The Whelps of the Wolf Part 7

In the soft mud of the sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e of the bay where the water for miles inland to the spruce networked the marshes, and the rank gra.s.s 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 insh.o.r.e, he ran his canoe up a waterway and into the long gra.s.s. 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 gra.s.s and alders, circling around the wide, open s.p.a.ces, 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 s.h.a.ggy 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 pet.i.te 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 s.p.a.ce 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 hoa.r.s.ely, 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 ash.o.r.e, 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 ma.s.sive 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 ash.o.r.e 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.