'anks, M'sieu Cameron!" The dark eyes of Jean Marcel snapped. At last
+he was closing in on his quarry. "I weel go to Hannah Bay now and get my
+dog."</p>
+
+<p>"Two to one, lad! They may get the best of you, and I've no men to
+spare; they're all away goose hunting. You'd better wait here."</p>
+
+<p>"M'sieu, André Marcel would go alone and tak' his dog. I, hees son, also
+weel tak' mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord! André Marcel would have skinned them alive&mdash;those two. Well,
+good luck, Jean! but I don't like your tackling those breeds alone."</p>
+
+<p>Jean shook hands with the factor.</p>
+
+<p>"Bon-jour, M'sieu Cameron, and t'anks!"</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't drop in here on your way back, give my regards to Gillies
+and his family, and be careful," said the factor as Marcel left him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+<h4>THE MEETING IN THE MARSHES</h4>
+
+
+<p>Two days later, after rounding Point Comfort, Marcel was crossing the
+mud-flats of Gull Bay. At last the stalk was on, for somewhere in the
+vast marshes of the Hannah Bay coast, camped the men he had followed
+four hundred miles to meet face to face and fight for his dog. Somewhere
+ahead, through the gray mist, back in the juniper and alder scrub beyond
+the wide reaches of tide-flats and goose-grass, was Fleur, a prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>That night in camp at East Point, while he cleaned the action and bore
+of his rifle, the clatter of the geese in the muskeg behind the far
+lines of spruce edging the marshes, filled him with wonder. Never on the
+bold East Coast had he heard such a din of geese gathering for the long
+flight. At dawn, for it was windy, lines of gray Canadas passing
+overhead bound out to the shoals, waked him with their clamor. The tide
+was low, and he carried his canoe across the mud-flats through flocks of
+plover, snipe and yellow-legs, feeding behind the ebb, while teal and
+black-duck swarmed along the beaches.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>As he poled his canoe south through the shoals, he recalled the tales
+his father had told him of the marshes of Hannah Bay, the greatest
+breeding ground of the gray goose and black duck in all the wide north.
+Everywhere along the bars and sand-spits the gray Canadas were idling,
+always with an erect, keen-eyed sentinel on guard. Farther out, white
+islands of snowy geese flashed in the sun, as here and there a "wavy"
+rose on the water to flap his black-tipped wings. Just in from their
+Arctic breeding-grounds, they were lingering for a month's feast on
+toothsome south-coast goose-grass before seeking their winter home on
+the great Gulf two thousand miles away.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly throughout the morning Marcel travelled along the mud-flats bared
+for miles by the retreating tide. At times the breeze carried to his
+ears the faint sound of firing, but there were goose-boats from Moose
+and Rupert House on the coast, and it meant little. That night as the
+tide covered the marshes he ran up a channel of the Harricanaw delta
+seeking a camp-ground on its higher shores.</p>
+
+<p>Landing he was looking for drift-wood for his fire when suddenly he
+stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! You have been here, my friends."</p>
+
+<p>In the soft mud of the shore ran the clearly marked tracks of a man and
+dog. The footprints of the dog seemed large for Fleur, but Marcel had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+not seen her in six weeks and the puppy was growing fast.</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur!" he said aloud, "will you remember Jean Marcel after all these
+weeks with them?"</p>
+
+<p>He had seen no smoke of a fire and the tracks were at least two days
+old. His men were doubtless on the west shore of the bay where the water
+for miles inland to the spruce networked the marshes, and the rank grass
+grew to the height of a man's head; but he would find them. The guns of
+the hunters would betray their whereabouts.</p>
+
+<p>He drew a long breath of relief. At last he had reached the end of the
+trail. He could now come to grips with his enemies. To the thief, the
+law of the north is ruthless, and ruthlessly Jean Marcel was prepared to
+exact, if need be, the last drop of the blood of these men in payment
+for this act. It was now his nerve and wit against theirs, with Fleur as
+the stake. The blood of André Marcel and the <i>coureurs-de-bois</i>, which
+stirred in his veins, was hot for the fight which the days would bring.</p>
+
+<p>Before dawn Jean was taking advantage of the high tide, and when the
+first light streaked the east, was well on his way. As the sun lifted
+over the muskeg behind the bay he saw, hanging in the still air, the
+smoke of a fire.</p>
+
+<p>Quickly turning inshore, he ran his canoe up a waterway and into the
+long grass. There he waited<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> until the tide went out, listening to the
+faint reports of the guns of the hunters. At noon, having eaten some
+cold goose and bannock, he took his rifle and started back over the
+marsh. Slowly he worked his way, keeping to the cover of the grass and
+alders, circling around the wide, open spaces, pock-marked with
+water-holes and small ponds.</p>
+
+<p>Knowing that the breeds would not take the dog with them to their blinds
+but would tie her up, he planned to stalk the camp up-wind, in order not
+to alarm Fleur, who might betray his presence to his enemies if by
+accident they were in camp, in the afternoon, when the geese were
+moving. After that&mdash;well, he should see.</p>
+
+<p>At last he lay within sight of the tent, which was pitched on a tongue
+of high ground running out into the rush-covered mud-flats. The camp was
+deserted. His eyes strained wistfully for the sight of the shaggy shape
+of his puppy. Pain stabbed at his heart. She was not there. What could
+it mean? Distant shots from the marsh to the west marked the absence of
+at least one of the breeds. But where was Fleur?</p>
+
+<p>Marcel was too "bush-wise" to take any chances. Still keeping to cover,
+he made his approach up-wind until he lay within a stone's throw of the
+tent, when a shift in the breeze warned a pair of keen nostrils that
+some living thing skulked not far off.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>The heart of Jean Marcel leaped as the howl of Fleur betrayed his
+presence, for huskies never bark. Grasping his rifle, he waited. The
+uproar of the dog brought no response. The breeds were both away.
+Rising, he ran to the excited puppy lashed to a stake back of the tent.</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur! <i>Ma petite chienne!</i>" Dropping his rifle, he approached his dog
+with outstretched arms. With flattened ears, the puppy crouched,
+growling at the stranger, her mane bristling.</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur! Don't you know me, pup?" continued Marcel in soothing tones,
+holding out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>The puppy's ears went forward. She sniffed long at the hand that had
+once caressed her. Slowly the growl died in her throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur! Fleur! My poor puppy! Don't you remember Jean Marcel?"</p>
+
+<p>Again the puzzled dog drew deep whiffs through her black nostrils. Back
+in her brain memory was at work. Slowly the soothing tones of the voice
+of Marcel stirred the ghosts of other days; vague hints, blurred by the
+cruelty of weeks, of a time when the hand of a master caressed her and
+did not strike, when a voice called to her as this voice&mdash;then another
+sniff, and she knew. With a whimper her warm tongue licked his hand, and
+Jean Marcel had his puppy in his arms. Mad with joy, the yelping husky
+strained at her rawhide bonds as her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> anxious master examined a great
+lump on her head, and her ribs, ridged with welts from kick and blow.</p>
+
+<p>"So they tied her up and beat her, my Fleur? Well, she not leave Jean
+Marcel again. Were he go, Fleur go!"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly in his ears were hissed the words:</p>
+
+<p>"W'at you do wid dat dog?" And a fierce blow on the back of the head
+hurled the kneeling Marcel flat on his face.</p>
+
+<p>For a space he lay stunned, his numbed senses blurred beyond thought or
+action. Then, as his dazed brain cleared, the realization that life hung
+on his presence of mind, for he would receive no mercy from the thieves,
+held him limp on the ground as though unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>Snarling curses at the crumpled body of his victim, the half-breed was
+busy with the joining of some rawhide thongs. Then Jean's dizziness
+faded. Cautiously he raised an eyelid. The breed was bending over him
+with a looped thong. Not a muscle moved as the Frenchman waited. Nearer
+leaned the thief. He reached to slip the looped rawhide over one of
+Marcel's outstretched hands, when, with a lunge from the ground, the
+arms of the latter clamped on his legs like a sprung trap. With a
+wrench, the surprised thief was thrown heavily.</p>
+
+<p>Cat-like, the hunter was on his man, bearing him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> down. And then began a
+battle in which quarter was neither asked nor given. Heavier but slower
+than the younger man, the thief vainly sought to reach Marcel's throat,
+for the Frenchman's arms, having the under grip, blocked the half-breed
+from Jean's knife and his own. Over and over they rolled, locked
+together; so evenly matched in strength that neither could free a hand.
+Near them yelped Fleur, frantic with excitement, plunging at her stake.</p>
+
+<p>Then the close report of a gun sounded in Marcel's startled ears. A
+great fear swept him. The absent thief was working back to camp. It was
+a matter of minutes. Was it to this that he had toiled down the coast in
+search of his dog&mdash;a grave in the Harricanaw mud? And the face of Julie
+Breton flashed across his vision.</p>
+
+<p>Desperate with the knowledge that he must win quickly, if at all, he
+strained until the fingers of his left hand reached the haft of the
+breed's knife. But a twinge shot through his shoulder like the stab of
+steel, as the teeth of his enemy crunched into his flesh, and he lost
+his grip. Maddened by pain, Marcel wrenched his right arm free and had
+his own knife before the fingers of the thief closed on his wrist,
+holding the blade in the sheath. Then began a duel of sheer strength.
+For a time the straining arms lifted and pushed, at a dead lock. With
+veins<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> swelling on neck and forehead, Marcel fought to unsheath his
+knife; but the half-breed's arm was iron, did not give. Again a gun was
+fired&mdash;still nearer the camp.</p>
+
+<p>With help at hand, the thief, safe so long as he held his grip, snarled
+in triumph in the ear of his trapped enemy. But his peril only increased
+the Frenchman's strength. The fighting blood of the Marcels boiled in
+his veins. With a fierce heave of the shoulders the hand gripping the
+knife moved upward. The arm of the thief gave way, only to straighten.
+Then with a wrench that would not be denied, Jean tore the blade from
+the sheath.</p>
+
+<p>Frantically now, the breed, white with sudden fear, fought the sinewy
+wrist, advancing inexorably, on its grim mission. In short jerks, Marcel
+hunched the knife toward its goal. As he weakened, the knotted features
+of the one who felt death creeping to him, inch by inch, went gray. The
+hand fighting Marcel's wrist dripped with sweat. Panting hoarsely, like
+a beast at bay, the thief twisted and writhed from the pitiless steel.
+Then in his ears rang the voice of the approaching hunter.</p>
+
+<p>With a cry of despair, the doomed half-breed called to the man who had
+come too late. Already the knuckles of Marcel were high on his ribs.
+With a final wrench, the blade was lunged home.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>The cry was smothered in a cough. The man who had beaten his last puppy
+gasped, quivered convulsively; then lay still.</p>
+
+<p>Bathed in sweat, shaking from the strain and exertion of the long
+battle, Marcel got stiffly to his feet and seized his rifle. Again the
+camp was hailed from the marsh. It was evident that the goose-hunter had
+not sensed the cry of his partner or he would not have betrayed his
+position. Doubtless he was poling up a reed-masked waterway with a load
+of geese.</p>
+
+<p>Jean smiled grimly, for the thief would have only his shotgun loaded
+with fine shot, for large shot is not used for geese in the north.
+Hurriedly searching the tent, he found a rifle which he threw into the
+rushes; then loosed Fleur.</p>
+
+<p>The half-breed was in his power, but he wanted no prisoner. To stay and
+beat this man as Fleur had been beaten would have been sweet, but of
+blood he had had enough. For an instant his eyes rested on the ghastly
+evidence of his visit, awaiting the return of the hunter; then he took
+Fleur and started across the marsh for his canoe.</p>
+
+<p>To the dead man, who, to the theft of Fleur would have lightly added the
+death of her master, Marcel gave no thought. As for the other, when he
+found his dead partner, fear of an ambush would prevent him from
+following their trail.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>Reaching his canoe, Jean divided a goose with Fleur and, when it became
+dark, started for East Point. That the half-breed's partner might
+attempt to follow him and seek revenge, he had no doubt, but with the
+shotgun alone, for Jean had taken the only rifle at their camp, the
+thief's sole chance would be to stalk Marcel while he slept. However, as
+the sea was flat and the tide ebbing, Marcel was confident that daylight
+would find him well up the coast toward Point Comfort.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+<h4>IN THE TEETH OF THE WINDS</h4>
+
+
+<p>It was the first week in September. This meant a race with the
+"freeze-up" into Whale River, for with the autumn headwinds, it would
+take him a month, travel as he might. Though he sorely needed geese for
+food on his way north, there was no time to waste at Hannah Bay, so
+Marcel paddled steadily all night. At dawn, in the mist off Gull Bay,
+Fleur became so restless with the scent of the shoals of geese, which
+the canoe was raising, that Jean was forced to put a gag of hide in her
+mouth while he drifted with the tide on the "wavies" and shot a week's
+supply of food.</p>
+
+<p>At daylight he went ashore, concealed his canoe behind some boulders,
+and trusting to Fleur's nose and ears to guard him from surprise, slept
+the sleep of exhaustion. Later, while his breakfast was cooking, Jean
+revelled in his reunion with his dog. In the weeks since he had last
+seen her she had fairly leaped in height and weight. Food had been
+plenty with the half-breeds and Fleur was not starved, but his blood
+boiled at the evidence she bore of the breeds' brutality. He now
+regretted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> that he had not ambushed the confederate of the man he had
+beaten, and branded him, also, as the puppy had been marked.</p>
+
+<p>Though Fleur was but six months old, the heavy legs and already massive
+lines of her head gave promise of a maturity, unusual, even in the
+Ungava breed. Some day, mused Marcel, as Fleur looked her love of the
+master through her slant, brown eyes, her head on his knee, he would
+have a dog-team equal to the famous huskies of his grandfather, Pierre
+Marcel, who once took the Christmas mail from Albany to Fort Hope, four
+hundred and fifty miles, over a drifted trail, in twelve days.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, some day Fleur will give Jean Marcel a team," he said aloud, and
+rubbed the gray ears while Fleur's hairy throat rumbled in delight as
+though she were struggling to answer: "Some day, Jean Marcel; for Fleur
+will not forget how you came from the north and brought her home." And
+then the muscles of his lean face twisted with pain as he went on: "But
+who will there be to work for with Julie gone?"</p>
+
+<p>That day, holding the nose of his canoe on Mount Sherrick, Jean crossed
+the mouth of Rupert Bay and headed up the coast. In three days he was at
+East Main, where he bought dried whitefish for Fleur, for huskies thrive
+on whitefish as on no other food, and salt to cure geese; then started
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> same night for Fort George. Two days out he was driven ashore by
+the first north-wester and held prisoner, while he added to his supply
+of geese, which he salted down.</p>
+
+<p>After the storm he toiled on day after day, praying that the stinging
+northers bringing the "freeze-up" would hold off until he sighted Whale
+River. At night, seated beneath the sombre cliffs by his drift-wood fire
+with Fleur at his side, he often watched the wonder of the Northern
+Lights, marvelling at their mystery, as they pulsed and waned and flared
+again over the sullen Bay, then streamed up across the heavens, and
+diffusing, veiled the stars, which twinkled through with a mystic blue
+light. The "Spirits of the Dead at Play," the Esquimos called those
+dancing phantoms of the skies; and he thought of his own dead and
+wondered if their spirits were at peace.</p>
+
+<p>And then, as he lay, a blanketed shape beside his sleeping puppy, came
+dreams to mock him&mdash;dreams of Julie Breton, always happy, and beside
+her, smiling into her face, the handsome Inspector of the East Coast
+posts. Night after night he dreamed of the girl who was slipping away
+from him&mdash;who had forgotten Jean Marcel in his mad race south for his
+dog.</p>
+
+<p>On and on he fought his way north through the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> head-seas, defying
+cross-winds; landing to empty his canoe, and then on to the lee of the
+next island. While his boat would live he travelled, for September was
+drawing to a close and over him hung the menace of the first stinging
+northers which for days would anchor his frail craft to the beach. Hard
+on their heels would follow the nipping nights of the "freeze-up," which
+would shackle the waterways, locking the land in a grip of ice.</p>
+
+<p>Past the beetling shoulders of the Black Whale, past the Earthquake
+Islands and Fort George he journeyed, for the brant and blue geese were
+on the coast and he needed no supplies; leaving Caribou Point astern, at
+last the dreaded Cape of the Four Winds loomed through the mist which
+blanketed the flat sea.</p>
+
+<p>It was to this gray headland that he had raced the northers which would
+have held him wind-bound. And he had won.</p>
+
+<p>Rounding the Cape, in five days he stood, a drawn-faced tattered figure
+with Fleur at his side, at the door of the Mission House.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean Marcel! Thank God!" and Julie Breton impulsively kissed the lean
+cheek of the <i>voyageur</i>. A whine of protest followed by a smothered
+rumble at such familiarity with her master drew her glance to the great
+puppy. "Fleur! You brought Fleur with you, Jean, as you said you would.
+Oh, we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> have had much worry about you, Jean Marcel&mdash;and how thin you
+are!"</p>
+
+<p>She led man and dog into the building.</p>
+
+<p>"Henri! Come quick and see whom we have with us!"</p>
+
+<p>"Jean, my son!" cried the priest, embracing the returned <i>voyageur</i>,
+"and you brought back your dog! It will be a brave tale we shall hear
+to-night!"</p>
+
+<p>The appearance of Marcel and Fleur at the trade-house was greeted with:</p>
+
+<p>"Nom de Dieu! Jean Marcel! And de dog! He return wid hees dog, by Gar!"
+as Jules Duroc sprang to meet him with a bear hug.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome back, my lad!" cried Colin Gillies, tearing a hand of Jean from
+the emotional Company man. While Angus McCain, joining in the chorus of
+congratulations, was clapping the helpless Marcel on the shoulder, the
+perplexed puppy, worried by the uproar of strangers about her master,
+leaped, tearing the back out of McCain's coat, and was relegated by Jean
+to the stockade outside.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, how far did they take you, Jean? Did you have a fuss
+getting your dog?" asked the factor.</p>
+
+<p>"I was one day behind dem at Rupert Bay&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What, you've been to Rupert?" interrupted the amazed Gillies.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>"Oui, M'sieu. I go to Rupert and see M'sieu Cameron."</p>
+
+<p>"And with one paddle you gained a day on them? Lad, you've surely got
+your father's staying power. Where did you come up with them?"</p>
+
+<p>Then Jean related the details of his capture of Fleur to an open-mouthed
+audience.</p>
+
+<p>"So there's one less dog-stealer on the Bay," drily commented Gillies,
+when Marcel had finished his grim tale.</p>
+
+<p>"Why you not put de bullet een dat oder t'ief, Jean?" demanded the
+bloodthirsty Jules.</p>
+
+<p>"Eet ees not easy to keel a man, onless he steal your dog an' try to
+keel you. I had de dog. One of dem was enough," gravely answered the
+trapper.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right; you had your dog which I thought you'd never see again,"
+approved Gillies. "But your travelling this time of year, with the
+headwinds and sea, up the coast in thirty days, beats me. I was five
+weeks, once, making it with two paddles. You must have your father's
+back, lad. It was the best on this coast in his day; and you've surely
+got his fighting blood."</p>
+
+<p>Basking for three days in the hospitality of the Mission; resting from
+the strain and wear of six weeks' constant toil at the paddle, Marcel
+revelled in Julie's good cooking. To watch her trim figure moving about
+the house; to talk to her while her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> dusky head bent over her sewing,
+after the loneliness of his long journey, would have been all the heaven
+he asked, had it not been that over it all hung the knowledge that Julie
+Breton was lost to him. Kind she was as a sister is kind, but her heart
+he knew was far in the south at East Main in the keeping of Inspector
+Wallace, to do with it as his manhood prompted. And knowing what he did,
+Marcel kept silence.</p>
+
+<p>On his return he had learned the story from big Jules. All Whale River
+had watched the courting of Julie. All Whale River had seen Wallace and
+the girl walking nightly in the long twilight, and had shaken their
+heads sadly, in sympathy with the lad who was travelling down the coast
+on the mad quest of his puppy. Yes, he had lost her. It was over, and he
+manfully fought the bitterness and despair that was his; tried to forget
+the throbbing pain at his heart, as he made the most of those three
+short days with the girl he loved, and might never see again, as a girl,
+for Marcel was not returning from the Ghost at Christmas.</p>
+
+<p>His dreams were dead. Ambitions for the future had been stripped from
+him, as the withering winds strip a tree of leaves. The home he had
+pictured at Whale River when, in the spring, he fought through to the
+Salmon for a dog-team which should make his fortune, was now a phantom.
+There was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> nothing left him but the love of his puppy. She would never
+desert Jean Marcel.</p>
+
+<p>But Jean Marcel was a trapper, and the precious days before the ice
+would close the upper Whale and the Ghost to canoe travel were slipping
+past. Before he went south his partners of the previous winter had
+agreed to take with them the supplies, which he had drawn from the post,
+but that they would not net fish for his dog he was certain. Exasperated
+at his determination to go south, they would hardly plan for the dog
+they were confident he would not recover.</p>
+
+<p>So Marcel bade his friends good-bye and with as much cured whitefish as
+he could carry without being held up on the portages by extra trips,
+started with Fleur on the long up-river trail to his trapping grounds.</p>
+
+<p>When he left, he said to Julie in French: "I have not spoken to you of
+what I have heard since my return."</p>
+
+<p>The girl's face flushed but her eyes bravely met his.</p>
+
+<p>"They tell me that you are to marry M'sieu Wallace," he hazarded.</p>
+
+<p>"They do not know, who tell you that!" she exclaimed with spirit.
+"M'sieu Wallace has not asked me to marry him, and beside, he is still a
+Protestant."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>Ignoring the evasion, he went on slowly: "But you love him, Julie; and
+he is a great man&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Jean," she broke in, "you are hurt. But you will always be my
+friend, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I shall always be that." And he was gone.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+<h4>THE CAMP ON THE GHOST</h4>
+
+
+<p>Although the stinging winds with swirls of fine snow were already
+driving down the valleys, and nightly the ice filmed the eddies and the
+backwaters, yet the swift river remained open to the speeding canoe
+until, one frosty morning, Marcel waked in camp at the Conjuror's Falls
+to find that the ice had over-night closed in on the quiet reaches of
+the Ghost just above, shackling the river for seven months against canoe
+travel.</p>
+
+<p>Caching his boat and supplies on spruce saplings, he circled each peeled
+trunk with a necklace of large inverted fish-hooks, to foil the raids of
+that arch thief and defiler of caches, the wolverine. That night he
+reached the camp of his partners.</p>
+
+<p>Antoine Beaulieu and Joe Piquet, like Marcel, had lost their immediate
+families in the plague, and the year before, had been only too glad to
+join the Frenchman in a trapping partnership of mutual advantage. For
+while Marcel, son of the former Company head man, with a schooling at
+the Mission, and a skill and daring as canoeman and hunter, beyond their
+own, was looked upon as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> leader by the half-breeds, Antoine was a good
+hunter, while Joe Piquet's manual dexterity in fashioning snow-shoes,
+making moccasins and building bark canoes rendered him particularly
+useful. Marcel's feat of the previous spring in finding the headwaters
+of the Salmon and his appearance at Whale River with a pure bred Ungava
+husky, to the amazement of the Crees, had increased his influence with
+his partners; but his determination to go south after his dog when it
+was already high time for the three men to start for their
+trapping-grounds had left them in a sullen mood. Because they could use
+them, if he did not return from the south, they had packed his supplies
+over the portages of the Whale and up the Ghost to their camp, but had
+netted no extra whitefish for the dog they felt he would not bring home.</p>
+
+<p>That night they sat long over the fire in the shack they had built the
+autumn previous, listening to Marcel's tale of the rescue of Fleur and
+of the great goose grounds of the south coast.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning Jean waked with the problem of a supply of fish for Fleur
+and himself troubling him, for one of the precepts of André Marcel had
+been, "Save your fish for the tail of the winter, for no one knows where
+the caribou will be." Down at Conjuror's Falls, he had cached less than
+two months' rations for his dog, and they were facing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> seven months of
+the long snows. To be sure, she could live on meat, if meat was to be
+had, but a husky thrives on fish, and Marcel determined that she should
+have it.</p>
+
+<p>Confident of finding game plentiful, his partners, with the usual lack
+of foresight of the Crees, had netted less than three months' supply of
+whitefish and lake-trout. This emergency store Marcel knew would be
+consumed by February, however plentiful the caribou proved to be, for
+the Crees seldom possess the thrift to save against the possible spring
+famine. So he determined to set his net at once.</p>
+
+<p>Borrowing Joe's canoe, he packed it through the "bush" to a good fish
+lake where he set the net under the young ice, and baited lines; then
+taking Fleur, he started cruising out locations for his trap-lines in
+new country, far toward the blue hills of the Salmon watershed, where
+game signs had been thick the previous spring.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the last of October when the snow began to make deep, Fleur's
+education as a sled-dog began. Already the fast growing puppy was
+creeping up toward one hundred pounds in weight, and soon, under the
+kind but firm tutelage of the master, was as keen to be harnessed for a
+run as a veteran husky of the winter trails.</p>
+
+<p>When he had set and baited his traps over a wide circle of new country
+to the north, Jean returned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> to his net and lines, and at the end of ten
+days had a supply of trout and whitefish for Fleur, which he cached at
+the lake. On his return, Antoine and Joe derided his labors when the
+caribou trails networked the muskegs, but Marcel ignored them.</p>
+
+<p>It looked like a good winter for game. Snow-shoe rabbits were plentiful
+and wherever their runways led in and out of the scrub-spruce and fir
+covers, there those furred assassins of the forest, the fox and the
+lynx, the fisher and the marten, were sure to make their
+hunting-grounds. During November and December, when pelts are at their
+best, the men made a harvest at their traps. The caribou were still on
+the barrens feeding on the white moss from which they scraped the snow
+with their large, round-toed hoofs, and the rabbit snares furnished stew
+whenever the trappers craved a change from caribou steaks. But no Indian
+will eat rabbit as a regular diet while he can get red meat. This
+varying hare of the north, which, so often, in the spring, from Labrador
+to the Yukon, stands between the red trapper and starvation, has a
+flavor which quickly palls on the taste, and never quite seems to
+satisfy hunger. The Crees often speak of "starving on rabbits."</p>
+
+<p>During these weeks following the trap-lines, learning the ways of the
+winter forest after a puppyhood on the coast, as Fleur grew in bulk and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+strength, so her affection deepened for Jean Marcel. Now nearly a year
+old, she easily drew the sled loaded with the meat of a caribou into
+camp, on a beaten trail. At night in the tent Marcel had pitched and
+banked with snow, as a half-way camp on the round of his trap-lines, she
+would sit with hairy ears pointed, watching his every movement, looking
+unutterable adoration as he scraped his pelts, stretching them on frames
+to dry or mended his clothes and moccasins. Then, before he turned in to
+his plaited, rabbit-skin blankets, warmer by far than any fur robes
+known in the north, Fleur invariably demanded her evening romp. Taking a
+hand in her jaws which never closed, she would lift her lips, baring her
+white fangs in a snarl of mimic anger, as she swung her head from side
+to side, until, seizing her, Jean rolled her on her back, while rumbles
+and growls from her shaggy throat voiced her delight.</p>
+
+<p>Back at the main camp, Fleur, true to her breed, merely tolerated the
+presence of Antoine and Joe, indifferent to all offers of friendship.
+Moving away at their approach, she suffered neither of them to place
+hand upon her. At night she slept outside in the snow, where the thick
+mat of fine fur under the long hair rendered her immune to cold.</p>
+
+<p>And all these weeks Jean Marcel was fighting out his battle with self.
+Always, the struggle went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> ceaselessly on&mdash;the struggle with his heart
+to give up Julie Breton. Reason though he would, that he had nothing to
+give her, while this great man of the Company had everything, his love
+for the girl kept alive the embers of hope. He carried the memory of her
+sweetness over the white trails by day and at night again wandered with
+her in the twilight as in the days before the figure of Wallace darkened
+his life.</p>
+
+<p>As Christmas approached, Jean wondered whether Wallace would spend it in
+Whale River, and was glad that they had not intended, because of the
+great distance, to go back for the festivities at the post. Should he
+ever see her again as Julie Breton? he asked himself. Wallace would
+change his religion. Surely no man would balk at that, to get Julie. And
+the spring would see them married. Well, he should go on loving her&mdash;and
+Fleur; there was no one else.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+<h4>THE WARNING IN THE WIND</h4>
+
+
+<p>One afternoon toward the end of the year when the early dusk had turned
+Marcel back toward camp from his most northerly line of marten traps, he
+suddenly stopped in his tracks on the ridge from which he had seen the
+lake on the Salmon headwaters the spring previous. Pushing back the hood
+of his caribou capote to free his ears, he listened, motionless. Beside
+him, with black nostrils quivering, Fleur sniffed the stinging air.</p>
+
+<p>Again the faint, far, wailing chorus which had checked him, reached
+Marcel's ears. The dog stiffened, her mane rising as she bared her white
+fangs.</p>
+
+<p>"You heard it too, Fleur?" muttered the man, softly, resting a
+rabbit-skin mitten on the broad head of the nervous husky. Marcel gazed
+long at the floor of snow to the north through wind-whipped ridges.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah-hah!" he exclaimed, "dey turn dees way." Clearer now the stiff
+breeze carried the call of the hunting wolves. Fleur burst into a frenzy
+of yelping. Seizing the dog, Marcel calmed her into silence. Then, after
+an interval, the cry of the pack<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> slowly faded, and shortly, the man's
+straining ears caught no sound save the fretting of the wind through the
+spruce.</p>
+
+<p>Wolves he had often heard, singly, and in groups of four and five, but
+the hunting howl which had been brought to him through the hills by the
+wind, he knew was not the clamor of a handful of timber-wolves, but the
+blood chorus of a pack. None but the white-wolves which, far to the
+north, hung on the flanks of the caribou herds could raise such a
+hunting cry and there was but one reason for their drifting south from
+the great Ungava barrens.</p>
+
+<p>It was a sober face that Jean Marcel wore back to his camp. Large
+numbers of arctic wolves in the country meant the departure of the
+trapper's chief source of meat&mdash;the caribou. With the caribou gone, they
+had their limited supply of fish, and the rabbits, eked out by the
+flour, which would not carry them far, for the half-breeds, in spite of
+his warnings, had already consumed half of it. To be sure, the rabbits
+would pull them through to the "break-up" of the long snows in April;
+would keep them from actual starvation. Then he cursed his partners for
+failing to make themselves independent of meat by netting more fish in
+September.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow," said Marcel, on his return next day to the main camp, "we
+start for de barren and hunt de deer hard while dey stay in dees
+countree."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> The partners spoke, at times, in French patois and Cree, at
+times in broken English.</p>
+
+<p>"Wat you say, Jean? I got trap-line to travel to-morrow," objected
+Antoine Beaulieu.</p>
+
+<p>"I say dis," returned Marcel, commanding the attention of the two men by
+the gravity of his face. "De deer will not be in dis countree een
+t'ree&mdash;four day."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! Ha! dat ees good joke, Jean Marcel!" exclaimed Piquet.</p>
+
+<p>"Oui, dat ees good joke!" returned Marcel, rising and shaking a finger
+in the grinning faces of his partners. "But I say dis to you, Antoine
+Beaulieu an' Joe Piquet. We go to de barren and hunt deer to-morrow or I
+tak' my share of flour and mak' my own camp."</p>
+
+<p>Marcel's threat sobered the half-breeds. They had no desire to break
+with the Frenchman, whose initiative and daring they respected.</p>
+
+<p>"De deer are plentee, I count seexteen to-day," argued Antoine.</p>
+
+<p>"Oui, to-day de deer are here, but, whiff!" Jean waved his hand, "an'
+dey are gone; for las' night I hear de white wolves, not t'ree or four,
+but manee, ver' manee, drive de deer in de hills. Dey starve in de nord
+and come here for meat. To-morrow we go!"</p>
+
+<p>Piquet and Beaulieu readily admitted that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> white wolves, if they
+appeared in numbers, would drive the caribou&mdash;called deer, in the
+north&mdash;out of the country, but they insisted that what Jean had heard
+was the echoing of the call and answer of three or four timber wolves
+gathering for a hunt. Never in his life had Joe Piquet, who was thirty,
+heard of arctic wolves appearing on the Great Whale headwaters. Thus
+they argued, but Jean was obdurate. On the following day the three men
+started back into the barrens with Fleur and the sled.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+<h4>THE WORK OF THE WHITE WOLVES</h4>
+
+
+<p>The first day, by hard hunting they shot three caribou, but to the
+surprise and chagrin of Antoine and Joe, on the second day, in a country
+where they had never failed to get meat earlier in the winter, the
+hunters got but one. After that not a caribou was seen on the wide
+barrens, while many trails were crossed, all heading south, and
+following the signs of the fleeing caribou were the tracks of wolves,
+not singly or in couples, but in packs.</p>
+
+<p>When the hunters had satisfied themselves that the caribou had left the
+country, they relayed their meat into camp with the help of Fleur and
+lines attached to the sled to aid her.</p>
+
+<p>That night the trappers took council. The caribou meat, flour and
+remaining fish, counting Jean's cache at Conjuror's Falls, would take
+them into February. After that, it would be rabbits through March and
+April until the fish began to move. In the meantime a few lake trout and
+pike could be caught with lines through holes in the ice. Also, setting
+the net under three feet of ice could be ac<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>complished with infinite
+labor, but the results in midwinter were always a matter of doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"You had all September to net fish, but what did you do? You grew fat on
+deer meat," flung out Jean bitterly, thinking of his hungry puppy who
+required nourishing food in these months of rapid growth.</p>
+
+<p>"How much feesh you got in dat cache?" demanded Piquet, ignoring the
+remark.</p>
+
+<p>"About one hundred fifty pound," replied Marcel.</p>
+
+<p>"Not on Conjur' Fall, I mean at de lac."</p>
+
+<p>The fish Jean had netted and cached at the lake, on arriving in October,
+were designed for his dog and already had been partly used.</p>
+
+<p>"Only little left at de lac," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Dat feesh belong to us all; de dog can leeve on rabbit."</p>
+
+<p>Piquet's remark brought the blood to Jean's face.</p>
+
+<p>"De dog gets her share of feesh, do you hear dat, Joe?" rasped Marcel,
+his eyes blazing. "You and Antoine got no right to dat feesh; you refuse
+to help me and you laugh when I net dat feesh. De dog gets her share,
+Joe Piquet!" Marcel rose, facing the others with a glitter in his eyes
+that had its effect on Piquet.</p>
+
+<p>"We have bad tam, dees spreeng, for sure," moaned Antoine. "I weesh we
+net more feesh."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>"Well, I tell you what to do," said Jean. "Eef de feesh do not bite tru
+de ice or come to de net, we travel over to de Salmon, plentee beaver
+dere."</p>
+
+<p>At the suggestion of moving into the unknown country to the north, with
+its dread valleys peopled with spirits, the superstitious half-breeds
+shook their heads. Rather starve on the Whale, they said, than in the
+haunted valleys where the voices of the Windigo filled the nights with
+fear.</p>
+
+<p>With a disgusted shrug of his wide shoulders, Marcel dismissed the
+subject. "All right, starve on de Ghost, de Windigo get you on de
+Salmon."</p>
+
+<p>With the disappearance of the caribou the partners began setting rabbit
+snares to save their meat and flour. Jean brought up the last of his
+fish from Conjuror's Falls but refused to touch his cache at the lake.
+With strict economy and a liberal diet of rabbit, they decided that
+their food could carry them into March. Jean wished to keep the flour
+untouched for emergency, but the half-breeds, characteristically
+optimistic, counted on a return of the caribou, and they always had
+rabbit to fall back upon.</p>
+
+<p>During the last week in January while following his trap-lines, Jean
+made a discovery the gravity of which drove him in haste back to the
+camp on the Ghost.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>"How many long snows since de plague, Joe?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>His comrades turned startled eyes on the speaker. Piquet slowly counted
+on his fingers the winters since the last plague all but exterminated
+the snow-shoe rabbits, then leaping to his feet, cried: "By Gar! eet ees
+not dees year. No, no! de ole man at de trade said de nex' long snow
+after dees will be de plague."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, de old men were wrong," Marcel calmly insisted, as his companions
+paled at the meaning of his words. "Eet ees dees year w'en you net
+leetle feesh, dat de rabbits die."</p>
+
+<p>"No, eet ees a meestake!" they protested as the lean features of the
+Frenchman hardened in a bitter smile.</p>
+
+<p>"On de last trip to my traps," went on the imperturbable Marcel, "I find
+four rabbit dead from de plague an' since de last snow I cross few fresh
+tracks."</p>
+
+<p>"I fin' none een two days myself," echoed Antoine.</p>
+
+<p>The stark truth of Marcel's contention drove itself home. At last,
+convinced, they gazed with blanched faces into each others' eyes from
+which looked fear&mdash;fear of the dread weeks of the March moon and the
+slow death which starvation might bring. The grim spectre which ever
+hovers over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> the winter camps in the white silences now menaced the
+shack on the Ghost.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly, fresh rabbit tracks became rare. After years of plenty, the
+days of lean hunting for lynx and fox had returned. The plague, which
+periodically sweeps the north, would bring starvation, as well, to many
+a tepee of the improvident children of the snows.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+<h4>POOR FLEUR</h4>
+
+
+<p>As the weeks went by, the food cache at the camp on the Ghost steadily
+shrank. The nets under the ice and the set-lines were now bringing no
+fish. More and more Jean slept in his half-way camp ten miles north, for
+although the short rations he fed Fleur had been obtained solely by his
+own efforts, Joe and Antoine objected to the well-nourished look of the
+puppy while they grew thin and slowly weakened. But, for generations,
+the huskies have been accustomed to starvation, and if not slaving with
+the sleds, will for weeks show but slight effect from short rations.
+Besides, Fleur had, from necessity and instinct, become a hunter, and
+many a ptarmigan and stray rabbit she picked up foraging for herself.</p>
+
+<p>To increase the difficulty of hunting for food, January had brought
+blizzard after blizzard, piling deep with drifts the trails to their
+trap-lines, which they still visited regularly, for the starved lynxes
+were coming to the bait of the flesh of their kin in greater and greater
+numbers. Twice, seeking the return of the caribou, the desperate men
+travelled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> far into the barrens beaten by the withering January winds,
+returning with wind-burned, frost-blackened faces, for no man may face
+for long the needle-pointed scourge of the midwinter northers off the
+Straits.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, in desperation, when the flour was gone, and the food cache
+held barely enough meat and fish for two weeks, Joe and Antoine insisted
+that, while they had food to carry them through, they make for the post.</p>
+
+<p>"You can crawl into de post lak a starving Cree because you were too
+lazy to net feesh. I will stay in de bush with my dog," was Jean's
+scornful reply.</p>
+
+<p>But the situation was desperate. With two months remaining before the
+big thaw in April, when they could rely on plenty of fish, there seemed
+but one alternative, unless the caribou returned or the fish began to
+move. A few trout and an occasional rabbit and ptarmigan would not keep
+them alive until the "break-up," when the bear would leave their
+"washes" and the caribou start north. Already with revolting stomachs
+they had begun to eat starved lynx. If only they could get beaver, but
+there were no beaver on the Ghost. It was clear that they must find game
+shortly or retreat to Whale River.</p>
+
+<p>One night Jean reached his fish cache on his return from a three days'
+hunt toward the Salmon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> waters. At last he had found beaver, and caching
+two at his tent, with his heart high with hope, was bringing the
+carcasses of three more to his partners. As he approached the cache in
+the gathering dusk, to his surprise he found the fresh tracks of
+snow-shoes.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah-hah!" he muttered, his mouth twisted in a grim smile, "so dey rob de
+cache of Jean Marcel while he travel sixty mile to get dem beaver!"</p>
+
+<p>The last of Fleur's pitiful little store of fish was gone. The cache was
+stripped.</p>
+
+<p>Jean shook his head sadly. So he could no longer trust these men whose
+hunger had made them thieves, he mused. Well, he would break with them
+at once. "Poor Fleur!" He patted the sniffing nose of his dog.</p>
+
+<p>Bitter with the discovery, Marcel drove Fleur over the trail to the
+camp. Opening the slab-door he surprised the half-breeds gorging
+themselves from a steaming kettle of trout. But hunger had driven them
+past all sense of shame. Looking up sullenly, they waited for him to
+speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Bon soir, my friends! I see you have had luck at de lines," he
+surprised them with. "I have three nice fat beaver for you."</p>
+
+<p>The hollow eyes of Joe and Antoine met in a questioning look. Then
+Piquet brazened it out.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>"Beaver, eh? Dat soun' good, fat beaver!" and he smacked his thin lips
+greedily.</p>
+
+<p>"W'ere you get beaver, Jean?" asked Antoine, now that the tension due to
+Jean's appearance had relaxed.</p>
+
+<p>"W'ere I tell you I would fin' dem, nord, een de valley of de spirits,"
+he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel heaped a tin dish from the kettle, and slipping outside, fed
+Fleur.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Fleur!" he called, "ees some of feesh dat Joe has boiled for you.
+Wat, you lak' eet bettair raw? Well, Joe he lak' eet boiled."</p>
+
+<p>Returning, Jean ate heartily of the lake trout. When he had finished and
+lighted his pipe, he said: "You weel fin' de beaver on de cache. I leeve
+een de morning for Salmon riviere country."</p>
+
+<p>"W'at, you goin' leave us, Jean?" cried Antoine visibly disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oui, I don't trap wid t'ief!" The cold eyes of Marcel bored into those
+of Beaulieu which wavered and fell. But Piquet accepted the challenge.</p>
+
+<p>"W'at you t'ink, Jean Marcel, you geeve dose feesh to de dog w'en we
+starve?" he sullenly demanded. "We eat de dog, also, before we starve."</p>
+
+<p>"You eat de dog, eh, Joe Piquet? Dat ees good joke. You 'av' to keel de
+dog and Jean Marcel first, my frien'," sneered Marcel. "I net feesh for
+my dog and you not help me but laugh; now you tak'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> dem from my dog.
+Bien! I am tru wid you both! I geeve you de beaver and bid you, bon
+jour, to-morrow!"</p>
+
+<p>Antoine was worried, for he knew too well what the loss of Marcel would
+mean to them in the days to come. But the sullen Piquet in whom toil and
+starvation were bringing to the surface traits common to the half-breed,
+treated Marcel's going with seeming indifference.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+<h4>THE MARK OF THE BREED</h4>
+
+
+<p>Deep in the night, Marcel waked cold. Lifting his head from the
+blankets, his face met an icy draft driving through the open door of the
+shack which framed a patch of sky swarming with frozen stars.</p>
+
+<p>Wondering why the door was open, he rose to close it, when the starlight
+fell on Piquet's empty bunk.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah-hah! Joe he steal some more, maybe!" he muttered, hastily drawing on
+his moccasins.</p>
+
+<p>Then stepping into the thongs of his snow-shoes which stood in the snow
+beside the door, he hurried to the cache.</p>
+
+<p>Beneath the food scaffold crouched a dark form.</p>
+
+<p>"So you steal my share of de meat and hide eet, before I go, eh? You
+t'ief!"</p>
+
+<p>Caught in the act, Piquet rose from the provision bags as Marcel reached
+him, to take full in the face a blow backed by the concentrated fury of
+the Frenchman. Reeling back against a spruce support to the cache, the
+dazed half-breed sank to his snow-shoes, then, slowly struggling to his
+knees,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> lunged wildly with his knife at the man sneering down at him.
+Missing, Piquet's thrust carried him head-first into the snow, his arms
+buried to the shoulders. In a flash, Marcel fell on the prostrate breed
+with his full weight, driving both knees hard into Piquet's back. With a
+smothered grunt the half-breed lay limp in the snow.</p>
+
+<p>"Get up, Antoine!" called Marcel, returning to the shack with Fleur, who
+had left her bed under a spruce, "you fin' a cache-robber, widout fur on
+heem, out dere. I tak' my grub an' go."</p>
+
+<p>"W'ere ees Joe?" asked the confused Beaulieu, rubbing his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Joe, he got w'at t'ieves deserve. Go an' see."</p>
+
+<p>Antoine appeared shortly, followed by the muttering Piquet.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, bo'-jo', M'sieu Carcajou! You have wake up," Jean jeered.</p>
+
+<p>One of Piquet's beady eyes was swollen shut, but the other snapped
+evilly as he limped to his bunk.</p>
+
+<p>Taking his share of the food, Marcel loaded his sled, hitched Fleur,
+then looked into the shack, where he found the two men arguing
+excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"A'voir, Antoine! Better hide your grub or M'sieu Wolverine weel steal
+eet w'ile you sleep."</p>
+
+<p>With an oath, Piquet was on his feet with his knife, but Beaulieu hurled
+him back on his bunk<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> and held him, as he cursed the man who stood
+coolly in the doorway, sneering at the helpless breed blocked in his
+attempt at revenge.</p>
+
+<p>"A'voir, Antoine!" Jean repeated, as the troubled face of Beaulieu
+turned to the old partner he respected, "don' let de carcajou keel you
+for de grub." And ignoring the proffered hand of the hunter who followed
+him out to the sled, took the trail north.</p>
+
+<p>As dawn broke blue over the bald ridges to the east, Marcel raised his
+set-lines and net at the lake and pushed on toward the silent hills of
+the Salmon headwaters.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+<h4>FOR LOVE OF A MAN</h4>
+
+
+<p>It had been with the feeling of a heavy load loosed from his shoulders
+that the Frenchman left the Ghost. Disgusted with the laziness and lack
+of foresight of his partners in the autumn; through the strain and worry
+of the winter he had gradually lost all confidence in their capacity to
+fight through until spring brought back the fishing; and now this
+robbery of his cache and the affair with Piquet had made him a free man.</p>
+
+<p>For Antoine, the friend of his youth, ever easily led but at heart,
+honest enough, he held only feelings of disgust; but with the
+crooked-souled Piquet, henceforth it should be war to the knife. Knowing
+that there were more beaver in the white valleys of the Salmon country,
+Marcel faced with hope the March crust and the long weeks of the April
+thaws, when rotting ice would bar the waterways and soggy snow, the
+trails, to all travel. Somehow, he and Fleur would pull through and see
+Julie Breton and Whale River again. Somehow, they would live, but it
+meant a dogged will and day after day, many a white mile of drudgery for
+himself and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> dog he loved. Crawl starved and beaten into Whale
+River&mdash;caught like a mink in a trap by the pinch of the pitiless
+snows&mdash;no Marcel ever did, and he would not be the first.</p>
+
+<p>The February dusk hung in the spruce surrounding the half-way camp of
+Marcel beside a pond in the hills dividing the watershed of the Ghost
+from the Salmon. For three days Jean had been picking up his traps
+preparatory to making the break north to the beaver country. With a
+light load, for Fleur could not haul much over her weight on a freshly
+broken trail in the soft snow, the toboggan-sled stood before the tent
+ready for an early start under the stars. From the smoke-hole of the
+small tepee the sign of cooking rose straight into the biting air, for
+there was no wind. But the half-ration of trout and beaver which was
+simmering in the kettle would leave the clamoring stomach of the man
+unsatisfied. With the three beaver he had brought from the north and the
+fish and caribou from the Ghost, Marcel still had food for himself and
+his dog for a fortnight, but he was not an Indian and was husbanding his
+scanty store. Fleur had already bolted her fish, more supper than her
+master allowed himself, for Fleur was still growing fast and her need
+was greater.</p>
+
+<p>Disliking the smoke from the fire which often filled the tepee, Fleur
+slept outside under the low<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> branches of a fir, and when it snowed,
+waked warm beneath a white blanket. For, enured to the cold, the husky
+knows no winter shelter and needs none, sleeping curled, nose in bushy
+tail, in a hole dug in the snow, through the bitter nights without frost
+bite.</p>
+
+<p>As the dusk slowly blanketed the forest, here and there stars pricked
+out of the dark canopy of sky to light gradually the white hills rolling
+away north to the dread valleys of the forbidden land of the Crees.
+Later, as the night deepened, the Milky Way drew its trail across the
+swarming stars. In the pinch of the strengthening cold, spruce and
+jack-pine snapped in the encircling forest, while the ice of lake and
+river, contracting, boomed intermittently, like the shot of distant
+artillery.</p>
+
+<p>On the northern horizon, the camp-fires of the giants flickered and
+glowed, fitfully; then, at length, loosing their bonds, snake-like
+ribbons of light writhed and twisted from the sky-line to the high
+heavens, in grotesque traceries; and across the white wastes of the
+polar stage swept the eerie "Dance of the Spirits."</p>
+
+<p>For a space Jean stood outside the tepee watching the never-ceasing
+wonder of the aurora; then sending Fleur to her bed, sought his
+blankets. But no sting of freezing air might keep the furred and
+feathered marauders of the night from their hunt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>ing; for faintly on the
+tense silence floated the "hoo-hoo!" of the snowy owl, patrolling the
+haunts of the wood-mice. Out of the murk of a cedar swamp rose the
+scream of a starving lynx. Presently, over star-lit ridges drifted the
+call of a mating timber wolf.</p>
+
+<p>The Northern Lights had dimmed and faded. Sentinel stars alone guarded
+the white solitudes, when, from the gloom of the spruce out into the
+lighted snow moved a dark shape. Noiselessly the muffled racquettes of
+the skulker advanced. As the figure crept nearer the tent, it suddenly
+stopped, frozen into rigidity, head forward, as though listening. After
+a space, it stirred again. Something held in the hands glinted in the
+starlight, like steel. It was the action of a rifle, made bright by
+wear.</p>
+
+<p>When the creeping shape reached the banking of the tepee, again it
+stopped, stiff as a spruce. The seconds lengthened into minutes. Then a
+hand reached out to the canvas. In the hand was a knife. Slowly the keen
+edge sawed at the frozen fabric. At last the tent was slit.</p>
+
+<p>Leaning forward the hunter of sleeping men enlarged the opening and
+pressed his face to the rent. Long he gazed into the darkened tepee.
+Then withdrawing his hooded head, he shook it slowly as if in doubt.
+Finally, as though decided on his course,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> he thrust the barrel of his
+rifle through the opening and dropped his head as if to aim; when, from
+the rear a gray shape catapulted into his back, flattening him on the
+snow. As the weight of the dog struck the crouching assassin, his rifle
+exploded inside the tent, followed by a scream of terror.</p>
+
+<p>Again and again the long fangs of the husky slashed at the throat of the
+writhing thing in the snow. Again and again the massive jaws snapped and
+tore, first the capote, then the exposed neck, to ribbons. Then with
+cocked rifle the dazed Marcel, waked by the gun fired in his ears,
+reached them.</p>
+
+<p>With difficulty dragging his dog from the crumpled shape, Marcel looked,
+and from the bloodied face grimacing horribly in death above the mangled
+throat, stared the glazed eyes of Joe Piquet.</p>
+
+<p>"By Gar! You travel far for de grub and de <i>revanche</i>, Joe Piquet," he
+exclaimed. Turning to the dog, snarling with hate of the prowling thing
+she had destroyed, Jean led her away.</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur, ma petite!" he cried, "she took good care of Jean Marcel while
+he sleep. Piquet, he thought he keel us both in de tent. He nevaire see
+Fleur under de fir." The great dog trembling with the heat of battle,
+her mane stiff, yelped excitedly. "She love Jean Marcel, my Fleur; and
+what a strength she has!" Rearing, Fleur placed her mass<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>ive fore-paws
+on Marcel's chest, whining up into his face; then seizing a hand in her
+jaws, proudly drew him back to the dead man in the snow. There, raising
+her head, as if in warning to all enemies of her master, she sent out
+over the white hills the challenging howl of the husky.</p>
+
+<p>When Jean Marcel had buried the frozen body of Joe Piquet in a drift
+over the ridge, where the April thaws would betray him to the mercy of
+his kind, the forest creatures of tooth and beak and claw, he started
+back to the Ghost with Fleur, taking Piquet's rifle to be returned to
+his people with his fur and outfit. Confident that Antoine had had no
+part in the attempt to kill him and get his provisions, he wished
+Beaulieu to know Piquet's fate, as Antoine would now in all probability
+make for Whale River and could carry a message. Furthermore if anything
+had by chance happened to Beaulieu, Marcel wished to know it before
+starting north.</p>
+
+<p>As Fleur drew him swiftly over the trail, ice-hard from much travelling,
+Jean decided that if Antoine wished to fight out the winter in the
+Salmon country, for the sake of their old friendship he would overlook
+the half-breed's weakness under Piquet's influence, and offer to take
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Dawn was wavering in the gray east when Marcel reached the silent camp.
+He called loudly to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> wake the sleeping man inside; but there was no
+response.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel's heavy eyebrows contracted in a puzzled look.</p>
+
+<p>"Allo, Antoine!" Still no answer. Was he to find here more of the work
+of Joe Piquet? he wondered, as he swung back the slab-door of the shack
+and peered into the dim interior.</p>
+
+<p>There in his bunk lay the half-breed.</p>
+
+<p>"Wake up, Antoine!" Marcel cried, approaching the bunk; then the faint
+light from the open door fell on the gray face of Antoine Beaulieu,
+stiff in death.</p>
+
+<p>"Tiens!" muttered Marcel. "Stabbed tru de heart w'en he sleep. Joe
+Piquet, he t'ink to get our feesh and beaver and fur, den he tell dem at
+Whale Riviere we starve out. Poor Antoine!"</p>
+
+<p>Sick with the discovery, Jean sat beside the dead man, his head in his
+hands. Bitterly now, he regretted that he had refused the hand of his
+old friend in parting; that he had not taken him with him when he left
+the Ghost. It was clear that before starting to stalk Marcel's camp,
+Piquet had deemed it safer to seal the lips of Beaulieu forever as to
+the fate of the man he planned to kill.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Antoine!" Marcel sadly repeated. Outside, Fleur, fretting at the
+presence of death, whined to be off.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>In the cold sunrise, Jean lashed the body of his boyhood friend, which
+he had sewed in some canvas, on the food cache, that it might rest in
+peace undefiled by the forest creatures, until on his return in May he
+might give it decent burial. Beside it he placed the fur-packs, rifles
+and outfits of the two men.</p>
+
+<p>"Adieu, Antoine!" he called, waving his hand at the shrouded shape on
+the cache, and turned north.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+<h4>THE STARVING MOON</h4>
+
+
+<p>March, the Crees' "Moon of the Crust on the Snow," was old. Camped on a
+chain of lakes in the Salmon country Marcel had been following the few
+traps for which he had bait and at the same time hunting widely for
+food. Soon, the sun, mounting higher and higher each day at noon, would
+begin to soften the surface of the snow which the freezing nights would
+harden into crust. Then he could travel far and fast. With much
+searching he had found another beaver lodge, postponing for a space the
+days when man and dog would have not even half rations to stay their
+hunger. The Frenchman's drawn face and loose capote evidenced the weeks
+of under-nourishment; but, though Fleur's great bones and the ropes of
+muscle, banding her back and shoulders, thrust through her shaggy coat
+with undue prominence, still she had as yet suffered little from the
+famine. So long as Jean Marcel had had fish or meat, his growing puppy
+had received the greater share, for she had already attained in that
+winter on the Ghost a height and bulk of bone equal to that of her
+slate-gray mother now far on the north coast.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>For days Jean had been praying for the coming of the crust. With it he
+planned to make a wide circle back into the high barrens in search of
+returning caribou. Once the crust had set hard, travelling with the sled
+into new country would be easy. Food he must accumulate to take them
+through the April thaws, or perish miserably, with no one to carry the
+news of their fate to Whale River. Since the heart-breaking days when
+the white wolves drove the caribou south and the rabbits disappeared, he
+had, in moments of depression, sat by the fire at night, wondering, when
+June again came to Whale River and one by one the canoes of the Crees
+appeared, if, by chance, a pair of dark eyes would ever turn to the
+broad surface of the river for the missing craft of Jean Marcel&mdash;whether
+in the joy of her love for another the heart of the girl would sadden
+for one whose bones whitened in far Ungava hills.</p>
+
+<p>At last the crust came. With eyes shielded by snow goggles made by
+cutting slits in flat pieces of spruce, for the glare of the sun on the
+barrens was intense, Jean started with his dog. All the food he had was
+on his sled. He had burned his bridges, for if he failed in his hunt,
+they would starve, but as well starve in the barrens, he thought, as
+back at camp.</p>
+
+<p>They were passing through the thick spruce of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> sheltered valley,
+travelling up-wind, when Fleur, sniffing hard, grew excited. There was
+something ahead, probably fur, so he did not tie his dog. Shortly Fleur
+started to bolt with the sled and Jean turned her loose. Following his
+yelping husky, who broke through the new crust at every leap, Marcel
+entered a patch of cedar scrub. There Fleur distanced him.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly, a scream, followed by a din of snarls and squalls filled the
+forest. Close ahead a bitter struggle of creatures milling to the death
+was on. "Tiens!" exclaimed Jean, fearing for the eyes of his raw puppy,
+battling for the first time with the great cat of the north. He broke
+through the scrub to see the lynx spring backward from the rush of the
+dog and leap for the limbs of a low cedar. But the cat was too slow, for
+at the same instant, Fleur's jaws snapped on his loins, and with a
+wrench of her powerful neck, the husky threw the animal to the snow with
+a broken back. In a flash she changed her grip, the long fangs crunching
+through the neck of the helpless beast, and with a quiver, the lynx was
+dead.</p>
+
+<p>Hot with the lust of battle, Fleur worried the body of her enemy.
+Reaching her, Jean proudly patted his dog's back.</p>
+
+<p>"My Fleur! She make de <i>loup-cervier</i> run!" he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> cried, delighted with
+the courage and power of his puppy.</p>
+
+<p>Then he anxiously examined the slashes of rapier claws on Fleur's muzzle
+and shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Bon!" he said, relieved. "De lynx he very weak or he cut you deeper dan
+dese scratch."</p>
+
+<p>As Jean hastily skinned the dead cat he marvelled at its emaciation.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! He also miss de rabbit. Lucky he starve or you get de beeg scratch,
+Fleur."</p>
+
+<p>For answer the hot tongue of the dog sought his hands as she raised her
+brown eyes to his. With arms around her shaggy shoulders her proud
+master muttered into the ears of the delighted husky love words that
+would have been strange indeed to any but Fleur, who found them sweet
+beyond measure.</p>
+
+<p>"My Fleur, she grow to be de dog, de most <i>sauvage</i>!" he cried. "Some
+day she keel de wolf, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Owing to the weakened condition of the lynx, Fleur's were but surface
+scratches. So furious had been the husky's assault on the starved cat
+that she had left no opening to the knife-like claws of the powerful
+hind legs.</p>
+
+<p>Continuing east, four days later Marcel camped in a valley on the flank
+of a great barren. In the morning, tying Fleur with a rawhide thong
+which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> she could have chewed through with ease but had been taught to
+respect, he followed the scrub along the edge of the barren searching
+for caribou signs. Often he stopped to gaze out across the white waste
+reaching away east to the horizon, seeking for blue-gray objects whose
+movements in scraping away the snow to the moss beneath, would alone
+mark them as caribou. In places the great winds had swept the plateau
+almost bare, beating down the snow to a depth of less than a foot. All
+day he skirted the barren but at last turned back to his camp sick at
+heart and spent with the long day on the crust, following his meagre
+breakfast. Deep in the shelter of the thick timber of the valley, he had
+dug away the snow for his fire and sleeping place, lashing above his bed
+of spruce boughs a strip of canvas which acted both as windbreak and
+heat reflector. When they had eaten their slim supper, he freshened the
+fire with birch logs, and sat down with Fleur's head between his knees.
+The "Starving Moon" of the Montagnais hung over Jean Marcel.</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur, you know we got onlee two day meat left? W'en dat go, Jean
+Marcel go too&mdash;een few day, a week maybe; and Fleur, w'at she do?"</p>
+
+<p>The husky's slant eyes shone with her dog love into the set face of her
+master. She whined, wrinkling her gray nose, then her jaw dropped,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+which was her manner of laughing, while her hot breath steamed in the
+freezing air. Vainly she waited for the smile that had never failed to
+light Marcel's face in the old days at such advances.</p>
+
+<p>Dropping his mittens Jean held the massive head between his naked hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean Marcel feel ver' bad to leave Fleur alone. Wid no game she starve
+too, w'en he go," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Fleur's deep throat rumbled in ecstasy as the hands of the master rubbed
+her ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Back on de Ghost, Fleur, ees some feesh and meat Joe and Antoine left;
+not much, but eet tak' us to Whale Riviere, maybe."</p>
+
+<p>The lips of Fleur lifted from her white teeth at the names of Jean's
+partners.</p>
+
+<p>"You remember Joe Piquet, Fleur? Joe Piquet!"</p>
+
+<p>The husky growled. She knew only too well the name, Joe Piquet.</p>
+
+<p>"Eet ees four&mdash;five sleep to de Ghost, Fleur, shall we go? W'at you
+t'ink?"</p>
+
+<p>The strained face in the fur-lined hood approached the dog's, whose eyes
+shifted uneasily from the fixed look of her master.</p>
+
+<p>"We go back to de Ghost, Fleur, or mak' one beeg hunt for de deer?"</p>
+
+<p>The perplexed husky, unable to meet Marcel's piercing eyes, sprang to
+her feet with a yelp.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>"Bon!" he cried. "We mak' de beeg hunt!" He had had his answer and on
+the yelp of his dog had staked their fate. To-morrow he would push on
+into the barrens and find the caribou drifting north again, or flicker
+out with his dog as men for centuries had perished, beaten by the long
+snows.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning he divided his remaining food into four parts; a
+breakfast and a supper for himself and Fleur, for two days. After
+that&mdash;strips of caribou hide and moss, boiled in snow water, to ease the
+throbbing ache of their stomachs.</p>
+
+<p>Eating his thin stew, he shortened his belt still another hole over his
+lean waist, and harnessing Fleur, turned resolutely east into country no
+white man had ever seen, on his bold gamble for food or an endless sleep
+in the blue Ungava hills.</p>
+
+<p>In his weakened state, black spots and pin-points of light danced before
+his eyes. Distant objects were often magnified out of all proportion. So
+intense was the glare of the high March sun on the crust that his wooden
+goggles alone saved him from snow-blindness. He travelled a few miles
+until dizziness forced him to rest. Later he continued on, to rest
+again, while the black nose of Fleur, who was still comparatively
+strong, sought his face, as she wondered at the reason for the master's
+strange actions.</p>
+
+<p>By noon he had crossed no trail except that of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> wolverine seeking food
+like himself, and finally went down into the timbered valley of a brook
+where he left Fleur and the sled. Then he started again on his hopeless
+search. As the streams flowed northeast, he was certain that he had
+crossed the Height of Land to the Ungava Bay watershed, and was now in
+the headwater country of the fabled River of Leaves, the Koksoak of the
+Esquimos, into which no hunter from Whale River had ever penetrated.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel was snow-shoeing through the scrub at the edge of the plateau
+when far out on the barren he saw two spots. Shortly he was convinced
+that the objects moved.</p>
+
+<p>"By Gar, deer! At last they travel nord!" he gasped, gazing with
+bounding pulses at the distant spots almost indistinguishable against
+the snow. Meat out there on the barren awaited him&mdash;food and life, if
+only he could get within range.</p>
+
+<p>Cutting back into the scrub, that he might begin his stalk of the
+caribou from the nearest cover with the wind in his face, he moved
+behind a rise in the ground slowly out into the barren. With a caution
+he had never before exercised, lest the precious food now almost within
+reach should escape him, the starving man advanced.</p>
+
+<p>At last he crawled up behind a low knoll, and stretched out on the snow.
+Cocking and thrusting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> his rifle before him, he wormed his way to the
+top of the rise and looked.</p>
+
+<p>There a hundred yards off, playing on the crust, were two arctic foxes.
+Distorting their size, the barren ground mirage had cruelly deceived
+him.</p>
+
+<p>With a groan the spent hunter dropped his head on his arms. "All dees
+for fox!" he murmured. Then, because foxes were meat, he took careful
+aim and shot one, wounding the other, which he killed with the second
+bullet. Hanging the carcasses in a spruce, Marcel continued to skirt the
+barren toward the east.</p>
+
+<p>As dusk fell he returned to Fleur and made camp. Cutting up and boiling
+one of the foxes, he and the dog ate ravenously of the rank flesh, but
+hope was low in the breast of Jean Marcel. A day or two more of half
+rations and he was done. The spring migration of the caribou was not yet
+on. And when the deer did come, it would be too late. Jean Marcel would
+be past aid and Fleur&mdash;what would become of her? True, she could live on
+the flanks of the caribou herds like the wolves, but the wolves would
+find and destroy her.</p>
+
+<p>Tortured by such thoughts, he sat by his fire, the husky's great head on
+his knee, her eyes searching his, mutely demanding the reason for his
+strange silence.</p>
+
+<p>Another day of fruitless wandering in which he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> had pushed as far east
+as his fading strength would take him, and Jean shared the last of the
+food with his dog. He had fought hard to find the deer, had already
+travelled one hundred miles into the barrens, but he felt that it was no
+use; he was beaten. The spirit of the coureurs whose blood coursed his
+veins would drive him on and on, but without food the days of his
+hunting would be few. Henceforth it would be caribou hide boiled with
+moss from the barrens to ease the pinch of his hunger, but his strength
+would swiftly go. Then, when hope died, rather than leave his dog to the
+wolves, he would shoot Fleur and lying down beside her in his blanket,
+place the muzzle of his rifle against his own head.</p>
+
+<p>Two days, in which Marcel and Fleur drank the liquor from stewed caribou
+hide and moss while he continued to hunt, followed. As he staggered into
+camp at the end of the second day the man was so weak that he scarcely
+found strength to gather wood for his fire. Fleur now showed signs of
+slow starvation in her protruding ribs and shoulders. Her heavy coat no
+longer shone with gloss but lay flat and lusterless. Vainly she
+whimpered for the food that her heart-sick master could not give her.
+With the dog beside him, Marcel lay by the fire numbed into indifference
+to his fate. The torment of hunger had vanished leaving only great
+weakness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> and a dazed brain. He thought of the three wooden crosses at
+Whale River; how restful it would be to lie beside them behind the
+Mission, instead of sleeping far in the barrens where the great winds
+beat ceaselessly by over the treeless snows. There Julie Breton might
+have planted forest flowers on the mound that marked the grave of Jean
+Marcel. But no, he had forgotten; Julie Breton would not be at Whale
+River. Julie would live at East Main and some day at her feet would play
+the children of Wallace. Julie would be married in the spring at Whale
+River, while the wolves and ravens were scattering the whitened bones of
+Jean Marcel over the valley, and there would be no rest&mdash;no rest.</p>
+
+<p>What hopes he had had of a little house of their own at Whale River when
+he entered the service of the Company and drove the mail packet down the
+coast, with the team that Fleur would give him. How often he had
+pictured that home where Julie and the children would wait his return
+from summer voyage and winter trail; Julie Breton, whom he had loved
+from boyhood and whom, he had once prided himself, should love him, some
+day, when he had proved his manhood among the swart men of the East
+Coast.</p>
+
+<p>All a dream&mdash;a dream. Julie was happy. She would soon marry the great
+man at East Main, while in a few days Jean Marcel was going to snuff<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+out&mdash;smoulder a while, as a fire from lack of wood, dying by inches&mdash;by
+inches; and then two shots.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Fleur! It had all come to pass because he had dared to follow and
+bring her home&mdash;had had no time to cache fish and game in the fall. She
+would have been better off with the half-breeds on the Rupert, where the
+caribou had gone. They would have kicked her, but fed her too. Yes, she
+would have been better there. Now he would take her with him, his own
+dog, when the time came. No more starvation for her, and a death in the
+barrens when she met the white wolves. Yes, he would take her with him.</p>
+
+<p>So rambled the thoughts of Jean Marcel, as he lay with his dog facing
+the creeping death his rifle would cheat, until kindly sleep brought him
+surcease&mdash;sleep, followed by dreams of the wide barrens trampled by
+herds of the returning caribou, of juicy steaks sizzling over the fire,
+while Fleur gnawed contentedly at huge thigh bones.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+<h4>THE TURN OF THE TIDE</h4>
+
+
+<p>Before dawn, a cold nose nuzzling his face buried in his robe, waked
+Marcel.</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur, hungry? Eet ees better to sleep w'en dere ees no breakfast," he
+protested.</p>
+
+<p>The warm tongue sought the face of the drowsy man, and the dog, not to
+be put off, thrust her nose roughly into his robe, whimpering as she
+pulled at his capote.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Fleur!" he muttered. "No more meat for de pup! Lie down! Jean ees
+ver' tired."</p>
+
+<p>But the dog, bent on arousing the master, grew only the more insistent.
+Seizing an arm in her jaws, she dragged Marcel from his rabbit-skin
+blankets.</p>
+
+<p>As he sat upright, wide awake, Fleur sniffed long at the frosty air,
+then dashed yelping into the dusk up the trail toward the barren.
+Turning, she ran back to camp, whining excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Tiens! W'at you smell, Fleur?" cried Marcel tearing his rifle with
+shaking hands from its skin case and cramming cartridges into a pocket.
+Could it be, he wondered, could it be the deer at last?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> No, only a
+starving wolf or lynx, prowling near the camp, likely. But still he
+would go! The love of life was yet strong in Jean Marcel now that a
+gleam of hope warmed his heart.</p>
+
+<p>Slipping his toes into the thongs of his snow-shoes, he made Fleur fast
+to a tree, and started. He was so weak from lack of food that often he
+was forced to stop in the climb, shaken by his hammering heart. At last,
+exhausted, he dragged himself to the shoulder of the barren and on
+unsteady legs moved along the edge of the scrub, his eyes straining to
+pierce the wall of dusk which shut the plateau from his sight. But the
+shadows still blanketed the barren; so testing the light wind, that he
+might move directly out toward the game when the light grew stronger, he
+sat down to save his strength for the stalk. Only too clearly, his
+weakness warned him that it was his last hunt. By another day, even
+though he managed the climb, his trembling hands would prevent the
+lining of his sights on game.</p>
+
+<p>As opal and rose faintly streaked the east, the teeth of the hunter,
+waiting to read the fate daylight would disclose, chattered in the
+stinging air. But a space now, and he would know whether he were to
+creep back to his blankets and wait for stark despair to steady the hand
+which would bring swift release for Fleur and himself, or whether meat,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+food, life, were scraping with round-toed hooves the snow from the
+caribou moss out there in the dim dawn.</p>
+
+<p>Daylight filtered over the floor of snow to meet Marcel lying at the top
+of a rise out on the barren, waiting. As the light at length opened up
+the treeless miles, a sob shook the lean frame of the hunter. Tears
+welled in the deep-set eyes to course down and freeze upon his face, for
+there, on the snow before him, were the <i>blue-gray shapes of caribou</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Three deer were feeding almost within range while farther out, gray
+patches, moving on the snow, marked other bands. At last the spring
+migration had reached him, and barely in time. He would see Whale River
+again when June came north. And Fleur, fretting back there in camp at
+his absence, after the lean days would revel and grow gigantic on deer
+meat.</p>
+
+<p>Painfully Marcel crawled within easy range of the nearest caribou. As he
+attempted to line his sights in order to hit two with the first shot, as
+he had often done, the waving of his gun barrel in his trembling hands
+swept him cold with fear. The exertion of crawling to his position had
+cruelly shaken his nerves. So he rested.</p>
+
+<p>Then he carefully took aim. As he fired, his heart skipped a beat, for
+he thought he had missed. But to his joy a caribou bounded from the
+snow,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> ran a few feet and fell, while another, stopping to scent the air
+before circling up-wind, gave him a second shot. The deer was badly hit
+and the next shot brought it down.</p>
+
+<p>The tension of the crisis passed, the shattered nerves relaxed, and for
+a space the starving hunter lay limp in the snow. But warned by his
+rapidly numbing fingers, he forced himself to his feet and went to the
+deer. Out on the barren beyond the sound of his rifle scattered bands of
+caribou were feeding. Meat to take them through the big "break-up" of
+April was at hand. The lean face of Jean Marcel twisted into a grim
+smile.</p>
+
+<p><i>He had beaten the long snows.</i></p>
+
+<p>Stopping only to take the tongues and a piece of haunch, Marcel returned
+to his hungry dog. Frantic with the faint scent of caribou brought by
+the breeze off the barren, the famished Fleur chafed and fretted for his
+return.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Fleur, see what Jean Marcel got for you!"</p>
+
+<p>The husky, maddened by the scent of the blood-red meat, plunged at her
+leash, her jaws dripping with slaver. Throwing her a chunk of frozen
+haunch which she bolted greedily, Marcel filled his kettle with snow and
+putting in a tongue and strips of steak to boil, lay down by his fire.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+<h4>SPRING AND FLEUR</h4>
+
+
+<p>At intervals during the day Jean drank the strengthening broth, too
+"bush-wise" to sicken himself by gorging. By late afternoon he was able
+to drive the rejuvenated Fleur to the barren and bring back the meat on
+the sled. The days following were busy ones. At first his weakness
+forced him to husband his strength while the stew and roasted red meat
+were thickening his blood, but as the food began to tell, he was able to
+hunt farther and farther into the barrens where the main migration of
+the caribou was passing. When he was strong enough, he took Fleur with a
+load of meat back to his old winter camp, returning with traps. These he
+set at the carcasses he had shot, for foxes, lynxes and wolverines were
+drawn from the four winds to his kill. So while he hunted meat to carry
+him through April, and home, at the same time he added materially to his
+fur-pack.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the end of March, before the first thaws softened his back trail
+and made sled-travel heart-breaking for Fleur, Jean began relaying west
+the meat he had shot. He had now, cached in the bar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>rens, ample food to
+supply Fleur and himself until the opening of the waterways when fish
+would be a most welcome change. His sledding over, he returned to his
+camp in the barrens to get his traps and take one last hunt, for the
+lean weeks of the winter had made him over-cautious and he wished to
+make the trip back with a loaded sled.</p>
+
+<p>By the coming of April, Fleur, in whom an abundance of red caribou meat
+had swiftly worked a metamorphosis, had increased in bone and weight. As
+Jean watched her throw her heavy shoulders into her collar and trot
+lightly off over the hard trail with a two hundred pound load his heart
+leaped with love of the beautiful beast who worshipped him with every
+red drop in her shaggy body. What a team she would give him some day! he
+thought. There would be nothing like them south of Hudson's Straits. And
+the Company would need them for the winter mail packet, with Jean Marcel
+to drive them.</p>
+
+<p>Lately he had noticed a new trait in his dog. Several times, deep in the
+night when he waked to renew the fire, he had found that Fleur was not
+sleeping near him but had wandered off into the "bush." As she needed no
+food, he thought these night hunts of the husky peculiar. But at dawn,
+he always found Fleur back in camp sleeping beside him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>It was Marcel's last night in the barren-ground camp. Leaving Fleur, he
+had, as usual, hunted all day, returning with a sled load of meat which
+he drew himself. As he approached the camp he crossed the trail of a
+huge timber wolf and hurried to learn if his dog had been attacked, for
+tied as she was, she would fight with a cruel handicap. But Fleur
+greeted him as usual with yelps of delight. In the vicinity of the camp
+there were no tracks to show that the wolf had approached the husky.
+However, Marcel decided that he would not leave her again bound in camp
+unable to chew through the rawhide thongs in time to protect herself
+from sudden attacks of the wolves which roamed the country.</p>
+
+<p>After supper man and dog sat by the fire, but Fleur was manifestly
+restless. Time and again she left his side to take long sniffs of the
+air. Not even the rubbing of her ears which usually brought grunts of
+pleasure had the magic to hold her long.</p>
+
+<p>The early moon hung on the white brow of a distant ridge, and Jean,
+finishing his pipe, was about to renew his fire and roll into his
+blankets, when a long, wailing howl floated across the valley.</p>
+
+<p>Fleur bounded to her feet, her quivering nostrils sucking in the keen
+air. Again the call of the timber wolf drifted out on the silent night.
+Fleur, alive with excitement, trotted into the "bush." In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> a moment she
+returned to the fire, whimpering. Then sitting down, she pointed her
+nose at the stars and her deep throat swelled with the long-drawn howl
+of the husky. Shortly, when the timber wolf replied, the lips of Fleur
+did not lift from her white fangs in a snarl nor did her thick mane rise
+as her ears pricked eagerly forward.</p>
+
+<p>At dawn Jean waked with a sense of loneliness. Pushing together the
+embers of his fire, he put on fresh wood, and not seeing Fleur, called
+to her but she did not appear. She had a habit of prowling around the
+neighboring "bush" at dawn, inspecting fresh tracks of mice, searching
+for ptarmigan or for the snow-shoe rabbits that were not there. But when
+Marcel's breakfast was cooked Fleur was still absent. Thinking that a
+fresh game trail had led her some distance, he ate, then started to
+break camp. Finally he put his index and middle fingers between his
+teeth and blew the piercing whistle which had never failed to bring her
+leaping home. Intently, he listened for her answer somewhere in the
+valley of the stream or on the edge of the barren, but the yelp of his
+dog did not come to his straining ears.</p>
+
+<p>Curious as to the cause of her absence Jean smoked his pipe and waited.
+He was anxious to start back with his traps and meat; but where was
+Fleur? Becoming alarmed by the middle of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> morning, he made a wide
+circle of the camp hoping to pick up her trail. Two days previous there
+had been a flurry of snow sufficient to enable him to follow her tracks
+on the stiff crust. In the vicinity of the camp were traces of Fleur's
+recent footprints but finally, at a distance, Marcel ran into a fresh
+trail leading down into the brook-bottom. There he lost it, and after
+hours of search returned to camp to wait for her return. But the day
+wore away and the husky did not appear. Night came and visions of his
+dog lying somewhere stiff in the snow slashed and torn by wolves,
+tortured his thoughts. If only he could pick up her trail at daylight,
+he thought, for she might still live, crippled, unable to come to him,
+waiting for Jean Marcel who had never failed her.</p>
+
+<p>As he sat brooding by his fire, he came to realize, now that he had lost
+her, what a part of him the dog had become. His thoughts drifted back
+over their life together, months of gruelling toil and&mdash;delight. Tears
+traced their way down the wind-burned cheeks of Marcel as he recalled
+her early puppy ways and antics, how she had loved to nibble with her
+sharp milk teeth at his moccasins and sit in the bow of the canoe, on
+their way down the coast, scolding at the seals and ducks; with what mad
+delight she had welcomed his visits to the stockade at Whale River
+circling him at full speed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> until breathless and panting, she leaped
+upon him, her hot tongue seeking his hands and face. Then on the long
+trail home from the south coast marshes, how closely she would snuggle
+to his back as they lay on the beaches, as if fearing to lose him while
+she slept. And the winter on the Ghost, with its ghastly end&mdash;what a
+rock his dog had been when his partners failed him! In the moment of his
+peril, how savagely she had battled for Jean Marcel! Through the lean
+weeks of starvation when hope had died, to the dawn when she had waked
+him at the coming of the caribou, his thoughts led him. And now, when
+spring and Whale River were near, it was all over. Their life together
+with its promise of the future had been snapped short off. He should
+never again look into the slant, brown eyes of Fleur. He had lost his
+all; first Julie, and now, Fleur. There was nothing left.</p>
+
+<p>At daybreak, without hope, he took up the search along the stream. Where
+the wind had driven, the crust now stiff with alternate freezing and
+thawing and swept clean of snow, would show little sign of the passing
+of the dog, but in the sheltered areas where the crust was softer and
+the young snow lay, he hoped to cross the tracks of Fleur. At length,
+miles from the camp, he picked up the trail of the dog in some light
+drift. Following the tracks across the brook-bottom and into the scrub
+of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> opposite slope, he suddenly stopped, wide-eyed with amazement at
+the evidence written plainly in the light covering of the crust. Fleur's
+tracks had been joined by, and ran side by side with, the trail of a
+wolf.</p>
+
+<p>"By Gar!" gasped the surprised Frenchman. "She do not fight wid de
+wolf!"</p>
+
+<p>As he travelled, he found no marks of battle in the snow, simply the
+parallel trails of the two, dog and wolf, now trotting, now lengthening
+out into the long, wolf lope.</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur leave Jean Marcel for de wolf!" the trapper rubbed his eyes as
+though suspicious of a trick of vision. His Fleur, whom he loved as his
+life and who adored Jean Marcel, to desert him this way in the
+night&mdash;and for a timber wolf.</p>
+
+<p>It was strange indeed. Yet he had heard of such things. It was this way
+that the Esquimos kept up the marvellous strain to which Fleur belonged.
+He recalled the peculiar actions of the dog during the previous
+days&mdash;the wolf tracks near the camp; her excitement of the night before
+when the call had sounded over the valley. This wolf had been dogging
+their trail for a week and Fleur had known it.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" he murmured, nodding his head. "Eet ees de spreeng!"</p>
+
+<p>Yes, the spring was slowly creeping north and the creatures of the
+forest had already answered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> its call. It was April, and Fleur, too, had
+succumbed to an urge stronger for the moment than the love of the
+master. April, the Crees' "Moon of the Breaking of the Snow-Shoes,"
+when, at last, the wind would begin to shift to the south and the nights
+lose their edge, only to shift back again, with frost. Then the snow
+would melt hard at noon, softening the trails, and later on, rain and
+sleet would drive in from the great Bay turning the white floor of the
+forest to slush, flooding the ice of the rivers which later would break
+up and move out, overrunning the shell of pond and lake which late in
+May would honeycomb and disappear.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel followed the trails of wolf and dog until he lost them on the
+wind-packed snow of the barren. There was nothing to do but wait. He
+knew his dog had not forgotten him&mdash;would come home; but when? It was
+high time for his return to the camp in the Salmon country, to his
+precious cache of meat, which would attract lynxes and wolverines for
+miles around. The bears would soon leave their "washes" and the uprights
+of his cache were not proof against bear. But he would not go without
+Fleur, and she was away, somewhere in the hills.</p>
+
+<p>Three days he waited, continuing to hunt that he might take a full
+sled-load back to his cache. But the weather was softening and any day
+now might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> mean the start of the big "break-up." It was deep in the
+third night that a great gray shape burst out of the forest and pounced
+upon the muffled figure under the shed-tent by the fire. As the dog
+pawed at the blanketed shape, Marcel, drugged with sleep and bewildered
+by the attack, was groping for his knife, when a familiar whine and the
+licks of a warm tongue proclaimed the return of Fleur, and the man threw
+his arms around his dog.</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur come back to Jean?" Breaking from him, in sheer delight, the dog
+repeatedly circled the fire, then rearing on her hind legs put her
+fore-paws on his chest.</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur bad dog to run away wid de wolf!" Marcel seized her by the jowls
+and shook the massive head, peering into the slant eyes in the dim
+starlight. And Fleur, as though ashamed of her desertion of the master,
+pushed her nose under his arm, the rumbling in her throat voicing her
+joy to be with him again. Then Marcel gave her meat from the cache which
+she bolted greedily.</p>
+
+<p>It had not entered his mind once he had found her tracks that Fleur
+would not return to him, but during her long absence the condition of
+the snow had been a source of worry. Each day's delay meant the chance
+of the bottom suddenly falling out of the trail before he could freight
+his load of meat and traps back to his old camp far to the west.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> Once
+the big thaw was on, all sledding would be over. So, hurriedly eating
+his breakfast, he started under the stars, for at noon he would be held
+up by the softening trail. Toward mid-afternoon, when it turned colder,
+he would again travel.</p>
+
+<p>Back at his old camp, Marcel found that the fish-hook necklace with
+which he had circled each of the peeled spruce uprights of his cache had
+baffled the wolverines and lynxes lured for miles by the odor of meat.
+Resetting short trap-lines, he waited for the "break-up" with tranquil
+mind, for his cache groaned with meat.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+<h4>WHEN THE ICE GOES SOFT</h4>
+
+
+<p>The snows were fading fast before the rain and sleet of the big thaw.
+Often, at night, the softening winds shifted, to drive in raw from the
+north, again tightening the land with frost. But each day, as May
+neared, the sun swung higher and higher, slowly scattering the snow to
+flood the ice of myriad lakes and rivers. Already, Marcel had thrilled
+to the trumpets of the gray vanguards of the Canadas. On fair days the
+sun flashed from white fleets of "wavies," bound through seas of April
+skies to far Arctic ports.</p>
+
+<p>With May the buds of birch and poplar began to swell, later to light
+with the soft green of their young leaves the sombre reaches of upland
+jack-pine and spruce. Rimming the rivers with red, the new shoots of the
+willows appeared. At dawn, now, from dripping spires, white-throats and
+hermit thrush, fleeter than the spring, startled the drowsing forest
+with a reveille of song.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon in May on his return from picking up a line of traps to be
+cached for use the fol<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>lowing winter, Marcel went to the neighboring
+pond to lift his net. For safety on the rapidly sponging ice he wore his
+snow-shoes and carried a twelve-foot spruce pole. He had reset the net
+and was lashing an anchor line to a stake when suddenly the honeycombed
+shell crumbled beneath his feet.</p>
+
+<p>As he sank, he lunged for the pole he had dropped to set the net, but
+the surface settled under his leap carrying him into the water. Fighting
+in the mush ice for the pole almost within reach, to his horror he found
+his right foot trapped. He could not move farther in that direction. The
+snow-shoe was caught in the net.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel turned back floundering to the edge of firm ice, where he held
+himself afloat. Fast numbing with cold, as he clung, caught like a
+beaver in a trap, he knew that it was but a matter of minutes. Fleur, if
+only Fleur were there! But Fleur was hunting in the "bush."</p>
+
+<p>With a great effort he braced himself on his elbows, got his frozen
+fingers between his teeth, and blew the signal, once heard, his dog had
+never failed to answer.</p>
+
+<p>To the joy of the man slowly chilling to the bone, a yelp sounded in the
+forest. Rallying his ebbing strength, again Marcel whistled. Shortly
+Fleur appeared on the shore, sighted the master and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> bounded through the
+surface slop out to the fishing hole. Reaching Marcel, the husky seized
+a skin sleeve of his capote and arching her great back, fought the
+slippery footing in a mad effort to drag him from the water. But the net
+held him fast.</p>
+
+<p>"De stick, Fleur! De stick dere!" Marcel pointed toward the pole.</p>
+
+<p>Sensing his gesture, the dog brought the pole to the ice edge. Then with
+the pole bridging the hole, its ends on firm ice, Marcel worked his way
+to the submerged net, but the sinkers had hopelessly tangled the meshes
+with his snow-shoe. Under his soggy capote was his knife. His stiff
+fingers fumbled desperately with the knot of his sash but failed to
+loose it. Again Fleur seized his sleeve and pulled until she rolled
+backward with a patch of the tough hide in her teeth.</p>
+
+<p>The situation of the trapped man seemed hopeless. The chill of the water
+was fast numbing his senses. Already his heart slowed with the torpor of
+slow freezing. With difficulty now he kept the excited Fleur from
+plunging beside him into the mush ice.</p>
+
+<p>Then with a final effort he got his free leg with its snow-shoe, over
+the pole, and seizing the husky's tail with both hands, cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Marche, Fleur! Marche!"</p>
+
+<p>Settling low between wide-spread fore-legs, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> dog dug her nails into
+the soft ice and hurled her weight into a fierce lunge. As her feet
+slipped, the legs of the husky worked like piston rods showering
+Marcel's face with water, her nails gouging the ice, while she fought
+the drag of the net.</p>
+
+<p>At last, something gave way, Marcel felt himself move. Slowly the great
+dog drew her master over the pole and upon the ice with the net still
+anchored to his right foot.</p>
+
+<p>Still gripping Fleur's tail in his left hand, with the other he finally
+reached his knife and groping in the icy water slashed the heel thong of
+the caught shoe. Free, Marcel limped to his camp, Fleur, now leaping
+beside him, now marching proudly with his sleeve in her teeth.</p>
+
+<p>The heat of the fire and the hot broth soon started the blood of the
+half-frozen Frenchman, who lay muffled in a blanket. Near him sprawled
+the husky, who had sensed only too acutely on the ice the danger
+menacing her master and would not now leave his sight, but with head on
+paws watched the blanketed figure through eyes which spoke the thoughts
+she could not express: "Jean may need Fleur again. She will stay with
+him by the fire."</p>
+
+<p>Once too often, Marcel mused, he had gambled with the rotten spring ice,
+and now had barely missed paying for his rashness. To drown in a hole
+like a muskrat, after pulling out of the starvation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> days with a cache
+heavy with meat and fish, was unthinkable. But, after all, what did it
+matter? Life would be of small value now with Julie out of it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+<h4>THE DEAD MAN TELLS HIS TALE</h4>
+
+
+<p>When, late in May, the snow had left the open places reached by the sun
+and the ice cleared the rivers, Marcel was ready to make his first trip
+to the camp on the Ghost. Poor Antoine would have to lie content in a
+shallow grave among the boulders of the river shore, for the frost was
+still in the ground. Before the weather softened Jean had smoked the
+remainder of his meat and now he faced a ten-mile portage with his
+outfit. Before the trails went bad he could have freighted on the sled
+sufficient food for his journey home but had preferred to face the
+"break-up" in his own camp near a fish-lake and relay his meat over on
+his back in May. The memories of the winter aroused by the camp on the
+Ghost were too grim to attract him to the comfortable shack.</p>
+
+<p>One morning at sunrise, after lashing a pack on Fleur's broad back, he
+threw his tump-line over a bag of smoked meat and swinging it to his
+shoulders, started over the trail. In the middle of the forenoon he
+walked into the clearing on the Ghost and pushing off the head strap of
+his line, dropped his load.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>Glancing at the cache where he had left the body of Antoine Beaulieu
+lashed in canvas with the fur-packs and rifles of the dead men, Marcel
+muttered in surprise:</p>
+
+<p>"By Gar! Dat ees strange t'ing!"</p>
+
+<p>The scaffold was empty; the body of Antoine had been removed and not a
+vestige remained of the fur-packs and outfits of Jean's partners.
+Neither wolverines, lynxes nor bears, had they been able to overcome the
+fish-hook barriers guarding the uprights, would have stripped the
+platform in such fashion. Searching the soft earth, he found the faint
+tracks of moccasins which the recent rain had not obliterated. But down
+on the river shore the mud told the story. A canoe had landed there
+within a week, for in spite of the rain the deep impress of the feet of
+men carrying heavy loads still marked the beach. Since the ice went out
+someone who knew that the three men were wintering there, had travelled
+up the Ghost from the Whale, but why? They could not have been starving,
+for fish could then be had on the Whale for the setting of a net.
+Evidently they had buried Antoine and taken the fur-packs, rifles, and
+outfits of the two men to Whale River. Marcel searched for a message, in
+the phonetic writing employed throughout the north, burned into a blazed
+tree, or on a scrap of birch-bark, left in the shack, but found
+nothing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> The cabin was as he had last seen it. They had thought him,
+also, dead somewhere in the "bush" and had left no word, or&mdash;&mdash;Then the
+situation opened to him from the angle of view of the Cree visitors.</p>
+
+<p>A camp on the verge of starvation, witnessed by the depleted cache; a
+dead man stabbed to the heart, with his rifle and outfit beside him;
+also, the rifle and personal belongings, easily identified by his
+relatives, of a second man, who, if he were still alive, would have had
+them in his possession. Of the third man, who was to winter with them,
+no trace at the camp. Two dead and the third, possibly alive, if he had
+not starved out. And that third man was Jean Marcel.</p>
+
+<p>That was the grim tale which was travelling down the river ahead of him
+to the spring trade. Who killed Antoine Beaulieu, and where is Piquet?
+This was the question he would have to answer. This the factor and the
+kinsmen of his partners would demand of the third man, if he survived to
+reach the post. Yes, Whale River would anxiously await the return of
+Jean Marcel that spring, but would Whale River believe his story? Of the
+people of the post he had no doubt. Julie, Pčre Breton, the factor,
+Angus, Jules, he could count on. They knew him&mdash;were his friends. But
+the Crees, and half-breds; would they believe that Joe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> Piquet had been
+the evil genius of the tragedy on the Ghost, Joe Piquet, now dead and
+helpless to speak in his own defense? Would they believe in the
+innocence of the man who alone of the three partners had fought free of
+the long famine? Marcel's knowledge of the Indians' mental make-up told
+him that since the visit of the Crees to the camp his case was hopeless.</p>
+
+<p>They would readily believe that he had killed his partners for the
+remaining food, and, not anticipating the coming of a canoe in the
+spring to the camp, had gone after caribou, planning to secrete the body
+of Antoine, with its evidence of violence, on his return.</p>
+
+<p>Of those who had peopled the canoes starting for the up-river summer
+camps in July, many a face would now be absent when the Crees returned
+for this year's trade. Famine surely had come to more than one camp of
+the red hunters that winter; and doubtless, swift death in the night,
+also, among some of those, who, when caught by the rabbit plague and the
+absence of wintering caribou, like Piquet, went mad with hunger.
+Disease, too, as a hawk strikes a ptarmigan, would have struck down many
+a helpless child and woman marooned in snow-drifted tepee in the silent
+places. Old age would have claimed its toll in the bitter January
+winds.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>To the red hunters, starvation and tragic death wore familiar faces. In
+the wide north they were common enough. So, when in the spring, men
+loosed from the maw of the pitiless snows returned without comrade, wife
+or child, seeking succor at the fur-posts, with tales of death by
+starvation or disease, the absence of witnesses or evidence compelled
+the acceptance of their stories however suspicious the circumstances.
+There being no proof of guilt, and because, moreover, their tales were
+often true, there could be no punishment, except the covert condemnation
+of their fellows or the secret vengeance of kinsman or friend in the
+guise of a shot from the "bush" or knife thrust in the dark. He recalled
+the cases he knew or which he had heard discussed over many a camp-fire,
+of men on the East Coast, sole survivors of starvation camps, who would
+go to their graves privately branded as murderers by their fellows.</p>
+
+<p>Grim tales of his father returned to him; of the half-breed from
+Nichicun who, it was commonly believed, had eaten his partner; of Crees
+who had appeared in the spring at the posts without parents, or wives
+and children, to tell conflicting stories of death through disease or
+starvation; of the Frenchman at Mistassini&mdash;still a valued servant of
+the Company&mdash;who was known from Fort Albany to Whale River and from
+Rupert to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> Peribonka, as the squaw-man who saved himself on the
+Fading Waters by deserting his Montagnais girl wife. These and many
+more, through lack of any proof of guilt, had escaped the long arm of
+the government which, through the fur-posts, reached to the uttermost
+valleys of the north.</p>
+
+<p>And so it must have been with Jean Marcel, however suspicious his story,
+had he buried Antoine somewhere in the snow, as he had Piquet, instead
+of lashing the body on the cache with its telltale death wound. As it
+was he already saw himself, though innocent, condemned in the court of
+Cree opinion as the slayer of his friend.</p>
+
+<p>As he came to a realization of how his case would look, even to the
+whites at Whale River, he cursed the dead man Piquet for bringing all
+this upon a guiltless man&mdash;for leaving him this black legacy of
+suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>Well, he swore to himself, they should believe his story at the post,
+for it was the truth; and if any man, white or red, openly doubted his
+innocence, he would have to answer to Jean Marcel. To be branded on the
+East Coast as the assassin of his partners was a bitter draught for the
+palate of the proud Frenchman. For generations the Marcels had borne an
+honored name in the Company's service and now for the last of them to be
+suspected of foul murder, was disgrace unthinkable.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>So ran his thoughts as he hurried back over the trail to his camp. Of
+one thing he felt sure. The situation brought about by the visit of the
+Crees demanded his presence at the post as soon after their arrival as
+his paddle could drive his canoe. From the appearance of the tracks on
+the beach they already had a good start and it would take two days for
+him to pack to the Ghost what meat and outfit he needed for the trip,
+besides his furs. The rest he could cache.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+<h4>THE BLIND CLUTCH OF CIRCUMSTANCE</h4>
+
+
+<p>Three days later, he had run the strong-water of the Ghost to Conjuror's
+Falls, where he exchanged Beaulieu's canoe for his own, cached the
+previous fall, and continued on to the Whale until the moon set, when he
+camped.</p>
+
+<p>Then next morning, long before the rising sun, reaching the smoking
+surface in his path, rolled the river mists back to fade on the
+ridges, Marcel, with Fleur in the bow, was well started on his
+three-hundred-mile journey. Travel as he might, he could not hope to
+overtake the canoe bearing the tale of the tragedy to Whale River; but
+each day when once the news had reached the post, the story, passed
+from mouth to mouth among the Crees, would gather size and distortion
+with Marcel not present to refute it. There was great need for speed,
+so he drove his canoe to the limit of his strength, running all rapids
+which skill and daring could outwit.</p>
+
+<p>Different, far, from the home-coming he had pictured through the last
+weeks, would be his return to Whale River. True, there would have been
+no long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> June days with Julie Breton, as in previous summers, no walks
+up the river shore when the low sun turned the Bay to burnished copper,
+and later, the twilight held deep into the night. If she were not
+already married her days would be too full to spare much time to her old
+friend Jean Marcel. But there would have been rest and ease, after the
+months of toil and famine&mdash;long talks with Jules and Angus, with worry
+behind him in the hills. Instead he was returning to his friends branded
+as a criminal by the evidence of the cache on the Ghost.</p>
+
+<p>At times, when the magic of the young spring, in the air, the forest,
+the hills, for a space swept clean his troubled brain of dark memory, he
+dreamed that the water-thrushes in the river willows called to him:
+"Sweet, sweet, sweet, Julie Breton!" That yellow warblers and friendly
+chickadees, from the spruces of the shore, hailed him as one of the
+elect, for was he not also a lover? That the kingfishers which scurried
+ahead of his boat gossiped to him of hidden nests. Deeply, as he
+paddled, he inhaled the scent of the flowering forest world, the
+fragrance of the northern spring, while his birch-bark rode the choked
+current. And then, the stark realization that he had lost her, and the
+shadow of his new trouble, would bring him rough awakening.</p>
+
+<p>Meeting no canoes of Cree hunters bound for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> trade, for it was yet
+early, in nine days Marcel turned into the post. He smiled bitterly as
+he saw in the clearing a handful of tepees. Around the evening fires
+they had doubtless already convicted Jean Marcel, alive or dead.
+Familiar with the half-breed weakness for exaggeration, he wondered in
+what form the story of the cache on the Ghost had been retailed at the
+trade-house. Well, he should soon know.</p>
+
+<p>The howling of the post dogs announced his arrival, stirring Fleur after
+her long absence from the sight of her kind to a strenuous reply.
+Leaving his canoe on the beach Marcel went at once to the Mission, where
+the door was opened by the priest.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean Marcel!" The bearded face of the Oblat lighted with pleasure as he
+opened his arms to the wanderer. "You are back, well and strong? The
+terrible famine did not reach you?" he asked in French.</p>
+
+<p>Jean's deep-set eyes searched the priest's face for evidence of a change
+toward him but found the same frank, kindly look he had always known.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Father, I beat the famine but I have bad news. Antoine is dead. He
+was&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know," Pčre Breton hastily broke in. "They brought the word. It
+is terrible! And Piquet, is he dead also?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Father," Marcel said quietly. "Joe Piquet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> was killed by Fleur,
+here, after he stabbed Antoine!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Juste Ciel!</i> Killed by Fleur after he stabbed Antoine?" repeated the
+priest, staring at the husky.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I wish to tell you all first, Father, before I go to the
+trade-house&mdash;and Julie?" Jean inquired, his voice vibrant with fear of
+what the answer might be.</p>
+
+<p>"Put the dog in the stockade and I will call Julie."</p>
+
+<p>Ah, then she was not married. Marcel breathed with relief.</p>
+
+<p>"We have been very sad here, wondering whether you had starved&mdash;were
+alive," continued the priest. "The tale Piquet's uncle, Gaspard Lelac,
+and sons brought in day before yesterday made us think you also might
+have&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Did they say Antoine had been stabbed?" interrupted Marcel, for the
+priest had avoided mention of the cause of Beaulieu's death.</p>
+
+<p>"They said they found his body." Pčre Henri still shunned the issue.</p>
+
+<p>"Where?" demanded Marcel.</p>
+
+<p>"Buried on the river shore!"</p>
+
+<p>"They lie!" As Marcel had anticipated, the half-breeds had embellished
+the sufficiently damning evidence of the cache. He realized that he
+faced a battle with men who would not scruple to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> lie when the stark
+facts already looked badly enough.</p>
+
+<p>"They never were truthful people, my son. We have hoped and prayed for
+your coming to clear up the mystery."</p>
+
+<p>Jean put Fleur in the stockade and returned to the house. Julie Breton
+stood in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome home, Jean!" she cried in French, giving him both hands.
+"Why&mdash;you are not thin!" She looked wonderingly at his face. "We
+thought&mdash;you also&mdash;had starved." Her eyes filled with tears as she gazed
+at the man already numbered with the dead.</p>
+
+<p>Swept by conflicting emotions, Marcel swallowed hard. Were these
+sisterly tears of joy at his safe return or did she weep for the Jean
+Marcel she once knew, now dishonored?</p>
+
+<p>"There, there! <i>Ma petite!</i>" consoled Pčre Henri, stroking the dark
+head. "We have Jean here again, safe; all will be well in time."</p>
+
+<p>"Julie had you starved out in the 'bush,' Jean, when we heard their
+story," explained the priest.</p>
+
+<p>But the puzzled youth wondered why Pčre Henri did not mention the
+charges that the half-breeds must have made on reaching Whale River.</p>
+
+<p>Recovering her self-control Julie excused herself to prepare supper.
+Then before asking what the Lelacs had told the factor, Marcel related
+to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> priest the grim details of the winter on the Ghost; of the
+deaths of Antoine and Piquet, of his fortunate meeting with the
+returning caribou, and of his discovery, on his return to the old camp,
+of the visit of the Lelacs' canoe.</p>
+
+<p>"Father, it looks bad for me. They found Antoine stabbed and Piquet's
+fur and outfit. I brought his rifle back to the camp and cached it with
+his stuff and Antoine's to bring it all down river in the spring to
+their people."</p>
+
+<p>At this the heavy brows of the priest lifted in surprise. Marcel
+continued:</p>
+
+<p>"The cache was empty. It was a starvation camp. Antoine was dead, and
+Piquet also, for his outfit was there. Seeing these things, what could
+anyone think? That the third man, Jean Marcel, did this and then went
+into the barrens for caribou. There he starved out, or else found meat
+and would return, when he could clear himself if able. Father, it was my
+wish to tell you my story before I heard the tale the Lelacs brought to
+the post. Then you could judge between us."</p>
+
+<p>The priest leaned forward in his chair and rested his hands on Marcel's
+shoulders. His eyes sought those of the younger man which met his gaze
+unwaveringly. "Jean Marcel," he said, "I have known you since your
+father brought you to Whale River as a child. You have never lied to me.
+True,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> the circumstances are unfortunate; but you have told me the
+truth. We did not believe that you had killed your comrades; you would
+have starved first; nor did Gillies or McCain or Jules believe in the
+truth of the charge of the Lelacs. They are waiting to hear your story.
+Also, since hearing your side, I see why the Lelacs are anxious to have
+it believed at the trade-house that you were responsible for the deaths
+of these men. They are grinding an axe of their own. It is not alone
+because they are kin of Piquet that they wish to discredit and injure
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean, Father?" Marcel asked, curious as to the significance
+of the priest's last statement.</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you later, my son. You should report at the trade-house
+now. They are waiting for you."</p>
+
+<p>Cheered with the knowledge that his old friends were still staunch, that
+the factor had waited for his return before expressing even an opinion,
+Marcel hurried to the trade-house.</p>
+
+<p>Meeting no one as he passed the scattered tepees, he flung open the
+slab-door of the log-building and with head high, entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean Marcel! By Gar, we hear you arrive!" roared the big Jules, rushing
+upon the youth with open arms. "You not starve out, eh?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>Then Gillies and McCain, wringing his hand, added their welcome. Surely,
+he thought, with choked emotion, these men had not turned against him
+because of the tales of Lelac.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean, you had a hard winter with the rabbits gone," suggested Gillies.
+"You must have found the caribou this spring?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I find de caribou, M'sieu, but I travel far for dem; eet was hard
+time een Mars."</p>
+
+<p>"And the dog, you didn't have to eat your dog, Jean?" asked McCain.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel's face hardened.</p>
+
+<p>"De dog and Jean, dey feast and dey starve togeder. I am no Cree
+dog-eater. Dat dog she save my life, one, two tam, dees winter, M'sieu."</p>
+
+<p>Never had the thought of sacrificing Fleur as a last resort entered the
+mind of Marcel in the lean days on the barrens.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my lad," said Gillies heartily, "we are sure glad to have you
+back alive. We hear there was much starvation on the East Coast this
+year, with the rabbit plague and the scarcity of deer."</p>
+
+<p>They also, Marcel saw, were waiting to hear his story before alluding to
+the charges of the half-breed kinsmen of Piquet.</p>
+
+<p>"M'sieu Gillies," Jean began. "I weesh to tell you what happen on de
+Ghost. De Lelacs bring a tale to Whale Riviere dat ees not true."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>"We have paid no attention to them, Jean, trusting you would show up and
+could explain it all then. I know you and I know the Lelacs. I was sorry
+to hear about Antoine and Piquet but I don't think you had any part in
+it, lad. Be sure of that!"</p>
+
+<p>"T'anks, M'sieu." Then slowly and in great detail Marcel related to the
+three men, sitting with set faces, the gruesome history of the past
+winter. When he came to the night that Fleur had destroyed the crazed
+Piquet, the Hudson's Bay men turned to each other with exclamations of
+wonder and admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a dog for you! She got his wind just in time!" muttered Gillies.</p>
+
+<p>"Tiens! Dat Fleur she is lak de wolf," added Jules.</p>
+
+<p>"You ask eef I eat her, M'sieu," Marcel turned on McCain grimly. "Could
+you eat de dog dat save your life?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, by God! I'd starve first!" thundered the Scotchman.</p>
+
+<p>"I love dat dog," said Jean quietly, and went on with his tale.</p>
+
+<p>Breathless, they heard how he had pushed deeper and deeper beyond the
+hunting grounds of the Crees into the nameless barrens until he reached
+streams flowing northeast into Ungava Bay, and at last met<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> the
+returning caribou; how the great strength of Fleur beat the drag of the
+net, when he was slowly freezing in the lake; and then he came to his
+return to the Ghost.</p>
+
+<p>In detail Marcel enumerated the articles belonging to Antoine and Piquet
+which he had placed on the stage of the cache beside Beaulieu's body
+when he left for the Salmon country and which had been taken by the
+Lelacs to Whale River.</p>
+
+<p>"I lashed Antoine een hees shed-tent and put heem on de cache, for the
+wolverine and lynx would get heem een de snow." As Marcel talked McCain
+and Gillies exchanged significant looks.</p>
+
+<p>"Um!" muttered the factor, when Jean had finished. "Something queer
+here!"</p>
+
+<p>"What, M'sieu?" Marcel demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Lelac says he found the body of Antoine buried under stones on the
+shore and that there was nothing on the cache except the empty grub
+bags."</p>
+
+<p>"Dey say de fur and rifle was not dere?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, nothing on the cache!"</p>
+
+<p>"Den I must have de rifle and de fur; ees dat eet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's what they insinuate."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah-hah!" Marcel scowled, thinking hard. "Dey say dey fin' noding, so do
+not turn over to you de rifle and fur-pack."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>"Yes, they claim you must have hidden them as you hid the body."</p>
+
+<p>"Den how do dey know Piquet ees dead too?" Marcel's dark features
+relaxed in a dry smile. It was not, then, solely the desire for
+vengeance on the murderer of their kin that had prompted the half-breeds
+to distort the facts.</p>
+
+<p>"They say his extra clothes and his outfit were in the cabin, only his
+rifle and fur missing. Now, Jean," he continued, "I am perfectly
+satisfied with your story. I believe every word of it. I knew your
+father and I know you. The Marcels are not liars. But the Lelacs are
+going to make trouble over the evidence they found at your camp.
+Suspicion always points to the survivor in a starvation camp, and you
+know the circumstances are against you, my lad."</p>
+
+<p>"M'sieu," Marcel protested. "Eef I keel Antoine, I would tak' heem into
+de bush and hide heem, I would not worry ovair de fox and wolverine."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you would have hidden the body somewhere. We appreciate that.
+But as they are trying to put this thing on you they ignore that side of
+it. What you admit they found,&mdash;Antoine's body with a stab wound, and
+Piquet's outfit, makes it look bad to people who don't know you as we
+do. They won't believe that the famine got Piquet in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> the head. They'll
+say that's a tale you made up to get yourself off."</p>
+
+<p>Marcel went hot with anger. His impulse was to seek the Lelacs and have
+it out, then and there. But he possessed the cool judgment of a long
+line of ancestors whose lives had often depended on their heads, so he
+choked back his rage.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I don't want it carried down the coast that you killed your
+partners, Jean," went on Gillies. "Young as you are, you'll never live
+it down. And besides, there's no knowing what the government might do.
+I'll have to make a report, you know. So we've got to do some tall
+thinking between us before the hunters get in."</p>
+
+<p>While the factor talked, the swift brain of Marcel had struck upon a
+plan to trap and discredit the Lelacs, but he wished to think it over,
+alone, before proposing it at the trade-house, so held his tongue. When
+he was ready he would ask the factor to hold a hearing. Then he could
+put some questions to his accusers that would make them squirm. One
+question he did ask before packing his fur and outfit from the beach up
+to the Mission.</p>
+
+<p>"Have de Lelac traded dere fur, M'sieu?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, we haven't started the trade yet."</p>
+
+<p>"W'en dey trade dere fur weel you hold it from de oder fur, separate?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>"Why, yes, I'll do that for you, but you can't hope to identify skins,
+Jean."</p>
+
+<p>A corner of Marcel's mouth curled in a quizzical smile. "Wait, M'sieu
+Gillies; I tell you later," and with a "Bon-soir!" he went out.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+<h4>IN THE DEPTHS</h4>
+
+
+<p>Although it would have been pure suicide for anyone to attempt to take
+Fleur from the stockade against her will, Marcel feared that some dark
+night those who wished his disgrace might loose their venom in an injury
+to his dog. So, refusing a room in the Mission House, he pitched his
+tent on the grass inside the spruce pickets where Fleur might lie beside
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Here his staunch friend Jules sought Jean out. It seemed that Inspector
+Wallace had been up the coast at Christmas, had stayed a week, and
+although no one knew exactly what had transpired, whether he had as yet
+become a Catholic, there was no doubt in the minds of the curious that
+the Scotchman would shortly remove the sole obstacle to his marriage to
+Julie Breton.</p>
+
+<p>With head in hands, Jean Marcel listened to the news, none the less
+bitter because anticipated. The loyal Jules' crude attempt to console
+the brokenhearted hunter went unheard. Fate had made him its cat's-paw.
+Not only had he lost his heart's desire, but his name was now a byword
+at Whale River; the woman he held dear and his honor, both<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> gone. There
+was nothing left to lose. He was indeed bankrupt.</p>
+
+<p>During supper, Jean was plied with questions by Julie, who, in his
+absence, had had his story from her brother. To the half-breeds she
+never once alluded, seemingly interested solely in the long hunt for
+caribou on the barrens and in Fleur's rescue of her master from the
+lake.</p>
+
+<p>For the delicacy of the girl in avoiding the tragedy which was plainly
+claiming his thoughts, he was deeply grateful. Clearly from the first,
+she had believed in the honor of Jean Marcel. But with what was
+evidently a forced gaiety, the girl sought, on the night of his return,
+to banish from his mind thoughts of the cloud blackening the future&mdash;of
+the trying days ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Jean Marcel," she laughed, speaking to him, as always, in French,
+"are you not glad to see us that you wear a face so dismal? You have not
+told me how you like this muslin gown." She pirouetted on her shapely
+moccasined feet challenging his approval. "Henri says I'm growing thin.
+Is it not becoming? No? Then I shall eat and grow as fat as big Marie,
+the Montagnais cook at the Gillies'."</p>
+
+<p>The sober face of Jean Marcel lighted at her pleasantry. His brooding
+eyes softened as they followed the trim figure in the simple muslin
+gown.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> It was a rare picture indeed for a man who had but just finished
+seven months in the "bush," half the time with the spectre of starvation
+haunting his heels&mdash;this girl with the dusky eyes and hair, the vivid
+memory of whose face he had carried with him into the nameless barrens.
+But she belonged to another and he, Jean Marcel, was branded as a
+murderer at Whale River, even if he escaped the law.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, when Pčre Breton was called from the room to minister to a
+Cree convert, Julie became serious.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean Marcel, I have much to say to you; but it is hard&mdash;to begin."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think you would have little to say to Jean Marcel."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, because some half-breeds have brought a story to Whale River which
+was not true?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, enough of it is true, Julie, to make the Indians believe, when
+they hear it, that Jean Marcel killed his partners to save himself from
+starvation."</p>
+
+<p>"Not if Pčre Breton and Monsieur Gillies have any influence with the
+Crees. They will not allow them to believe such a cruel falsehood,"
+protested Julie, vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel smiled indulgently at the girl's ignorance of Cree psychology.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>"The harm is already done," he said. "One man is found stabbed; also the
+outfit of another gone. The third man comes back. No matter what M'sieu
+Gillies and Pčre Henri tell them they will believe the man guilty who
+got out alive."</p>
+
+<p>"They will not believe these Lelacs, when they are shown to be liars,"
+she insisted, stamping her foot impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"They have lied about the rifle and fur only, Julie. They are telling
+the truth when they say they found Antoine and some of Piquet's outfit.
+The rest does not matter except to make me a thief as well as murderer."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but it is all so unjust, so terrible to be accused like this when
+because of your good heart you wished to bury Antoine decently in the
+spring instead of leaving him in the snow where they would never have
+found him. It is too&mdash;&mdash;" Julie Breton's voice broke with emotion.
+Through tears her dark eyes flashed in protest at the pass to which a
+blind fate had brought an innocent man.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel was deeply touched by this revelation of the girl's loyalty; but
+her tears roused his heart to a wild beating. Unable to speak, he faced
+her, his dark features illumined with the gratitude and love he could
+not voice. For a space he sat fighting for the mastery of his emotions.
+Then he said huskily:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>"Julie Breton, you give me great happiness&mdash;when you say you believe
+me&mdash;are still my friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, la, la! Nonsense!" she cried, dabbing with, a handkerchief at her
+wet eyes as she recovered her poise, "you are a boy, so foolish, Jean.
+Do you think that we, your friends who know you, will permit this thing?
+It is impossible!" And changed the subject, nor did she allow him to
+return to it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+<h4>IN THE EYES OF THE CREES</h4>
+
+
+<p>Day by day the ebb-tide brought in the canoes of returning Crees.
+Gradually tepees filled the post clearing. And with the coming of the
+hunters from the three winds, was heard many a tale of famine in far
+valleys; of families blotted out; of little victims of starvation and
+disease; of the aged too frail to endure through the lean moons of the
+rabbit-plague until the return of the caribou, which had spelt life to
+those who waited.</p>
+
+<p>Tragedy there had been, as in every winter of famine; but however
+sinister were the secrets which, that spring, many a mute valley held
+locked in its green forests, no rumors of such, except the tale of the
+murders on the Ghost, had reached Whale River. Pitiless desertion of the
+aged and the helpless, death by violence, doubtless, the starving moon
+had shone upon; but none had lived to tell the tale, none had seen the
+evidence, except those who had profited with their lives, and their lips
+were forever sealed. And so, as Marcel had foreseen, to the gathering
+families of Crees who themselves had but lately escaped the maw of the
+win<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>ter, the tale of the Lelacs, expanding as it travelled, found ready
+acceptance.</p>
+
+<p>As yet, Jean, chafing under the odium of his position at the post, had
+not faced his accusers. But the plan of his defense which had been
+decided on after a conference with Gillies and Pčre Breton, depended for
+its success on the trading of their fur by the Lelacs, and the uncle and
+cousins of Joe Piquet for some reason had traded no fur. So the proud
+Frenchman went his way among the hunters at Whale River with a high head
+and silent tongue.</p>
+
+<p>Many of those who, the spring previous, had lauded his daring in
+entering the land of the Windigo and voyaging to the coast by the Big
+Salmon, now, at his appearance exchanged significant glances, avoiding
+the steady eyes of the man they had condemned without a hearing. Shawled
+women and girls, who formerly, at the trade, had cast approving glances
+at the wide-shouldered youth with the clean-cut features, now whispered
+pointedly as he passed and children often shrank from him in terror as
+from one defiled. But Marcel had been prepared for the effect of the
+tale of the Lelacs upon the mercurial red men, in the memories of many
+of whom still lurked the ghosts of deeds of their own whose ghastly
+details the ears of no man would ever hear.</p>
+
+<p>Since his return he had not once met the Lelacs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> face to face. Always
+they had hastily avoided him when he appeared on the way to his canoe or
+the trade-house. Jean had been strictly ordered by Gillies under no
+circumstances to seek trouble with his accusers or their friends, so he
+ignored them. And their disinclination to encounter the son of the
+famous André Marcel had not gone unmarked by the keen eyes of more than
+one old hunter. Many a red man and half-breed, friends of the father,
+who respected the son, had frankly expressed to him their disbelief in
+the charges of the Lelacs, accepting his story which Gillies had
+published to the Crees, that Beaulieu had been stabbed by Joe Piquet
+while Marcel was absent and Piquet killed later by the dog. Strongly
+they had urged him to make the Lelacs eat their lies, promising their
+support; but Jean had explained that it was necessary to wait; later his
+day would come.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally when Marcel crossed the post clearing, pulsing with the
+varied life of the spring trade, to descend the cliff trail to his
+canoe, there marched by his side one whose name, also, was anathema with
+many of the Crees. That comrade was Fleur. The story of Piquet's death
+as told by Jean at the trade-house, though scouted by the Lelacs, had,
+nevertheless, left a deep impression; and the great dog, now called the
+"man-killer," who towered above the scrub huskies of the Indians as a
+mastiff<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> over a poodle, was given a wide berth. But to avoid trouble
+with the Cree dogs, Jean kept Fleur for the most part in the Mission
+stockade. There Gillies and McCain and Jules had come to admire the bulk
+and bone of the husky they had last seen as a lumbering puppy, now in
+size and beauty far surpassing the Ungavas bought by the Company of the
+Esquimos. There, Crees, still friendly to Jean, lingered to gossip of
+the winter's hardships and stare in admiration at his dog. There, too,
+Julie romped with Fleur, grown somewhat dignified with the gravity of
+her approaching responsibilities. For, to the delight of Jean, Fleur was
+soon to present him with the dog-team of his dreams.</p>
+
+<p>Then when the umiaks of the Esquimos began to arrive from the coast,
+packed with tousle-headed children and the priceless sled-dogs, taking
+Fleur, Jean sought out his old friend Kovik of the Big Salmon. As he
+approached the skin lodge on the beach, beside which the kin of Fleur
+were made fast to prevent promiscuous fighting with strange dogs, she
+answered their surly greeting with so stiff a mane, so fierce a show of
+fangs, that Jean pulled her away by her rawhide leash, lest her
+reputation suffer further by adding fratricide to her crimes.</p>
+
+<p>Playmates of her puppyhood, mother who suckled her, she had forgotten
+utterly; vanished was all memory of her kin. She held but one
+al<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>legiance, one love; the love approaching idolatry she bore the young
+master who had taken her in that far country from the strange men who
+beat her with clubs; who had brought her north again through wintry
+seas; who had companioned her through the long snows and in the dread
+days of the famine had shared with her his last meat. The center and sum
+of her existence was Jean Marcel. All other living things were as
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"Kekway!" cried the squat pair of Huskies, delighted at the appearance
+of the man who had given them back their first born. "Kekway!" chuckled
+a half-dozen round-faced children, shaking Jean's hand in turn.</p>
+
+<p>"Huh!" grunted the father, his eyes wide with wonder at the sight of
+Fleur, ears flat, muttering dire threats at her yelping brethren
+straining at their stakes, "dat good dog!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oui, she good dog," agreed Jean. "Soon I have dog-team lak Husky!"</p>
+
+<p>Shifting a critical eye from Fleur to his own dogs the Esquimo nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! Ha! You ketch boy in water, you get bes' dog."</p>
+
+<p>The Esquimo had not erred in his judgment of puppies. He had indeed
+given the man who had cheated the Big Salmon of his son the best of the
+litter. At sixteen months, Fleur stood inches<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> higher at the shoulder
+and weighed twenty pounds more than her brothers. Truly, with the speed
+and stamina of their sire, the timber wolf, coupled with Fleur's courage
+and power, these puppies, whose advent he awaited, should make a
+dog-team unrivalled on the East Coast.</p>
+
+<p>"Cree up dere," continued the Esquimo, pointing toward the post
+clearing, "say de dog keel man."</p>
+
+<p>Marcel nodded gravely. "Oui, man try kill me, she kill heem."</p>
+
+<p>"Huh! De ol' dog keel bad Husky, on Kogaluk one tam."</p>
+
+<p>Fleur indeed had come from a fighting strain&mdash;dogs that would battle to
+the death or toil in the traces until they crumpled on the snow, for
+those they loved or to whom they owed allegiance.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+<h4>ON THE CLIFFS</h4>
+
+
+<p>Marcel was walking on the high river shore above the post with Julie
+Breton and Fleur. Like a floor below them the surface of the Great Whale
+moved without ripple in the still June afternoon. Out over the Bay the
+sun hung in a veil of haze. Back at the post, even the huskies were
+quiet, lured into sleep by the softness of the air. It was such a day as
+Jean Marcel had dreamed of more than a year before, in January, back in
+the barrens, when powdery snow crystals danced in the air as the lifting
+sun-dogs turned white wastes of rolling tundra into a shimmering sea. He
+was again with Julie on the cliffs, but there was no joy in his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"The Lelacs have traded their fur," he said, breaking a long silence;
+"the hearing will take place soon, now."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know, you were with Monsieur Gillies and Henri very late last
+night," she replied, watching the antics of an inquisitive Canada jay in
+an adjacent birch.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we had some work to do. The Lelacs will not like what we have to
+tell them."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>"I knew that you would be able to show the Crees what bad people these
+Lelacs are."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Julie, we shall prove them liars and thieves; but the stain on the
+name of Jean Marcel will remain. I cannot deny that Antoine was killed;
+the Crees will not believe my story."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, Jean," she burst out, "you must make them believe you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Julie," he said, ignoring her words, "since my return I have wanted to
+tell you&mdash;that I wish you all happiness,"&mdash;he swallowed hard at the lump
+in his throat,&mdash;"I have heard that you leave Whale River soon."</p>
+
+<p>At the words the girl flushed but turned a level gaze on the man, who
+looked at the dim, blue shapes of the White Bear Hills far on the
+southern horizon.</p>
+
+<p>"You have not heard the truth," she said. "Monsieur Wallace has done me
+the honor to ask me to marry him, but Monsieur Wallace is still a
+Protestant."</p>
+
+<p>The words from Julie's own lips stung Marcel like the lash of a whip,
+but his face masked his emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Then she went on:</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to talk to you last summer, for you are my dear friend, but
+you were here for so short a while and we had but a word when you
+left."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> Then the girl burst out impulsively, "Ah, Jean; don't look that
+way! Won't you ever forgive me? I am&mdash;so sorry, Jean. But&mdash;you are a
+boy. It could never be that way. Why, you are as a brother."</p>
+
+<p>Marcel's eyes still rested on the silhouetted hills to the south. He
+made no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you forget, Jean, and remain a friend&mdash;a brother?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned his sombre eyes to the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I shall always be your friend&mdash;your brother, Julie," he said. "But
+I shall always love you&mdash;I can't help that. And there is nothing to
+forgive. I hoped&mdash;once&mdash;that you might&mdash;love Jean Marcel; but now&mdash;it is
+over. God bless you, Julie!"</p>
+
+<p>As he finished, Julie Breton's eyes were wet. Again Marcel gazed long
+into the south but with unseeing eyes. The girl was the first to break
+the silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean," she said, returning to the charges of the Lelacs, "you must not
+brood over what the Crees are saying. What matters it that the ignorant
+Indians, some of whom, if the truth were known, have eaten their own
+flesh and blood in starvation camps, do not believe you. For shame! You
+are a brave man, Jean Marcel. Show your courage at Whale River as you
+have shown it elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>Sadly Marcel shook his head. "They will speak of me now, from Fort
+George to Mistassini, as the man who killed his partners." And in spite
+of Julie Breton's words of cheer he refused to see his case in any other
+light.</p>
+
+<p>They had turned and were approaching the post when the practised eye of
+Marcel caught the far flash of paddles toward the river mouth. For a
+space he watched the rhythmic gleams of light from dripping blades
+leaving the water in unison, which alone marked the approaching canoe on
+the flat river. Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"There are four or six paddles. It must be a big Company boat from Fort
+George. I wonder what they come for during the trade."</p>
+
+<p>As Jean and Julie Breton entered the post clearing the great red flag of
+the Company, carrying the white letters H. B. C., was broken out at the
+flagpole in honor of the approaching visitors. The canoe, now but a
+short way below the post, was receiving the undivided attention of
+Esquimos, Crees and howling huskies crowding the shore. The boat was not
+a freighter for she rode high. No one but an officer of the Company
+travelled light with six paddles. It was an event at Whale River, and
+Indians and white men awaited the arrival of the big Peterborough with
+unconcealed interest.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be Inspector Wallace," said Jean.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>With a face radiant with joy in the unexpected arrival of Wallace, Julie
+Breton hastened to the high shore, while Marcel turned slowly back to
+the Mission stockade where his dog awaited him at the gate.</p>
+
+<p>As the canoe neared the beach the swart <i>voyageurs</i>, conscious of their
+Cree and Esquimo audience, put on a brave burst of speed. At each lunge
+of the narrow Cree blades, swung in unison with a straight arm, the
+craft buried its nose, pushing out a wide ripple. On they came spurred
+by the shouts from the shore, then at the order of the man in the bow,
+the crew raised their paddles and bow and stern men deftly swung the
+boat in to the Whale River landing amid the cheers of the Indians.</p>
+
+<p>"How ar' yuh, Gillies?" said Wallace, stepping from the canoe; and,
+looking past the factor to a woman's figure on the high shore, waved his
+cap.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, Mr. Wallace; we hardly expected to see you at Whale River
+so early," answered Gillies, drily, smiling at the eagerness of Wallace.
+"Anything happened to the steamer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! The steamer is all right. She'll be here on time. I thought I'd
+run up the coast during the trade this year."</p>
+
+<p>Gillies winked surreptitiously at McCain. It was most peculiar for the
+Inspector of the East<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> Coast to arrive before the accounts of the spring
+trade were made up.</p>
+
+<p>"How has the famine affected the fur with you, Gillies?" asked Wallace,
+as they proceeded up the cliff trail to the post clearing. "The Fort
+George and East Main people were hit pretty hard, a number of families
+wiped out."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I expected as much," said Gillies. "A few of our people were
+starved out or died of disease. Nine, all told, have been reported, four
+of them old and feeble. It was a tough winter with both the rabbits and
+the caribou gone; we have done only fairly well with the trade,
+considering."</p>
+
+<p>"What's this I hear about a murder by one of your Frenchmen?" Wallace
+suddenly demanded. "We met a canoe at the mouth of the river and heard
+that the bodies of two half-breeds who had met foul play were found this
+spring and that you have the third man here now?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's pure Indian talk, Mr. Wallace," Gillies protested forcibly. "I
+will give you the details later. A half-breed killed one of his partners
+and attempted to kill the other, Jean Marcel, the son of André Marcel;
+you remember André, our old head man. You saw Jean here last summer. He
+is one of our best men. In fact, I'm going to take him on here at the
+post, although he's only a boy. He's too valuable to keep in the bush."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>"Oh, yes! I remember him; friend of Father Breton. But we've got to put
+a stop to this promiscuous murder, Gillies. There's too much of this
+thing on the Bay, this killing and desertion in famine years, and no one
+punished for lack of evidence."</p>
+
+<p>"But this was no murder, Mr. Wallace," Gillies answered hotly. "You'll
+hear the story to-night from Marcel's lips, if you like. We have some
+pretty strong evidence against his accusers, also. This is a tale
+started by the relatives of one of the men to cover their own thieving."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Gillies, your man may be innocent, but I want to catch one of
+these hunters who come into the posts with a tale of starvation as
+excuse for the disappearance of their partners or family. When the grub
+goes they desert, or do away with their people, and get off on their own
+story. I'd like to get some evidence against one of them. The government
+has sent pretty stiff orders to Moose for us to investigate these cases,
+and where we have proof, send the accused 'outside' for trial."</p>
+
+<p>"When you've talked to him, Mr. Wallace, I think you'll agree that he
+tells a straight story and that these Lelacs are lying."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," answered Wallace, and started for the Mission, where Julie
+Breton awaited him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+<h4>INSPECTOR WALLACE TAKES CHARGE</h4>
+
+
+<p>That night when Inspector Wallace had heard the story of the murders on
+the Ghost, he sent for Jean Marcel, to whom it was quite evident, on
+reporting at the trade-house, that the relations between the former and
+Gillies had recently become somewhat strained. The face of the Inspector
+was noticeably red and Gillies' heavy brows contracted over eyes blazing
+with wrath.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down!" said the Inspector as Marcel reported. "Now, Marcel,"
+Wallace began, severely, "this case looks pretty bad for you. You go
+into the bush in the fall with two partners, and the body of one is
+found with a knife wound, together with the effects of the other, in the
+spring."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, M'sieu!" assented Jean.</p>
+
+<p>"You say Piquet killed Beaulieu and was killed by your dog when he
+attacked you. All right! But suppose when you began to starve you had
+killed Beaulieu and Piquet to get the remaining grub, how would that, if
+it had happened, have changed the evidence at the camp?"</p>
+
+<p>"De bodee of Antoine on de cache," replied Jean coolly, "proves to any
+smart man dat I did not keel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> heem. Eef I keel heem I would geeve de
+bodee to de lynx and wolverines out in de snow. Den I would say he died
+of de famine, lak de Cree do, and no one could deny it."</p>
+
+<p>Marcel's narrowed eyes bored into those of the Inspector. He tried to
+forget that before him sat the man who had taken from him all he held
+dear, this man who now had it in his power to dishonor him as well&mdash;send
+him south for trial among strangers.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the Lelacs say you did hide the body. But suppose you left it on
+the cache. You were safe. Why should anyone come to your camp and see
+it? You were two days' travel up the Ghost from Whale River. They
+surprised you while you were away hunting."</p>
+
+<p>With a look of disgust but retaining his self-control, Jean answered:
+"Eet was a ver' hard winter. De Cree were starve' and knew we camp up de
+Ghost. Dey might come tru de bush for grub any tam. Eef I keel heem
+would I wait till spring to hide him under stones, as Lelac say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Um!" The face of Inspector Wallace assumed a judicial expression. "The
+circumstantial evidence is against you. Of course, you have something in
+your favor, but if I were on a jury I'd have to convict you," Wallace
+said with an air of finality.</p>
+
+<p>"One moment, Mr. Wallace," growled Gillies.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> "How about the previous
+reputation of Marcel and the character of the whole Lelac tribe? Hasn't
+that got any weight with you? I believe this boy because I've always
+found him honest and straight, as his father was. We thought a lot of
+his father on this coast. I don't believe the Lelacs because they always
+were liars. But you've missed the real point of the whole matter."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean? The case is clear as a bell to me, Gillies." The
+Inspector colored, frowning on the stiff-necked factor.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, putting the previous reputation, here, of Marcel aside, if he had
+killed Beaulieu, would he have told us that Beaulieu was stabbed?
+Clearly not! He would have said that Antoine died of starvation and was
+not stabbed, for as soon as he heard they had not turned in the fur, he
+knew he had the Lelacs in his power and could prove them thieves and
+liars, and we all would have believed him. The story of the Lelacs as to
+the man having been murdered would not have held water a minute after
+the hearing proves them thieves.</p>
+
+<p>"Furthermore, he knew they could not prove their tale by the body of
+Beaulieu, either, left to rot on the shore there in the spring freshets.
+There would be no evidence for a canoe from the post to find." The
+Scotchman rose and pounded the slab table as he drove home his final
+point.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>"Why, Jean Marcel had it in his power, if he had been guilty, to have
+walked out of this trouble by simply giving the Lelacs the lie. But what
+did he do? He told his tale to Pčre Breton, here, before he learned what
+the Lelacs had said.</p>
+
+<p>"He freely admitted that Beaulieu had been stabbed when he might have
+denied it and got off scot free. Does that look like a guilty man?
+Answer me that!" thundered Gillies to his superior officer.</p>
+
+<p>The force of Gillies' argument was not lost on the unreceptive Wallace.</p>
+
+<p>The stone-hard features of Marcel reflected no emotion but deep in his
+heart smoldered a hatred of this Inspector of the Company, who, not
+satisfied with taking Julie Breton from him, now flouted his honor as a
+Marcel and a man.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" demanded Gillies, impatiently, his frank glance holding the pale
+eyes of Wallace.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, what you say, Gillies, has its weight, no doubt. If he had wanted
+to avoid this thing, he might have done it, when he learned that the
+Lelacs had held the fur. Still, I'll think it over. It may be best to
+send him 'outside' to be tried, as a warning to these people. I can't
+seem to swallow that tale of the dog killing Piquet, however. Sounds
+fishy to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen the dog?" demanded Gillies.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, when you see her, you won't doubt it. She's the most powerful
+husky I've ever seen&mdash;weighs a hundred and forty pounds. She's got a
+litter due soon."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'd like to take a pup or two back with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you'll have to see Marcel about that," chuckled Gillies. "Her
+pups are worth a black fox skin. We'll have this hearing to-morrow,
+then, if it's agreeable to you, Mr. Wallace. When you see the Lelacs you
+may understand why we believe so strongly in Marcel."</p>
+
+<p>As Wallace went out, Gillies drew Jean aside.</p>
+
+<p>"I have little faith in Inspector Wallace, Jean. He would send you south
+for trial if he could find sufficient reason for it."</p>
+
+<p>"M'sieu Gillies, Jean Marcel will never go south to be tried by strange
+men for the thing he did not do."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, my son? You would not make yourself an outlaw? It
+would be better to go."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not go, M'sieu." And Colin Gillies believed in his heart that
+Marcel spoke the truth.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+<h4>THE WHELPS OF THE WOLF</h4>
+
+
+<p>The following morning Jean Marcel forgot the cloud hanging over him in
+his joy at the event which had taken place since dawn. Rousing Julie and
+her brother, he led them to the stockade. There in all the pride of
+motherhood lay the great Fleur with five blind, roly-poly puppies,
+whimpering at her side.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the little dears!" cried Julie. "How pretty they are!"</p>
+
+<p>First speaking to Fleur and patting her head, Jean picked up a squirming
+ball of fur and as the mother whined anxiously, put it in Julie's arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mon cher!" cried the girl, nestling the warm little body to her
+cheek. "What a morsel of softness!" But when Pčre Breton reached to
+touch the puppy a rumble from Fleur's deep throat warned him that Julie
+alone was privileged to take such liberties with her offspring.</p>
+
+<p>Jean quieted the anxious mother, whose nose sought his hand. "See,
+Father, what a dog-team she has given me."</p>
+
+<p>One after another he proudly exhibited the pup<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>pies. "Mark the bone of
+their legs. They will make a famous team with Fleur as leader. Is it not
+so?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are a possession to be proud of, Jean," agreed the priest,
+standing discreetly out of reach, for Fleur's slant eyes never left him.</p>
+
+<p>"Which of them do you wish, Julie?" Jean asked. "One, you know, is for
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jean; you are too good!" cried the girl. "I should love this one,
+marked like Fleur," and she stooped to take the whimpering puppy in her
+arms, while Jean's hand rested on Fleur's massive head, lest the fear of
+the mother dog for the safety of her offspring should overpower her
+friendship for Julie.</p>
+
+<p>As the girl fearlessly reached and lifted the puppy, Fleur suddenly
+thrust forward her long muzzle and licked her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Bon!</i>" cried Jean, delighted. "Fleur would allow no one on earth to do
+that except you. The puppy's name must be Julie."</p>
+
+<p>In his joy at the coming of Fleur's family Marcel had forgotten, for the
+time being, the hearing. But later in the morning at the trade-house,
+Gillies, whose obstinacy had been deeply aroused by the attitude of
+Inspector Wallace, planned with the accused man how they should handle
+the Lelacs.</p>
+
+<p>For the factor had no intention of permitting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> Jean's exoneration to
+hang in the balance of the prejudiced mind of Wallace. The canny Scot
+realized that if the Lelacs were thoroughly discredited at the hearing
+at which the leaders of the Crees would be present; were shown to have
+an ulterior motive in their attempt to fix the crime upon Marcel, there
+would be a strong reaction in favor of Jean&mdash;that his story would be
+generally accepted; so to this end he carefully laid his plans. Wallace,
+busy prying into the books of the post, he did not take into his
+confidence, wishing to surprise him as well as the Crees by the
+bomb-shell the defense had in store for the Lelacs.</p>
+
+<p>At noon Wallace overheard Jules and McCain talking of Fleur's puppies
+which they had just seen.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, McCain, where are these remarkable Ungava pups which you
+say were sired by a timber wolf?"</p>
+
+<p>"Over in the Mission stockade, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see them and the old dog, too. I'm rather curious to put my
+eyes on the husky that could kill a man with a loaded gun in his hands.
+That part of Marcel's story needs a bit of salt."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't doubt it when you see her! She's a whale of a husky," said
+McCain.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I never saw the dog that could kill me with a rifle handy. I'll
+stroll over and take a look at her."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>"I'll show you the way." And McCain and Wallace went to the Mission.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at the tent in the stockade they were greeted by a fierce
+rumble, like the muttering of an August south-wester making on the Bay.</p>
+
+<p>"We'd better not go near the tent, Mr. Wallace. I'll see if Jean's in
+the house. The dog won't allow anyone but Marcel near her."</p>
+
+<p>Ignoring the warning, Wallace approached the tent opening to look
+inside, but so fierce a snarl warned him off that he stepped back with
+considerably more speed than his dignity admitted. Red in the face, he
+glanced around to learn if his precipitous flight had had an audience.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly, McCain returned with Marcel, and Wallace, now that the dog's
+owner was near, again approached and peered into the tent.</p>
+
+<p>There was a deep growl from within, and with a cry of surprise the
+Inspector was hurled backward to the ground by the rush of a great, gray
+body. At the same instant, Jean Marcel, calling to Fleur, leaped
+headlong at his dog, seizing her before she could strike at the neck of
+the prostrate Wallace. Calming the husky, he held her while the
+discomfited Inspector got to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"You should not go so near, M'sieu. She ees not use to stranger," said
+Jean brusquely.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I didn't think she was so cross," sputtered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> the ruffled Inspector.
+"Why, she's a regular wolf of a dog!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, sir," demanded the secretly delighted McCain, "do you believe she
+could kill a man?"</p>
+
+<p>Surveying Fleur's gigantic frame critically as Jean stroked her glossy
+neck, soothing her with low words crooned into a hairy ear, the
+enlightened Inspector of the East Coast posts admitted:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't know but what she could. I never saw such a beast for
+size and strength. Let's have a look at the pups."</p>
+
+<p>Jean brought from the tent the blind, squirming balls of fur.</p>
+
+<p>"They are beauties, Marcel! I'll buy a couple of them. They can go down
+by the steamer if they're weaned by that time. What do you want for
+them?"</p>
+
+<p>Marcel smiled inscrutably at Inspector Wallace and said:</p>
+
+<p>"M'sieu, dese pups are not to sell."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, but you don't want all of them. That would give you six dogs.
+All you need for a team is four."</p>
+
+<p>But Jean Marcel only shook his head, repeating:</p>
+
+<p>"Dey are not to sell!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+<h4>THE TRAP IS SPRUNG</h4>
+
+
+<p>The trading-room at Whale River was crowded with the treaty chiefs and
+older men among the Cree hunters chosen by the factor to be present at
+the hearing. Behind a huge table made from hewn spruce slabs, sat
+Inspector Wallace, Colin Gillies and McCain. In front and to one side
+were the swart half-breeds, Gaspard Lelac and his two sons. Facing them
+on the opposite side of the table was Jean Marcel, and behind him, his
+advisor, Pčre Breton, with Julie; for she had insisted on being present,
+and the smitten Wallace had readily agreed. The remainder of the room
+was occupied by the Crees, expectant, consumed with curiosity, for it
+had leaked out that certain matters connected with the tragedy on the
+Ghost which, heretofore, had not been divulged, would that afternoon be
+given light.</p>
+
+<p>Among the assembled half-breeds and Crees there were two distinct
+factions. Those who had readily accepted the story of the Lelacs with
+its sinister indictment of Marcel, among whom were the kinsmen of
+Antoine Beaulieu; and those, who, knowing Jean<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> Marcel, as well as his
+unsavory accusers, had refused to accept the half-breeds' tale, and were
+waiting with eagerness to hear Marcel's defense; for as yet, Marcel,
+under orders from Gillies, had refused to discuss the case. Outside the
+trade-house, chattering groups of young men and Cree women were
+gathered, awaiting the outcome of the proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>Rising, Colin Gillies called for silence and addressed the Crees in
+their picturesque tongue:</p>
+
+<p>"The long snows have come and gone. Famine and suffering have again
+visited the hunters of Whale River. With the return of the rabbit
+plague, and the lack of deer, many of those who were here last year at
+the spring trade have gone to join their fathers. The Company is sad
+that its hunters and their families have suffered. Last autumn, three
+hunters went from this post to winter on the Ghost River. This spring
+but one returned. He is here now, for the reason that he travelled far
+into the great barrens to streams which join the Big Water many, many
+sleeps to the northeast, where at last he found the returning deer.</p>
+
+<p>"This spring, when the Ghost was free of ice, Gaspard Lelac and his
+sons, wishing to visit their kinsman, Joe Piquet, travelled to the camp
+of the three hunters. What they found there they will now tell as they
+told it to me when they came to Whale River. After you have learned
+their story,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> Jean Marcel, the man who returned, will relate what
+happened on the Ghost under the moons of the long snows.</p>
+
+<p>"The Company has sent to visit Whale River its chief of the East Coast,
+Inspector Wallace. He will hear the stories of these men and decide
+which of them speaks with a double tongue. It is for you, also, when
+they have spoken, to say whether Gaspard Lelac and his sons bring the
+truth to Whale River, or Jean Marcel. You know these men. Hear their
+talk and judge in your hearts between them. Gaspard Lelac has put the
+blood of Antoine Beaulieu and Joe Piquet on the head of Jean Marcel. The
+fathers at Ottawa and the Chiefs of the Company at Winnipeg will not
+suffer one of their children to go unpunished who takes the life of
+another.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to the speech of these men. Look with your eyes into their faces
+and upon what will be shown here, and judge who speaks with a double
+tongue and who from an honest heart. Gaspard Lelac will now tell what he
+saw and did."</p>
+
+<p>As Gillies finished, a murmur of approval filled the room, followed by a
+tense silence.</p>
+
+<p>Lelac, a grizzled French half-breed with small, closely-set eyes, which
+shifted here and there as he spoke, then rose and told in the Cree
+tongue the story he had retailed daily for the previous month.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>Wishing to visit his nephew Piquet, he said, and learn how he had
+weathered the hard winter, in May Lelac and his sons had poled up the
+Ghost to the camp. There they found an empty cache and part of the
+outfits of Beaulieu and Piquet, the latter of which they at once
+recognized. Alarmed, they searched the vicinity of the camp, and by
+chance, discovered the body of Beaulieu buried under stones on the
+shore. There was a knife wound in his chest. They continued the search
+in hope of finding Piquet, as his blankets and outfit, evidently unused
+for months and eaten by mice, were strong proof of his death, also; but
+failed to find the body. Of the fur-packs and rifles of the two men
+there was no trace, but a knife, identified later as belonging to
+Antoine, they brought back. There were no signs of the third man's
+outfit about the camp. If the third man was alive, what were they to
+believe? Antoine was dead, and Piquet, also, for his blankets were
+there. Someone had killed Antoine and Piquet. There was but one other,
+Marcel. So they travelled to Whale River with the news.</p>
+
+<p>The sons of Lelac glibly corroborated the story of their father. When
+they had finished, the trade-room buzzed with whispered comment.</p>
+
+<p>At a nod from Wallace, Gillies questioned the older Lelac in Cree for
+the benefit of the Indians.</p>
+
+<p>"You say that these blankets here, this knife and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> cooking kit, and the
+clothes and bags, were all that you found at the camp&mdash;that there were
+no fur and rifles on the cache?"</p>
+
+<p>"These were all we found&mdash;nothing else," replied Lelac, his small eyes
+wavering before the gaze of the factor.</p>
+
+<p>"You swear that you found nothing but these things," repeated Gillies,
+pointing to the articles on the floor in front of the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>The set face of Jean Marcel, which had remained expressionless during
+the Lelacs' statement, relaxed in a wide smile which did not escape many
+a shrewd pair of Cree eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean Marcel will now relate what passed on the Ghost through the moons
+of the long snows."</p>
+
+<p>With the announcement, there was much stirring and shuffling of
+moccasins accompanied by suppressed exclamations and muttering, among
+the expectant Crees. But when Marcel rose, squared his wide shoulders,
+and with head high ran his eyes over the assembled Crees, friendly and
+hostile, to rest at length on the Lelacs, his lips curled with an
+expression of contempt, while the Indians and breeds relapsed into
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, and in detail, Jean told in the Cree language how his partners
+had gone up-river when he started south on the trail of the dog-thieves;
+how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> he recaptured Fleur, and later reached the Ghost at the
+"freeze-up." The tale of his nine-hundred-mile journey to the south
+coast drew many an "Ah-hah!" of mingled surprise and admiration from
+those who remembered Marcel's voyage of the previous spring through the
+spirit-haunted valleys of the Salmon headwaters. With his familiarity
+with the Cree mental make-up and his French instinct for dramatic
+values, he held them breathless by the narration of this Odyssey of the
+north.</p>
+
+<p>Then Marcel described the long weeks when the three men fought
+starvation, with the deer and rabbits gone; how he travelled far into
+the land of the Windigo in search of beaver; and finally, he came to the
+break with his partners. The hard feeling which developed at the camp on
+the Ghost, Jean made no attempt to gloss over, but boldly told how the
+others had not played fair with the food, and he had left them to fight
+out the winter alone. Of the death of Piquet he spoke as one speaks of
+the extermination of vermin. An assassin in the night, Piquet had come
+to the tent of a sleeping man and the dog alone had saved his life.</p>
+
+<p>They called his dog the "man-killer." Would they have asked less of
+their own huskies? he demanded. But if any of them doubted, and he
+understood that the Lelacs were among these, that his dog could have
+killed Piquet, let them come to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> tent in the Mission stockade by
+night&mdash;and learn for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nama</i>, no!" some Indian audibly protested, and for a space the room
+was a riot of laughter, for the Crees had seen Fleur, the "man-killer."</p>
+
+<p>But when the narrative of Marcel reached the discovery of the dead
+Antoine, stabbed to the heart in the shack on the Ghost, his voice broke
+with emotion. When he had found Antoine, killed in his sleep by Piquet,
+Marcel said that he had bitterly regretted that he had not taken
+Beaulieu with him, leaving Piquet to work out his own fate.</p>
+
+<p>Then Jean described how he had lashed the body of Antoine, sewed in a
+tent, on the platform cache, and placed the fur-packs and rifles beside
+it, when he left to go into the barrens for deer. Turning, the Frenchman
+pointed his finger at the scowling Lelacs, and cried dramatically, "When
+you came to the camp this spring, you did not find the body of Antoine
+Beaulieu buried on the shore; you found it on the cache sewed in a tent.
+If I had killed him would I not have hidden him somewhere in the snow
+where the starving lynx and wolverines would have done the rest? No, you
+found Antoine on the cache, and beside him were his rifle and fur-pack
+with those of Joe Piquet. What did you do with them?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>His evil face distorted with rage, the elder Lelac snarled:</p>
+
+<p>"You lie, you got de fur and rifle hid."</p>
+
+<p>Suppressing the half-breeds, Wallace ordered Marcel to continue.</p>
+
+<p>Jean finished his story with the account of his long journey into the
+barrens beyond the Height-of-Land where the streams flowed northeast
+instead of west, his meeting with the returning deer, when weak with
+starvation, and his return to the Ghost to find that a canoe had
+preceded him there.</p>
+
+<p>As he resumed his seat, the eyes of Julie Breton were bright with tears.
+The priest leaned and grasped Jean's hand, whispering: "Well done, Jean
+Marcel!"</p>
+
+<p>It had been a dramatic narration and the audience, including Inspector
+Wallace to whom it was interpreted by Gillies, had been impressed by the
+frank and fearless manner of its telling.</p>
+
+<p>Angus McCain and big Jules smiled widely as they caught Marcel's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Again Gillies rose. "Jules!" he called, and Duroc brought from an
+adjoining room a bundle of pelts, placing them on the long table.</p>
+
+<p>Again the room hummed with the whispering of the curious audience. The
+surprised Lelacs, now in a panic, talked excitedly, heads together.</p>
+
+<p>"Marcel, examine these pelts and if you notice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> anything about them,
+make a statement," said Gillies, conducting the examination for the
+benefit of the Crees, in their native tongue, and translating to
+Wallace.</p>
+
+<p>With great care, as his Cree audience craned their necks to watch what
+the Frenchman was doing, Jean, first examining each pelt, slowly divided
+the bundle of skins into three separate heaps.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you anything to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, M'sieu. This large pile here, I know nothing about; but this heap
+here, were all pelts trapped last winter by Antoine Beaulieu."</p>
+
+<p>A murmur passed through the crowded room. Here surely was something of
+interest. Lelac rose and started to look at the pelts when big Jules
+pushed him roughly back on the bench.</p>
+
+<p>"You stay where you are, Lelac, or I'll put a guard over you!" rasped
+Gillies.</p>
+
+<p>"This pile here," continued Jean, "belonged to Joe Piquet."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you recognize them?" demanded Gillies.</p>
+
+<p>"All these have Antoine's mark, one little slit behind the right
+fore-leg. These with two slits behind the left fore-leg were the pelts
+of Piquet. My mark was three slits in front of the left hind leg. When
+we started trapping from the same camp, we agreed on these marks."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>The air of the trade-room was heavy with suspense.</p>
+
+<p>"You swear to these marks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, M'sieu."</p>
+
+<p>"François Maskigan!" The treaty-chief of the South Branch Crees, a man
+of middle age, with great authority among the Indians, stepped forward.</p>
+
+<p>"François, you have heard what Marcel says of the marks on these skins?"</p>
+
+<p>The chief nodded, "<i>Enh</i>, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Look at them and see if he speaks rightly."</p>
+
+<p>It took the Indian but a few minutes to check the distinguishing marks
+on the pelts and examine the large pile which Marcel had said possessed
+none.</p>
+
+<p>"Are the marks on these pelts as Marcel says?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they are there, these marks as he says."</p>
+
+<p>The cowed Lelacs, their dark faces now twisted with fear, awaited the
+next words of Gillies. Then the irate factor turned on them.</p>
+
+<p>"Gaspard Lelac!" he roared. The face of Lelac paled to a sickly white as
+his furtive eyes met the factor's.</p>
+
+<p>"All this fur, here, you and your sons traded in last week; your own
+fur, and the pelts of Beaulieu and Joe Piquet, dead men. I have held
+them separate from the rest. You are thieves and liars!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>The bomb had exploded. At the words of the factor, the trade-room became
+a bedlam of chattering and excited Indians. In the north, to steal the
+fur of another is one of the cardinal sins. The supporters of Marcel
+loudly exulted in the turn the hearing had taken, while the deluded
+adherents of the Lelacs, maddened by the villainy of men who had stolen
+from the dead and accused another, loudly cursed the half-breeds.</p>
+
+<p>Nonplussed, paralyzed by the trick of the factor, instigated by the
+adroit Marcel, the Lelacs sent murderous looks at Jean who smiled
+contemptuously in their faces.</p>
+
+<p>Gillies' deep bass quieted the uproar.</p>
+
+<p>"Jules!" he called the second time. All were on tiptoe to learn what
+further surprise the stalwart Jules had in store for them, when he
+entered the room with two rifles, which he laid on the table, while the
+Lelacs stared in wide-eyed amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you get these rifles?" asked Gillies.</p>
+
+<p>"In the tepee of Lelac, just now, hidden under blankets."</p>
+
+<p>"Whose rifles were they, Marcel?"</p>
+
+<p>Marcel examined the guns.</p>
+
+<p>"This 30-30 gun belonged to Piquet. This is the rifle of Antoine."</p>
+
+<p>With a cry, a tall half-breed roughly shouldered his way to the front of
+the excited Crees.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>"You thieves!" he cried, straining to reach the Lelacs with the knife
+which he held in his hand. But sinewy arms seized him and the frenzied
+uncle of Antoine Beaulieu was pushed, struggling, from the room.</p>
+
+<p>It was the final straw. The mercurial Crees had turned as quickly from
+the Lelacs to Marcel as, in the first instance, they had credited the
+tale of the half-breeds. Now, with the Lelacs proven liars and thieves,
+Jean's explanation of the deaths of his partners, as Gillies foresaw,
+had, without corroboration, and on his word as a man, only, been at once
+accepted.</p>
+
+<p>Calling for silence Gillies again spoke to the hunters.</p>
+
+<p>"You have heard the words of these men. You have judged who has spoken
+with a double tongue; who, with the guns of dead men hidden in a tepee,
+have traded their fur and put their blood upon the head of another. Do
+you believe Jean Marcel when he says that Piquet killed Antoine Beaulieu
+and went out to kill him also, or do you believe the men who stole the
+guns and fur of a dead man which belong to his kinsmen?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Enh! Enh!</i> Jean Marcel speaks truth!" cried the Crees, and the
+chattering mob poured into the post clearing to carry the news to the
+curious young men and the women, who waited.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>Meanwhile Pčre Breton embraced the happy Marcel while the unchecked
+tears welled in Julie's eyes. Then Gillies and McCain wrung the
+Frenchman's hand until he grimaced. But the big Jules, patiently waiting
+his turn, pounced upon Jean with a fierce hug and, in spite of his
+protests carrying him like a child in his great arms from the
+trade-house, showed the man they had maligned, to the Crees, who now
+loudly cheered him.</p>
+
+<p>Turning to Gillies, the Inspector said gravely: "These Lelacs go south
+for trial. I'll make an example of their thieving."</p>
+
+<p>But Colin Gillies had no intention of having the half-breeds sent
+"outside" for trial, if he could prevent it. It would mean that Jean and
+he, himself, with Jules, would have to go as witnesses. He could take
+care of the Lelacs in his own way. He had punished men before.</p>
+
+<p>"That would leave us very short-handed here. The famine has reduced the
+trade this year a third. If we want to make a showing next season, we
+can't spend six months travelling down below for a trial."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that would mean your going and we can't afford to injure the
+trade; but I ought to make a report on this murder business in famine
+years."</p>
+
+<p>"If you get the government into this, it will hurt us, Mr. Wallace. Why
+can't we handle this matter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> as we have handled it for two centuries?"
+protested Gillies. "A report will only place the Company in a bad
+light&mdash;make them think we can't control the Crees."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, perhaps you're right," admitted Wallace. "I'm out to make a
+showing on the East Coast and I don't want to handicap you."</p>
+
+<p>So Gillies had his way.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+<h4>BITTER-SWEET</h4>
+
+
+<p>To Jean Marcel it had been a happy moment&mdash;that of his exoneration by
+the hunters of Whale River. For weeks, with rage in his heart, he had
+silently borne the black looks of the Crees whom he could not avoid in
+going to his net and crossing the post clearing to the trade-house. For
+weeks his name had been a byword at the spring trade&mdash;Marcel, the man
+who had murdered his partners. But now the stain of infamy had been
+washed clean from an honored name. In his humble grave in the Mission
+Cemetery, André Marcel could now sleep in peace, for in the eyes of the
+small world of the East Coast, his son had come scathless through the
+long snows. The tale would not now travel down the coast in the
+Inspector's canoe that another white man had turned murderer for the
+scanty food of his friends.</p>
+
+<p>And with his acquittal by the Company and the Crees, his love for Julie
+Breton, more poignant from its very hopelessness, gave him no rest. As
+he struggled with renunciation, he brought himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> to realize that,
+after all, it had been but presumption on his part to hope that this
+girl with her education of years in a Quebec convent, her acquaintance
+with the ways of the great world "outside," should look upon a humble
+Company hunter as a possible husband. He had all along mistaken her
+kindness, her friendship, for something more which she had never felt.
+In comparison with Wallace who, Jean had heard Gillies say, might some
+day go to Winnipeg as Assistant Commissioner of the Company, he was as
+nothing. Doomed by his inheritance and his training to a life beyond the
+pale of civilization, he could offer Julie Breton little but a love that
+knew no bounds, no frontiers; that would find no trail, which led to
+her, too long; no water too vast; no height too sheer; to separate them,
+did she but call him.</p>
+
+<p>So, in the hour of his triumph, the soul-sick Marcel went to one who
+never had failed him; who loved him with a singleness of heart but
+rarely paralleled by human kind; who, however humble his lot, would give
+him the worship accorded to no king&mdash;his dog.</p>
+
+<p>Seated beside Fleur with her squealing children crawling over him, he
+circled her great neck with his arms and told his troubles to a hairy
+ear. She sought his hand with her tongue, her throat rumbling with
+content, for had she not there on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> grass in the soft June sun, all
+her world&mdash;her puppies and her God, Jean Marcel?</p>
+
+<p>There, Julie Breton, having in vain announced supper from the Mission
+door, found them, man and dog, and led Marcel away, protesting. The girl
+wore the frock she had donned in honor of his return, and never to Jean
+had she seemed so vibrant with life, never had the color bathed her dark
+face so exquisitely, nor the tumbled masses of her hair so allured him.
+But as he entered the Mission, he saw Inspector Wallace seated in
+conversation with the priest, and his heart went cold.</p>
+
+<p>During the meal, served by a Cree woman, the admiring eyes of Wallace
+seldom left Julie's face. At first he seemed surprised at the presence
+of Marcel at the table but the priest made it quite evident to the
+Company man that Jean was as one of the family. However, as the
+Frenchman rarely joined in the conversation and early excused himself,
+leaving Wallace a free field, the Inspector's temper at what might have
+seemed presumption in a Company hunter was unmarred.</p>
+
+<p>July came and to the surprise of Gillies and Whale River, the big
+Company canoe still remained under its tarpaulin on the post landing.
+That the priest looked kindly on the possibility of such a
+brother-in-law was evident from his hospitality to Wallace, but what
+piqued the curiosity of Colin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> Gillies and McCain was whether Wallace, a
+Scotch Protestant, had as yet accepted the Catholic faith, for the
+Oblat, Pčre Breton, could not marry his sister to a man of another
+religious belief. However, deep in the spell of the charming Julie,
+Inspector Wallace stayed on after the trade was over, giving as his
+reason his desire to go south with the Company steamer which shortly
+would be due.</p>
+
+<p>Although to Jean she was the same merry Julie, each morning visiting the
+stockade to play with Fleur's puppies, who now had their eyes well open
+and were beginning to find an uncertain balance, he avoided her, rarely
+seeing her except at meal time. Of the change in their relations he
+never spoke, but man-like he was hurt that she failed to take him to
+task for his moodiness. In the evening, now, she walked on the
+river-shore with Wallace, and talked through the twilight when the sun
+lingered below the rim of the world in the west. Jean Marcel had gone
+out of her life. He ceased to mention the Inspector's name, and absented
+himself from meals when the Scotchman was expected.</p>
+
+<p>Julie had said: "Jean, you are one of us, always welcome. Why do you
+stay away when Monsieur Wallace comes?" And he had answered: "You know
+why I stay away, Julie Breton."</p>
+
+<p>That was all.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+<h4>THE FANGS OF THE HALF-BREEDS</h4>
+
+
+<p>One night when Jean returned late from his nets after a long paddle,
+seeking the exhaustion that would bring sleep and temporary respite from
+his grief, a canoe manned by three men drifted alongshore toward his
+beached canoe. Occupied with his thoughts, Marcel took no notice of the
+craft. Removing from the boat the fish he had caught, he was about to
+lift and place it bottom up on the beach when the bow of the approaching
+birch-bark suddenly swung sharply and jammed into the stern of his own.</p>
+
+<p>With an exclamation of irritation at the clumsiness of the people in the
+offending canoe, Jean looked up to stare into the faces of the three
+Lelacs.</p>
+
+<p>"You are good canoeman," he sneered, roughly pushing with his paddle the
+half-breeds' canoe from his own. That the act was intentional, he knew,
+but he was surprised that the Lelacs, convicted of theft, and on parole
+at the post awaiting the Company's decision as to their punishment,
+would dare to start trouble.</p>
+
+<p>As Jean shoved off the Lelacs' canoe, the half-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>breeds, as if at a
+preconcerted signal, shouted loudly:</p>
+
+<p>"W'at you do to us, Jean Marcel? Ough! Why you beat me wid de paddle? He
+try to keel us!"</p>
+
+<p>The near beach was deserted, but the shouts in the still night were
+audible on the post clearing above. The uproar waked the sleeping
+huskies at the few remaining Esquimo tepees on the shore, whose howling
+quickly aroused the post dogs.</p>
+
+<p>It was evident to Jean that his enemies had chosen their time and place.
+Obeying scrupulously the orders of Gillies since the trial, Marcel had
+avoided the Lelacs, holding in check the just wrath which had prompted
+him to take personal vengeance upon his traducers. Now, instead, they
+had sought him, but from their actions, intended to make him seem the
+aggressor.</p>
+
+<p>"Bon!" he muttered between his teeth. Life had little value to him now,
+he would give these thieves what they were after.</p>
+
+<p>"You 'fraid to come on shore? You squeal lak' rabbit; you t'ief!" he
+taunted.</p>
+
+<p>Continuing to shout that Marcel was attacking them, the Lelacs landed
+their canoe and the elder son, evidently drunk, lurched toward the man
+who waited.</p>
+
+<p>"Rabbit, am I?" roared the frenzied half-breed, and struck savagely at
+Jean with his paddle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> Dodging the blow, before the breed could recover
+his balance, the Frenchman lunged with his one hundred and seventy
+pounds behind his fist into Lelac's jaw, hurling him reeling into the
+water ten feet away. Then the two Lelacs reached him.</p>
+
+<p>Gasping for breath, the younger brother fell backward, helpless from a
+kick in the pit of his stomach as the maddened Marcel grappled with the
+father. Over and over they rolled on the beach, Lelac, frenzied by
+drink, snarling with hate of the man he had tried to destroy, fighting
+like a trapped wolverine; the no less infuriated Marcel resolved now to
+rid Whale River forever of this vermin.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long before the bands of steel cable which swathed the arms,
+shoulders and back of Jean Marcel overcame the delirious strength of the
+crazed half-breed, and Lelac was forced down and held on his back. Then
+like the jaws of a wolf-trap, the fingers of Marcel's right hand shut on
+the throat of the under man. The bloodshot eyes of Lelac bulged from
+their sockets. Blood filled the distorted face. The mouth gaped for air,
+barred by the vise on his throat. In a last feeble effort to free
+himself, a helpless hand clawed limply at Marcel's wrist&mdash;then he
+relaxed, unconscious, on the beach.</p>
+
+<p>Getting to his feet, Jean looked for the others, to see the younger
+brother still nursing his stomach, when an oath sounded in his ears and,
+struck from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> the rear, a sharp twinge bit through his shoulder, as he
+stumbled forward.</p>
+
+<p>Leaping away from a second lunge, and drawing his knife with his left
+hand, Marcel slashed wildly, driving before him the half-breed whom the
+water had revived. Then, as he fought to reach him, the shape of his
+retreating enemy slowly faded from Marcel's vision; his strength ebbed;
+the knife slipped from his fingers as darkness shut down upon him, and
+he reeled senseless to the stones.</p>
+
+<p>With a snarl of triumph, Lelac, crouched on the defensive, sprang to the
+crumpled figure, a hand raised to drive home the knife-thrust, when
+something sang shrilly through the air. The upraised arm fell. With a
+groan, the half-breed pitched on his face, the slender shaft of a
+seal-spear quivering in his back.</p>
+
+<p>Close by, a kayak silently slid to the shore and a squat Husky, his
+broad face knotted with fear, ran to the unconscious Marcel. Swiftly
+cutting the shirt from the Frenchman's back, he was staunching the flow
+of blood from the knife wound, when people from the post clearing,
+headed by Jules Duroc, reached the beach.</p>
+
+<p>"By Gar! Jean Marcel!" gasped Jules recognizing his friend. "He ees cut
+bad?"</p>
+
+<p>The Husky shook his head. "He not kill."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>Staring at the dead man transfixed by the spear and his unconscious
+father, Jules roared: "De t'ief, dey try <i>revanche</i> on Jean Marcel!"</p>
+
+<p>Stripping off his own shirt, Jules bandaged Marcel's shoulder. As he
+worked, one thing he told himself. Had they killed Marcel, the Lelacs
+would not have gone south for trial. Father and son would never have
+left the beach at Whale River alive.</p>
+
+<p>Then he said to the gathering Crees, "Tak' dem!" pointing to the younger
+Lelac now shedding maudlin tears over his dead brother, and to the
+half-choked father, resuscitated by a rough immersion in the river from
+unfriendly hands. Seizing the pair, rapidly sobering and now fearful for
+their fate, the Crees kicked them up the cliff trail.</p>
+
+<p>"Tiens!" exclaimed Jules to the Husky, finishing the bandaging. "Dey try
+keel Marcel but he lay out two w'en he get de cut?"</p>
+
+<p>The Husky nodded, "A-hah! I hear holler an' dey run on heem. He put all
+down. One in water, he get up an' cut heem wid knife. He fall and,
+whish! I spear dat one."</p>
+
+<p>"By Gar! You good man wid de seal-spear, John Kovik." And Jules wrung
+the Esquimo's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I cum fast een kayak to fight for heem; I too slow," and the Husky
+shook his head sadly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>"Ah, you cum jus' een time. You save hees life."</p>
+
+<p>The Husky placed a hand on the thick hair of the senseless man, as he
+said, "He ketch boy, Salmon Rive'. He frien' of me!"</p>
+
+<p>Jean Marcel's bread upon the waters had returned to him.</p>
+
+<p>With the unconscious Marcel in his arms, Jules Duroc climbed the cliff,
+the grateful Kovik at his heels, to meet the inhabitants of Whale River
+on the clearing. The news of the fight on the beach had spread swiftly
+through the post and many and fierce were the threats made against the
+Lelacs as they were shut in a small shack and placed under guard.</p>
+
+<p>In front of the trade-house, Gillies, followed by McCain and Wallace,
+met Jules with his burden.</p>
+
+<p>"How did this happen, Jules? Is he badly hurt?" demanded the factor.
+Jules explained briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"Stabbed in the back? Too bad! Too bad! Take him to the Mission
+Hospital."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Gillies, this settles it! The Lelacs go south for trial, now, and
+they won't need you as a witness either," announced Wallace.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we'll have to get rid of them," admitted the factor. "They were
+crazy to do this after what has happened. I should have shut them up.
+Too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> bad Jean didn't use his knife instead of his hands on them!"</p>
+
+<p>"Or his feet!" added McCain. "The Husky says he put one Lelac out of
+business with a kick and choked the old man unconscious, when the one
+who was knocked into the river stabbed him. He fought them with his bare
+hands. I take off my hat to Jean Marcel."</p>
+
+<p>"Who started this affair, anyway?" asked Wallace. "The Lelacs, under a
+cloud here, couldn't have dared to."</p>
+
+<p>Gillies turned on his chief.</p>
+
+<p>"What do we care who started it? Haven't they tried to ruin Marcel? I
+ordered him to keep away from them, but didn't he have sufficient cause
+to start&mdash;anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Crees say the Lelacs got drunk on sugar-beer and were waiting for
+Jean to get back from down river," broke in McCain, fearing a row
+between Gillies and the Inspector. "John Kovik, the Husky, saw them rush
+him, and John got there in time to throw his seal-spear at young Lelac,
+after he had stabbed Marcel from behind."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that explains it; Marcel was defending himself," said the ruffled
+Inspector.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and you will notice, Mr. Wallace," rasped Gillies, "that Marcel
+fought them with his hands, until he was cut, one man against three. If
+he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> used his knife on the old man, he wouldn't have been hurt. Does
+that prove what we've told you about him?"</p>
+
+<p>It was at this point that Julie Breton and her brother, late in hearing
+the news, reached Jules carrying his burden, whose bandages were now
+reddening with blood.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jules, is he badly hurt?" cried the girl, peering in the dusk at
+the ashen face of Marcel. Then she noticed the bandages, and putting her
+hands to her face, moaned: "Jean Marcel, what have they done to you;
+what have they done to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eet bleed hard, Ma'm'selle," Jules said softly, "but eet ees onlee een
+de shouldair. Don' cry, Ma'm'selle Julie!"</p>
+
+<p>Supporting the sobbing girl, Pčre Breton ordered:</p>
+
+<p>"Carry him to the Mission, Jules."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Father!" And Jean Marcel returned again to a room in the Mission.</p>
+
+<p>Tenderly rough hands bathed and dressed the knife wound and through the
+night Pčre Breton sat by his patient, who moaned and tossed in the
+delirium which the fever brought.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+<h4>CREE JUSTICE</h4>
+
+
+<p>Deep in the night a long, mournful howl, repeated again and again,
+roused the sleeping post. Straightway the dogs of the factor and the
+Crees, followed by the Esquimos' huskies on the beach, were pointing
+their noses at the moon in dismal chorus. With muttered curse and
+protest from tepee, shack and factor's quarters, the wakened people of
+the post, covering their ears, sought sleep, for no hour is sacred to
+the moon-baying husky and no one may suppress him. One wakes, and
+lifting his nose, pours out his canine soul in sleep-shattering lament,
+when, promptly, every husky within hearing takes up the wail.</p>
+
+<p>The post dogs, having alternately and in chorus, to their hearts'
+content and according to the custom of their fathers, transformed the
+calm July night into a horror of sound, with noses buried in bushy tails
+again sought sleep. Once more the mellow light of the moon bathed the
+sleeping fur-post, when from the stockade behind the Mission rose a long
+drawn note of grief.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>The dark brows of Pčre Breton, watching beside the delirious Marcel,
+contracted.</p>
+
+<p>"Could it be?" he queried aloud. Curious, the priest glanced at his
+patient, then went outside to the stockade. There, with gray nose thrust
+between the pickets, stood Fleur. As he approached, the dog growled,
+then sniffing, recognized a friend of the master, who sometimes fed her,
+and whined.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, Fleur? Do you miss Jean Marcel?"</p>
+
+<p>At the mention of the loved name, the dog lifted her massive head and
+the deep throat again vibrated with the utterance of her grief for one
+who had not returned.</p>
+
+<p>"She has waked to find the blanket of Jean Marcel empty," mused the
+priest, "and mourns for him." Pčre Breton returned to his vigil beside
+the wounded man.</p>
+
+<p>When the early dawn flushed the east, the grieving Fleur was still at
+her post at the stockade gate awaiting the return of Jean Marcel. And
+not until the sun lifted above the blue hills of the valley of the
+Whale, did she cease her lament to seek her complaining puppies.</p>
+
+<p>At daylight McCain and Jules coming to relieve the weary priest found
+Julie sitting with him. The wound was a long slashing one, but the lungs
+of Marcel seemed to have escaped. The fever would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> run its course. There
+was little to do but wait, and hope against infection.</p>
+
+<p>Greeting Julie, whose dark eyes betrayed a lack of sleep, whose face
+reflected an agony of anxiety, the men called Pčre Breton outside the
+Mission.</p>
+
+<p>"The Lelacs will not go south for trial, Father," said McCain, drily.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean? Won't go south; why not?" demanded the astonished
+priest.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, because there's no need of it now," went on McCain mysteriously.</p>
+
+<p>"No need of it! I don't understand. They have done enough harm here. If
+they don't go, the Crees will do something&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The Crees <i>have</i> done something," interrupted McCain.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean&mdash;&mdash;" queried the priest, light slowly dawning upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, just that. They overpowered and bound the guard, last night,
+and&mdash;well, they made a good job of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Killed the prisoners?" the priest slowly shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>McCain nodded. "We found them both knifed in the heart. On the old man
+was a piece of birch-bark, with the words: 'This work done by friends of
+Jean Marcel.'"</p>
+
+<p>The priest raised his hands. "It would have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> been better to send them
+south. Still, they were evil men, and deserved their fate. Tell nothing
+of it to Julie. She has taken this thing very hard."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+<h4>THE WAY OF A DOG</h4>
+
+
+<p>When Wallace and Gillies had surveyed the bodies of the dead
+half-breeds, the factor turned grimly to his chief.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Wallace, I don't see how we can send the Lelacs south for trial,
+now; they wouldn't keep that long."</p>
+
+<p>"Gillies," said the Inspector with a frown, ignoring the ghastly
+witticism, "I want you to run down the men who did this. Whether they
+deserved it or not, I won't have men murdered in this district without
+trial. The lawlessness of the East Coast has got to stop."</p>
+
+<p>Gillies turned away, suppressing with difficulty his anger. Shortly in
+control of his voice, he answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Wallace, I have put in many years, boy and man, on this coast and I
+think I understand the Crees. To punish the men who did this, provided
+we knew who they were, would be the worst thing the Company could do.
+When the Lelacs stole Beaulieu's fur and rifle, they put themselves
+outside the Cree law, and as sure as the sun will set in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> Hudson's Bay
+to-night, the Lelacs would never have got out of the bush alive this
+winter."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," objected Wallace, "but to overpower our guards and kill them
+under our noses&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What of it? The Lelacs had robbed a dead man and would have killed Jean
+Marcel, if he hadn't been a son of André Marcel, who was a wolf in a
+fight. The Lelacs were three-quarter Cree and the Indians here have a
+way of meting out justice to their own people in a case like this that
+even Canadian officials might envy. You may be sure that the Lelacs were
+formally tried and condemned in some tepee last night before this thing
+happened."</p>
+
+<p>"These two guards must have been asleep," complained Wallace.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we'll never know, Mr. Wallace. They say that they were thrown
+from behind and didn't recognize the men who did it. Even if they did,
+they wouldn't tell who they were, and it's useless to try to make them.
+The Crees have taken the Lelacs off our hands. They have saved us time
+and money by ridding us of these vermin. In my opinion we should thank
+rather than attempt to punish them."</p>
+
+<p>So Inspector Wallace slowly cooled off and in the afternoon went to the
+Mission to make his daily call on Julie Breton only to be informed, to
+his surprise, that she could not see him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>Meanwhile the condition of the wounded man was unchanged, but Pčre
+Breton faced a problem which he deemed necessary to discuss with his
+friends Jules Duroc and McCain.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the day, Fleur had fretted in the stockade, running back and
+forth followed by her complaining puppies, thrusting her nose between
+the pickets to whine and howl by turns, mourning the strange absence of
+Marcel.</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur will not grant sleep to Whale River to-night, unless something is
+done," said the priest to the two men who were acting in turn as
+assistant nurses.</p>
+
+<p>"Why can't we bring her in; let her see him and sniff his hand; it might
+quiet her?" suggested McCain. "It will only make her worse to shut her
+up somewhere else."</p>
+
+<p>"By Gar! Who weel tak' dat dog out again?" objected Jules. "Once she
+here, she nevaire leeve de room."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she will, Jules. She'll go back to her pups after a while. We'll
+bring them outside under the window and let 'em squeal. She'll go back
+to 'em then."</p>
+
+<p>"I am strong man," said Jules, "but I not love to hold dat dog. She weel
+eat Jean Marcel, she so glad to see heem, an' we mus' keep her off de
+bed."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Julie entered the room. "I will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> take Fleur to see him;
+she will behave for me," volunteered the girl.</p>
+
+<p>So not without serious misgivings, it was arranged that the grieving
+Fleur should be shown her master.</p>
+
+<p>That night when Julie had fed Fleur, she opened the stockade gate and
+stroking the great head of the dog, said slowly:</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur would see Jean, Jean Marcel?"</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of the master's name, Fleur's ears went forward, her slant
+eyes turning here and there for a sight of the familiar figure. Then
+with a whine she looked at Julie as if for explanation.</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur will see Jean, soon. Will Fleur behave for Julie?"</p>
+
+<p>With a yelp the husky leaped through the gate and ran to and fro
+outside, sniffing the air; then as if she knew the master were not
+there, returned, shaggy body trembling, every nerve tense with
+anticipation, slant eyes eagerly questioning as she whimpered her
+impatience.</p>
+
+<p>Taking the dog by her plaited collar of caribou hide, to it Julie
+knotted a rope and led her into the Mission where McCain, Jules and Pčre
+Breton waited.</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur will be good and not hurt Jean. She must not leap on his bed. He
+is very sick."</p>
+
+<p>Seeming to sense that something was about to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> happen having to do with
+Marcel, Fleur met the girl's hand with a swift lick of her tongue. With
+the rope trailing behind, the end of which Jules and McCain seized to
+control the dog in case she became unmanageable, Julie Breton opened the
+door of Marcel's room, where with fever-flushed face the unconscious man
+lay on a low cot, one arm hanging limply to the floor. When the husky
+saw the motionless figure, she pricked her ears, thrusting her muzzle
+forward, and sniffed, and as her nose revealed the glad news that here
+at last lay the lost Jean Marcel, she raised her head and yelped wildly.
+Then swiftly muzzling Marcel's inert body she started to spring upon the
+bunk to wake him, when Julie Breton's arms circled her neck and aided by
+the drag on the rope, checked her.</p>
+
+<p>"Down, Fleur! No! No! You must not hurt Jean."</p>
+
+<p>Seeming to sense that the mute Marcel was not to be roughly played with,
+the intelligent dog, whimpering like one of her puppies, caressed the
+free hand of the sick man, then, ignoring the weight on the rope
+dragging her back, she strained forward to reach his neck with her
+tongue, for his head was turned from her. But Jean Marcel did not return
+her caress.</p>
+
+<p>Puzzled by his indifference, then sensing that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> harm had come to the
+unconscious Marcel, the dog raised her head over the cot and rocked the
+room with a wail of sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>The wounded man sighed and turning, moaned:</p>
+
+<p>"They took Fleur and now they take Julie. There is nothing left&mdash;nothing
+left!"</p>
+
+<p>At the words, the nose of the overjoyed dog reached the hot face of
+Marcel, but his eyes did not see her.</p>
+
+<p>Again Julie's strong arms circled Fleur's neck, restraining her. The
+slant eyes of the husky looked long into the pale face which showed no
+recognition; then she quietly sat down, resting her nose on his arm. And
+for hours, with Julie seated beside her, Fleur kept vigil beside the
+bed, until the priest and McCain insisted on the dog's removal.</p>
+
+<p>When Jules brought a crying puppy outside the window of the sick room,
+for a time Fleur listened to the call of her offspring without removing
+her eyes from Marcel's face. But at length, maternal instinct
+temporarily conquered the desire to watch by the stricken man. Her
+unweaned puppies depended on her for life and for the moment mother love
+prevailed. With a final caress of the limp hand of Marcel, reluctantly,
+with head down and tail dragging, she followed Julie to the stockade.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+<h4>FROM THE FAR FRONTIERS</h4>
+
+
+<p>For days Marcel's youth and strength battled with the fever aggravated
+by infection in the deep wound. All that Gillies and Pčre Breton could
+do for the stricken man was done, but barring the simple remedies which
+stock the medicine chest of a post in the far north and the most limited
+knowledge of surgery possessed by the factors, the recovery of a patient
+depends wholly upon his vitality and constitution. With medical aid
+beyond reach, men die or fight back to health through the toughness of
+their fiber alone.</p>
+
+<p>There was a time when Jean Marcel journeyed far toward the dim hills of
+a land from which there is no trail home for the feet of the <i>voyageur</i>.
+There were nights when Julie Breton sat with her brother and Jules, or
+McCain, stark fear in their hearts that the sun would never again lift
+above the Whale River hills for Jean Marcel, never again his daring
+paddle flash in sunlit white-water, or his snow-shoes etch their webbed
+trail on the white floor of the silent places.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>And during these days the impatient Wallace chafed with longing for the
+society of Julie whose pity for the sick man had made of her an
+indefatigable nurse. A few words in the morning and an hour or two at
+night was all the time she allotted the man to whom she had given her
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>To the demand of the Inspector in the presence of Pčre Breton that Julie
+should substitute a Cree woman as nurse, she had replied:</p>
+
+<p>"He has no one but us. His people are dead. He has been like a brother
+to me. I can do no less than care for him, poor boy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," added Pčre Breton, "he is as my son. Julie is right," and added,
+with a smile, "you two will have much time in the future to see each
+other."</p>
+
+<p>So Wallace had been forced to make the best of it.</p>
+
+<p>By the time that the steamer, <i>Inenew</i>, from Charlton Island, appeared
+with the English mail, and the supplies and trade-goods for the coming
+year, Jean Marcel had fought his way back from the frontiers of death.
+So relieved seemed the girl, who had given lavishly of her young
+strength, that she allowed Mrs. Gillies to take her place in the sick
+room while she spent with Wallace the last days of his stay at Whale
+River.</p>
+
+<p>Once more the post people saw the lovers con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>stantly together and more
+than one head shook sadly at the thought of the one who had lost, lying
+hurt, in heart and body, on a cot at the Mission, while another took his
+place beside Julie Breton.</p>
+
+<p>At last, the steamer sailed for Fort George and no one in the group
+gathered at the landing doubted that the heart of Julie Breton went with
+it when they saw the light in her dark eyes as she bade the handsome
+Wallace good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>It was an open secret now, communicated by Wallace to the factor, that
+he was to become a Catholic that autumn, and in June take Julie Breton
+as a bride away to East Main.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>During the tense days when the fever heightened and the life of Jean
+Marcel hung on the turn of a leaf, there had been no repetition of the
+visit of Fleur to the sick room. But so loudly did she wail her
+complaint at her enforced absence from the man battling for his life, so
+near in the Mission house, that it was necessary to confine her with her
+puppies at a distance.</p>
+
+<p>Once again conscious of his surroundings and rapidly gaining strength,
+Marcel insisted on seeing his dog. So, daily, under watchful guard,
+Fleur was taken into the room, often with a clumsy puppy, round and
+fluffy, who alternately nibbled with needle-pointed milk-teeth at Jean's
+extended<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> hand, making a great to-do of snarling in mock anger, or
+rolled squealing on its back on the floor, while Fleur sprawled
+contentedly by the cot, tail beating the floor, love in her slant eyes
+for the master who now had found his voice, whose face once more shone
+with the old smile, which was her life.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2>
+<h4>RENUNCIATION</h4>
+
+
+<p>August drew to a close. The post clearing and the beach at Whale River
+were again bare of tepee and lodge of the hunters of fur who had
+repaired to their summer camps where fish were plentiful, to wait for
+the great flights of snowy geese that the first frosts would drive south
+from Arctic Islands. Daily the vitality and youth of Marcel were giving
+him back his strength, and no remonstrance of the Bretons availed to
+keep him quiet once his legs had mastered the distance to the
+trade-house. Except for a slight pallor in the lean face and the loss of
+weight, due to confinement, to his friends he was once more the Jean
+Marcel they had known, but for weeks, a sudden twisting of his firm
+mouth marking a twinge in the back, recalled only too vividly to them
+all the knife-thrust of Lelac.</p>
+
+<p>When, rid of the fever, and again conscious, Jean had become strong
+enough to talk, he repeatedly voiced his gratitude to Julie for her
+loyalty as nurse, but she invariably covered his mouth with her hand
+refusing to hear him. Grown stronger<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> and sitting up, he had often
+repeated his thanks, raising his face to hers with a twinkle in his dark
+eyes, in the hope that her manner of suppressing him might be continued;
+but she had tantalizingly refused to humor the convalescent.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall close your mouth no longer, Monsieur," she had said with a
+grimace. "You will soon be the big, strong Jean Marcel we have always
+known and must not expect to be a helpless baby forever. And now that
+you can use your right arm, I shall no longer cut up your fish."</p>
+
+<p>"But it is with great pain that I move my arm, Julie," he had protested
+in a feeble effort to enlist her sympathy and so prolong the personal
+ministrations he craved.</p>
+
+<p>"Bah! When before has the great Jean Marcel feared pain? It is only a
+ruse, Monsieur. I am too busy, now that you can help yourself, to treat
+you as a child."</p>
+
+<p>And so, reluctantly, Marcel had resigned himself to doing without the
+aid of the nimble fingers of Julie Breton. The fierce bitterness in his
+heart, which, before the fight on the beach with the Lelacs had made of
+the days an endless torment, gave place, on his recovery, to a state of
+mind more sane. Deep and lasting as was his wound, the realization of
+the girl's devoted care of him had, during his convalescence, numbed the
+old rawness. Gratitude<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> and his innate manhood shamed Marcel into a
+suppression of his grief and the showing of a brave face to Julie Breton
+and the little world of Whale River. In his extremity she had stood
+staunchly by his side. She had been his friend, indeed. He deserved no
+more. And now in his prayers, for he was a devout believer in the
+teachings of Pčre Breton, he asked for her happiness.</p>
+
+<p>One evening found three friends, Julie, Jean Marcel and Fleur, again
+walking on the shore of the Great Whale in the mellow sunset. Romping
+with puppy awkwardness, Fleur's progeny roved near them. The hush of an
+August night was upon the land. Below, the young ebb ran silently
+without ripple. Not a leaf stirred in the scrub edging the trail. The
+dead sun, master artist, had limned the heavens with all the varied
+magic of his palette, and the gray bay, often sullenly restless under
+low-banked clouds, or blanketed with mist, now reached out, a shimmering
+floor, to the rim of the world.</p>
+
+<p>In silence the two, mute with the peace of the moment, watched the
+heightening splendor of the western skies. Disdaining the alluring
+scents of the neighboring scrub, which her puppies were exploring, Fleur
+kept to Marcel's side where her nose might find his hand, for she had
+not forgotten the days of their recent separation.</p>
+
+<p>"What you did for me I can never repay."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> Marcel broke the silence, his
+eyes on the White Bear Hills, sapphire blue on southern horizon.</p>
+
+<p>The girl turned impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Jean Marcel, what I have done, I would do for any friend. I am
+weary of hearing you speak of it. Have you no eyes for the sunset the
+good God has given us? Let us speak of that."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled as one smiles at a child.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Bien!</i> We shall speak no more of it then, Ma'm'selle Breton. But this
+you shall hear. I am sorry that I acted like a boy about M'sieu Wallace.
+You will forgive me?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing to forgive," she answered. "I know you were hurt. It
+was natural for you to feel the way you did."</p>
+
+<p>"But I showed little of the man, Julie. I was hurt here," and he placed
+his hand on his heart, "and I was a child."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled wistfully, slowly shaking her head. "I fear you were very
+like a man, Jean. But you are going away and I may not be here in the
+spring&mdash;may not see you for a long time&mdash;so I want to tell you now how
+proud I have been of you this summer."</p>
+
+<p>He looked up quizzically.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you have made a great name on the East Coast this summer, Jean
+Marcel. When you were ill the Crees talked of little else&mdash;of your
+travelling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> where no Indian had dared to go until you found the caribou;
+your winning, over those terrible Lelacs and proving your innocence;
+your fighting them with bare hands, because you knew no fear."</p>
+
+<p>The face of Marcel reddened as the girl continued.</p>
+
+<p>"You are brave and you have a great heart and a wise head, Jean Marcel;
+some day you will be a factor of the Company. Wherever I may be, I shall
+think of you and always be proud that you are my friend."</p>
+
+<p>Inarticulate, numb with the torture of hopeless love, Marcel listened to
+Julie Breton's farewell.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2>
+<h4>THE VOICE OF THE WINDIGO</h4>
+
+
+<p>When the first flight of snowy geese, southward bound, flashed in an
+undulating white cloud over Whale River, the canoe of Jean Marcel was
+loaded with supplies for a winter in the land of the Windigo. And in
+memory of Antoine Beaulieu, he was taking with him as comrade and
+partner the eighteen-year-old cousin of the dead man whose kinsmen had
+humbly made their amends for their stand against Marcel before the
+hearing. Young Michel Beaulieu, of stouter fibre than Antoine, had at
+length overcome his scruples against entering the land of dread, through
+his admiration for Marcel's daring and his confidence in the man whose
+reputation since the hearing and the fight with the Lelacs had been now
+firmly established with the Whale River Crees. When Marcel had
+repeatedly assured the boy that he had neither seen the trail of <i>Matchi
+Manito</i>, the devil, nor once heard the wailing of a giant Windigo
+through all the long snows of the past winter in the Salmon country,
+Michel's pride at the offer had finally conquered his fears. So leaving
+the puppy he had given Julie as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> the nucleus for a Mission dog-team, and
+presenting Gillies with another, Marcel packed the three remaining
+children of Fleur whom he had named in honor of his three staunch
+friends, Colin, Jules and Angus, into the canoe already deep with
+supplies, and gripping the hands of those who had assembled on the
+beach, eased the craft into the flood-tide.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye and good luck, Jean!" called Gillies.</p>
+
+<p>"De rabbit weel be few; net beeg cache of feesh before de freeze-up!"
+urged the practical Jules.</p>
+
+<p>"No fear, Jules. We ketch all de feesh en de lac," laughed Jean. Then
+his eyes sought Julie Breton's sober face as he said in French:</p>
+
+<p>"I will not come back for Christmas, Julie. The pups will not be old
+enough for the trail."</p>
+
+<p>With the conviction that he was saying good-bye to Julie Breton
+forever&mdash;that on his return in June, she would be far in the south with
+Wallace, he pushed off as she called, "<i>Bon voyage, Jean! Dieu vous
+benisse!</i>" (God bless you!)</p>
+
+<p>When the paddles of Jean and Michel drove the boat into the stream, the
+whining Fleur, beholding her world moving away from her, plunged into
+the river after the <i>voyageurs</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Go back, Fleur!" ordered Jean sternly. "You travel de shore; de cano'
+ees too full wid de pup." So the protesting Fleur turned back to follow
+the shore. The puppies, yet too young and clumsy to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> keep abreast of the
+tide-driven canoe, on the broken beach of the river, had to be
+freighted.</p>
+
+<p>When the boat was well out in the flood, Marcel waved his cap with a
+last "A'voir!"</p>
+
+<p>Far up-stream, a half-hour later, rhythmic flashes, growing swiftly
+fainter and fainter, until they faded from sight, marked for many a long
+moon the last of Jean Marcel.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>September waned, and the laggard rear-guard of the brant and Hutchins
+geese, riding the first stinging northers, passed south in the wake of
+the wavies. On the heels of September followed a week of mellow October
+days lulling the north into temporary forgetfulness of the menace of the
+bitter months to come. Then the unleashed winds from the Arctic
+freighted with the first of the long snows beat down the coast and river
+valleys, locking the land with ice. But far in the Windigo-haunted hills
+of the forbidden land of the Crees a man and a boy, snug in snow-banked
+tepee, laughed as the winds whined through November nights and the snow
+made deep in the timber, for their cache was heaped high with frozen
+trout, whitefish and caribou.</p>
+
+<p>With the coming of the snow, the puppies, young as they were, soon
+learned that the life of a husky was not all mad pursuit of rabbit or
+wood-mouse<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> and stalking of ptarmigan; not all rioting through the
+"bush," on the trail of some mysterious four-footed forest denizen; not
+alone the gulping of a supper of toothsome whitefish or trout, followed
+by a long nap curled in a cosy hole in the snow, gray noses thrust into
+bushy tails. Although their wolf-blood made them, at first, less
+amenable than the average husky puppy to the discipline of collar and
+traces, their great mother, through the force of her example as lead-dog
+and the swift punishment she meted out to any culprit, contributed as
+much as Jean's own efforts to the breaking of the puppies to harness.</p>
+
+<p>Jules, the largest, marked like his mother with slate-gray patches on
+head and back was all dog; but the rogues, Colin and Angus, mottled with
+the lighter gray of their sire, and with his rangier build, inherited
+much of his wolf nature. Many a whipping from the long lash of plaited
+caribou hide, many a sharp nip from Fleur's white teeth, were required
+to teach the young wolves the manners of camp and trail; to bend their
+wild wills to the habit of instant obedience to the voice of Jean
+Marcel. But Fleur was a conscientious mother and under her stern
+tutelage and the firm but kind treatment of Jean,&mdash;who loved to rough
+and wrestle the puppies in the dry snow, rolling them on their backs and
+holding them helpless in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> grip of his sinewy hands&mdash;as the shaggy
+ruffians grew in the wisdom of trace and trail, so in their wild natures
+ripened love for the master who fed and romped with them, meting out
+punishment to him alone who had sinned.</p>
+
+<p>In search of black and silver foxes, whose pelts, worth in the world of
+cities their weight in gold, are the chief inspiration of the red
+hunter's dreams, Jean had run his new trap-lines far in the valleys of
+the Salmon watershed. But to the increasing satisfaction of the still
+worried Michel, the sole noises of the night which had yet met his
+fearful ears, had been the scream of lynx, the occasional caterwauling
+of wolverine and the hunting chorus of timber wolves. But darkness still
+held potential terror for the lad in whom, at his mother's knee, had
+been instilled dread of the demon-infested bad-lands north of the Ghost,
+and he never camped alone.</p>
+
+<p>January came with its withering winds, burning and cracking the faces of
+the hunters following their trap-lines; swirling with fine snow, which
+struck like shot, and stung like the lash of whips. Often when facing
+the drive of a blizzard even the hardy Fleur, wrinkling her nose with
+pain, would stop and turn her back on the needle-pointed barrage. At
+times when the fierce cold, freezing all moisture from the atmosphere,
+filled the air with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> powdery crystals of ice, the true sun, flanked by
+sun-dogs in a ringed halo, lifted above the shimmering barrens,
+dazzlingly bright.</p>
+
+<p>One night when Jean and Michel, camped in the timber at the end of the
+farthest line of fox traps, had turned into their robes before a hot
+fire, in front of which in a snow hole they had stretched a shed tent
+both as windbreak and heat-reflector, a low wail, more sob than cry of
+night prowler, drifted up the valley.</p>
+
+<p>"You hear dat?" whispered Michel.</p>
+
+<p>The hairy throat of Fleur, burrowed in the snow close to the tent,
+rumbled like distant thunder.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel, already fast drifting into sleep, muttered crossly:</p>
+
+<p>"Eet ees de Windigo come to eat you, Michel."</p>
+
+<p>Again upon the hushed valley under star-encrusted heavens where the
+borealis flickered and pulsed and streamed in fantastic traceries of
+fire, broke a wailing sob.</p>
+
+<p>With a cry Michel sat up turning a face gray with fear to the man beside
+him. Again Fleur growled, her lifted nose sniffing the freezing air, to
+send her awakened puppies into a chorus of snarls and yelps.</p>
+
+<p>Raised on an elbow, Marcel sleepily asked:</p>
+
+<p>"What de trouble, Michel? You and Fleur hear de Windigo?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>"Listen!" insisted the boy. "I nevaire hear dat soun' before."</p>
+
+<p>Silencing the dog, Jean pushed back his hood to free his ears, smiling
+into the blanched face of the wild-eyed boy beside him.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly the noiseless night was marred by a sobbing moan, as if some
+stricken creature writhed under the torture of mangled flesh.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel knew that neither wolf, lynx, nor wolverine&mdash;the "Injun-devil" of
+the superstitious&mdash;was responsible for the sound. What could it be? he
+queried. No furred prowler of the night, and he knew the varied voices
+of them all, had such a muffled cry. Puzzled and curious he left his
+rabbit-skin robes and stood with the terrified Michel beside the fire.
+In an uproar, the dogs ran into the "bush" with manes bristling and
+bared fangs, to hurl the husky challenge down the valley at the
+invisible menace.</p>
+
+<p>"Eet ees de Windigo! Dey tell me at Whale Riviere not to come een dees
+countree! De Windigo an' Matchi Manito ees loose here," whimpered Michel
+through chattering teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Jean Marcel did not know what it was that made night horrible with its
+moaning but he intended to learn at once. The lungs behind that noise
+could be pierced by rifle bullet and the cold steel of his knife. There
+was not a creature in the north with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> which Fleur would not readily
+battle. He would soon learn if the hide of a Windigo was tough enough to
+turn the knife-like fangs of Fleur, and the bullets of his 30-30.</p>
+
+<p>Seizing Michel by the shoulders he shook the boy roughly.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, Michel, de devil dat mak' dat soun' travel on four feet.
+You tie up de pup an' wait here. Fleur an' I go an' breeng back hees
+skin."</p>
+
+<p>But the panic-stricken Michel would not be left alone, and when he had
+fastened the excited puppies, with shaking hands he drew his rifle from
+its skin case and joined Marcel.</p>
+
+<p>Holding with difficulty on her rawhide leash the aroused Fleur leaping
+ahead in the soft footing, Marcel snow-shoed through the timber in the
+direction from which the sound had come.</p>
+
+<p>After travelling some time they stopped to listen.</p>
+
+<p>From somewhere ahead, seemingly but a few hundred yards down the valley,
+floated the eerie sobbing. Michel's gun slipped to the snow from his
+palsied hands.</p>
+
+<p>Turning, Jean gripped the boy's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Why you come? You no good to shoot. De Windigo eat you w'ile you hunt
+for your gun."</p>
+
+<p>Picking up the rifle, the boy threw off the mittens fastened to his
+sleeve by thongs, and gritting his teeth, followed Marcel and Fleur.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>Shortly they stopped again to listen. Straight ahead through the spruce
+the moaning rose and fell. Fleur, frantic to reach the mysterious enemy,
+plunged forward dragging Marcel, followed by the quaking boy who held
+his cocked rifle in readiness for the rush of beast or devil. Passing
+through scrub, a small clearing opened up before them. Checking Fleur,
+Marcel peered through the dim light of the forest into the opening lit
+by the stars, when the clearing echoed with the uncanny sound.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel's keen eyes strained across the star-lit snow into the murk
+beyond, as Michel gasped in his ears:</p>
+
+<p>"By Gar! I see noding dere! Eet ees de Windigo for sure!"</p>
+
+<p>But the Frenchman was staring fixedly at a clump of spruce on the
+opposite edge of the opening. As the unearthly sobbing rose again into
+the night, he loosed the maddened dog and followed.</p>
+
+<p>They were close to the spruce, when a great gray shape suddenly rose
+from the snow directly in their path. For an instant a pair of pale
+wings flapped wildly in their faces. Then a squawk of terror was
+smothered as the fangs of Fleur struck at the feathered shape of a huge
+snowy owl. A wrench of the dog's powerful neck, and the ghostly hunter
+of the northern nights had made his last patrol, victim of his own
+curiosity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>With a loud laugh Jean turned to the dazed Michel:</p>
+
+<p>"Tak' good look at de Windigo, Michel. My fox trap hold heem fas' w'ile
+he seeng to de star."</p>
+
+<p>The amazed Michel stared at the white demon in the fox trap with open
+mouth. "I t'ink&mdash;dat h'owl&mdash;de Windigo for sure," he stuttered.</p>
+
+<p>"I nevaire hear de h'owl cry dat way myself, Michel, but I know dat
+Fleur and my gun mak' any Windigo een dees countree look whiter dan dat
+bird. W'en we come near dees place I expect somet'ing een dat fox trap."</p>
+
+<p>And strangely, through the remaining moons of the long snows, the sleep
+of the lad was not again disturbed by the wailing of Windigos seeking to
+devour a young half-breed Cree by the name of Michel Beaulieu.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h2>
+<h4>RAW WOUNDS</h4>
+
+
+<p>June once again found Marcel paddling into Whale River. The sight of the
+high-roofed Mission, where, in the past, he had known so much of joy and
+pain, quickened his stroke. He wondered whether she had gone away with
+Wallace at Christmas, or whether there would be a wedding when the trade
+was over and the steamer would take them to East Main. Avoiding the
+Mission until he had learned from Jules what he so longed to know,
+Marcel went up to the trade-house where he found Gillies and McCain. Too
+proud to speak of what was nearest his heart, he told his friends of his
+winter in the Salmon country. It had paid him well, his long portage
+from the Ghost, the previous September, to the untrapped valleys to the
+north. When, unlashing his fur-pack, he tossed on the counter three
+glossy black-fox pelts and six skins of soft silver-gray, alone worth
+well over a thousand dollars, even at the low prices of the far north,
+the eyes of Gillies and Angus McCain bulged in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> amazement. Cross fox,
+shading from the black of the back and shoulder to rich mahogany,
+followed; dark sheeny marten&mdash;the Hudson's Bay sable of commerce&mdash;and
+thick gray pelts of the fisher. Otter, lynx and mink made up the balance
+of the fur.</p>
+
+<p>"Great Scott! the Salmon headwaters must be alive with fur!" exclaimed
+Gillies examining the skins, "and most of them are prime."</p>
+
+<p>"Dere ees much fur een dat country," laughed Jean, "eef de Windigo don'
+ketch you, eh, Michel?"</p>
+
+<p>Michel, proud of his part in so successful a winter and in having
+bearded the demons of the Salmon in their dens and lived to tell the
+tale, blushed at the memory of the snowy owl.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the largest catch of fur traded in my time at Whale River,
+Jean," said Gillies. "What are you going to do with all your credit? You
+can't use it on yourself; you'll have to get married and build a shack
+here."</p>
+
+<p>Blood darkened the bronzed face, but Marcel made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>He had indeed wrung a handsome toll from the haunted hills, which,
+tabooed by Cree trappers for generations, were tracked by the padded
+feet of countless fur-bearers. After allowing Michel a generous interest
+in the fur, Marcel found that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> had increased his credit at the post
+by over two thousand dollars, giving him in all a trade credit of
+twenty-six hundred dollars with the Company. He could in truth afford to
+marry and build a shack if he were made a Company servant, but the
+girl&mdash;&mdash;Then he heard Gillies' voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean, I want you and Angus to go up to the Komaluk Islands with a York
+boat. The whalers are getting the Husky trade which we ought to have.
+They will ruin them with whiskey."</p>
+
+<p>"Ver' well, M'sieu!"</p>
+
+<p>Marcel drew a breath of relief. If she were not already married, he
+would be only too glad to go north&mdash;to be spared seeing Julie Breton
+made the wife of Wallace. Then, at last, Jules appeared.</p>
+
+<p>After the customary hug, Jean drew the big head man outside, demanding
+in French:</p>
+
+<p>"Is she here still? They were not married at Christmas? When do they
+marry?"</p>
+
+<p>Jules shook his head. "A letter came by the Christmas mail. By the
+Company he was ordered at once to Winnipeg. He is there now and will not
+come this summer."</p>
+
+<p>"And Julie, is she well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"When, then, will they marry?"</p>
+
+<p>Jules shrugged his great shoulders. "Christmas maybe, perhaps next June.
+No one knows."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>Marcel was strangely elated at the news. Julie was not yet out of his
+life. She would be at Whale River on his return from the north. Even if
+he were held all summer she would be there as of old.</p>
+
+<p>The welcome of Julie and Pčre Breton at the Mission temporarily drove
+from Marcel's thoughts the coming separation. Far into the night the
+three friends talked while Julie's skillful fingers were busy with her
+trousseau. She spoke of the postponement of her wedding, due to the
+presence of Inspector Wallace at the headquarters of the Company at
+Winnipeg. Julie's olive skin flushed with her pride, as she said that he
+had been mentioned already as the next Chief Inspector. Wallace had
+already become a Catholic, but the uncertainty of the time of his return
+to the East Coast might cause the delay of the ceremony until the
+following June.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel's hungry eyes did not leave the girl's face as she talked of her
+future&mdash;the future he had dreamed of sharing. But the wound was still
+raw and he was glad to escape the acute suffering which her nearness
+caused, by leaving Fleur and her puppies in Julie's care, and starting
+with McCain the following morning, in a York boat loaded with
+trade-goods, for the north coast.</p>
+
+<p>In August the York boat returned from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> Komaluk Islands and Jean drew
+his supplies for another winter on Big Salmon waters. To Gillies, who
+urged him to accept a regular berth, and put his team of half-breed
+wolves on the mail-route to Rupert, for the winter previous the scarcity
+of good dogs along the coast had been the cause of the Christmas mail
+not reaching Whale River until the second of January, Marcel turned a
+deaf ear. In another year, he said, he would carry the mail up the
+coast, but his puppies were still too young to be pushed hard through a
+blizzard. Another year and he would show the posts down the coast what a
+real dog-team could do.</p>
+
+<p>Glancing at McCain, Gillies shook his head resignedly, for he knew well
+why Jean Marcel wished to avoid Whale River.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of his departure, as Jean stood with Michel on the beach
+by the canoe, surrounded by his four impatient dogs, Julie stooped and
+kissed the white marking between Fleur's ears, whispering a good-bye.
+Turning her head in response, the dog's moist nose and rough tongue
+reached the girl's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucky Fleur!" Jean said to his friends.</p>
+
+<p>"It's sure worth while being a dog, sometimes," drawled Angus McCain
+with a grimace. But Julie Breton ignored the remarks, wishing Marcel
+Godspeed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>Through the day as they travelled Marcel looked on the high shores of
+the Salmon with unseeing eyes, for in them was the vision of a girl
+bending over a great dog.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2>
+<h4>DREAMS</h4>
+
+
+<p>Christmas was but a week distant. For the first time in years Jean
+Marcel possessed a dog-team, and through the long December nights he had
+come to a decision to talk to Julie Breton once more, as in the old
+days, before she left Whale River forever.</p>
+
+<p>Led by Fleur, Colin, Angus and Jules, now grown to huge huskies, already
+abreast of their mother in height and bulk of bone, and showing the wolf
+strain in their rangy gait and in red lower-lids of their amber eyes,
+were jingling down the river trail to the festivities at the post. For,
+from Fort Chimo, west across the wide north, to Rampart House, Christmas
+and New Years are kept. From far and wide come dog-teams of the red
+hunters down the frozen river trails for the feasting and merrymaking at
+the fur-posts. Two weeks, "fourteen sleeps" on the trail, going and
+coming, is not held by many a hardy hunter and his family too high a
+price to pay for a few short days of trading and gossip and dancing.
+There are many who trap too far from the posts and in country too
+in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>accessible to make the journey possible, but throughout the white
+desolation of the fur lands the spirit of Christmas is strong and yearly
+the frozen valleys echo to the tinkling of the bells of dog-teams and
+the laughter of the children of the snows.</p>
+
+<p>Over the beaten river trail, ice-hardened by the passage of many sleds
+preceding them, romped Fleur and her sons, toying with the weight of the
+two men and the food bags on the sled. At times, Jean and Michel ran
+behind the team to stretch their legs and start their chilled blood, for
+it was forty below zero. But to the dogs, travelling without wind at
+forty below on a beaten trail, was sheer delight. Often, on the high
+barrens of the Salmon they had slept soundly in their snow holes at
+minus sixty.</p>
+
+<p>As Jean watched his great lead-dog, her thick coat of slate-gray and
+white glossy with superb vitality, set a pace for her rangy sons which
+sent the white miles sliding swiftly past, his heart sang.</p>
+
+<p>Good all day for a thousand pounds, they were, on a broken trail, and
+since November he had in vain sought the limit of their staying power.
+Not yet the equals of their mother in pulling strength, at eighteen
+months their wolf-blood had already given the puppies her stamina. What
+a team to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> bring the Christmas mails up the coast from East Main! he
+thought, idly whirling the whip of plaited caribou hide which had never
+flecked the ears of Fleur, but which he sometimes needed when the
+excitable Colin or Angus scented game and, puppy-like, started to bolt.
+No dogs on the coast could take the trail from these sons of Fleur. No
+dog-team he had ever seen could break-out and trot away with a thousand
+pounds. That winter they had done it with a load of caribou meat on the
+barrens. Yes, next year he would accept Gillies' offer and put Fleur and
+her sons on the winter-mail&mdash;Fleur, and the team she had given him; his
+Fleur, whom he had followed and fought for: who had in turn battled for
+his life.</p>
+
+<p>"Marche, Fleur!" he called, his eyes bright with his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>The lead-dog leaped from a swinging trot into a long lope, straightening
+the traces, followed by the team keen for a run. Away they raced in the
+good going of the hard trail. Then, in early afternoon when the sun hung
+low in the dim west, the men turned into the thick timber of the shores,
+where, sheltered from the wind, they shovelled out a camp ground with
+their snow-shoes and built a roaring fire while the puppies, ravenous
+for their supper, yelped and fretted until Jean threw them the frozen
+fish which they caught in the air and bolted.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>Before Jean and Michel had boiled their tea and caribou stew, four
+shaggy shapes with noses in tails were asleep in the snow, indifferent
+to the sting of the strengthening cold which made the spruces around
+them snap, and split the river ice with the boom of cannon.</p>
+
+<p>Wrapped in his fur robe before the fire, Marcel lay wondering if he
+should find Julie Breton still at Whale River.</p>
+
+<p>Hours later, waking with a groan, Marcel sat upright in his blankets.
+Near him the tired Michel snored peacefully. Throwing a circle of light
+on the surrounding spruce, huge embers of the fire still burned. The
+moon was dead, a veil of haze masking the dim stars. It was bitter cold.
+Half out of his covering, the startled <i>voyageur</i> shivered, but it was
+not from the bite of the air. It was the stark poignancy of the dream
+from which he had escaped, that left him cold.</p>
+
+<p>He had stood by the big chute of the Conjuror's Falls on the Ghost,
+known as the "Chute of Death," and as he gazed into the boiling
+maelstrom of white-water, the blanched face of Julie Breton had looked
+up at him, her lips moving in hopeless appeal, as she was swept from
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>Into the roaring flume he had plunged headlong, frenziedly seeking her,
+as he vainly fought down through the gorge, buffeted and mauled by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+churning water, but though he hunted the length of the river below,
+never found her.</p>
+
+<p>Again, he was travelling with Fleur and the team in a blizzard, when out
+of the smother of snow before him beckoned the wraith of Julie
+Breton&mdash;always just ahead, always beckoning to him. Pushing his dogs to
+their utmost he never drew nearer, never reached the wistful face he
+loved, luring him through the curtain of snow.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel freshened the fire and lighted his pipe. It was long before he
+threw off the grip of his dreams and slept.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2>
+<h4>FOR LOVE OF A GIRL</h4>
+
+
+<p>Two days before Christmas the team of Jean Marcel, its harness brave
+with colored worsted, meeting the snarls of hostile Cree curs with the
+like threat of white fangs, jingled gaily past sleep-house and tepees,
+and drew up before the log trade-house at Whale River. Returning the
+greeting of the Crees who hailed him, he threw open the slab-door of the
+building.</p>
+
+<p>"Bon jour, Jean, eet ees well dees Chreesmas you come." The grave face
+of Jules Duroc checked the jest on Marcel's lips as he shook his
+friend's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You are sad, mon ami; what has happened to the merry Jules?" Jean
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Jean Marcel! Dere ees bad news for you at Whale River."</p>
+
+<p>Across Marcel's brain flashed the memory of his dreams. Julie! Something
+had happened to Julie Breton. His speeding heart shook him as an engine
+a boat. A vise on his throat smothered the questions he strove to ask.
+His lips twitched, but from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> them came no words, as his questioning eyes
+held those of Jules.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, eet ees as you t'ink, Jean Marcel. She ees ver' seek."</p>
+
+<p>Marcel's hands closed on Jules' arms as he demanded hoarsely:</p>
+
+<p>"Mon Dieu! W'at ees eet, Jules? Tell me, w'at ees eet?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has de bad arm. Cut de han' wid a knife."</p>
+
+<p>Blood-poisoning, because of his medical ignorance, held less terror for
+Marcel than some strange fever, insidious and mysterious. He had feared
+that Julie Breton had a dread disease against which the crude skill of
+the north is helpless. So, as he hastened to the Mission where he found
+Mrs. Gillies installed as nurse, his hopes rose, for a wound in the hand
+could not be fatal.</p>
+
+<p>From the anxious-eyed Pčre Breton who met him at the door, Jean learned
+the story.</p>
+
+<p>Ten days before, Julie had cut her hand with a knife while preparing
+frozen fish for cooking. For days she had ignored the wound, when the
+hand, suddenly reddening, began to swell, causing much pain. Gillies and
+her brother had opened the inflamed wound, cleansing it with bichloride,
+but in spite of their efforts, the swelling had increased, advancing to
+the elbow.</p>
+
+<p>She was now running a high fever, suffering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> great pain and frequently
+delirious. They realized that the proper treatment was an opening of the
+lymphatic glands of forearm and elbow to reach the poison slowly working
+upward, but did not dare attempt it. The priest told Marcel that in such
+cases if the poison was not absorbed into the circulation or reached by
+operation, it would extend to the arm-pit, then to the neck, with fatal
+termination.</p>
+
+<p>Jean Marcel listened with head in hands to the despairing brother. Then
+he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Is there at Fort George or East Main, no one who could help her?"</p>
+
+<p>"At Fort George, Monsieur Hunter who has been lately ordered there to
+the Protestant church, is a medical missionary. We learned this to-day
+when the Christmas mail arrived. But they were five days coming from
+Fort George with their poor dogs. It will take you eight days to make
+the round trip and even in a week it may be too late&mdash;too late&mdash;&mdash;" He
+finished with a groan.</p>
+
+<p>"Father, I will go and bring this missionary. I shall return before a
+week."</p>
+
+<p>"God speed you, my son! The mail team is worn out and we were sending a
+team of the Crees, but they have no dogs like yours."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gillies led Marcel into Julie Breton's room and left them. On her
+white bed, with wayward<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> masses of dusky hair tumbled on her pillow, lay
+Julie Breton, moaning low in the delirium of high fever. On a pillow at
+her side lay her bandaged left arm. As Marcel looked long at the flushed
+face with its parted lips murmuring incoherently, the muscles of his jaw
+flexed through the frost-blackened skin as he clenched his teeth at his
+helplessness to aid her&mdash;this stricken girl for whom he would have given
+his life.</p>
+
+<p>Then he knelt, and lifting the limp hand on the coverlet, pressed it
+long to his lips, rose, and went out.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Gillies returned she found the right hand of Julie Breton
+wet&mdash;and understood.</p>
+
+<p>First feeding and loosing his dogs in the stockade Marcel hurried to the
+trade-house. There he obtained from Jules five days' rations of
+whitefish for the dogs, and some pemmican, hard bread and tea.</p>
+
+<p>"You t'ink you can mak' For' George een t'ree day?" Jules shook his head
+doubtfully. "Eet nevaire been made een t'ree day, Jean."</p>
+
+<p>"No one evair before on de East Coast travel as I travel, Jules," was
+the low reply.</p>
+
+<p>Gillies, Pčre Breton and McCain, talking earnestly, entered the room to
+overhear Marcel's words.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome back, Jean; you are going to Fort<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> George instead of Baptiste?"
+the factor asked, shaking Marcel's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, M'sieu, my team ees stronger team dan Baptiste's."</p>
+
+<p>"When do you start?"</p>
+
+<p>"Een leetle tam; I jus' feed my dogs."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they in good shape? They must be tired from the river trail."</p>
+
+<p>"Dey will fly, M'sieu."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank heaven for that, lad. We've got just one good dog left in the
+mail team&mdash;the one you gave me. The rest are scrubs and they came in
+to-day dead beat. Two of our Ungavas died in November."</p>
+
+<p>"M'sieu," said Marcel quietly, "my dogs will make For' George een t'ree
+days."</p>
+
+<p>"It's never been done, Jean, but I hope you will."</p>
+
+<p>When Marcel brought his refreshed dogs to the trade-house an hour later
+for his rations, a silent group of men awaited him. As Fleur trotted up,
+ears pricked, mystified at being routed out and harnessed in the dark,
+after she had eaten and curled up for the night, they were eagerly
+inspected by the factor.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the pups have grown inches since you left here in August, Jean.
+They're almost as big as Fleur, now," said Gillies, throwing the light
+from his lantern on the team.</p>
+
+<p>"Tiens! Dat two rear dog look lak' timber<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> wolves," cried Jules, as
+Colin and Angus turned their red-lidded, amber eyes lazily toward him,
+opening cavernous mouths in wide yawns, for they were still sleepy.
+Fleur, alive to the subdued tones of Jean Marcel and sensing something
+unusual, muzzled her master's hand for answer.</p>
+
+<p>"What a team! What a team!" exclaimed McCain. "Never have the Huskies
+brought four such dogs here. They ought to walk away with a thousand
+pounds. Are they fast, Jean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dey can take a thousand all day, M'sieu. W'en you see me again, you
+will know how fast dey are. A'voir!" Marcel gripped the hands of the
+others, then turned to Pčre Breton, the muscles of his dark face working
+with suffering.</p>
+
+<p>"Father," he said, "if she should wake and can understand, tell
+her&mdash;tell her to wait&mdash;a little longer till Jean and Fleur return.
+If&mdash;if she&mdash;cannot wait for us&mdash;tell her that Fleur and Jean Marcel will
+follow her&mdash;out to the sunset."</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned, cracked his whip, hoarsely shouted: "Marche, Fleur!" and
+disappeared with his dogs into the night.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2>
+<h4>THE WHITE TRAIL TO FORT GEORGE</h4>
+
+
+<p>One hundred and fifty miles down the wind-harassed East Coast, was a man
+who could save Julie Breton. The mind of Marcel held one thought only as
+his hurrying dogs loped down the river trail to the Bay. Dark though it
+was, for the stars were veiled, Fleur never faltered, keeping the trail
+by instinct and the feel of her feet.</p>
+
+<p>Reaching the Bay the trail swung south skirting the beach, often cutting
+inland to avoid circling long points and shoulders of shore; at the Cape
+of the Winds&mdash;the midwinter vortex of unleashed Arctic blasts&mdash;making a
+deep cut to the sheltered valley of the Little Salmon. Marcel was too
+dog-wise to push his huskies as they swung south on the sea-ice, for no
+sled-dogs work well after eating.</p>
+
+<p>As the late moon slowly lifted, he shook his head, for it was a moon of
+snow. If only the weather held until he could bring his man from Fort
+George, but fate was against him. That he could average fifty miles a
+day going and coming, with the light sled, he was confident. He knew
+what hearts beat in those shaggy breasts in front&mdash;what stamina he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> had
+never put to the supreme test, lay in their massive frames. He knew that
+Fleur would set her sons a pace, at the call of Jean Marcel, that would
+eat the frozen miles to Fort George, as they had never before slid past
+a dog-runner. But once a December norther struck down upon them on their
+return, burying the trail in drift, with its shot-like drive in the
+teeth of man and dogs, it would kill their speed, as a cliff stops wind.</p>
+
+<p>He had intended to camp for a few hours, later in the night, to rest his
+dogs, but the warning of the ringed moon flicked him with fear, as a
+whiplash stings a lagging husky. It meant in December, snow and wind. He
+must race that wind to the lee of Big Island, so he pushed on through
+the night over the frozen shell of the Bay, stopping only once to boil
+tea and rest his over-willing dogs.</p>
+
+<p>As day broke blue and bitter in the ashen east, a team of spent huskies
+with ice-hung lips and flews swung in from the trail skirting the lee
+shore of Big Island and the driver in belted caribou capote, a rim of
+ice from his frozen breath circling his lean face, made a fire from
+cedar kindlings brought on the sled, boiled tea and pemmican, and
+feeding his dogs, lay down in his robes. In twelve hours of constant
+toil the dogs of Marcel had put Whale River sixty white miles behind.</p>
+
+<p>At noon he shook off the sleep which weighted his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> limbs, forced himself
+from his blankets, ate and pushed on. Although the air smelled of snow,
+and in the north, brooding, low-banked clouds hugged the Bay, snow and
+wind still held off.</p>
+
+<p>In early afternoon as the sun buried itself in the ice-fields, muffled
+rays lit the bald shoulders of the distant Cape of the Four Winds,
+seventy miles from his goal.</p>
+
+<p>"Haw, Fleur!" he called, and the lead-dog swung inland, to the left, on
+the short-cut across the Cape.</p>
+
+<p>As yet the tough Ungavas had shown no signs of lagging. With their
+superb vitality and staying power, they had travelled steadily through
+the night, after a half day on the river. Led by their tireless mother,
+each hour they had put five miles of snowy trail behind them. With the
+weather steady, Marcel had no doubt of when he would reach Whale River,
+for the weight of an extra man on the sled would be little felt on a
+hard trail and he would run much himself. But with the menace of snow
+and wind hanging over him, he travelled with a heavy heart.</p>
+
+<p>On Christmas Eve, again a ringed moon rose as the dogs raced down an icy
+trail into the valley of the Little Salmon. The conviction that a
+December blizzard, long overdue, was making in the north to strike down
+upon him, paralyzing his speed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> drove him on through the night.
+Reckless of himself, he was equally reckless of his dogs, led by the
+iron Fleur. It was well that her still growing sons had the blood of
+timber wolves in their veins, for Fleur, sensing the frenzy of Marcel to
+push on and on, responded with all her matchless stamina.</p>
+
+<p>At last they camped at the Point of the Caribou and ate. To-morrow, he
+thought, would be Christmas. A Merry Christmas indeed for Jean Marcel.
+Then he slept. The next afternoon as they passed Wastikun, the Isle of
+Graves, the wind shifted to the northeast and the snow closed in on the
+dog-team nearing its goal. The blizzard had come, and Jean Marcel,
+knowing what miles of drifts; what toil breaking trail to give footing
+to his team in the soft snow; what days of battling the drive of the
+wind whipping their faces with needle-pointed fury, awaited their
+return, groaned aloud. For it meant, battle as he would, he might now
+reach Whale River too late; he might find that Julie Breton had not
+waited, but over weary, had gone out into the sunset.</p>
+
+<p>In the early evening, forty-eight hours out of Whale River, four white
+wraiths of huskies with a ghost-like driver, turned in to the
+trade-house at Fort George. The spent dogs lay down, dropping their
+frosted masks in the snow, the froth from their mouths rimming their
+lips with ice.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>Sheeted in white from hood to moccasins, the <i>voyageur</i> entered the
+trade-house in a swirl of snow and called for the factor. A bearded man
+engaged in conversation with another white man, behind the trade
+counter, rose at Jean's entrance.</p>
+
+<p>"I am from Whale River, M'sieu. My name is Jean Marcel. Here ees a
+lettair from M'sieu Gillies." Marcel handed an oil-skin envelope to
+McKenzie, the factor, who surveyed with curiosity the ice-crusted
+stranger with haggard eyes who came to Fort George on Christmas night.</p>
+
+<p>At the mention of Whale River, the man who had been in conversation with
+McKenzie behind the counter, also rose to his feet. And Marcel, who had
+not seen his face, now recognized him. It was Inspector Wallace.</p>
+
+<p>"Too bad! Too bad!" muttered the factor, reading the note, "and we're in
+for a December blizzard."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, McKenzie?" demanded Wallace, coming from behind the counter
+and reaching for Gillies' note.</p>
+
+<p>The narrowed eyes of Marcel watched the face of Wallace contract with
+pain as he read of the peril of the woman he loved.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what you know, Marcel!" Wallace demanded brokenly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>Jean briefly explained Julie's desperate condition.</p>
+
+<p>"When did you leave Whale River?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two day ago."</p>
+
+<p>"What," cried McKenzie, "you came through in two days from Whale River?
+Lord, man! I never heard of such travelling. Your dogs must be marvels!"</p>
+
+<p>"I came in two day, M'sieu," repeated Marcel, "because she weel not
+leeve many day onless she have help."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, man, I can't believe it. It's never been done. When did you
+sleep?" The factor called to a Company Indian who entered the room,
+"Albert, take care of his dogs and feed them."</p>
+
+<p>"Dey are wild, M'sieu. I weel go wid heem."</p>
+
+<p>Marcel started to go out with the Indian, for his huskies sorely needed
+attention, then stopped to stare in wonder at Wallace, who had slumped
+into a chair, head in hands. For a moment the hunter looked at the inert
+Inspector; then his lip curled, his frost-blackened face reflecting his
+scorn, as he said:</p>
+
+<p>"W'ere ees dees missionary, M'sieu? We mus' start een a few hours, w'en
+my dogs have rest."</p>
+
+<p>"What, start in the teeth of this? Listen to it!" The drumming of wind
+and shot-like snow on the trade-house windows steadily increased in
+fury.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>The muscles of Marcel's face stiffened into stone as he grimly insisted:</p>
+
+<p>"We mus' start to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"You are crazy, man; you need sleep," protested McKenzie. "I know it's a
+life and death matter. But you wouldn't help that girl at Whale River by
+losing the trail to-night and freezing. I'll see Hunter at once, but I
+can't allow him to go to his death. If the blow eases by morning, he can
+start."</p>
+
+<p>Again Marcel turned, waiting for Wallace, who nervously paced the floor,
+to speak. Then with a shrug he said:</p>
+
+<p>"M'sieu Wallace weel wish to start to-night? I have de bes' lead-dog on
+dees coast. She weel not lose de trail."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;Monsieur Wallace?" blurted the factor. Wallace raised
+a face on which agony and indecision were plainly written. But it was
+Jean Marcel who answered, with all the scorn of his tortured heart.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>She ees de fiancée&mdash;of M'sieu Wallace.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I&mdash;I didn't&mdash;understand!" stumbled the embarrassed McKenzie,
+reddening to his eyes. "But&mdash;I can't advise you to start to-night, Mr.
+Wallace."</p>
+
+<p>The factor went to the door. As he lifted the heavy latch, in spite of
+his bulk the power of the wind hurled him backward. The door crashed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
+against the log-wall, while the room was filled with driving snow.</p>
+
+<p>"You see what it's like, Wallace! No dog-team would have a chance on
+this coast to-night&mdash;not a chance."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," agreed Wallace, avoiding Marcel's eyes. Then he went on, "You
+understand, McKenzie, I'm knocked clean off my feet by this news.
+But&mdash;we'll want to start, at least, by morning&mdash;sooner, if the dogs are
+rested&mdash;that is, of course, if it's possible."</p>
+
+<p>Deliberately ignoring the man who had thus bared his soul, Marcel drew
+the factor to one side.</p>
+
+<p>"Mon Dieu, M'sieu!" he pleaded in low tones. "She weel not leeve. Onless
+we start at once, we shall be too late. Tak' me to de doctor!"</p>
+
+<p>The agonized face of the hunter softened McKenzie.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, all right, if Hunter will go and Mr. Wallace insists, but it's
+madness. I'll go over to the Mission now and talk to the doctor."</p>
+
+<p>When Jean had seen to the feeding of his tired dogs whom he left asleep
+in a shack, he hurried through the driving snow with the Company Indian
+to the Protestant Mission House, where he found McKenzie alone with the
+missionary.</p>
+
+<p>As he entered the lighted room, the Reverend Hunter, a tall,
+athletic-looking man of thirty, wel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>comed him, bidding him remove his
+capote and moccasins and thaw out at the hot box-stove.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. McKenzie has shown me Gillies' message, Marcel. Now tell me all you
+know about the case," said the missionary.</p>
+
+<p>Briefly Marcel described the condition of Julie Breton&mdash;Gillies' crude
+attempt at surgery; the advance toward the shoulder of the swelling and
+inflammation, with the increasing fever.</p>
+
+<p>When he had finished he cried in desperation:</p>
+
+<p>"M'sieu, I have at Whale River credit for t'ree t'ousand dollar. Eet ees
+all&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Hunter's lifted hand checked him.</p>
+
+<p>"Marcel, first I am a preacher of the gospel; also, I am a doctor of
+medicine. I came into the north to minister to the bodies as well as to
+the souls of its people. Do not speak of money. This case demands that
+we start at once. Have you good dogs?"</p>
+
+<p>The drawn face of Marcel lighted with gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>Troubled and mystified by the attitude of Wallace, McKenzie broke in,
+"He's surely got the best dogs on this coast&mdash;made a record trip down.
+But, Mr. Hunter, I'll not agree to your starting in this hell outside.
+You must wait until daylight. The Inspector has decided that it would be
+impossible to keep the trail."</p>
+
+<p>"I came here to aid those <i>in extremis</i>," replied<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> the missionary. "I
+will take the risk to save this girl. It's a matter of days and we may
+be too late as it is."</p>
+
+<p>"T'anks, M'sieu, her brother, Pčre Breton, weel not forget your
+kindness; and I&mdash;I weel nevaire forget." The eyes of Marcel glowed with
+gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it's understood that you start at daylight, if the wind won't blow
+you off the ice. I'll see you then." And McKenzie, looking hard at
+Marcel and Hunter, went out.</p>
+
+<p>When the factor had closed the door, Jean turned to Dr. Hunter.</p>
+
+<p>"Thees man who marries her een June, ees afraid to go. Weel Mr. Hunter
+start wid me at midnight?"</p>
+
+<p>The big missionary gripped Marcel's hand as he said with a smile, "I did
+not promise McKenzie I would not go. At midnight we start for Whale
+River."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2>
+<h4>THE HATE OF THE LONG SNOWS</h4>
+
+
+<p>In the unwritten law of the north no one in peril shall ask for succor
+in vain. So universal is this creed, so general its acceptance and
+observance throughout the vast land of silence, that when word is
+brought in to settlement, fur-post, or lonely cabin, that help is
+needed, it is a matter of course that a relief party takes the trail,
+however long and hazardous. And so it was with John Hunter, clergyman,
+physician, and man. New to the north, he had come from England at the
+call for volunteers to shepherd the souls and bodies of the people of
+the solitudes, and without hesitation, he agreed to undertake a journey
+which the older heads at Fort George knew might well culminate in the
+discovery later, by a searching party, of two stiffened bodies buried
+beside a starved dog-team, somewhere in the drifts behind the Cape of
+the Four Winds.</p>
+
+<p>Marcel and the dogs were in sore need of a few hours' rest for the
+grilling duel with snow and wind, before them, so, when he had eaten,
+Jean turned into a bed in the Mission.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>At midnight Jean hitched his dogs and waked Hunter. Leaving Fort George
+asleep in the smother of snow, down to the river trail, into the white
+drive of the norther plunged the dog-team.</p>
+
+<p>Giving the trail-wise Fleur her head in the black night, Jean, with
+Hunter, followed the sled carrying their food and robes. Turning from
+the swept river ice into the Bay, dogs and men met the full beat of the
+blasts with heads lowered to ease the hammering of the pin-pointed
+scourge whipping their faces. With the neighboring shore smothered in
+murk, Marcel, trusting to Fleur's instinct to keep the trail over the
+blurred white floor which only increased the blackness above, followed
+the sled he could barely see. Speed against the wind was impossible, and
+at all hazards he must keep the trail, for if they swung to the west on
+the sea-ice they were doomed to wander until they froze. He would push
+on and camp, until daylight, in the lee of the Isle of Graves. With the
+light they would begin to travel. Then on the open ice, where there was
+little drift, he would give Fleur and her pups the chance to prove their
+mettle, for there would be little rest. And beyond, at the rendezvous of
+the winds, they would have ten miles inland through the drifts. The
+unproven sons of Fleur would indeed need the stamina of wolves to take
+them through the days to come.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>At last the trail, which the lead-dog had held solely by keeping her
+nose to the ice, ran in under the bold shore of Wastikun. There, after
+feeding the dogs, they burrowed into the snow in the lee of the cliffs
+wrapped in their fur robes. With the wind, the temperature had risen and
+men and dogs slept hard until dawn. Then, hot tea, bread and pemmican
+spurred the fighting heart of Marcel with hope. The wind had eased, but
+powdery snow still drove down blanketing the near shore.</p>
+
+<p>Daylight found them on their way. Due to the wind there was as yet
+little drift on the trail over the Bay ice and the freshened dogs, with
+lowered heads, swung up the coast at a trot. All day with but short
+respite, men and dogs battled on against the norther. The mouth of the
+Little Salmon was the goal Marcel had set for himself&mdash;the river valley
+from which they would cut overland behind the gray cape, to the north
+coast. Forty miles away it lay&mdash;forty cruel miles of the torturing beat
+of shot-like snow on the faces of men and dogs; forty miles of endless
+pull and drag for the iron thews of Fleur and the whelps of the wolf.
+This was the mark which the now ruthless Frenchman, with but one
+thought, one vision, set for the shaggy beasts he loved.</p>
+
+<p>Hunter, game though he was, at last was forced to ride on the sled, so
+fierce was their pace into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> wind. Steadily the great beasts ate up
+the miles. At noon, floundering through drifts like the billows of a
+broken sea, with Marcel ahead breaking trail, they crossed Caribou
+Point, Hunter, refusing to burden the dogs, wallowing behind the sled.
+There they boiled tea, then pushed on to the mouth of the Roggan.</p>
+
+<p>At Ominuk, night fell like a tent, and again a white wraith of a
+lead-dog, blinded by the fury she faced, kept the trail by instinct,
+backed loyally by her brood of ice-sheathed wolves, foot-sore,
+trail-worn, following with low noises her tireless feet.</p>
+
+<p>The coast swung sharply. They were in the lee of the Cape. But a few
+miles farther and a long rest in the sheltered river valley awaited
+them. Marcel stopped his dogs and went to Fleur, lying on the trail, her
+hot breath freezing as it left her panting mouth. Kneeling on the snow
+beside her with his back to the drive, he examined each hairy paw for
+pad-cracks or balled snow between the toes, but the feet of the Ungava
+were iron; then he took in his hands her great head with its battered
+nose, blood-caked from the snow barrage she had faced all day. Rubbing
+the ice from her masked eyes, Jean placed his hooded face against his
+dog's; she turned her nose and her rough tongue touched his
+frost-blackened cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Fleur," he said, "we are doing it for Julie<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>&mdash;you and Jean Marcel. We
+mus' mak' de Salmon to-night. Some day we weel hav' de beeg sleep&mdash;you
+and Jean."</p>
+
+<p>Again he stroked her massive head with his red, unmittened hand, then
+for an instant resting his face against the scarred nose, sprang to his
+feet. With a glance at the paws and a word for each of the whining
+puppies whose white tails switched in answer, Jean cracked his whip and
+shouted, "Marche!"</p>
+
+<p>Late that night a huge fire burned in the timber of the sheltered mouth
+of the Little Salmon. Two men and a dog-team ate ravenously, then slept
+like the dead, while over them roared the norther, rocking the spruce
+and jack-pine in the river bottom, heaping the drifts high on the Whale
+River trail.</p>
+
+<p>In three days of gruelling toil Marcel had got within ninety miles of
+his goal&mdash;within a day and a half of Whale River had the trail been ice
+hard. But now it would be days longer&mdash;how many he dared not guess.</p>
+
+<p>Had the weather held for him, four days from the night of his starting
+would have seen him home; for on an iced trail, at his call, his great
+dogs would have run like wolves at the rallying cry of the pack. As he
+drew his stiffened legs from the rabbit-skins to freshen the fire at
+dawn, he bit his cracked lips until they bled, at the thought of what
+the blizzard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> had meant to Julie Breton, waiting, waiting for the
+dog-team creeping up the East Coast, hobbled and held back by head-wind
+and drift.</p>
+
+<p>The dogs had won a long rest and Marcel did not start breaking trail
+inland until after daylight. With the sunrise the wind had increased and
+the heart-sick Marcel groaned at the strength-sapping floundering in
+breast-high drifts which faced his devoted dogs, when he needed them
+fresh for the race up the sea-ice of the coast beyond. Before he slept,
+he had weighed the toil of ten miles of drift-barred short-cut across
+the Cape, against doubling the headland on the ice, but he had decided
+that no men or dogs could face the maelstrom of wind and snow which
+churned around its bald buttresses; no strength could force its way&mdash;no
+endurance prevail, against it.</p>
+
+<p>With Marcel in the lead as trail-breaker and the missionary, who took
+the punishment without murmur, like the man he was, following the sled,
+Fleur led her sons up to their Calvary in the hills.</p>
+
+<p>As they left the valley and reached the open tundra above, they met the
+full force of the wind. For an instant men and dogs stopped dead in
+their tracks, then with heads down they hurled themselves into the white
+fury which had buried the trail beyond all following.</p>
+
+<p>On pushed the desperate Frenchman in the direc<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>tion of the north coast,
+followed by Fleur with her whitened nose at the tails of his snow-shoes.
+At times, when the force of the snow-swirls sucked their very breath,
+men and dogs threw themselves panting on the snow, until, with wind
+regained, they stumbled on. Often plunging to their collars in the new
+snow, the huskies travelled solely by leaps, until, stalled nose-deep,
+tangled in traces and held by the drag of the overturned sled, Marcel
+and the exhausted Hunter came to their rescue. Heart-breaking mile after
+mile of the country over which Marcel had sped two days before, they
+painfully put behind them.</p>
+
+<p>At noon, the man who lived his creed crumpled in the snow. Wrapping him
+in robes, Marcel lashed him on the sled and went on, the vision of a
+dying girl on a white cot at Whale River ever in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Through a break in the snow, before the light waned, Marcel made out,
+dim in the north, the silhouette of Big Island. He was over the divide
+and well on his way to the coast. With the night, the wind eased, though
+the snow held, and although he was off the trail, the new snow on the
+exposed north slope of the Cape was either wind-packed or swept from the
+frozen tundra, and again the exhausted dogs found good footing.</p>
+
+<p>For some time the team had been working easily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> down hill, Marcel often
+forced to brake the toboggan with his feet. He knew he had worked to the
+west of the trail, and was swinging in a circle to regain it. Worried by
+the sting of the cold, which was growing increasingly bitter as the wind
+fell off, he stopped to rub the muffled, frost-cracked face and hands of
+his spent passenger, cheering him with the promise of a roaring fire.
+When he started the team, Colin, stiffened by the rest, limped badly,
+and Jules, who had bucked the deep snow all day like a veteran of the
+mail-teams, gamely following his herculean mother, hobbled along, head
+and tail down, with a wrenched shoulder. It was high time they found a
+camping place. With the falling wind they would freeze in the open. So
+he pushed on through the murk, seeking the beach where there was wood
+and a lee.</p>
+
+<p>They were swiftly dropping down to the sea-ice but snow and darkness
+drew around them an impenetrable curtain. Seizing the gee-pole, Marcel
+had thrown his weight back on the sled to keep it off the dogs on a
+descent when suddenly Fleur, whose white back he could barely see moving
+in front, with a whine stopped dead in her tracks and flattened on the
+snow. Her tired sons at once lay down behind her. The sled slid into
+Angus and stopped.</p>
+
+<p>Mystified, Marcel called: "Marche, Fleur!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> Marche!" fearing to find,
+when she rose, that his rock and anchor had suddenly broken on the
+trail.</p>
+
+<p>But the great dog, ignoring the command, raised her nose in a low growl
+as Marcel reached her.</p>
+
+<p>"What troubles you, Fleur?" he asked, on his knees beside her, brushing
+the crusted snow from her ears and slant eyes. Again Fleur whined
+mysteriously.</p>
+
+<p>"Where ees de pain, Fleur? Get up!" he ordered sharply, thinking to
+learn where her iron body had received its hurt. But the dog lay rigid,
+her throat still rumbling.</p>
+
+<p>"By Gar, dis ees queer t'ing!" muttered Marcel, his mittened hand on the
+massive head.</p>
+
+<p>Then some strange impulse led him to advance into the black wall, when,
+with fierce protest, Fleur, jerking Jules to his feet, leaped forward,
+straining to reach him.</p>
+
+<p>The Frenchman, checked by the dog's action, stared into the darkness,
+until, at length, he saw that the white tundra at his feet fell away
+before his snow-shoes and he looked out into gray space.</p>
+
+<p>As he crouched peering ahead, his senses slowly warned him that he stood
+on a shoulder of cliff falling sheer to the invisible beach below.</p>
+
+<p>He had driven his dogs to the lip of a ghastly death; and Julie&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Turning back, he flung himself beside the trem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>bling Fleur and with his
+arm circling the great neck, kissed the battered nose. Fleur, with the
+uncanny instinct of the born lead-dog, had scented the open space,
+divined the danger, had known&mdash;and lain down, saving them all.</p>
+
+<p>Swinging his team off the brow of the cliff, he worked back and finally
+down to the beach, and his muffled passenger, drowsy, with swiftly
+numbing limbs, never knew that he had ridden calmly, that night, out to
+the doors of doom.</p>
+
+<p>In the lee of an island Marcel made camp and boiled life-giving
+tea,&mdash;the panacea of the north&mdash;and pemmican, on a hot fire, which soon
+revived the frozen Hunter.</p>
+
+<p>To his joy, he realized that the back of the blizzard was broken, for as
+the wind and snow eased, the temperature rapidly fell to an Arctic cold.
+With Whale River eighty miles away; his dogs broken by lack of rest and
+stiff from the wrenching and exhaustion of the battle with the deep
+snow; his own legs twinging with "mal raquette"; Marcel thanked God, for
+the dawn would see the wind dead and if his team did not fail him, in
+two days he would reach the post.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL</h2>
+<h4>"HE'S GOT HIS MAN!"</h4>
+
+
+<p>Whale River was astir. Before the trade-house groups of Crees critically
+inspected the dogs of Baptiste Laval, who fretted and yelped, eagerly
+waiting the "<i>Marche!</i>" which would send them off on the river trail.
+Inside, the grave-faced Gillies gave big Jules his parting instructions.</p>
+
+<p>"He never started home in that blizzard, Jules; McKenzie wouldn't allow
+the missionary to take such a chance. But Jean surely left yesterday
+morning and with fresh dogs he'll come through in four days, even with a
+heavy trail. You ought to meet him this side the Cape."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, M'sieu. But I t'ink he travel more fas' dan dat. I see heem
+to-morrow, maybe."</p>
+
+<p>"No, he never started that last day of the blow. It would have been
+suicide. Poor lad! he must have been half crazy, with her on his mind."</p>
+
+<p>"How ees she dis noon, M'sieu?"</p>
+
+<p>"The fever holds about the same&mdash;no worse; but she must be operated on
+very soon. The poison is extending. If you meet them at the Cape you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
+ought to get the doctor here a day ahead of Jean, with his tired dogs."</p>
+
+<p>Surrounded by the Crees who were wishing them luck on their trip to meet
+and relay Marcel home, Baptiste had cracked his dog-whip with a loud,
+"<i>Marche!</i>" when an Indian with arms raised to attract attention came
+running from the shore across the clearing.</p>
+
+<p>"Whoa!" shouted Jules, and Baptiste checked his dogs.</p>
+
+<p>"What does he say?" called Angus McCain. "A dog-team down river? Do you
+hear that, Gillies?"</p>
+
+<p>"Husky," replied the factor drily. "Couldn't possibly be Marcel!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, he couldn't have come through that norther," agreed McCain.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that he says, Jules?" demanded Gillies.</p>
+
+<p>Jules Duroc, hands and shoulders in motion, was talking excitedly to the
+Cree who had joined the group by the sled. Turning suddenly, he ran back
+to the factor.</p>
+
+<p>"Felix say dat a team crawl up de riviere trail lak' dey ver' tired. He
+watch dem long tam."</p>
+
+<p>"That's queer, but it's some Husky&mdash;can't be Marcel. Why, good Lord,
+man! he hasn't been away six days."</p>
+
+<p>Angus disappeared, to return with an old brass-bound telescope and
+hurried to the river shore with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> Jules, followed by the scoffing
+Gillies. To the naked eye, a black spot was discernible on the river
+ice.</p>
+
+<p>"There are two men following a team," announced Angus, the glass at his
+eye. "They're barely moving. Now they've stopped; the dogs must be
+played out. The driver's trying to get them up! Now he's got them
+going!"</p>
+
+<p>Gillies took the telescope and looked for a long space. Suddenly to
+those who watched him, waiting for his report, his hand visibly shook.
+Turning to Jules, he bellowed:</p>
+
+<p>"Jules, you travel like all hell for that dog-team! God only knows how
+they got here alive, but there's only one lead-dog on this coast that
+reaches to a man's middle. That team crawling in out there is Jean
+Marcel's&mdash;God bless him!&mdash;<i>and he's got his man!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>With a roar Jules leaped on the sled and lashed the team headlong down
+the cliff trail to the ice. Madly they raced down-river under the spur
+of the rawhide goad.</p>
+
+<p>"Run to the Mission, someone, and tell Pčre Breton that Jean Marcel is
+back!" continued Gillies. At the words, willing feet started with the
+message.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of Colin Gillies were blurred as he watched through the glass
+the slow approach of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> those who had but lately fought free from the maw
+of the pitiless snows. Now he could recognize the massive lead-dog,
+limping at a slow walk, her great head down. Behind her swayed the
+crippled whelps of the wolf, tails brushing the ice, tongues lolling as
+they swung their lowered heads from side to side, battling through the
+last mile on stiffened legs, giving their last ounce at the call of
+their gaunt master who reeled behind them. Far in the rear a tall figure
+barely moved along the trail.</p>
+
+<p>At the yelp of Jules' approaching team the dogs of Marcel pricked
+drooping ears. Stopping them, Jean waited for Hunter.</p>
+
+<p>"Dey sen' team. Eet ees ovair, M'sieu! We mak' Whale Riviere een t'ree
+day and half, but she&mdash;she may not be dere."</p>
+
+<p>Too tired to speak, Hunter slumped on the sled. With a yell, Jules
+reached Marcel and gathered him into his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"By Gar, Jean! You crazee fool; you stop for noding! Tiens! I damn glad
+to see you, Jean Marcel!"</p>
+
+<p>The fearful Marcel gasped out the question, "Julie! Ees she dere? Does
+she leeve?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oui, mon ami; she ees alive. You save her life."</p>
+
+<p>Staggering to his lead-dog the overjoyed man threw himself beside her on
+the trail where she sprawled panting.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>"We 'ave save her," he cried. "Julie&mdash;has waited for Jean and Fleur."</p>
+
+<p>Taking the missionary on his sled, Jules tried to force Marcel to ride
+as well, but the <i>voyageur</i> threw him off.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" he cried. "We weel feenish on our feet&mdash;Fleur, de wolf and
+Jean Marcel."</p>
+
+<p>So back to the post Jules raced with Hunter. A cheering mob of Indians
+met dogs and master on the river ice and carried Marcel, protesting, up
+the cliff trail, where Gillies and Angus were waiting.</p>
+
+<p>"I reach For' George de night of second day, but de dreef and wind at de
+Cape&mdash;&mdash;" He was checked by a hug from the blubbering McCain as Colin
+Gillies, with eyes blurred by tears, welcomed him home.</p>
+
+<p>"You have saved her, Jean," said the factor, "now you must sleep." With
+hands raised in wonder he turned to the group. "Shades of André Marcel!
+Two days to Fort George! It will never be done again." Then they took
+the swaying Marcel, asleep on his feet, and his dogs, away to a long,
+warm rest.</p>
+
+<p>But the Crees sat late that night smoking much Company plug as they
+shook their heads over the feat of the son of André Marcel who feared
+neither Windigo nor blizzard. And later, the tale travelled down to the
+southern posts and out to Fort<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> Churchill on the west coast and from
+there on to the Great Slave and the Peace, of how the mad Marcel had
+driven his flying wolves one hundred and fifty miles in two sleeps, and
+returned, without rest, in three, in the teeth of a Hudson's Bay
+norther. And hearing it, old runners of the trails shook their heads in
+disbelief, saying it was not in dogs or men to do such a thing; but they
+did not know the love and despair in the heart of Jean Marcel which
+spurred him to his goal, nor did they fathom the blind devotion of his
+great lead-dog, who, with her matchless endurance and that of her sons,
+had made it possible.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI</h2>
+<h4>AS YE SOW</h4>
+
+
+<p>Fresh from a London hospital though he was, John Hunter found that the
+condition of Julie Breton demanded the exercise of all his skill as a
+surgeon. But the operation, aided by the girl's young strength and
+vitality, was successful, and she slowly overcame the grip of the
+infection.</p>
+
+<p>Four days after Marcel reeled into Whale River with his battered dogs,
+bringing the man who was winning back life for Julie Breton, an
+exhausted dog-team limped in from the south. Rushing into the
+trade-house the white-faced Wallace grasped Gillies' hand, hoarsely
+demanding:</p>
+
+<p>"Does she live, Gillies?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's all right, Mr. Wallace; doing well, the doctor says," answered
+Gillies. "She's going to pull through, thanks to Jean Marcel and Dr.
+Hunter. I take my hat off to those two men."</p>
+
+<p>Wallace's eyes shifted to the floor as he ventured:</p>
+
+<p>"When did they get in?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>"Oh, they came through against that blow in three days and a half. The
+greatest feat of man and dogs in my time. When did you leave East Main?"</p>
+
+<p>Wallace stared incredulously at Colin Gillies' wooden face.</p>
+
+<p>"East Main? Why, didn't Marcel tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Gillies, but he did not say that his wife had been told by
+Hunter of the presence of Wallace at Fort George the night Marcel
+brought the news. However, the factor did not further embarrass his
+chief by questions. And Wallace did not see fit to inform him that not
+until the wind died, two days after the relief party started, had he
+left Fort George.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose she's too sick to see me?" the nervous Inspector hazarded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, no one sees her except Mrs. Gillies and Hunter."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll look up Father Breton," and Wallace went out followed by an
+expression in Colin Gillies' face which the Inspector would not have
+cared to see.</p>
+
+<p>For a week Wallace remained at Whale River and then, assured by Dr.
+Hunter of Julie's safety, left, to return later. When, meeting Marcel in
+the trade-house, he had attempted to thank him, the cold glitter in the
+eyes of the Frenchman as he lis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>tened with impassive face to the halting
+words of the Inspector of the East Coast, filled Colin Gillies with
+inward delight.</p>
+
+<p>When Gillies bade good-bye to his chief, he said casually, "Well, I
+suppose we'll have a wedding here in June, Mr. Wallace."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Gillies, Father Breton and I are only waiting for Julie to set the
+date. Good-bye; I'll be up the coast next month," and was off.</p>
+
+<p>But what piqued Gillies' curiosity was whether Dr. Hunter had told Pčre
+Breton just what happened at Fort George when the tragic call for help
+came in on Christmas night. Jean Marcel's mouth had been shut like a
+sprung trap, even Jules and Angus did not know; of that, Gillies was
+sure. But why had the doctor not told Pčre Breton, as well as Mrs.
+Gillies? He was Julie's brother and ought to know. If Hunter had
+enlightened the priest, then Colin Gillies was no judge of men, for he
+had always admired the Oblat.</p>
+
+<p>The first week in February Julie Breton was sitting up, and Mr. Hunter
+bade good-bye to the staunch friends he had made at Whale River. Not
+always are the relations between Oblat or Jesuit, and Protestant
+missionaries, unduly cordial in the land of their labors, but when the
+Reverend Hunter left the Mission House at Whale River, there remained in
+the hearts of Pčre Breton, his sister and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> Jean Marcel, a love for the
+doctor, clergyman and man which the years did not dim.</p>
+
+<p>One day, later on, Marcel and Fleur were making their afternoon call on
+Julie, who was propped in bed, her hair hanging in two thick braids.</p>
+
+<p>"We leave in a few days," Jean said in French. "Michel is anxious to get
+back to his traps."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't go so soon, Jean. I haven't yet had an opportunity to talk to
+you as I wished."</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean to thank me, I am glad of that," he said, his lips curling
+in a faint smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I not thank you, Jean Marcel, who risked your life like a
+madman to help me? I do now thank you with all my heart. But for you, I
+would not be here. Dr. Hunter told me I could not have lived had he
+arrived one day later."</p>
+
+<p>With a gesture of impatience Marcel turned in his chair and gazed
+through the window on the world of snow.</p>
+
+<p>The dark eyes in the pale face of the girl were strangely soft as they
+rested on the sinewy strength of the man's figure; then lifted to the
+strong profile, with its bony jaw and bold, aquiline nose.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not care for my thanks, Jean?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Please!" he begged. "It is over, that! You are well again! I am happy;
+and will go back to my trap-lines."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>"But it is not all over with Julie Breton," she insisted.</p>
+
+<p>He turned with brows raised questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>"It has left her&mdash;changed. She will never be the same."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean? Dr. Hunter said you would be as strong as ever, by
+spring."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but I do not speak of my body, Jean Marcel."</p>
+
+<p>He gazed in perplexity at her wistful face. In a moment his eyes again
+sought the window.</p>
+
+<p>For a long space, she was silent. Then a suppressed sob roused him from
+his bitter thoughts and he heard the strained voice of the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"I know all," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Gillies, and Dr. Hunter&mdash;when I asked him&mdash;told me&mdash;long ago. We
+have kept it from Pčre Henri. It seems years, for I have been thinking
+much since then&mdash;lying awake, thinking."</p>
+
+<p>"Julie, what has been worrying you? Don't let what I did cause you
+pain," he pleaded, not catching the significance of her words. "It's all
+right, Julie. You owe me nothing&mdash;I understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but you do not understand," she said, smiling at the man's averted
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Julie, I have suffered, but I want you to be happy. Don't think of Jean
+Marcel."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>"But it is of Jean Marcel of the great heart that I must think&mdash;have
+been thinking, for days and days." She was sitting erect, tense; her
+pale face drawn with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you I know it all," she cried, "how they&mdash;<i>he</i>, feared to start
+in the storm&mdash;and waited&mdash;ordered you to wait. But no wind or snow could
+hold Jean Marcel, and in spite of them, he brought Dr. Hunter to Whale
+River&mdash;and saved Julie Breton."</p>
+
+<p>Dumb with surprise at her knowledge of what he thought he and Hunter
+alone knew&mdash;at the scorn in her voice, Marcel listened with pounding
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they told me," she went on, "how Jean Marcel heard the news when
+he reached Whale River and, without sleep, that night hurried south for
+help, swifter than men had ever travelled, because Julie Breton was in
+peril. Dr. Hunter has told me all; how you and Fleur fought wind and
+snow to bring him to Whale River&mdash;and Julie Breton. And now you ask her
+not to thank you&mdash;you who gave her back her life."</p>
+
+<p>Only the low sobbing of the girl broke the silence. In a moment the
+paroxysm passed, and she looked through tears at the man who sat with
+bowed head in hands, as she faltered:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, will you not see&mdash;not understand? Must I tell you&mdash;that
+I&mdash;love&mdash;Jean Marcel?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>Dazed, Jean rose. With a hoarse cry of "Julie!" he groped to the bed and
+took her in his yearning arms.</p>
+
+<p>After the years&mdash;she had come home.</p>
+
+<p>Later, Mrs. Gillies looked in to see a dusky head on the shoulder of the
+man who knelt by the bed, and on the coverlet beside them the great head
+of Fleur, who gazed up into two illumined faces through narrow eyes
+which seemed to comprehend as her bushy tail slowly swept to and fro.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>In June there was a wedding at Whale River, with an honored guest who
+journeyed up the coast from Fort George for the ceremony, John Hunter.</p>
+
+<p>The Mission church overflowed with post people and the visiting Crees,
+few of whom but had known some kindness from Julie Breton. In the robes
+of his order, Pčre Breton faced the bride and groom. Beside the former,
+gravely stood the matron of honor; her gown of slate-gray and snowy
+white, carefully groomed for the occasion by the faithful Jules, glossy
+with superb vitality; her great neck circled by a white ribbon knotted
+in a bow&mdash;which it had required days to accustom her to wear&mdash;in strange
+contrast to the massive dignity of the head. From priest to bride and
+groom, curiously her slant eyes shifted, in wonder at the proceeding.</p>
+
+<p>The ceremony over, the bride impulsively kissed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> the slate-gray head of
+the dog while a hum of approval swept the church. Then, before repairing
+with their friends to the Mission House, where the groaning table
+awaited them, Julie and Jean Marcel, accompanied by Fleur, went to the
+stockade. Three gray noses thrust through the pickets whined a welcome.
+Three gigantic, wolfish huskies met them at the gate with wild yelps and
+the mad swishing of tails. Then the happy Jean and Julie gave the whelps
+of the wolf their share of the wedding feast.</p>
+
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="centered">
+<div class="bb bl bt br">
+
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+think of besides the mere mechanical drudgery of his every-day
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+
+
+
+<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="The best of recent fiction at a popular price">
+<tr>
+    <td>
+<ul>
+<li><b>Sinister Mark, The.</b> Lee Thayer.</li>
+<li><b>Sin That Was His, The.</b> Frank L. Packard.</li>
+<li><b>Sir or Madam.</b> Berta Ruck.</li>
+<li><b>Sisters-in-Law.</b> Gertrude Atherton.</li>
+<li><b>Sky Line of Spruce.</b> Edison Marshall.</li>
+<li><b>Slayer of Souls, The.</b> Robert W. Chambers.</li>
+<li><b>Smiles: A Rose of the Cumberlands.</b> Eliot H. Robinson.</li>
+<li><b>Snowdrift.</b> James B. Hendryx.</li>
+<li><b>Snowshoe Trail, The.</b> Edison Marshall.</li>
+<li><b>Son of His Father, The.</b> Ridgwell Cullum.</li>
+<li><b>Son of Tarzan, The.</b> Edgar Rice Burroughs.</li>
+<li><b>Souls for Sale.</b> Rupert Hughes. (Photoplay Ed.).</li>
+<li><b>Speckled Bird, A.</b> Augusta Evans Wilson.</li>
+<li><b>Spirit of the Border, The.</b> Zane Grey. (New Edition).</li>
+<li><b>Spirit-of-Iron.</b> Harwood Steele.</li>
+<li><b>Spoilers, The.</b> Rex Beach. (Photoplay Ed.).</li>
+<li><b>Spoilers of the Valley, The.</b> Robert Watson.</li>
+<li><b>Star Dust.</b> Fannie Hurst.</li>
+<li><b>Steele of the Royal Mounted.</b> James Oliver Curwood.</li>
+<li><b>Step on the Stair, The.</b> Anna Katherine Green.</li>
+<li><b>Still Jim.</b> Honoré Willsie.</li>
+<li><b>Story of Foss River Ranch, The.</b> Ridgwell Cullum.</li>
+<li><b>Story of Marco, The.</b> Eleanor H. Porter.</li>
+<li><b>Strange Case of Cavendish, The.</b> Randall Parrish.</li>
+<li><b>Strawberry Acres.</b> Grace S. Richmond.</li>
+<li><b>Strength of the Pines, The.</b> Edison Marshall.</li>
+<li><b>Subconscious Courtship, The.</b> Berta Ruck.</li>
+<li><b>Substitute Millionaire, The.</b> Hulbert Footner.</li>
+<li><b>Sudden Jim.</b> Clarence B. Kelland.</li>
+<li><b>Sweethearts Unmet.</b> Berta Ruck.</li>
+<li><b>Sweet Stranger.</b> Berta Ruck.</li>
+<li><b>Tales of Chinatown.</b> Sax Rohmer.</li>
+<li><b>Tales of Secret Egypt.</b> Sax Rohmer.</li>
+<li><b>Tales of Sherlock Holmes.</b> A. Conan Doyle.</li>
+<li><b>Talkers, The.</b> Robert W. Chambers.</li>
+<li><b>Talisman, The.</b> Sir Walter Scott (Photoplay Ed.).<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;Screened as Richard the Lion Hearted.</li>
+<li><b>Taming of Zenas Henry, The.</b> Sara Ware Basset.</li>
+<li><b>Tarzan of the Apes.</b> Edgar Rice Burroughs.</li>
+<li><b>Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar.</b> Edgar Rice Burroughs.</li>
+<li><b>Tattooed Arm, The.</b> Isabel Ostrander.</li>
+<li><b>Tempting of Tavernake, The.</b> E. Phillips Oppenheim.</li>
+<li><b>Tess of the D'Urbervilles.</b> Thomas Hardy. (Photoplay Ed.).</li>
+<li><b>Tex.</b> Clarence E. Mulford.</li>
+<li><b>Texan, The.</b> James B. Hendryx.</li>
+<li><b>Thankful's Inheritance.</b> Joseph C. Lincoln.</li>
+<li><b>That Affair at "The Cedars."</b> Lee Thayer.</li>
+<li><b>That Printer of Udell's.</b> Harold Bell Wright.</li>
+<li><b>Their Yesterdays.</b> Harold Bell Wright.</li>
+<li><b>Thief of Bagdad, The.</b> Achmed Abdullah. (Photoplay Ed.)</li>
+<li><b>Thieves' Wit.</b> Hulbert Footner.</li>
+<li><b>Thirteenth Commandment, The.</b> Rupert Hughes.</li>
+<li><b>This Side of Paradise.</b> F. Scott Fitzgerald.</li>
+<li><b>Thoroughbred, The.</b> Henry Kitchell Webster.</li>
+<li><b>Thread of Flame, The.</b> Basil King.</li>
+<li><b>Three Black Bags.</b> Marion Polk Angelloti.</li>
+<li><b>Three Men and a Maid.</b> P. G. Wodehouse.</li>
+<li><b>Three Musketeers, The.</b> Alexander Dumas.</li>
+<li><b>Three of Hearts, The.</b> Berta Ruck.</li>
+<li><b>Through the Shadows with O. Henry.</b> Al. Jennings.</li>
+<li><b>Thunderbolt, The.</b> Clyde Perrin.</li>
+<li><b>Timber.</b> Harold Titus.</li>
+<li><b>Timber Pirate.</b> Charles Christopher Jenkins.</li>
+<li><b>Tish.</b> Mary Roberts Rinehart.</li>
+<li><b>To Him That Hath.</b> Ralph Connor.</li>
+<li><b>Toilers of the Sea, The.</b> Victor Hugo. (Photoplay Ed.).</li>
+</ul>
+    </td>
+    <td>
+<ul>
+<li><b>Toll of the Sands.</b> Paul Delaney.</li>
+<li><b>Trail of the Axe, The.</b> Ridgwell Cullum.</li>
+<li><b>Trailin'.</b> Max Brand.</li>
+<li><b>Trail to Yesterday, The.</b> Chas. A. Seltzer.</li>
+<li><b>Treasure of Heaven, The.</b> Marie Corelli.</li>
+<li><b>Trigger of Conscience, The.</b> Robert Orr Chipperfield.</li>
+<li><b>Triumph of John Kars, The.</b> Ridgwell Cullum.</li>
+<li><b>Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel, The.</b> Baroness Orczy.</li>
+<li><b>Trodden Gold.</b> Howard Vincent O'Brien.</li>
+<li><b>Trooper O'Neill.</b> George Goodchild.</li>
+<li><b>Trouble at the Pinelands, The.</b> Ernest M. Porter.</li>
+<li><b>T. Tembarom.</b> Frances Hodgson Burnett.</li>
+<li><b>Tumbleweeds.</b> Hal G. Evarts.</li>
+<li><b>Turn of the Tide.</b> Eleanor H. Porter.</li>
+<li><b>Twenty-fourth of June.</b> Grace S. Richmond.</li>
+<li><b>Twins of Suffering Creek, The.</b> Ridgwell Cullum.</li>
+<li><b>Two-Gun Man, The.</b> Chas. A. Seltzer.</li>
+<li><b>Two-Gun Man, The.</b> Robert Ames Bennet.</li>
+<li><b>Two-Gun Sue.</b> Douglas Grant.</li>
+<li><b>Typee.</b> Herman Melville.</li>
+<li><b>Tyrrel of the Cow Country.</b> Robert Ames Bennet.</li>
+<li><b>Under Handicap.</b> Jackson Gregory.</li>
+<li><b>Under the Country Sky.</b> Grace S. Richmond.</li>
+<li><b>Uneasy Street.</b> Arthur Somers Roche.</li>
+<li><b>Unlatched Door, The.</b> Lee Thayer.</li>
+<li><b>Unpardonable Sin, The.</b> Major Rupert Hughes.</li>
+<li><b>Unseen Ear, The.</b> Natalie Sumner Lincoln.</li>
+<li><b>Untamed, The.</b> Max Brand.</li>
+<li><b>Up and Coming.</b> Nalbro Bartley.</li>
+<li><b>Up From Slavery.</b> Booker T. Washington.</li>
+<li><b>Ursula Trent.</b> W. L. George.</li>
+<li><b>Valiants of Virginia, The.</b> Hallie Erminie Rives.</li>
+<li><b>Valley of Content, The.</b> Blanche Upright.</li>
+<li><b>Valley of Fear, The.</b> Sir A. Conan Doyle.</li>
+<li><b>Valley of Gold, The.</b> David Howarth.</li>
+<li><b>Valley of the Sun, The.</b> William M. McCoy.</li>
+<li><b>Vandemark's Folly.</b> Herbert Quick.</li>
+<li><b>Vanguards of the Plains.</b> Margaret Hill McCarter.</li>
+<li><b>Vanished Messenger, The.</b> E. Phillips Oppenheim.</li>
+<li><b>Vanishing of Betty Varian, The.</b> Carolyn Wells.</li>
+<li><b>Vanity Fair.</b> Wm. M. Thackeray. (Photoplay Ed.).</li>
+<li><b>Vashti.</b> Augusta Evans Wilson.</li>
+<li><b>Viola Gwyn.</b> George Barr McCutcheon.</li>
+<li><b>Virginia of Elk Creek Valley.</b> Mary Ellen Chase.</li>
+<li><b>Virtuous Wives.</b> Owen Johnson.</li>
+<li><b>Voice of the Pack, The.</b> Edison Marshall.</li>
+<li><b>Wagon Wheel, The.</b> William Patterson White.</li>
+<li><b>Wall Between, The.</b> Sara Ware Bassett.</li>
+<li><b>Wall of Men, A.</b> Margaret Hill McCarter.</li>
+<li><b>Wasted Generation, The.</b> Owen Johnson.</li>
+<li><b>Watchers of the Plains, The.</b> Ridgwell Cullum.</li>
+<li><b>Way of an Eagle, The.</b> Ethel M. Dell.</li>
+<li><b>Way of the Strong, The.</b> Ridgwell Cullum.</li>
+<li><b>Way of These Women, The.</b> E. Phillips Oppenheim.</li>
+<li><b>We Can't Have Everything.</b> Major Rupert Hughes.</li>
+<li><b>Weavers, The.</b> Gilbert Parker.</li>
+<li><b>West Broadway.</b> Nina Wilcox Putnam.</li>
+<li><b>West Wind Drift.</b> George Barr McCutcheon.</li>
+<li><b>What's the World Coming To?</b> Rupert Hughes.</li>
+<li><b>What Will People Say?</b> Rupert Hughes.</li>
+<li><b>Wheels Within Wheels.</b> Carolyn Wells.</li>
+<li><b>Whelps of the Wolf, The.</b> George Marsh.</li>
+<li><b>When a Man's a Man.</b> Harold Bell Wright. (Photoplay Ed.).</li>
+<li><b>When Egypt Went Broke.</b> Holman Day.</li>
+<li><b>Where the Sun Swings North.</b> Barnett Willoughby.</li>
+<li><b>Where There's a Will.</b> Mary Roberts Rinehart.</li>
+</ul>
+    </td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+
+<p class="notes">
+Transcriber's Notes:<br />
+Page 41: Changed etes to ętes<br />
+Page 52: Changed Companee to Company<br />
+Page 66: Changed uninterruped to uninterrupted<br />
+Page 113: Changed eyrie to eerie<br />
+Page 273: Changed matchles to matchless<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Whelps of the Wolf, by George Marsh
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Whelps of the Wolf, by George Marsh
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Whelps of the Wolf
+
+Author: George Marsh
+
+Release Date: May 21, 2010 [EBook #32465]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHELPS OF THE WOLF ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joseph R. Hauser and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.fadedpage.com
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               THE WHELPS
+                              OF THE WOLF
+
+
+                            By GEORGE MARSH
+
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+
+                           A. L. BURT COMPANY
+       Publishers                                       New York
+       Published by arrangement with The Penn Publishing Company
+                          Printed in U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+                               COPYRIGHT
+                                1922 BY
+                                THE PENN
+                               PUBLISHING
+                                COMPANY
+
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+
+                         The Whelps of the Wolf
+
+
+
+
+                         Made in the U. S. of A.
+
+
+
+
+                                 Contents
+
+
+                    I. THE LAND OF THE WINDIGO              9
+
+                   II. THE END OF THE TRAIL                16
+
+                  III. THE FRIEND OF DEMONS                30
+
+                   IV. HOME AND JULIE BRETON               38
+
+                    V. THE MOON OF FLOWERS                 44
+
+                   VI. FOR LOVE OF A DOG                   51
+
+                  VII. THE LONG TRAIL TO THE SOUTH COAST   64
+
+                 VIII. THE MEETING IN THE MARSHES          69
+
+                   IX. IN THE TEETH OF THE WINDS           79
+
+                    X. THE CAMP ON THE GHOST               88
+
+                   XI. THE WARNING IN THE WIND             94
+
+                  XII. THE WORK OF THE WHITE WOLVES        98
+
+                 XIII. POOR FLEUR                         103
+
+                  XIV. THE MARK OF THE BREED              108
+
+                   XV. FOR LOVE OF A MAN                  111
+
+                  XVI. THE STARVING MOON                  119
+
+                 XVII. THE TURN OF THE TIDE               131
+
+                XVIII. SPRING AND FLEUR                   135
+
+                  XIX. WHEN THE ICE GOES SOFT             145
+
+                   XX. THE DEAD MAN TELLS HIS TALE        150
+
+                  XXI. THE BLIND CLUTCH OF CIRCUMSTANCE   157
+
+                 XXII. IN THE DEPTHS                      170
+
+                XXIII. IN THE EYES OF THE CREES           175
+
+                 XXIV. ON THE CLIFFS                      181
+
+                  XXV. INSPECTOR WALLACE TAKES CHARGE     188
+
+                 XXVI. THE WHELPS OF THE WOLF             193
+
+                XXVII. THE TRAP IS SPRUNG                 198
+
+               XXVIII. BITTER-SWEET                       212
+
+                 XXIX. THE FANGS OF THE HALF-BREEDS       216
+
+                  XXX. CREE JUSTICE                       224
+
+                 XXXI. THE WAY OF A DOG                   228
+
+                XXXII. FROM THE FAR FRONTIERS             234
+
+               XXXIII. RENUNCIATION                       238
+
+                XXXIV. THE VOICE OF THE WINDIGO           243
+
+                 XXXV. RAW WOUNDS                         253
+
+                XXXVI. DREAMS                             259
+
+               XXXVII. FOR LOVE OF A GIRL                 264
+
+              XXXVIII. THE WHITE TRAIL TO FORT GEORGE     270
+
+                XXXIX. THE HATE OF THE LONG SNOWS         280
+
+                   XL. "HE'S GOT HIS MAN!"                290
+
+                  XLI. AS YE SOW                          296
+
+
+
+
+The Whelps of the Wolf
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE LAND OF THE WINDIGO
+
+
+The solitudes of the East Coast had shaken off the grip of the long
+snows. A thousand streams and rivers choked with snow water from bleak
+Ungava hills plunged and foamed and raced into the west, seeking the
+salt Hudson's Bay, the "Big Water" of the Crees. In the lakes the
+honeycombed ice was daily fading under the strengthening sun. Already,
+here and there the buds of the willows reddened the river shores, while
+the southern slopes of sun-warmed ridges were softening with the pale
+green of the young leaves of birch and poplar. Long since, the armies of
+the snowy geese had passed, bound for far Arctic islands; while marshes
+and muskeg were vocal with the raucous clamor of the nesting gray goose.
+In the air of the valleys hung the odor of wood mold and wet earth.
+
+And one day, with the spring, returned Jean Marcel from his camp on the
+Ghost, the northernmost tributary of the Great Whale to the bald ridge,
+where, in March, he had seen the sun glitter on a broad expanse of level
+snow unbroken by trees, in the hills to the north. His eyes had not
+deceived him. The lake was there.
+
+From his commanding position on the bare brow of the isolated mountain,
+he looked out on a wilderness of timbered valleys, and high barrens
+which rolled away endlessly into the north. Among these lay a large body
+of water partly free of ice. Into the northeast he could trace the
+divide--even make out where a small feeder of the Ghost headed on the
+height of land. And he now knew that he looked upon the dread valleys of
+the forbidden country of the Crees--the demon-haunted solitudes of the
+land of the Windigo, whose dim, blue hills guarded a region of mystery
+and terror--a wilderness, peopled in the tales of the medicine men, with
+giant eaters of human flesh and spirits of evil, for generations, taboo
+to the hunters of Whale River.
+
+There was no doubt of it. The large lake he saw was a headwater of the
+Big Salmon, the southern sources of which tradition placed in the
+bad-lands north of the Ghost. Once his canoe floated in this lake, he
+could work into the main river and find the Esquimos on the coast.
+
+"Bien!" muttered the Frenchman, "I will go!"
+
+Two days later, back in camp on the Ghost, Marcel announced to his
+partners, Antoine Beaulieu and Joe Piquet, his intention of returning to
+the Bay by the Big Salmon.
+
+"W'at you say, Jean; you go home tru de Windigo countree?" cried Piquet,
+his swart face blanched by the fear which the very mention of the
+forbidden land aroused, while Antoine, speechless, stared wide-eyed.
+
+"Oui, nord of de divide, I see beeg lac. Eet ees Salmon water for sure.
+I portage cano' to dat lac and reach de coast by de riviere. You go wid
+me an' get some dog?" Marcel smiled coolly into the sober faces of his
+friends.
+
+"Are you crazee, Jean Marcel?" protested Antoine. "De spirit have run de
+game an' feesh away. De Windigo eat you before you fin' de Salmon, an'
+eef he not get you first, you starve."
+
+"Ver' well, you go back by de Whale; I go by Salmon an' meet de Husky. I
+nevaire hunt anoder long snow widout dogs."
+
+"Ah-hah! Dat ees good joke! You weel nevaire see de Husky," broke in
+Piquet. "W'en _Matchi-Manitou_ ees tru wid you, de raven an' wolf peek
+your bones, w'ile Antoine an' Joe dance at de spreeng trade wid de Cree
+girl."
+
+Ignoring the dire prediction, Marcel continued: "Good dog are all gone
+at Whale Riviere Post from de maladie. De Husky have plenty dog. I meet
+dem on de coast before dey reach Whale Riviere an' want too much fur for
+dem. Maybe I starve; maybe I drown een de strong-water; maybe de Windigo
+get me; but I go."
+
+And he did.
+
+With a shrug of contempt for the tales of the medicine men, dramatically
+rehearsed with all the embellishment which the imagination of his
+superstitious partners could invent, the following day Marcel started.
+
+"Bo'-jo', Antoine!" he said, as he gripped his friend's hand. "I meet
+you at Whale Riviere."
+
+The face of Beaulieu only too patently reflected his thoughts as he
+shook his head.
+
+"Bo'-jo', Jean, I nevaire see you again."
+
+"You are dead man, Jean," added Piquet; "we tell Julie Breton dat your
+bones lie up dere." And the half-breed pointed north to the dim, blue
+hills of dread.
+
+So with fur-pack and outfit, and as much smoked caribou as he dared
+carry, Marcel poled his canoe up the Ghost, later to portage across the
+divide into the trailless land where, in the memory of living man, the
+feet of no hunter of the Hudson's Bay Company had strayed.
+
+It was a reckless venture--this attempt to reach the Bay through an
+unknown country. The demons of the Cree conjurors he did not fear, for
+his father and his mother's father, who had journeyed, starved, and
+feasted in trailless lands, from Labrador to the great Barren Grounds,
+had never seen one or heard the wailing of the Windigo in the night. But
+what he did fear was the possibility of weeks of wandering in his search
+for the main stream, lost in a labyrinth of headwater lakes where game
+might be scarce and fish difficult to net. For his smoked meat would
+take him but a short way, when his rifle and net would have to see him
+through.
+
+But the risk was worth taking. If he could reach the Esquimos on their
+spring journey south to the post, before they learned of the scarcity of
+dogs at Whale River, he could obtain huskies at a fair trade in fur. And
+a dog-team was his heart's desire.
+
+Portaging over the divide to the large lake, now clear of ice, Marcel
+followed its winding outlet into the northwest. There were days when,
+baffled by a maze of water routes in a network of lakes, he despaired of
+finding the main stream. There were nights when he lay supperless by his
+fire thinking of Julie Breton, the black-eyed sister of the Oblat
+Missionary at Whale River--nights when the forebodings of his partners
+returned to mock him as a maniacal mewing broke the silence of the
+forest, or, across the valleys, drifted low wailing sobs, like the
+grieving of a Cree mother for her dead child.
+
+But in the veins of Jean Marcel coursed the blood of old
+_coureurs-de-bois_. His parents, victims of the influenza which had
+swept the coast the year previous, had left him the heritage of a
+dauntless spirit. Lost and starving though he was, he smiled grimly as
+the roving wolverine and the lynx turned the night into what would have
+been a thing of horror to the superstitious breeds.
+
+When, gaunt from toil and the lack of food, Marcel finally found the
+main stream and shot a bear, he knew he would reach the Esquimos. Two
+hundred miles of racing river he rapidly put behind him and one June day
+rounded the bend above a long white-water. The _voyageur_ ran the
+rapids, rode the "boilers" at the foot of the last pitch and shot into
+deep water again. But as he swung inshore to rid the craft of the slop
+picked up in the churning "strong-water" behind him, Marcel's eyes
+widened in surprise. He was nearer the sea than he had guessed. His last
+rapids had been run. He had reached his goal, for on the shore stood the
+squat skin lodges of an Esquimo camp, and moving about on the beach, he
+saw the shaggy objects of his quest.
+
+The lean face of the youth who had bearded the dreaded Windigo in their
+lair shaped a wide smile. He, too, would dance at the spring trade at
+Whale River, and lashed to stakes by his tent in the post clearing, a
+pair of priceless Ungavas would add their howls to the chorus when the
+dogs pointed their noses at the new moon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE END OF THE TRAIL
+
+
+In his joy at his good luck, Marcel had momentarily forgotten the
+ancient feud between the Esquimo and the Cree. Then he realized his
+position. These rapids of the Salmon were an age-old fishing ground of
+the Esquimos, who, with their dogs, are called "Huskies." No birch-bark
+had ever run the broken waters behind him--no Indian hunted so far
+north. If among these people there were any who traded at Whale River
+where Cree and Esquimo met in amity, they would recognize the son of the
+old Company head man, Andre Marcel, and welcome him. But should they
+chance to be wild Huskies who did not come south to the post, they would
+mistake him for a Cree, and resenting his entering their territory,
+attack him.
+
+Drawing his rifle from its skin case, he placed it at his feet and poled
+slowly toward the shore where a bedlam of howls from the dogs signalled
+his approach. The clamor quickly emptied the lodges scattered along the
+beach. A group of Huskies, armed with rifle and seal spear, now watched
+the strange craft. So close was the canoe that only by a miracle could
+Marcel hope to escape down-stream if they started shooting.
+
+Alive to his danger, the Frenchman snubbed his boat, leaning on his
+pole, while his anxious eyes searched for a familiar figure in the
+skin-clad throng, who talked and gesticulated in evident excitement. But
+among them he found no friendly face.
+
+Was it for this he had slaved overland to the Salmon and starved through
+the early spring--a miserable death; when he had won through to his
+goal--when the yelps of the dogs he sought rang in his ears? Surely,
+among these Huskies, there were some who traded at the post.
+
+"Kekway!" he called, "I am white man from Whale River!"
+
+The muscles of Jean Marcel set, tense as wire cables, as he watched for
+a hostile movement from the Huskies, silenced by his shout. Seemingly
+surprised by his action, no answer was returned from the shore. Slowly
+his hopes died. They were wild Esquimos and would show no mercy to the
+supposed Cree invader of their hereditary fishing ground.
+
+But still the movement which the Frenchman's roving eyes awaited, was
+delayed. Not a gun in the whispering throng on the beach was raised;
+not a word in Esquimo addressed to the stranger. Mystified, desperate
+from the strain of the suspense, Marcel called again, this time in post
+Husky:
+
+"I am white man, from the fort at Whale River. Is there one among you
+who trades there?"
+
+At the words, the tension of the sullen group seemed to relax. Pointing
+to a thick-set figure striding up the beach, a Husky shouted:
+
+"There is one who goes to Whale River!"
+
+The _voyageur_ expelled the air from his lungs with relief. Too long,
+with pounding heart, he had steeled himself to face erect, swift death
+from the near shore. A wrong move, and a hail of lead would have emptied
+his canoe. Then to his joy he recognized the man who approached.
+
+"Kovik!" he shouted. "Eet ees Jean Marcel from Whale Riviere!"
+
+The Husky waved his hand to Marcel, joined his comrades, and, for a
+space, there was much talk and shaking of heads; then he called to Jean
+to come ashore.
+
+Grounding his canoe, Marcel gripped the hand of the grinning Kovik while
+the Huskies fell back eying them with mingled curiosity and fear.
+
+"Husky say you bad spirit, Kovik say you son little chief, Whale River.
+W'ere you come?"
+
+It was clear, now, why the Esquimos had not wiped him out. They had
+thought him a demon, for Esquimo tradition, as well as Cree, made the
+upper Salmon the abode of evil spirits.
+
+"I look for hunteen ground, on de head of riviere," explained Jean, for
+the admission that he was in search of dogs would only defeat the
+purpose of his journey.
+
+"Good dat Kovik come," returned the Esquimo. "Some say shoot you; some
+say you eat de bullet an' de Husky."
+
+To this difference of opinion Marcel owed his life.
+
+As Kovik finished his explanation, Jean laughed: "No, I camp wid no
+Windigo up riviere; but I starve."
+
+At this gentle hint, Marcel was invited to join in the supper of boiled
+seal and goose which was waiting at the tepee. When Kovik had prevailed
+upon some of the older Esquimos to forget their fears and shake hands
+with the man who had appeared from the land of spirits, Jean stowed his
+outfit on the cache of the Husky, freed his canoe of water and placing
+it beside his packs, joined the family party. Shaking hands in turn with
+Kovik's grinning wife and children, who remembered him at Whale River,
+Marcel hungrily attacked the kettle, into which each dipped fingers and
+cup indiscriminately. Finishing, he passed a plug of Company
+nigger-head to his hosts and lit his own pipe.
+
+"W'ere you' woman?" abruptly inquired the thick-set mother of many.
+
+"No woman," replied Marcel, thinking of three spruce crosses in the
+Mission cemetery at Whale River.
+
+"No woman, you? No dog?" pressed the curious wife of Kovik.
+
+"No famile." And Jean told of the deaths of parents and younger brother,
+from the plague of the summer before. But he failed to mention the fact
+that most of the dogs at the post had been wiped out at the same time.
+
+"Ah! Ah!" groaned the Huskies at the Frenchman's tale of the scourge
+which had swept the Hudson's Bay posts to the south.
+
+"He good man--Marcel! He fr'en' of me!" lamented Kovik. Sucking his
+pipe, he gravely nodded again and again. Surely, he intimated, the
+Company had displeased the spirits of evil to have been so punished.
+Then he asked: "W'ere you dog?"
+
+"On Whale Riviere," returned Jean grimly, referring to their bones; his
+eyes held by the great dogs sprawled about the beach. No such sled-dogs
+as these had he ever seen at the post, even with the Esquimos. But his
+grave face betrayed no sign of what was in his mind.
+
+Massive of bone and frame, with coats unusually heavy, even for the
+far-famed Ungava breed, Jean noted the strength and size of these
+magnificent beasts as a horseman marks the points of a blooded colt.
+Somewhat apart from the other dogs of Kovik, tumbling and roughing each
+other, frolicked four clumsy puppies, while the mother, a great
+slate-gray and white animal, lay near, watching her progeny through eyes
+whose lower lids, edged with red, marked the wolf strain. While those
+slant eyes kept restless guard, to molest one of her leggy, yelping imps
+of Satan would have been the bearding of a hundred furies. The older
+dogs, evidently knowing the power in the snap of her white fangs,
+avoided the puppies.
+
+One, in particular, Marcel noticed as they romped and roughed each other
+on the shore, or with a brave show of valor, noisily charged their
+recumbent mother, only to be sent about their business with the mild
+reprimand of a nip from her long fangs. Larger, and of sturdier build
+than her brothers, this puppy, in marking, was the counterpart of the
+mother, having the same slate-gray patches on head and back and wearing
+white socks. As he watched her bully her brothers, Jean resolved to buy
+that four-months'-old puppy.
+
+As the northern twilight filled the river valley, the Huskies returned
+to the lodge, where Jean squeezed in between two younger members of the
+family whose characteristic aroma held sleep from the fatigued
+_voyageur_ long enough for him to decide on a plan of action. Before he
+started to trade for dogs he must learn if the Esquimos knew that they
+were scarce at the fur-posts. If rumor of this relayed up the coast from
+Husky hunting party to hunting party, had reached them, he would be
+lucky to get even a puppy. They would send their spare dogs to the
+posts.
+
+The following morning, at the suggestion of Kovik, Marcel set his
+gill-net for whitefish on the opposite shore of the wide river, as the
+younger Esquimos showed unmistakably by their actions that his presence
+at the salmon fishing, soon to begin, was resented. But Jean needed food
+for his journey down the coast and for the dogs he hoped to buy, so
+ignored the dark looks cast at the mysterious white man, the friend of
+Kovik. But not until evening did he casually suggest to the Husky that
+he had more dogs than he could feed through the summer.
+
+The broad face of Kovik widened in a mysterious smile as he asked: "You
+geeve black fox for dog?"
+
+Marcel's hopes fell at the words. It was an unheard of price for a dog.
+The Husky knew.
+
+Masking his chagrin, the Frenchman laughed in ridicule:
+
+"I geeve otter for dog."
+
+Kovik shook his head, his narrowed eyes wrinkling in amusement. "No
+husky W'ale Riv'--For' Geor'. Me trade husky W'ale Riv'."
+
+It was useless to bargain further. The Husky knew the value of his dogs
+at the posts, and Jean could not afford to rob his fur-pack to get one.
+There was much that he needed at Whale River--and then there was Julie.
+It was necessary to increase his credit with the Company to pay for the
+home he would some day build for Julie and himself. So, when Kovik
+promptly refused a valuable cross-fox pelt for a dog, the disheartened
+boy gave it up.
+
+But after the toil and lean days of the long trail he had taken to meet
+the Esquimos, he could not return to Whale River empty handed. He
+coveted the slate-gray and white puppy. Never had he seen a husky of her
+age with such bone--such promise as a sled dog. And her spirit--at four
+months she would bare her puppy fangs at an infringement of her rights
+by an old dog, as though she already wore the scars of many a brawl.
+Handsomer than her brothers, leader of the litter by virtue of a build
+more rugged, a stronger will, she was the favorite of Kovik's children.
+That they would object to parting with her; that the Husky would demand
+an exorbitant price he now knew; but he was determined to have the
+puppy. However, he resolved to wait until the following day, renew the
+bargaining for a grown dog, then suddenly make an offer for the puppy.
+
+The next morning Jean Marcel again offered a high price for a dog, but
+the smiling Husky would not relent. Then Marcel, pointing at the female
+puppy, offered the pelt of a marten for her.
+
+To Jean's surprise, the owner refused to part with any of the litter.
+They would be better than the adult dogs--these children of the
+slate-gray husky--he said, and he would sell but one or two, even at
+Whale River, where the Company needed dogs badly and would pay more than
+Marcel could offer.
+
+It was a bitter moment for the lad who had swung his canoe inshore at
+the Husky camp with such high hopes. And he realized that it would be
+useless to turn north from the mouth of the Salmon in search of dogs.
+Now that they had learned of conditions at the fur-posts, no Esquimos
+bound south for the spring trade would sell a dog at a reasonable price.
+
+As the disheartened Marcel watched with envious eyes the puppies, which
+he realized were beyond his means to obtain, the cries from the shore of
+the eldest son of his host aroused the camp. Above them, in the chutes
+at the foot of the white-water, flashes of silver marked the leaping
+vanguards of the salmon run, on their way to spring-fed streams at the
+river's head.
+
+Seizing their salmon spears the Esquimos hurried up-stream to take their
+stands on rocks which the fish might pass. Having no spear Jean watched
+the younger Kovik wade through the strong current out to a rock within
+spearing reach of a deep chute of black water. Presently the crouching
+lad drove his spear into the flume at his feet and was struggling on the
+rock with a large salmon. Killing the fish with his knife, he threw it,
+with a cry of triumph, to the beach. Again he waited, muscles tense, his
+right arm drawn back for the lunge. Again, as a silvery shape darted up
+the chute, the boy struck with his spear. But so anxious was he to drive
+the lance home, that, missing the fish, his lunge carried him head-first
+into the swift water.
+
+With a shout of warning to those above, Jean Marcel ran down the beach.
+His canoe was out of reach on the cache with the Husky's kayak, and the
+clumsy skin umiak of the family was useless for quick work. In his
+sealskin boots and clothes the lad would be carried to the foot of the
+rapids and drowned. Jean reached the "boilers" below the white-water
+before the body of the helpless Esquimo appeared. Plunging into the
+ice-cold river he swam out into the current below the tail of the
+chute, and when the half-drowned lad floundered to the surface, seized
+him by his heavy hair. As they were swept down-stream an eddy threw
+their bodies together, and in spite of Marcel's desperate efforts, the
+arms of the Husky closed on him in vise-like embrace. Strong as he was,
+the Frenchman could not break the grip, and they sank.
+
+The _voyageur_ rose to the surface fighting to free himself from the
+clinging Esquimo, but in vain; then his sinewy fingers found the throat
+of the half-conscious boy and taking a long breath, he again went down
+with his burden. When the two came up Marcel was free. With a grip on
+the long hair of the now senseless lad he made the shore, and dragging
+the Husky from the water, stretched exhausted on the beach.
+
+Shaking with cold he lay panting beside the still body of the boy, when
+the terrified Esquimos reached them.
+
+The welcome heat of a large fire soon thawed the chill from the bones of
+Marcel; but the anxious parents desperately rolled and pounded the
+Husky, starting his blood and ridding his stomach of water, before he
+finally regained his voice, begging them to cease.
+
+With the boy out of danger they turned to his rescuer, and only by
+vigorous objection did Marcel escape the treatment administered the
+Husky. He would prefer drowning, he protested with a grimace, to the
+pounding they had given the boy.
+
+"You lak' seal in de water," cried the relieved father with admiration,
+when he had lavished his thanks upon Jean; for the Esquimos, although
+passing their lives on or near the water, because of its low
+temperature, never learn to swim.
+
+"My fader taught me to swim een shallow lak' by Fort George," explained
+the modest Frenchman.
+
+"He die, eef you no sweem lak' seal," added the grateful mother, her
+round face oily with sweat from the vigorous rubbing of her son, now
+snoring peacefully by the fire.
+
+Then the Huskies returned to their fishing, for precious time was being
+wasted. The boy's spear was found washed up on the beach and loaned to
+Jean, who labored the remainder of the day spearing salmon for his
+journey down the coast.
+
+That evening, after supper, Jean sat on a stone in front of the tepee
+watching the active puppies. Inside the skin lodge the Esquimo and his
+wife conversed in low tones. Shortly they appeared and Kovik, grinning
+from long side-lock to side-lock, said:
+
+"You good man! You trade dat dog?" He pointed at the large slate-gray
+puppy sprawled near them.
+
+The dark features of Jean Marcel lighted with eagerness.
+
+"I geeve two marten for de dog," he said, rising quickly.
+
+The Husky turned to the woman, shaking his head.
+
+Marcel's lip curled at the avarice of these people whose son he had so
+recently snatched from death.
+
+Then Kovik, seemingly changing his mind, seized the puppy by the loose
+skin of her neck and dragged her, protesting vigorously, to Jean, while
+the mother dog came trotting up, ears erect, curious of what the master
+she feared was doing with her progeny.
+
+"Dees you' dog!" said the Esquimo.
+
+Marcel patted the back of the puppy, still in the grasp of her owner,
+while she muttered her wrath at the touch of the stranger. Although they
+owed him much, he thought, yet these Huskies wished to make him pay
+dearly for the dog. Still he was glad to get her, even at such a price.
+So he went to the cache, loosened the lashings of his fur-pack, and
+returned with two prime marten pelts, offering them to the Esquimo.
+
+Again Kovik's round face was divided by a grin. The wrinkles radiated
+from the narrow eyes which snapped.
+
+"You lak' seal in riv'--ketch boy. Tak' de dog--we no want skin." And
+shaking his head, the Husky pushed away the pelts.
+
+Slowly the face of Marcel changed with surprise as he sensed the import
+of Kovik's words. They were making him a present of the dog.
+
+"You--you geeve to me--dese puppy?" he stammered, staring into the
+grinning face of the Esquimo, delighted with the success of his little
+ruse.
+
+Kovik nodded.
+
+"T'anks, t'anks!" cried Jean, his eyes suspiciously moist as he wrung
+the Husky's hand, then seized that of the chuckling woman. "You are good
+people; I not forget de Kovik."
+
+He had done these honest Esquimos a wrong. Now, after the fear of
+defeat, and the bitterness, the puppy he had coveted was his. He was not
+to return to Whale River empty handed, the laughing-stock of his
+partners. It had been indeed worth while, his plunge into the bad-lands,
+for in two years he would have the dog-team of his dreams. Some day this
+four-months-old puppy should make the fortune of Jean Marcel.
+
+But little he realized, as he exulted in his good luck, how vital a part
+in his life, and in the life of Julie Breton, this wild puppy with the
+white socks was to play.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE FRIEND OF DEMONS
+
+
+When Marcel put his canoe into the water the following morning, to cross
+to his net, three young Esquimos, who had been loitering near Kovik's
+lodge, followed him to the beach, and as he left the shore, hurled at
+his back a torrent of Husky abuse.
+
+What he had hoped to avoid had come. It would have been better to listen
+to Kovik's warning against delaying his departure and attempting to fish
+at the rapids after the salmon arrived. The use of the boy's spear, the
+day previous, had brought the feeling among the younger men to a head.
+They meant to drive him down river.
+
+Removing the whitefish and small salmon, Jean lifted his net and
+stretching it to dry on the shore, recrossed the stream. On the beach
+awaiting his return were the Huskies. Clearly, they had decided that he
+was possessed of no supernatural powers and could now be bullied with
+impunity. As he did not wish to embroil his friend Kovik in his defense,
+when he had smoked his last catch he would leave. But the blood of the
+fighting Marcels was slowly coming to a boil. If these raw fish-eaters
+thought that they could frighten the grandson of the famous Etienne
+Lacasse, and the son of Andre Marcel, whose strength was a tradition on
+the East Coast, he could show them their mistake. Still, avoid trouble
+he must, for a fight would be suicide.
+
+So ignoring the Huskies, who talked together in low tones, Marcel
+landed, cleaned some fish for the Koviks' kettle, and carried them up to
+the tepee where the family were still asleep. Returning, the hot blood
+rose to the bronzed face of the Frenchman at what he saw.
+
+The three Esquimos were coolly feeding his fish to the dogs.
+
+Reckless of the consequences, in the blind rage which choked him, Marcel
+reached the pilferers of his canoe before they realized that he was on
+them. Seizing one by his long hair, with a wrench he hurled the
+surprised Husky backward into the water and sent a second reeling to the
+stony beach with a fierce blow in the face. The third, retreating from
+the fury of the attack of the maddened white man, drew his skinning
+knife; but seizing his paddle, Marcel sent the knife spinning with a
+vicious slash which doubled the screaming Husky over a broken wrist.
+Turning, he saw his first victims making down the beach toward the
+tepees, while the uproar of the dogs was swiftly arousing the camp.
+
+Then, as his blood cooled and his judgment returned, the youth, who had
+suffered and dared much that he might have dogs for the next long snows,
+realized the height of his folly. They had baited him into furnishing
+them with an excuse for attacking him. Now even the faithful Kovik would
+be helpless against them. He would never see Whale River and Julie
+Breton again. Already the Huskies were emerging from their tepees, to
+hear the tale of his late antagonists. There was no time to lose before
+they rushed him.
+
+Bounding up the beach to Kovik's tepee for his rifle, he rapidly
+explained the situation to the Esquimo, while in his ears rang the
+shouts of the excited Huskies and the yelping of the dogs. Jean did not
+hope to escape alive from this bedlam, but of one thing he was sure, he
+would die like a Marcel, with a smoking gun in his hands.
+
+Urging Jean to get his fur-pack and smoked fish to his canoe at once,
+Kovik hurried down the shore to the knot of wildly excited Esquimos.
+
+With the aid of the grateful wife and son of Kovik, Marcel's canoe was
+swiftly loaded and his treasured puppy lashed in the bow. But the rush
+up the beach of an infuriated throng bent on his death, which Marcel
+stoically awaited beside a large boulder, was delayed. Not a hundred
+yards distant, the doughty Kovik, the center of an arguing mob, was
+fighting with all the wits he possessed for the man who had saved his
+son. For Marcel to attempt to escape by water would only have drawn the
+fire of the Huskies and nullified Kovik's efforts, and their kayaks,
+faster than any canoe, were below him. A break for the "bush," even if
+successful, in the end, meant starvation. So with extra cartridges
+between his teeth, and in his hands, Jean Marcel grimly fingered the
+trigger-guard of his rifle, as he waited at the boulder for the turn of
+the dice down the shore.
+
+Minutes, each one an eternity to the man at bay, passed. But Kovik still
+held his men, and Marcel clearly noted a change in the manner of the
+Huskies. The shouting had ceased. His friend was winning.
+
+Shortly, Kovik left the group and walked rapidly toward Marcel, followed
+at a distance by his people.
+
+"Dey keel you, but Kovik say you fr'en' wid spirit; he come down riv'
+an' eat Husky," explained the worried defender of Jean. "Kovik say you
+shoot wid spirit gun, all de Husky; so you go, queek!"
+
+The broad face of Kovik split in a grim smile as he gripped the hand of
+the relieved Marcel and pushed off his canoe. Thus, doubly, had the
+loyal Esquimo paid for the life of his son.
+
+With the emotions of a man suddenly reprieved from a sentence of death,
+Marcel poled his canoe out into the current. Behind him, the Esquimos
+had already joined Kovik on the shore, when, warned by a shout from his
+friend, Marcel instinctively ducked as a seal spear whistled over his
+head. Some doubter was testing the magic of the white demon.
+
+Seizing his paddle Jean swiftly crossed the river and secured his
+precious net. But he was not yet rid of his enemies. If the young men,
+conquering their fear of his friendship with demons, at once launched
+their kayaks, they could overhaul his loaded canoe. But once clear of
+the last tepees, with his pursuers behind him, he was confident that he
+could pick them off with his rifle as fast as they came up in their
+rocking craft.
+
+With all the power of his iron back and shoulders, Jean drove his canoe
+on the strong current; but Kovik had the Huskies in hand and they did
+not follow. Shortly he had passed the last lodge on the shore and the
+camp was soon in the distance. It seemed like a dream--his peril of the
+last hour; and now, a free man again, with his puppy in the bow, he was
+on his way to the coast and Julie Breton.
+
+Suddenly two rifles cracked in the rocks on the near beach. The paddle
+of Marcel dropped from his limp hands. Headlong he lurched to the floor
+of the canoe. Again the guns spat from the boulders. Two bullets whined
+over the birch-bark. But save for the yelping puppy in the bow, there
+was no movement in the canoe, as it slid, the cat's-paw of the current.
+
+Waving their arms in triumph at the collapse of the feared white man,
+whose magic had been impotent before their bullets, the Huskies hurried
+along shore after the canoe. Carried by breeze and current, with its
+whimpering puppy and silent human freight the craft grounded a half-mile
+below the ambush. On came the chattering pair of assassins, already
+quarrelling over the division of the outfit of the dead man--delirious
+with the sweetness of their vengeance for the rough handling the
+stricken one in the canoe had meted out to them but an hour before. The
+dog, although lashed to the bow thwart, had managed to crawl out of the
+boat and was struggling with the thongs which held her, when the Huskies
+came running up. Staring into the birch-bark, they turned to each other
+gray faces on which was written ghastly fear.
+
+The canoe was empty!
+
+The white man they had thought to find a bloodied heap, was, after all,
+a maker of magic--a friend of demons. Kovik had told the truth. They
+were lost!
+
+Palsied with dread, their feet frozen to the beach, the young ruffians
+awaited the swift vengeance of their enemy. And it came.
+
+Hard by, a rifle crashed in the boulders. With a scream, a Husky reeled
+backward with a shattered hand, as his gun, torn from his grasp by the
+impact of the bullet, rattled on the stones. A second shot, splintering
+the butt of his rifle, hurled the other to his knees. Then with a
+demonical yell, Marcel sprang from his ambush.
+
+Running like caribou jumped by barren-ground wolves, the panic-stricken
+Huskies fled from the place of horror, pursued by the ricochetting
+bullets of the white demon, until they disappeared up the shore.
+
+"A'voir, M'sieurs!" cried Marcel. "De nex' tam you ambush cano', don'
+let eet dref behin' de point." And shaking with laughter, turned to his
+yelping puppy, frenzied with excitement.
+
+"De Husky t'ink we not go to Whale Riviere, eh?" he said, stroking the
+trembling shoulders of the worrying dog. "But Jean and hees petite
+chienne, dey see Julie Breton jus' de same."
+
+Putting his puppy in the canoe, Marcel continued on down the river.
+
+When the shots from ambush whined past his face, Marcel had flattened to
+the floor of the craft, both for cover and to deceive the Huskies. The
+second shots convinced him that he had but two to deal with. Slitting
+the bark skin near the gunwale, that he might watch the shore without
+betraying the fact that he was conscious, and thereby draw their fire,
+while they were protected from his by the boulders, he learned that the
+craft was working toward the beach.
+
+His plan was swiftly made. Driven by the racing current, the canoe had
+already left the Esquimos, following the shore, in the rear. He would
+allow the craft to ground and hold his fire until they were on top of
+him. But the boat finally reached the beach at a point hidden from the
+pursuing Huskies. With a bound Marcel was out of the canoe and concealed
+among the rocks. Great as was the temptation to leave the men who had
+ambushed him in cold blood, shot upon the beach, a sinister warning to
+their fellows, the thought of Kovik's position at the camp forced him to
+content himself with disarming and sending them shrieking up the shore
+with his bullets worrying their heels.
+
+Often, during the day, as Marcel put mile after mile of the Salmon
+between himself and the camp at the rapids, the puppy cocked curious
+ears as the new master ceased paddling, to roar with laughter at the
+memory of two flying Esquimos.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HOME AND JULIE BRETON
+
+
+That night Marcel camped at the river's mouth and watched the gray
+waters of the great Bay drown the sinking sun. Somewhere, far down the
+bold East Coast the Great Whale emptied into the salt "Big Water" of the
+Crees. He remembered having heard the old men at the post say that the
+Big Salmon lay four "sleeps" of fair weather to the north--four days of
+hard paddling, as the Company canoes travel, if the sea was flat and the
+wind light. But if he were wind-bound, as was likely heading south in
+the spring, it might take weeks. He had a hundred pounds of cured fish
+and could wait out the wind, but the thought of Julie, who by this time
+must have learned from his partners of his mad journey, made Jean
+anxious to reach the post. He preferred to be welcomed living than
+mourned as dead. He wondered how deeply she would feel it--his death.
+Ah, if she only cared for him as he loved her! Well, she should love him
+in time, when he had become a _voyageur_ of the Company, with a house at
+the post, he told himself, as he patted his shy puppy before turning
+into his blankets.
+
+The second day out he was driven ashore under gray cliffs by a
+south-wester and spent the succeeding three days in overcoming the
+shyness of the hulking puppy, who, in the gentleness of the new master,
+found swift solace for the loss of her shaggy kinsmen of the Husky camp.
+Already she had learned that the human hand could caress as well as
+wield a stick, and for the first time in her short existence, was
+initiated into the mystery and delight of having her ears rubbed and
+back scratched by this master who did not kick her out of the way when
+she sprawled in his path. And because of her beauty, and in memory of
+Fleur Marcel, the mother he had loved, he named her Fleur.
+
+When the sea flattened out after the blow, Marcel launched his canoe,
+and, with his dog in the bow, continued south. Not a wheeling gull,
+flock of whistling yellow-legs, or whiskered face of inquisitive seal,
+thrust from the water only as quickly to disappear, escaped the notice
+of the eager puppy. Passing low islands where teal and pin-tail rose in
+clouds at his approach, driving Fleur into a frenzy of excitement, at
+last he turned in behind a long island paralleling the coast.
+
+For two days Jean travelled down the strait in the lee of this island
+and knew when he passed out into open water and saw in the distance the
+familiar coast of the Whale River mouth, that he had travelled through
+the mystic Manitounuk, the Esquimos' Strait of the Spirit. The following
+afternoon off Sable Point he entered the clear water of the Great Whale
+and once again, after ten months' absence, saw on the bold shore in the
+distance the roofs of Whale River.
+
+There was a lump in the throat of Jean Marcel as he gazed at the distant
+fur-post. That little settlement, with its log trade-house and church of
+the Oblat Fathers, the last outpost of the Great Company on the bleak
+East Coast, which for two centuries had defied the grim north, stood for
+all he held most dear--was home. There, in the church burial ground
+enclosed by a slab fence, three spruce crosses marked the graves of his
+father, mother and brother. There in the Mission House, built by Cree
+converts, lived Julie Breton.
+
+As the young flood swept him up-stream he wondered if already he had
+been counted as lost by his friends at the post--for it was July;
+whether the thoughts of Julie Breton sometimes wandered north to the lad
+who had disappeared into the Ungava hills on a mad quest; or if, with
+the others, she had given him up as starved or drowned--numbered him
+with that fated legion who had gone out into the wide north never to
+return.
+
+Nearing the post, the canoe began to pass the floats of gill-nets set
+for whitefish and salmon. He could now see the tepees of the Whale
+River Crees, dotting the high shores, and below, along the beach, the
+squat skin lodges of the Huskies, with their fish scaffolds and umiaks.
+The spring trade was on.
+
+Beaching his canoe at the Company landing, where he was welcomed as one
+returned from the dead by two post Crees, Marcel, leading his dog by a
+rawhide thong, sought the Mission House.
+
+At his knock the door was opened by a girl with dusky eyes and masses of
+black hair, who stared in amazement at the _voyageur_.
+
+"Julie!" he cried.
+
+Then she found her voice, while the blood flushed her olive skin.
+
+"Jean Marcel! _vous etes revenu!_ You have come back!" exclaimed the
+girl, continuing the conversation in French.
+
+"Oh, Jean! We had great fear you might not return." He was holding both
+her hands but, embarrassed, she did not meet his eager eyes seeking to
+read her thoughts.
+
+"Come in, _M'sieu le voyageur_!" and she led him gayly into the Mission.
+"Henri, Pere Henri!" she called. "Jean Marcel has returned from the
+dead!"
+
+"Jean, my son!" replied a deep voice, and Pere Breton was vigorously
+embracing the man he had thought never to see again.
+
+"Father, your greeting is somewhat warmer than that of Julie," laughed
+the happy youth, as the bearded priest surveyed him at arm's length.
+
+"Ah, she has spoken much of you, Jean, this spring. None the worse for
+the long voyage, my son?" he continued. "You will be the talk of Whale
+River; the Crees said you could not get through. And you got your dogs?
+We have only curs here, except those of the Huskies, and they are very
+dear."
+
+"The Huskies would not sell their dogs, Father. They were bringing them
+to Whale River."
+
+Then Marcel sketched briefly to his wondering friends the history of his
+wanderings and his meeting with the Huskies on the Big Salmon.
+
+As he finished the tale of his escape from the camp with his puppy, and
+later from the ambush, Julie Breton's dark eyes were wet with tears.
+
+"Oh, Jean Marcel, why did you take such risks? You might have
+starved--they might have killed you!"
+
+His eyes lighted with tenderness as they met the girl's questioning
+face.
+
+"I had to have dogs, Julie. I must save my credit with the Company. It
+was the only way."
+
+"Let me see your puppy! Where is she?" demanded the girl.
+
+Jean led his friends outside the Mission, where he had fastened his
+dog. The wild puppy shrank from the strangers, the hair bristling on her
+neck, as Julie impulsively thrust a hand toward the dog's handsome head.
+
+"Oh, but she is cross!" she exclaimed. "What is her name?"
+
+"Fleur; it was my mother's."
+
+"Too nice a name for such an impolite dog!"
+
+Jean stroked Fleur's head as she crouched against his legs muttering her
+dislike of strangers. At his caress, her warm tongue sought his hand.
+
+"There," he said proudly, his white teeth flashing in a grin at Julie,
+"you see here is one who loves Jean Marcel."
+
+At the invitation of Pere Breton, the _voyageur_ shut his dog in the
+Mission stockade, where she would be free from attack by the post
+Huskies and safe from some covetous Cree, and gladly took possession of
+an empty room in the building.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE MOON OF FLOWERS
+
+
+As the grim fastnesses reaching away to the north and east and south in
+limitless, ice-locked solitude, had wakened to the magic touch of
+spring, so the little post at Whale River had quickened with life at the
+advent of June with the spring trade. For weeks, before the return of
+Marcel, the canoes of the Crees had been coming in daily from winter
+trapping grounds in far valleys. Around the tepees, which dotted the
+post clearing like mushrooms, groups of dark-skinned women, heads
+wrapped in gaudy shawls, laughed and gossiped, while the shrill voices
+of romping children filled the air, for the lean moons of the long snows
+had passed and the soft days returned.
+
+Swart hunters from Lac d'Iberville, half-breed Crees from the Whispering
+Hills and the Little Whale watershed, belted with colored Company
+sashes, wearing beaded leggings and moccasins, smoked and talked of the
+trade with wild _voyageurs_ from Lac Bienville, the Lakes of the Winds,
+and the Starving River headwaters in the caribou barrens. From a hundred
+unmapped valleys they had journeyed to the Bay to trade their fox and
+lynx, their mink and fisher and marten, for the goods of the Company.
+
+Below, along the beach, Huskies from Richmond Gulf and the north coast,
+from the White Bear and the Sleeping Islands, who had brought ivory of
+the walrus, pelts of the white fox, seal, and polar bear, and sealskin
+boots, which only their women possess the art of making waterproof, were
+camped in low skin tepees, their priceless dogs tied up and under
+constant guard. But while the camp of the Esquimos was a bedlam of noisy
+huskies, the quarters of the Crees in the post clearing, formerly
+overrun by brawling sled-dogs, were now a place of peace. The plague of
+the previous summer had left the Indians but a scattering of curs.
+
+Carrying his fur-pack and outfit to the Mission, Marcel sought the
+trade-house. Passing the tepees of the Crees, he was forced to stop and
+receive the congratulations of the admiring hunters on his safe return
+from his "_longue traverse_" through the land of demons, which had been
+the gossip of the post since the arrival of Joe and Antoine.
+
+When his partners appeared, to stare in amazement at the man they had
+announced as dead, Jean made them wince as he gripped their hands.
+
+"Bo'-jo', Joe! Bo'-jo', Antoine!" he laughed. "You see de Windigo foun'
+Jean Marcel too tough to eat! He ees good fr'en' to me now. De Husky
+t'ink me devil too."
+
+"I nevaire t'ink to see you alive at Whale Riviere, Jean Marcel!" cried
+the delighted Antoine.
+
+"Did you get de dog?" asked the practical Piquet.
+
+"Onlee one petite pup; de Husky would not trade." Then Jean hurriedly
+described his weeks on the Salmon.
+
+As he entered the door of the long trade-house he was seized by a giant
+Company man.
+
+"By Gar! Jean Marcel!" cried Jules Duroc, his swart face lighting with
+joy as he crushed the wanderer in a bear hug. "We t'ink you sure starve
+out een de bush! You fin' de Beeg Salmon headwater? You see de Windigo?"
+
+"Oui, I fin' de riviere for sure, Jules; but de Windigo he scared of me.
+I tell heem Jean Marcel ees fr'en' of Jules Duroc."
+
+The laughter in the doorway drew the attention of two men descending the
+ladder from the fur-loft.
+
+"Well, as I live, Jean Marcel!" cried Colin Gillies, the factor, and he
+wrung the hand of the son of his old head man until Marcel grimaced with
+pain.
+
+"You're sure good for sore eyes, Jean; we were about giving you up!"
+added Andrew McCain, the clerk, seizing Jean's free hand.
+
+"Bon jour, M'sieu Gillies! Bon jour, Andrew! Dey say I leeve my bones on
+de Beeg Salmon; de Husky shoot at me; but--Tiens! I am here!"
+
+"What? You had trouble with the Huskies?"
+
+"Oui, dey t'o't I was a devil, because I come down riviere from de
+Bad-Lands, but Kovik, he talk to dem an' I stay. Tell dem I come from
+Whale Riviere. Den dey get mad because I feesh salmon at de rapide and
+mak' trouble; and poor Kovik, he tell dem dat I am bad spirit, so I can
+get away."
+
+Jean laughed heartily at the memory of Kovik's dilemma. "Dey mus' t'ink
+poor Kovik ees damn liar by dees tam." Then he added soberly, "But he
+save my life."
+
+Seated with his three friends, Marcel told of his struggle to reach the
+Salmon, his meeting with the Esquimos, and escape with his dog.
+
+"So you got a dog after all, Jean? But you were crazy to take a chance
+with those Huskies; they won't stand trespassing on their fisheries and
+they were shy of you because you came from the headwaters. I'm glad you
+didn't kill that pair, much as they deserved it. It would have made
+trouble later."
+
+"Good old Kovik! We won't forget him," added McCain.
+
+"No, that we will not," agreed Gillies. "He thought a lot of your
+father, Jean."
+
+"Wal," said Jean proudly, "I weel have good dog-team een two year. Dat
+pup, she ees wort' all de work an' trouble to get her."
+
+"You're lucky," said Gillies. "It's mighty hard on our hunters not to
+have good dogs, but they couldn't pay the Huskies' price. The Crees only
+took three for breeding purposes, and six cost us a thousand in trade.
+The rest were taken to Fort George and East Main."
+
+The days at the Mission with Pere Breton and Julie raced by--hours of
+unalloyed happiness for Jean after ten months in the "bush." Not a day
+passed that did not find him romping with the great puppy who had
+learned to gaze at her tall master through slant eyes eloquent with
+love. Each morning when he visited the Mission fish nets and his own,
+the puppy rode in the bow of the canoe. Each afternoon, often
+accompanied by Julie Breton, they went for a run up the river shore. Man
+and dog were inseparable.
+
+When he heard that Kovik had arrived, Jean brought Fleur down to the
+shore, to find the family absent from their lodge. To Marcel's
+amazement, his puppy at first failed to recognize her brothers, who,
+yelping madly, rushed her in a mass.
+
+With flattened ears, and mane stiffened on neck and back, their doughty
+sister met them half-way. Bowling one over, she shouldered another to
+the ground, where she threatened him with a fierce display of teeth. And
+not until their worried mother, made fast to a stake, had recognized her
+lost daughter and lured her within reach of her tongue, did the nose of
+Jean's puppy reveal to her the identity of her kin. Then there was a mad
+frolic in which she bullied and roughed her brothers as in the forgotten
+days before the master with the low voice and the hand that never struck
+her, took her away in his canoe.
+
+When Kovik appeared in his umiak with his squat wife and family, there
+was a general handshaking.
+
+"How you leeve my fr'en' on de Salmon, Kovik?"
+
+The Husky gravely shook his head.
+
+"Kovik have troub' wid young men you shoot. Dey say Kovik bad spirit
+too. You not hurt by dem?"
+
+"Dey miss me an' I dreef down riviere an' ambush dem. I could keel dem
+easy but eet mak' eet bad for you. Here ees tabac, an' tea an' sugar for
+de woman. I tell M'sieu Gillies w'at you do for Jean Marcel."
+
+When Jean had distributed his gifts, Fleur came trotting up, but to his
+delight refused to allow Kovik to touch her.
+
+"Huh! Dat you' dog!" chuckled the Husky.
+
+"Oui, she ees my dog, now," laughed Jean, and his heart went out to the
+puppy who already knew but one allegiance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FOR LOVE OF A DOG
+
+
+The spring trade at Whale River was nearing its end. One by one the
+tepees in the post clearing disappeared as, each day, canoes of Cree
+hunters started up-river for lakes of the interior, to net fish for the
+coming winter. Already the umiaks of the Esquimos peopled with women and
+children had followed the ebb-tide down to the great Bay, bound for
+their autumn hunting camps along the north coast.
+
+When Jean Marcel had traded his fur and purchased what flour, ammunition
+and other supplies he needed to carry him through the long snows of the
+coming winter, he found that a substantial balance remained to his
+credit on the books of the Company; a nest egg, he hoped, for the day
+when, perchance, as a _voyageur_ of the Company with a house at the
+post, he might stand with Julie at his side and receive the blessing of
+the good Pere Breton. But Jean realized that that day was far away.
+Before he might hope to be honored by the Company with the position and
+trust his father had so long enjoyed, he knew he must prove his mettle
+and his worth; for the Company crews and dog-runners, entrusted with
+the mails, the fur-brigades and Company business in general, are men
+chosen for their intelligence, stamina and skill as canoemen and
+dog-drivers.
+
+When he had packed his last load of winter supplies from the trade-house
+to the Mission, he said with a laugh to Julie:
+
+"Julie, we have made a good start, you and I. We have credit of three
+hundred dollars with the Company."
+
+The olive skin of Julie Breton flushed to the dusky crown of hair, but
+she retorted with spirit:
+
+"You are counting your geese before they are shot, M'sieu Jean. Merci!
+But I am very happy with Pere Henri."
+
+Pere Breton's laugh interrupted Jean's reply. "Yes, my son. Julie is
+right. You are too young, you two, to think of anything but your souls."
+
+"Some day, Julie, I will be a Company man and then you will listen to
+Jean Marcel," and the lad who had cherished the memory of the girl's
+oval face through the long winter and taken it with him into the dim,
+blue Ungava hills, left the Mission with head erect and swinging stride.
+
+"Jean, when are you going back to the bush?" inquired Gillies, as Marcel
+entered the trade-house.
+
+"My partners and I go next week, maybe."
+
+"Well, I want you to take a canoe to Duck Island for me. We're
+short-handed here, and you have just come down that coast. I promised
+some Huskies to leave a cache of stuff there this summer."
+
+Marcel's dark features reddened with pride. He had been put in charge of
+a canoe bound on Company business. His crossing to the Big Salmon had
+marked him at Whale River as a canoeman of daring--a chip of the old
+block, worthy of the name Marcel.
+
+"Bien! M'sieu Gillies, when do we start?"
+
+"To-day, after dinner!"
+
+Returning to the Mission elated, Marcel ate his dinner, made up his pack
+while they wished him "Bon-voyage!" then went out to the stockade.
+
+At the gate he was met simultaneously by the impact of a shaggy body and
+the swift licks of an eager tongue. Then Fleur circled him at full
+speed, yelping her delight, while she worked off the excitement of
+seeing her playmate again, until, at length, she trotted up and nosed
+his hand, keen for the daily rubbing of her ears which drew from her
+deep throat grateful mutterings of content.
+
+"I leave my petite chienne for a few days," he whispered into a hairy
+ear. "She will be a good dog and obey Ma'm'selle Julie, who will feed
+her?"
+
+The puppy broke away and ran to the gate, turning to him with pricked
+ears as she whined for the daily stroll into the scrub after snow-shoe
+rabbits.
+
+"Non, ma petite! We walk not to-day!" He stroked the slate-gray back
+which trembled with her desire for a run with the master, then circling
+her shaggy neck with his arms, his face against hers, while she fretted
+as though she knew Jean was leaving her, said: "A'voir, Fleur!" and
+closed the gate.
+
+She stood grieving, her black nose thrust between the slab pickets, the
+slant eyes following Marcel's back until he disappeared. Then she raised
+her head and, in the manner of her kind, voiced her disappointment in a
+long howl. And the wail of his puppy struck with strange insistence upon
+the ears of Jean Marcel--like a premonition of misfortune which the
+future held for him and which he often recalled in the weeks to come.
+
+As the canoe of the Company journeyed through the Strait of the Spirit,
+flocks of gray geese, which were now leading their broods out to the
+coast islands from the muskegs of the interior, rose ahead, to sail away
+in their geometric formations, while clouds of pin-tail and black duck
+patrolled the low beaches.
+
+Jean left his cargo for the Huskies in a stone cache and running into a
+south-wester, while homeward bound, did not reach Whale River for a
+fortnight. As he approached the post, he made out at the log landing
+the Company steamer _Inenew_, loaded with trade goods from the depot at
+Charlton Island. Through the clearing, now almost bare of tepees, for
+the trade was over, he walked to the Mission. The door was opened by
+Julie Breton.
+
+"Bon-jour, Ma'm'selle Breton!" and he seized the unresponsive hand of
+the girl.
+
+"I am glad to see you home safely, Jean." Something in the face and
+voice of the girl checked him.
+
+"What is the matter, Julie?" he asked. "Pere Henri; he is not ill?"
+
+"No, Jean. Pere Henri is well, but----"
+
+"You do not seem glad to see me again, Julie!"
+
+"I am glad. You know that----"
+
+"Well," he flung out, hurt at the girl's constrained manner, "I'll go
+and see someone who will welcome Jean Marcel with no sober face----"
+
+"Jean!" she said as he turned away.
+
+"What is it, Ma'm'selle Breton?" and he smiled into her troubled eyes.
+"Fleur has missed me, I know. She will give Jean Marcel a true welcome
+home."
+
+"Jean--she is not there--they stole her!"
+
+The face of Jean Marcel twisted with pain.
+
+"Mon Dieu! Stole my Fleur--my puppy?"
+
+"Yes, they took her from the stockade, two nights ago--two men who came
+up the coast after dogs."
+
+With face buried in his arms to hide the tears misting his eyes, he
+leaned against the door jamb, while the girl rested a sympathetic hand
+on his shoulder.
+
+"Poor Jean!"
+
+"I worked so hard to get her. I loved that puppy, Julie; she was my
+child," he groaned.
+
+"I know, Jean, how you feel; after what you have been through--to have
+lost her----"
+
+"But I have not lost her!" the boy exclaimed fiercely, drawing a deep
+breath and facing the girl with features set like stone. "I have not
+lost her, Julie Breton! I will follow them and bring back my dog if I
+have to trail those men to Rupert House."
+
+The tears had gone and in the eyes of Jean Marcel was a glint she had
+never known--a glitter of hate for the men who had taken his dog, so
+intense, so bitter, that she thrilled inwardly as she gazed at his
+transformed face. Instinctively, Julie Breton knew that the lad who
+faced her was no longer the playmate of old to be treated as a boy, but
+the possessor of a high courage and unbreakable will that men in the
+future would reckon with.
+
+Jean entered the trade-house to find Gillies in conversation with a tall
+stranger, who, Jules whispered, was Mr. Wallace, the new inspector of
+the East Coast posts, who had come with the steamer.
+
+"A few days after you left, Jean," explained Gillies, "two half-breeds
+dropped in here with the story that they had travelled up the coast from
+Rupert House to buy dogs from the Huskies. There were no dogs for sale
+here, and they seemed pretty sore at missing the York-boat bound south
+with the dogs bought by the Company for East Main and Fort George. Why,
+we didn't know, for they couldn't get any of those dogs. They were a
+weazel-faced, mean-looking pair and when Jules found them feeding two of
+our huskies one day, there was trouble."
+
+"What did they do to you, Jules?" asked Jean, smiling faintly at the big
+Company bowman.
+
+"What did Jules do to them, you mean," broke in Angus McCain.
+
+"Well," continued Gillies, "we got outside in time to see Jules break
+his paddle over the head of one and pile into the other who had a knife
+out and looked mean.
+
+"Then I kicked them out of the post. They left that night with your dog,
+for the next day at Little Bear Island they passed a canoe of
+goose-hunters bound for Whale River and the Indians noticed the puppy
+who seemed to be muzzled and tied."
+
+During the recital, Marcel walked the floor of the trade-house, his
+blood hot with rage.
+
+"French half-breeds, M'sieu Gillies, or Scotch?" he asked.
+
+"Scotch, Jean, medium sized; one had lost half an ear and the other had
+a scar on his chin and the first finger gone on his right hand. But
+you're not going after them, lad; they've two days' start on you and
+it's August!"
+
+"M'sieu Gillies, I took de _longue traverse_ for dat dog. She was de
+best pup in dees place. I love dat husky, M'sieu. I start to-night."
+
+The import and finality of Jean's words startled his hearers.
+
+"Why, you won't make your trapping-grounds before the freeze-up, if you
+head down the coast now. You're crazy, man! Besides, they are two days
+ahead of you, to start with, and with two paddles will keep gaining,"
+objected the factor.
+
+"M'sieu Gillies," the boy ignored the factor's protest, "will you geeve
+me letter of credit for de Company posts?"
+
+"Why, yes, Jean, you've got three hundred dollars credit here, but, man,
+stop and think! You can't overhaul those breeds alone, and if they
+belong in the East Main or Rupert River country they'll be back in the
+bush by the time you reach the posts, even if you can trail them that
+far. It's three hundred and fifty miles to Rupert House; you might be a
+month on the way."
+
+Jean Marcel shook his head doggedly, determination written in the
+stone-hard muscles of his dark face. Then he suddenly demanded of the
+factor:
+
+"What would my father, Andre Marcel, do eef he leeved? Because of de
+freeze-up would he geeve hees pup to dose dog-stealer? I ask you dat,
+M'sieu?"
+
+Gillies' honest eyes frankly met the questioner's.
+
+"Andre Marcel was the best canoeman on this coast, and no man ever did
+him a wrong who didn't pay." The factor hesitated.
+
+"Well, M'sieu!" demanded Jean.
+
+"Andre Marcel," Gillies continued, "would have followed the men who
+stole his dog down this coast and west to the Barren Grounds."
+
+Jules Duroc nodded gravely as he added: "By Gar! Andre Marcel, he would
+trail dose men into de muskegs of Hell."
+
+"Well," said Jean, smiling proudly at the encomiums of his father's
+prowess, "Jean Marcel, hees son, will start to-night."
+
+Argument was futile to dissuade Marcel from his mad venture. His
+partners of the previous winter who had waited impatiently for his
+return refused to delay longer their start for Ghost River and left at
+once.
+
+Then Jules took Marcel aside and quietly talked to him as would a
+brother.
+
+"Jean, you stay here wid Ma'm'selle Julie till de steamer go. Dat M'sieu
+Wallace, he sweet on you' girl w'en you were up de coast. You stay till
+he leeve."
+
+For this Jean had an outward shrug of contempt, but the rumored
+attentions of Wallace to Julie Breton, during his absence, sickened his
+heart with fear. Was he to lose her, too, as well as Fleur?
+
+Before supper, at the Mission, Pere Breton urged him to return to his
+trapping grounds and spare himself the toil of a hopeless quest down the
+coast in the face of the coming winter. Julie was adding her objections
+to her brother's, when a knock on the door checked her. Her face colored
+slightly as Jean glanced up, when she turned to the door.
+
+"Bon soir, Monsieur!" she greeted the newcomer, a note of embarrassment
+in her voice.
+
+"Good evening, Mademoiselle. I hope I'm not late?" And Inspector Wallace
+entered the room.
+
+The Inspector, a handsome, well-built man of thirty-five, was dressed in
+the garb of civilization and wore shoes, a rarity at Whale River. Chief
+of the East Coast posts of the Great Company, he had been sent the year
+previous, from western Ontario, and put in command of men older in years
+and experience who had passed their lives in the far north. And
+naturally much resentment had manifested itself among the traders. But
+that the new chief officer looked and acted like a man of ability, the
+disgruntled factors had been forced to admit.
+
+As Wallace sat conversing of the great world outside with Pere Breton,
+who was evidently much pleased by his attentions to Julie, he seemed to
+Jean Marcel to embody all that the young Frenchman lacked. How, indeed,
+he asked himself, could he now aspire to the love of Julie Breton when
+so great a man chose to smile upon her?
+
+Wallace seemed surprised at the presence of a humble Company hunter as a
+member of the priest's family, but Pere Breton privately informed him
+that Jean was as a son and brother at the Mission.
+
+While the black eyes of Julie flashed in response to the admiring
+glances of Wallace, Jean Marcel ate in silence his last meal at Whale
+River for many a long week, torn by his longing for the dog carried down
+the coast in the canoe of the thieves and by the hopelessness of his
+love for this girl who was manifestly thrilling to the compliments of a
+man who knew the world of men and cities, who had seen many women, yet
+found this rose of the north fair. But as he ate in silence, the young
+Frenchman made a vow that should this man, who was taking her from him,
+treat her innocence lightly, Inspector though he was, he should feel
+the cold steel of the knife of Jean Marcel.
+
+After the meal, as Jean prepared to leave, Pere Breton renewed his
+protests against the trip, but in vain. If he had luck, Marcel insisted,
+he could beat the "freeze-up" home; if not, he would travel up the
+coast, later, on the ice, or--well, it did not much matter what became
+of Jean Marcel.
+
+So, with the letter of the factor, on which he could draw supplies at
+the southern posts, Jean Marcel shook the hands of his friends and,
+sliding his canoe into the ebb tide, started south as the dying sun
+gilded the flat Bay to the west. He waved his hand in farewell to the
+group of Company men on the shore, when he saw above them the figures of
+Julie Breton and the priest. As Julie held aloft something white, she
+and her brother were joined by a man. It was Inspector Wallace. Jean
+swung his paddle to and fro, in response to Julie's Godspeed, then
+dropping to his knees, drove the craft swiftly down-stream on the long
+pursuit which might take him four hundred miles down the coast to the
+white-waters of the great Rupert and beyond, he knew not where. And with
+him he carried the thought that Julie, his Julie, would daily, for a
+week, see this great man of the Company. It was a heavy heart that
+Marcel that night took down to the sea.
+
+With the vision of Fleur, strangely sensing the impending separation
+from her master, as her wail of despair rose from the stockade the night
+he left her to go north, constantly before his eyes, Jean Marcel reached
+the coast and turned south. The thought of his puppy muzzled and bound
+in the canoe two days ahead of him lent power to every lunge of his
+paddle. While the knowledge that, back at Whale River, instead of
+walking the river shore in the long twilight with Jean Marcel, as he had
+dreamed, Julie would have Wallace at her side, added to the viciousness
+of his stroke. The sea was flat and when at daylight he saw looming
+ahead the shores of Big Island, he knew he had won a deserved rest, so
+went ashore, cooked some food and slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE LONG TRAIL TO THE SOUTH COAST
+
+
+A day's hard paddle past Big Island the dreaded Cape of the Four Winds
+thrust its bold buttresses far out into the sea toward the White Bear,
+and Marcel knew that wind here meant days of delay, for no canoe could
+round this grim headland feared by all _voyageurs_, except in fair
+weather. So, after a few hours' sleep, he toiled all day down the coast
+and at midnight had put the gray cape behind him.
+
+Two days later when Marcel went ashore on the Isle of Graves of the
+Esquimos, to boil his kettle, he found, to his delight, a Fort George
+goose-boat on the same errand. The Crees who had just left the post to
+shoot the winter's supply of gray and snowy geese, or "wavies," as they
+are called from their resemblance in flight to a white banner waving in
+the sun, had met, two nights before off the mouth of Big River, the
+canoe he was following. The dog-thieves, who were strangers, did not
+stop at the post, but had continued south.
+
+With two paddles they were not holding their lead, he laughed to
+himself, but were coming back. If he hurried he would overhaul them
+before they reached Rupert. He did not know the Rupert River, and if
+once they started inland he would be caught by the "freeze-up" in a
+strange country, so he continued on late into the night.
+
+Then followed day after day of endless toil at the paddle, for he knew
+he must travel while the weather held. He could not hope to make Rupert,
+or even East Main before the wind changed; which might mean idling for
+days on a beach pounded by seas in which no canoe could live. At times,
+with a stern breeze, he rigged a piece of canvas to a spruce pole and
+sailed. But one thought dominated him as mile after mile of the gray
+East Coast slid past; the thought of having his puppy once more in his
+canoe, fretting at the gulls and ducks and geese, as he headed north.
+
+Only through necessity did he stop to shoot geese, whose gray and white
+legions were gathering on the coast for the annual migration. At dawn
+the "gou-luk!" of the gray ganders marshalling their families out to the
+feeding grounds, which once sent his blood leaping, now left him cold.
+He was hunting bigger game, and his heart hungered for his puppy, beaten
+and half-starved, in all likelihood, travelling somewhere ahead down
+that bleak coast in the canoe of two men who did not know that close on
+their heels followed an enemy as dogged, as relentless, as a wolf on
+the trail of an old caribou abandoned by the herd.
+
+And so, after days of ceaseless dip and swing, dip and swing, which at
+night left his back and arms stiff and his fingers numb, Jean Marcel
+turned into the mouth of the East Main River and paddled up to the post,
+where he learned that the canoe of the half-breeds had not been seen,
+and that no hunters of their description traded there. So he turned
+again to the Bay and headed south for Rupert House. Off the Wild Geese
+Islands he met what he had for days been dreading, the first September
+north-wester, and was driven ashore. For the following three days he
+rested and hunted geese, and when the storm whipped itself out, went on,
+and at last, crossing Boatswain's Bay, rounded Mount Sherrick and
+paddled up Rupert Bay to the famous old post, which, since the days of
+the Merry Monarch and his favorite, Prince Rupert, the first Governor of
+the "Company of Merchants-Adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay," has
+guarded the river mouth--an uninterrupted history of two centuries and a
+half of fair dealing with the red fur-hunters of Rupert Land.
+
+"So you're the son of Andre Marcel? Well, well! Time does fly! Why,
+Andre and I made many a camp together in the old days. There was a man,
+my lad!"
+
+Jean straightened his wide shoulders in pride at this praise of his
+father by Alec Cameron, factor at Rupert. When he had explained the
+object of his long journey south in the fall, the latter raised his
+bushy eyebrows in amazement.
+
+"You mean to tell me that you paddled from Whale River in fifteen days,
+after a dog?"
+
+"Oui, M'sieu Cameron."
+
+"Well, you didn't waste the daylight or the moon either. You're sure a
+son of Andre Marcel. It must be a record for a single paddle; and all
+for a pup, eh?"
+
+"Oui, all for a pup!"
+
+"You deserve to get that dog. Now, these half-breeds you describe
+dropped in here in June behind the Mistassini brigade, and traded their
+fur. Then they started north after dogs."
+
+"Dey were onlee a day ahead of me up de coast."
+
+"Queer I haven't seen 'em here yet. Pierre!" Cameron called to a Company
+man passing the trade-house. "Have those two Mistassini strangers who
+went north in June, got back yet?"
+
+"No, but Albert meet dem in Gull Bay two day back. Dey have one pup dey
+trade from Huskee!"
+
+"There you are, Marcel! Your men crossed over to Hannah Bay to hunt
+geese. They'll be here in a week or two on their way up-river. You wait
+here and we'll get your dog when they show up."
+
+"T'anks, M'sieu Cameron!" The dark eyes of Jean Marcel snapped. At last
+he was closing in on his quarry. "I weel go to Hannah Bay now and get my
+dog."
+
+"Two to one, lad! They may get the best of you, and I've no men to
+spare; they're all away goose hunting. You'd better wait here."
+
+"M'sieu, Andre Marcel would go alone and tak' his dog. I, hees son, also
+weel tak' mine."
+
+"Good Lord! Andre Marcel would have skinned them alive--those two. Well,
+good luck, Jean! but I don't like your tackling those breeds alone."
+
+Jean shook hands with the factor.
+
+"Bon-jour, M'sieu Cameron, and t'anks!"
+
+"If you don't drop in here on your way back, give my regards to Gillies
+and his family, and be careful," said the factor as Marcel left him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE MEETING IN THE MARSHES
+
+
+Two days later, after rounding Point Comfort, Marcel was crossing the
+mud-flats of Gull Bay. At last the stalk was on, for somewhere in the
+vast marshes of the Hannah Bay coast, camped the men he had followed
+four hundred miles to meet face to face and fight for his dog. Somewhere
+ahead, through the gray mist, back in the juniper and alder scrub beyond
+the wide reaches of tide-flats and goose-grass, was Fleur, a prisoner.
+
+That night in camp at East Point, while he cleaned the action and bore
+of his rifle, the clatter of the geese in the muskeg behind the far
+lines of spruce edging the marshes, filled him with wonder. Never on the
+bold East Coast had he heard such a din of geese gathering for the long
+flight. At dawn, for it was windy, lines of gray Canadas passing
+overhead bound out to the shoals, waked him with their clamor. The tide
+was low, and he carried his canoe across the mud-flats through flocks of
+plover, snipe and yellow-legs, feeding behind the ebb, while teal and
+black-duck swarmed along the beaches.
+
+As he poled his canoe south through the shoals, he recalled the tales
+his father had told him of the marshes of Hannah Bay, the greatest
+breeding ground of the gray goose and black duck in all the wide north.
+Everywhere along the bars and sand-spits the gray Canadas were idling,
+always with an erect, keen-eyed sentinel on guard. Farther out, white
+islands of snowy geese flashed in the sun, as here and there a "wavy"
+rose on the water to flap his black-tipped wings. Just in from their
+Arctic breeding-grounds, they were lingering for a month's feast on
+toothsome south-coast goose-grass before seeking their winter home on
+the great Gulf two thousand miles away.
+
+Slowly throughout the morning Marcel travelled along the mud-flats bared
+for miles by the retreating tide. At times the breeze carried to his
+ears the faint sound of firing, but there were goose-boats from Moose
+and Rupert House on the coast, and it meant little. That night as the
+tide covered the marshes he ran up a channel of the Harricanaw delta
+seeking a camp-ground on its higher shores.
+
+Landing he was looking for drift-wood for his fire when suddenly he
+stopped.
+
+"Ah! You have been here, my friends."
+
+In the soft mud of the shore ran the clearly marked tracks of a man and
+dog. The footprints of the dog seemed large for Fleur, but Marcel had
+not seen her in six weeks and the puppy was growing fast.
+
+"Fleur!" he said aloud, "will you remember Jean Marcel after all these
+weeks with them?"
+
+He had seen no smoke of a fire and the tracks were at least two days
+old. His men were doubtless on the west shore of the bay where the water
+for miles inland to the spruce networked the marshes, and the rank grass
+grew to the height of a man's head; but he would find them. The guns of
+the hunters would betray their whereabouts.
+
+He drew a long breath of relief. At last he had reached the end of the
+trail. He could now come to grips with his enemies. To the thief, the
+law of the north is ruthless, and ruthlessly Jean Marcel was prepared to
+exact, if need be, the last drop of the blood of these men in payment
+for this act. It was now his nerve and wit against theirs, with Fleur as
+the stake. The blood of Andre Marcel and the _coureurs-de-bois_, which
+stirred in his veins, was hot for the fight which the days would bring.
+
+Before dawn Jean was taking advantage of the high tide, and when the
+first light streaked the east, was well on his way. As the sun lifted
+over the muskeg behind the bay he saw, hanging in the still air, the
+smoke of a fire.
+
+Quickly turning inshore, he ran his canoe up a waterway and into the
+long grass. There he waited until the tide went out, listening to the
+faint reports of the guns of the hunters. At noon, having eaten some
+cold goose and bannock, he took his rifle and started back over the
+marsh. Slowly he worked his way, keeping to the cover of the grass and
+alders, circling around the wide, open spaces, pock-marked with
+water-holes and small ponds.
+
+Knowing that the breeds would not take the dog with them to their blinds
+but would tie her up, he planned to stalk the camp up-wind, in order not
+to alarm Fleur, who might betray his presence to his enemies if by
+accident they were in camp, in the afternoon, when the geese were
+moving. After that--well, he should see.
+
+At last he lay within sight of the tent, which was pitched on a tongue
+of high ground running out into the rush-covered mud-flats. The camp was
+deserted. His eyes strained wistfully for the sight of the shaggy shape
+of his puppy. Pain stabbed at his heart. She was not there. What could
+it mean? Distant shots from the marsh to the west marked the absence of
+at least one of the breeds. But where was Fleur?
+
+Marcel was too "bush-wise" to take any chances. Still keeping to cover,
+he made his approach up-wind until he lay within a stone's throw of the
+tent, when a shift in the breeze warned a pair of keen nostrils that
+some living thing skulked not far off.
+
+The heart of Jean Marcel leaped as the howl of Fleur betrayed his
+presence, for huskies never bark. Grasping his rifle, he waited. The
+uproar of the dog brought no response. The breeds were both away.
+Rising, he ran to the excited puppy lashed to a stake back of the tent.
+
+"Fleur! _Ma petite chienne!_" Dropping his rifle, he approached his dog
+with outstretched arms. With flattened ears, the puppy crouched,
+growling at the stranger, her mane bristling.
+
+"Fleur! Don't you know me, pup?" continued Marcel in soothing tones,
+holding out his hand.
+
+The puppy's ears went forward. She sniffed long at the hand that had
+once caressed her. Slowly the growl died in her throat.
+
+"Fleur! Fleur! My poor puppy! Don't you remember Jean Marcel?"
+
+Again the puzzled dog drew deep whiffs through her black nostrils. Back
+in her brain memory was at work. Slowly the soothing tones of the voice
+of Marcel stirred the ghosts of other days; vague hints, blurred by the
+cruelty of weeks, of a time when the hand of a master caressed her and
+did not strike, when a voice called to her as this voice--then another
+sniff, and she knew. With a whimper her warm tongue licked his hand, and
+Jean Marcel had his puppy in his arms. Mad with joy, the yelping husky
+strained at her rawhide bonds as her anxious master examined a great
+lump on her head, and her ribs, ridged with welts from kick and blow.
+
+"So they tied her up and beat her, my Fleur? Well, she not leave Jean
+Marcel again. Were he go, Fleur go!"
+
+Suddenly in his ears were hissed the words:
+
+"W'at you do wid dat dog?" And a fierce blow on the back of the head
+hurled the kneeling Marcel flat on his face.
+
+For a space he lay stunned, his numbed senses blurred beyond thought or
+action. Then, as his dazed brain cleared, the realization that life hung
+on his presence of mind, for he would receive no mercy from the thieves,
+held him limp on the ground as though unconscious.
+
+Snarling curses at the crumpled body of his victim, the half-breed was
+busy with the joining of some rawhide thongs. Then Jean's dizziness
+faded. Cautiously he raised an eyelid. The breed was bending over him
+with a looped thong. Not a muscle moved as the Frenchman waited. Nearer
+leaned the thief. He reached to slip the looped rawhide over one of
+Marcel's outstretched hands, when, with a lunge from the ground, the
+arms of the latter clamped on his legs like a sprung trap. With a
+wrench, the surprised thief was thrown heavily.
+
+Cat-like, the hunter was on his man, bearing him down. And then began a
+battle in which quarter was neither asked nor given. Heavier but slower
+than the younger man, the thief vainly sought to reach Marcel's throat,
+for the Frenchman's arms, having the under grip, blocked the half-breed
+from Jean's knife and his own. Over and over they rolled, locked
+together; so evenly matched in strength that neither could free a hand.
+Near them yelped Fleur, frantic with excitement, plunging at her stake.
+
+Then the close report of a gun sounded in Marcel's startled ears. A
+great fear swept him. The absent thief was working back to camp. It was
+a matter of minutes. Was it to this that he had toiled down the coast in
+search of his dog--a grave in the Harricanaw mud? And the face of Julie
+Breton flashed across his vision.
+
+Desperate with the knowledge that he must win quickly, if at all, he
+strained until the fingers of his left hand reached the haft of the
+breed's knife. But a twinge shot through his shoulder like the stab of
+steel, as the teeth of his enemy crunched into his flesh, and he lost
+his grip. Maddened by pain, Marcel wrenched his right arm free and had
+his own knife before the fingers of the thief closed on his wrist,
+holding the blade in the sheath. Then began a duel of sheer strength.
+For a time the straining arms lifted and pushed, at a dead lock. With
+veins swelling on neck and forehead, Marcel fought to unsheath his
+knife; but the half-breed's arm was iron, did not give. Again a gun was
+fired--still nearer the camp.
+
+With help at hand, the thief, safe so long as he held his grip, snarled
+in triumph in the ear of his trapped enemy. But his peril only increased
+the Frenchman's strength. The fighting blood of the Marcels boiled in
+his veins. With a fierce heave of the shoulders the hand gripping the
+knife moved upward. The arm of the thief gave way, only to straighten.
+Then with a wrench that would not be denied, Jean tore the blade from
+the sheath.
+
+Frantically now, the breed, white with sudden fear, fought the sinewy
+wrist, advancing inexorably, on its grim mission. In short jerks, Marcel
+hunched the knife toward its goal. As he weakened, the knotted features
+of the one who felt death creeping to him, inch by inch, went gray. The
+hand fighting Marcel's wrist dripped with sweat. Panting hoarsely, like
+a beast at bay, the thief twisted and writhed from the pitiless steel.
+Then in his ears rang the voice of the approaching hunter.
+
+With a cry of despair, the doomed half-breed called to the man who had
+come too late. Already the knuckles of Marcel were high on his ribs.
+With a final wrench, the blade was lunged home.
+
+The cry was smothered in a cough. The man who had beaten his last puppy
+gasped, quivered convulsively; then lay still.
+
+Bathed in sweat, shaking from the strain and exertion of the long
+battle, Marcel got stiffly to his feet and seized his rifle. Again the
+camp was hailed from the marsh. It was evident that the goose-hunter had
+not sensed the cry of his partner or he would not have betrayed his
+position. Doubtless he was poling up a reed-masked waterway with a load
+of geese.
+
+Jean smiled grimly, for the thief would have only his shotgun loaded
+with fine shot, for large shot is not used for geese in the north.
+Hurriedly searching the tent, he found a rifle which he threw into the
+rushes; then loosed Fleur.
+
+The half-breed was in his power, but he wanted no prisoner. To stay and
+beat this man as Fleur had been beaten would have been sweet, but of
+blood he had had enough. For an instant his eyes rested on the ghastly
+evidence of his visit, awaiting the return of the hunter; then he took
+Fleur and started across the marsh for his canoe.
+
+To the dead man, who, to the theft of Fleur would have lightly added the
+death of her master, Marcel gave no thought. As for the other, when he
+found his dead partner, fear of an ambush would prevent him from
+following their trail.
+
+Reaching his canoe, Jean divided a goose with Fleur and, when it became
+dark, started for East Point. That the half-breed's partner might
+attempt to follow him and seek revenge, he had no doubt, but with the
+shotgun alone, for Jean had taken the only rifle at their camp, the
+thief's sole chance would be to stalk Marcel while he slept. However, as
+the sea was flat and the tide ebbing, Marcel was confident that daylight
+would find him well up the coast toward Point Comfort.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+IN THE TEETH OF THE WINDS
+
+
+It was the first week in September. This meant a race with the
+"freeze-up" into Whale River, for with the autumn headwinds, it would
+take him a month, travel as he might. Though he sorely needed geese for
+food on his way north, there was no time to waste at Hannah Bay, so
+Marcel paddled steadily all night. At dawn, in the mist off Gull Bay,
+Fleur became so restless with the scent of the shoals of geese, which
+the canoe was raising, that Jean was forced to put a gag of hide in her
+mouth while he drifted with the tide on the "wavies" and shot a week's
+supply of food.
+
+At daylight he went ashore, concealed his canoe behind some boulders,
+and trusting to Fleur's nose and ears to guard him from surprise, slept
+the sleep of exhaustion. Later, while his breakfast was cooking, Jean
+revelled in his reunion with his dog. In the weeks since he had last
+seen her she had fairly leaped in height and weight. Food had been
+plenty with the half-breeds and Fleur was not starved, but his blood
+boiled at the evidence she bore of the breeds' brutality. He now
+regretted that he had not ambushed the confederate of the man he had
+beaten, and branded him, also, as the puppy had been marked.
+
+Though Fleur was but six months old, the heavy legs and already massive
+lines of her head gave promise of a maturity, unusual, even in the
+Ungava breed. Some day, mused Marcel, as Fleur looked her love of the
+master through her slant, brown eyes, her head on his knee, he would
+have a dog-team equal to the famous huskies of his grandfather, Pierre
+Marcel, who once took the Christmas mail from Albany to Fort Hope, four
+hundred and fifty miles, over a drifted trail, in twelve days.
+
+"Yes, some day Fleur will give Jean Marcel a team," he said aloud, and
+rubbed the gray ears while Fleur's hairy throat rumbled in delight as
+though she were struggling to answer: "Some day, Jean Marcel; for Fleur
+will not forget how you came from the north and brought her home." And
+then the muscles of his lean face twisted with pain as he went on: "But
+who will there be to work for with Julie gone?"
+
+That day, holding the nose of his canoe on Mount Sherrick, Jean crossed
+the mouth of Rupert Bay and headed up the coast. In three days he was at
+East Main, where he bought dried whitefish for Fleur, for huskies thrive
+on whitefish as on no other food, and salt to cure geese; then started
+the same night for Fort George. Two days out he was driven ashore by
+the first north-wester and held prisoner, while he added to his supply
+of geese, which he salted down.
+
+After the storm he toiled on day after day, praying that the stinging
+northers bringing the "freeze-up" would hold off until he sighted Whale
+River. At night, seated beneath the sombre cliffs by his drift-wood fire
+with Fleur at his side, he often watched the wonder of the Northern
+Lights, marvelling at their mystery, as they pulsed and waned and flared
+again over the sullen Bay, then streamed up across the heavens, and
+diffusing, veiled the stars, which twinkled through with a mystic blue
+light. The "Spirits of the Dead at Play," the Esquimos called those
+dancing phantoms of the skies; and he thought of his own dead and
+wondered if their spirits were at peace.
+
+And then, as he lay, a blanketed shape beside his sleeping puppy, came
+dreams to mock him--dreams of Julie Breton, always happy, and beside
+her, smiling into her face, the handsome Inspector of the East Coast
+posts. Night after night he dreamed of the girl who was slipping away
+from him--who had forgotten Jean Marcel in his mad race south for his
+dog.
+
+On and on he fought his way north through the head-seas, defying
+cross-winds; landing to empty his canoe, and then on to the lee of the
+next island. While his boat would live he travelled, for September was
+drawing to a close and over him hung the menace of the first stinging
+northers which for days would anchor his frail craft to the beach. Hard
+on their heels would follow the nipping nights of the "freeze-up," which
+would shackle the waterways, locking the land in a grip of ice.
+
+Past the beetling shoulders of the Black Whale, past the Earthquake
+Islands and Fort George he journeyed, for the brant and blue geese were
+on the coast and he needed no supplies; leaving Caribou Point astern, at
+last the dreaded Cape of the Four Winds loomed through the mist which
+blanketed the flat sea.
+
+It was to this gray headland that he had raced the northers which would
+have held him wind-bound. And he had won.
+
+Rounding the Cape, in five days he stood, a drawn-faced tattered figure
+with Fleur at his side, at the door of the Mission House.
+
+"Jean Marcel! Thank God!" and Julie Breton impulsively kissed the lean
+cheek of the _voyageur_. A whine of protest followed by a smothered
+rumble at such familiarity with her master drew her glance to the great
+puppy. "Fleur! You brought Fleur with you, Jean, as you said you would.
+Oh, we have had much worry about you, Jean Marcel--and how thin you
+are!"
+
+She led man and dog into the building.
+
+"Henri! Come quick and see whom we have with us!"
+
+"Jean, my son!" cried the priest, embracing the returned _voyageur_,
+"and you brought back your dog! It will be a brave tale we shall hear
+to-night!"
+
+The appearance of Marcel and Fleur at the trade-house was greeted with:
+
+"Nom de Dieu! Jean Marcel! And de dog! He return wid hees dog, by Gar!"
+as Jules Duroc sprang to meet him with a bear hug.
+
+"Welcome back, my lad!" cried Colin Gillies, tearing a hand of Jean from
+the emotional Company man. While Angus McCain, joining in the chorus of
+congratulations, was clapping the helpless Marcel on the shoulder, the
+perplexed puppy, worried by the uproar of strangers about her master,
+leaped, tearing the back out of McCain's coat, and was relegated by Jean
+to the stockade outside.
+
+"Well, well, how far did they take you, Jean? Did you have a fuss
+getting your dog?" asked the factor.
+
+"I was one day behind dem at Rupert Bay----"
+
+"What, you've been to Rupert?" interrupted the amazed Gillies.
+
+"Oui, M'sieu. I go to Rupert and see M'sieu Cameron."
+
+"And with one paddle you gained a day on them? Lad, you've surely got
+your father's staying power. Where did you come up with them?"
+
+Then Jean related the details of his capture of Fleur to an open-mouthed
+audience.
+
+"So there's one less dog-stealer on the Bay," drily commented Gillies,
+when Marcel had finished his grim tale.
+
+"Why you not put de bullet een dat oder t'ief, Jean?" demanded the
+bloodthirsty Jules.
+
+"Eet ees not easy to keel a man, onless he steal your dog an' try to
+keel you. I had de dog. One of dem was enough," gravely answered the
+trapper.
+
+"That's right; you had your dog which I thought you'd never see again,"
+approved Gillies. "But your travelling this time of year, with the
+headwinds and sea, up the coast in thirty days, beats me. I was five
+weeks, once, making it with two paddles. You must have your father's
+back, lad. It was the best on this coast in his day; and you've surely
+got his fighting blood."
+
+Basking for three days in the hospitality of the Mission; resting from
+the strain and wear of six weeks' constant toil at the paddle, Marcel
+revelled in Julie's good cooking. To watch her trim figure moving about
+the house; to talk to her while her dusky head bent over her sewing,
+after the loneliness of his long journey, would have been all the heaven
+he asked, had it not been that over it all hung the knowledge that Julie
+Breton was lost to him. Kind she was as a sister is kind, but her heart
+he knew was far in the south at East Main in the keeping of Inspector
+Wallace, to do with it as his manhood prompted. And knowing what he did,
+Marcel kept silence.
+
+On his return he had learned the story from big Jules. All Whale River
+had watched the courting of Julie. All Whale River had seen Wallace and
+the girl walking nightly in the long twilight, and had shaken their
+heads sadly, in sympathy with the lad who was travelling down the coast
+on the mad quest of his puppy. Yes, he had lost her. It was over, and he
+manfully fought the bitterness and despair that was his; tried to forget
+the throbbing pain at his heart, as he made the most of those three
+short days with the girl he loved, and might never see again, as a girl,
+for Marcel was not returning from the Ghost at Christmas.
+
+His dreams were dead. Ambitions for the future had been stripped from
+him, as the withering winds strip a tree of leaves. The home he had
+pictured at Whale River when, in the spring, he fought through to the
+Salmon for a dog-team which should make his fortune, was now a phantom.
+There was nothing left him but the love of his puppy. She would never
+desert Jean Marcel.
+
+But Jean Marcel was a trapper, and the precious days before the ice
+would close the upper Whale and the Ghost to canoe travel were slipping
+past. Before he went south his partners of the previous winter had
+agreed to take with them the supplies, which he had drawn from the post,
+but that they would not net fish for his dog he was certain. Exasperated
+at his determination to go south, they would hardly plan for the dog
+they were confident he would not recover.
+
+So Marcel bade his friends good-bye and with as much cured whitefish as
+he could carry without being held up on the portages by extra trips,
+started with Fleur on the long up-river trail to his trapping grounds.
+
+When he left, he said to Julie in French: "I have not spoken to you of
+what I have heard since my return."
+
+The girl's face flushed but her eyes bravely met his.
+
+"They tell me that you are to marry M'sieu Wallace," he hazarded.
+
+"They do not know, who tell you that!" she exclaimed with spirit.
+"M'sieu Wallace has not asked me to marry him, and beside, he is still a
+Protestant."
+
+Ignoring the evasion, he went on slowly: "But you love him, Julie; and
+he is a great man----"
+
+"Ah, Jean," she broke in, "you are hurt. But you will always be my
+friend, won't you?"
+
+"Yes, I shall always be that." And he was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE CAMP ON THE GHOST
+
+
+Although the stinging winds with swirls of fine snow were already
+driving down the valleys, and nightly the ice filmed the eddies and the
+backwaters, yet the swift river remained open to the speeding canoe
+until, one frosty morning, Marcel waked in camp at the Conjuror's Falls
+to find that the ice had over-night closed in on the quiet reaches of
+the Ghost just above, shackling the river for seven months against canoe
+travel.
+
+Caching his boat and supplies on spruce saplings, he circled each peeled
+trunk with a necklace of large inverted fish-hooks, to foil the raids of
+that arch thief and defiler of caches, the wolverine. That night he
+reached the camp of his partners.
+
+Antoine Beaulieu and Joe Piquet, like Marcel, had lost their immediate
+families in the plague, and the year before, had been only too glad to
+join the Frenchman in a trapping partnership of mutual advantage. For
+while Marcel, son of the former Company head man, with a schooling at
+the Mission, and a skill and daring as canoeman and hunter, beyond their
+own, was looked upon as leader by the half-breeds, Antoine was a good
+hunter, while Joe Piquet's manual dexterity in fashioning snow-shoes,
+making moccasins and building bark canoes rendered him particularly
+useful. Marcel's feat of the previous spring in finding the headwaters
+of the Salmon and his appearance at Whale River with a pure bred Ungava
+husky, to the amazement of the Crees, had increased his influence with
+his partners; but his determination to go south after his dog when it
+was already high time for the three men to start for their
+trapping-grounds had left them in a sullen mood. Because they could use
+them, if he did not return from the south, they had packed his supplies
+over the portages of the Whale and up the Ghost to their camp, but had
+netted no extra whitefish for the dog they felt he would not bring home.
+
+That night they sat long over the fire in the shack they had built the
+autumn previous, listening to Marcel's tale of the rescue of Fleur and
+of the great goose grounds of the south coast.
+
+In the morning Jean waked with the problem of a supply of fish for Fleur
+and himself troubling him, for one of the precepts of Andre Marcel had
+been, "Save your fish for the tail of the winter, for no one knows where
+the caribou will be." Down at Conjuror's Falls, he had cached less than
+two months' rations for his dog, and they were facing seven months of
+the long snows. To be sure, she could live on meat, if meat was to be
+had, but a husky thrives on fish, and Marcel determined that she should
+have it.
+
+Confident of finding game plentiful, his partners, with the usual lack
+of foresight of the Crees, had netted less than three months' supply of
+whitefish and lake-trout. This emergency store Marcel knew would be
+consumed by February, however plentiful the caribou proved to be, for
+the Crees seldom possess the thrift to save against the possible spring
+famine. So he determined to set his net at once.
+
+Borrowing Joe's canoe, he packed it through the "bush" to a good fish
+lake where he set the net under the young ice, and baited lines; then
+taking Fleur, he started cruising out locations for his trap-lines in
+new country, far toward the blue hills of the Salmon watershed, where
+game signs had been thick the previous spring.
+
+Toward the last of October when the snow began to make deep, Fleur's
+education as a sled-dog began. Already the fast growing puppy was
+creeping up toward one hundred pounds in weight, and soon, under the
+kind but firm tutelage of the master, was as keen to be harnessed for a
+run as a veteran husky of the winter trails.
+
+When he had set and baited his traps over a wide circle of new country
+to the north, Jean returned to his net and lines, and at the end of ten
+days had a supply of trout and whitefish for Fleur, which he cached at
+the lake. On his return, Antoine and Joe derided his labors when the
+caribou trails networked the muskegs, but Marcel ignored them.
+
+It looked like a good winter for game. Snow-shoe rabbits were plentiful
+and wherever their runways led in and out of the scrub-spruce and fir
+covers, there those furred assassins of the forest, the fox and the
+lynx, the fisher and the marten, were sure to make their
+hunting-grounds. During November and December, when pelts are at their
+best, the men made a harvest at their traps. The caribou were still on
+the barrens feeding on the white moss from which they scraped the snow
+with their large, round-toed hoofs, and the rabbit snares furnished stew
+whenever the trappers craved a change from caribou steaks. But no Indian
+will eat rabbit as a regular diet while he can get red meat. This
+varying hare of the north, which, so often, in the spring, from Labrador
+to the Yukon, stands between the red trapper and starvation, has a
+flavor which quickly palls on the taste, and never quite seems to
+satisfy hunger. The Crees often speak of "starving on rabbits."
+
+During these weeks following the trap-lines, learning the ways of the
+winter forest after a puppyhood on the coast, as Fleur grew in bulk and
+strength, so her affection deepened for Jean Marcel. Now nearly a year
+old, she easily drew the sled loaded with the meat of a caribou into
+camp, on a beaten trail. At night in the tent Marcel had pitched and
+banked with snow, as a half-way camp on the round of his trap-lines, she
+would sit with hairy ears pointed, watching his every movement, looking
+unutterable adoration as he scraped his pelts, stretching them on frames
+to dry or mended his clothes and moccasins. Then, before he turned in to
+his plaited, rabbit-skin blankets, warmer by far than any fur robes
+known in the north, Fleur invariably demanded her evening romp. Taking a
+hand in her jaws which never closed, she would lift her lips, baring her
+white fangs in a snarl of mimic anger, as she swung her head from side
+to side, until, seizing her, Jean rolled her on her back, while rumbles
+and growls from her shaggy throat voiced her delight.
+
+Back at the main camp, Fleur, true to her breed, merely tolerated the
+presence of Antoine and Joe, indifferent to all offers of friendship.
+Moving away at their approach, she suffered neither of them to place
+hand upon her. At night she slept outside in the snow, where the thick
+mat of fine fur under the long hair rendered her immune to cold.
+
+And all these weeks Jean Marcel was fighting out his battle with self.
+Always, the struggle went ceaselessly on--the struggle with his heart
+to give up Julie Breton. Reason though he would, that he had nothing to
+give her, while this great man of the Company had everything, his love
+for the girl kept alive the embers of hope. He carried the memory of her
+sweetness over the white trails by day and at night again wandered with
+her in the twilight as in the days before the figure of Wallace darkened
+his life.
+
+As Christmas approached, Jean wondered whether Wallace would spend it in
+Whale River, and was glad that they had not intended, because of the
+great distance, to go back for the festivities at the post. Should he
+ever see her again as Julie Breton? he asked himself. Wallace would
+change his religion. Surely no man would balk at that, to get Julie. And
+the spring would see them married. Well, he should go on loving her--and
+Fleur; there was no one else.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE WARNING IN THE WIND
+
+
+One afternoon toward the end of the year when the early dusk had turned
+Marcel back toward camp from his most northerly line of marten traps, he
+suddenly stopped in his tracks on the ridge from which he had seen the
+lake on the Salmon headwaters the spring previous. Pushing back the hood
+of his caribou capote to free his ears, he listened, motionless. Beside
+him, with black nostrils quivering, Fleur sniffed the stinging air.
+
+Again the faint, far, wailing chorus which had checked him, reached
+Marcel's ears. The dog stiffened, her mane rising as she bared her white
+fangs.
+
+"You heard it too, Fleur?" muttered the man, softly, resting a
+rabbit-skin mitten on the broad head of the nervous husky. Marcel gazed
+long at the floor of snow to the north through wind-whipped ridges.
+
+"Ah-hah!" he exclaimed, "dey turn dees way." Clearer now the stiff
+breeze carried the call of the hunting wolves. Fleur burst into a frenzy
+of yelping. Seizing the dog, Marcel calmed her into silence. Then, after
+an interval, the cry of the pack slowly faded, and shortly, the man's
+straining ears caught no sound save the fretting of the wind through the
+spruce.
+
+Wolves he had often heard, singly, and in groups of four and five, but
+the hunting howl which had been brought to him through the hills by the
+wind, he knew was not the clamor of a handful of timber-wolves, but the
+blood chorus of a pack. None but the white-wolves which, far to the
+north, hung on the flanks of the caribou herds could raise such a
+hunting cry and there was but one reason for their drifting south from
+the great Ungava barrens.
+
+It was a sober face that Jean Marcel wore back to his camp. Large
+numbers of arctic wolves in the country meant the departure of the
+trapper's chief source of meat--the caribou. With the caribou gone, they
+had their limited supply of fish, and the rabbits, eked out by the
+flour, which would not carry them far, for the half-breeds, in spite of
+his warnings, had already consumed half of it. To be sure, the rabbits
+would pull them through to the "break-up" of the long snows in April;
+would keep them from actual starvation. Then he cursed his partners for
+failing to make themselves independent of meat by netting more fish in
+September.
+
+"To-morrow," said Marcel, on his return next day to the main camp, "we
+start for de barren and hunt de deer hard while dey stay in dees
+countree." The partners spoke, at times, in French patois and Cree, at
+times in broken English.
+
+"Wat you say, Jean? I got trap-line to travel to-morrow," objected
+Antoine Beaulieu.
+
+"I say dis," returned Marcel, commanding the attention of the two men by
+the gravity of his face. "De deer will not be in dis countree een
+t'ree--four day."
+
+"Ha! Ha! dat ees good joke, Jean Marcel!" exclaimed Piquet.
+
+"Oui, dat ees good joke!" returned Marcel, rising and shaking a finger
+in the grinning faces of his partners. "But I say dis to you, Antoine
+Beaulieu an' Joe Piquet. We go to de barren and hunt deer to-morrow or I
+tak' my share of flour and mak' my own camp."
+
+Marcel's threat sobered the half-breeds. They had no desire to break
+with the Frenchman, whose initiative and daring they respected.
+
+"De deer are plentee, I count seexteen to-day," argued Antoine.
+
+"Oui, to-day de deer are here, but, whiff!" Jean waved his hand, "an'
+dey are gone; for las' night I hear de white wolves, not t'ree or four,
+but manee, ver' manee, drive de deer in de hills. Dey starve in de nord
+and come here for meat. To-morrow we go!"
+
+Piquet and Beaulieu readily admitted that the white wolves, if they
+appeared in numbers, would drive the caribou--called deer, in the
+north--out of the country, but they insisted that what Jean had heard
+was the echoing of the call and answer of three or four timber wolves
+gathering for a hunt. Never in his life had Joe Piquet, who was thirty,
+heard of arctic wolves appearing on the Great Whale headwaters. Thus
+they argued, but Jean was obdurate. On the following day the three men
+started back into the barrens with Fleur and the sled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE WORK OF THE WHITE WOLVES
+
+
+The first day, by hard hunting they shot three caribou, but to the
+surprise and chagrin of Antoine and Joe, on the second day, in a country
+where they had never failed to get meat earlier in the winter, the
+hunters got but one. After that not a caribou was seen on the wide
+barrens, while many trails were crossed, all heading south, and
+following the signs of the fleeing caribou were the tracks of wolves,
+not singly or in couples, but in packs.
+
+When the hunters had satisfied themselves that the caribou had left the
+country, they relayed their meat into camp with the help of Fleur and
+lines attached to the sled to aid her.
+
+That night the trappers took council. The caribou meat, flour and
+remaining fish, counting Jean's cache at Conjuror's Falls, would take
+them into February. After that, it would be rabbits through March and
+April until the fish began to move. In the meantime a few lake trout and
+pike could be caught with lines through holes in the ice. Also, setting
+the net under three feet of ice could be accomplished with infinite
+labor, but the results in midwinter were always a matter of doubt.
+
+"You had all September to net fish, but what did you do? You grew fat on
+deer meat," flung out Jean bitterly, thinking of his hungry puppy who
+required nourishing food in these months of rapid growth.
+
+"How much feesh you got in dat cache?" demanded Piquet, ignoring the
+remark.
+
+"About one hundred fifty pound," replied Marcel.
+
+"Not on Conjur' Fall, I mean at de lac."
+
+The fish Jean had netted and cached at the lake, on arriving in October,
+were designed for his dog and already had been partly used.
+
+"Only little left at de lac," he replied.
+
+"Dat feesh belong to us all; de dog can leeve on rabbit."
+
+Piquet's remark brought the blood to Jean's face.
+
+"De dog gets her share of feesh, do you hear dat, Joe?" rasped Marcel,
+his eyes blazing. "You and Antoine got no right to dat feesh; you refuse
+to help me and you laugh when I net dat feesh. De dog gets her share,
+Joe Piquet!" Marcel rose, facing the others with a glitter in his eyes
+that had its effect on Piquet.
+
+"We have bad tam, dees spreeng, for sure," moaned Antoine. "I weesh we
+net more feesh."
+
+"Well, I tell you what to do," said Jean. "Eef de feesh do not bite tru
+de ice or come to de net, we travel over to de Salmon, plentee beaver
+dere."
+
+At the suggestion of moving into the unknown country to the north, with
+its dread valleys peopled with spirits, the superstitious half-breeds
+shook their heads. Rather starve on the Whale, they said, than in the
+haunted valleys where the voices of the Windigo filled the nights with
+fear.
+
+With a disgusted shrug of his wide shoulders, Marcel dismissed the
+subject. "All right, starve on de Ghost, de Windigo get you on de
+Salmon."
+
+With the disappearance of the caribou the partners began setting rabbit
+snares to save their meat and flour. Jean brought up the last of his
+fish from Conjuror's Falls but refused to touch his cache at the lake.
+With strict economy and a liberal diet of rabbit, they decided that
+their food could carry them into March. Jean wished to keep the flour
+untouched for emergency, but the half-breeds, characteristically
+optimistic, counted on a return of the caribou, and they always had
+rabbit to fall back upon.
+
+During the last week in January while following his trap-lines, Jean
+made a discovery the gravity of which drove him in haste back to the
+camp on the Ghost.
+
+"How many long snows since de plague, Joe?" he asked.
+
+His comrades turned startled eyes on the speaker. Piquet slowly counted
+on his fingers the winters since the last plague all but exterminated
+the snow-shoe rabbits, then leaping to his feet, cried: "By Gar! eet ees
+not dees year. No, no! de ole man at de trade said de nex' long snow
+after dees will be de plague."
+
+"Well, de old men were wrong," Marcel calmly insisted, as his companions
+paled at the meaning of his words. "Eet ees dees year w'en you net
+leetle feesh, dat de rabbits die."
+
+"No, eet ees a meestake!" they protested as the lean features of the
+Frenchman hardened in a bitter smile.
+
+"On de last trip to my traps," went on the imperturbable Marcel, "I find
+four rabbit dead from de plague an' since de last snow I cross few fresh
+tracks."
+
+"I fin' none een two days myself," echoed Antoine.
+
+The stark truth of Marcel's contention drove itself home. At last,
+convinced, they gazed with blanched faces into each others' eyes from
+which looked fear--fear of the dread weeks of the March moon and the
+slow death which starvation might bring. The grim spectre which ever
+hovers over the winter camps in the white silences now menaced the
+shack on the Ghost.
+
+Shortly, fresh rabbit tracks became rare. After years of plenty, the
+days of lean hunting for lynx and fox had returned. The plague, which
+periodically sweeps the north, would bring starvation, as well, to many
+a tepee of the improvident children of the snows.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+POOR FLEUR
+
+
+As the weeks went by, the food cache at the camp on the Ghost steadily
+shrank. The nets under the ice and the set-lines were now bringing no
+fish. More and more Jean slept in his half-way camp ten miles north, for
+although the short rations he fed Fleur had been obtained solely by his
+own efforts, Joe and Antoine objected to the well-nourished look of the
+puppy while they grew thin and slowly weakened. But, for generations,
+the huskies have been accustomed to starvation, and if not slaving with
+the sleds, will for weeks show but slight effect from short rations.
+Besides, Fleur had, from necessity and instinct, become a hunter, and
+many a ptarmigan and stray rabbit she picked up foraging for herself.
+
+To increase the difficulty of hunting for food, January had brought
+blizzard after blizzard, piling deep with drifts the trails to their
+trap-lines, which they still visited regularly, for the starved lynxes
+were coming to the bait of the flesh of their kin in greater and greater
+numbers. Twice, seeking the return of the caribou, the desperate men
+travelled far into the barrens beaten by the withering January winds,
+returning with wind-burned, frost-blackened faces, for no man may face
+for long the needle-pointed scourge of the midwinter northers off the
+Straits.
+
+Finally, in desperation, when the flour was gone, and the food cache
+held barely enough meat and fish for two weeks, Joe and Antoine insisted
+that, while they had food to carry them through, they make for the post.
+
+"You can crawl into de post lak a starving Cree because you were too
+lazy to net feesh. I will stay in de bush with my dog," was Jean's
+scornful reply.
+
+But the situation was desperate. With two months remaining before the
+big thaw in April, when they could rely on plenty of fish, there seemed
+but one alternative, unless the caribou returned or the fish began to
+move. A few trout and an occasional rabbit and ptarmigan would not keep
+them alive until the "break-up," when the bear would leave their
+"washes" and the caribou start north. Already with revolting stomachs
+they had begun to eat starved lynx. If only they could get beaver, but
+there were no beaver on the Ghost. It was clear that they must find game
+shortly or retreat to Whale River.
+
+One night Jean reached his fish cache on his return from a three days'
+hunt toward the Salmon waters. At last he had found beaver, and caching
+two at his tent, with his heart high with hope, was bringing the
+carcasses of three more to his partners. As he approached the cache in
+the gathering dusk, to his surprise he found the fresh tracks of
+snow-shoes.
+
+"Ah-hah!" he muttered, his mouth twisted in a grim smile, "so dey rob de
+cache of Jean Marcel while he travel sixty mile to get dem beaver!"
+
+The last of Fleur's pitiful little store of fish was gone. The cache was
+stripped.
+
+Jean shook his head sadly. So he could no longer trust these men whose
+hunger had made them thieves, he mused. Well, he would break with them
+at once. "Poor Fleur!" He patted the sniffing nose of his dog.
+
+Bitter with the discovery, Marcel drove Fleur over the trail to the
+camp. Opening the slab-door he surprised the half-breeds gorging
+themselves from a steaming kettle of trout. But hunger had driven them
+past all sense of shame. Looking up sullenly, they waited for him to
+speak.
+
+"Bon soir, my friends! I see you have had luck at de lines," he
+surprised them with. "I have three nice fat beaver for you."
+
+The hollow eyes of Joe and Antoine met in a questioning look. Then
+Piquet brazened it out.
+
+"Beaver, eh? Dat soun' good, fat beaver!" and he smacked his thin lips
+greedily.
+
+"W'ere you get beaver, Jean?" asked Antoine, now that the tension due to
+Jean's appearance had relaxed.
+
+"W'ere I tell you I would fin' dem, nord, een de valley of de spirits,"
+he laughed.
+
+Marcel heaped a tin dish from the kettle, and slipping outside, fed
+Fleur.
+
+"Here, Fleur!" he called, "ees some of feesh dat Joe has boiled for you.
+Wat, you lak' eet bettair raw? Well, Joe he lak' eet boiled."
+
+Returning, Jean ate heartily of the lake trout. When he had finished and
+lighted his pipe, he said: "You weel fin' de beaver on de cache. I leeve
+een de morning for Salmon riviere country."
+
+"W'at, you goin' leave us, Jean?" cried Antoine visibly disturbed.
+
+"Oui, I don't trap wid t'ief!" The cold eyes of Marcel bored into those
+of Beaulieu which wavered and fell. But Piquet accepted the challenge.
+
+"W'at you t'ink, Jean Marcel, you geeve dose feesh to de dog w'en we
+starve?" he sullenly demanded. "We eat de dog, also, before we starve."
+
+"You eat de dog, eh, Joe Piquet? Dat ees good joke. You 'av' to keel de
+dog and Jean Marcel first, my frien'," sneered Marcel. "I net feesh for
+my dog and you not help me but laugh; now you tak' dem from my dog.
+Bien! I am tru wid you both! I geeve you de beaver and bid you, bon
+jour, to-morrow!"
+
+Antoine was worried, for he knew too well what the loss of Marcel would
+mean to them in the days to come. But the sullen Piquet in whom toil and
+starvation were bringing to the surface traits common to the half-breed,
+treated Marcel's going with seeming indifference.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE MARK OF THE BREED
+
+
+Deep in the night, Marcel waked cold. Lifting his head from the
+blankets, his face met an icy draft driving through the open door of the
+shack which framed a patch of sky swarming with frozen stars.
+
+Wondering why the door was open, he rose to close it, when the starlight
+fell on Piquet's empty bunk.
+
+"Ah-hah! Joe he steal some more, maybe!" he muttered, hastily drawing on
+his moccasins.
+
+Then stepping into the thongs of his snow-shoes which stood in the snow
+beside the door, he hurried to the cache.
+
+Beneath the food scaffold crouched a dark form.
+
+"So you steal my share of de meat and hide eet, before I go, eh? You
+t'ief!"
+
+Caught in the act, Piquet rose from the provision bags as Marcel reached
+him, to take full in the face a blow backed by the concentrated fury of
+the Frenchman. Reeling back against a spruce support to the cache, the
+dazed half-breed sank to his snow-shoes, then, slowly struggling to his
+knees, lunged wildly with his knife at the man sneering down at him.
+Missing, Piquet's thrust carried him head-first into the snow, his arms
+buried to the shoulders. In a flash, Marcel fell on the prostrate breed
+with his full weight, driving both knees hard into Piquet's back. With a
+smothered grunt the half-breed lay limp in the snow.
+
+"Get up, Antoine!" called Marcel, returning to the shack with Fleur, who
+had left her bed under a spruce, "you fin' a cache-robber, widout fur on
+heem, out dere. I tak' my grub an' go."
+
+"W'ere ees Joe?" asked the confused Beaulieu, rubbing his eyes.
+
+"Joe, he got w'at t'ieves deserve. Go an' see."
+
+Antoine appeared shortly, followed by the muttering Piquet.
+
+"Ah, bo'-jo', M'sieu Carcajou! You have wake up," Jean jeered.
+
+One of Piquet's beady eyes was swollen shut, but the other snapped
+evilly as he limped to his bunk.
+
+Taking his share of the food, Marcel loaded his sled, hitched Fleur,
+then looked into the shack, where he found the two men arguing
+excitedly.
+
+"A'voir, Antoine! Better hide your grub or M'sieu Wolverine weel steal
+eet w'ile you sleep."
+
+With an oath, Piquet was on his feet with his knife, but Beaulieu hurled
+him back on his bunk and held him, as he cursed the man who stood
+coolly in the doorway, sneering at the helpless breed blocked in his
+attempt at revenge.
+
+"A'voir, Antoine!" Jean repeated, as the troubled face of Beaulieu
+turned to the old partner he respected, "don' let de carcajou keel you
+for de grub." And ignoring the proffered hand of the hunter who followed
+him out to the sled, took the trail north.
+
+As dawn broke blue over the bald ridges to the east, Marcel raised his
+set-lines and net at the lake and pushed on toward the silent hills of
+the Salmon headwaters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+FOR LOVE OF A MAN
+
+
+It had been with the feeling of a heavy load loosed from his shoulders
+that the Frenchman left the Ghost. Disgusted with the laziness and lack
+of foresight of his partners in the autumn; through the strain and worry
+of the winter he had gradually lost all confidence in their capacity to
+fight through until spring brought back the fishing; and now this
+robbery of his cache and the affair with Piquet had made him a free man.
+
+For Antoine, the friend of his youth, ever easily led but at heart,
+honest enough, he held only feelings of disgust; but with the
+crooked-souled Piquet, henceforth it should be war to the knife. Knowing
+that there were more beaver in the white valleys of the Salmon country,
+Marcel faced with hope the March crust and the long weeks of the April
+thaws, when rotting ice would bar the waterways and soggy snow, the
+trails, to all travel. Somehow, he and Fleur would pull through and see
+Julie Breton and Whale River again. Somehow, they would live, but it
+meant a dogged will and day after day, many a white mile of drudgery for
+himself and the dog he loved. Crawl starved and beaten into Whale
+River--caught like a mink in a trap by the pinch of the pitiless
+snows--no Marcel ever did, and he would not be the first.
+
+The February dusk hung in the spruce surrounding the half-way camp of
+Marcel beside a pond in the hills dividing the watershed of the Ghost
+from the Salmon. For three days Jean had been picking up his traps
+preparatory to making the break north to the beaver country. With a
+light load, for Fleur could not haul much over her weight on a freshly
+broken trail in the soft snow, the toboggan-sled stood before the tent
+ready for an early start under the stars. From the smoke-hole of the
+small tepee the sign of cooking rose straight into the biting air, for
+there was no wind. But the half-ration of trout and beaver which was
+simmering in the kettle would leave the clamoring stomach of the man
+unsatisfied. With the three beaver he had brought from the north and the
+fish and caribou from the Ghost, Marcel still had food for himself and
+his dog for a fortnight, but he was not an Indian and was husbanding his
+scanty store. Fleur had already bolted her fish, more supper than her
+master allowed himself, for Fleur was still growing fast and her need
+was greater.
+
+Disliking the smoke from the fire which often filled the tepee, Fleur
+slept outside under the low branches of a fir, and when it snowed,
+waked warm beneath a white blanket. For, enured to the cold, the husky
+knows no winter shelter and needs none, sleeping curled, nose in bushy
+tail, in a hole dug in the snow, through the bitter nights without frost
+bite.
+
+As the dusk slowly blanketed the forest, here and there stars pricked
+out of the dark canopy of sky to light gradually the white hills rolling
+away north to the dread valleys of the forbidden land of the Crees.
+Later, as the night deepened, the Milky Way drew its trail across the
+swarming stars. In the pinch of the strengthening cold, spruce and
+jack-pine snapped in the encircling forest, while the ice of lake and
+river, contracting, boomed intermittently, like the shot of distant
+artillery.
+
+On the northern horizon, the camp-fires of the giants flickered and
+glowed, fitfully; then, at length, loosing their bonds, snake-like
+ribbons of light writhed and twisted from the sky-line to the high
+heavens, in grotesque traceries; and across the white wastes of the
+polar stage swept the eerie "Dance of the Spirits."
+
+For a space Jean stood outside the tepee watching the never-ceasing
+wonder of the aurora; then sending Fleur to her bed, sought his
+blankets. But no sting of freezing air might keep the furred and
+feathered marauders of the night from their hunting; for faintly on the
+tense silence floated the "hoo-hoo!" of the snowy owl, patrolling the
+haunts of the wood-mice. Out of the murk of a cedar swamp rose the
+scream of a starving lynx. Presently, over star-lit ridges drifted the
+call of a mating timber wolf.
+
+The Northern Lights had dimmed and faded. Sentinel stars alone guarded
+the white solitudes, when, from the gloom of the spruce out into the
+lighted snow moved a dark shape. Noiselessly the muffled racquettes of
+the skulker advanced. As the figure crept nearer the tent, it suddenly
+stopped, frozen into rigidity, head forward, as though listening. After
+a space, it stirred again. Something held in the hands glinted in the
+starlight, like steel. It was the action of a rifle, made bright by
+wear.
+
+When the creeping shape reached the banking of the tepee, again it
+stopped, stiff as a spruce. The seconds lengthened into minutes. Then a
+hand reached out to the canvas. In the hand was a knife. Slowly the keen
+edge sawed at the frozen fabric. At last the tent was slit.
+
+Leaning forward the hunter of sleeping men enlarged the opening and
+pressed his face to the rent. Long he gazed into the darkened tepee.
+Then withdrawing his hooded head, he shook it slowly as if in doubt.
+Finally, as though decided on his course, he thrust the barrel of his
+rifle through the opening and dropped his head as if to aim; when, from
+the rear a gray shape catapulted into his back, flattening him on the
+snow. As the weight of the dog struck the crouching assassin, his rifle
+exploded inside the tent, followed by a scream of terror.
+
+Again and again the long fangs of the husky slashed at the throat of the
+writhing thing in the snow. Again and again the massive jaws snapped and
+tore, first the capote, then the exposed neck, to ribbons. Then with
+cocked rifle the dazed Marcel, waked by the gun fired in his ears,
+reached them.
+
+With difficulty dragging his dog from the crumpled shape, Marcel looked,
+and from the bloodied face grimacing horribly in death above the mangled
+throat, stared the glazed eyes of Joe Piquet.
+
+"By Gar! You travel far for de grub and de _revanche_, Joe Piquet," he
+exclaimed. Turning to the dog, snarling with hate of the prowling thing
+she had destroyed, Jean led her away.
+
+"Fleur, ma petite!" he cried, "she took good care of Jean Marcel while
+he sleep. Piquet, he thought he keel us both in de tent. He nevaire see
+Fleur under de fir." The great dog trembling with the heat of battle,
+her mane stiff, yelped excitedly. "She love Jean Marcel, my Fleur; and
+what a strength she has!" Rearing, Fleur placed her massive fore-paws
+on Marcel's chest, whining up into his face; then seizing a hand in her
+jaws, proudly drew him back to the dead man in the snow. There, raising
+her head, as if in warning to all enemies of her master, she sent out
+over the white hills the challenging howl of the husky.
+
+When Jean Marcel had buried the frozen body of Joe Piquet in a drift
+over the ridge, where the April thaws would betray him to the mercy of
+his kind, the forest creatures of tooth and beak and claw, he started
+back to the Ghost with Fleur, taking Piquet's rifle to be returned to
+his people with his fur and outfit. Confident that Antoine had had no
+part in the attempt to kill him and get his provisions, he wished
+Beaulieu to know Piquet's fate, as Antoine would now in all probability
+make for Whale River and could carry a message. Furthermore if anything
+had by chance happened to Beaulieu, Marcel wished to know it before
+starting north.
+
+As Fleur drew him swiftly over the trail, ice-hard from much travelling,
+Jean decided that if Antoine wished to fight out the winter in the
+Salmon country, for the sake of their old friendship he would overlook
+the half-breed's weakness under Piquet's influence, and offer to take
+him.
+
+Dawn was wavering in the gray east when Marcel reached the silent camp.
+He called loudly to wake the sleeping man inside; but there was no
+response.
+
+Marcel's heavy eyebrows contracted in a puzzled look.
+
+"Allo, Antoine!" Still no answer. Was he to find here more of the work
+of Joe Piquet? he wondered, as he swung back the slab-door of the shack
+and peered into the dim interior.
+
+There in his bunk lay the half-breed.
+
+"Wake up, Antoine!" Marcel cried, approaching the bunk; then the faint
+light from the open door fell on the gray face of Antoine Beaulieu,
+stiff in death.
+
+"Tiens!" muttered Marcel. "Stabbed tru de heart w'en he sleep. Joe
+Piquet, he t'ink to get our feesh and beaver and fur, den he tell dem at
+Whale Riviere we starve out. Poor Antoine!"
+
+Sick with the discovery, Jean sat beside the dead man, his head in his
+hands. Bitterly now, he regretted that he had refused the hand of his
+old friend in parting; that he had not taken him with him when he left
+the Ghost. It was clear that before starting to stalk Marcel's camp,
+Piquet had deemed it safer to seal the lips of Beaulieu forever as to
+the fate of the man he planned to kill.
+
+"Poor Antoine!" Marcel sadly repeated. Outside, Fleur, fretting at the
+presence of death, whined to be off.
+
+In the cold sunrise, Jean lashed the body of his boyhood friend, which
+he had sewed in some canvas, on the food cache, that it might rest in
+peace undefiled by the forest creatures, until on his return in May he
+might give it decent burial. Beside it he placed the fur-packs, rifles
+and outfits of the two men.
+
+"Adieu, Antoine!" he called, waving his hand at the shrouded shape on
+the cache, and turned north.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE STARVING MOON
+
+
+March, the Crees' "Moon of the Crust on the Snow," was old. Camped on a
+chain of lakes in the Salmon country Marcel had been following the few
+traps for which he had bait and at the same time hunting widely for
+food. Soon, the sun, mounting higher and higher each day at noon, would
+begin to soften the surface of the snow which the freezing nights would
+harden into crust. Then he could travel far and fast. With much
+searching he had found another beaver lodge, postponing for a space the
+days when man and dog would have not even half rations to stay their
+hunger. The Frenchman's drawn face and loose capote evidenced the weeks
+of under-nourishment; but, though Fleur's great bones and the ropes of
+muscle, banding her back and shoulders, thrust through her shaggy coat
+with undue prominence, still she had as yet suffered little from the
+famine. So long as Jean Marcel had had fish or meat, his growing puppy
+had received the greater share, for she had already attained in that
+winter on the Ghost a height and bulk of bone equal to that of her
+slate-gray mother now far on the north coast.
+
+For days Jean had been praying for the coming of the crust. With it he
+planned to make a wide circle back into the high barrens in search of
+returning caribou. Once the crust had set hard, travelling with the sled
+into new country would be easy. Food he must accumulate to take them
+through the April thaws, or perish miserably, with no one to carry the
+news of their fate to Whale River. Since the heart-breaking days when
+the white wolves drove the caribou south and the rabbits disappeared, he
+had, in moments of depression, sat by the fire at night, wondering, when
+June again came to Whale River and one by one the canoes of the Crees
+appeared, if, by chance, a pair of dark eyes would ever turn to the
+broad surface of the river for the missing craft of Jean Marcel--whether
+in the joy of her love for another the heart of the girl would sadden
+for one whose bones whitened in far Ungava hills.
+
+At last the crust came. With eyes shielded by snow goggles made by
+cutting slits in flat pieces of spruce, for the glare of the sun on the
+barrens was intense, Jean started with his dog. All the food he had was
+on his sled. He had burned his bridges, for if he failed in his hunt,
+they would starve, but as well starve in the barrens, he thought, as
+back at camp.
+
+They were passing through the thick spruce of a sheltered valley,
+travelling up-wind, when Fleur, sniffing hard, grew excited. There was
+something ahead, probably fur, so he did not tie his dog. Shortly Fleur
+started to bolt with the sled and Jean turned her loose. Following his
+yelping husky, who broke through the new crust at every leap, Marcel
+entered a patch of cedar scrub. There Fleur distanced him.
+
+Shortly, a scream, followed by a din of snarls and squalls filled the
+forest. Close ahead a bitter struggle of creatures milling to the death
+was on. "Tiens!" exclaimed Jean, fearing for the eyes of his raw puppy,
+battling for the first time with the great cat of the north. He broke
+through the scrub to see the lynx spring backward from the rush of the
+dog and leap for the limbs of a low cedar. But the cat was too slow, for
+at the same instant, Fleur's jaws snapped on his loins, and with a
+wrench of her powerful neck, the husky threw the animal to the snow with
+a broken back. In a flash she changed her grip, the long fangs crunching
+through the neck of the helpless beast, and with a quiver, the lynx was
+dead.
+
+Hot with the lust of battle, Fleur worried the body of her enemy.
+Reaching her, Jean proudly patted his dog's back.
+
+"My Fleur! She make de _loup-cervier_ run!" he cried, delighted with
+the courage and power of his puppy.
+
+Then he anxiously examined the slashes of rapier claws on Fleur's muzzle
+and shoulders.
+
+"Bon!" he said, relieved. "De lynx he very weak or he cut you deeper dan
+dese scratch."
+
+As Jean hastily skinned the dead cat he marvelled at its emaciation.
+
+"Ah! He also miss de rabbit. Lucky he starve or you get de beeg scratch,
+Fleur."
+
+For answer the hot tongue of the dog sought his hands as she raised her
+brown eyes to his. With arms around her shaggy shoulders her proud
+master muttered into the ears of the delighted husky love words that
+would have been strange indeed to any but Fleur, who found them sweet
+beyond measure.
+
+"My Fleur, she grow to be de dog, de most _sauvage_!" he cried. "Some
+day she keel de wolf, eh?"
+
+Owing to the weakened condition of the lynx, Fleur's were but surface
+scratches. So furious had been the husky's assault on the starved cat
+that she had left no opening to the knife-like claws of the powerful
+hind legs.
+
+Continuing east, four days later Marcel camped in a valley on the flank
+of a great barren. In the morning, tying Fleur with a rawhide thong
+which she could have chewed through with ease but had been taught to
+respect, he followed the scrub along the edge of the barren searching
+for caribou signs. Often he stopped to gaze out across the white waste
+reaching away east to the horizon, seeking for blue-gray objects whose
+movements in scraping away the snow to the moss beneath, would alone
+mark them as caribou. In places the great winds had swept the plateau
+almost bare, beating down the snow to a depth of less than a foot. All
+day he skirted the barren but at last turned back to his camp sick at
+heart and spent with the long day on the crust, following his meagre
+breakfast. Deep in the shelter of the thick timber of the valley, he had
+dug away the snow for his fire and sleeping place, lashing above his bed
+of spruce boughs a strip of canvas which acted both as windbreak and
+heat reflector. When they had eaten their slim supper, he freshened the
+fire with birch logs, and sat down with Fleur's head between his knees.
+The "Starving Moon" of the Montagnais hung over Jean Marcel.
+
+"Fleur, you know we got onlee two day meat left? W'en dat go, Jean
+Marcel go too--een few day, a week maybe; and Fleur, w'at she do?"
+
+The husky's slant eyes shone with her dog love into the set face of her
+master. She whined, wrinkling her gray nose, then her jaw dropped,
+which was her manner of laughing, while her hot breath steamed in the
+freezing air. Vainly she waited for the smile that had never failed to
+light Marcel's face in the old days at such advances.
+
+Dropping his mittens Jean held the massive head between his naked hands.
+
+"Jean Marcel feel ver' bad to leave Fleur alone. Wid no game she starve
+too, w'en he go," he said.
+
+Fleur's deep throat rumbled in ecstasy as the hands of the master rubbed
+her ears.
+
+"Back on de Ghost, Fleur, ees some feesh and meat Joe and Antoine left;
+not much, but eet tak' us to Whale Riviere, maybe."
+
+The lips of Fleur lifted from her white teeth at the names of Jean's
+partners.
+
+"You remember Joe Piquet, Fleur? Joe Piquet!"
+
+The husky growled. She knew only too well the name, Joe Piquet.
+
+"Eet ees four--five sleep to de Ghost, Fleur, shall we go? W'at you
+t'ink?"
+
+The strained face in the fur-lined hood approached the dog's, whose eyes
+shifted uneasily from the fixed look of her master.
+
+"We go back to de Ghost, Fleur, or mak' one beeg hunt for de deer?"
+
+The perplexed husky, unable to meet Marcel's piercing eyes, sprang to
+her feet with a yelp.
+
+"Bon!" he cried. "We mak' de beeg hunt!" He had had his answer and on
+the yelp of his dog had staked their fate. To-morrow he would push on
+into the barrens and find the caribou drifting north again, or flicker
+out with his dog as men for centuries had perished, beaten by the long
+snows.
+
+In the morning he divided his remaining food into four parts; a
+breakfast and a supper for himself and Fleur, for two days. After
+that--strips of caribou hide and moss, boiled in snow water, to ease the
+throbbing ache of their stomachs.
+
+Eating his thin stew, he shortened his belt still another hole over his
+lean waist, and harnessing Fleur, turned resolutely east into country no
+white man had ever seen, on his bold gamble for food or an endless sleep
+in the blue Ungava hills.
+
+In his weakened state, black spots and pin-points of light danced before
+his eyes. Distant objects were often magnified out of all proportion. So
+intense was the glare of the high March sun on the crust that his wooden
+goggles alone saved him from snow-blindness. He travelled a few miles
+until dizziness forced him to rest. Later he continued on, to rest
+again, while the black nose of Fleur, who was still comparatively
+strong, sought his face, as she wondered at the reason for the master's
+strange actions.
+
+By noon he had crossed no trail except that of a wolverine seeking food
+like himself, and finally went down into the timbered valley of a brook
+where he left Fleur and the sled. Then he started again on his hopeless
+search. As the streams flowed northeast, he was certain that he had
+crossed the Height of Land to the Ungava Bay watershed, and was now in
+the headwater country of the fabled River of Leaves, the Koksoak of the
+Esquimos, into which no hunter from Whale River had ever penetrated.
+
+Marcel was snow-shoeing through the scrub at the edge of the plateau
+when far out on the barren he saw two spots. Shortly he was convinced
+that the objects moved.
+
+"By Gar, deer! At last they travel nord!" he gasped, gazing with
+bounding pulses at the distant spots almost indistinguishable against
+the snow. Meat out there on the barren awaited him--food and life, if
+only he could get within range.
+
+Cutting back into the scrub, that he might begin his stalk of the
+caribou from the nearest cover with the wind in his face, he moved
+behind a rise in the ground slowly out into the barren. With a caution
+he had never before exercised, lest the precious food now almost within
+reach should escape him, the starving man advanced.
+
+At last he crawled up behind a low knoll, and stretched out on the snow.
+Cocking and thrusting his rifle before him, he wormed his way to the
+top of the rise and looked.
+
+There a hundred yards off, playing on the crust, were two arctic foxes.
+Distorting their size, the barren ground mirage had cruelly deceived
+him.
+
+With a groan the spent hunter dropped his head on his arms. "All dees
+for fox!" he murmured. Then, because foxes were meat, he took careful
+aim and shot one, wounding the other, which he killed with the second
+bullet. Hanging the carcasses in a spruce, Marcel continued to skirt the
+barren toward the east.
+
+As dusk fell he returned to Fleur and made camp. Cutting up and boiling
+one of the foxes, he and the dog ate ravenously of the rank flesh, but
+hope was low in the breast of Jean Marcel. A day or two more of half
+rations and he was done. The spring migration of the caribou was not yet
+on. And when the deer did come, it would be too late. Jean Marcel would
+be past aid and Fleur--what would become of her? True, she could live on
+the flanks of the caribou herds like the wolves, but the wolves would
+find and destroy her.
+
+Tortured by such thoughts, he sat by his fire, the husky's great head on
+his knee, her eyes searching his, mutely demanding the reason for his
+strange silence.
+
+Another day of fruitless wandering in which he had pushed as far east
+as his fading strength would take him, and Jean shared the last of the
+food with his dog. He had fought hard to find the deer, had already
+travelled one hundred miles into the barrens, but he felt that it was no
+use; he was beaten. The spirit of the coureurs whose blood coursed his
+veins would drive him on and on, but without food the days of his
+hunting would be few. Henceforth it would be caribou hide boiled with
+moss from the barrens to ease the pinch of his hunger, but his strength
+would swiftly go. Then, when hope died, rather than leave his dog to the
+wolves, he would shoot Fleur and lying down beside her in his blanket,
+place the muzzle of his rifle against his own head.
+
+Two days, in which Marcel and Fleur drank the liquor from stewed caribou
+hide and moss while he continued to hunt, followed. As he staggered into
+camp at the end of the second day the man was so weak that he scarcely
+found strength to gather wood for his fire. Fleur now showed signs of
+slow starvation in her protruding ribs and shoulders. Her heavy coat no
+longer shone with gloss but lay flat and lusterless. Vainly she
+whimpered for the food that her heart-sick master could not give her.
+With the dog beside him, Marcel lay by the fire numbed into indifference
+to his fate. The torment of hunger had vanished leaving only great
+weakness and a dazed brain. He thought of the three wooden crosses at
+Whale River; how restful it would be to lie beside them behind the
+Mission, instead of sleeping far in the barrens where the great winds
+beat ceaselessly by over the treeless snows. There Julie Breton might
+have planted forest flowers on the mound that marked the grave of Jean
+Marcel. But no, he had forgotten; Julie Breton would not be at Whale
+River. Julie would live at East Main and some day at her feet would play
+the children of Wallace. Julie would be married in the spring at Whale
+River, while the wolves and ravens were scattering the whitened bones of
+Jean Marcel over the valley, and there would be no rest--no rest.
+
+What hopes he had had of a little house of their own at Whale River when
+he entered the service of the Company and drove the mail packet down the
+coast, with the team that Fleur would give him. How often he had
+pictured that home where Julie and the children would wait his return
+from summer voyage and winter trail; Julie Breton, whom he had loved
+from boyhood and whom, he had once prided himself, should love him, some
+day, when he had proved his manhood among the swart men of the East
+Coast.
+
+All a dream--a dream. Julie was happy. She would soon marry the great
+man at East Main, while in a few days Jean Marcel was going to snuff
+out--smoulder a while, as a fire from lack of wood, dying by inches--by
+inches; and then two shots.
+
+Poor Fleur! It had all come to pass because he had dared to follow and
+bring her home--had had no time to cache fish and game in the fall. She
+would have been better off with the half-breeds on the Rupert, where the
+caribou had gone. They would have kicked her, but fed her too. Yes, she
+would have been better there. Now he would take her with him, his own
+dog, when the time came. No more starvation for her, and a death in the
+barrens when she met the white wolves. Yes, he would take her with him.
+
+So rambled the thoughts of Jean Marcel, as he lay with his dog facing
+the creeping death his rifle would cheat, until kindly sleep brought him
+surcease--sleep, followed by dreams of the wide barrens trampled by
+herds of the returning caribou, of juicy steaks sizzling over the fire,
+while Fleur gnawed contentedly at huge thigh bones.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE TURN OF THE TIDE
+
+
+Before dawn, a cold nose nuzzling his face buried in his robe, waked
+Marcel.
+
+"Fleur, hungry? Eet ees better to sleep w'en dere ees no breakfast," he
+protested.
+
+The warm tongue sought the face of the drowsy man, and the dog, not to
+be put off, thrust her nose roughly into his robe, whimpering as she
+pulled at his capote.
+
+"Poor Fleur!" he muttered. "No more meat for de pup! Lie down! Jean ees
+ver' tired."
+
+But the dog, bent on arousing the master, grew only the more insistent.
+Seizing an arm in her jaws, she dragged Marcel from his rabbit-skin
+blankets.
+
+As he sat upright, wide awake, Fleur sniffed long at the frosty air,
+then dashed yelping into the dusk up the trail toward the barren.
+Turning, she ran back to camp, whining excitedly.
+
+"Tiens! W'at you smell, Fleur?" cried Marcel tearing his rifle with
+shaking hands from its skin case and cramming cartridges into a pocket.
+Could it be, he wondered, could it be the deer at last? No, only a
+starving wolf or lynx, prowling near the camp, likely. But still he
+would go! The love of life was yet strong in Jean Marcel now that a
+gleam of hope warmed his heart.
+
+Slipping his toes into the thongs of his snow-shoes, he made Fleur fast
+to a tree, and started. He was so weak from lack of food that often he
+was forced to stop in the climb, shaken by his hammering heart. At last,
+exhausted, he dragged himself to the shoulder of the barren and on
+unsteady legs moved along the edge of the scrub, his eyes straining to
+pierce the wall of dusk which shut the plateau from his sight. But the
+shadows still blanketed the barren; so testing the light wind, that he
+might move directly out toward the game when the light grew stronger, he
+sat down to save his strength for the stalk. Only too clearly, his
+weakness warned him that it was his last hunt. By another day, even
+though he managed the climb, his trembling hands would prevent the
+lining of his sights on game.
+
+As opal and rose faintly streaked the east, the teeth of the hunter,
+waiting to read the fate daylight would disclose, chattered in the
+stinging air. But a space now, and he would know whether he were to
+creep back to his blankets and wait for stark despair to steady the hand
+which would bring swift release for Fleur and himself, or whether meat,
+food, life, were scraping with round-toed hooves the snow from the
+caribou moss out there in the dim dawn.
+
+Daylight filtered over the floor of snow to meet Marcel lying at the top
+of a rise out on the barren, waiting. As the light at length opened up
+the treeless miles, a sob shook the lean frame of the hunter. Tears
+welled in the deep-set eyes to course down and freeze upon his face, for
+there, on the snow before him, were the _blue-gray shapes of caribou_.
+
+Three deer were feeding almost within range while farther out, gray
+patches, moving on the snow, marked other bands. At last the spring
+migration had reached him, and barely in time. He would see Whale River
+again when June came north. And Fleur, fretting back there in camp at
+his absence, after the lean days would revel and grow gigantic on deer
+meat.
+
+Painfully Marcel crawled within easy range of the nearest caribou. As he
+attempted to line his sights in order to hit two with the first shot, as
+he had often done, the waving of his gun barrel in his trembling hands
+swept him cold with fear. The exertion of crawling to his position had
+cruelly shaken his nerves. So he rested.
+
+Then he carefully took aim. As he fired, his heart skipped a beat, for
+he thought he had missed. But to his joy a caribou bounded from the
+snow, ran a few feet and fell, while another, stopping to scent the air
+before circling up-wind, gave him a second shot. The deer was badly hit
+and the next shot brought it down.
+
+The tension of the crisis passed, the shattered nerves relaxed, and for
+a space the starving hunter lay limp in the snow. But warned by his
+rapidly numbing fingers, he forced himself to his feet and went to the
+deer. Out on the barren beyond the sound of his rifle scattered bands of
+caribou were feeding. Meat to take them through the big "break-up" of
+April was at hand. The lean face of Jean Marcel twisted into a grim
+smile.
+
+_He had beaten the long snows._
+
+Stopping only to take the tongues and a piece of haunch, Marcel returned
+to his hungry dog. Frantic with the faint scent of caribou brought by
+the breeze off the barren, the famished Fleur chafed and fretted for his
+return.
+
+"Here, Fleur, see what Jean Marcel got for you!"
+
+The husky, maddened by the scent of the blood-red meat, plunged at her
+leash, her jaws dripping with slaver. Throwing her a chunk of frozen
+haunch which she bolted greedily, Marcel filled his kettle with snow and
+putting in a tongue and strips of steak to boil, lay down by his fire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+SPRING AND FLEUR
+
+
+At intervals during the day Jean drank the strengthening broth, too
+"bush-wise" to sicken himself by gorging. By late afternoon he was able
+to drive the rejuvenated Fleur to the barren and bring back the meat on
+the sled. The days following were busy ones. At first his weakness
+forced him to husband his strength while the stew and roasted red meat
+were thickening his blood, but as the food began to tell, he was able to
+hunt farther and farther into the barrens where the main migration of
+the caribou was passing. When he was strong enough, he took Fleur with a
+load of meat back to his old winter camp, returning with traps. These he
+set at the carcasses he had shot, for foxes, lynxes and wolverines were
+drawn from the four winds to his kill. So while he hunted meat to carry
+him through April, and home, at the same time he added materially to his
+fur-pack.
+
+Toward the end of March, before the first thaws softened his back trail
+and made sled-travel heart-breaking for Fleur, Jean began relaying west
+the meat he had shot. He had now, cached in the barrens, ample food to
+supply Fleur and himself until the opening of the waterways when fish
+would be a most welcome change. His sledding over, he returned to his
+camp in the barrens to get his traps and take one last hunt, for the
+lean weeks of the winter had made him over-cautious and he wished to
+make the trip back with a loaded sled.
+
+By the coming of April, Fleur, in whom an abundance of red caribou meat
+had swiftly worked a metamorphosis, had increased in bone and weight. As
+Jean watched her throw her heavy shoulders into her collar and trot
+lightly off over the hard trail with a two hundred pound load his heart
+leaped with love of the beautiful beast who worshipped him with every
+red drop in her shaggy body. What a team she would give him some day! he
+thought. There would be nothing like them south of Hudson's Straits. And
+the Company would need them for the winter mail packet, with Jean Marcel
+to drive them.
+
+Lately he had noticed a new trait in his dog. Several times, deep in the
+night when he waked to renew the fire, he had found that Fleur was not
+sleeping near him but had wandered off into the "bush." As she needed no
+food, he thought these night hunts of the husky peculiar. But at dawn,
+he always found Fleur back in camp sleeping beside him.
+
+It was Marcel's last night in the barren-ground camp. Leaving Fleur, he
+had, as usual, hunted all day, returning with a sled load of meat which
+he drew himself. As he approached the camp he crossed the trail of a
+huge timber wolf and hurried to learn if his dog had been attacked, for
+tied as she was, she would fight with a cruel handicap. But Fleur
+greeted him as usual with yelps of delight. In the vicinity of the camp
+there were no tracks to show that the wolf had approached the husky.
+However, Marcel decided that he would not leave her again bound in camp
+unable to chew through the rawhide thongs in time to protect herself
+from sudden attacks of the wolves which roamed the country.
+
+After supper man and dog sat by the fire, but Fleur was manifestly
+restless. Time and again she left his side to take long sniffs of the
+air. Not even the rubbing of her ears which usually brought grunts of
+pleasure had the magic to hold her long.
+
+The early moon hung on the white brow of a distant ridge, and Jean,
+finishing his pipe, was about to renew his fire and roll into his
+blankets, when a long, wailing howl floated across the valley.
+
+Fleur bounded to her feet, her quivering nostrils sucking in the keen
+air. Again the call of the timber wolf drifted out on the silent night.
+Fleur, alive with excitement, trotted into the "bush." In a moment she
+returned to the fire, whimpering. Then sitting down, she pointed her
+nose at the stars and her deep throat swelled with the long-drawn howl
+of the husky. Shortly, when the timber wolf replied, the lips of Fleur
+did not lift from her white fangs in a snarl nor did her thick mane rise
+as her ears pricked eagerly forward.
+
+At dawn Jean waked with a sense of loneliness. Pushing together the
+embers of his fire, he put on fresh wood, and not seeing Fleur, called
+to her but she did not appear. She had a habit of prowling around the
+neighboring "bush" at dawn, inspecting fresh tracks of mice, searching
+for ptarmigan or for the snow-shoe rabbits that were not there. But when
+Marcel's breakfast was cooked Fleur was still absent. Thinking that a
+fresh game trail had led her some distance, he ate, then started to
+break camp. Finally he put his index and middle fingers between his
+teeth and blew the piercing whistle which had never failed to bring her
+leaping home. Intently, he listened for her answer somewhere in the
+valley of the stream or on the edge of the barren, but the yelp of his
+dog did not come to his straining ears.
+
+Curious as to the cause of her absence Jean smoked his pipe and waited.
+He was anxious to start back with his traps and meat; but where was
+Fleur? Becoming alarmed by the middle of the morning, he made a wide
+circle of the camp hoping to pick up her trail. Two days previous there
+had been a flurry of snow sufficient to enable him to follow her tracks
+on the stiff crust. In the vicinity of the camp were traces of Fleur's
+recent footprints but finally, at a distance, Marcel ran into a fresh
+trail leading down into the brook-bottom. There he lost it, and after
+hours of search returned to camp to wait for her return. But the day
+wore away and the husky did not appear. Night came and visions of his
+dog lying somewhere stiff in the snow slashed and torn by wolves,
+tortured his thoughts. If only he could pick up her trail at daylight,
+he thought, for she might still live, crippled, unable to come to him,
+waiting for Jean Marcel who had never failed her.
+
+As he sat brooding by his fire, he came to realize, now that he had lost
+her, what a part of him the dog had become. His thoughts drifted back
+over their life together, months of gruelling toil and--delight. Tears
+traced their way down the wind-burned cheeks of Marcel as he recalled
+her early puppy ways and antics, how she had loved to nibble with her
+sharp milk teeth at his moccasins and sit in the bow of the canoe, on
+their way down the coast, scolding at the seals and ducks; with what mad
+delight she had welcomed his visits to the stockade at Whale River
+circling him at full speed, until breathless and panting, she leaped
+upon him, her hot tongue seeking his hands and face. Then on the long
+trail home from the south coast marshes, how closely she would snuggle
+to his back as they lay on the beaches, as if fearing to lose him while
+she slept. And the winter on the Ghost, with its ghastly end--what a
+rock his dog had been when his partners failed him! In the moment of his
+peril, how savagely she had battled for Jean Marcel! Through the lean
+weeks of starvation when hope had died, to the dawn when she had waked
+him at the coming of the caribou, his thoughts led him. And now, when
+spring and Whale River were near, it was all over. Their life together
+with its promise of the future had been snapped short off. He should
+never again look into the slant, brown eyes of Fleur. He had lost his
+all; first Julie, and now, Fleur. There was nothing left.
+
+At daybreak, without hope, he took up the search along the stream. Where
+the wind had driven, the crust now stiff with alternate freezing and
+thawing and swept clean of snow, would show little sign of the passing
+of the dog, but in the sheltered areas where the crust was softer and
+the young snow lay, he hoped to cross the tracks of Fleur. At length,
+miles from the camp, he picked up the trail of the dog in some light
+drift. Following the tracks across the brook-bottom and into the scrub
+of the opposite slope, he suddenly stopped, wide-eyed with amazement at
+the evidence written plainly in the light covering of the crust. Fleur's
+tracks had been joined by, and ran side by side with, the trail of a
+wolf.
+
+"By Gar!" gasped the surprised Frenchman. "She do not fight wid de
+wolf!"
+
+As he travelled, he found no marks of battle in the snow, simply the
+parallel trails of the two, dog and wolf, now trotting, now lengthening
+out into the long, wolf lope.
+
+"Fleur leave Jean Marcel for de wolf!" the trapper rubbed his eyes as
+though suspicious of a trick of vision. His Fleur, whom he loved as his
+life and who adored Jean Marcel, to desert him this way in the
+night--and for a timber wolf.
+
+It was strange indeed. Yet he had heard of such things. It was this way
+that the Esquimos kept up the marvellous strain to which Fleur belonged.
+He recalled the peculiar actions of the dog during the previous
+days--the wolf tracks near the camp; her excitement of the night before
+when the call had sounded over the valley. This wolf had been dogging
+their trail for a week and Fleur had known it.
+
+"Ah!" he murmured, nodding his head. "Eet ees de spreeng!"
+
+Yes, the spring was slowly creeping north and the creatures of the
+forest had already answered its call. It was April, and Fleur, too, had
+succumbed to an urge stronger for the moment than the love of the
+master. April, the Crees' "Moon of the Breaking of the Snow-Shoes,"
+when, at last, the wind would begin to shift to the south and the nights
+lose their edge, only to shift back again, with frost. Then the snow
+would melt hard at noon, softening the trails, and later on, rain and
+sleet would drive in from the great Bay turning the white floor of the
+forest to slush, flooding the ice of the rivers which later would break
+up and move out, overrunning the shell of pond and lake which late in
+May would honeycomb and disappear.
+
+Marcel followed the trails of wolf and dog until he lost them on the
+wind-packed snow of the barren. There was nothing to do but wait. He
+knew his dog had not forgotten him--would come home; but when? It was
+high time for his return to the camp in the Salmon country, to his
+precious cache of meat, which would attract lynxes and wolverines for
+miles around. The bears would soon leave their "washes" and the uprights
+of his cache were not proof against bear. But he would not go without
+Fleur, and she was away, somewhere in the hills.
+
+Three days he waited, continuing to hunt that he might take a full
+sled-load back to his cache. But the weather was softening and any day
+now might mean the start of the big "break-up." It was deep in the
+third night that a great gray shape burst out of the forest and pounced
+upon the muffled figure under the shed-tent by the fire. As the dog
+pawed at the blanketed shape, Marcel, drugged with sleep and bewildered
+by the attack, was groping for his knife, when a familiar whine and the
+licks of a warm tongue proclaimed the return of Fleur, and the man threw
+his arms around his dog.
+
+"Fleur come back to Jean?" Breaking from him, in sheer delight, the dog
+repeatedly circled the fire, then rearing on her hind legs put her
+fore-paws on his chest.
+
+"Fleur bad dog to run away wid de wolf!" Marcel seized her by the jowls
+and shook the massive head, peering into the slant eyes in the dim
+starlight. And Fleur, as though ashamed of her desertion of the master,
+pushed her nose under his arm, the rumbling in her throat voicing her
+joy to be with him again. Then Marcel gave her meat from the cache which
+she bolted greedily.
+
+It had not entered his mind once he had found her tracks that Fleur
+would not return to him, but during her long absence the condition of
+the snow had been a source of worry. Each day's delay meant the chance
+of the bottom suddenly falling out of the trail before he could freight
+his load of meat and traps back to his old camp far to the west. Once
+the big thaw was on, all sledding would be over. So, hurriedly eating
+his breakfast, he started under the stars, for at noon he would be held
+up by the softening trail. Toward mid-afternoon, when it turned colder,
+he would again travel.
+
+Back at his old camp, Marcel found that the fish-hook necklace with
+which he had circled each of the peeled spruce uprights of his cache had
+baffled the wolverines and lynxes lured for miles by the odor of meat.
+Resetting short trap-lines, he waited for the "break-up" with tranquil
+mind, for his cache groaned with meat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+WHEN THE ICE GOES SOFT
+
+
+The snows were fading fast before the rain and sleet of the big thaw.
+Often, at night, the softening winds shifted, to drive in raw from the
+north, again tightening the land with frost. But each day, as May
+neared, the sun swung higher and higher, slowly scattering the snow to
+flood the ice of myriad lakes and rivers. Already, Marcel had thrilled
+to the trumpets of the gray vanguards of the Canadas. On fair days the
+sun flashed from white fleets of "wavies," bound through seas of April
+skies to far Arctic ports.
+
+With May the buds of birch and poplar began to swell, later to light
+with the soft green of their young leaves the sombre reaches of upland
+jack-pine and spruce. Rimming the rivers with red, the new shoots of the
+willows appeared. At dawn, now, from dripping spires, white-throats and
+hermit thrush, fleeter than the spring, startled the drowsing forest
+with a reveille of song.
+
+One afternoon in May on his return from picking up a line of traps to be
+cached for use the following winter, Marcel went to the neighboring
+pond to lift his net. For safety on the rapidly sponging ice he wore his
+snow-shoes and carried a twelve-foot spruce pole. He had reset the net
+and was lashing an anchor line to a stake when suddenly the honeycombed
+shell crumbled beneath his feet.
+
+As he sank, he lunged for the pole he had dropped to set the net, but
+the surface settled under his leap carrying him into the water. Fighting
+in the mush ice for the pole almost within reach, to his horror he found
+his right foot trapped. He could not move farther in that direction. The
+snow-shoe was caught in the net.
+
+Marcel turned back floundering to the edge of firm ice, where he held
+himself afloat. Fast numbing with cold, as he clung, caught like a
+beaver in a trap, he knew that it was but a matter of minutes. Fleur, if
+only Fleur were there! But Fleur was hunting in the "bush."
+
+With a great effort he braced himself on his elbows, got his frozen
+fingers between his teeth, and blew the signal, once heard, his dog had
+never failed to answer.
+
+To the joy of the man slowly chilling to the bone, a yelp sounded in the
+forest. Rallying his ebbing strength, again Marcel whistled. Shortly
+Fleur appeared on the shore, sighted the master and bounded through the
+surface slop out to the fishing hole. Reaching Marcel, the husky seized
+a skin sleeve of his capote and arching her great back, fought the
+slippery footing in a mad effort to drag him from the water. But the net
+held him fast.
+
+"De stick, Fleur! De stick dere!" Marcel pointed toward the pole.
+
+Sensing his gesture, the dog brought the pole to the ice edge. Then with
+the pole bridging the hole, its ends on firm ice, Marcel worked his way
+to the submerged net, but the sinkers had hopelessly tangled the meshes
+with his snow-shoe. Under his soggy capote was his knife. His stiff
+fingers fumbled desperately with the knot of his sash but failed to
+loose it. Again Fleur seized his sleeve and pulled until she rolled
+backward with a patch of the tough hide in her teeth.
+
+The situation of the trapped man seemed hopeless. The chill of the water
+was fast numbing his senses. Already his heart slowed with the torpor of
+slow freezing. With difficulty now he kept the excited Fleur from
+plunging beside him into the mush ice.
+
+Then with a final effort he got his free leg with its snow-shoe, over
+the pole, and seizing the husky's tail with both hands, cried:
+
+"Marche, Fleur! Marche!"
+
+Settling low between wide-spread fore-legs, the dog dug her nails into
+the soft ice and hurled her weight into a fierce lunge. As her feet
+slipped, the legs of the husky worked like piston rods showering
+Marcel's face with water, her nails gouging the ice, while she fought
+the drag of the net.
+
+At last, something gave way, Marcel felt himself move. Slowly the great
+dog drew her master over the pole and upon the ice with the net still
+anchored to his right foot.
+
+Still gripping Fleur's tail in his left hand, with the other he finally
+reached his knife and groping in the icy water slashed the heel thong of
+the caught shoe. Free, Marcel limped to his camp, Fleur, now leaping
+beside him, now marching proudly with his sleeve in her teeth.
+
+The heat of the fire and the hot broth soon started the blood of the
+half-frozen Frenchman, who lay muffled in a blanket. Near him sprawled
+the husky, who had sensed only too acutely on the ice the danger
+menacing her master and would not now leave his sight, but with head on
+paws watched the blanketed figure through eyes which spoke the thoughts
+she could not express: "Jean may need Fleur again. She will stay with
+him by the fire."
+
+Once too often, Marcel mused, he had gambled with the rotten spring ice,
+and now had barely missed paying for his rashness. To drown in a hole
+like a muskrat, after pulling out of the starvation days with a cache
+heavy with meat and fish, was unthinkable. But, after all, what did it
+matter? Life would be of small value now with Julie out of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE DEAD MAN TELLS HIS TALE
+
+
+When, late in May, the snow had left the open places reached by the sun
+and the ice cleared the rivers, Marcel was ready to make his first trip
+to the camp on the Ghost. Poor Antoine would have to lie content in a
+shallow grave among the boulders of the river shore, for the frost was
+still in the ground. Before the weather softened Jean had smoked the
+remainder of his meat and now he faced a ten-mile portage with his
+outfit. Before the trails went bad he could have freighted on the sled
+sufficient food for his journey home but had preferred to face the
+"break-up" in his own camp near a fish-lake and relay his meat over on
+his back in May. The memories of the winter aroused by the camp on the
+Ghost were too grim to attract him to the comfortable shack.
+
+One morning at sunrise, after lashing a pack on Fleur's broad back, he
+threw his tump-line over a bag of smoked meat and swinging it to his
+shoulders, started over the trail. In the middle of the forenoon he
+walked into the clearing on the Ghost and pushing off the head strap of
+his line, dropped his load.
+
+Glancing at the cache where he had left the body of Antoine Beaulieu
+lashed in canvas with the fur-packs and rifles of the dead men, Marcel
+muttered in surprise:
+
+"By Gar! Dat ees strange t'ing!"
+
+The scaffold was empty; the body of Antoine had been removed and not a
+vestige remained of the fur-packs and outfits of Jean's partners.
+Neither wolverines, lynxes nor bears, had they been able to overcome the
+fish-hook barriers guarding the uprights, would have stripped the
+platform in such fashion. Searching the soft earth, he found the faint
+tracks of moccasins which the recent rain had not obliterated. But down
+on the river shore the mud told the story. A canoe had landed there
+within a week, for in spite of the rain the deep impress of the feet of
+men carrying heavy loads still marked the beach. Since the ice went out
+someone who knew that the three men were wintering there, had travelled
+up the Ghost from the Whale, but why? They could not have been starving,
+for fish could then be had on the Whale for the setting of a net.
+Evidently they had buried Antoine and taken the fur-packs, rifles, and
+outfits of the two men to Whale River. Marcel searched for a message, in
+the phonetic writing employed throughout the north, burned into a blazed
+tree, or on a scrap of birch-bark, left in the shack, but found
+nothing. The cabin was as he had last seen it. They had thought him,
+also, dead somewhere in the "bush" and had left no word, or----Then the
+situation opened to him from the angle of view of the Cree visitors.
+
+A camp on the verge of starvation, witnessed by the depleted cache; a
+dead man stabbed to the heart, with his rifle and outfit beside him;
+also, the rifle and personal belongings, easily identified by his
+relatives, of a second man, who, if he were still alive, would have had
+them in his possession. Of the third man, who was to winter with them,
+no trace at the camp. Two dead and the third, possibly alive, if he had
+not starved out. And that third man was Jean Marcel.
+
+That was the grim tale which was travelling down the river ahead of him
+to the spring trade. Who killed Antoine Beaulieu, and where is Piquet?
+This was the question he would have to answer. This the factor and the
+kinsmen of his partners would demand of the third man, if he survived to
+reach the post. Yes, Whale River would anxiously await the return of
+Jean Marcel that spring, but would Whale River believe his story? Of the
+people of the post he had no doubt. Julie, Pere Breton, the factor,
+Angus, Jules, he could count on. They knew him--were his friends. But
+the Crees, and half-breds; would they believe that Joe Piquet had been
+the evil genius of the tragedy on the Ghost, Joe Piquet, now dead and
+helpless to speak in his own defense? Would they believe in the
+innocence of the man who alone of the three partners had fought free of
+the long famine? Marcel's knowledge of the Indians' mental make-up told
+him that since the visit of the Crees to the camp his case was hopeless.
+
+They would readily believe that he had killed his partners for the
+remaining food, and, not anticipating the coming of a canoe in the
+spring to the camp, had gone after caribou, planning to secrete the body
+of Antoine, with its evidence of violence, on his return.
+
+Of those who had peopled the canoes starting for the up-river summer
+camps in July, many a face would now be absent when the Crees returned
+for this year's trade. Famine surely had come to more than one camp of
+the red hunters that winter; and doubtless, swift death in the night,
+also, among some of those, who, when caught by the rabbit plague and the
+absence of wintering caribou, like Piquet, went mad with hunger.
+Disease, too, as a hawk strikes a ptarmigan, would have struck down many
+a helpless child and woman marooned in snow-drifted tepee in the silent
+places. Old age would have claimed its toll in the bitter January
+winds.
+
+To the red hunters, starvation and tragic death wore familiar faces. In
+the wide north they were common enough. So, when in the spring, men
+loosed from the maw of the pitiless snows returned without comrade, wife
+or child, seeking succor at the fur-posts, with tales of death by
+starvation or disease, the absence of witnesses or evidence compelled
+the acceptance of their stories however suspicious the circumstances.
+There being no proof of guilt, and because, moreover, their tales were
+often true, there could be no punishment, except the covert condemnation
+of their fellows or the secret vengeance of kinsman or friend in the
+guise of a shot from the "bush" or knife thrust in the dark. He recalled
+the cases he knew or which he had heard discussed over many a camp-fire,
+of men on the East Coast, sole survivors of starvation camps, who would
+go to their graves privately branded as murderers by their fellows.
+
+Grim tales of his father returned to him; of the half-breed from
+Nichicun who, it was commonly believed, had eaten his partner; of Crees
+who had appeared in the spring at the posts without parents, or wives
+and children, to tell conflicting stories of death through disease or
+starvation; of the Frenchman at Mistassini--still a valued servant of
+the Company--who was known from Fort Albany to Whale River and from
+Rupert to the Peribonka, as the squaw-man who saved himself on the
+Fading Waters by deserting his Montagnais girl wife. These and many
+more, through lack of any proof of guilt, had escaped the long arm of
+the government which, through the fur-posts, reached to the uttermost
+valleys of the north.
+
+And so it must have been with Jean Marcel, however suspicious his story,
+had he buried Antoine somewhere in the snow, as he had Piquet, instead
+of lashing the body on the cache with its telltale death wound. As it
+was he already saw himself, though innocent, condemned in the court of
+Cree opinion as the slayer of his friend.
+
+As he came to a realization of how his case would look, even to the
+whites at Whale River, he cursed the dead man Piquet for bringing all
+this upon a guiltless man--for leaving him this black legacy of
+suspicion.
+
+Well, he swore to himself, they should believe his story at the post,
+for it was the truth; and if any man, white or red, openly doubted his
+innocence, he would have to answer to Jean Marcel. To be branded on the
+East Coast as the assassin of his partners was a bitter draught for the
+palate of the proud Frenchman. For generations the Marcels had borne an
+honored name in the Company's service and now for the last of them to be
+suspected of foul murder, was disgrace unthinkable.
+
+So ran his thoughts as he hurried back over the trail to his camp. Of
+one thing he felt sure. The situation brought about by the visit of the
+Crees demanded his presence at the post as soon after their arrival as
+his paddle could drive his canoe. From the appearance of the tracks on
+the beach they already had a good start and it would take two days for
+him to pack to the Ghost what meat and outfit he needed for the trip,
+besides his furs. The rest he could cache.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE BLIND CLUTCH OF CIRCUMSTANCE
+
+
+Three days later, he had run the strong-water of the Ghost to Conjuror's
+Falls, where he exchanged Beaulieu's canoe for his own, cached the
+previous fall, and continued on to the Whale until the moon set, when he
+camped.
+
+Then next morning, long before the rising sun, reaching the smoking
+surface in his path, rolled the river mists back to fade on the
+ridges, Marcel, with Fleur in the bow, was well started on his
+three-hundred-mile journey. Travel as he might, he could not hope to
+overtake the canoe bearing the tale of the tragedy to Whale River; but
+each day when once the news had reached the post, the story, passed
+from mouth to mouth among the Crees, would gather size and distortion
+with Marcel not present to refute it. There was great need for speed,
+so he drove his canoe to the limit of his strength, running all rapids
+which skill and daring could outwit.
+
+Different, far, from the home-coming he had pictured through the last
+weeks, would be his return to Whale River. True, there would have been
+no long June days with Julie Breton, as in previous summers, no walks
+up the river shore when the low sun turned the Bay to burnished copper,
+and later, the twilight held deep into the night. If she were not
+already married her days would be too full to spare much time to her old
+friend Jean Marcel. But there would have been rest and ease, after the
+months of toil and famine--long talks with Jules and Angus, with worry
+behind him in the hills. Instead he was returning to his friends branded
+as a criminal by the evidence of the cache on the Ghost.
+
+At times, when the magic of the young spring, in the air, the forest,
+the hills, for a space swept clean his troubled brain of dark memory, he
+dreamed that the water-thrushes in the river willows called to him:
+"Sweet, sweet, sweet, Julie Breton!" That yellow warblers and friendly
+chickadees, from the spruces of the shore, hailed him as one of the
+elect, for was he not also a lover? That the kingfishers which scurried
+ahead of his boat gossiped to him of hidden nests. Deeply, as he
+paddled, he inhaled the scent of the flowering forest world, the
+fragrance of the northern spring, while his birch-bark rode the choked
+current. And then, the stark realization that he had lost her, and the
+shadow of his new trouble, would bring him rough awakening.
+
+Meeting no canoes of Cree hunters bound for the trade, for it was yet
+early, in nine days Marcel turned into the post. He smiled bitterly as
+he saw in the clearing a handful of tepees. Around the evening fires
+they had doubtless already convicted Jean Marcel, alive or dead.
+Familiar with the half-breed weakness for exaggeration, he wondered in
+what form the story of the cache on the Ghost had been retailed at the
+trade-house. Well, he should soon know.
+
+The howling of the post dogs announced his arrival, stirring Fleur after
+her long absence from the sight of her kind to a strenuous reply.
+Leaving his canoe on the beach Marcel went at once to the Mission, where
+the door was opened by the priest.
+
+"Jean Marcel!" The bearded face of the Oblat lighted with pleasure as he
+opened his arms to the wanderer. "You are back, well and strong? The
+terrible famine did not reach you?" he asked in French.
+
+Jean's deep-set eyes searched the priest's face for evidence of a change
+toward him but found the same frank, kindly look he had always known.
+
+"Yes, Father, I beat the famine but I have bad news. Antoine is dead. He
+was----"
+
+"Yes, I know," Pere Breton hastily broke in. "They brought the word. It
+is terrible! And Piquet, is he dead also?"
+
+"Yes, Father," Marcel said quietly. "Joe Piquet was killed by Fleur,
+here, after he stabbed Antoine!"
+
+"_Juste Ciel!_ Killed by Fleur after he stabbed Antoine?" repeated the
+priest, staring at the husky.
+
+"Yes, I wish to tell you all first, Father, before I go to the
+trade-house--and Julie?" Jean inquired, his voice vibrant with fear of
+what the answer might be.
+
+"Put the dog in the stockade and I will call Julie."
+
+Ah, then she was not married. Marcel breathed with relief.
+
+"We have been very sad here, wondering whether you had starved--were
+alive," continued the priest. "The tale Piquet's uncle, Gaspard Lelac,
+and sons brought in day before yesterday made us think you also might
+have----"
+
+"Did they say Antoine had been stabbed?" interrupted Marcel, for the
+priest had avoided mention of the cause of Beaulieu's death.
+
+"They said they found his body." Pere Henri still shunned the issue.
+
+"Where?" demanded Marcel.
+
+"Buried on the river shore!"
+
+"They lie!" As Marcel had anticipated, the half-breeds had embellished
+the sufficiently damning evidence of the cache. He realized that he
+faced a battle with men who would not scruple to lie when the stark
+facts already looked badly enough.
+
+"They never were truthful people, my son. We have hoped and prayed for
+your coming to clear up the mystery."
+
+Jean put Fleur in the stockade and returned to the house. Julie Breton
+stood in the doorway.
+
+"Welcome home, Jean!" she cried in French, giving him both hands.
+"Why--you are not thin!" She looked wonderingly at his face. "We
+thought--you also--had starved." Her eyes filled with tears as she gazed
+at the man already numbered with the dead.
+
+Swept by conflicting emotions, Marcel swallowed hard. Were these
+sisterly tears of joy at his safe return or did she weep for the Jean
+Marcel she once knew, now dishonored?
+
+"There, there! _Ma petite!_" consoled Pere Henri, stroking the dark
+head. "We have Jean here again, safe; all will be well in time."
+
+"Julie had you starved out in the 'bush,' Jean, when we heard their
+story," explained the priest.
+
+But the puzzled youth wondered why Pere Henri did not mention the
+charges that the half-breeds must have made on reaching Whale River.
+
+Recovering her self-control Julie excused herself to prepare supper.
+Then before asking what the Lelacs had told the factor, Marcel related
+to the priest the grim details of the winter on the Ghost; of the
+deaths of Antoine and Piquet, of his fortunate meeting with the
+returning caribou, and of his discovery, on his return to the old camp,
+of the visit of the Lelacs' canoe.
+
+"Father, it looks bad for me. They found Antoine stabbed and Piquet's
+fur and outfit. I brought his rifle back to the camp and cached it with
+his stuff and Antoine's to bring it all down river in the spring to
+their people."
+
+At this the heavy brows of the priest lifted in surprise. Marcel
+continued:
+
+"The cache was empty. It was a starvation camp. Antoine was dead, and
+Piquet also, for his outfit was there. Seeing these things, what could
+anyone think? That the third man, Jean Marcel, did this and then went
+into the barrens for caribou. There he starved out, or else found meat
+and would return, when he could clear himself if able. Father, it was my
+wish to tell you my story before I heard the tale the Lelacs brought to
+the post. Then you could judge between us."
+
+The priest leaned forward in his chair and rested his hands on Marcel's
+shoulders. His eyes sought those of the younger man which met his gaze
+unwaveringly. "Jean Marcel," he said, "I have known you since your
+father brought you to Whale River as a child. You have never lied to me.
+True, the circumstances are unfortunate; but you have told me the
+truth. We did not believe that you had killed your comrades; you would
+have starved first; nor did Gillies or McCain or Jules believe in the
+truth of the charge of the Lelacs. They are waiting to hear your story.
+Also, since hearing your side, I see why the Lelacs are anxious to have
+it believed at the trade-house that you were responsible for the deaths
+of these men. They are grinding an axe of their own. It is not alone
+because they are kin of Piquet that they wish to discredit and injure
+you."
+
+"How do you mean, Father?" Marcel asked, curious as to the significance
+of the priest's last statement.
+
+"I will tell you later, my son. You should report at the trade-house
+now. They are waiting for you."
+
+Cheered with the knowledge that his old friends were still staunch, that
+the factor had waited for his return before expressing even an opinion,
+Marcel hurried to the trade-house.
+
+Meeting no one as he passed the scattered tepees, he flung open the
+slab-door of the log-building and with head high, entered.
+
+"Jean Marcel! By Gar, we hear you arrive!" roared the big Jules, rushing
+upon the youth with open arms. "You not starve out, eh?"
+
+Then Gillies and McCain, wringing his hand, added their welcome. Surely,
+he thought, with choked emotion, these men had not turned against him
+because of the tales of Lelac.
+
+"Jean, you had a hard winter with the rabbits gone," suggested Gillies.
+"You must have found the caribou this spring?"
+
+"Yes, I find de caribou, M'sieu, but I travel far for dem; eet was hard
+time een Mars."
+
+"And the dog, you didn't have to eat your dog, Jean?" asked McCain.
+
+Marcel's face hardened.
+
+"De dog and Jean, dey feast and dey starve togeder. I am no Cree
+dog-eater. Dat dog she save my life, one, two tam, dees winter, M'sieu."
+
+Never had the thought of sacrificing Fleur as a last resort entered the
+mind of Marcel in the lean days on the barrens.
+
+"Well, my lad," said Gillies heartily, "we are sure glad to have you
+back alive. We hear there was much starvation on the East Coast this
+year, with the rabbit plague and the scarcity of deer."
+
+They also, Marcel saw, were waiting to hear his story before alluding to
+the charges of the half-breed kinsmen of Piquet.
+
+"M'sieu Gillies," Jean began. "I weesh to tell you what happen on de
+Ghost. De Lelacs bring a tale to Whale Riviere dat ees not true."
+
+"We have paid no attention to them, Jean, trusting you would show up and
+could explain it all then. I know you and I know the Lelacs. I was sorry
+to hear about Antoine and Piquet but I don't think you had any part in
+it, lad. Be sure of that!"
+
+"T'anks, M'sieu." Then slowly and in great detail Marcel related to the
+three men, sitting with set faces, the gruesome history of the past
+winter. When he came to the night that Fleur had destroyed the crazed
+Piquet, the Hudson's Bay men turned to each other with exclamations of
+wonder and admiration.
+
+"That's a dog for you! She got his wind just in time!" muttered Gillies.
+
+"Tiens! Dat Fleur she is lak de wolf," added Jules.
+
+"You ask eef I eat her, M'sieu," Marcel turned on McCain grimly. "Could
+you eat de dog dat save your life?"
+
+"No, by God! I'd starve first!" thundered the Scotchman.
+
+"I love dat dog," said Jean quietly, and went on with his tale.
+
+Breathless, they heard how he had pushed deeper and deeper beyond the
+hunting grounds of the Crees into the nameless barrens until he reached
+streams flowing northeast into Ungava Bay, and at last met the
+returning caribou; how the great strength of Fleur beat the drag of the
+net, when he was slowly freezing in the lake; and then he came to his
+return to the Ghost.
+
+In detail Marcel enumerated the articles belonging to Antoine and Piquet
+which he had placed on the stage of the cache beside Beaulieu's body
+when he left for the Salmon country and which had been taken by the
+Lelacs to Whale River.
+
+"I lashed Antoine een hees shed-tent and put heem on de cache, for the
+wolverine and lynx would get heem een de snow." As Marcel talked McCain
+and Gillies exchanged significant looks.
+
+"Um!" muttered the factor, when Jean had finished. "Something queer
+here!"
+
+"What, M'sieu?" Marcel demanded.
+
+"Why, Lelac says he found the body of Antoine buried under stones on the
+shore and that there was nothing on the cache except the empty grub
+bags."
+
+"Dey say de fur and rifle was not dere?"
+
+"Yes, nothing on the cache!"
+
+"Den I must have de rifle and de fur; ees dat eet?"
+
+"Yes, that's what they insinuate."
+
+"Ah-hah!" Marcel scowled, thinking hard. "Dey say dey fin' noding, so do
+not turn over to you de rifle and fur-pack."
+
+"Yes, they claim you must have hidden them as you hid the body."
+
+"Den how do dey know Piquet ees dead too?" Marcel's dark features
+relaxed in a dry smile. It was not, then, solely the desire for
+vengeance on the murderer of their kin that had prompted the half-breeds
+to distort the facts.
+
+"They say his extra clothes and his outfit were in the cabin, only his
+rifle and fur missing. Now, Jean," he continued, "I am perfectly
+satisfied with your story. I believe every word of it. I knew your
+father and I know you. The Marcels are not liars. But the Lelacs are
+going to make trouble over the evidence they found at your camp.
+Suspicion always points to the survivor in a starvation camp, and you
+know the circumstances are against you, my lad."
+
+"M'sieu," Marcel protested. "Eef I keel Antoine, I would tak' heem into
+de bush and hide heem, I would not worry ovair de fox and wolverine."
+
+"Of course you would have hidden the body somewhere. We appreciate that.
+But as they are trying to put this thing on you they ignore that side of
+it. What you admit they found,--Antoine's body with a stab wound, and
+Piquet's outfit, makes it look bad to people who don't know you as we
+do. They won't believe that the famine got Piquet in the head. They'll
+say that's a tale you made up to get yourself off."
+
+Marcel went hot with anger. His impulse was to seek the Lelacs and have
+it out, then and there. But he possessed the cool judgment of a long
+line of ancestors whose lives had often depended on their heads, so he
+choked back his rage.
+
+"Now I don't want it carried down the coast that you killed your
+partners, Jean," went on Gillies. "Young as you are, you'll never live
+it down. And besides, there's no knowing what the government might do.
+I'll have to make a report, you know. So we've got to do some tall
+thinking between us before the hunters get in."
+
+While the factor talked, the swift brain of Marcel had struck upon a
+plan to trap and discredit the Lelacs, but he wished to think it over,
+alone, before proposing it at the trade-house, so held his tongue. When
+he was ready he would ask the factor to hold a hearing. Then he could
+put some questions to his accusers that would make them squirm. One
+question he did ask before packing his fur and outfit from the beach up
+to the Mission.
+
+"Have de Lelac traded dere fur, M'sieu?"
+
+"No, we haven't started the trade yet."
+
+"W'en dey trade dere fur weel you hold it from de oder fur, separate?"
+
+"Why, yes, I'll do that for you, but you can't hope to identify skins,
+Jean."
+
+A corner of Marcel's mouth curled in a quizzical smile. "Wait, M'sieu
+Gillies; I tell you later," and with a "Bon-soir!" he went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+IN THE DEPTHS
+
+
+Although it would have been pure suicide for anyone to attempt to take
+Fleur from the stockade against her will, Marcel feared that some dark
+night those who wished his disgrace might loose their venom in an injury
+to his dog. So, refusing a room in the Mission House, he pitched his
+tent on the grass inside the spruce pickets where Fleur might lie beside
+him.
+
+Here his staunch friend Jules sought Jean out. It seemed that Inspector
+Wallace had been up the coast at Christmas, had stayed a week, and
+although no one knew exactly what had transpired, whether he had as yet
+become a Catholic, there was no doubt in the minds of the curious that
+the Scotchman would shortly remove the sole obstacle to his marriage to
+Julie Breton.
+
+With head in hands, Jean Marcel listened to the news, none the less
+bitter because anticipated. The loyal Jules' crude attempt to console
+the brokenhearted hunter went unheard. Fate had made him its cat's-paw.
+Not only had he lost his heart's desire, but his name was now a byword
+at Whale River; the woman he held dear and his honor, both gone. There
+was nothing left to lose. He was indeed bankrupt.
+
+During supper, Jean was plied with questions by Julie, who, in his
+absence, had had his story from her brother. To the half-breeds she
+never once alluded, seemingly interested solely in the long hunt for
+caribou on the barrens and in Fleur's rescue of her master from the
+lake.
+
+For the delicacy of the girl in avoiding the tragedy which was plainly
+claiming his thoughts, he was deeply grateful. Clearly from the first,
+she had believed in the honor of Jean Marcel. But with what was
+evidently a forced gaiety, the girl sought, on the night of his return,
+to banish from his mind thoughts of the cloud blackening the future--of
+the trying days ahead.
+
+"Come, Jean Marcel," she laughed, speaking to him, as always, in French,
+"are you not glad to see us that you wear a face so dismal? You have not
+told me how you like this muslin gown." She pirouetted on her shapely
+moccasined feet challenging his approval. "Henri says I'm growing thin.
+Is it not becoming? No? Then I shall eat and grow as fat as big Marie,
+the Montagnais cook at the Gillies'."
+
+The sober face of Jean Marcel lighted at her pleasantry. His brooding
+eyes softened as they followed the trim figure in the simple muslin
+gown. It was a rare picture indeed for a man who had but just finished
+seven months in the "bush," half the time with the spectre of starvation
+haunting his heels--this girl with the dusky eyes and hair, the vivid
+memory of whose face he had carried with him into the nameless barrens.
+But she belonged to another and he, Jean Marcel, was branded as a
+murderer at Whale River, even if he escaped the law.
+
+Presently, when Pere Breton was called from the room to minister to a
+Cree convert, Julie became serious.
+
+"Jean Marcel, I have much to say to you; but it is hard--to begin."
+
+"I should think you would have little to say to Jean Marcel."
+
+"Why, because some half-breeds have brought a story to Whale River which
+was not true?"
+
+"Well, enough of it is true, Julie, to make the Indians believe, when
+they hear it, that Jean Marcel killed his partners to save himself from
+starvation."
+
+"Not if Pere Breton and Monsieur Gillies have any influence with the
+Crees. They will not allow them to believe such a cruel falsehood,"
+protested Julie, vehemently.
+
+Marcel smiled indulgently at the girl's ignorance of Cree psychology.
+
+"The harm is already done," he said. "One man is found stabbed; also the
+outfit of another gone. The third man comes back. No matter what M'sieu
+Gillies and Pere Henri tell them they will believe the man guilty who
+got out alive."
+
+"They will not believe these Lelacs, when they are shown to be liars,"
+she insisted, stamping her foot impatiently.
+
+"They have lied about the rifle and fur only, Julie. They are telling
+the truth when they say they found Antoine and some of Piquet's outfit.
+The rest does not matter except to make me a thief as well as murderer."
+
+"Oh, but it is all so unjust, so terrible to be accused like this when
+because of your good heart you wished to bury Antoine decently in the
+spring instead of leaving him in the snow where they would never have
+found him. It is too----" Julie Breton's voice broke with emotion.
+Through tears her dark eyes flashed in protest at the pass to which a
+blind fate had brought an innocent man.
+
+Marcel was deeply touched by this revelation of the girl's loyalty; but
+her tears roused his heart to a wild beating. Unable to speak, he faced
+her, his dark features illumined with the gratitude and love he could
+not voice. For a space he sat fighting for the mastery of his emotions.
+Then he said huskily:
+
+"Julie Breton, you give me great happiness--when you say you believe
+me--are still my friend."
+
+"Oh, la, la! Nonsense!" she cried, dabbing with, a handkerchief at her
+wet eyes as she recovered her poise, "you are a boy, so foolish, Jean.
+Do you think that we, your friends who know you, will permit this thing?
+It is impossible!" And changed the subject, nor did she allow him to
+return to it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+IN THE EYES OF THE CREES
+
+
+Day by day the ebb-tide brought in the canoes of returning Crees.
+Gradually tepees filled the post clearing. And with the coming of the
+hunters from the three winds, was heard many a tale of famine in far
+valleys; of families blotted out; of little victims of starvation and
+disease; of the aged too frail to endure through the lean moons of the
+rabbit-plague until the return of the caribou, which had spelt life to
+those who waited.
+
+Tragedy there had been, as in every winter of famine; but however
+sinister were the secrets which, that spring, many a mute valley held
+locked in its green forests, no rumors of such, except the tale of the
+murders on the Ghost, had reached Whale River. Pitiless desertion of the
+aged and the helpless, death by violence, doubtless, the starving moon
+had shone upon; but none had lived to tell the tale, none had seen the
+evidence, except those who had profited with their lives, and their lips
+were forever sealed. And so, as Marcel had foreseen, to the gathering
+families of Crees who themselves had but lately escaped the maw of the
+winter, the tale of the Lelacs, expanding as it travelled, found ready
+acceptance.
+
+As yet, Jean, chafing under the odium of his position at the post, had
+not faced his accusers. But the plan of his defense which had been
+decided on after a conference with Gillies and Pere Breton, depended for
+its success on the trading of their fur by the Lelacs, and the uncle and
+cousins of Joe Piquet for some reason had traded no fur. So the proud
+Frenchman went his way among the hunters at Whale River with a high head
+and silent tongue.
+
+Many of those who, the spring previous, had lauded his daring in
+entering the land of the Windigo and voyaging to the coast by the Big
+Salmon, now, at his appearance exchanged significant glances, avoiding
+the steady eyes of the man they had condemned without a hearing. Shawled
+women and girls, who formerly, at the trade, had cast approving glances
+at the wide-shouldered youth with the clean-cut features, now whispered
+pointedly as he passed and children often shrank from him in terror as
+from one defiled. But Marcel had been prepared for the effect of the
+tale of the Lelacs upon the mercurial red men, in the memories of many
+of whom still lurked the ghosts of deeds of their own whose ghastly
+details the ears of no man would ever hear.
+
+Since his return he had not once met the Lelacs face to face. Always
+they had hastily avoided him when he appeared on the way to his canoe or
+the trade-house. Jean had been strictly ordered by Gillies under no
+circumstances to seek trouble with his accusers or their friends, so he
+ignored them. And their disinclination to encounter the son of the
+famous Andre Marcel had not gone unmarked by the keen eyes of more than
+one old hunter. Many a red man and half-breed, friends of the father,
+who respected the son, had frankly expressed to him their disbelief in
+the charges of the Lelacs, accepting his story which Gillies had
+published to the Crees, that Beaulieu had been stabbed by Joe Piquet
+while Marcel was absent and Piquet killed later by the dog. Strongly
+they had urged him to make the Lelacs eat their lies, promising their
+support; but Jean had explained that it was necessary to wait; later his
+day would come.
+
+Occasionally when Marcel crossed the post clearing, pulsing with the
+varied life of the spring trade, to descend the cliff trail to his
+canoe, there marched by his side one whose name, also, was anathema with
+many of the Crees. That comrade was Fleur. The story of Piquet's death
+as told by Jean at the trade-house, though scouted by the Lelacs, had,
+nevertheless, left a deep impression; and the great dog, now called the
+"man-killer," who towered above the scrub huskies of the Indians as a
+mastiff over a poodle, was given a wide berth. But to avoid trouble
+with the Cree dogs, Jean kept Fleur for the most part in the Mission
+stockade. There Gillies and McCain and Jules had come to admire the bulk
+and bone of the husky they had last seen as a lumbering puppy, now in
+size and beauty far surpassing the Ungavas bought by the Company of the
+Esquimos. There, Crees, still friendly to Jean, lingered to gossip of
+the winter's hardships and stare in admiration at his dog. There, too,
+Julie romped with Fleur, grown somewhat dignified with the gravity of
+her approaching responsibilities. For, to the delight of Jean, Fleur was
+soon to present him with the dog-team of his dreams.
+
+Then when the umiaks of the Esquimos began to arrive from the coast,
+packed with tousle-headed children and the priceless sled-dogs, taking
+Fleur, Jean sought out his old friend Kovik of the Big Salmon. As he
+approached the skin lodge on the beach, beside which the kin of Fleur
+were made fast to prevent promiscuous fighting with strange dogs, she
+answered their surly greeting with so stiff a mane, so fierce a show of
+fangs, that Jean pulled her away by her rawhide leash, lest her
+reputation suffer further by adding fratricide to her crimes.
+
+Playmates of her puppyhood, mother who suckled her, she had forgotten
+utterly; vanished was all memory of her kin. She held but one
+allegiance, one love; the love approaching idolatry she bore the young
+master who had taken her in that far country from the strange men who
+beat her with clubs; who had brought her north again through wintry
+seas; who had companioned her through the long snows and in the dread
+days of the famine had shared with her his last meat. The center and sum
+of her existence was Jean Marcel. All other living things were as
+nothing.
+
+"Kekway!" cried the squat pair of Huskies, delighted at the appearance
+of the man who had given them back their first born. "Kekway!" chuckled
+a half-dozen round-faced children, shaking Jean's hand in turn.
+
+"Huh!" grunted the father, his eyes wide with wonder at the sight of
+Fleur, ears flat, muttering dire threats at her yelping brethren
+straining at their stakes, "dat good dog!"
+
+"Oui, she good dog," agreed Jean. "Soon I have dog-team lak Husky!"
+
+Shifting a critical eye from Fleur to his own dogs the Esquimo nodded.
+
+"Ha! Ha! You ketch boy in water, you get bes' dog."
+
+The Esquimo had not erred in his judgment of puppies. He had indeed
+given the man who had cheated the Big Salmon of his son the best of the
+litter. At sixteen months, Fleur stood inches higher at the shoulder
+and weighed twenty pounds more than her brothers. Truly, with the speed
+and stamina of their sire, the timber wolf, coupled with Fleur's courage
+and power, these puppies, whose advent he awaited, should make a
+dog-team unrivalled on the East Coast.
+
+"Cree up dere," continued the Esquimo, pointing toward the post
+clearing, "say de dog keel man."
+
+Marcel nodded gravely. "Oui, man try kill me, she kill heem."
+
+"Huh! De ol' dog keel bad Husky, on Kogaluk one tam."
+
+Fleur indeed had come from a fighting strain--dogs that would battle to
+the death or toil in the traces until they crumpled on the snow, for
+those they loved or to whom they owed allegiance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+ON THE CLIFFS
+
+
+Marcel was walking on the high river shore above the post with Julie
+Breton and Fleur. Like a floor below them the surface of the Great Whale
+moved without ripple in the still June afternoon. Out over the Bay the
+sun hung in a veil of haze. Back at the post, even the huskies were
+quiet, lured into sleep by the softness of the air. It was such a day as
+Jean Marcel had dreamed of more than a year before, in January, back in
+the barrens, when powdery snow crystals danced in the air as the lifting
+sun-dogs turned white wastes of rolling tundra into a shimmering sea. He
+was again with Julie on the cliffs, but there was no joy in his heart.
+
+"The Lelacs have traded their fur," he said, breaking a long silence;
+"the hearing will take place soon, now."
+
+"Yes, I know, you were with Monsieur Gillies and Henri very late last
+night," she replied, watching the antics of an inquisitive Canada jay in
+an adjacent birch.
+
+"Yes, we had some work to do. The Lelacs will not like what we have to
+tell them."
+
+"I knew that you would be able to show the Crees what bad people these
+Lelacs are."
+
+"Yes, Julie, we shall prove them liars and thieves; but the stain on the
+name of Jean Marcel will remain. I cannot deny that Antoine was killed;
+the Crees will not believe my story."
+
+"Nonsense, Jean," she burst out, "you must make them believe you!"
+
+"Julie," he said, ignoring her words, "since my return I have wanted to
+tell you--that I wish you all happiness,"--he swallowed hard at the lump
+in his throat,--"I have heard that you leave Whale River soon."
+
+At the words the girl flushed but turned a level gaze on the man, who
+looked at the dim, blue shapes of the White Bear Hills far on the
+southern horizon.
+
+"You have not heard the truth," she said. "Monsieur Wallace has done me
+the honor to ask me to marry him, but Monsieur Wallace is still a
+Protestant."
+
+The words from Julie's own lips stung Marcel like the lash of a whip,
+but his face masked his emotion.
+
+Then she went on:
+
+"I wanted to talk to you last summer, for you are my dear friend, but
+you were here for so short a while and we had but a word when you
+left." Then the girl burst out impulsively, "Ah, Jean; don't look that
+way! Won't you ever forgive me? I am--so sorry, Jean. But--you are a
+boy. It could never be that way. Why, you are as a brother."
+
+Marcel's eyes still rested on the silhouetted hills to the south. He
+made no answer.
+
+"Won't you forget, Jean, and remain a friend--a brother?"
+
+He turned his sombre eyes to the girl.
+
+"Yes, I shall always be your friend--your brother, Julie," he said. "But
+I shall always love you--I can't help that. And there is nothing to
+forgive. I hoped--once--that you might--love Jean Marcel; but now--it is
+over. God bless you, Julie!"
+
+As he finished, Julie Breton's eyes were wet. Again Marcel gazed long
+into the south but with unseeing eyes. The girl was the first to break
+the silence.
+
+"Jean," she said, returning to the charges of the Lelacs, "you must not
+brood over what the Crees are saying. What matters it that the ignorant
+Indians, some of whom, if the truth were known, have eaten their own
+flesh and blood in starvation camps, do not believe you. For shame! You
+are a brave man, Jean Marcel. Show your courage at Whale River as you
+have shown it elsewhere."
+
+Sadly Marcel shook his head. "They will speak of me now, from Fort
+George to Mistassini, as the man who killed his partners." And in spite
+of Julie Breton's words of cheer he refused to see his case in any other
+light.
+
+They had turned and were approaching the post when the practised eye of
+Marcel caught the far flash of paddles toward the river mouth. For a
+space he watched the rhythmic gleams of light from dripping blades
+leaving the water in unison, which alone marked the approaching canoe on
+the flat river. Then he said:
+
+"There are four or six paddles. It must be a big Company boat from Fort
+George. I wonder what they come for during the trade."
+
+As Jean and Julie Breton entered the post clearing the great red flag of
+the Company, carrying the white letters H. B. C., was broken out at the
+flagpole in honor of the approaching visitors. The canoe, now but a
+short way below the post, was receiving the undivided attention of
+Esquimos, Crees and howling huskies crowding the shore. The boat was not
+a freighter for she rode high. No one but an officer of the Company
+travelled light with six paddles. It was an event at Whale River, and
+Indians and white men awaited the arrival of the big Peterborough with
+unconcealed interest.
+
+"It must be Inspector Wallace," said Jean.
+
+With a face radiant with joy in the unexpected arrival of Wallace, Julie
+Breton hastened to the high shore, while Marcel turned slowly back to
+the Mission stockade where his dog awaited him at the gate.
+
+As the canoe neared the beach the swart _voyageurs_, conscious of their
+Cree and Esquimo audience, put on a brave burst of speed. At each lunge
+of the narrow Cree blades, swung in unison with a straight arm, the
+craft buried its nose, pushing out a wide ripple. On they came spurred
+by the shouts from the shore, then at the order of the man in the bow,
+the crew raised their paddles and bow and stern men deftly swung the
+boat in to the Whale River landing amid the cheers of the Indians.
+
+"How ar' yuh, Gillies?" said Wallace, stepping from the canoe; and,
+looking past the factor to a woman's figure on the high shore, waved his
+cap.
+
+"Well, well, Mr. Wallace; we hardly expected to see you at Whale River
+so early," answered Gillies, drily, smiling at the eagerness of Wallace.
+"Anything happened to the steamer?"
+
+"Oh, no! The steamer is all right. She'll be here on time. I thought I'd
+run up the coast during the trade this year."
+
+Gillies winked surreptitiously at McCain. It was most peculiar for the
+Inspector of the East Coast to arrive before the accounts of the spring
+trade were made up.
+
+"How has the famine affected the fur with you, Gillies?" asked Wallace,
+as they proceeded up the cliff trail to the post clearing. "The Fort
+George and East Main people were hit pretty hard, a number of families
+wiped out."
+
+"Yes, I expected as much," said Gillies. "A few of our people were
+starved out or died of disease. Nine, all told, have been reported, four
+of them old and feeble. It was a tough winter with both the rabbits and
+the caribou gone; we have done only fairly well with the trade,
+considering."
+
+"What's this I hear about a murder by one of your Frenchmen?" Wallace
+suddenly demanded. "We met a canoe at the mouth of the river and heard
+that the bodies of two half-breeds who had met foul play were found this
+spring and that you have the third man here now?"
+
+"That's pure Indian talk, Mr. Wallace," Gillies protested forcibly. "I
+will give you the details later. A half-breed killed one of his partners
+and attempted to kill the other, Jean Marcel, the son of Andre Marcel;
+you remember Andre, our old head man. You saw Jean here last summer. He
+is one of our best men. In fact, I'm going to take him on here at the
+post, although he's only a boy. He's too valuable to keep in the bush."
+
+"Oh, yes! I remember him; friend of Father Breton. But we've got to put
+a stop to this promiscuous murder, Gillies. There's too much of this
+thing on the Bay, this killing and desertion in famine years, and no one
+punished for lack of evidence."
+
+"But this was no murder, Mr. Wallace," Gillies answered hotly. "You'll
+hear the story to-night from Marcel's lips, if you like. We have some
+pretty strong evidence against his accusers, also. This is a tale
+started by the relatives of one of the men to cover their own thieving."
+
+"Well, Gillies, your man may be innocent, but I want to catch one of
+these hunters who come into the posts with a tale of starvation as
+excuse for the disappearance of their partners or family. When the grub
+goes they desert, or do away with their people, and get off on their own
+story. I'd like to get some evidence against one of them. The government
+has sent pretty stiff orders to Moose for us to investigate these cases,
+and where we have proof, send the accused 'outside' for trial."
+
+"When you've talked to him, Mr. Wallace, I think you'll agree that he
+tells a straight story and that these Lelacs are lying."
+
+"I hope so," answered Wallace, and started for the Mission, where Julie
+Breton awaited him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+INSPECTOR WALLACE TAKES CHARGE
+
+
+That night when Inspector Wallace had heard the story of the murders on
+the Ghost, he sent for Jean Marcel, to whom it was quite evident, on
+reporting at the trade-house, that the relations between the former and
+Gillies had recently become somewhat strained. The face of the Inspector
+was noticeably red and Gillies' heavy brows contracted over eyes blazing
+with wrath.
+
+"Sit down!" said the Inspector as Marcel reported. "Now, Marcel,"
+Wallace began, severely, "this case looks pretty bad for you. You go
+into the bush in the fall with two partners, and the body of one is
+found with a knife wound, together with the effects of the other, in the
+spring."
+
+"Yes, M'sieu!" assented Jean.
+
+"You say Piquet killed Beaulieu and was killed by your dog when he
+attacked you. All right! But suppose when you began to starve you had
+killed Beaulieu and Piquet to get the remaining grub, how would that, if
+it had happened, have changed the evidence at the camp?"
+
+"De bodee of Antoine on de cache," replied Jean coolly, "proves to any
+smart man dat I did not keel heem. Eef I keel heem I would geeve de
+bodee to de lynx and wolverines out in de snow. Den I would say he died
+of de famine, lak de Cree do, and no one could deny it."
+
+Marcel's narrowed eyes bored into those of the Inspector. He tried to
+forget that before him sat the man who had taken from him all he held
+dear, this man who now had it in his power to dishonor him as well--send
+him south for trial among strangers.
+
+"Well, the Lelacs say you did hide the body. But suppose you left it on
+the cache. You were safe. Why should anyone come to your camp and see
+it? You were two days' travel up the Ghost from Whale River. They
+surprised you while you were away hunting."
+
+With a look of disgust but retaining his self-control, Jean answered:
+"Eet was a ver' hard winter. De Cree were starve' and knew we camp up de
+Ghost. Dey might come tru de bush for grub any tam. Eef I keel heem
+would I wait till spring to hide him under stones, as Lelac say?"
+
+"Um!" The face of Inspector Wallace assumed a judicial expression. "The
+circumstantial evidence is against you. Of course, you have something in
+your favor, but if I were on a jury I'd have to convict you," Wallace
+said with an air of finality.
+
+"One moment, Mr. Wallace," growled Gillies. "How about the previous
+reputation of Marcel and the character of the whole Lelac tribe? Hasn't
+that got any weight with you? I believe this boy because I've always
+found him honest and straight, as his father was. We thought a lot of
+his father on this coast. I don't believe the Lelacs because they always
+were liars. But you've missed the real point of the whole matter."
+
+"What do you mean? The case is clear as a bell to me, Gillies." The
+Inspector colored, frowning on the stiff-necked factor.
+
+"Why, putting the previous reputation, here, of Marcel aside, if he had
+killed Beaulieu, would he have told us that Beaulieu was stabbed?
+Clearly not! He would have said that Antoine died of starvation and was
+not stabbed, for as soon as he heard they had not turned in the fur, he
+knew he had the Lelacs in his power and could prove them thieves and
+liars, and we all would have believed him. The story of the Lelacs as to
+the man having been murdered would not have held water a minute after
+the hearing proves them thieves.
+
+"Furthermore, he knew they could not prove their tale by the body of
+Beaulieu, either, left to rot on the shore there in the spring freshets.
+There would be no evidence for a canoe from the post to find." The
+Scotchman rose and pounded the slab table as he drove home his final
+point.
+
+"Why, Jean Marcel had it in his power, if he had been guilty, to have
+walked out of this trouble by simply giving the Lelacs the lie. But what
+did he do? He told his tale to Pere Breton, here, before he learned what
+the Lelacs had said.
+
+"He freely admitted that Beaulieu had been stabbed when he might have
+denied it and got off scot free. Does that look like a guilty man?
+Answer me that!" thundered Gillies to his superior officer.
+
+The force of Gillies' argument was not lost on the unreceptive Wallace.
+
+The stone-hard features of Marcel reflected no emotion but deep in his
+heart smoldered a hatred of this Inspector of the Company, who, not
+satisfied with taking Julie Breton from him, now flouted his honor as a
+Marcel and a man.
+
+"Well?" demanded Gillies, impatiently, his frank glance holding the pale
+eyes of Wallace.
+
+"Yes, what you say, Gillies, has its weight, no doubt. If he had wanted
+to avoid this thing, he might have done it, when he learned that the
+Lelacs had held the fur. Still, I'll think it over. It may be best to
+send him 'outside' to be tried, as a warning to these people. I can't
+seem to swallow that tale of the dog killing Piquet, however. Sounds
+fishy to me!"
+
+"Have you seen the dog?" demanded Gillies.
+
+"No!"
+
+"Well, when you see her, you won't doubt it. She's the most powerful
+husky I've ever seen--weighs a hundred and forty pounds. She's got a
+litter due soon."
+
+"Oh, I'd like to take a pup or two back with me."
+
+"Well, you'll have to see Marcel about that," chuckled Gillies. "Her
+pups are worth a black fox skin. We'll have this hearing to-morrow,
+then, if it's agreeable to you, Mr. Wallace. When you see the Lelacs you
+may understand why we believe so strongly in Marcel."
+
+As Wallace went out, Gillies drew Jean aside.
+
+"I have little faith in Inspector Wallace, Jean. He would send you south
+for trial if he could find sufficient reason for it."
+
+"M'sieu Gillies, Jean Marcel will never go south to be tried by strange
+men for the thing he did not do."
+
+"What do you mean, my son? You would not make yourself an outlaw? It
+would be better to go."
+
+"I shall not go, M'sieu." And Colin Gillies believed in his heart that
+Marcel spoke the truth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE WHELPS OF THE WOLF
+
+
+The following morning Jean Marcel forgot the cloud hanging over him in
+his joy at the event which had taken place since dawn. Rousing Julie and
+her brother, he led them to the stockade. There in all the pride of
+motherhood lay the great Fleur with five blind, roly-poly puppies,
+whimpering at her side.
+
+"Oh, the little dears!" cried Julie. "How pretty they are!"
+
+First speaking to Fleur and patting her head, Jean picked up a squirming
+ball of fur and as the mother whined anxiously, put it in Julie's arms.
+
+"Oh, mon cher!" cried the girl, nestling the warm little body to her
+cheek. "What a morsel of softness!" But when Pere Breton reached to
+touch the puppy a rumble from Fleur's deep throat warned him that Julie
+alone was privileged to take such liberties with her offspring.
+
+Jean quieted the anxious mother, whose nose sought his hand. "See,
+Father, what a dog-team she has given me."
+
+One after another he proudly exhibited the puppies. "Mark the bone of
+their legs. They will make a famous team with Fleur as leader. Is it not
+so?"
+
+"They are a possession to be proud of, Jean," agreed the priest,
+standing discreetly out of reach, for Fleur's slant eyes never left him.
+
+"Which of them do you wish, Julie?" Jean asked. "One, you know, is for
+you."
+
+"Oh, Jean; you are too good!" cried the girl. "I should love this one,
+marked like Fleur," and she stooped to take the whimpering puppy in her
+arms, while Jean's hand rested on Fleur's massive head, lest the fear of
+the mother dog for the safety of her offspring should overpower her
+friendship for Julie.
+
+As the girl fearlessly reached and lifted the puppy, Fleur suddenly
+thrust forward her long muzzle and licked her hand.
+
+"_Bon!_" cried Jean, delighted. "Fleur would allow no one on earth to do
+that except you. The puppy's name must be Julie."
+
+In his joy at the coming of Fleur's family Marcel had forgotten, for the
+time being, the hearing. But later in the morning at the trade-house,
+Gillies, whose obstinacy had been deeply aroused by the attitude of
+Inspector Wallace, planned with the accused man how they should handle
+the Lelacs.
+
+For the factor had no intention of permitting Jean's exoneration to
+hang in the balance of the prejudiced mind of Wallace. The canny Scot
+realized that if the Lelacs were thoroughly discredited at the hearing
+at which the leaders of the Crees would be present; were shown to have
+an ulterior motive in their attempt to fix the crime upon Marcel, there
+would be a strong reaction in favor of Jean--that his story would be
+generally accepted; so to this end he carefully laid his plans. Wallace,
+busy prying into the books of the post, he did not take into his
+confidence, wishing to surprise him as well as the Crees by the
+bomb-shell the defense had in store for the Lelacs.
+
+At noon Wallace overheard Jules and McCain talking of Fleur's puppies
+which they had just seen.
+
+"By the way, McCain, where are these remarkable Ungava pups which you
+say were sired by a timber wolf?"
+
+"Over in the Mission stockade, sir."
+
+"I want to see them and the old dog, too. I'm rather curious to put my
+eyes on the husky that could kill a man with a loaded gun in his hands.
+That part of Marcel's story needs a bit of salt."
+
+"You won't doubt it when you see her! She's a whale of a husky," said
+McCain.
+
+"Well, I never saw the dog that could kill me with a rifle handy. I'll
+stroll over and take a look at her."
+
+"I'll show you the way." And McCain and Wallace went to the Mission.
+
+Arrived at the tent in the stockade they were greeted by a fierce
+rumble, like the muttering of an August south-wester making on the Bay.
+
+"We'd better not go near the tent, Mr. Wallace. I'll see if Jean's in
+the house. The dog won't allow anyone but Marcel near her."
+
+Ignoring the warning, Wallace approached the tent opening to look
+inside, but so fierce a snarl warned him off that he stepped back with
+considerably more speed than his dignity admitted. Red in the face, he
+glanced around to learn if his precipitous flight had had an audience.
+
+Shortly, McCain returned with Marcel, and Wallace, now that the dog's
+owner was near, again approached and peered into the tent.
+
+There was a deep growl from within, and with a cry of surprise the
+Inspector was hurled backward to the ground by the rush of a great, gray
+body. At the same instant, Jean Marcel, calling to Fleur, leaped
+headlong at his dog, seizing her before she could strike at the neck of
+the prostrate Wallace. Calming the husky, he held her while the
+discomfited Inspector got to his feet.
+
+"You should not go so near, M'sieu. She ees not use to stranger," said
+Jean brusquely.
+
+"I--I didn't think she was so cross," sputtered the ruffled Inspector.
+"Why, she's a regular wolf of a dog!"
+
+"Now, sir," demanded the secretly delighted McCain, "do you believe she
+could kill a man?"
+
+Surveying Fleur's gigantic frame critically as Jean stroked her glossy
+neck, soothing her with low words crooned into a hairy ear, the
+enlightened Inspector of the East Coast posts admitted:
+
+"Well, I don't know but what she could. I never saw such a beast for
+size and strength. Let's have a look at the pups."
+
+Jean brought from the tent the blind, squirming balls of fur.
+
+"They are beauties, Marcel! I'll buy a couple of them. They can go down
+by the steamer if they're weaned by that time. What do you want for
+them?"
+
+Marcel smiled inscrutably at Inspector Wallace and said:
+
+"M'sieu, dese pups are not to sell."
+
+"I know, but you don't want all of them. That would give you six dogs.
+All you need for a team is four."
+
+But Jean Marcel only shook his head, repeating:
+
+"Dey are not to sell!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE TRAP IS SPRUNG
+
+
+The trading-room at Whale River was crowded with the treaty chiefs and
+older men among the Cree hunters chosen by the factor to be present at
+the hearing. Behind a huge table made from hewn spruce slabs, sat
+Inspector Wallace, Colin Gillies and McCain. In front and to one side
+were the swart half-breeds, Gaspard Lelac and his two sons. Facing them
+on the opposite side of the table was Jean Marcel, and behind him, his
+advisor, Pere Breton, with Julie; for she had insisted on being present,
+and the smitten Wallace had readily agreed. The remainder of the room
+was occupied by the Crees, expectant, consumed with curiosity, for it
+had leaked out that certain matters connected with the tragedy on the
+Ghost which, heretofore, had not been divulged, would that afternoon be
+given light.
+
+Among the assembled half-breeds and Crees there were two distinct
+factions. Those who had readily accepted the story of the Lelacs with
+its sinister indictment of Marcel, among whom were the kinsmen of
+Antoine Beaulieu; and those, who, knowing Jean Marcel, as well as his
+unsavory accusers, had refused to accept the half-breeds' tale, and were
+waiting with eagerness to hear Marcel's defense; for as yet, Marcel,
+under orders from Gillies, had refused to discuss the case. Outside the
+trade-house, chattering groups of young men and Cree women were
+gathered, awaiting the outcome of the proceedings.
+
+Rising, Colin Gillies called for silence and addressed the Crees in
+their picturesque tongue:
+
+"The long snows have come and gone. Famine and suffering have again
+visited the hunters of Whale River. With the return of the rabbit
+plague, and the lack of deer, many of those who were here last year at
+the spring trade have gone to join their fathers. The Company is sad
+that its hunters and their families have suffered. Last autumn, three
+hunters went from this post to winter on the Ghost River. This spring
+but one returned. He is here now, for the reason that he travelled far
+into the great barrens to streams which join the Big Water many, many
+sleeps to the northeast, where at last he found the returning deer.
+
+"This spring, when the Ghost was free of ice, Gaspard Lelac and his
+sons, wishing to visit their kinsman, Joe Piquet, travelled to the camp
+of the three hunters. What they found there they will now tell as they
+told it to me when they came to Whale River. After you have learned
+their story, Jean Marcel, the man who returned, will relate what
+happened on the Ghost under the moons of the long snows.
+
+"The Company has sent to visit Whale River its chief of the East Coast,
+Inspector Wallace. He will hear the stories of these men and decide
+which of them speaks with a double tongue. It is for you, also, when
+they have spoken, to say whether Gaspard Lelac and his sons bring the
+truth to Whale River, or Jean Marcel. You know these men. Hear their
+talk and judge in your hearts between them. Gaspard Lelac has put the
+blood of Antoine Beaulieu and Joe Piquet on the head of Jean Marcel. The
+fathers at Ottawa and the Chiefs of the Company at Winnipeg will not
+suffer one of their children to go unpunished who takes the life of
+another.
+
+"Listen to the speech of these men. Look with your eyes into their faces
+and upon what will be shown here, and judge who speaks with a double
+tongue and who from an honest heart. Gaspard Lelac will now tell what he
+saw and did."
+
+As Gillies finished, a murmur of approval filled the room, followed by a
+tense silence.
+
+Lelac, a grizzled French half-breed with small, closely-set eyes, which
+shifted here and there as he spoke, then rose and told in the Cree
+tongue the story he had retailed daily for the previous month.
+
+Wishing to visit his nephew Piquet, he said, and learn how he had
+weathered the hard winter, in May Lelac and his sons had poled up the
+Ghost to the camp. There they found an empty cache and part of the
+outfits of Beaulieu and Piquet, the latter of which they at once
+recognized. Alarmed, they searched the vicinity of the camp, and by
+chance, discovered the body of Beaulieu buried under stones on the
+shore. There was a knife wound in his chest. They continued the search
+in hope of finding Piquet, as his blankets and outfit, evidently unused
+for months and eaten by mice, were strong proof of his death, also; but
+failed to find the body. Of the fur-packs and rifles of the two men
+there was no trace, but a knife, identified later as belonging to
+Antoine, they brought back. There were no signs of the third man's
+outfit about the camp. If the third man was alive, what were they to
+believe? Antoine was dead, and Piquet, also, for his blankets were
+there. Someone had killed Antoine and Piquet. There was but one other,
+Marcel. So they travelled to Whale River with the news.
+
+The sons of Lelac glibly corroborated the story of their father. When
+they had finished, the trade-room buzzed with whispered comment.
+
+At a nod from Wallace, Gillies questioned the older Lelac in Cree for
+the benefit of the Indians.
+
+"You say that these blankets here, this knife and cooking kit, and the
+clothes and bags, were all that you found at the camp--that there were
+no fur and rifles on the cache?"
+
+"These were all we found--nothing else," replied Lelac, his small eyes
+wavering before the gaze of the factor.
+
+"You swear that you found nothing but these things," repeated Gillies,
+pointing to the articles on the floor in front of the table.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+The set face of Jean Marcel, which had remained expressionless during
+the Lelacs' statement, relaxed in a wide smile which did not escape many
+a shrewd pair of Cree eyes.
+
+"Jean Marcel will now relate what passed on the Ghost through the moons
+of the long snows."
+
+With the announcement, there was much stirring and shuffling of
+moccasins accompanied by suppressed exclamations and muttering, among
+the expectant Crees. But when Marcel rose, squared his wide shoulders,
+and with head high ran his eyes over the assembled Crees, friendly and
+hostile, to rest at length on the Lelacs, his lips curled with an
+expression of contempt, while the Indians and breeds relapsed into
+silence.
+
+Slowly, and in detail, Jean told in the Cree language how his partners
+had gone up-river when he started south on the trail of the dog-thieves;
+how he recaptured Fleur, and later reached the Ghost at the
+"freeze-up." The tale of his nine-hundred-mile journey to the south
+coast drew many an "Ah-hah!" of mingled surprise and admiration from
+those who remembered Marcel's voyage of the previous spring through the
+spirit-haunted valleys of the Salmon headwaters. With his familiarity
+with the Cree mental make-up and his French instinct for dramatic
+values, he held them breathless by the narration of this Odyssey of the
+north.
+
+Then Marcel described the long weeks when the three men fought
+starvation, with the deer and rabbits gone; how he travelled far into
+the land of the Windigo in search of beaver; and finally, he came to the
+break with his partners. The hard feeling which developed at the camp on
+the Ghost, Jean made no attempt to gloss over, but boldly told how the
+others had not played fair with the food, and he had left them to fight
+out the winter alone. Of the death of Piquet he spoke as one speaks of
+the extermination of vermin. An assassin in the night, Piquet had come
+to the tent of a sleeping man and the dog alone had saved his life.
+
+They called his dog the "man-killer." Would they have asked less of
+their own huskies? he demanded. But if any of them doubted, and he
+understood that the Lelacs were among these, that his dog could have
+killed Piquet, let them come to the tent in the Mission stockade by
+night--and learn for themselves.
+
+"_Nama_, no!" some Indian audibly protested, and for a space the room
+was a riot of laughter, for the Crees had seen Fleur, the "man-killer."
+
+But when the narrative of Marcel reached the discovery of the dead
+Antoine, stabbed to the heart in the shack on the Ghost, his voice broke
+with emotion. When he had found Antoine, killed in his sleep by Piquet,
+Marcel said that he had bitterly regretted that he had not taken
+Beaulieu with him, leaving Piquet to work out his own fate.
+
+Then Jean described how he had lashed the body of Antoine, sewed in a
+tent, on the platform cache, and placed the fur-packs and rifles beside
+it, when he left to go into the barrens for deer. Turning, the Frenchman
+pointed his finger at the scowling Lelacs, and cried dramatically, "When
+you came to the camp this spring, you did not find the body of Antoine
+Beaulieu buried on the shore; you found it on the cache sewed in a tent.
+If I had killed him would I not have hidden him somewhere in the snow
+where the starving lynx and wolverines would have done the rest? No, you
+found Antoine on the cache, and beside him were his rifle and fur-pack
+with those of Joe Piquet. What did you do with them?"
+
+His evil face distorted with rage, the elder Lelac snarled:
+
+"You lie, you got de fur and rifle hid."
+
+Suppressing the half-breeds, Wallace ordered Marcel to continue.
+
+Jean finished his story with the account of his long journey into the
+barrens beyond the Height-of-Land where the streams flowed northeast
+instead of west, his meeting with the returning deer, when weak with
+starvation, and his return to the Ghost to find that a canoe had
+preceded him there.
+
+As he resumed his seat, the eyes of Julie Breton were bright with tears.
+The priest leaned and grasped Jean's hand, whispering: "Well done, Jean
+Marcel!"
+
+It had been a dramatic narration and the audience, including Inspector
+Wallace to whom it was interpreted by Gillies, had been impressed by the
+frank and fearless manner of its telling.
+
+Angus McCain and big Jules smiled widely as they caught Marcel's eyes.
+
+Again Gillies rose. "Jules!" he called, and Duroc brought from an
+adjoining room a bundle of pelts, placing them on the long table.
+
+Again the room hummed with the whispering of the curious audience. The
+surprised Lelacs, now in a panic, talked excitedly, heads together.
+
+"Marcel, examine these pelts and if you notice anything about them,
+make a statement," said Gillies, conducting the examination for the
+benefit of the Crees, in their native tongue, and translating to
+Wallace.
+
+With great care, as his Cree audience craned their necks to watch what
+the Frenchman was doing, Jean, first examining each pelt, slowly divided
+the bundle of skins into three separate heaps.
+
+"Have you anything to say?"
+
+"Yes, M'sieu. This large pile here, I know nothing about; but this heap
+here, were all pelts trapped last winter by Antoine Beaulieu."
+
+A murmur passed through the crowded room. Here surely was something of
+interest. Lelac rose and started to look at the pelts when big Jules
+pushed him roughly back on the bench.
+
+"You stay where you are, Lelac, or I'll put a guard over you!" rasped
+Gillies.
+
+"This pile here," continued Jean, "belonged to Joe Piquet."
+
+"How do you recognize them?" demanded Gillies.
+
+"All these have Antoine's mark, one little slit behind the right
+fore-leg. These with two slits behind the left fore-leg were the pelts
+of Piquet. My mark was three slits in front of the left hind leg. When
+we started trapping from the same camp, we agreed on these marks."
+
+The air of the trade-room was heavy with suspense.
+
+"You swear to these marks?"
+
+"Yes, M'sieu."
+
+"Francois Maskigan!" The treaty-chief of the South Branch Crees, a man
+of middle age, with great authority among the Indians, stepped forward.
+
+"Francois, you have heard what Marcel says of the marks on these skins?"
+
+The chief nodded, "_Enh_, yes."
+
+"Look at them and see if he speaks rightly."
+
+It took the Indian but a few minutes to check the distinguishing marks
+on the pelts and examine the large pile which Marcel had said possessed
+none.
+
+"Are the marks on these pelts as Marcel says?"
+
+"Yes, they are there, these marks as he says."
+
+The cowed Lelacs, their dark faces now twisted with fear, awaited the
+next words of Gillies. Then the irate factor turned on them.
+
+"Gaspard Lelac!" he roared. The face of Lelac paled to a sickly white as
+his furtive eyes met the factor's.
+
+"All this fur, here, you and your sons traded in last week; your own
+fur, and the pelts of Beaulieu and Joe Piquet, dead men. I have held
+them separate from the rest. You are thieves and liars!"
+
+The bomb had exploded. At the words of the factor, the trade-room became
+a bedlam of chattering and excited Indians. In the north, to steal the
+fur of another is one of the cardinal sins. The supporters of Marcel
+loudly exulted in the turn the hearing had taken, while the deluded
+adherents of the Lelacs, maddened by the villainy of men who had stolen
+from the dead and accused another, loudly cursed the half-breeds.
+
+Nonplussed, paralyzed by the trick of the factor, instigated by the
+adroit Marcel, the Lelacs sent murderous looks at Jean who smiled
+contemptuously in their faces.
+
+Gillies' deep bass quieted the uproar.
+
+"Jules!" he called the second time. All were on tiptoe to learn what
+further surprise the stalwart Jules had in store for them, when he
+entered the room with two rifles, which he laid on the table, while the
+Lelacs stared in wide-eyed amazement.
+
+"Where did you get these rifles?" asked Gillies.
+
+"In the tepee of Lelac, just now, hidden under blankets."
+
+"Whose rifles were they, Marcel?"
+
+Marcel examined the guns.
+
+"This 30-30 gun belonged to Piquet. This is the rifle of Antoine."
+
+With a cry, a tall half-breed roughly shouldered his way to the front of
+the excited Crees.
+
+"You thieves!" he cried, straining to reach the Lelacs with the knife
+which he held in his hand. But sinewy arms seized him and the frenzied
+uncle of Antoine Beaulieu was pushed, struggling, from the room.
+
+It was the final straw. The mercurial Crees had turned as quickly from
+the Lelacs to Marcel as, in the first instance, they had credited the
+tale of the half-breeds. Now, with the Lelacs proven liars and thieves,
+Jean's explanation of the deaths of his partners, as Gillies foresaw,
+had, without corroboration, and on his word as a man, only, been at once
+accepted.
+
+Calling for silence Gillies again spoke to the hunters.
+
+"You have heard the words of these men. You have judged who has spoken
+with a double tongue; who, with the guns of dead men hidden in a tepee,
+have traded their fur and put their blood upon the head of another. Do
+you believe Jean Marcel when he says that Piquet killed Antoine Beaulieu
+and went out to kill him also, or do you believe the men who stole the
+guns and fur of a dead man which belong to his kinsmen?"
+
+"_Enh! Enh!_ Jean Marcel speaks truth!" cried the Crees, and the
+chattering mob poured into the post clearing to carry the news to the
+curious young men and the women, who waited.
+
+Meanwhile Pere Breton embraced the happy Marcel while the unchecked
+tears welled in Julie's eyes. Then Gillies and McCain wrung the
+Frenchman's hand until he grimaced. But the big Jules, patiently waiting
+his turn, pounced upon Jean with a fierce hug and, in spite of his
+protests carrying him like a child in his great arms from the
+trade-house, showed the man they had maligned, to the Crees, who now
+loudly cheered him.
+
+Turning to Gillies, the Inspector said gravely: "These Lelacs go south
+for trial. I'll make an example of their thieving."
+
+But Colin Gillies had no intention of having the half-breeds sent
+"outside" for trial, if he could prevent it. It would mean that Jean and
+he, himself, with Jules, would have to go as witnesses. He could take
+care of the Lelacs in his own way. He had punished men before.
+
+"That would leave us very short-handed here. The famine has reduced the
+trade this year a third. If we want to make a showing next season, we
+can't spend six months travelling down below for a trial."
+
+"Yes, that would mean your going and we can't afford to injure the
+trade; but I ought to make a report on this murder business in famine
+years."
+
+"If you get the government into this, it will hurt us, Mr. Wallace. Why
+can't we handle this matter as we have handled it for two centuries?"
+protested Gillies. "A report will only place the Company in a bad
+light--make them think we can't control the Crees."
+
+"Well, perhaps you're right," admitted Wallace. "I'm out to make a
+showing on the East Coast and I don't want to handicap you."
+
+So Gillies had his way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+BITTER-SWEET
+
+
+To Jean Marcel it had been a happy moment--that of his exoneration by
+the hunters of Whale River. For weeks, with rage in his heart, he had
+silently borne the black looks of the Crees whom he could not avoid in
+going to his net and crossing the post clearing to the trade-house. For
+weeks his name had been a byword at the spring trade--Marcel, the man
+who had murdered his partners. But now the stain of infamy had been
+washed clean from an honored name. In his humble grave in the Mission
+Cemetery, Andre Marcel could now sleep in peace, for in the eyes of the
+small world of the East Coast, his son had come scathless through the
+long snows. The tale would not now travel down the coast in the
+Inspector's canoe that another white man had turned murderer for the
+scanty food of his friends.
+
+And with his acquittal by the Company and the Crees, his love for Julie
+Breton, more poignant from its very hopelessness, gave him no rest. As
+he struggled with renunciation, he brought himself to realize that,
+after all, it had been but presumption on his part to hope that this
+girl with her education of years in a Quebec convent, her acquaintance
+with the ways of the great world "outside," should look upon a humble
+Company hunter as a possible husband. He had all along mistaken her
+kindness, her friendship, for something more which she had never felt.
+In comparison with Wallace who, Jean had heard Gillies say, might some
+day go to Winnipeg as Assistant Commissioner of the Company, he was as
+nothing. Doomed by his inheritance and his training to a life beyond the
+pale of civilization, he could offer Julie Breton little but a love that
+knew no bounds, no frontiers; that would find no trail, which led to
+her, too long; no water too vast; no height too sheer; to separate them,
+did she but call him.
+
+So, in the hour of his triumph, the soul-sick Marcel went to one who
+never had failed him; who loved him with a singleness of heart but
+rarely paralleled by human kind; who, however humble his lot, would give
+him the worship accorded to no king--his dog.
+
+Seated beside Fleur with her squealing children crawling over him, he
+circled her great neck with his arms and told his troubles to a hairy
+ear. She sought his hand with her tongue, her throat rumbling with
+content, for had she not there on the grass in the soft June sun, all
+her world--her puppies and her God, Jean Marcel?
+
+There, Julie Breton, having in vain announced supper from the Mission
+door, found them, man and dog, and led Marcel away, protesting. The girl
+wore the frock she had donned in honor of his return, and never to Jean
+had she seemed so vibrant with life, never had the color bathed her dark
+face so exquisitely, nor the tumbled masses of her hair so allured him.
+But as he entered the Mission, he saw Inspector Wallace seated in
+conversation with the priest, and his heart went cold.
+
+During the meal, served by a Cree woman, the admiring eyes of Wallace
+seldom left Julie's face. At first he seemed surprised at the presence
+of Marcel at the table but the priest made it quite evident to the
+Company man that Jean was as one of the family. However, as the
+Frenchman rarely joined in the conversation and early excused himself,
+leaving Wallace a free field, the Inspector's temper at what might have
+seemed presumption in a Company hunter was unmarred.
+
+July came and to the surprise of Gillies and Whale River, the big
+Company canoe still remained under its tarpaulin on the post landing.
+That the priest looked kindly on the possibility of such a
+brother-in-law was evident from his hospitality to Wallace, but what
+piqued the curiosity of Colin Gillies and McCain was whether Wallace, a
+Scotch Protestant, had as yet accepted the Catholic faith, for the
+Oblat, Pere Breton, could not marry his sister to a man of another
+religious belief. However, deep in the spell of the charming Julie,
+Inspector Wallace stayed on after the trade was over, giving as his
+reason his desire to go south with the Company steamer which shortly
+would be due.
+
+Although to Jean she was the same merry Julie, each morning visiting the
+stockade to play with Fleur's puppies, who now had their eyes well open
+and were beginning to find an uncertain balance, he avoided her, rarely
+seeing her except at meal time. Of the change in their relations he
+never spoke, but man-like he was hurt that she failed to take him to
+task for his moodiness. In the evening, now, she walked on the
+river-shore with Wallace, and talked through the twilight when the sun
+lingered below the rim of the world in the west. Jean Marcel had gone
+out of her life. He ceased to mention the Inspector's name, and absented
+himself from meals when the Scotchman was expected.
+
+Julie had said: "Jean, you are one of us, always welcome. Why do you
+stay away when Monsieur Wallace comes?" And he had answered: "You know
+why I stay away, Julie Breton."
+
+That was all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE FANGS OF THE HALF-BREEDS
+
+
+One night when Jean returned late from his nets after a long paddle,
+seeking the exhaustion that would bring sleep and temporary respite from
+his grief, a canoe manned by three men drifted alongshore toward his
+beached canoe. Occupied with his thoughts, Marcel took no notice of the
+craft. Removing from the boat the fish he had caught, he was about to
+lift and place it bottom up on the beach when the bow of the approaching
+birch-bark suddenly swung sharply and jammed into the stern of his own.
+
+With an exclamation of irritation at the clumsiness of the people in the
+offending canoe, Jean looked up to stare into the faces of the three
+Lelacs.
+
+"You are good canoeman," he sneered, roughly pushing with his paddle the
+half-breeds' canoe from his own. That the act was intentional, he knew,
+but he was surprised that the Lelacs, convicted of theft, and on parole
+at the post awaiting the Company's decision as to their punishment,
+would dare to start trouble.
+
+As Jean shoved off the Lelacs' canoe, the half-breeds, as if at a
+preconcerted signal, shouted loudly:
+
+"W'at you do to us, Jean Marcel? Ough! Why you beat me wid de paddle? He
+try to keel us!"
+
+The near beach was deserted, but the shouts in the still night were
+audible on the post clearing above. The uproar waked the sleeping
+huskies at the few remaining Esquimo tepees on the shore, whose howling
+quickly aroused the post dogs.
+
+It was evident to Jean that his enemies had chosen their time and place.
+Obeying scrupulously the orders of Gillies since the trial, Marcel had
+avoided the Lelacs, holding in check the just wrath which had prompted
+him to take personal vengeance upon his traducers. Now, instead, they
+had sought him, but from their actions, intended to make him seem the
+aggressor.
+
+"Bon!" he muttered between his teeth. Life had little value to him now,
+he would give these thieves what they were after.
+
+"You 'fraid to come on shore? You squeal lak' rabbit; you t'ief!" he
+taunted.
+
+Continuing to shout that Marcel was attacking them, the Lelacs landed
+their canoe and the elder son, evidently drunk, lurched toward the man
+who waited.
+
+"Rabbit, am I?" roared the frenzied half-breed, and struck savagely at
+Jean with his paddle. Dodging the blow, before the breed could recover
+his balance, the Frenchman lunged with his one hundred and seventy
+pounds behind his fist into Lelac's jaw, hurling him reeling into the
+water ten feet away. Then the two Lelacs reached him.
+
+Gasping for breath, the younger brother fell backward, helpless from a
+kick in the pit of his stomach as the maddened Marcel grappled with the
+father. Over and over they rolled on the beach, Lelac, frenzied by
+drink, snarling with hate of the man he had tried to destroy, fighting
+like a trapped wolverine; the no less infuriated Marcel resolved now to
+rid Whale River forever of this vermin.
+
+It was not long before the bands of steel cable which swathed the arms,
+shoulders and back of Jean Marcel overcame the delirious strength of the
+crazed half-breed, and Lelac was forced down and held on his back. Then
+like the jaws of a wolf-trap, the fingers of Marcel's right hand shut on
+the throat of the under man. The bloodshot eyes of Lelac bulged from
+their sockets. Blood filled the distorted face. The mouth gaped for air,
+barred by the vise on his throat. In a last feeble effort to free
+himself, a helpless hand clawed limply at Marcel's wrist--then he
+relaxed, unconscious, on the beach.
+
+Getting to his feet, Jean looked for the others, to see the younger
+brother still nursing his stomach, when an oath sounded in his ears and,
+struck from the rear, a sharp twinge bit through his shoulder, as he
+stumbled forward.
+
+Leaping away from a second lunge, and drawing his knife with his left
+hand, Marcel slashed wildly, driving before him the half-breed whom the
+water had revived. Then, as he fought to reach him, the shape of his
+retreating enemy slowly faded from Marcel's vision; his strength ebbed;
+the knife slipped from his fingers as darkness shut down upon him, and
+he reeled senseless to the stones.
+
+With a snarl of triumph, Lelac, crouched on the defensive, sprang to the
+crumpled figure, a hand raised to drive home the knife-thrust, when
+something sang shrilly through the air. The upraised arm fell. With a
+groan, the half-breed pitched on his face, the slender shaft of a
+seal-spear quivering in his back.
+
+Close by, a kayak silently slid to the shore and a squat Husky, his
+broad face knotted with fear, ran to the unconscious Marcel. Swiftly
+cutting the shirt from the Frenchman's back, he was staunching the flow
+of blood from the knife wound, when people from the post clearing,
+headed by Jules Duroc, reached the beach.
+
+"By Gar! Jean Marcel!" gasped Jules recognizing his friend. "He ees cut
+bad?"
+
+The Husky shook his head. "He not kill."
+
+Staring at the dead man transfixed by the spear and his unconscious
+father, Jules roared: "De t'ief, dey try _revanche_ on Jean Marcel!"
+
+Stripping off his own shirt, Jules bandaged Marcel's shoulder. As he
+worked, one thing he told himself. Had they killed Marcel, the Lelacs
+would not have gone south for trial. Father and son would never have
+left the beach at Whale River alive.
+
+Then he said to the gathering Crees, "Tak' dem!" pointing to the younger
+Lelac now shedding maudlin tears over his dead brother, and to the
+half-choked father, resuscitated by a rough immersion in the river from
+unfriendly hands. Seizing the pair, rapidly sobering and now fearful for
+their fate, the Crees kicked them up the cliff trail.
+
+"Tiens!" exclaimed Jules to the Husky, finishing the bandaging. "Dey try
+keel Marcel but he lay out two w'en he get de cut?"
+
+The Husky nodded, "A-hah! I hear holler an' dey run on heem. He put all
+down. One in water, he get up an' cut heem wid knife. He fall and,
+whish! I spear dat one."
+
+"By Gar! You good man wid de seal-spear, John Kovik." And Jules wrung
+the Esquimo's hand.
+
+"I cum fast een kayak to fight for heem; I too slow," and the Husky
+shook his head sadly.
+
+"Ah, you cum jus' een time. You save hees life."
+
+The Husky placed a hand on the thick hair of the senseless man, as he
+said, "He ketch boy, Salmon Rive'. He frien' of me!"
+
+Jean Marcel's bread upon the waters had returned to him.
+
+With the unconscious Marcel in his arms, Jules Duroc climbed the cliff,
+the grateful Kovik at his heels, to meet the inhabitants of Whale River
+on the clearing. The news of the fight on the beach had spread swiftly
+through the post and many and fierce were the threats made against the
+Lelacs as they were shut in a small shack and placed under guard.
+
+In front of the trade-house, Gillies, followed by McCain and Wallace,
+met Jules with his burden.
+
+"How did this happen, Jules? Is he badly hurt?" demanded the factor.
+Jules explained briefly.
+
+"Stabbed in the back? Too bad! Too bad! Take him to the Mission
+Hospital."
+
+"Well, Gillies, this settles it! The Lelacs go south for trial, now, and
+they won't need you as a witness either," announced Wallace.
+
+"Yes, we'll have to get rid of them," admitted the factor. "They were
+crazy to do this after what has happened. I should have shut them up.
+Too bad Jean didn't use his knife instead of his hands on them!"
+
+"Or his feet!" added McCain. "The Husky says he put one Lelac out of
+business with a kick and choked the old man unconscious, when the one
+who was knocked into the river stabbed him. He fought them with his bare
+hands. I take off my hat to Jean Marcel."
+
+"Who started this affair, anyway?" asked Wallace. "The Lelacs, under a
+cloud here, couldn't have dared to."
+
+Gillies turned on his chief.
+
+"What do we care who started it? Haven't they tried to ruin Marcel? I
+ordered him to keep away from them, but didn't he have sufficient cause
+to start--anything?"
+
+"The Crees say the Lelacs got drunk on sugar-beer and were waiting for
+Jean to get back from down river," broke in McCain, fearing a row
+between Gillies and the Inspector. "John Kovik, the Husky, saw them rush
+him, and John got there in time to throw his seal-spear at young Lelac,
+after he had stabbed Marcel from behind."
+
+"Oh, that explains it; Marcel was defending himself," said the ruffled
+Inspector.
+
+"Yes, and you will notice, Mr. Wallace," rasped Gillies, "that Marcel
+fought them with his hands, until he was cut, one man against three. If
+he had used his knife on the old man, he wouldn't have been hurt. Does
+that prove what we've told you about him?"
+
+It was at this point that Julie Breton and her brother, late in hearing
+the news, reached Jules carrying his burden, whose bandages were now
+reddening with blood.
+
+"Oh, Jules, is he badly hurt?" cried the girl, peering in the dusk at
+the ashen face of Marcel. Then she noticed the bandages, and putting her
+hands to her face, moaned: "Jean Marcel, what have they done to you;
+what have they done to you?"
+
+"Eet bleed hard, Ma'm'selle," Jules said softly, "but eet ees onlee een
+de shouldair. Don' cry, Ma'm'selle Julie!"
+
+Supporting the sobbing girl, Pere Breton ordered:
+
+"Carry him to the Mission, Jules."
+
+"Yes, Father!" And Jean Marcel returned again to a room in the Mission.
+
+Tenderly rough hands bathed and dressed the knife wound and through the
+night Pere Breton sat by his patient, who moaned and tossed in the
+delirium which the fever brought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+CREE JUSTICE
+
+
+Deep in the night a long, mournful howl, repeated again and again,
+roused the sleeping post. Straightway the dogs of the factor and the
+Crees, followed by the Esquimos' huskies on the beach, were pointing
+their noses at the moon in dismal chorus. With muttered curse and
+protest from tepee, shack and factor's quarters, the wakened people of
+the post, covering their ears, sought sleep, for no hour is sacred to
+the moon-baying husky and no one may suppress him. One wakes, and
+lifting his nose, pours out his canine soul in sleep-shattering lament,
+when, promptly, every husky within hearing takes up the wail.
+
+The post dogs, having alternately and in chorus, to their hearts'
+content and according to the custom of their fathers, transformed the
+calm July night into a horror of sound, with noses buried in bushy tails
+again sought sleep. Once more the mellow light of the moon bathed the
+sleeping fur-post, when from the stockade behind the Mission rose a long
+drawn note of grief.
+
+The dark brows of Pere Breton, watching beside the delirious Marcel,
+contracted.
+
+"Could it be?" he queried aloud. Curious, the priest glanced at his
+patient, then went outside to the stockade. There, with gray nose thrust
+between the pickets, stood Fleur. As he approached, the dog growled,
+then sniffing, recognized a friend of the master, who sometimes fed her,
+and whined.
+
+"What is the matter, Fleur? Do you miss Jean Marcel?"
+
+At the mention of the loved name, the dog lifted her massive head and
+the deep throat again vibrated with the utterance of her grief for one
+who had not returned.
+
+"She has waked to find the blanket of Jean Marcel empty," mused the
+priest, "and mourns for him." Pere Breton returned to his vigil beside
+the wounded man.
+
+When the early dawn flushed the east, the grieving Fleur was still at
+her post at the stockade gate awaiting the return of Jean Marcel. And
+not until the sun lifted above the blue hills of the valley of the
+Whale, did she cease her lament to seek her complaining puppies.
+
+At daylight McCain and Jules coming to relieve the weary priest found
+Julie sitting with him. The wound was a long slashing one, but the lungs
+of Marcel seemed to have escaped. The fever would run its course. There
+was little to do but wait, and hope against infection.
+
+Greeting Julie, whose dark eyes betrayed a lack of sleep, whose face
+reflected an agony of anxiety, the men called Pere Breton outside the
+Mission.
+
+"The Lelacs will not go south for trial, Father," said McCain, drily.
+
+"What do you mean? Won't go south; why not?" demanded the astonished
+priest.
+
+"Well, because there's no need of it now," went on McCain mysteriously.
+
+"No need of it! I don't understand. They have done enough harm here. If
+they don't go, the Crees will do something----"
+
+"The Crees _have_ done something," interrupted McCain.
+
+"You don't mean----" queried the priest, light slowly dawning upon him.
+
+"Yes, just that. They overpowered and bound the guard, last night,
+and--well, they made a good job of it!"
+
+"Killed the prisoners?" the priest slowly shook his head.
+
+McCain nodded. "We found them both knifed in the heart. On the old man
+was a piece of birch-bark, with the words: 'This work done by friends of
+Jean Marcel.'"
+
+The priest raised his hands. "It would have been better to send them
+south. Still, they were evil men, and deserved their fate. Tell nothing
+of it to Julie. She has taken this thing very hard."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE WAY OF A DOG
+
+
+When Wallace and Gillies had surveyed the bodies of the dead
+half-breeds, the factor turned grimly to his chief.
+
+"Well, Wallace, I don't see how we can send the Lelacs south for trial,
+now; they wouldn't keep that long."
+
+"Gillies," said the Inspector with a frown, ignoring the ghastly
+witticism, "I want you to run down the men who did this. Whether they
+deserved it or not, I won't have men murdered in this district without
+trial. The lawlessness of the East Coast has got to stop."
+
+Gillies turned away, suppressing with difficulty his anger. Shortly in
+control of his voice, he answered:
+
+"Mr. Wallace, I have put in many years, boy and man, on this coast and I
+think I understand the Crees. To punish the men who did this, provided
+we knew who they were, would be the worst thing the Company could do.
+When the Lelacs stole Beaulieu's fur and rifle, they put themselves
+outside the Cree law, and as sure as the sun will set in Hudson's Bay
+to-night, the Lelacs would never have got out of the bush alive this
+winter."
+
+"I know," objected Wallace, "but to overpower our guards and kill them
+under our noses----"
+
+"What of it? The Lelacs had robbed a dead man and would have killed Jean
+Marcel, if he hadn't been a son of Andre Marcel, who was a wolf in a
+fight. The Lelacs were three-quarter Cree and the Indians here have a
+way of meting out justice to their own people in a case like this that
+even Canadian officials might envy. You may be sure that the Lelacs were
+formally tried and condemned in some tepee last night before this thing
+happened."
+
+"These two guards must have been asleep," complained Wallace.
+
+"Well, we'll never know, Mr. Wallace. They say that they were thrown
+from behind and didn't recognize the men who did it. Even if they did,
+they wouldn't tell who they were, and it's useless to try to make them.
+The Crees have taken the Lelacs off our hands. They have saved us time
+and money by ridding us of these vermin. In my opinion we should thank
+rather than attempt to punish them."
+
+So Inspector Wallace slowly cooled off and in the afternoon went to the
+Mission to make his daily call on Julie Breton only to be informed, to
+his surprise, that she could not see him.
+
+Meanwhile the condition of the wounded man was unchanged, but Pere
+Breton faced a problem which he deemed necessary to discuss with his
+friends Jules Duroc and McCain.
+
+Throughout the day, Fleur had fretted in the stockade, running back and
+forth followed by her complaining puppies, thrusting her nose between
+the pickets to whine and howl by turns, mourning the strange absence of
+Marcel.
+
+"Fleur will not grant sleep to Whale River to-night, unless something is
+done," said the priest to the two men who were acting in turn as
+assistant nurses.
+
+"Why can't we bring her in; let her see him and sniff his hand; it might
+quiet her?" suggested McCain. "It will only make her worse to shut her
+up somewhere else."
+
+"By Gar! Who weel tak' dat dog out again?" objected Jules. "Once she
+here, she nevaire leeve de room."
+
+"Yes, she will, Jules. She'll go back to her pups after a while. We'll
+bring them outside under the window and let 'em squeal. She'll go back
+to 'em then."
+
+"I am strong man," said Jules, "but I not love to hold dat dog. She weel
+eat Jean Marcel, she so glad to see heem, an' we mus' keep her off de
+bed."
+
+At that moment Julie entered the room. "I will take Fleur to see him;
+she will behave for me," volunteered the girl.
+
+So not without serious misgivings, it was arranged that the grieving
+Fleur should be shown her master.
+
+That night when Julie had fed Fleur, she opened the stockade gate and
+stroking the great head of the dog, said slowly:
+
+"Fleur would see Jean, Jean Marcel?"
+
+At the sound of the master's name, Fleur's ears went forward, her slant
+eyes turning here and there for a sight of the familiar figure. Then
+with a whine she looked at Julie as if for explanation.
+
+"Fleur will see Jean, soon. Will Fleur behave for Julie?"
+
+With a yelp the husky leaped through the gate and ran to and fro
+outside, sniffing the air; then as if she knew the master were not
+there, returned, shaggy body trembling, every nerve tense with
+anticipation, slant eyes eagerly questioning as she whimpered her
+impatience.
+
+Taking the dog by her plaited collar of caribou hide, to it Julie
+knotted a rope and led her into the Mission where McCain, Jules and Pere
+Breton waited.
+
+"Fleur will be good and not hurt Jean. She must not leap on his bed. He
+is very sick."
+
+Seeming to sense that something was about to happen having to do with
+Marcel, Fleur met the girl's hand with a swift lick of her tongue. With
+the rope trailing behind, the end of which Jules and McCain seized to
+control the dog in case she became unmanageable, Julie Breton opened the
+door of Marcel's room, where with fever-flushed face the unconscious man
+lay on a low cot, one arm hanging limply to the floor. When the husky
+saw the motionless figure, she pricked her ears, thrusting her muzzle
+forward, and sniffed, and as her nose revealed the glad news that here
+at last lay the lost Jean Marcel, she raised her head and yelped wildly.
+Then swiftly muzzling Marcel's inert body she started to spring upon the
+bunk to wake him, when Julie Breton's arms circled her neck and aided by
+the drag on the rope, checked her.
+
+"Down, Fleur! No! No! You must not hurt Jean."
+
+Seeming to sense that the mute Marcel was not to be roughly played with,
+the intelligent dog, whimpering like one of her puppies, caressed the
+free hand of the sick man, then, ignoring the weight on the rope
+dragging her back, she strained forward to reach his neck with her
+tongue, for his head was turned from her. But Jean Marcel did not return
+her caress.
+
+Puzzled by his indifference, then sensing that harm had come to the
+unconscious Marcel, the dog raised her head over the cot and rocked the
+room with a wail of sorrow.
+
+The wounded man sighed and turning, moaned:
+
+"They took Fleur and now they take Julie. There is nothing left--nothing
+left!"
+
+At the words, the nose of the overjoyed dog reached the hot face of
+Marcel, but his eyes did not see her.
+
+Again Julie's strong arms circled Fleur's neck, restraining her. The
+slant eyes of the husky looked long into the pale face which showed no
+recognition; then she quietly sat down, resting her nose on his arm. And
+for hours, with Julie seated beside her, Fleur kept vigil beside the
+bed, until the priest and McCain insisted on the dog's removal.
+
+When Jules brought a crying puppy outside the window of the sick room,
+for a time Fleur listened to the call of her offspring without removing
+her eyes from Marcel's face. But at length, maternal instinct
+temporarily conquered the desire to watch by the stricken man. Her
+unweaned puppies depended on her for life and for the moment mother love
+prevailed. With a final caress of the limp hand of Marcel, reluctantly,
+with head down and tail dragging, she followed Julie to the stockade.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+FROM THE FAR FRONTIERS
+
+
+For days Marcel's youth and strength battled with the fever aggravated
+by infection in the deep wound. All that Gillies and Pere Breton could
+do for the stricken man was done, but barring the simple remedies which
+stock the medicine chest of a post in the far north and the most limited
+knowledge of surgery possessed by the factors, the recovery of a patient
+depends wholly upon his vitality and constitution. With medical aid
+beyond reach, men die or fight back to health through the toughness of
+their fiber alone.
+
+There was a time when Jean Marcel journeyed far toward the dim hills of
+a land from which there is no trail home for the feet of the _voyageur_.
+There were nights when Julie Breton sat with her brother and Jules, or
+McCain, stark fear in their hearts that the sun would never again lift
+above the Whale River hills for Jean Marcel, never again his daring
+paddle flash in sunlit white-water, or his snow-shoes etch their webbed
+trail on the white floor of the silent places.
+
+And during these days the impatient Wallace chafed with longing for the
+society of Julie whose pity for the sick man had made of her an
+indefatigable nurse. A few words in the morning and an hour or two at
+night was all the time she allotted the man to whom she had given her
+heart.
+
+To the demand of the Inspector in the presence of Pere Breton that Julie
+should substitute a Cree woman as nurse, she had replied:
+
+"He has no one but us. His people are dead. He has been like a brother
+to me. I can do no less than care for him, poor boy!"
+
+"Yes," added Pere Breton, "he is as my son. Julie is right," and added,
+with a smile, "you two will have much time in the future to see each
+other."
+
+So Wallace had been forced to make the best of it.
+
+By the time that the steamer, _Inenew_, from Charlton Island, appeared
+with the English mail, and the supplies and trade-goods for the coming
+year, Jean Marcel had fought his way back from the frontiers of death.
+So relieved seemed the girl, who had given lavishly of her young
+strength, that she allowed Mrs. Gillies to take her place in the sick
+room while she spent with Wallace the last days of his stay at Whale
+River.
+
+Once more the post people saw the lovers constantly together and more
+than one head shook sadly at the thought of the one who had lost, lying
+hurt, in heart and body, on a cot at the Mission, while another took his
+place beside Julie Breton.
+
+At last, the steamer sailed for Fort George and no one in the group
+gathered at the landing doubted that the heart of Julie Breton went with
+it when they saw the light in her dark eyes as she bade the handsome
+Wallace good-bye.
+
+It was an open secret now, communicated by Wallace to the factor, that
+he was to become a Catholic that autumn, and in June take Julie Breton
+as a bride away to East Main.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the tense days when the fever heightened and the life of Jean
+Marcel hung on the turn of a leaf, there had been no repetition of the
+visit of Fleur to the sick room. But so loudly did she wail her
+complaint at her enforced absence from the man battling for his life, so
+near in the Mission house, that it was necessary to confine her with her
+puppies at a distance.
+
+Once again conscious of his surroundings and rapidly gaining strength,
+Marcel insisted on seeing his dog. So, daily, under watchful guard,
+Fleur was taken into the room, often with a clumsy puppy, round and
+fluffy, who alternately nibbled with needle-pointed milk-teeth at Jean's
+extended hand, making a great to-do of snarling in mock anger, or
+rolled squealing on its back on the floor, while Fleur sprawled
+contentedly by the cot, tail beating the floor, love in her slant eyes
+for the master who now had found his voice, whose face once more shone
+with the old smile, which was her life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+RENUNCIATION
+
+
+August drew to a close. The post clearing and the beach at Whale River
+were again bare of tepee and lodge of the hunters of fur who had
+repaired to their summer camps where fish were plentiful, to wait for
+the great flights of snowy geese that the first frosts would drive south
+from Arctic Islands. Daily the vitality and youth of Marcel were giving
+him back his strength, and no remonstrance of the Bretons availed to
+keep him quiet once his legs had mastered the distance to the
+trade-house. Except for a slight pallor in the lean face and the loss of
+weight, due to confinement, to his friends he was once more the Jean
+Marcel they had known, but for weeks, a sudden twisting of his firm
+mouth marking a twinge in the back, recalled only too vividly to them
+all the knife-thrust of Lelac.
+
+When, rid of the fever, and again conscious, Jean had become strong
+enough to talk, he repeatedly voiced his gratitude to Julie for her
+loyalty as nurse, but she invariably covered his mouth with her hand
+refusing to hear him. Grown stronger and sitting up, he had often
+repeated his thanks, raising his face to hers with a twinkle in his dark
+eyes, in the hope that her manner of suppressing him might be continued;
+but she had tantalizingly refused to humor the convalescent.
+
+"I shall close your mouth no longer, Monsieur," she had said with a
+grimace. "You will soon be the big, strong Jean Marcel we have always
+known and must not expect to be a helpless baby forever. And now that
+you can use your right arm, I shall no longer cut up your fish."
+
+"But it is with great pain that I move my arm, Julie," he had protested
+in a feeble effort to enlist her sympathy and so prolong the personal
+ministrations he craved.
+
+"Bah! When before has the great Jean Marcel feared pain? It is only a
+ruse, Monsieur. I am too busy, now that you can help yourself, to treat
+you as a child."
+
+And so, reluctantly, Marcel had resigned himself to doing without the
+aid of the nimble fingers of Julie Breton. The fierce bitterness in his
+heart, which, before the fight on the beach with the Lelacs had made of
+the days an endless torment, gave place, on his recovery, to a state of
+mind more sane. Deep and lasting as was his wound, the realization of
+the girl's devoted care of him had, during his convalescence, numbed the
+old rawness. Gratitude and his innate manhood shamed Marcel into a
+suppression of his grief and the showing of a brave face to Julie Breton
+and the little world of Whale River. In his extremity she had stood
+staunchly by his side. She had been his friend, indeed. He deserved no
+more. And now in his prayers, for he was a devout believer in the
+teachings of Pere Breton, he asked for her happiness.
+
+One evening found three friends, Julie, Jean Marcel and Fleur, again
+walking on the shore of the Great Whale in the mellow sunset. Romping
+with puppy awkwardness, Fleur's progeny roved near them. The hush of an
+August night was upon the land. Below, the young ebb ran silently
+without ripple. Not a leaf stirred in the scrub edging the trail. The
+dead sun, master artist, had limned the heavens with all the varied
+magic of his palette, and the gray bay, often sullenly restless under
+low-banked clouds, or blanketed with mist, now reached out, a shimmering
+floor, to the rim of the world.
+
+In silence the two, mute with the peace of the moment, watched the
+heightening splendor of the western skies. Disdaining the alluring
+scents of the neighboring scrub, which her puppies were exploring, Fleur
+kept to Marcel's side where her nose might find his hand, for she had
+not forgotten the days of their recent separation.
+
+"What you did for me I can never repay." Marcel broke the silence, his
+eyes on the White Bear Hills, sapphire blue on southern horizon.
+
+The girl turned impatiently.
+
+"Monsieur Jean Marcel, what I have done, I would do for any friend. I am
+weary of hearing you speak of it. Have you no eyes for the sunset the
+good God has given us? Let us speak of that."
+
+He smiled as one smiles at a child.
+
+"_Bien!_ We shall speak no more of it then, Ma'm'selle Breton. But this
+you shall hear. I am sorry that I acted like a boy about M'sieu Wallace.
+You will forgive me?"
+
+"There is nothing to forgive," she answered. "I know you were hurt. It
+was natural for you to feel the way you did."
+
+"But I showed little of the man, Julie. I was hurt here," and he placed
+his hand on his heart, "and I was a child."
+
+She smiled wistfully, slowly shaking her head. "I fear you were very
+like a man, Jean. But you are going away and I may not be here in the
+spring--may not see you for a long time--so I want to tell you now how
+proud I have been of you this summer."
+
+He looked up quizzically.
+
+"Yes, you have made a great name on the East Coast this summer, Jean
+Marcel. When you were ill the Crees talked of little else--of your
+travelling where no Indian had dared to go until you found the caribou;
+your winning, over those terrible Lelacs and proving your innocence;
+your fighting them with bare hands, because you knew no fear."
+
+The face of Marcel reddened as the girl continued.
+
+"You are brave and you have a great heart and a wise head, Jean Marcel;
+some day you will be a factor of the Company. Wherever I may be, I shall
+think of you and always be proud that you are my friend."
+
+Inarticulate, numb with the torture of hopeless love, Marcel listened to
+Julie Breton's farewell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE VOICE OF THE WINDIGO
+
+
+When the first flight of snowy geese, southward bound, flashed in an
+undulating white cloud over Whale River, the canoe of Jean Marcel was
+loaded with supplies for a winter in the land of the Windigo. And in
+memory of Antoine Beaulieu, he was taking with him as comrade and
+partner the eighteen-year-old cousin of the dead man whose kinsmen had
+humbly made their amends for their stand against Marcel before the
+hearing. Young Michel Beaulieu, of stouter fibre than Antoine, had at
+length overcome his scruples against entering the land of dread, through
+his admiration for Marcel's daring and his confidence in the man whose
+reputation since the hearing and the fight with the Lelacs had been now
+firmly established with the Whale River Crees. When Marcel had
+repeatedly assured the boy that he had neither seen the trail of _Matchi
+Manito_, the devil, nor once heard the wailing of a giant Windigo
+through all the long snows of the past winter in the Salmon country,
+Michel's pride at the offer had finally conquered his fears. So leaving
+the puppy he had given Julie as the nucleus for a Mission dog-team, and
+presenting Gillies with another, Marcel packed the three remaining
+children of Fleur whom he had named in honor of his three staunch
+friends, Colin, Jules and Angus, into the canoe already deep with
+supplies, and gripping the hands of those who had assembled on the
+beach, eased the craft into the flood-tide.
+
+"Good-bye and good luck, Jean!" called Gillies.
+
+"De rabbit weel be few; net beeg cache of feesh before de freeze-up!"
+urged the practical Jules.
+
+"No fear, Jules. We ketch all de feesh en de lac," laughed Jean. Then
+his eyes sought Julie Breton's sober face as he said in French:
+
+"I will not come back for Christmas, Julie. The pups will not be old
+enough for the trail."
+
+With the conviction that he was saying good-bye to Julie Breton
+forever--that on his return in June, she would be far in the south with
+Wallace, he pushed off as she called, "_Bon voyage, Jean! Dieu vous
+benisse!_" (God bless you!)
+
+When the paddles of Jean and Michel drove the boat into the stream, the
+whining Fleur, beholding her world moving away from her, plunged into
+the river after the _voyageurs_.
+
+"Go back, Fleur!" ordered Jean sternly. "You travel de shore; de cano'
+ees too full wid de pup." So the protesting Fleur turned back to follow
+the shore. The puppies, yet too young and clumsy to keep abreast of the
+tide-driven canoe, on the broken beach of the river, had to be
+freighted.
+
+When the boat was well out in the flood, Marcel waved his cap with a
+last "A'voir!"
+
+Far up-stream, a half-hour later, rhythmic flashes, growing swiftly
+fainter and fainter, until they faded from sight, marked for many a long
+moon the last of Jean Marcel.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+September waned, and the laggard rear-guard of the brant and Hutchins
+geese, riding the first stinging northers, passed south in the wake of
+the wavies. On the heels of September followed a week of mellow October
+days lulling the north into temporary forgetfulness of the menace of the
+bitter months to come. Then the unleashed winds from the Arctic
+freighted with the first of the long snows beat down the coast and river
+valleys, locking the land with ice. But far in the Windigo-haunted hills
+of the forbidden land of the Crees a man and a boy, snug in snow-banked
+tepee, laughed as the winds whined through November nights and the snow
+made deep in the timber, for their cache was heaped high with frozen
+trout, whitefish and caribou.
+
+With the coming of the snow, the puppies, young as they were, soon
+learned that the life of a husky was not all mad pursuit of rabbit or
+wood-mouse and stalking of ptarmigan; not all rioting through the
+"bush," on the trail of some mysterious four-footed forest denizen; not
+alone the gulping of a supper of toothsome whitefish or trout, followed
+by a long nap curled in a cosy hole in the snow, gray noses thrust into
+bushy tails. Although their wolf-blood made them, at first, less
+amenable than the average husky puppy to the discipline of collar and
+traces, their great mother, through the force of her example as lead-dog
+and the swift punishment she meted out to any culprit, contributed as
+much as Jean's own efforts to the breaking of the puppies to harness.
+
+Jules, the largest, marked like his mother with slate-gray patches on
+head and back was all dog; but the rogues, Colin and Angus, mottled with
+the lighter gray of their sire, and with his rangier build, inherited
+much of his wolf nature. Many a whipping from the long lash of plaited
+caribou hide, many a sharp nip from Fleur's white teeth, were required
+to teach the young wolves the manners of camp and trail; to bend their
+wild wills to the habit of instant obedience to the voice of Jean
+Marcel. But Fleur was a conscientious mother and under her stern
+tutelage and the firm but kind treatment of Jean,--who loved to rough
+and wrestle the puppies in the dry snow, rolling them on their backs and
+holding them helpless in the grip of his sinewy hands--as the shaggy
+ruffians grew in the wisdom of trace and trail, so in their wild natures
+ripened love for the master who fed and romped with them, meting out
+punishment to him alone who had sinned.
+
+In search of black and silver foxes, whose pelts, worth in the world of
+cities their weight in gold, are the chief inspiration of the red
+hunter's dreams, Jean had run his new trap-lines far in the valleys of
+the Salmon watershed. But to the increasing satisfaction of the still
+worried Michel, the sole noises of the night which had yet met his
+fearful ears, had been the scream of lynx, the occasional caterwauling
+of wolverine and the hunting chorus of timber wolves. But darkness still
+held potential terror for the lad in whom, at his mother's knee, had
+been instilled dread of the demon-infested bad-lands north of the Ghost,
+and he never camped alone.
+
+January came with its withering winds, burning and cracking the faces of
+the hunters following their trap-lines; swirling with fine snow, which
+struck like shot, and stung like the lash of whips. Often when facing
+the drive of a blizzard even the hardy Fleur, wrinkling her nose with
+pain, would stop and turn her back on the needle-pointed barrage. At
+times when the fierce cold, freezing all moisture from the atmosphere,
+filled the air with powdery crystals of ice, the true sun, flanked by
+sun-dogs in a ringed halo, lifted above the shimmering barrens,
+dazzlingly bright.
+
+One night when Jean and Michel, camped in the timber at the end of the
+farthest line of fox traps, had turned into their robes before a hot
+fire, in front of which in a snow hole they had stretched a shed tent
+both as windbreak and heat-reflector, a low wail, more sob than cry of
+night prowler, drifted up the valley.
+
+"You hear dat?" whispered Michel.
+
+The hairy throat of Fleur, burrowed in the snow close to the tent,
+rumbled like distant thunder.
+
+Marcel, already fast drifting into sleep, muttered crossly:
+
+"Eet ees de Windigo come to eat you, Michel."
+
+Again upon the hushed valley under star-encrusted heavens where the
+borealis flickered and pulsed and streamed in fantastic traceries of
+fire, broke a wailing sob.
+
+With a cry Michel sat up turning a face gray with fear to the man beside
+him. Again Fleur growled, her lifted nose sniffing the freezing air, to
+send her awakened puppies into a chorus of snarls and yelps.
+
+Raised on an elbow, Marcel sleepily asked:
+
+"What de trouble, Michel? You and Fleur hear de Windigo?"
+
+"Listen!" insisted the boy. "I nevaire hear dat soun' before."
+
+Silencing the dog, Jean pushed back his hood to free his ears, smiling
+into the blanched face of the wild-eyed boy beside him.
+
+Shortly the noiseless night was marred by a sobbing moan, as if some
+stricken creature writhed under the torture of mangled flesh.
+
+Marcel knew that neither wolf, lynx, nor wolverine--the "Injun-devil" of
+the superstitious--was responsible for the sound. What could it be? he
+queried. No furred prowler of the night, and he knew the varied voices
+of them all, had such a muffled cry. Puzzled and curious he left his
+rabbit-skin robes and stood with the terrified Michel beside the fire.
+In an uproar, the dogs ran into the "bush" with manes bristling and
+bared fangs, to hurl the husky challenge down the valley at the
+invisible menace.
+
+"Eet ees de Windigo! Dey tell me at Whale Riviere not to come een dees
+countree! De Windigo an' Matchi Manito ees loose here," whimpered Michel
+through chattering teeth.
+
+Jean Marcel did not know what it was that made night horrible with its
+moaning but he intended to learn at once. The lungs behind that noise
+could be pierced by rifle bullet and the cold steel of his knife. There
+was not a creature in the north with which Fleur would not readily
+battle. He would soon learn if the hide of a Windigo was tough enough to
+turn the knife-like fangs of Fleur, and the bullets of his 30-30.
+
+Seizing Michel by the shoulders he shook the boy roughly.
+
+"I tell you, Michel, de devil dat mak' dat soun' travel on four feet.
+You tie up de pup an' wait here. Fleur an' I go an' breeng back hees
+skin."
+
+But the panic-stricken Michel would not be left alone, and when he had
+fastened the excited puppies, with shaking hands he drew his rifle from
+its skin case and joined Marcel.
+
+Holding with difficulty on her rawhide leash the aroused Fleur leaping
+ahead in the soft footing, Marcel snow-shoed through the timber in the
+direction from which the sound had come.
+
+After travelling some time they stopped to listen.
+
+From somewhere ahead, seemingly but a few hundred yards down the valley,
+floated the eerie sobbing. Michel's gun slipped to the snow from his
+palsied hands.
+
+Turning, Jean gripped the boy's arm.
+
+"Why you come? You no good to shoot. De Windigo eat you w'ile you hunt
+for your gun."
+
+Picking up the rifle, the boy threw off the mittens fastened to his
+sleeve by thongs, and gritting his teeth, followed Marcel and Fleur.
+
+Shortly they stopped again to listen. Straight ahead through the spruce
+the moaning rose and fell. Fleur, frantic to reach the mysterious enemy,
+plunged forward dragging Marcel, followed by the quaking boy who held
+his cocked rifle in readiness for the rush of beast or devil. Passing
+through scrub, a small clearing opened up before them. Checking Fleur,
+Marcel peered through the dim light of the forest into the opening lit
+by the stars, when the clearing echoed with the uncanny sound.
+
+Marcel's keen eyes strained across the star-lit snow into the murk
+beyond, as Michel gasped in his ears:
+
+"By Gar! I see noding dere! Eet ees de Windigo for sure!"
+
+But the Frenchman was staring fixedly at a clump of spruce on the
+opposite edge of the opening. As the unearthly sobbing rose again into
+the night, he loosed the maddened dog and followed.
+
+They were close to the spruce, when a great gray shape suddenly rose
+from the snow directly in their path. For an instant a pair of pale
+wings flapped wildly in their faces. Then a squawk of terror was
+smothered as the fangs of Fleur struck at the feathered shape of a huge
+snowy owl. A wrench of the dog's powerful neck, and the ghostly hunter
+of the northern nights had made his last patrol, victim of his own
+curiosity.
+
+With a loud laugh Jean turned to the dazed Michel:
+
+"Tak' good look at de Windigo, Michel. My fox trap hold heem fas' w'ile
+he seeng to de star."
+
+The amazed Michel stared at the white demon in the fox trap with open
+mouth. "I t'ink--dat h'owl--de Windigo for sure," he stuttered.
+
+"I nevaire hear de h'owl cry dat way myself, Michel, but I know dat
+Fleur and my gun mak' any Windigo een dees countree look whiter dan dat
+bird. W'en we come near dees place I expect somet'ing een dat fox trap."
+
+And strangely, through the remaining moons of the long snows, the sleep
+of the lad was not again disturbed by the wailing of Windigos seeking to
+devour a young half-breed Cree by the name of Michel Beaulieu.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+RAW WOUNDS
+
+
+June once again found Marcel paddling into Whale River. The sight of the
+high-roofed Mission, where, in the past, he had known so much of joy and
+pain, quickened his stroke. He wondered whether she had gone away with
+Wallace at Christmas, or whether there would be a wedding when the trade
+was over and the steamer would take them to East Main. Avoiding the
+Mission until he had learned from Jules what he so longed to know,
+Marcel went up to the trade-house where he found Gillies and McCain. Too
+proud to speak of what was nearest his heart, he told his friends of his
+winter in the Salmon country. It had paid him well, his long portage
+from the Ghost, the previous September, to the untrapped valleys to the
+north. When, unlashing his fur-pack, he tossed on the counter three
+glossy black-fox pelts and six skins of soft silver-gray, alone worth
+well over a thousand dollars, even at the low prices of the far north,
+the eyes of Gillies and Angus McCain bulged in amazement. Cross fox,
+shading from the black of the back and shoulder to rich mahogany,
+followed; dark sheeny marten--the Hudson's Bay sable of commerce--and
+thick gray pelts of the fisher. Otter, lynx and mink made up the balance
+of the fur.
+
+"Great Scott! the Salmon headwaters must be alive with fur!" exclaimed
+Gillies examining the skins, "and most of them are prime."
+
+"Dere ees much fur een dat country," laughed Jean, "eef de Windigo don'
+ketch you, eh, Michel?"
+
+Michel, proud of his part in so successful a winter and in having
+bearded the demons of the Salmon in their dens and lived to tell the
+tale, blushed at the memory of the snowy owl.
+
+"This is the largest catch of fur traded in my time at Whale River,
+Jean," said Gillies. "What are you going to do with all your credit? You
+can't use it on yourself; you'll have to get married and build a shack
+here."
+
+Blood darkened the bronzed face, but Marcel made no reply.
+
+He had indeed wrung a handsome toll from the haunted hills, which,
+tabooed by Cree trappers for generations, were tracked by the padded
+feet of countless fur-bearers. After allowing Michel a generous interest
+in the fur, Marcel found that he had increased his credit at the post
+by over two thousand dollars, giving him in all a trade credit of
+twenty-six hundred dollars with the Company. He could in truth afford to
+marry and build a shack if he were made a Company servant, but the
+girl----Then he heard Gillies' voice.
+
+"Jean, I want you and Angus to go up to the Komaluk Islands with a York
+boat. The whalers are getting the Husky trade which we ought to have.
+They will ruin them with whiskey."
+
+"Ver' well, M'sieu!"
+
+Marcel drew a breath of relief. If she were not already married, he
+would be only too glad to go north--to be spared seeing Julie Breton
+made the wife of Wallace. Then, at last, Jules appeared.
+
+After the customary hug, Jean drew the big head man outside, demanding
+in French:
+
+"Is she here still? They were not married at Christmas? When do they
+marry?"
+
+Jules shook his head. "A letter came by the Christmas mail. By the
+Company he was ordered at once to Winnipeg. He is there now and will not
+come this summer."
+
+"And Julie, is she well?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When, then, will they marry?"
+
+Jules shrugged his great shoulders. "Christmas maybe, perhaps next June.
+No one knows."
+
+Marcel was strangely elated at the news. Julie was not yet out of his
+life. She would be at Whale River on his return from the north. Even if
+he were held all summer she would be there as of old.
+
+The welcome of Julie and Pere Breton at the Mission temporarily drove
+from Marcel's thoughts the coming separation. Far into the night the
+three friends talked while Julie's skillful fingers were busy with her
+trousseau. She spoke of the postponement of her wedding, due to the
+presence of Inspector Wallace at the headquarters of the Company at
+Winnipeg. Julie's olive skin flushed with her pride, as she said that he
+had been mentioned already as the next Chief Inspector. Wallace had
+already become a Catholic, but the uncertainty of the time of his return
+to the East Coast might cause the delay of the ceremony until the
+following June.
+
+Marcel's hungry eyes did not leave the girl's face as she talked of her
+future--the future he had dreamed of sharing. But the wound was still
+raw and he was glad to escape the acute suffering which her nearness
+caused, by leaving Fleur and her puppies in Julie's care, and starting
+with McCain the following morning, in a York boat loaded with
+trade-goods, for the north coast.
+
+In August the York boat returned from the Komaluk Islands and Jean drew
+his supplies for another winter on Big Salmon waters. To Gillies, who
+urged him to accept a regular berth, and put his team of half-breed
+wolves on the mail-route to Rupert, for the winter previous the scarcity
+of good dogs along the coast had been the cause of the Christmas mail
+not reaching Whale River until the second of January, Marcel turned a
+deaf ear. In another year, he said, he would carry the mail up the
+coast, but his puppies were still too young to be pushed hard through a
+blizzard. Another year and he would show the posts down the coast what a
+real dog-team could do.
+
+Glancing at McCain, Gillies shook his head resignedly, for he knew well
+why Jean Marcel wished to avoid Whale River.
+
+On the morning of his departure, as Jean stood with Michel on the beach
+by the canoe, surrounded by his four impatient dogs, Julie stooped and
+kissed the white marking between Fleur's ears, whispering a good-bye.
+Turning her head in response, the dog's moist nose and rough tongue
+reached the girl's hand.
+
+"Lucky Fleur!" Jean said to his friends.
+
+"It's sure worth while being a dog, sometimes," drawled Angus McCain
+with a grimace. But Julie Breton ignored the remarks, wishing Marcel
+Godspeed.
+
+Through the day as they travelled Marcel looked on the high shores of
+the Salmon with unseeing eyes, for in them was the vision of a girl
+bending over a great dog.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+DREAMS
+
+
+Christmas was but a week distant. For the first time in years Jean
+Marcel possessed a dog-team, and through the long December nights he had
+come to a decision to talk to Julie Breton once more, as in the old
+days, before she left Whale River forever.
+
+Led by Fleur, Colin, Angus and Jules, now grown to huge huskies, already
+abreast of their mother in height and bulk of bone, and showing the wolf
+strain in their rangy gait and in red lower-lids of their amber eyes,
+were jingling down the river trail to the festivities at the post. For,
+from Fort Chimo, west across the wide north, to Rampart House, Christmas
+and New Years are kept. From far and wide come dog-teams of the red
+hunters down the frozen river trails for the feasting and merrymaking at
+the fur-posts. Two weeks, "fourteen sleeps" on the trail, going and
+coming, is not held by many a hardy hunter and his family too high a
+price to pay for a few short days of trading and gossip and dancing.
+There are many who trap too far from the posts and in country too
+inaccessible to make the journey possible, but throughout the white
+desolation of the fur lands the spirit of Christmas is strong and yearly
+the frozen valleys echo to the tinkling of the bells of dog-teams and
+the laughter of the children of the snows.
+
+Over the beaten river trail, ice-hardened by the passage of many sleds
+preceding them, romped Fleur and her sons, toying with the weight of the
+two men and the food bags on the sled. At times, Jean and Michel ran
+behind the team to stretch their legs and start their chilled blood, for
+it was forty below zero. But to the dogs, travelling without wind at
+forty below on a beaten trail, was sheer delight. Often, on the high
+barrens of the Salmon they had slept soundly in their snow holes at
+minus sixty.
+
+As Jean watched his great lead-dog, her thick coat of slate-gray and
+white glossy with superb vitality, set a pace for her rangy sons which
+sent the white miles sliding swiftly past, his heart sang.
+
+Good all day for a thousand pounds, they were, on a broken trail, and
+since November he had in vain sought the limit of their staying power.
+Not yet the equals of their mother in pulling strength, at eighteen
+months their wolf-blood had already given the puppies her stamina. What
+a team to bring the Christmas mails up the coast from East Main! he
+thought, idly whirling the whip of plaited caribou hide which had never
+flecked the ears of Fleur, but which he sometimes needed when the
+excitable Colin or Angus scented game and, puppy-like, started to bolt.
+No dogs on the coast could take the trail from these sons of Fleur. No
+dog-team he had ever seen could break-out and trot away with a thousand
+pounds. That winter they had done it with a load of caribou meat on the
+barrens. Yes, next year he would accept Gillies' offer and put Fleur and
+her sons on the winter-mail--Fleur, and the team she had given him; his
+Fleur, whom he had followed and fought for: who had in turn battled for
+his life.
+
+"Marche, Fleur!" he called, his eyes bright with his thoughts.
+
+The lead-dog leaped from a swinging trot into a long lope, straightening
+the traces, followed by the team keen for a run. Away they raced in the
+good going of the hard trail. Then, in early afternoon when the sun hung
+low in the dim west, the men turned into the thick timber of the shores,
+where, sheltered from the wind, they shovelled out a camp ground with
+their snow-shoes and built a roaring fire while the puppies, ravenous
+for their supper, yelped and fretted until Jean threw them the frozen
+fish which they caught in the air and bolted.
+
+Before Jean and Michel had boiled their tea and caribou stew, four
+shaggy shapes with noses in tails were asleep in the snow, indifferent
+to the sting of the strengthening cold which made the spruces around
+them snap, and split the river ice with the boom of cannon.
+
+Wrapped in his fur robe before the fire, Marcel lay wondering if he
+should find Julie Breton still at Whale River.
+
+Hours later, waking with a groan, Marcel sat upright in his blankets.
+Near him the tired Michel snored peacefully. Throwing a circle of light
+on the surrounding spruce, huge embers of the fire still burned. The
+moon was dead, a veil of haze masking the dim stars. It was bitter cold.
+Half out of his covering, the startled _voyageur_ shivered, but it was
+not from the bite of the air. It was the stark poignancy of the dream
+from which he had escaped, that left him cold.
+
+He had stood by the big chute of the Conjuror's Falls on the Ghost,
+known as the "Chute of Death," and as he gazed into the boiling
+maelstrom of white-water, the blanched face of Julie Breton had looked
+up at him, her lips moving in hopeless appeal, as she was swept from
+sight.
+
+Into the roaring flume he had plunged headlong, frenziedly seeking her,
+as he vainly fought down through the gorge, buffeted and mauled by the
+churning water, but though he hunted the length of the river below,
+never found her.
+
+Again, he was travelling with Fleur and the team in a blizzard, when out
+of the smother of snow before him beckoned the wraith of Julie
+Breton--always just ahead, always beckoning to him. Pushing his dogs to
+their utmost he never drew nearer, never reached the wistful face he
+loved, luring him through the curtain of snow.
+
+Marcel freshened the fire and lighted his pipe. It was long before he
+threw off the grip of his dreams and slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+FOR LOVE OF A GIRL
+
+
+Two days before Christmas the team of Jean Marcel, its harness brave
+with colored worsted, meeting the snarls of hostile Cree curs with the
+like threat of white fangs, jingled gaily past sleep-house and tepees,
+and drew up before the log trade-house at Whale River. Returning the
+greeting of the Crees who hailed him, he threw open the slab-door of the
+building.
+
+"Bon jour, Jean, eet ees well dees Chreesmas you come." The grave face
+of Jules Duroc checked the jest on Marcel's lips as he shook his
+friend's hand.
+
+"You are sad, mon ami; what has happened to the merry Jules?" Jean
+asked.
+
+"Ah, Jean Marcel! Dere ees bad news for you at Whale River."
+
+Across Marcel's brain flashed the memory of his dreams. Julie! Something
+had happened to Julie Breton. His speeding heart shook him as an engine
+a boat. A vise on his throat smothered the questions he strove to ask.
+His lips twitched, but from them came no words, as his questioning eyes
+held those of Jules.
+
+"Yes, eet ees as you t'ink, Jean Marcel. She ees ver' seek."
+
+Marcel's hands closed on Jules' arms as he demanded hoarsely:
+
+"Mon Dieu! W'at ees eet, Jules? Tell me, w'at ees eet?"
+
+"She has de bad arm. Cut de han' wid a knife."
+
+Blood-poisoning, because of his medical ignorance, held less terror for
+Marcel than some strange fever, insidious and mysterious. He had feared
+that Julie Breton had a dread disease against which the crude skill of
+the north is helpless. So, as he hastened to the Mission where he found
+Mrs. Gillies installed as nurse, his hopes rose, for a wound in the hand
+could not be fatal.
+
+From the anxious-eyed Pere Breton who met him at the door, Jean learned
+the story.
+
+Ten days before, Julie had cut her hand with a knife while preparing
+frozen fish for cooking. For days she had ignored the wound, when the
+hand, suddenly reddening, began to swell, causing much pain. Gillies and
+her brother had opened the inflamed wound, cleansing it with bichloride,
+but in spite of their efforts, the swelling had increased, advancing to
+the elbow.
+
+She was now running a high fever, suffering great pain and frequently
+delirious. They realized that the proper treatment was an opening of the
+lymphatic glands of forearm and elbow to reach the poison slowly working
+upward, but did not dare attempt it. The priest told Marcel that in such
+cases if the poison was not absorbed into the circulation or reached by
+operation, it would extend to the arm-pit, then to the neck, with fatal
+termination.
+
+Jean Marcel listened with head in hands to the despairing brother. Then
+he asked:
+
+"Is there at Fort George or East Main, no one who could help her?"
+
+"At Fort George, Monsieur Hunter who has been lately ordered there to
+the Protestant church, is a medical missionary. We learned this to-day
+when the Christmas mail arrived. But they were five days coming from
+Fort George with their poor dogs. It will take you eight days to make
+the round trip and even in a week it may be too late--too late----" He
+finished with a groan.
+
+"Father, I will go and bring this missionary. I shall return before a
+week."
+
+"God speed you, my son! The mail team is worn out and we were sending a
+team of the Crees, but they have no dogs like yours."
+
+Mrs. Gillies led Marcel into Julie Breton's room and left them. On her
+white bed, with wayward masses of dusky hair tumbled on her pillow, lay
+Julie Breton, moaning low in the delirium of high fever. On a pillow at
+her side lay her bandaged left arm. As Marcel looked long at the flushed
+face with its parted lips murmuring incoherently, the muscles of his jaw
+flexed through the frost-blackened skin as he clenched his teeth at his
+helplessness to aid her--this stricken girl for whom he would have given
+his life.
+
+Then he knelt, and lifting the limp hand on the coverlet, pressed it
+long to his lips, rose, and went out.
+
+When Mrs. Gillies returned she found the right hand of Julie Breton
+wet--and understood.
+
+First feeding and loosing his dogs in the stockade Marcel hurried to the
+trade-house. There he obtained from Jules five days' rations of
+whitefish for the dogs, and some pemmican, hard bread and tea.
+
+"You t'ink you can mak' For' George een t'ree day?" Jules shook his head
+doubtfully. "Eet nevaire been made een t'ree day, Jean."
+
+"No one evair before on de East Coast travel as I travel, Jules," was
+the low reply.
+
+Gillies, Pere Breton and McCain, talking earnestly, entered the room to
+overhear Marcel's words.
+
+"Welcome back, Jean; you are going to Fort George instead of Baptiste?"
+the factor asked, shaking Marcel's hand.
+
+"Yes, M'sieu, my team ees stronger team dan Baptiste's."
+
+"When do you start?"
+
+"Een leetle tam; I jus' feed my dogs."
+
+"Are they in good shape? They must be tired from the river trail."
+
+"Dey will fly, M'sieu."
+
+"Thank heaven for that, lad. We've got just one good dog left in the
+mail team--the one you gave me. The rest are scrubs and they came in
+to-day dead beat. Two of our Ungavas died in November."
+
+"M'sieu," said Marcel quietly, "my dogs will make For' George een t'ree
+days."
+
+"It's never been done, Jean, but I hope you will."
+
+When Marcel brought his refreshed dogs to the trade-house an hour later
+for his rations, a silent group of men awaited him. As Fleur trotted up,
+ears pricked, mystified at being routed out and harnessed in the dark,
+after she had eaten and curled up for the night, they were eagerly
+inspected by the factor.
+
+"Why, the pups have grown inches since you left here in August, Jean.
+They're almost as big as Fleur, now," said Gillies, throwing the light
+from his lantern on the team.
+
+"Tiens! Dat two rear dog look lak' timber wolves," cried Jules, as
+Colin and Angus turned their red-lidded, amber eyes lazily toward him,
+opening cavernous mouths in wide yawns, for they were still sleepy.
+Fleur, alive to the subdued tones of Jean Marcel and sensing something
+unusual, muzzled her master's hand for answer.
+
+"What a team! What a team!" exclaimed McCain. "Never have the Huskies
+brought four such dogs here. They ought to walk away with a thousand
+pounds. Are they fast, Jean?"
+
+"Dey can take a thousand all day, M'sieu. W'en you see me again, you
+will know how fast dey are. A'voir!" Marcel gripped the hands of the
+others, then turned to Pere Breton, the muscles of his dark face working
+with suffering.
+
+"Father," he said, "if she should wake and can understand, tell
+her--tell her to wait--a little longer till Jean and Fleur return.
+If--if she--cannot wait for us--tell her that Fleur and Jean Marcel will
+follow her--out to the sunset."
+
+Then he turned, cracked his whip, hoarsely shouted: "Marche, Fleur!" and
+disappeared with his dogs into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+THE WHITE TRAIL TO FORT GEORGE
+
+
+One hundred and fifty miles down the wind-harassed East Coast, was a man
+who could save Julie Breton. The mind of Marcel held one thought only as
+his hurrying dogs loped down the river trail to the Bay. Dark though it
+was, for the stars were veiled, Fleur never faltered, keeping the trail
+by instinct and the feel of her feet.
+
+Reaching the Bay the trail swung south skirting the beach, often cutting
+inland to avoid circling long points and shoulders of shore; at the Cape
+of the Winds--the midwinter vortex of unleashed Arctic blasts--making a
+deep cut to the sheltered valley of the Little Salmon. Marcel was too
+dog-wise to push his huskies as they swung south on the sea-ice, for no
+sled-dogs work well after eating.
+
+As the late moon slowly lifted, he shook his head, for it was a moon of
+snow. If only the weather held until he could bring his man from Fort
+George, but fate was against him. That he could average fifty miles a
+day going and coming, with the light sled, he was confident. He knew
+what hearts beat in those shaggy breasts in front--what stamina he had
+never put to the supreme test, lay in their massive frames. He knew that
+Fleur would set her sons a pace, at the call of Jean Marcel, that would
+eat the frozen miles to Fort George, as they had never before slid past
+a dog-runner. But once a December norther struck down upon them on their
+return, burying the trail in drift, with its shot-like drive in the
+teeth of man and dogs, it would kill their speed, as a cliff stops wind.
+
+He had intended to camp for a few hours, later in the night, to rest his
+dogs, but the warning of the ringed moon flicked him with fear, as a
+whiplash stings a lagging husky. It meant in December, snow and wind. He
+must race that wind to the lee of Big Island, so he pushed on through
+the night over the frozen shell of the Bay, stopping only once to boil
+tea and rest his over-willing dogs.
+
+As day broke blue and bitter in the ashen east, a team of spent huskies
+with ice-hung lips and flews swung in from the trail skirting the lee
+shore of Big Island and the driver in belted caribou capote, a rim of
+ice from his frozen breath circling his lean face, made a fire from
+cedar kindlings brought on the sled, boiled tea and pemmican, and
+feeding his dogs, lay down in his robes. In twelve hours of constant
+toil the dogs of Marcel had put Whale River sixty white miles behind.
+
+At noon he shook off the sleep which weighted his limbs, forced himself
+from his blankets, ate and pushed on. Although the air smelled of snow,
+and in the north, brooding, low-banked clouds hugged the Bay, snow and
+wind still held off.
+
+In early afternoon as the sun buried itself in the ice-fields, muffled
+rays lit the bald shoulders of the distant Cape of the Four Winds,
+seventy miles from his goal.
+
+"Haw, Fleur!" he called, and the lead-dog swung inland, to the left, on
+the short-cut across the Cape.
+
+As yet the tough Ungavas had shown no signs of lagging. With their
+superb vitality and staying power, they had travelled steadily through
+the night, after a half day on the river. Led by their tireless mother,
+each hour they had put five miles of snowy trail behind them. With the
+weather steady, Marcel had no doubt of when he would reach Whale River,
+for the weight of an extra man on the sled would be little felt on a
+hard trail and he would run much himself. But with the menace of snow
+and wind hanging over him, he travelled with a heavy heart.
+
+On Christmas Eve, again a ringed moon rose as the dogs raced down an icy
+trail into the valley of the Little Salmon. The conviction that a
+December blizzard, long overdue, was making in the north to strike down
+upon him, paralyzing his speed, drove him on through the night.
+Reckless of himself, he was equally reckless of his dogs, led by the
+iron Fleur. It was well that her still growing sons had the blood of
+timber wolves in their veins, for Fleur, sensing the frenzy of Marcel to
+push on and on, responded with all her matchless stamina.
+
+At last they camped at the Point of the Caribou and ate. To-morrow, he
+thought, would be Christmas. A Merry Christmas indeed for Jean Marcel.
+Then he slept. The next afternoon as they passed Wastikun, the Isle of
+Graves, the wind shifted to the northeast and the snow closed in on the
+dog-team nearing its goal. The blizzard had come, and Jean Marcel,
+knowing what miles of drifts; what toil breaking trail to give footing
+to his team in the soft snow; what days of battling the drive of the
+wind whipping their faces with needle-pointed fury, awaited their
+return, groaned aloud. For it meant, battle as he would, he might now
+reach Whale River too late; he might find that Julie Breton had not
+waited, but over weary, had gone out into the sunset.
+
+In the early evening, forty-eight hours out of Whale River, four white
+wraiths of huskies with a ghost-like driver, turned in to the
+trade-house at Fort George. The spent dogs lay down, dropping their
+frosted masks in the snow, the froth from their mouths rimming their
+lips with ice.
+
+Sheeted in white from hood to moccasins, the _voyageur_ entered the
+trade-house in a swirl of snow and called for the factor. A bearded man
+engaged in conversation with another white man, behind the trade
+counter, rose at Jean's entrance.
+
+"I am from Whale River, M'sieu. My name is Jean Marcel. Here ees a
+lettair from M'sieu Gillies." Marcel handed an oil-skin envelope to
+McKenzie, the factor, who surveyed with curiosity the ice-crusted
+stranger with haggard eyes who came to Fort George on Christmas night.
+
+At the mention of Whale River, the man who had been in conversation with
+McKenzie behind the counter, also rose to his feet. And Marcel, who had
+not seen his face, now recognized him. It was Inspector Wallace.
+
+"Too bad! Too bad!" muttered the factor, reading the note, "and we're in
+for a December blizzard."
+
+"What is it, McKenzie?" demanded Wallace, coming from behind the counter
+and reaching for Gillies' note.
+
+The narrowed eyes of Marcel watched the face of Wallace contract with
+pain as he read of the peril of the woman he loved.
+
+"Tell me what you know, Marcel!" Wallace demanded brokenly.
+
+Jean briefly explained Julie's desperate condition.
+
+"When did you leave Whale River?"
+
+"Two day ago."
+
+"What," cried McKenzie, "you came through in two days from Whale River?
+Lord, man! I never heard of such travelling. Your dogs must be marvels!"
+
+"I came in two day, M'sieu," repeated Marcel, "because she weel not
+leeve many day onless she have help."
+
+"Why, man, I can't believe it. It's never been done. When did you
+sleep?" The factor called to a Company Indian who entered the room,
+"Albert, take care of his dogs and feed them."
+
+"Dey are wild, M'sieu. I weel go wid heem."
+
+Marcel started to go out with the Indian, for his huskies sorely needed
+attention, then stopped to stare in wonder at Wallace, who had slumped
+into a chair, head in hands. For a moment the hunter looked at the inert
+Inspector; then his lip curled, his frost-blackened face reflecting his
+scorn, as he said:
+
+"W'ere ees dees missionary, M'sieu? We mus' start een a few hours, w'en
+my dogs have rest."
+
+"What, start in the teeth of this? Listen to it!" The drumming of wind
+and shot-like snow on the trade-house windows steadily increased in
+fury.
+
+The muscles of Marcel's face stiffened into stone as he grimly insisted:
+
+"We mus' start to-night."
+
+"You are crazy, man; you need sleep," protested McKenzie. "I know it's a
+life and death matter. But you wouldn't help that girl at Whale River by
+losing the trail to-night and freezing. I'll see Hunter at once, but I
+can't allow him to go to his death. If the blow eases by morning, he can
+start."
+
+Again Marcel turned, waiting for Wallace, who nervously paced the floor,
+to speak. Then with a shrug he said:
+
+"M'sieu Wallace weel wish to start to-night? I have de bes' lead-dog on
+dees coast. She weel not lose de trail."
+
+"What do you mean--Monsieur Wallace?" blurted the factor. Wallace raised
+a face on which agony and indecision were plainly written. But it was
+Jean Marcel who answered, with all the scorn of his tortured heart.
+
+"_She ees de fiancee--of M'sieu Wallace._"
+
+"Oh, I--I didn't--understand!" stumbled the embarrassed McKenzie,
+reddening to his eyes. "But--I can't advise you to start to-night, Mr.
+Wallace."
+
+The factor went to the door. As he lifted the heavy latch, in spite of
+his bulk the power of the wind hurled him backward. The door crashed
+against the log-wall, while the room was filled with driving snow.
+
+"You see what it's like, Wallace! No dog-team would have a chance on
+this coast to-night--not a chance."
+
+"Yes," agreed Wallace, avoiding Marcel's eyes. Then he went on, "You
+understand, McKenzie, I'm knocked clean off my feet by this news.
+But--we'll want to start, at least, by morning--sooner, if the dogs are
+rested--that is, of course, if it's possible."
+
+Deliberately ignoring the man who had thus bared his soul, Marcel drew
+the factor to one side.
+
+"Mon Dieu, M'sieu!" he pleaded in low tones. "She weel not leeve. Onless
+we start at once, we shall be too late. Tak' me to de doctor!"
+
+The agonized face of the hunter softened McKenzie.
+
+"Well, all right, if Hunter will go and Mr. Wallace insists, but it's
+madness. I'll go over to the Mission now and talk to the doctor."
+
+When Jean had seen to the feeding of his tired dogs whom he left asleep
+in a shack, he hurried through the driving snow with the Company Indian
+to the Protestant Mission House, where he found McKenzie alone with the
+missionary.
+
+As he entered the lighted room, the Reverend Hunter, a tall,
+athletic-looking man of thirty, welcomed him, bidding him remove his
+capote and moccasins and thaw out at the hot box-stove.
+
+"Mr. McKenzie has shown me Gillies' message, Marcel. Now tell me all you
+know about the case," said the missionary.
+
+Briefly Marcel described the condition of Julie Breton--Gillies' crude
+attempt at surgery; the advance toward the shoulder of the swelling and
+inflammation, with the increasing fever.
+
+When he had finished he cried in desperation:
+
+"M'sieu, I have at Whale River credit for t'ree t'ousand dollar. Eet ees
+all----"
+
+Hunter's lifted hand checked him.
+
+"Marcel, first I am a preacher of the gospel; also, I am a doctor of
+medicine. I came into the north to minister to the bodies as well as to
+the souls of its people. Do not speak of money. This case demands that
+we start at once. Have you good dogs?"
+
+The drawn face of Marcel lighted with gratitude.
+
+Troubled and mystified by the attitude of Wallace, McKenzie broke in,
+"He's surely got the best dogs on this coast--made a record trip down.
+But, Mr. Hunter, I'll not agree to your starting in this hell outside.
+You must wait until daylight. The Inspector has decided that it would be
+impossible to keep the trail."
+
+"I came here to aid those _in extremis_," replied the missionary. "I
+will take the risk to save this girl. It's a matter of days and we may
+be too late as it is."
+
+"T'anks, M'sieu, her brother, Pere Breton, weel not forget your
+kindness; and I--I weel nevaire forget." The eyes of Marcel glowed with
+gratitude.
+
+"Then it's understood that you start at daylight, if the wind won't blow
+you off the ice. I'll see you then." And McKenzie, looking hard at
+Marcel and Hunter, went out.
+
+When the factor had closed the door, Jean turned to Dr. Hunter.
+
+"Thees man who marries her een June, ees afraid to go. Weel Mr. Hunter
+start wid me at midnight?"
+
+The big missionary gripped Marcel's hand as he said with a smile, "I did
+not promise McKenzie I would not go. At midnight we start for Whale
+River."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+THE HATE OF THE LONG SNOWS
+
+
+In the unwritten law of the north no one in peril shall ask for succor
+in vain. So universal is this creed, so general its acceptance and
+observance throughout the vast land of silence, that when word is
+brought in to settlement, fur-post, or lonely cabin, that help is
+needed, it is a matter of course that a relief party takes the trail,
+however long and hazardous. And so it was with John Hunter, clergyman,
+physician, and man. New to the north, he had come from England at the
+call for volunteers to shepherd the souls and bodies of the people of
+the solitudes, and without hesitation, he agreed to undertake a journey
+which the older heads at Fort George knew might well culminate in the
+discovery later, by a searching party, of two stiffened bodies buried
+beside a starved dog-team, somewhere in the drifts behind the Cape of
+the Four Winds.
+
+Marcel and the dogs were in sore need of a few hours' rest for the
+grilling duel with snow and wind, before them, so, when he had eaten,
+Jean turned into a bed in the Mission.
+
+At midnight Jean hitched his dogs and waked Hunter. Leaving Fort George
+asleep in the smother of snow, down to the river trail, into the white
+drive of the norther plunged the dog-team.
+
+Giving the trail-wise Fleur her head in the black night, Jean, with
+Hunter, followed the sled carrying their food and robes. Turning from
+the swept river ice into the Bay, dogs and men met the full beat of the
+blasts with heads lowered to ease the hammering of the pin-pointed
+scourge whipping their faces. With the neighboring shore smothered in
+murk, Marcel, trusting to Fleur's instinct to keep the trail over the
+blurred white floor which only increased the blackness above, followed
+the sled he could barely see. Speed against the wind was impossible, and
+at all hazards he must keep the trail, for if they swung to the west on
+the sea-ice they were doomed to wander until they froze. He would push
+on and camp, until daylight, in the lee of the Isle of Graves. With the
+light they would begin to travel. Then on the open ice, where there was
+little drift, he would give Fleur and her pups the chance to prove their
+mettle, for there would be little rest. And beyond, at the rendezvous of
+the winds, they would have ten miles inland through the drifts. The
+unproven sons of Fleur would indeed need the stamina of wolves to take
+them through the days to come.
+
+At last the trail, which the lead-dog had held solely by keeping her
+nose to the ice, ran in under the bold shore of Wastikun. There, after
+feeding the dogs, they burrowed into the snow in the lee of the cliffs
+wrapped in their fur robes. With the wind, the temperature had risen and
+men and dogs slept hard until dawn. Then, hot tea, bread and pemmican
+spurred the fighting heart of Marcel with hope. The wind had eased, but
+powdery snow still drove down blanketing the near shore.
+
+Daylight found them on their way. Due to the wind there was as yet
+little drift on the trail over the Bay ice and the freshened dogs, with
+lowered heads, swung up the coast at a trot. All day with but short
+respite, men and dogs battled on against the norther. The mouth of the
+Little Salmon was the goal Marcel had set for himself--the river valley
+from which they would cut overland behind the gray cape, to the north
+coast. Forty miles away it lay--forty cruel miles of the torturing beat
+of shot-like snow on the faces of men and dogs; forty miles of endless
+pull and drag for the iron thews of Fleur and the whelps of the wolf.
+This was the mark which the now ruthless Frenchman, with but one
+thought, one vision, set for the shaggy beasts he loved.
+
+Hunter, game though he was, at last was forced to ride on the sled, so
+fierce was their pace into the wind. Steadily the great beasts ate up
+the miles. At noon, floundering through drifts like the billows of a
+broken sea, with Marcel ahead breaking trail, they crossed Caribou
+Point, Hunter, refusing to burden the dogs, wallowing behind the sled.
+There they boiled tea, then pushed on to the mouth of the Roggan.
+
+At Ominuk, night fell like a tent, and again a white wraith of a
+lead-dog, blinded by the fury she faced, kept the trail by instinct,
+backed loyally by her brood of ice-sheathed wolves, foot-sore,
+trail-worn, following with low noises her tireless feet.
+
+The coast swung sharply. They were in the lee of the Cape. But a few
+miles farther and a long rest in the sheltered river valley awaited
+them. Marcel stopped his dogs and went to Fleur, lying on the trail, her
+hot breath freezing as it left her panting mouth. Kneeling on the snow
+beside her with his back to the drive, he examined each hairy paw for
+pad-cracks or balled snow between the toes, but the feet of the Ungava
+were iron; then he took in his hands her great head with its battered
+nose, blood-caked from the snow barrage she had faced all day. Rubbing
+the ice from her masked eyes, Jean placed his hooded face against his
+dog's; she turned her nose and her rough tongue touched his
+frost-blackened cheek.
+
+"Fleur," he said, "we are doing it for Julie--you and Jean Marcel. We
+mus' mak' de Salmon to-night. Some day we weel hav' de beeg sleep--you
+and Jean."
+
+Again he stroked her massive head with his red, unmittened hand, then
+for an instant resting his face against the scarred nose, sprang to his
+feet. With a glance at the paws and a word for each of the whining
+puppies whose white tails switched in answer, Jean cracked his whip and
+shouted, "Marche!"
+
+Late that night a huge fire burned in the timber of the sheltered mouth
+of the Little Salmon. Two men and a dog-team ate ravenously, then slept
+like the dead, while over them roared the norther, rocking the spruce
+and jack-pine in the river bottom, heaping the drifts high on the Whale
+River trail.
+
+In three days of gruelling toil Marcel had got within ninety miles of
+his goal--within a day and a half of Whale River had the trail been ice
+hard. But now it would be days longer--how many he dared not guess.
+
+Had the weather held for him, four days from the night of his starting
+would have seen him home; for on an iced trail, at his call, his great
+dogs would have run like wolves at the rallying cry of the pack. As he
+drew his stiffened legs from the rabbit-skins to freshen the fire at
+dawn, he bit his cracked lips until they bled, at the thought of what
+the blizzard had meant to Julie Breton, waiting, waiting for the
+dog-team creeping up the East Coast, hobbled and held back by head-wind
+and drift.
+
+The dogs had won a long rest and Marcel did not start breaking trail
+inland until after daylight. With the sunrise the wind had increased and
+the heart-sick Marcel groaned at the strength-sapping floundering in
+breast-high drifts which faced his devoted dogs, when he needed them
+fresh for the race up the sea-ice of the coast beyond. Before he slept,
+he had weighed the toil of ten miles of drift-barred short-cut across
+the Cape, against doubling the headland on the ice, but he had decided
+that no men or dogs could face the maelstrom of wind and snow which
+churned around its bald buttresses; no strength could force its way--no
+endurance prevail, against it.
+
+With Marcel in the lead as trail-breaker and the missionary, who took
+the punishment without murmur, like the man he was, following the sled,
+Fleur led her sons up to their Calvary in the hills.
+
+As they left the valley and reached the open tundra above, they met the
+full force of the wind. For an instant men and dogs stopped dead in
+their tracks, then with heads down they hurled themselves into the white
+fury which had buried the trail beyond all following.
+
+On pushed the desperate Frenchman in the direction of the north coast,
+followed by Fleur with her whitened nose at the tails of his snow-shoes.
+At times, when the force of the snow-swirls sucked their very breath,
+men and dogs threw themselves panting on the snow, until, with wind
+regained, they stumbled on. Often plunging to their collars in the new
+snow, the huskies travelled solely by leaps, until, stalled nose-deep,
+tangled in traces and held by the drag of the overturned sled, Marcel
+and the exhausted Hunter came to their rescue. Heart-breaking mile after
+mile of the country over which Marcel had sped two days before, they
+painfully put behind them.
+
+At noon, the man who lived his creed crumpled in the snow. Wrapping him
+in robes, Marcel lashed him on the sled and went on, the vision of a
+dying girl on a white cot at Whale River ever in his eyes.
+
+Through a break in the snow, before the light waned, Marcel made out,
+dim in the north, the silhouette of Big Island. He was over the divide
+and well on his way to the coast. With the night, the wind eased, though
+the snow held, and although he was off the trail, the new snow on the
+exposed north slope of the Cape was either wind-packed or swept from the
+frozen tundra, and again the exhausted dogs found good footing.
+
+For some time the team had been working easily down hill, Marcel often
+forced to brake the toboggan with his feet. He knew he had worked to the
+west of the trail, and was swinging in a circle to regain it. Worried by
+the sting of the cold, which was growing increasingly bitter as the wind
+fell off, he stopped to rub the muffled, frost-cracked face and hands of
+his spent passenger, cheering him with the promise of a roaring fire.
+When he started the team, Colin, stiffened by the rest, limped badly,
+and Jules, who had bucked the deep snow all day like a veteran of the
+mail-teams, gamely following his herculean mother, hobbled along, head
+and tail down, with a wrenched shoulder. It was high time they found a
+camping place. With the falling wind they would freeze in the open. So
+he pushed on through the murk, seeking the beach where there was wood
+and a lee.
+
+They were swiftly dropping down to the sea-ice but snow and darkness
+drew around them an impenetrable curtain. Seizing the gee-pole, Marcel
+had thrown his weight back on the sled to keep it off the dogs on a
+descent when suddenly Fleur, whose white back he could barely see moving
+in front, with a whine stopped dead in her tracks and flattened on the
+snow. Her tired sons at once lay down behind her. The sled slid into
+Angus and stopped.
+
+Mystified, Marcel called: "Marche, Fleur! Marche!" fearing to find,
+when she rose, that his rock and anchor had suddenly broken on the
+trail.
+
+But the great dog, ignoring the command, raised her nose in a low growl
+as Marcel reached her.
+
+"What troubles you, Fleur?" he asked, on his knees beside her, brushing
+the crusted snow from her ears and slant eyes. Again Fleur whined
+mysteriously.
+
+"Where ees de pain, Fleur? Get up!" he ordered sharply, thinking to
+learn where her iron body had received its hurt. But the dog lay rigid,
+her throat still rumbling.
+
+"By Gar, dis ees queer t'ing!" muttered Marcel, his mittened hand on the
+massive head.
+
+Then some strange impulse led him to advance into the black wall, when,
+with fierce protest, Fleur, jerking Jules to his feet, leaped forward,
+straining to reach him.
+
+The Frenchman, checked by the dog's action, stared into the darkness,
+until, at length, he saw that the white tundra at his feet fell away
+before his snow-shoes and he looked out into gray space.
+
+As he crouched peering ahead, his senses slowly warned him that he stood
+on a shoulder of cliff falling sheer to the invisible beach below.
+
+He had driven his dogs to the lip of a ghastly death; and Julie----
+
+Turning back, he flung himself beside the trembling Fleur and with his
+arm circling the great neck, kissed the battered nose. Fleur, with the
+uncanny instinct of the born lead-dog, had scented the open space,
+divined the danger, had known--and lain down, saving them all.
+
+Swinging his team off the brow of the cliff, he worked back and finally
+down to the beach, and his muffled passenger, drowsy, with swiftly
+numbing limbs, never knew that he had ridden calmly, that night, out to
+the doors of doom.
+
+In the lee of an island Marcel made camp and boiled life-giving
+tea,--the panacea of the north--and pemmican, on a hot fire, which soon
+revived the frozen Hunter.
+
+To his joy, he realized that the back of the blizzard was broken, for as
+the wind and snow eased, the temperature rapidly fell to an Arctic cold.
+With Whale River eighty miles away; his dogs broken by lack of rest and
+stiff from the wrenching and exhaustion of the battle with the deep
+snow; his own legs twinging with "mal raquette"; Marcel thanked God, for
+the dawn would see the wind dead and if his team did not fail him, in
+two days he would reach the post.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+"HE'S GOT HIS MAN!"
+
+
+Whale River was astir. Before the trade-house groups of Crees critically
+inspected the dogs of Baptiste Laval, who fretted and yelped, eagerly
+waiting the "_Marche!_" which would send them off on the river trail.
+Inside, the grave-faced Gillies gave big Jules his parting instructions.
+
+"He never started home in that blizzard, Jules; McKenzie wouldn't allow
+the missionary to take such a chance. But Jean surely left yesterday
+morning and with fresh dogs he'll come through in four days, even with a
+heavy trail. You ought to meet him this side the Cape."
+
+"Yes, M'sieu. But I t'ink he travel more fas' dan dat. I see heem
+to-morrow, maybe."
+
+"No, he never started that last day of the blow. It would have been
+suicide. Poor lad! he must have been half crazy, with her on his mind."
+
+"How ees she dis noon, M'sieu?"
+
+"The fever holds about the same--no worse; but she must be operated on
+very soon. The poison is extending. If you meet them at the Cape you
+ought to get the doctor here a day ahead of Jean, with his tired dogs."
+
+Surrounded by the Crees who were wishing them luck on their trip to meet
+and relay Marcel home, Baptiste had cracked his dog-whip with a loud,
+"_Marche!_" when an Indian with arms raised to attract attention came
+running from the shore across the clearing.
+
+"Whoa!" shouted Jules, and Baptiste checked his dogs.
+
+"What does he say?" called Angus McCain. "A dog-team down river? Do you
+hear that, Gillies?"
+
+"Husky," replied the factor drily. "Couldn't possibly be Marcel!"
+
+"No, he couldn't have come through that norther," agreed McCain.
+
+"What's that he says, Jules?" demanded Gillies.
+
+Jules Duroc, hands and shoulders in motion, was talking excitedly to the
+Cree who had joined the group by the sled. Turning suddenly, he ran back
+to the factor.
+
+"Felix say dat a team crawl up de riviere trail lak' dey ver' tired. He
+watch dem long tam."
+
+"That's queer, but it's some Husky--can't be Marcel. Why, good Lord,
+man! he hasn't been away six days."
+
+Angus disappeared, to return with an old brass-bound telescope and
+hurried to the river shore with Jules, followed by the scoffing
+Gillies. To the naked eye, a black spot was discernible on the river
+ice.
+
+"There are two men following a team," announced Angus, the glass at his
+eye. "They're barely moving. Now they've stopped; the dogs must be
+played out. The driver's trying to get them up! Now he's got them
+going!"
+
+Gillies took the telescope and looked for a long space. Suddenly to
+those who watched him, waiting for his report, his hand visibly shook.
+Turning to Jules, he bellowed:
+
+"Jules, you travel like all hell for that dog-team! God only knows how
+they got here alive, but there's only one lead-dog on this coast that
+reaches to a man's middle. That team crawling in out there is Jean
+Marcel's--God bless him!--_and he's got his man!_"
+
+With a roar Jules leaped on the sled and lashed the team headlong down
+the cliff trail to the ice. Madly they raced down-river under the spur
+of the rawhide goad.
+
+"Run to the Mission, someone, and tell Pere Breton that Jean Marcel is
+back!" continued Gillies. At the words, willing feet started with the
+message.
+
+The eyes of Colin Gillies were blurred as he watched through the glass
+the slow approach of those who had but lately fought free from the maw
+of the pitiless snows. Now he could recognize the massive lead-dog,
+limping at a slow walk, her great head down. Behind her swayed the
+crippled whelps of the wolf, tails brushing the ice, tongues lolling as
+they swung their lowered heads from side to side, battling through the
+last mile on stiffened legs, giving their last ounce at the call of
+their gaunt master who reeled behind them. Far in the rear a tall figure
+barely moved along the trail.
+
+At the yelp of Jules' approaching team the dogs of Marcel pricked
+drooping ears. Stopping them, Jean waited for Hunter.
+
+"Dey sen' team. Eet ees ovair, M'sieu! We mak' Whale Riviere een t'ree
+day and half, but she--she may not be dere."
+
+Too tired to speak, Hunter slumped on the sled. With a yell, Jules
+reached Marcel and gathered him into his arms.
+
+"By Gar, Jean! You crazee fool; you stop for noding! Tiens! I damn glad
+to see you, Jean Marcel!"
+
+The fearful Marcel gasped out the question, "Julie! Ees she dere? Does
+she leeve?"
+
+"Oui, mon ami; she ees alive. You save her life."
+
+Staggering to his lead-dog the overjoyed man threw himself beside her on
+the trail where she sprawled panting.
+
+"We 'ave save her," he cried. "Julie--has waited for Jean and Fleur."
+
+Taking the missionary on his sled, Jules tried to force Marcel to ride
+as well, but the _voyageur_ threw him off.
+
+"No, no!" he cried. "We weel feenish on our feet--Fleur, de wolf and
+Jean Marcel."
+
+So back to the post Jules raced with Hunter. A cheering mob of Indians
+met dogs and master on the river ice and carried Marcel, protesting, up
+the cliff trail, where Gillies and Angus were waiting.
+
+"I reach For' George de night of second day, but de dreef and wind at de
+Cape----" He was checked by a hug from the blubbering McCain as Colin
+Gillies, with eyes blurred by tears, welcomed him home.
+
+"You have saved her, Jean," said the factor, "now you must sleep." With
+hands raised in wonder he turned to the group. "Shades of Andre Marcel!
+Two days to Fort George! It will never be done again." Then they took
+the swaying Marcel, asleep on his feet, and his dogs, away to a long,
+warm rest.
+
+But the Crees sat late that night smoking much Company plug as they
+shook their heads over the feat of the son of Andre Marcel who feared
+neither Windigo nor blizzard. And later, the tale travelled down to the
+southern posts and out to Fort Churchill on the west coast and from
+there on to the Great Slave and the Peace, of how the mad Marcel had
+driven his flying wolves one hundred and fifty miles in two sleeps, and
+returned, without rest, in three, in the teeth of a Hudson's Bay
+norther. And hearing it, old runners of the trails shook their heads in
+disbelief, saying it was not in dogs or men to do such a thing; but they
+did not know the love and despair in the heart of Jean Marcel which
+spurred him to his goal, nor did they fathom the blind devotion of his
+great lead-dog, who, with her matchless endurance and that of her sons,
+had made it possible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+AS YE SOW
+
+
+Fresh from a London hospital though he was, John Hunter found that the
+condition of Julie Breton demanded the exercise of all his skill as a
+surgeon. But the operation, aided by the girl's young strength and
+vitality, was successful, and she slowly overcame the grip of the
+infection.
+
+Four days after Marcel reeled into Whale River with his battered dogs,
+bringing the man who was winning back life for Julie Breton, an
+exhausted dog-team limped in from the south. Rushing into the
+trade-house the white-faced Wallace grasped Gillies' hand, hoarsely
+demanding:
+
+"Does she live, Gillies?"
+
+"She's all right, Mr. Wallace; doing well, the doctor says," answered
+Gillies. "She's going to pull through, thanks to Jean Marcel and Dr.
+Hunter. I take my hat off to those two men."
+
+Wallace's eyes shifted to the floor as he ventured:
+
+"When did they get in?"
+
+"Oh, they came through against that blow in three days and a half. The
+greatest feat of man and dogs in my time. When did you leave East Main?"
+
+Wallace stared incredulously at Colin Gillies' wooden face.
+
+"East Main? Why, didn't Marcel tell you?"
+
+"No," replied Gillies, but he did not say that his wife had been told by
+Hunter of the presence of Wallace at Fort George the night Marcel
+brought the news. However, the factor did not further embarrass his
+chief by questions. And Wallace did not see fit to inform him that not
+until the wind died, two days after the relief party started, had he
+left Fort George.
+
+"I suppose she's too sick to see me?" the nervous Inspector hazarded.
+
+"Yes, no one sees her except Mrs. Gillies and Hunter."
+
+"Well, I'll look up Father Breton," and Wallace went out followed by an
+expression in Colin Gillies' face which the Inspector would not have
+cared to see.
+
+For a week Wallace remained at Whale River and then, assured by Dr.
+Hunter of Julie's safety, left, to return later. When, meeting Marcel in
+the trade-house, he had attempted to thank him, the cold glitter in the
+eyes of the Frenchman as he listened with impassive face to the halting
+words of the Inspector of the East Coast, filled Colin Gillies with
+inward delight.
+
+When Gillies bade good-bye to his chief, he said casually, "Well, I
+suppose we'll have a wedding here in June, Mr. Wallace."
+
+"Yes, Gillies, Father Breton and I are only waiting for Julie to set the
+date. Good-bye; I'll be up the coast next month," and was off.
+
+But what piqued Gillies' curiosity was whether Dr. Hunter had told Pere
+Breton just what happened at Fort George when the tragic call for help
+came in on Christmas night. Jean Marcel's mouth had been shut like a
+sprung trap, even Jules and Angus did not know; of that, Gillies was
+sure. But why had the doctor not told Pere Breton, as well as Mrs.
+Gillies? He was Julie's brother and ought to know. If Hunter had
+enlightened the priest, then Colin Gillies was no judge of men, for he
+had always admired the Oblat.
+
+The first week in February Julie Breton was sitting up, and Mr. Hunter
+bade good-bye to the staunch friends he had made at Whale River. Not
+always are the relations between Oblat or Jesuit, and Protestant
+missionaries, unduly cordial in the land of their labors, but when the
+Reverend Hunter left the Mission House at Whale River, there remained in
+the hearts of Pere Breton, his sister and Jean Marcel, a love for the
+doctor, clergyman and man which the years did not dim.
+
+One day, later on, Marcel and Fleur were making their afternoon call on
+Julie, who was propped in bed, her hair hanging in two thick braids.
+
+"We leave in a few days," Jean said in French. "Michel is anxious to get
+back to his traps."
+
+"Oh, don't go so soon, Jean. I haven't yet had an opportunity to talk to
+you as I wished."
+
+"If you mean to thank me, I am glad of that," he said, his lips curling
+in a faint smile.
+
+"Why should I not thank you, Jean Marcel, who risked your life like a
+madman to help me? I do now thank you with all my heart. But for you, I
+would not be here. Dr. Hunter told me I could not have lived had he
+arrived one day later."
+
+With a gesture of impatience Marcel turned in his chair and gazed
+through the window on the world of snow.
+
+The dark eyes in the pale face of the girl were strangely soft as they
+rested on the sinewy strength of the man's figure; then lifted to the
+strong profile, with its bony jaw and bold, aquiline nose.
+
+"You do not care for my thanks, Jean?" she asked.
+
+"Please!" he begged. "It is over, that! You are well again! I am happy;
+and will go back to my trap-lines."
+
+"But it is not all over with Julie Breton," she insisted.
+
+He turned with brows raised questioningly.
+
+"It has left her--changed. She will never be the same."
+
+"What do you mean? Dr. Hunter said you would be as strong as ever, by
+spring."
+
+"Ah, but I do not speak of my body, Jean Marcel."
+
+He gazed in perplexity at her wistful face. In a moment his eyes again
+sought the window.
+
+For a long space, she was silent. Then a suppressed sob roused him from
+his bitter thoughts and he heard the strained voice of the girl.
+
+"I know all," she said.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Mrs. Gillies, and Dr. Hunter--when I asked him--told me--long ago. We
+have kept it from Pere Henri. It seems years, for I have been thinking
+much since then--lying awake, thinking."
+
+"Julie, what has been worrying you? Don't let what I did cause you
+pain," he pleaded, not catching the significance of her words. "It's all
+right, Julie. You owe me nothing--I understand."
+
+"Ah, but you do not understand," she said, smiling at the man's averted
+face.
+
+"Julie, I have suffered, but I want you to be happy. Don't think of Jean
+Marcel."
+
+"But it is of Jean Marcel of the great heart that I must think--have
+been thinking, for days and days." She was sitting erect, tense; her
+pale face drawn with emotion.
+
+"I tell you I know it all," she cried, "how they--_he_, feared to start
+in the storm--and waited--ordered you to wait. But no wind or snow could
+hold Jean Marcel, and in spite of them, he brought Dr. Hunter to Whale
+River--and saved Julie Breton."
+
+Dumb with surprise at her knowledge of what he thought he and Hunter
+alone knew--at the scorn in her voice, Marcel listened with pounding
+heart.
+
+"Yes, they told me," she went on, "how Jean Marcel heard the news when
+he reached Whale River and, without sleep, that night hurried south for
+help, swifter than men had ever travelled, because Julie Breton was in
+peril. Dr. Hunter has told me all; how you and Fleur fought wind and
+snow to bring him to Whale River--and Julie Breton. And now you ask her
+not to thank you--you who gave her back her life."
+
+Only the low sobbing of the girl broke the silence. In a moment the
+paroxysm passed, and she looked through tears at the man who sat with
+bowed head in hands, as she faltered:
+
+"Ah, will you not see--not understand? Must I tell you--that
+I--love--Jean Marcel?"
+
+Dazed, Jean rose. With a hoarse cry of "Julie!" he groped to the bed and
+took her in his yearning arms.
+
+After the years--she had come home.
+
+Later, Mrs. Gillies looked in to see a dusky head on the shoulder of the
+man who knelt by the bed, and on the coverlet beside them the great head
+of Fleur, who gazed up into two illumined faces through narrow eyes
+which seemed to comprehend as her bushy tail slowly swept to and fro.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In June there was a wedding at Whale River, with an honored guest who
+journeyed up the coast from Fort George for the ceremony, John Hunter.
+
+The Mission church overflowed with post people and the visiting Crees,
+few of whom but had known some kindness from Julie Breton. In the robes
+of his order, Pere Breton faced the bride and groom. Beside the former,
+gravely stood the matron of honor; her gown of slate-gray and snowy
+white, carefully groomed for the occasion by the faithful Jules, glossy
+with superb vitality; her great neck circled by a white ribbon knotted
+in a bow--which it had required days to accustom her to wear--in strange
+contrast to the massive dignity of the head. From priest to bride and
+groom, curiously her slant eyes shifted, in wonder at the proceeding.
+
+The ceremony over, the bride impulsively kissed the slate-gray head of
+the dog while a hum of approval swept the church. Then, before repairing
+with their friends to the Mission House, where the groaning table
+awaited them, Julie and Jean Marcel, accompanied by Fleur, went to the
+stockade. Three gray noses thrust through the pickets whined a welcome.
+Three gigantic, wolfish huskies met them at the gate with wild yelps and
+the mad swishing of tails. Then the happy Jean and Julie gave the whelps
+of the wolf their share of the wedding feast.
+
+
+
+
+_The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading. Why not then own the
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+    =Sinister Mark, The.= Lee Thayer.
+    =Sin That Was His, The.= Frank L. Packard.
+    =Sir or Madam.= Berta Ruck.
+    =Sisters-in-Law.= Gertrude Atherton.
+    =Sky Line of Spruce.= Edison Marshall.
+    =Slayer of Souls, The.= Robert W. Chambers.
+    =Smiles: A Rose of the Cumberlands.= Eliot H. Robinson.
+    =Snowdrift.= James B. Hendryx.
+    =Snowshoe Trail, The.= Edison Marshall.
+    =Son of His Father, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
+    =Son of Tarzan, The.= Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+    =Souls for Sale.= Rupert Hughes. (Photoplay Ed.).
+    =Speckled Bird, A.= Augusta Evans Wilson.
+    =Spirit of the Border, The.= Zane Grey. (New Edition).
+    =Spirit-of-Iron.= Harwood Steele.
+    =Spoilers, The.= Rex Beach. (Photoplay Ed.).
+    =Spoilers of the Valley, The.= Robert Watson.
+    =Star Dust.= Fannie Hurst.
+    =Steele of the Royal Mounted.= James Oliver Curwood.
+    =Step on the Stair, The.= Anna Katherine Green.
+    =Still Jim.= Honore Willsie.
+    =Story of Foss River Ranch, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
+    =Story of Marco, The.= Eleanor H. Porter.
+    =Strange Case of Cavendish, The.= Randall Parrish.
+    =Strawberry Acres.= Grace S. Richmond.
+    =Strength of the Pines, The.= Edison Marshall.
+    =Subconscious Courtship, The.= Berta Ruck.
+    =Substitute Millionaire, The.= Hulbert Footner.
+    =Sudden Jim.= Clarence B. Kelland.
+    =Sweethearts Unmet.= Berta Ruck.
+    =Sweet Stranger.= Berta Ruck.
+    =Tales of Chinatown.= Sax Rohmer.
+    =Tales of Secret Egypt.= Sax Rohmer.
+    =Tales of Sherlock Holmes.= A. Conan Doyle.
+    =Talkers, The.= Robert W. Chambers.
+    =Talisman, The.= Sir Walter Scott (Photoplay Ed.).
+        Screened as Richard the Lion Hearted.
+    =Taming of Zenas Henry, The.= Sara Ware Basset.
+    =Tarzan of the Apes.= Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+    =Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar.= Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+    =Tattooed Arm, The.= Isabel Ostrander.
+    =Tempting of Tavernake, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+    =Tess of the D'Urbervilles.= Thomas Hardy. (Photoplay Ed.).
+    =Tex.= Clarence E. Mulford.
+    =Texan, The.= James B. Hendryx.
+    =Thankful's Inheritance.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
+    =That Affair at "The Cedars."= Lee Thayer.
+    =That Printer of Udell's.= Harold Bell Wright.
+    =Their Yesterdays.= Harold Bell Wright.
+    =Thief of Bagdad, The.= Achmed Abdullah. (Photoplay Ed.)
+    =Thieves' Wit.= Hulbert Footner.
+    =Thirteenth Commandment, The.= Rupert Hughes.
+    =This Side of Paradise.= F. Scott Fitzgerald.
+    =Thoroughbred, The.= Henry Kitchell Webster.
+    =Thread of Flame, The.= Basil King.
+    =Three Black Bags.= Marion Polk Angelloti.
+    =Three Men and a Maid.= P. G. Wodehouse.
+    =Three Musketeers, The.= Alexander Dumas.
+    =Three of Hearts, The.= Berta Ruck.
+    =Through the Shadows with O. Henry.= Al. Jennings.
+    =Thunderbolt, The.= Clyde Perrin.
+    =Timber.= Harold Titus.
+    =Timber Pirate.= Charles Christopher Jenkins.
+    =Tish.= Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+    =To Him That Hath.= Ralph Connor.
+    =Toilers of the Sea, The.= Victor Hugo. (Photoplay Ed.).
+    =Toll of the Sands.= Paul Delaney.
+    =Trail of the Axe, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
+    =Trailin'.= Max Brand.
+    =Trail to Yesterday, The.= Chas. A. Seltzer.
+    =Treasure of Heaven, The.= Marie Corelli.
+    =Trigger of Conscience, The.= Robert Orr Chipperfield.
+    =Triumph of John Kars, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
+    =Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel, The.= Baroness Orczy.
+    =Trodden Gold.= Howard Vincent O'Brien.
+    =Trooper O'Neill.= George Goodchild.
+    =Trouble at the Pinelands, The.= Ernest M. Porter.
+    =T. Tembarom.= Frances Hodgson Burnett.
+    =Tumbleweeds.= Hal G. Evarts.
+    =Turn of the Tide.= Eleanor H. Porter.
+    =Twenty-fourth of June.= Grace S. Richmond.
+    =Twins of Suffering Creek, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
+    =Two-Gun Man, The.= Chas. A. Seltzer.
+    =Two-Gun Man, The.= Robert Ames Bennet.
+    =Two-Gun Sue.= Douglas Grant.
+    =Typee.= Herman Melville.
+    =Tyrrel of the Cow Country.= Robert Ames Bennet.
+    =Under Handicap.= Jackson Gregory.
+    =Under the Country Sky.= Grace S. Richmond.
+    =Uneasy Street.= Arthur Somers Roche.
+    =Unlatched Door, The.= Lee Thayer.
+    =Unpardonable Sin, The.= Major Rupert Hughes.
+    =Unseen Ear, The.= Natalie Sumner Lincoln.
+    =Untamed, The.= Max Brand.
+    =Up and Coming.= Nalbro Bartley.
+    =Up From Slavery.= Booker T. Washington.
+    =Ursula Trent.= W. L. George.
+    =Valiants of Virginia, The.= Hallie Erminie Rives.
+    =Valley of Content, The.= Blanche Upright.
+    =Valley of Fear, The.= Sir A. Conan Doyle.
+    =Valley of Gold, The.= David Howarth.
+    =Valley of the Sun, The.= William M. McCoy.
+    =Vandemark's Folly.= Herbert Quick.
+    =Vanguards of the Plains.= Margaret Hill McCarter.
+    =Vanished Messenger, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+    =Vanishing of Betty Varian, The.= Carolyn Wells.
+    =Vanity Fair.= Wm. M. Thackeray. (Photoplay Ed.).
+    =Vashti.= Augusta Evans Wilson.
+    =Viola Gwyn.= George Barr McCutcheon.
+    =Virginia of Elk Creek Valley.= Mary Ellen Chase.
+    =Virtuous Wives.= Owen Johnson.
+    =Voice of the Pack, The.= Edison Marshall.
+    =Wagon Wheel, The.= William Patterson White.
+    =Wall Between, The.= Sara Ware Bassett.
+    =Wall of Men, A.= Margaret Hill McCarter.
+    =Wasted Generation, The.= Owen Johnson.
+    =Watchers of the Plains, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
+    =Way of an Eagle, The.= Ethel M. Dell.
+    =Way of the Strong, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
+    =Way of These Women, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+    =We Can't Have Everything.= Major Rupert Hughes.
+    =Weavers, The.= Gilbert Parker.
+    =West Broadway.= Nina Wilcox Putnam.
+    =West Wind Drift.= George Barr McCutcheon.
+    =What's the World Coming To?= Rupert Hughes.
+    =What Will People Say?= Rupert Hughes.
+    =Wheels Within Wheels.= Carolyn Wells.
+    =Whelps of the Wolf, The.= George Marsh.
+    =When a Man's a Man.= Harold Bell Wright. (Photoplay Ed.).
+    =When Egypt Went Broke.= Holman Day.
+    =Where the Sun Swings North.= Barnett Willoughby.
+    =Where There's a Will.= Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+  Page 41: Changed etes to etes
+  Page 52: Changed Companee to Company
+  Page 66: Changed uninterruped to uninterrupted
+  Page 113: Changed eyrie to eerie
+  Page 273: Changed matchles to matchless
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Whelps of the Wolf, by George Marsh
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