Two days before Christmas the team of Jean Marcel, its harness brave with colored worsted, meeting the snarls of hostile Cree curs with the like threat of white fangs, jingled gaily past sleep-house and tepees, and drew up before the log trade-house at Whale River. Returning the greeting of the Crees who hailed him, he threw open the slab-door of the building.
"Bon jour, Jean, eet ees well dees Chreesmas you come." The grave face of Jules Duroc checked the jest on Marcel's lips as he shook his friend's hand.
"You are sad, mon ami; what has happened to the merry Jules?" Jean asked.
"Ah, Jean Marcel! Dere ees bad news for you at Whale River."
Across Marcel's brain flashed the memory of his dreams. Julie! Something had happened to Julie Breton. His speeding heart shook him as an engine a boat. A vise on his throat smothered the questions he strove to ask. His lips twitched, but fromthem came no words, as his questioning eyes held those of Jules.
"Yes, eet ees as you t'ink, Jean Marcel. She ees ver' seek."
Marcel's hands closed on Jules' arms as he demanded hoarsely:
"Mon Dieu! W'at ees eet, Jules? Tell me, w'at ees eet?"
"She has de bad arm. Cut de han' wid a knife."
Blood-poisoning, because of his medical ignorance, held less terror for Marcel than some strange fever, insidious and mysterious. He had feared that Julie Breton had a dread disease against which the crude skill of the north is helpless. So, as he hastened to the Mission where he found Mrs. Gillies installed as nurse, his hopes rose, for a wound in the hand could not be fatal.
From the anxious-eyed Père Breton who met him at the door, Jean learned the story.
Ten days before, Julie had cut her hand with a knife while preparing frozen fish for cooking. For days she had ignored the wound, when the hand, suddenly reddening, began to swell, causing much pain. Gillies and her brother had opened the inflamed wound, cleansing it with bichloride, but in spite of their efforts, the swelling had increased, advancing to the elbow.
She was now running a high fever, sufferinggreat pain and frequently delirious. They realized that the proper treatment was an opening of the lymphatic glands of forearm and elbow to reach the poison slowly working upward, but did not dare attempt it. The priest told Marcel that in such cases if the poison was not absorbed into the circulation or reached by operation, it would extend to the arm-pit, then to the neck, with fatal termination.
Jean Marcel listened with head in hands to the despairing brother. Then he asked:
"Is there at Fort George or East Main, no one who could help her?"
"At Fort George, Monsieur Hunter who has been lately ordered there to the Protestant church, is a medical missionary. We learned this to-day when the Christmas mail arrived. But they were five days coming from Fort George with their poor dogs. It will take you eight days to make the round trip and even in a week it may be too late—too late——" He finished with a groan.
"Father, I will go and bring this missionary. I shall return before a week."
"God speed you, my son! The mail team is worn out and we were sending a team of the Crees, but they have no dogs like yours."
Mrs. Gillies led Marcel into Julie Breton's room and left them. On her white bed, with waywardmasses of dusky hair tumbled on her pillow, lay Julie Breton, moaning low in the delirium of high fever. On a pillow at her side lay her bandaged left arm. As Marcel looked long at the flushed face with its parted lips murmuring incoherently, the muscles of his jaw flexed through the frost-blackened skin as he clenched his teeth at his helplessness to aid her—this stricken girl for whom he would have given his life.
Then he knelt, and lifting the limp hand on the coverlet, pressed it long to his lips, rose, and went out.
When Mrs. Gillies returned she found the right hand of Julie Breton wet—and understood.
First feeding and loosing his dogs in the stockade Marcel hurried to the trade-house. There he obtained from Jules five days' rations of whitefish for the dogs, and some pemmican, hard bread and tea.
"You t'ink you can mak' For' George een t'ree day?" Jules shook his head doubtfully. "Eet nevaire been made een t'ree day, Jean."
"No one evair before on de East Coast travel as I travel, Jules," was the low reply.
Gillies, Père Breton and McCain, talking earnestly, entered the room to overhear Marcel's words.
"Welcome back, Jean; you are going to FortGeorge instead of Baptiste?" the factor asked, shaking Marcel's hand.
"Yes, M'sieu, my team ees stronger team dan Baptiste's."
"When do you start?"
"Een leetle tam; I jus' feed my dogs."
"Are they in good shape? They must be tired from the river trail."
"Dey will fly, M'sieu."
"Thank heaven for that, lad. We've got just one good dog left in the mail team—the one you gave me. The rest are scrubs and they came in to-day dead beat. Two of our Ungavas died in November."
"M'sieu," said Marcel quietly, "my dogs will make For' George een t'ree days."
"It's never been done, Jean, but I hope you will."
When Marcel brought his refreshed dogs to the trade-house an hour later for his rations, a silent group of men awaited him. As Fleur trotted up, ears pricked, mystified at being routed out and harnessed in the dark, after she had eaten and curled up for the night, they were eagerly inspected by the factor.
"Why, the pups have grown inches since you left here in August, Jean. They're almost as big as Fleur, now," said Gillies, throwing the light from his lantern on the team.
"Tiens! Dat two rear dog look lak' timberwolves," cried Jules, as Colin and Angus turned their red-lidded, amber eyes lazily toward him, opening cavernous mouths in wide yawns, for they were still sleepy. Fleur, alive to the subdued tones of Jean Marcel and sensing something unusual, muzzled her master's hand for answer.
"What a team! What a team!" exclaimed McCain. "Never have the Huskies brought four such dogs here. They ought to walk away with a thousand pounds. Are they fast, Jean?"
"Dey can take a thousand all day, M'sieu. W'en you see me again, you will know how fast dey are. A'voir!" Marcel gripped the hands of the others, then turned to Père Breton, the muscles of his dark face working with suffering.
"Father," he said, "if she should wake and can understand, tell her—tell her to wait—a little longer till Jean and Fleur return. If—if she—cannot wait for us—tell her that Fleur and Jean Marcel will follow her—out to the sunset."
Then he turned, cracked his whip, hoarsely shouted: "Marche, Fleur!" and disappeared with his dogs into the night.
One hundred and fifty miles down the wind-harassed East Coast, was a man who could save Julie Breton. The mind of Marcel held one thought only as his hurrying dogs loped down the river trail to the Bay. Dark though it was, for the stars were veiled, Fleur never faltered, keeping the trail by instinct and the feel of her feet.
Reaching the Bay the trail swung south skirting the beach, often cutting inland to avoid circling long points and shoulders of shore; at the Cape of the Winds—the midwinter vortex of unleashed Arctic blasts—making a deep cut to the sheltered valley of the Little Salmon. Marcel was too dog-wise to push his huskies as they swung south on the sea-ice, for no sled-dogs work well after eating.
As the late moon slowly lifted, he shook his head, for it was a moon of snow. If only the weather held until he could bring his man from Fort George, but fate was against him. That he could average fifty miles a day going and coming, with the light sled, he was confident. He knew what hearts beat in those shaggy breasts in front—what stamina hehad never put to the supreme test, lay in their massive frames. He knew that Fleur would set her sons a pace, at the call of Jean Marcel, that would eat the frozen miles to Fort George, as they had never before slid past a dog-runner. But once a December norther struck down upon them on their return, burying the trail in drift, with its shot-like drive in the teeth of man and dogs, it would kill their speed, as a cliff stops wind.
He had intended to camp for a few hours, later in the night, to rest his dogs, but the warning of the ringed moon flicked him with fear, as a whiplash stings a lagging husky. It meant in December, snow and wind. He must race that wind to the lee of Big Island, so he pushed on through the night over the frozen shell of the Bay, stopping only once to boil tea and rest his over-willing dogs.
As day broke blue and bitter in the ashen east, a team of spent huskies with ice-hung lips and flews swung in from the trail skirting the lee shore of Big Island and the driver in belted caribou capote, a rim of ice from his frozen breath circling his lean face, made a fire from cedar kindlings brought on the sled, boiled tea and pemmican, and feeding his dogs, lay down in his robes. In twelve hours of constant toil the dogs of Marcel had put Whale River sixty white miles behind.
At noon he shook off the sleep which weighted hislimbs, forced himself from his blankets, ate and pushed on. Although the air smelled of snow, and in the north, brooding, low-banked clouds hugged the Bay, snow and wind still held off.
In early afternoon as the sun buried itself in the ice-fields, muffled rays lit the bald shoulders of the distant Cape of the Four Winds, seventy miles from his goal.
"Haw, Fleur!" he called, and the lead-dog swung inland, to the left, on the short-cut across the Cape.
As yet the tough Ungavas had shown no signs of lagging. With their superb vitality and staying power, they had travelled steadily through the night, after a half day on the river. Led by their tireless mother, each hour they had put five miles of snowy trail behind them. With the weather steady, Marcel had no doubt of when he would reach Whale River, for the weight of an extra man on the sled would be little felt on a hard trail and he would run much himself. But with the menace of snow and wind hanging over him, he travelled with a heavy heart.
On Christmas Eve, again a ringed moon rose as the dogs raced down an icy trail into the valley of the Little Salmon. The conviction that a December blizzard, long overdue, was making in the north to strike down upon him, paralyzing his speed,drove him on through the night. Reckless of himself, he was equally reckless of his dogs, led by the iron Fleur. It was well that her still growing sons had the blood of timber wolves in their veins, for Fleur, sensing the frenzy of Marcel to push on and on, responded with all her matchless stamina.
At last they camped at the Point of the Caribou and ate. To-morrow, he thought, would be Christmas. A Merry Christmas indeed for Jean Marcel. Then he slept. The next afternoon as they passed Wastikun, the Isle of Graves, the wind shifted to the northeast and the snow closed in on the dog-team nearing its goal. The blizzard had come, and Jean Marcel, knowing what miles of drifts; what toil breaking trail to give footing to his team in the soft snow; what days of battling the drive of the wind whipping their faces with needle-pointed fury, awaited their return, groaned aloud. For it meant, battle as he would, he might now reach Whale River too late; he might find that Julie Breton had not waited, but over weary, had gone out into the sunset.
In the early evening, forty-eight hours out of Whale River, four white wraiths of huskies with a ghost-like driver, turned in to the trade-house at Fort George. The spent dogs lay down, dropping their frosted masks in the snow, the froth from their mouths rimming their lips with ice.
Sheeted in white from hood to moccasins, thevoyageurentered the trade-house in a swirl of snow and called for the factor. A bearded man engaged in conversation with another white man, behind the trade counter, rose at Jean's entrance.
"I am from Whale River, M'sieu. My name is Jean Marcel. Here ees a lettair from M'sieu Gillies." Marcel handed an oil-skin envelope to McKenzie, the factor, who surveyed with curiosity the ice-crusted stranger with haggard eyes who came to Fort George on Christmas night.
At the mention of Whale River, the man who had been in conversation with McKenzie behind the counter, also rose to his feet. And Marcel, who had not seen his face, now recognized him. It was Inspector Wallace.
"Too bad! Too bad!" muttered the factor, reading the note, "and we're in for a December blizzard."
"What is it, McKenzie?" demanded Wallace, coming from behind the counter and reaching for Gillies' note.
The narrowed eyes of Marcel watched the face of Wallace contract with pain as he read of the peril of the woman he loved.
"Tell me what you know, Marcel!" Wallace demanded brokenly.
Jean briefly explained Julie's desperate condition.
"When did you leave Whale River?"
"Two day ago."
"What," cried McKenzie, "you came through in two days from Whale River? Lord, man! I never heard of such travelling. Your dogs must be marvels!"
"I came in two day, M'sieu," repeated Marcel, "because she weel not leeve many day onless she have help."
"Why, man, I can't believe it. It's never been done. When did you sleep?" The factor called to a Company Indian who entered the room, "Albert, take care of his dogs and feed them."
"Dey are wild, M'sieu. I weel go wid heem."
Marcel started to go out with the Indian, for his huskies sorely needed attention, then stopped to stare in wonder at Wallace, who had slumped into a chair, head in hands. For a moment the hunter looked at the inert Inspector; then his lip curled, his frost-blackened face reflecting his scorn, as he said:
"W'ere ees dees missionary, M'sieu? We mus' start een a few hours, w'en my dogs have rest."
"What, start in the teeth of this? Listen to it!" The drumming of wind and shot-like snow on the trade-house windows steadily increased in fury.
The muscles of Marcel's face stiffened into stone as he grimly insisted:
"We mus' start to-night."
"You are crazy, man; you need sleep," protested McKenzie. "I know it's a life and death matter. But you wouldn't help that girl at Whale River by losing the trail to-night and freezing. I'll see Hunter at once, but I can't allow him to go to his death. If the blow eases by morning, he can start."
Again Marcel turned, waiting for Wallace, who nervously paced the floor, to speak. Then with a shrug he said:
"M'sieu Wallace weel wish to start to-night? I have de bes' lead-dog on dees coast. She weel not lose de trail."
"What do you mean—Monsieur Wallace?" blurted the factor. Wallace raised a face on which agony and indecision were plainly written. But it was Jean Marcel who answered, with all the scorn of his tortured heart.
"She ees de fiancée—of M'sieu Wallace."
"Oh, I—I didn't—understand!" stumbled the embarrassed McKenzie, reddening to his eyes. "But—I can't advise you to start to-night, Mr. Wallace."
The factor went to the door. As he lifted the heavy latch, in spite of his bulk the power of the wind hurled him backward. The door crashedagainst the log-wall, while the room was filled with driving snow.
"You see what it's like, Wallace! No dog-team would have a chance on this coast to-night—not a chance."
"Yes," agreed Wallace, avoiding Marcel's eyes. Then he went on, "You understand, McKenzie, I'm knocked clean off my feet by this news. But—we'll want to start, at least, by morning—sooner, if the dogs are rested—that is, of course, if it's possible."
Deliberately ignoring the man who had thus bared his soul, Marcel drew the factor to one side.
"Mon Dieu, M'sieu!" he pleaded in low tones. "She weel not leeve. Onless we start at once, we shall be too late. Tak' me to de doctor!"
The agonized face of the hunter softened McKenzie.
"Well, all right, if Hunter will go and Mr. Wallace insists, but it's madness. I'll go over to the Mission now and talk to the doctor."
When Jean had seen to the feeding of his tired dogs whom he left asleep in a shack, he hurried through the driving snow with the Company Indian to the Protestant Mission House, where he found McKenzie alone with the missionary.
As he entered the lighted room, the Reverend Hunter, a tall, athletic-looking man of thirty, welcomed him, bidding him remove his capote and moccasins and thaw out at the hot box-stove.
"Mr. McKenzie has shown me Gillies' message, Marcel. Now tell me all you know about the case," said the missionary.
Briefly Marcel described the condition of Julie Breton—Gillies' crude attempt at surgery; the advance toward the shoulder of the swelling and inflammation, with the increasing fever.
When he had finished he cried in desperation:
"M'sieu, I have at Whale River credit for t'ree t'ousand dollar. Eet ees all——"
Hunter's lifted hand checked him.
"Marcel, first I am a preacher of the gospel; also, I am a doctor of medicine. I came into the north to minister to the bodies as well as to the souls of its people. Do not speak of money. This case demands that we start at once. Have you good dogs?"
The drawn face of Marcel lighted with gratitude.
Troubled and mystified by the attitude of Wallace, McKenzie broke in, "He's surely got the best dogs on this coast—made a record trip down. But, Mr. Hunter, I'll not agree to your starting in this hell outside. You must wait until daylight. The Inspector has decided that it would be impossible to keep the trail."
"I came here to aid thosein extremis," repliedthe missionary. "I will take the risk to save this girl. It's a matter of days and we may be too late as it is."
"T'anks, M'sieu, her brother, Père Breton, weel not forget your kindness; and I—I weel nevaire forget." The eyes of Marcel glowed with gratitude.
"Then it's understood that you start at daylight, if the wind won't blow you off the ice. I'll see you then." And McKenzie, looking hard at Marcel and Hunter, went out.
When the factor had closed the door, Jean turned to Dr. Hunter.
"Thees man who marries her een June, ees afraid to go. Weel Mr. Hunter start wid me at midnight?"
The big missionary gripped Marcel's hand as he said with a smile, "I did not promise McKenzie I would not go. At midnight we start for Whale River."
In the unwritten law of the north no one in peril shall ask for succor in vain. So universal is this creed, so general its acceptance and observance throughout the vast land of silence, that when word is brought in to settlement, fur-post, or lonely cabin, that help is needed, it is a matter of course that a relief party takes the trail, however long and hazardous. And so it was with John Hunter, clergyman, physician, and man. New to the north, he had come from England at the call for volunteers to shepherd the souls and bodies of the people of the solitudes, and without hesitation, he agreed to undertake a journey which the older heads at Fort George knew might well culminate in the discovery later, by a searching party, of two stiffened bodies buried beside a starved dog-team, somewhere in the drifts behind the Cape of the Four Winds.
Marcel and the dogs were in sore need of a few hours' rest for the grilling duel with snow and wind, before them, so, when he had eaten, Jean turned into a bed in the Mission.
At midnight Jean hitched his dogs and waked Hunter. Leaving Fort George asleep in the smother of snow, down to the river trail, into the white drive of the norther plunged the dog-team.
Giving the trail-wise Fleur her head in the black night, Jean, with Hunter, followed the sled carrying their food and robes. Turning from the swept river ice into the Bay, dogs and men met the full beat of the blasts with heads lowered to ease the hammering of the pin-pointed scourge whipping their faces. With the neighboring shore smothered in murk, Marcel, trusting to Fleur's instinct to keep the trail over the blurred white floor which only increased the blackness above, followed the sled he could barely see. Speed against the wind was impossible, and at all hazards he must keep the trail, for if they swung to the west on the sea-ice they were doomed to wander until they froze. He would push on and camp, until daylight, in the lee of the Isle of Graves. With the light they would begin to travel. Then on the open ice, where there was little drift, he would give Fleur and her pups the chance to prove their mettle, for there would be little rest. And beyond, at the rendezvous of the winds, they would have ten miles inland through the drifts. The unproven sons of Fleur would indeed need the stamina of wolves to take them through the days to come.
At last the trail, which the lead-dog had held solely by keeping her nose to the ice, ran in under the bold shore of Wastikun. There, after feeding the dogs, they burrowed into the snow in the lee of the cliffs wrapped in their fur robes. With the wind, the temperature had risen and men and dogs slept hard until dawn. Then, hot tea, bread and pemmican spurred the fighting heart of Marcel with hope. The wind had eased, but powdery snow still drove down blanketing the near shore.
Daylight found them on their way. Due to the wind there was as yet little drift on the trail over the Bay ice and the freshened dogs, with lowered heads, swung up the coast at a trot. All day with but short respite, men and dogs battled on against the norther. The mouth of the Little Salmon was the goal Marcel had set for himself—the river valley from which they would cut overland behind the gray cape, to the north coast. Forty miles away it lay—forty cruel miles of the torturing beat of shot-like snow on the faces of men and dogs; forty miles of endless pull and drag for the iron thews of Fleur and the whelps of the wolf. This was the mark which the now ruthless Frenchman, with but one thought, one vision, set for the shaggy beasts he loved.
Hunter, game though he was, at last was forced to ride on the sled, so fierce was their pace into thewind. Steadily the great beasts ate up the miles. At noon, floundering through drifts like the billows of a broken sea, with Marcel ahead breaking trail, they crossed Caribou Point, Hunter, refusing to burden the dogs, wallowing behind the sled. There they boiled tea, then pushed on to the mouth of the Roggan.
At Ominuk, night fell like a tent, and again a white wraith of a lead-dog, blinded by the fury she faced, kept the trail by instinct, backed loyally by her brood of ice-sheathed wolves, foot-sore, trail-worn, following with low noises her tireless feet.
The coast swung sharply. They were in the lee of the Cape. But a few miles farther and a long rest in the sheltered river valley awaited them. Marcel stopped his dogs and went to Fleur, lying on the trail, her hot breath freezing as it left her panting mouth. Kneeling on the snow beside her with his back to the drive, he examined each hairy paw for pad-cracks or balled snow between the toes, but the feet of the Ungava were iron; then he took in his hands her great head with its battered nose, blood-caked from the snow barrage she had faced all day. Rubbing the ice from her masked eyes, Jean placed his hooded face against his dog's; she turned her nose and her rough tongue touched his frost-blackened cheek.
"Fleur," he said, "we are doing it for Julie—you and Jean Marcel. We mus' mak' de Salmon to-night. Some day we weel hav' de beeg sleep—you and Jean."
Again he stroked her massive head with his red, unmittened hand, then for an instant resting his face against the scarred nose, sprang to his feet. With a glance at the paws and a word for each of the whining puppies whose white tails switched in answer, Jean cracked his whip and shouted, "Marche!"
Late that night a huge fire burned in the timber of the sheltered mouth of the Little Salmon. Two men and a dog-team ate ravenously, then slept like the dead, while over them roared the norther, rocking the spruce and jack-pine in the river bottom, heaping the drifts high on the Whale River trail.
In three days of gruelling toil Marcel had got within ninety miles of his goal—within a day and a half of Whale River had the trail been ice hard. But now it would be days longer—how many he dared not guess.
Had the weather held for him, four days from the night of his starting would have seen him home; for on an iced trail, at his call, his great dogs would have run like wolves at the rallying cry of the pack. As he drew his stiffened legs from the rabbit-skins to freshen the fire at dawn, he bit his cracked lips until they bled, at the thought of what the blizzardhad meant to Julie Breton, waiting, waiting for the dog-team creeping up the East Coast, hobbled and held back by head-wind and drift.
The dogs had won a long rest and Marcel did not start breaking trail inland until after daylight. With the sunrise the wind had increased and the heart-sick Marcel groaned at the strength-sapping floundering in breast-high drifts which faced his devoted dogs, when he needed them fresh for the race up the sea-ice of the coast beyond. Before he slept, he had weighed the toil of ten miles of drift-barred short-cut across the Cape, against doubling the headland on the ice, but he had decided that no men or dogs could face the maelstrom of wind and snow which churned around its bald buttresses; no strength could force its way—no endurance prevail, against it.
With Marcel in the lead as trail-breaker and the missionary, who took the punishment without murmur, like the man he was, following the sled, Fleur led her sons up to their Calvary in the hills.
As they left the valley and reached the open tundra above, they met the full force of the wind. For an instant men and dogs stopped dead in their tracks, then with heads down they hurled themselves into the white fury which had buried the trail beyond all following.
On pushed the desperate Frenchman in the direction of the north coast, followed by Fleur with her whitened nose at the tails of his snow-shoes. At times, when the force of the snow-swirls sucked their very breath, men and dogs threw themselves panting on the snow, until, with wind regained, they stumbled on. Often plunging to their collars in the new snow, the huskies travelled solely by leaps, until, stalled nose-deep, tangled in traces and held by the drag of the overturned sled, Marcel and the exhausted Hunter came to their rescue. Heart-breaking mile after mile of the country over which Marcel had sped two days before, they painfully put behind them.
At noon, the man who lived his creed crumpled in the snow. Wrapping him in robes, Marcel lashed him on the sled and went on, the vision of a dying girl on a white cot at Whale River ever in his eyes.
Through a break in the snow, before the light waned, Marcel made out, dim in the north, the silhouette of Big Island. He was over the divide and well on his way to the coast. With the night, the wind eased, though the snow held, and although he was off the trail, the new snow on the exposed north slope of the Cape was either wind-packed or swept from the frozen tundra, and again the exhausted dogs found good footing.
For some time the team had been working easilydown hill, Marcel often forced to brake the toboggan with his feet. He knew he had worked to the west of the trail, and was swinging in a circle to regain it. Worried by the sting of the cold, which was growing increasingly bitter as the wind fell off, he stopped to rub the muffled, frost-cracked face and hands of his spent passenger, cheering him with the promise of a roaring fire. When he started the team, Colin, stiffened by the rest, limped badly, and Jules, who had bucked the deep snow all day like a veteran of the mail-teams, gamely following his herculean mother, hobbled along, head and tail down, with a wrenched shoulder. It was high time they found a camping place. With the falling wind they would freeze in the open. So he pushed on through the murk, seeking the beach where there was wood and a lee.
They were swiftly dropping down to the sea-ice but snow and darkness drew around them an impenetrable curtain. Seizing the gee-pole, Marcel had thrown his weight back on the sled to keep it off the dogs on a descent when suddenly Fleur, whose white back he could barely see moving in front, with a whine stopped dead in her tracks and flattened on the snow. Her tired sons at once lay down behind her. The sled slid into Angus and stopped.
Mystified, Marcel called: "Marche, Fleur!Marche!" fearing to find, when she rose, that his rock and anchor had suddenly broken on the trail.
But the great dog, ignoring the command, raised her nose in a low growl as Marcel reached her.
"What troubles you, Fleur?" he asked, on his knees beside her, brushing the crusted snow from her ears and slant eyes. Again Fleur whined mysteriously.
"Where ees de pain, Fleur? Get up!" he ordered sharply, thinking to learn where her iron body had received its hurt. But the dog lay rigid, her throat still rumbling.
"By Gar, dis ees queer t'ing!" muttered Marcel, his mittened hand on the massive head.
Then some strange impulse led him to advance into the black wall, when, with fierce protest, Fleur, jerking Jules to his feet, leaped forward, straining to reach him.
The Frenchman, checked by the dog's action, stared into the darkness, until, at length, he saw that the white tundra at his feet fell away before his snow-shoes and he looked out into gray space.
As he crouched peering ahead, his senses slowly warned him that he stood on a shoulder of cliff falling sheer to the invisible beach below.
He had driven his dogs to the lip of a ghastly death; and Julie——
Turning back, he flung himself beside the trembling Fleur and with his arm circling the great neck, kissed the battered nose. Fleur, with the uncanny instinct of the born lead-dog, had scented the open space, divined the danger, had known—and lain down, saving them all.
Swinging his team off the brow of the cliff, he worked back and finally down to the beach, and his muffled passenger, drowsy, with swiftly numbing limbs, never knew that he had ridden calmly, that night, out to the doors of doom.
In the lee of an island Marcel made camp and boiled life-giving tea,—the panacea of the north—and pemmican, on a hot fire, which soon revived the frozen Hunter.
To his joy, he realized that the back of the blizzard was broken, for as the wind and snow eased, the temperature rapidly fell to an Arctic cold. With Whale River eighty miles away; his dogs broken by lack of rest and stiff from the wrenching and exhaustion of the battle with the deep snow; his own legs twinging with "mal raquette"; Marcel thanked God, for the dawn would see the wind dead and if his team did not fail him, in two days he would reach the post.
Whale River was astir. Before the trade-house groups of Crees critically inspected the dogs of Baptiste Laval, who fretted and yelped, eagerly waiting the "Marche!" which would send them off on the river trail. Inside, the grave-faced Gillies gave big Jules his parting instructions.
"He never started home in that blizzard, Jules; McKenzie wouldn't allow the missionary to take such a chance. But Jean surely left yesterday morning and with fresh dogs he'll come through in four days, even with a heavy trail. You ought to meet him this side the Cape."
"Yes, M'sieu. But I t'ink he travel more fas' dan dat. I see heem to-morrow, maybe."
"No, he never started that last day of the blow. It would have been suicide. Poor lad! he must have been half crazy, with her on his mind."
"How ees she dis noon, M'sieu?"
"The fever holds about the same—no worse; but she must be operated on very soon. The poison is extending. If you meet them at the Cape youought to get the doctor here a day ahead of Jean, with his tired dogs."
Surrounded by the Crees who were wishing them luck on their trip to meet and relay Marcel home, Baptiste had cracked his dog-whip with a loud, "Marche!" when an Indian with arms raised to attract attention came running from the shore across the clearing.
"Whoa!" shouted Jules, and Baptiste checked his dogs.
"What does he say?" called Angus McCain. "A dog-team down river? Do you hear that, Gillies?"
"Husky," replied the factor drily. "Couldn't possibly be Marcel!"
"No, he couldn't have come through that norther," agreed McCain.
"What's that he says, Jules?" demanded Gillies.
Jules Duroc, hands and shoulders in motion, was talking excitedly to the Cree who had joined the group by the sled. Turning suddenly, he ran back to the factor.
"Felix say dat a team crawl up de riviere trail lak' dey ver' tired. He watch dem long tam."
"That's queer, but it's some Husky—can't be Marcel. Why, good Lord, man! he hasn't been away six days."
Angus disappeared, to return with an old brass-bound telescope and hurried to the river shore withJules, followed by the scoffing Gillies. To the naked eye, a black spot was discernible on the river ice.
"There are two men following a team," announced Angus, the glass at his eye. "They're barely moving. Now they've stopped; the dogs must be played out. The driver's trying to get them up! Now he's got them going!"
Gillies took the telescope and looked for a long space. Suddenly to those who watched him, waiting for his report, his hand visibly shook. Turning to Jules, he bellowed:
"Jules, you travel like all hell for that dog-team! God only knows how they got here alive, but there's only one lead-dog on this coast that reaches to a man's middle. That team crawling in out there is Jean Marcel's—God bless him!—and he's got his man!"
With a roar Jules leaped on the sled and lashed the team headlong down the cliff trail to the ice. Madly they raced down-river under the spur of the rawhide goad.
"Run to the Mission, someone, and tell Père Breton that Jean Marcel is back!" continued Gillies. At the words, willing feet started with the message.
The eyes of Colin Gillies were blurred as he watched through the glass the slow approach ofthose who had but lately fought free from the maw of the pitiless snows. Now he could recognize the massive lead-dog, limping at a slow walk, her great head down. Behind her swayed the crippled whelps of the wolf, tails brushing the ice, tongues lolling as they swung their lowered heads from side to side, battling through the last mile on stiffened legs, giving their last ounce at the call of their gaunt master who reeled behind them. Far in the rear a tall figure barely moved along the trail.
At the yelp of Jules' approaching team the dogs of Marcel pricked drooping ears. Stopping them, Jean waited for Hunter.
"Dey sen' team. Eet ees ovair, M'sieu! We mak' Whale Riviere een t'ree day and half, but she—she may not be dere."
Too tired to speak, Hunter slumped on the sled. With a yell, Jules reached Marcel and gathered him into his arms.
"By Gar, Jean! You crazee fool; you stop for noding! Tiens! I damn glad to see you, Jean Marcel!"
The fearful Marcel gasped out the question, "Julie! Ees she dere? Does she leeve?"
"Oui, mon ami; she ees alive. You save her life."
Staggering to his lead-dog the overjoyed man threw himself beside her on the trail where she sprawled panting.
"We 'ave save her," he cried. "Julie—has waited for Jean and Fleur."
Taking the missionary on his sled, Jules tried to force Marcel to ride as well, but thevoyageurthrew him off.
"No, no!" he cried. "We weel feenish on our feet—Fleur, de wolf and Jean Marcel."
So back to the post Jules raced with Hunter. A cheering mob of Indians met dogs and master on the river ice and carried Marcel, protesting, up the cliff trail, where Gillies and Angus were waiting.
"I reach For' George de night of second day, but de dreef and wind at de Cape——" He was checked by a hug from the blubbering McCain as Colin Gillies, with eyes blurred by tears, welcomed him home.
"You have saved her, Jean," said the factor, "now you must sleep." With hands raised in wonder he turned to the group. "Shades of André Marcel! Two days to Fort George! It will never be done again." Then they took the swaying Marcel, asleep on his feet, and his dogs, away to a long, warm rest.
But the Crees sat late that night smoking much Company plug as they shook their heads over the feat of the son of André Marcel who feared neither Windigo nor blizzard. And later, the tale travelled down to the southern posts and out to FortChurchill on the west coast and from there on to the Great Slave and the Peace, of how the mad Marcel had driven his flying wolves one hundred and fifty miles in two sleeps, and returned, without rest, in three, in the teeth of a Hudson's Bay norther. And hearing it, old runners of the trails shook their heads in disbelief, saying it was not in dogs or men to do such a thing; but they did not know the love and despair in the heart of Jean Marcel which spurred him to his goal, nor did they fathom the blind devotion of his great lead-dog, who, with her matchless endurance and that of her sons, had made it possible.
Fresh from a London hospital though he was, John Hunter found that the condition of Julie Breton demanded the exercise of all his skill as a surgeon. But the operation, aided by the girl's young strength and vitality, was successful, and she slowly overcame the grip of the infection.
Four days after Marcel reeled into Whale River with his battered dogs, bringing the man who was winning back life for Julie Breton, an exhausted dog-team limped in from the south. Rushing into the trade-house the white-faced Wallace grasped Gillies' hand, hoarsely demanding:
"Does she live, Gillies?"
"She's all right, Mr. Wallace; doing well, the doctor says," answered Gillies. "She's going to pull through, thanks to Jean Marcel and Dr. Hunter. I take my hat off to those two men."
Wallace's eyes shifted to the floor as he ventured:
"When did they get in?"
"Oh, they came through against that blow in three days and a half. The greatest feat of man and dogs in my time. When did you leave East Main?"
Wallace stared incredulously at Colin Gillies' wooden face.
"East Main? Why, didn't Marcel tell you?"
"No," replied Gillies, but he did not say that his wife had been told by Hunter of the presence of Wallace at Fort George the night Marcel brought the news. However, the factor did not further embarrass his chief by questions. And Wallace did not see fit to inform him that not until the wind died, two days after the relief party started, had he left Fort George.
"I suppose she's too sick to see me?" the nervous Inspector hazarded.
"Yes, no one sees her except Mrs. Gillies and Hunter."
"Well, I'll look up Father Breton," and Wallace went out followed by an expression in Colin Gillies' face which the Inspector would not have cared to see.
For a week Wallace remained at Whale River and then, assured by Dr. Hunter of Julie's safety, left, to return later. When, meeting Marcel in the trade-house, he had attempted to thank him, the cold glitter in the eyes of the Frenchman as he listened with impassive face to the halting words of the Inspector of the East Coast, filled Colin Gillies with inward delight.
When Gillies bade good-bye to his chief, he said casually, "Well, I suppose we'll have a wedding here in June, Mr. Wallace."
"Yes, Gillies, Father Breton and I are only waiting for Julie to set the date. Good-bye; I'll be up the coast next month," and was off.
But what piqued Gillies' curiosity was whether Dr. Hunter had told Père Breton just what happened at Fort George when the tragic call for help came in on Christmas night. Jean Marcel's mouth had been shut like a sprung trap, even Jules and Angus did not know; of that, Gillies was sure. But why had the doctor not told Père Breton, as well as Mrs. Gillies? He was Julie's brother and ought to know. If Hunter had enlightened the priest, then Colin Gillies was no judge of men, for he had always admired the Oblat.
The first week in February Julie Breton was sitting up, and Mr. Hunter bade good-bye to the staunch friends he had made at Whale River. Not always are the relations between Oblat or Jesuit, and Protestant missionaries, unduly cordial in the land of their labors, but when the Reverend Hunter left the Mission House at Whale River, there remained in the hearts of Père Breton, his sister andJean Marcel, a love for the doctor, clergyman and man which the years did not dim.
One day, later on, Marcel and Fleur were making their afternoon call on Julie, who was propped in bed, her hair hanging in two thick braids.
"We leave in a few days," Jean said in French. "Michel is anxious to get back to his traps."
"Oh, don't go so soon, Jean. I haven't yet had an opportunity to talk to you as I wished."
"If you mean to thank me, I am glad of that," he said, his lips curling in a faint smile.
"Why should I not thank you, Jean Marcel, who risked your life like a madman to help me? I do now thank you with all my heart. But for you, I would not be here. Dr. Hunter told me I could not have lived had he arrived one day later."
With a gesture of impatience Marcel turned in his chair and gazed through the window on the world of snow.
The dark eyes in the pale face of the girl were strangely soft as they rested on the sinewy strength of the man's figure; then lifted to the strong profile, with its bony jaw and bold, aquiline nose.
"You do not care for my thanks, Jean?" she asked.
"Please!" he begged. "It is over, that! You are well again! I am happy; and will go back to my trap-lines."
"But it is not all over with Julie Breton," she insisted.
He turned with brows raised questioningly.
"It has left her—changed. She will never be the same."
"What do you mean? Dr. Hunter said you would be as strong as ever, by spring."
"Ah, but I do not speak of my body, Jean Marcel."
He gazed in perplexity at her wistful face. In a moment his eyes again sought the window.
For a long space, she was silent. Then a suppressed sob roused him from his bitter thoughts and he heard the strained voice of the girl.
"I know all," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"Mrs. Gillies, and Dr. Hunter—when I asked him—told me—long ago. We have kept it from Père Henri. It seems years, for I have been thinking much since then—lying awake, thinking."
"Julie, what has been worrying you? Don't let what I did cause you pain," he pleaded, not catching the significance of her words. "It's all right, Julie. You owe me nothing—I understand."
"Ah, but you do not understand," she said, smiling at the man's averted face.
"Julie, I have suffered, but I want you to be happy. Don't think of Jean Marcel."
"But it is of Jean Marcel of the great heart that I must think—have been thinking, for days and days." She was sitting erect, tense; her pale face drawn with emotion.
"I tell you I know it all," she cried, "how they—he, feared to start in the storm—and waited—ordered you to wait. But no wind or snow could hold Jean Marcel, and in spite of them, he brought Dr. Hunter to Whale River—and saved Julie Breton."
Dumb with surprise at her knowledge of what he thought he and Hunter alone knew—at the scorn in her voice, Marcel listened with pounding heart.
"Yes, they told me," she went on, "how Jean Marcel heard the news when he reached Whale River and, without sleep, that night hurried south for help, swifter than men had ever travelled, because Julie Breton was in peril. Dr. Hunter has told me all; how you and Fleur fought wind and snow to bring him to Whale River—and Julie Breton. And now you ask her not to thank you—you who gave her back her life."
Only the low sobbing of the girl broke the silence. In a moment the paroxysm passed, and she looked through tears at the man who sat with bowed head in hands, as she faltered:
"Ah, will you not see—not understand? Must I tell you—that I—love—Jean Marcel?"
Dazed, Jean rose. With a hoarse cry of "Julie!" he groped to the bed and took her in his yearning arms.
After the years—she had come home.
Later, Mrs. Gillies looked in to see a dusky head on the shoulder of the man who knelt by the bed, and on the coverlet beside them the great head of Fleur, who gazed up into two illumined faces through narrow eyes which seemed to comprehend as her bushy tail slowly swept to and fro.
In June there was a wedding at Whale River, with an honored guest who journeyed up the coast from Fort George for the ceremony, John Hunter.
The Mission church overflowed with post people and the visiting Crees, few of whom but had known some kindness from Julie Breton. In the robes of his order, Père Breton faced the bride and groom. Beside the former, gravely stood the matron of honor; her gown of slate-gray and snowy white, carefully groomed for the occasion by the faithful Jules, glossy with superb vitality; her great neck circled by a white ribbon knotted in a bow—which it had required days to accustom her to wear—in strange contrast to the massive dignity of the head. From priest to bride and groom, curiously her slant eyes shifted, in wonder at the proceeding.
The ceremony over, the bride impulsively kissedthe slate-gray head of the dog while a hum of approval swept the church. Then, before repairing with their friends to the Mission House, where the groaning table awaited them, Julie and Jean Marcel, accompanied by Fleur, went to the stockade. Three gray noses thrust through the pickets whined a welcome. Three gigantic, wolfish huskies met them at the gate with wild yelps and the mad swishing of tails. Then the happy Jean and Julie gave the whelps of the wolf their share of the wedding feast.