The Whelps of the Wolf Part 29

"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 fiancee--of M'sieu Wallace._"

"Oh, I--I didn't--understand!" stumbled the embarra.s.sed 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 crashed against 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 grat.i.tude.

Troubled and mystified by the att.i.tude 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 h.e.l.l outside.

You must wait until daylight. The Inspector has decided that it would be impossible to keep the trail."

"I came here to aid those _in extremis_," replied the 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, Pere Breton, weel not forget your kindness; and I--I weel nevaire forget." The eyes of Marcel glowed with grat.i.tude.

"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."

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

THE HATE OF THE LONG SNOWS

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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e.

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 s.h.a.ggy beasts he loved.

Hunter, game though he was, at last was forced to ride on the sled, so fierce was their pace into the wind. 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."