Page:Toilers of the Trails.djvu/55

 mist human scent had drifted to the husky's palpitating nostrils.

Again from the dog's throat rolled the challenge of his wolfish forebears to the hidden enemies, and out of the fog ahead floated the answer of a human voice.

"Quey! Quey!" called the Cree in reply, and ceased paddling.

Again the voice called from the fog; again Laroque answered, and started paddling slowly in the direction of the sound. It was a canoe from Moose, he surmised, bound for Fort Albany, and he was nearer the south shore than he had reckoned. Then of a sudden out of the mist ahead broke the black mass of a ship.

The paddle of the surprised half-breed hung suspended over the water while the dog bellowed his rage at the mysterious thing looming through the fog. Clearly it was not the small company steamer from Moose Factory, which was not due at Albany for a month, after the fur-brigades had arrived from the up-river posts, but one of the big ships.

Still, what was one of the company ships from across the big water, which never entered the treacherous mouths of the Moose or the Albany, but unloaded at Charlton Island, a hundred miles east, doing here? Then it flashed across the Cree's brain that the vessel had missed the island in the thick weather and had run clear to the Albany flats, where she had anchored.

"Quey! Quey!" Laroque gave the Cree salutation to the men at the rail of the ship as he paddled