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 wouldtake him a month, travel as he might. Though he sorely needed geese forfood on his way north, there was no time to waste at Hannah Bay, soMarcel paddled steadily all night. At dawn, in the mist off Gull Bay,Fleur became so restless with the scent of the shoals of geese, whichthe canoe was raising, that Jean was forced to put a gag of hide in hermouth while he drifted with the tide on the "wavies" and shot a week'ssupply of food.
At daylight he went ashore, concealed his canoe behind some boulders,and trusting to Fleur's nose and ears to guard him from surprise, sleptthe sleep of exhaustion. Later, while his breakfast was cooking, Jeanrevelled in his reunion with his dog. In the weeks since he had lastseen her she had fairly leaped in height and weight. Food had beenplenty with the half-breeds and Fleur was not starved, but his bloodboiled at the evidence she bore of the breeds' brutality. He nowregretted that he had not ambushed the confederate of the man he hadbeaten, and branded him, also, as the puppy had been marked.
Though Fleur was but six months old, the heavy legs and already massivelines of her head gave promise of a maturity, unusual, even in theUngava breed. Some day, mused Marcel, as Fleur looked her love of themaster through her slant, brown eyes, her head on his knee, he wouldhave a dog-team equal to the famous huskies of his grandfather, PierreMarcel, who once took the Christmas mail from Albany to Fort Hope, fourhundred and fifty miles, over a drifted trail, in twelve days.
"Yes, some day Fleur will give Jean Marcel a team," he said aloud, andrubbed the gray ears while Fleur's hairy throat rumbled in delight asthough she were struggling to answer: "Some day, Jean Marcel; for Fleurwill not forget how you came from the north and brought her home." Andthen the muscles of his lean face twisted with pain as he went on: "Butwho will there be to work for with Julie gone?"
That day, holding the nose of his canoe on Mount Sherrick, Jean crossedthe mouth of Rupert Bay and headed up the coast. In three days he was atEast Main, where he bought dried whitefish for Fleur, for huskies thriveon whitefish as on no other food, and salt to cure geese; then startedthe same night for Fort George. Two days out he was driven ashore bythe first north-wester and held prisoner, while he added to his supplyof geese, which he salted down.
After the storm he toiled on day after day, praying that the stingingnorthers bringing the "freeze-up" would hold off until he sighted WhaleRiver. At night, seated beneath the sombre cliffs by his drift-wood firewith Fleur at his side, he often watched the wonder of the NorthernLights, marvelling at their mystery, as they pulsed and waned and flaredagain over the sullen Bay, then streamed up across the heavens, anddiffusing, veiled the stars, which twinkled through with a mystic bluelight. The "Spirits of the Dead at Play," the Esquimos called thosedancing phantoms of the skies; and he thought of his own dead andwondered if their spirits were at peace.
And then, as he lay, a blanketed shape beside his sleeping puppy, camedreams to mock him--dreams of Julie Breton, always happy, and besideher, smiling into her face, the handsome Inspector of the East Coastposts. Night after night he dreamed of the girl who was slipping awayfrom him--who had forgotten Jean Marcel in his mad race south for hisdog.
On and on he fought his way north through the head-seas, defyingcross-winds; landing to empty his canoe, and then on to the lee of thenext island. While his boat would live he travelled, for September wasdrawing to a close and over him hung the menace of the first stingingnorthers which for days would anchor his frail craft to the beach. Hardon their heels would follow the nipping nights of the "freeze-up," whichwould shackle the waterways, locking the land in a grip of ice.
Past the beetling shoulders of the Black Whale, past the EarthquakeIslands and Fort George he journeyed, for the brant and blue geese wereon the coast and he needed no supplies; leaving Caribou Point astern, atlast the dreaded Cape of the Four Winds loomed through the mist whichblanketed the flat sea.
It was to this gray headland that he had raced the northers which wouldhave held him wind-bound. And he had won.
Rounding the Cape, in five days he stood, a drawn-faced tattered figurewith Fleur at his side, at the door of the Mission House.
"Jean Marcel! Thank God!" and Julie Breton impulsively kissed the leancheek of the _voyageur_. A whine of protest followed by a smotheredrumble at such familiarity with her master drew her glance to the greatpuppy. "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 youare!"
She led man and dog into the building.
"Henri! Come quick and see whom we have with us!"
"Jean, my son!" cried the priest, embracing the returned _voyageur_,"and you brought back your dog! It will be a brave tale we shall hearto-night!"
The appearance of Marcel and Fleur at the trade-house was greeted with:
"Nom de Dieu! Jean Marcel! And de dog! He return wid hees dog, by Gar!"as Jules Duroc sprang to meet him with a bear hug.
"Welcome back, my lad!" cried Colin Gillies, tearing a hand of Jean fromthe emotional Company man. While Angus McCain, joining in the chorus ofcongratulations, was clapping the helpless Marcel on the shoulder, theperplexed puppy, worried by the uproar of strangers about her master,leaped, tearing the back out of McCain's coat, and was relegated by Jeanto the stockade outside.
"Well, well, how far did they take you, Jean? Did you have a fussgetting your dog?" asked the factor.
"I was one day behind dem at Rupert Bay----"
"What, you've been to Rupert?" interrupted the amazed Gillies.
"Oui, M'sieu. I go to Rupert and see M'sieu Cameron."
"And with one paddle you gained a day on them? Lad, you've surely gotyour father's staying power. Where did you come up with them?"
Then Jean related the details of his capture of Fleur to an open-mouthedaudience.
"So there's one less dog-stealer on the Bay," drily commented Gillies,when Marcel had finished his grim tale.
"Why you not put de bullet een dat oder t'ief, Jean?" demanded thebloodthirsty Jules.
"Eet ees not easy to keel a man, onless he steal your dog an' try tokeel you. I had de dog. One of dem was enough," gravely answered thetrapper.
"That's right; you had your dog which I thought you'd never see again,"approved Gillies. "But your travelling this time of year, with theheadwinds and sea, up the coast in thirty days, beats me. I was fiveweeks, once, making it with two paddles. You must have your father'sback, lad. It was the best on this coast in his day; and you've surelygot his fighting blood."
Basking for three days in the hospitality of the Mission; resting fromthe strain and wear of six weeks' constant toil at the paddle, Marcelrevelled in Julie's good cooking. To watch her trim figure moving aboutthe house; to talk to her while her dusky head bent over her sewing,after the loneliness of his long journey, would have been all the heavenhe asked, had it not been that over it all hung the knowledge that JulieBreton was lost to him. Kind she was as a sister is kind, but her hearthe knew was far in the south at East Main in the keeping of InspectorWallace, to do with it as his manhood prompted. And knowing what he did,Marcel kept silence.
On his return he had learned the story from big Jules. All Whale Riverhad watched the courting of Julie. All Whale River had seen Wallace andthe girl walking nightly in the long twilight, and had shaken theirheads sadly, in sympathy with the lad who was travelling down the coaston the mad quest of his puppy. Yes, he had lost her. It was over, and hemanfully fought the bitterness and despair that was his; tried to forgetthe throbbing pain at his heart, as he made the most of those threeshort days with the girl he loved, and might never see again, as a girl,for Marcel was not returning from the Ghost at Christmas.
His dreams were dead. Ambitions for the future had been stripped fromhim, as the withering winds strip a tree of leaves. The home he hadpictured at Whale River when, in the spr
ing, he fought through to theSalmon for a dog-team which should make his fortune, was now a phantom.There was nothing left him but the love of his puppy. She would neverdesert Jean Marcel.
But Jean Marcel was a trapper, and the precious days before the icewould close the upper Whale and the Ghost to canoe travel were slippingpast. Before he went south his partners of the previous winter hadagreed to take with them the supplies, which he had drawn from the post,but that they would not net fish for his dog he was certain. Exasperatedat his determination to go south, they would hardly plan for the dogthey were confident he would not recover.
So Marcel bade his friends good-bye and with as much cured whitefish ashe could carry without being held up on the portages by extra trips,started with Fleur on the long up-river trail to his trapping grounds.
When he left, he said to Julie in French: "I have not spoken to you ofwhat I have heard since my return."
The girl's face flushed but her eyes bravely met his.
"They tell me that you are to marry M'sieu Wallace," he hazarded.
"They do not know, who tell you that!" she exclaimed with spirit."M'sieu Wallace has not asked me to marry him, and beside, he is still aProtestant."
Ignoring the evasion, he went on slowly: "But you love him, Julie; andhe is a great man----"
"Ah, Jean," she broke in, "you are hurt. But you will always be myfriend, won't you?"
"Yes, I shall always be that." And he was gone.