CHAPTER XII
THE WORK OF THE WHITE WOLVES
The first day, by hard hunting they shot three caribou, but to thesurprise and chagrin of Antoine and Joe, on the second day, in a countrywhere they had never failed to get meat earlier in the winter, thehunters got but one. After that not a caribou was seen on the widebarrens, while many trails were crossed, all heading south, andfollowing the signs of the fleeing caribou were the tracks of wolves,not singly or in couples, but in packs.
When the hunters had satisfied themselves that the caribou had left thecountry, they relayed their meat into camp with the help of Fleur andlines attached to the sled to aid her.
That night the trappers took council. The caribou meat, flour andremaining fish, counting Jean's cache at Conjuror's Falls, would takethem into February. After that, it would be rabbits through March andApril until the fish began to move. In the meantime a few lake trout andpike could be caught with lines through holes in the ice. Also, settingthe net under three feet of ice could be accomplished with infinitelabor, but the results in midwinter were always a matter of doubt.
"You had all September to net fish, but what did you do? You grew fat ondeer meat," flung out Jean bitterly, thinking of his hungry puppy whorequired nourishing food in these months of rapid growth.
"How much feesh you got in dat cache?" demanded Piquet, ignoring theremark.
"About one hundred fifty pound," replied Marcel.
"Not on Conjur' Fall, I mean at de lac."
The fish Jean had netted and cached at the lake, on arriving in October,were designed for his dog and already had been partly used.
"Only little left at de lac," he replied.
"Dat feesh belong to us all; de dog can leeve on rabbit."
Piquet's remark brought the blood to Jean's face.
"De dog gets her share of feesh, do you hear dat, Joe?" rasped Marcel,his eyes blazing. "You and Antoine got no right to dat feesh; you refuseto help me and you laugh when I net dat feesh. De dog gets her share,Joe Piquet!" Marcel rose, facing the others with a glitter in his eyesthat had its effect on Piquet.
"We have bad tam, dees spreeng, for sure," moaned Antoine. "I weesh wenet more feesh."
"Well, I tell you what to do," said Jean. "Eef de feesh do not bite trude ice or come to de net, we travel over to de Salmon, plentee beaverdere."
At the suggestion of moving into the unknown country to the north, withits dread valleys peopled with spirits, the superstitious half-breedsshook their heads. Rather starve on the Whale, they said, than in thehaunted valleys where the voices of the Windigo filled the nights withfear.
With a disgusted shrug of his wide shoulders, Marcel dismissed thesubject. "All right, starve on de Ghost, de Windigo get you on deSalmon."
With the disappearance of the caribou the partners began setting rabbitsnares to save their meat and flour. Jean brought up the last of hisfish from Conjuror's Falls but refused to touch his cache at the lake.With strict economy and a liberal diet of rabbit, they decided thattheir food could carry them into March. Jean wished to keep the flouruntouched for emergency, but the half-breeds, characteristicallyoptimistic, counted on a return of the caribou, and they always hadrabbit to fall back upon.
During the last week in January while following his trap-lines, Jeanmade a discovery the gravity of which drove him in haste back to thecamp on the Ghost.
"How many long snows since de plague, Joe?" he asked.
His comrades turned startled eyes on the speaker. Piquet slowly countedon his fingers the winters since the last plague all but exterminatedthe snow-shoe rabbits, then leaping to his feet, cried: "By Gar! eet eesnot dees year. No, no! de ole man at de trade said de nex' long snowafter dees will be de plague."
"Well, de old men were wrong," Marcel calmly insisted, as his companionspaled at the meaning of his words. "Eet ees dees year w'en you netleetle feesh, dat de rabbits die."
"No, eet ees a meestake!" they protested as the lean features of theFrenchman hardened in a bitter smile.
"On de last trip to my traps," went on the imperturbable Marcel, "I findfour rabbit dead from de plague an' since de last snow I cross few freshtracks."
"I fin' none een two days myself," echoed Antoine.
The stark truth of Marcel's contention drove itself home. At last,convinced, they gazed with blanched faces into each others' eyes fromwhich looked fear--fear of the dread weeks of the March moon and theslow death which starvation might bring. The grim spectre which everhovers over the winter camps in the white silences now menaced theshack on the Ghost.
Shortly, fresh rabbit tracks became rare. After years of plenty, thedays of lean hunting for lynx and fox had returned. The plague, whichperiodically sweeps the north, would bring starvation, as well, to manya tepee of the improvident children of the snows.