CHAPTER XXIII
IN THE EYES OF THE CREES
Day by day the ebb-tide brought in the canoes of returning Crees.Gradually tepees filled the post clearing. And with the coming of thehunters from the three winds, was heard many a tale of famine in farvalleys; of families blotted out; of little victims of starvation anddisease; of the aged too frail to endure through the lean moons of therabbit-plague until the return of the caribou, which had spelt life tothose who waited.
Tragedy there had been, as in every winter of famine; but howeversinister were the secrets which, that spring, many a mute valley heldlocked in its green forests, no rumors of such, except the tale of themurders on the Ghost, had reached Whale River. Pitiless desertion of theaged and the helpless, death by violence, doubtless, the starving moonhad shone upon; but none had lived to tell the tale, none had seen theevidence, except those who had profited with their lives, and their lipswere forever sealed. And so, as Marcel had foreseen, to the gatheringfamilies of Crees who themselves had but lately escaped the maw of thewinter, the tale of the Lelacs, expanding as it travelled, found readyacceptance.
As yet, Jean, chafing under the odium of his position at the post, hadnot faced his accusers. But the plan of his defense which had beendecided on after a conference with Gillies and Pere Breton, depended forits success on the trading of their fur by the Lelacs, and the uncle andcousins of Joe Piquet for some reason had traded no fur. So the proudFrenchman went his way among the hunters at Whale River with a high headand silent tongue.
Many of those who, the spring previous, had lauded his daring inentering the land of the Windigo and voyaging to the coast by the BigSalmon, now, at his appearance exchanged significant glances, avoidingthe steady eyes of the man they had condemned without a hearing. Shawledwomen and girls, who formerly, at the trade, had cast approving glancesat the wide-shouldered youth with the clean-cut features, now whisperedpointedly as he passed and children often shrank from him in terror asfrom one defiled. But Marcel had been prepared for the effect of thetale of the Lelacs upon the mercurial red men, in the memories of manyof whom still lurked the ghosts of deeds of their own whose ghastlydetails the ears of no man would ever hear.
Since his return he had not once met the Lelacs face to face. Alwaysthey had hastily avoided him when he appeared on the way to his canoe orthe trade-house. Jean had been strictly ordered by Gillies under nocircumstances to seek trouble with his accusers or their friends, so heignored them. And their disinclination to encounter the son of thefamous Andre Marcel had not gone unmarked by the keen eyes of more thanone old hunter. Many a red man and half-breed, friends of the father,who respected the son, had frankly expressed to him their disbelief inthe charges of the Lelacs, accepting his story which Gillies hadpublished to the Crees, that Beaulieu had been stabbed by Joe Piquetwhile Marcel was absent and Piquet killed later by the dog. Stronglythey had urged him to make the Lelacs eat their lies, promising theirsupport; but Jean had explained that it was necessary to wait; later hisday would come.
Occasionally when Marcel crossed the post clearing, pulsing with thevaried life of the spring trade, to descend the cliff trail to hiscanoe, there marched by his side one whose name, also, was anathema withmany of the Crees. That comrade was Fleur. The story of Piquet's deathas told by Jean at the trade-house, though scouted by the Lelacs, had,nevertheless, left a deep impression; and the great dog, now called the"man-killer," who towered above the scrub huskies of the Indians as amastiff over a poodle, was given a wide berth. But to avoid troublewith the Cree dogs, Jean kept Fleur for the most part in the Missionstockade. There Gillies and McCain and Jules had come to admire the bulkand bone of the husky they had last seen as a lumbering puppy, now insize and beauty far surpassing the Ungavas bought by the Company of theEsquimos. There, Crees, still friendly to Jean, lingered to gossip ofthe winter's hardships and stare in admiration at his dog. There, too,Julie romped with Fleur, grown somewhat dignified with the gravity ofher approaching responsibilities. For, to the delight of Jean, Fleur wassoon to present him with the dog-team of his dreams.
Then when the umiaks of the Esquimos began to arrive from the coast,packed with tousle-headed children and the priceless sled-dogs, takingFleur, Jean sought out his old friend Kovik of the Big Salmon. As heapproached the skin lodge on the beach, beside which the kin of Fleurwere made fast to prevent promiscuous fighting with strange dogs, sheanswered their surly greeting with so stiff a mane, so fierce a show offangs, that Jean pulled her away by her rawhide leash, lest herreputation suffer further by adding fratricide to her crimes.
Playmates of her puppyhood, mother who suckled her, she had forgottenutterly; vanished was all memory of her kin. She held but oneallegiance, one love; the love approaching idolatry she bore the youngmaster who had taken her in that far country from the strange men whobeat her with clubs; who had brought her north again through wintryseas; who had companioned her through the long snows and in the dreaddays of the famine had shared with her his last meat. The center and sumof her existence was Jean Marcel. All other living things were asnothing.
"Kekway!" cried the squat pair of Huskies, delighted at the appearanceof the man who had given them back their first born. "Kekway!" chuckleda half-dozen round-faced children, shaking Jean's hand in turn.
"Huh!" grunted the father, his eyes wide with wonder at the sight ofFleur, ears flat, muttering dire threats at her yelping brethrenstraining at their stakes, "dat good dog!"
"Oui, she good dog," agreed Jean. "Soon I have dog-team lak Husky!"
Shifting a critical eye from Fleur to his own dogs the Esquimo nodded.
"Ha! Ha! You ketch boy in water, you get bes' dog."
The Esquimo had not erred in his judgment of puppies. He had indeedgiven the man who had cheated the Big Salmon of his son the best of thelitter. At sixteen months, Fleur stood inches higher at the shoulderand weighed twenty pounds more than her brothers. Truly, with the speedand stamina of their sire, the timber wolf, coupled with Fleur's courageand power, these puppies, whose advent he awaited, should make adog-team unrivalled on the East Coast.
"Cree up dere," continued the Esquimo, pointing toward the postclearing, "say de dog keel man."
Marcel nodded gravely. "Oui, man try kill me, she kill heem."
"Huh! De ol' dog keel bad Husky, on Kogaluk one tam."
Fleur indeed had come from a fighting strain--dogs that would battle tothe death or toil in the traces until they crumpled on the snow, forthose they loved or to whom they owed allegiance.