Breed of the Wolf/Chapter 28

Christmas was but a week distant. For the first time in years Jean Marcel possessed a dog team, and through the long December nights he had come to a decision to talk to Julie Breton once more, as in the old days, before she left Whale River forever.

Led by Fleur, Colin and Angus and Jules, now grown to huge huskies already abreast of their mother in height and bulk of bone and showing the wolf strain in their rangy gait and in red lower lids of their amber eyes, were jingling down the river trail to the festivities at the post. For, from Fort Chimo westward across the wide north to Rampart House, Christmas and New Year’s are kept. From far and wide come dog teams of the red hunters down the frozen river trails for the feasting and merrymaking at the fur posts. Two weeks, “fourteen sleeps” on the trail, going and coming, is not held by many a hardy hunter and his family too high a price to pay for a few short days of trading and gossip and dancing. There are many who trap too far from the posts and in country too inaccessible to make the journey possible, but throughout the white desolation of the fur lands the spirit of Christmas is strong and yearly the frozen valleys echo to the tinkling of the bells of dog teams and the laughter of the children of the snows.

Over the beaten river trail, ice-hardened by the passage of many sleds preceding them, romped Fleur and her sons, toying with the weight of the two men and the food bags on the sled. At times, Jean and Michel ran behind the team to stretch their legs and start their chilled blood, for it was forty below zero. But to the dogs, traveling without wind at forty below on a beaten trail was sheer delight. Often, on the high barrens of the Salmon, they had slept soundly in their snow holes at minus sixty.

As Jean watched his great lead dog, her thick coat of slate-gray and white glossy with superb vitality, set a pace for her rangy sons which sent the white miles sliding swiftly past, his heart beat with pride and love.

Good all day for a thousand pounds they were, on a broken trail, and since November he had in vain sought the limit of their staying power. Not yet the equals of their mother in pulling strength, at eighteen months their wolf blood had already given the puppies her stamina. What a team to bring the Christmas mails up the coast from East Main he thought, idly whirling the whip of plaited caribou hide which had never flecked the ears of Fleur, but which he sometimes needed when the excitable Colin or Angus scented game and, puppylike, started to bolt. No dogs on the coast could take the trail from these sons of Fleur. No dog team he had ever seen could break out and trot away with a thousand pounds. That winter they had done it with a load of caribou meat on the barrens. Yes, next year he would accept Gillies’ offer and put Fleur and her sons on the winter mail—Fleur and the team she had given him—his Fleur, whom he had followed and fought for and who had in turn battled for his life.

“Marche, Fleur!” he called, his eyes bright with his thoughts.

The lead dog leaped from a swinging trot into a long lope, straightening the traces, followed by the team keen for a run. Away they raced in the good going of the hard trail. Then in early afternoon when the sun hung low in the dim west, the men turned into the thick timber of the shores, where, sheltered from the wind, they shoveled out a camp ground with their snow-shoes and built a roaring fire while the puppies, ravenous for their supper, yelped and fretted until Jean threw them the frozen fish which they caught in the air and bolted.

Before Jean and Michel had boiled their tea and caribou stew, four shaggy shapes with noses in tails were asleep in the snow, indifferent to the sting of the strengthening cold which made the spruces around them snap, and split the river ice with the boom of cannon. Soon, also, the two men were asleep in their blankets.

Hours later, waking with a groan, Marcel sat upright in his blankets. Near him the tired Michel snored peacefully. Throwing a circle of light on the surrounding spruce, huge embers of the fire still burned. The moon was dead, a veil of haze masking the dim stars. It was bitter cold. Half out of his covering, the startled voyageur shivered, but it was not from the bite of the air. It was the stark poignancy of the dream from which he had escaped that left him cold.

He had stood by the big chute of the Conjuror’s Falls on the Ghost, known as the “Chute of Death,” and as he gazed into the boiling maelstrom of white water, the blanched face of Julie Breton had looked up at him, her lips moving in hopeless appeal, as she was swept from sight. He had plunged headlong into the roaring flume, frenziedly seeking her as he fought down through the gorge, buffeted and mauled by the churning water, but though he hunted the length of the river below, he had not found her.

Then, in his dream, he was traveling with Fleur and the team in a blizzard, when out of the smother of snow before him beckoned the wraith of Julie Breton—always just ahead, always beckoning to him. Pushing his dogs to their utmost, he never drew nearer, never reached the wistful face he loved.

Marcel freshened the fire and lighted his pipe. It was long before he threw off the grip of his dreams and slept again.