George Marsh

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 Père Breton that Jean Marcel is back!" continued Gillies. ”

“ 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 [Pg 248] powdery crystals of ice, the true sun, flanked by sun-dogs in a ringed halo, lifted above the shimmering barrens, dazzlingly bright. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All that Gillies and Père 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are many who trap too far from the posts and in country too in [Pg 260] 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.
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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ The days at the Mission with Père 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”