George Tracy Marsh

“ One August 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. ”

“ 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—the shaggy ruffians grew in the wisdom of trace and trail and in their wild natures ripened love for the master who fed and romped with them and meted out punishment only to him 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. ”

“ Frantic and white with sudden fear, the breed fought the sinewy wrist advancing inexorably on its grim mission. In short jerks, Marcel hunched the knife toward its goal. The knotted features of the one who felt death creeping to him, inch by inch, went gray. The hand gripping Marcel’s 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. ”

“ 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 them 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 tepees 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. ”

“ 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, and that never again his daring paddle would flash in sunlit white water or his snowshoes etch their webbed trail on the white floor of the silent places. ”

“ Lifting his moccasined feet like a fox on the trail of a snowshoe rabbit, Garnier cut back from the river, then turned downstream. He had not traveled far when suddenly a sound from the direction of the river flattened him to the ground, ears straining, every nerve alive.
Shortly the noise was repeated. The lean face of the outlaw shaped a look of disgust. It was the unmistakable chuck of an ax. His caution was needless. His enemy was making camp.
Moving out to the river shore the half-breed saw, a hundred yards downstream on the opposite bank, the hunter of men calmy boiling his kettle. ”

“ With the sunrise the wind had increased and the heartsick 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 the alternative of doubling the headland on the ice. He had decided that no men or dogs could face the maelstrom of wind and snow which churned around the cape’s bald buttresses, no strength force its way, no endurance prevail against it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 the deer at last? Only a starving wolf or lynx, prowling near the camp, likely. 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 snowshoes, 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. ”

“ The tears had gone and in the eyes of Jean Marcel was a glint Julie had never known—a glitter of hate for the men who had taken his dog, of swift hate so intense, so bitter, that she thrilled as she gazed at his transformed face. Instinctively, she realized that the lad who faced her now 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. ”

“ The perplexed husky unable to meet Marcel’s piercing eyes sprang to her feet with a yelp.
“Good!” 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. ”

“ By the coming of April, Fleur, in whom an abundance of red caribou meat had swiftly worked a transformation, 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 three-hundred-pound load, his heart leaped with love of the beautiful beast who worshiped him with every red drop in her shaggy body. ”

“ With the emotions of a man suddenly reprieved from a sentence of death, Marcel poled his canoe out into the current. The Eskimos had joined Kovik on the shore behind him, 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 man.
Seizing his paddle, Jean rapidly 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. ”

“ 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.
Leaping away from a second lunge, and drawing his knife with his left hand, Marcel slashed wildly at the half-breed whom the water had revived, driving him before him. Then, as he fought to reach him, the shape of his retreating enemy slowly faded from his vision; his strength ebbed; the knife slipped from his fingers as darkness shut down upon him, and he reeled senseless to the stones. ”

“ The tide was low, and he carried his canoe across the mud flats. As he poled his canoe south through the shoals, he saw idling everywhere along the bars and sand spits the gray Canadas, 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 raised 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. ”

“ It was Julie who greeted him.
“Jean Marcel! Thank God!” she cried, and impulsively kissed the cheeks of the blushing lad. A whine of protest, followed by a smothered rumble at such familiarity with the 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!” ”

“ Turning to the dog, snarling with hate of the prowling thing she had destroyed, Jean led her away.
“Fleur, ma petite!” he cried. “She take good care of Jean Marcel while he sleep! Piquet, he thought he keel us both in de tent.” 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 forepaws 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. ”

“ 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 infringment 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 through a build more rugged, a stronger will.
The next morning, by way of strategic approach, Jean Marcel again offered a high price for a grown dog. But the smiling Kovik would not relent. Then Marcel suddenly pointing at the female puppy, offered the pelt of a marten for her. ”

“ At times, when the magic of the young spring swept his troubled brain clean of dark memory for a while, he dreamed that the water thrushes in the river willows called to him: “Sweet, sweet, sweet, Julie Breton!” He would feel, for a space, 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? ”

“ 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. Also, 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. ”

“ 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, puppylike, 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. ”

“ You have judged who has spoken with a double tongue and 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? ”

“ 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. At the mission Julie Breton might have planted forest flowers on the mound that marked the grave of Jean Marcel.
Julie! What hopes he had had of a little house of their own at Whale River, when he would have entered the service of the company and drove the mail packet down the coast with the team that Fleur should give him! ”

“ In the early evening, forty-eight hours from Whale River, one hundred and fifty miles up the coast, four white wraiths of huskies with a ghostlike 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. ”

“ Reeling back against a spruce support to the cache, the dazed half-breed sank to his snowshoes, then, slowly struggling to his knees, lunged wildly with his knife at the man sneering down at him and missed. His thrust carried him headfirst 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.
A few moments later Jean was back at the shack. ”

“ 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-by. 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.
When he heard that Kovik had arrived, Jean brought Fleur down to the shore, only 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 could go on again. Often plunging to their collars in the new snow, the huskies traveled 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. ”

“ 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 shoveled 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. ”

“ Holding the aroused Fleur with difficulty on her rawhide leash, Marcel snowshoed through the timber in the direction from which the sound had come. After traveling 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.” ”

“ 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 he loosed Fleur. The approaching half-breed was in his power. But Jean 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 to his canoe. ”

“ 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 Eskimo tepees on the shore, whose howling quickly aroused the post dogs. ”