George Tracy Marsh

“ 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. ”

“ As the weeks went by, the food cache at the camp on the Ghost steadily shrank. The nets under the ice and the set lines were now bringing no fish. More and more Jean slept in his halfway camp ten miles north, for, although the short rations he fed Fleur had been obtained solely by his own efforts, Joe and Antoine objected to the well-nourished look of the puppy while they grew thin and slowly weakened. For generations, the huskies have been accustomed to starvation, and if not slaving with the sleds, will for weeks show but slight effect from short rations. ”

“ To increase the difficulty of hunting for food, January had brought blizzard after blizzard, piling deep with drifts the trails to their trap lines, which they still visited regularly, for the starved lynxes were coming to the bait of the flesh of their kin in greater and greater numbers. ”