CHAPTER XVI
THE STARVING MOON
March, the Crees' "Moon of the Crust on the Snow," was old. Camped on achain of lakes in the Salmon country Marcel had been following the fewtraps for which he had bait and at the same time hunting widely forfood. Soon, the sun, mounting higher and higher each day at noon, wouldbegin to soften the surface of the snow which the freezing nights wouldharden into crust. Then he could travel far and fast. With muchsearching he had found another beaver lodge, postponing for a space thedays when man and dog would have not even half rations to stay theirhunger. The Frenchman's drawn face and loose capote evidenced the weeksof under-nourishment; but, though Fleur's great bones and the ropes ofmuscle, banding her back and shoulders, thrust through her shaggy coatwith undue prominence, still she had as yet suffered little from thefamine. So long as Jean Marcel had had fish or meat, his growing puppyhad received the greater share, for she had already attained in thatwinter on the Ghost a height and bulk of bone equal to that of herslate-gray mother now far on the north coast.
For days Jean had been praying for the coming of the crust. With it heplanned to make a wide circle back into the high barrens in search ofreturning caribou. Once the crust had set hard, travelling with the sledinto new country would be easy. Food he must accumulate to take themthrough the April thaws, or perish miserably, with no one to carry thenews of their fate to Whale River. Since the heart-breaking days whenthe white wolves drove the caribou south and the rabbits disappeared, hehad, in moments of depression, sat by the fire at night, wondering, whenJune again came to Whale River and one by one the canoes of the Creesappeared, if, by chance, a pair of dark eyes would ever turn to thebroad surface of the river for the missing craft of Jean Marcel--whetherin the joy of her love for another the heart of the girl would saddenfor one whose bones whitened in far Ungava hills.
At last the crust came. With eyes shielded by snow goggles made bycutting slits in flat pieces of spruce, for the glare of the sun on thebarrens was intense, Jean started with his dog. All the food he had wason his sled. He had burned his bridges, for if he failed in his hunt,they would starve, but as well starve in the barrens, he thought, asback at camp.
They were passing through the thick spruce of a sheltered valley,travelling up-wind, when Fleur, sniffing hard, grew excited. There wassomething ahead, probably fur, so he did not tie his dog. Shortly Fleurstarted to bolt with the sled and Jean turned her loose. Following hisyelping husky, who broke through the new crust at every leap, Marcelentered a patch of cedar scrub. There Fleur distanced him.
Shortly, a scream, followed by a din of snarls and squalls filled theforest. Close ahead a bitter struggle of creatures milling to the deathwas on. "Tiens!" exclaimed Jean, fearing for the eyes of his raw puppy,battling for the first time with the great cat of the north. He brokethrough the scrub to see the lynx spring backward from the rush of thedog and leap for the limbs of a low cedar. But the cat was too slow, forat the same instant, Fleur's jaws snapped on his loins, and with awrench of her powerful neck, the husky threw the animal to the snow witha broken back. In a flash she changed her grip, the long fangs crunchingthrough the neck of the helpless beast, and with a quiver, the lynx wasdead.
Hot with the lust of battle, Fleur worried the body of her enemy.Reaching her, Jean proudly patted his dog's back.
"My Fleur! She make de _loup-cervier_ run!" he cried, delighted withthe courage and power of his puppy.
Then he anxiously examined the slashes of rapier claws on Fleur's muzzleand shoulders.
"Bon!" he said, relieved. "De lynx he very weak or he cut you deeper dandese scratch."
As Jean hastily skinned the dead cat he marvelled at its emaciation.
"Ah! He also miss de rabbit. Lucky he starve or you get de beeg scratch,Fleur."
For answer the hot tongue of the dog sought his hands as she raised herbrown eyes to his. With arms around her shaggy shoulders her proudmaster muttered into the ears of the delighted husky love words thatwould have been strange indeed to any but Fleur, who found them sweetbeyond measure.
"My Fleur, she grow to be de dog, de most _sauvage_!" he cried. "Someday she keel de wolf, eh?"
Owing to the weakened condition of the lynx, Fleur's were but surfacescratches. So furious had been the husky's assault on the starved catthat she had left no opening to the knife-like claws of the powerfulhind legs.
Continuing east, four days later Marcel camped in a valley on the flankof a great barren. In the morning, tying Fleur with a rawhide thongwhich she could have chewed through with ease but had been taught torespect, he followed the scrub along the edge of the barren searchingfor caribou signs. Often he stopped to gaze out across the white wastereaching away east to the horizon, seeking for blue-gray objects whosemovements in scraping away the snow to the moss beneath, would alonemark them as caribou. In places the great winds had swept the plateaualmost bare, beating down the snow to a depth of less than a foot. Allday he skirted the barren but at last turned back to his camp sick atheart and spent with the long day on the crust, following his meagrebreakfast. Deep in the shelter of the thick timber of the valley, he haddug away the snow for his fire and sleeping place, lashing above his bedof spruce boughs a strip of canvas which acted both as windbreak andheat reflector. When they had eaten their slim supper, he freshened thefire with birch logs, and sat down with Fleur's head between his knees.The "Starving Moon" of the Montagnais hung over Jean Marcel.
"Fleur, you know we got onlee two day meat left? W'en dat go, JeanMarcel go too--een few day, a week maybe; and Fleur, w'at she do?"
The husky's slant eyes shone with her dog love into the set face of hermaster. She whined, wrinkling her gray nose, then her jaw dropped,which was her manner of laughing, while her hot breath steamed in thefreezing air. Vainly she waited for the smile that had never failed tolight Marcel's face in the old days at such advances.
Dropping his mittens Jean held the massive head between his naked hands.
"Jean Marcel feel ver' bad to leave Fleur alone. Wid no game she starvetoo, w'en he go," he said.
Fleur's deep throat rumbled in ecstasy as the hands of the master rubbedher ears.
"Back on de Ghost, Fleur, ees some feesh and meat Joe and Antoine left;not much, but eet tak' us to Whale Riviere, maybe."
The lips of Fleur lifted from her white teeth at the names of Jean'spartners.
"You remember Joe Piquet, Fleur? Joe Piquet!"
The husky growled. She knew only too well the name, Joe Piquet.
"Eet ees four--five sleep to de Ghost, Fleur, shall we go? W'at yout'ink?"
The strained face in the fur-lined hood approached the dog's, whose eyesshifted uneasily from the fixed look of her master.
"We go back to de Ghost, Fleur, or mak' one beeg hunt for de deer?"
The perplexed husky, unable to meet Marcel's piercing eyes, sprang toher feet with a yelp.
"Bon!" he cried. "We mak' de beeg hunt!" He had had his answer and onthe yelp of his dog had staked their fate. To-morrow he would push oninto the barrens and find the caribou drifting north again, or flickerout with his dog as men for centuries had perished, beaten by the longsnows.
In the morning he divided his remaining food into four parts; abreakfast and a supper for himself and Fleur, for two days. Afterthat--strips of caribou hide and moss, boiled in snow water, to ease thethrobbing ache of their stomachs.
Eating his thin stew, he shortened his belt still another hole over hislean waist, and harnessing Fleur, turned resolutely east into country nowhite man had ever seen, on his bold gamble for food or an endless sleepin the blue Ungava hills.
In his weakened state, black spots and pin-points of light danced beforehis eyes. Distant objects were often magnified out of all proportion. Sointense was the glare of the high March sun on the crust that his woodengoggles alone saved him from snow-blindness. He travelled a few milesuntil dizziness forced him to rest. Later he continued on, to restagain, while the black nose of Fleur, who was still comparativelyst
rong, sought his face, as she wondered at the reason for the master'sstrange actions.
By noon he had crossed no trail except that of a wolverine seeking foodlike himself, and finally went down into the timbered valley of a brookwhere he left Fleur and the sled. Then he started again on his hopelesssearch. As the streams flowed northeast, he was certain that he hadcrossed the Height of Land to the Ungava Bay watershed, and was now inthe headwater country of the fabled River of Leaves, the Koksoak of theEsquimos, into which no hunter from Whale River had ever penetrated.
Marcel was snow-shoeing through the scrub at the edge of the plateauwhen far out on the barren he saw two spots. Shortly he was convincedthat the objects moved.
"By Gar, deer! At last they travel nord!" he gasped, gazing withbounding pulses at the distant spots almost indistinguishable againstthe snow. Meat out there on the barren awaited him--food and life, ifonly he could get within range.
Cutting back into the scrub, that he might begin his stalk of thecaribou from the nearest cover with the wind in his face, he movedbehind a rise in the ground slowly out into the barren. With a cautionhe had never before exercised, lest the precious food now almost withinreach should escape him, the starving man advanced.
At last he crawled up behind a low knoll, and stretched out on the snow.Cocking and thrusting his rifle before him, he wormed his way to thetop of the rise and looked.
There a hundred yards off, playing on the crust, were two arctic foxes.Distorting their size, the barren ground mirage had cruelly deceivedhim.
With a groan the spent hunter dropped his head on his arms. "All deesfor fox!" he murmured. Then, because foxes were meat, he took carefulaim and shot one, wounding the other, which he killed with the secondbullet. Hanging the carcasses in a spruce, Marcel continued to skirt thebarren toward the east.
As dusk fell he returned to Fleur and made camp. Cutting up and boilingone of the foxes, he and the dog ate ravenously of the rank flesh, buthope was low in the breast of Jean Marcel. A day or two more of halfrations and he was done. The spring migration of the caribou was not yeton. And when the deer did come, it would be too late. Jean Marcel wouldbe past aid and Fleur--what would become of her? True, she could live onthe flanks of the caribou herds like the wolves, but the wolves wouldfind and destroy her.
Tortured by such thoughts, he sat by his fire, the husky's great head onhis knee, her eyes searching his, mutely demanding the reason for hisstrange silence.
Another day of fruitless wandering in which he had pushed as far eastas his fading strength would take him, and Jean shared the last of thefood with his dog. He had fought hard to find the deer, had alreadytravelled one hundred miles into the barrens, but he felt that it was nouse; he was beaten. The spirit of the coureurs whose blood coursed hisveins would drive him on and on, but without food the days of hishunting would be few. Henceforth it would be caribou hide boiled withmoss from the barrens to ease the pinch of his hunger, but his strengthwould swiftly go. Then, when hope died, rather than leave his dog to thewolves, he would shoot Fleur and lying down beside her in his blanket,place the muzzle of his rifle against his own head.
Two days, in which Marcel and Fleur drank the liquor from stewed caribouhide and moss while he continued to hunt, followed. As he staggered intocamp at the end of the second day the man was so weak that he scarcelyfound strength to gather wood for his fire. Fleur now showed signs ofslow starvation in her protruding ribs and shoulders. Her heavy coat nolonger shone with gloss but lay flat and lusterless. Vainly shewhimpered for the food that her heart-sick master could not give her.With the dog beside him, Marcel lay by the fire numbed into indifferenceto his fate. The torment of hunger had vanished leaving only greatweakness and a dazed brain. He thought of the three wooden crosses atWhale River; how restful it would be to lie beside them behind theMission, instead of sleeping far in the barrens where the great windsbeat ceaselessly by over the treeless snows. There Julie Breton mighthave planted forest flowers on the mound that marked the grave of JeanMarcel. But no, he had forgotten; Julie Breton would not be at WhaleRiver. Julie would live at East Main and some day at her feet would playthe children of Wallace. Julie would be married in the spring at WhaleRiver, while the wolves and ravens were scattering the whitened bones ofJean Marcel over the valley, and there would be no rest--no rest.
What hopes he had had of a little house of their own at Whale River whenhe entered the service of the Company and drove the mail packet down thecoast, with the team that Fleur would give him. How often he hadpictured that home where Julie and the children would wait his returnfrom summer voyage and winter trail; Julie Breton, whom he had lovedfrom boyhood and whom, he had once prided himself, should love him, someday, when he had proved his manhood among the swart men of the EastCoast.
All a dream--a dream. Julie was happy. She would soon marry the greatman at East Main, while in a few days Jean Marcel was going to snuffout--smoulder a while, as a fire from lack of wood, dying by inches--byinches; and then two shots.
Poor Fleur! It had all come to pass because he had dared to follow andbring her home--had had no time to cache fish and game in the fall. Shewould have been better off with the half-breeds on the Rupert, where thecaribou had gone. They would have kicked her, but fed her too. Yes, shewould have been better there. Now he would take her with him, his owndog, when the time came. No more starvation for her, and a death in thebarrens when she met the white wolves. Yes, he would take her with him.
So rambled the thoughts of Jean Marcel, as he lay with his dog facingthe creeping death his rifle would cheat, until kindly sleep brought himsurcease--sleep, followed by dreams of the wide barrens trampled byherds of the returning caribou, of juicy steaks sizzling over the fire,while Fleur gnawed contentedly at huge thigh bones.