CHAPTER III
THE FRIEND OF DEMONS
When Marcel put his canoe into the water the following morning, to crossto his net, three young Esquimos, who had been loitering near Kovik'slodge, followed him to the beach, and as he left the shore, hurled athis back a torrent of Husky abuse.
What he had hoped to avoid had come. It would have been better to listento Kovik's warning against delaying his departure and attempting to fishat the rapids after the salmon arrived. The use of the boy's spear, theday previous, had brought the feeling among the younger men to a head.They meant to drive him down river.
Removing the whitefish and small salmon, Jean lifted his net andstretching it to dry on the shore, recrossed the stream. On the beachawaiting his return were the Huskies. Clearly, they had decided that hewas possessed of no supernatural powers and could now be bullied withimpunity. As he did not wish to embroil his friend Kovik in his defense,when he had smoked his last catch he would leave. But the blood of thefighting Marcels was slowly coming to a boil. If these raw fish-eatersthought that they could frighten the grandson of the famous EtienneLacasse, and the son of Andre Marcel, whose strength was a tradition onthe East Coast, he could show them their mistake. Still, avoid troublehe must, for a fight would be suicide.
So ignoring the Huskies, who talked together in low tones, Marcellanded, cleaned some fish for the Koviks' kettle, and carried them up tothe tepee where the family were still asleep. Returning, the hot bloodrose to the bronzed face of the Frenchman at what he saw.
The three Esquimos were coolly feeding his fish to the dogs.
Reckless of the consequences, in the blind rage which choked him, Marcelreached the pilferers of his canoe before they realized that he was onthem. Seizing one by his long hair, with a wrench he hurled thesurprised Husky backward into the water and sent a second reeling to thestony beach with a fierce blow in the face. The third, retreating fromthe fury of the attack of the maddened white man, drew his skinningknife; but seizing his paddle, Marcel sent the knife spinning with avicious slash which doubled the screaming Husky over a broken wrist.Turning, he saw his first victims making down the beach toward thetepees, while the uproar of the dogs was swiftly arousing the camp.
Then, as his blood cooled and his judgment returned, the youth, who hadsuffered and dared much that he might have dogs for the next long snows,realized the height of his folly. They had baited him into furnishingthem with an excuse for attacking him. Now even the faithful Kovik wouldbe helpless against them. He would never see Whale River and JulieBreton again. Already the Huskies were emerging from their tepees, tohear the tale of his late antagonists. There was no time to lose beforethey rushed him.
Bounding up the beach to Kovik's tepee for his rifle, he rapidlyexplained the situation to the Esquimo, while in his ears rang theshouts of the excited Huskies and the yelping of the dogs. Jean did nothope to escape alive from this bedlam, but of one thing he was sure, hewould die like a Marcel, with a smoking gun in his hands.
Urging Jean to get his fur-pack and smoked fish to his canoe at once,Kovik hurried down the shore to the knot of wildly excited Esquimos.
With the aid of the grateful wife and son of Kovik, Marcel's canoe wasswiftly loaded and his treasured puppy lashed in the bow. But the rushup the beach of an infuriated throng bent on his death, which Marcelstoically awaited beside a large boulder, was delayed. Not a hundredyards distant, the doughty Kovik, the center of an arguing mob, wasfighting with all the wits he possessed for the man who had saved hisson. For Marcel to attempt to escape by water would only have drawn thefire of the Huskies and nullified Kovik's efforts, and their kayaks,faster than any canoe, were below him. A break for the "bush," even ifsuccessful, in the end, meant starvation. So with extra cartridgesbetween his teeth, and in his hands, Jean Marcel grimly fingered thetrigger-guard of his rifle, as he waited at the boulder for the turn ofthe dice down the shore.
Minutes, each one an eternity to the man at bay, passed. But Kovik stillheld his men, and Marcel clearly noted a change in the manner of theHuskies. The shouting had ceased. His friend was winning.
Shortly, Kovik left the group and walked rapidly toward Marcel, followedat a distance by his people.
"Dey keel you, but Kovik say you fr'en' wid spirit; he come down riv'an' eat Husky," explained the worried defender of Jean. "Kovik say youshoot wid spirit gun, all de Husky; so you go, queek!"
The broad face of Kovik split in a grim smile as he gripped the hand ofthe relieved Marcel and pushed off his canoe. Thus, doubly, had theloyal Esquimo paid for the life of his son.
With the emotions of a man suddenly reprieved from a sentence of death,Marcel poled his canoe out into the current. Behind him, the Esquimoshad already joined Kovik on the shore, when, warned by a shout from hisfriend, Marcel instinctively ducked as a seal spear whistled over hishead. Some doubter was testing the magic of the white demon.
Seizing his paddle Jean swiftly crossed the river and secured hisprecious net. But he was not yet rid of his enemies. If the young men,conquering their fear of his friendship with demons, at once launchedtheir kayaks, they could overhaul his loaded canoe. But once clear ofthe last tepees, with his pursuers behind him, he was confident that hecould pick them off with his rifle as fast as they came up in theirrocking craft.
With all the power of his iron back and shoulders, Jean drove his canoeon the strong current; but Kovik had the Huskies in hand and they didnot follow. Shortly he had passed the last lodge on the shore and thecamp was soon in the distance. It seemed like a dream--his peril of thelast hour; and now, a free man again, with his puppy in the bow, he wason his way to the coast and Julie Breton.
Suddenly two rifles cracked in the rocks on the near beach. The paddleof Marcel dropped from his limp hands. Headlong he lurched to the floorof the canoe. Again the guns spat from the boulders. Two bullets whinedover the birch-bark. But save for the yelping puppy in the bow, therewas no movement in the canoe, as it slid, the cat's-paw of the current.
Waving their arms in triumph at the collapse of the feared white man,whose magic had been impotent before their bullets, the Huskies hurriedalong shore after the canoe. Carried by breeze and current, with itswhimpering puppy and silent human freight the craft grounded a half-milebelow the ambush. On came the chattering pair of assassins, alreadyquarrelling over the division of the outfit of the dead man--deliriouswith the sweetness of their vengeance for the rough handling thestricken one in the canoe had meted out to them but an hour before. Thedog, although lashed to the bow thwart, had managed to crawl out of theboat and was struggling with the thongs which held her, when the Huskiescame running up. Staring into the birch-bark, they turned to each othergray faces on which was written ghastly fear.
The canoe was empty!
The white man they had thought to find a bloodied heap, was, after all,a maker of magic--a friend of demons. Kovik had told the truth. Theywere lost!
Palsied with dread, their feet frozen to the beach, the young ruffiansawaited the swift vengeance of their enemy. And it came.
Hard by, a rifle crashed in the boulders. With a scream, a Husky reeledbackward with a shattered hand, as his gun, torn from his grasp by theimpact of the bullet, rattled on the stones. A second shot, splinteringthe butt of his rifle, hurled the other to his knees. Then with ademonical yell, Marcel sprang from his ambush.
Running like caribou jumped by barren-ground wolves, the panic-strickenHuskies fled from the place of horror, pursued by the ricochettingbullets of the white demon, until they disappeared up the shore.
"A'voir, M'sieurs!" cried Marcel. "De nex' tam you ambush cano', don'let eet dref behin' de point." And shaking with laughter, turned to hisyelping puppy, frenzied with excitement.
"De Husky t'ink we not go to Whale Riviere, eh?" he said, stroking thetrembling shoulders of the worrying dog. "But Jean and hees petitechienne, dey see Julie Breton jus' de same."
Putting his puppy in the canoe, Marcel continued on down the river.
When the
shots from ambush whined past his face, Marcel had flattened tothe floor of the craft, both for cover and to deceive the Huskies. Thesecond shots convinced him that he had but two to deal with. Slittingthe bark skin near the gunwale, that he might watch the shore withoutbetraying the fact that he was conscious, and thereby draw their fire,while they were protected from his by the boulders, he learned that thecraft was working toward the beach.
His plan was swiftly made. Driven by the racing current, the canoe hadalready left the Esquimos, following the shore, in the rear. He wouldallow the craft to ground and hold his fire until they were on top ofhim. But the boat finally reached the beach at a point hidden from thepursuing Huskies. With a bound Marcel was out of the canoe and concealedamong the rocks. Great as was the temptation to leave the men who hadambushed him in cold blood, shot upon the beach, a sinister warning totheir fellows, the thought of Kovik's position at the camp forced him tocontent himself with disarming and sending them shrieking up the shorewith his bullets worrying their heels.
Often, during the day, as Marcel put mile after mile of the Salmonbetween himself and the camp at the rapids, the puppy cocked curiousears as the new master ceased paddling, to roar with laughter at thememory of two flying Esquimos.