The Whelps of the Wolf Part 23

"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 x.x.x

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 ma.s.sive 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 x.x.xI

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 a.s.sistant 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.