Part 28 (1/2)
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 p.r.i.c.ked, 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' timber wolves,” 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 Pere 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, hoa.r.s.ely shouted: ”Marche, Fleur!” and disappeared with his dogs into the night.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII
THE WHITE TRAIL TO FORT GEORGE
One hundred and fifty miles down the wind-hara.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e; 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 s.h.a.ggy b.r.e.a.s.t.s in front--what stamina he had never put to the supreme test, lay in their ma.s.sive 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 sh.e.l.l 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 sh.o.r.e 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.