The Whelps of the Wolf Part 3

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 ash.o.r.e 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 s.h.a.ggy 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. Pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.s the floats of gill-nets set for whitefish and salmon. He could now see the tepees of the Whale River Crees, dotting the high sh.o.r.es, 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 ma.s.ses 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, embarra.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sed 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. Pa.s.sing 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 pet.i.te 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.