The Whelps of the Wolf Part 5

"Non, ma pet.i.te! We walk not to-day!" He stroked the slate-gray back which trembled with her desire for a run with the master, then circling her s.h.a.ggy neck with his arms, his face against hers, while she fretted as though she knew Jean was leaving her, said: "A'voir, Fleur!" and closed the gate.

She stood grieving, her black nose thrust between the slab pickets, the slant eyes following Marcel's back until he disappeared. Then she raised her head and, in the manner of her kind, voiced her disappointment in a long howl. And the wail of his puppy struck with strange insistence upon the ears of Jean Marcel--like a premonition of misfortune which the future held for him and which he often recalled in the weeks to come.

As the canoe of the Company journeyed through the Strait of the Spirit, flocks of gray geese, which were now leading their broods out to the coast islands from the muskegs of the interior, rose ahead, to sail away in their geometric formations, while clouds of pin-tail and black duck patrolled the low beaches.

Jean left his cargo for the Huskies in a stone cache and running into a south-wester, while homeward bound, did not reach Whale River for a fortnight. As he approached the post, he made out at the log landing the Company steamer _Inenew_, loaded with trade goods from the depot at Charlton Island. Through the clearing, now almost bare of tepees, for the trade was over, he walked to the Mission. The door was opened by Julie Breton.

"Bon-jour, Ma'm'selle Breton!" and he seized the unresponsive hand of the girl.

"I am glad to see you home safely, Jean." Something in the face and voice of the girl checked him.

"What is the matter, Julie?" he asked. "Pere Henri; he is not ill?"

"No, Jean. Pere Henri is well, but----"

"You do not seem glad to see me again, Julie!"

"I am glad. You know that----"

"Well," he flung out, hurt at the girl's constrained manner, "I'll go and see someone who will welcome Jean Marcel with no sober face----"

"Jean!" she said as he turned away.

"What is it, Ma'm'selle Breton?" and he smiled into her troubled eyes.

"Fleur has missed me, I know. She will give Jean Marcel a true welcome home."

"Jean--she is not there--they stole her!"

The face of Jean Marcel twisted with pain.

"Mon Dieu! Stole my Fleur--my puppy?"

"Yes, they took her from the stockade, two nights ago--two men who came up the coast after dogs."

With face buried in his arms to hide the tears misting his eyes, he leaned against the door jamb, while the girl rested a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

"Poor Jean!"

"I worked so hard to get her. I loved that puppy, Julie; she was my child," he groaned.

"I know, Jean, how you feel; after what you have been through--to have lost her----"

"But I have not lost her!" the boy exclaimed fiercely, drawing a deep breath and facing the girl with features set like stone. "I have not lost her, Julie Breton! I will follow them and bring back my dog if I have to trail those men to Rupert House."

The tears had gone and in the eyes of Jean Marcel was a glint she had never known--a glitter of hate for the men who had taken his dog, so intense, so bitter, that she thrilled inwardly as she gazed at his transformed face. Instinctively, Julie Breton knew that the lad who faced her was no longer the playmate of old to be treated as a boy, but the possessor of a high courage and unbreakable will that men in the future would reckon with.

Jean entered the trade-house to find Gillies in conversation with a tall stranger, who, Jules whispered, was Mr. Wallace, the new inspector of the East Coast posts, who had come with the steamer.

"A few days after you left, Jean," explained Gillies, "two half-breeds dropped in here with the story that they had travelled up the coast from Rupert House to buy dogs from the Huskies. There were no dogs for sale here, and they seemed pretty sore at missing the York-boat bound south with the dogs bought by the Company for East Main and Fort George. Why, we didn't know, for they couldn't get any of those dogs. They were a weazel-faced, mean-looking pair and when Jules found them feeding two of our huskies one day, there was trouble."

"What did they do to you, Jules?" asked Jean, smiling faintly at the big Company bowman.

"What did Jules do to them, you mean," broke in Angus McCain.

"Well," continued Gillies, "we got outside in time to see Jules break his paddle over the head of one and pile into the other who had a knife out and looked mean.

"Then I kicked them out of the post. They left that night with your dog, for the next day at Little Bear Island they pa.s.sed a canoe of goose-hunters bound for Whale River and the Indians noticed the puppy who seemed to be muzzled and tied."

During the recital, Marcel walked the floor of the trade-house, his blood hot with rage.

"French half-breeds, M'sieu Gillies, or Scotch?" he asked.

"Scotch, Jean, medium sized; one had lost half an ear and the other had a scar on his chin and the first finger gone on his right hand. But you're not going after them, lad; they've two days' start on you and it's August!"

"M'sieu Gillies, I took de _longue traverse_ for dat dog. She was de best pup in dees place. I love dat husky, M'sieu. I start to-night."

The import and finality of Jean's words startled his hearers.

"Why, you won't make your trapping-grounds before the freeze-up, if you head down the coast now. You're crazy, man! Besides, they are two days ahead of you, to start with, and with two paddles will keep gaining,"

objected the factor.

"M'sieu Gillies," the boy ignored the factor's protest, "will you geeve me letter of credit for de Company posts?"

"Why, yes, Jean, you've got three hundred dollars credit here, but, man, stop and think! You can't overhaul those breeds alone, and if they belong in the East Main or Rupert River country they'll be back in the bush by the time you reach the posts, even if you can trail them that far. It's three hundred and fifty miles to Rupert House; you might be a month on the way."

Jean Marcel shook his head doggedly, determination written in the stone-hard muscles of his dark face. Then he suddenly demanded of the factor:

"What would my father, Andre Marcel, do eef he leeved? Because of de freeze-up would he geeve hees pup to dose dog-stealer? I ask you dat, M'sieu?"

Gillies' honest eyes frankly met the questioner's.

"Andre Marcel was the best canoeman on this coast, and no man ever did him a wrong who didn't pay." The factor hesitated.

"Well, M'sieu!" demanded Jean.

"Andre Marcel," Gillies continued, "would have followed the men who stole his dog down this coast and west to the Barren Grounds."

Jules Duroc nodded gravely as he added: "By Gar! Andre Marcel, he would trail dose men into de muskegs of h.e.l.l."

"Well," said Jean, smiling proudly at the encomiums of his father's prowess, "Jean Marcel, hees son, will start to-night."

Argument was futile to dissuade Marcel from his mad venture. His partners of the previous winter who had waited impatiently for his return refused to delay longer their start for Ghost River and left at once.

Then Jules took Marcel aside and quietly talked to him as would a brother.

"Jean, you stay here wid Ma'm'selle Julie till de steamer go. Dat M'sieu Wallace, he sweet on you' girl w'en you were up de coast. You stay till he leeve."

For this Jean had an outward shrug of contempt, but the rumored attentions of Wallace to Julie Breton, during his absence, sickened his heart with fear. Was he to lose her, too, as well as Fleur?