Page:Toilers of the Trails.djvu/73

 forward, nerves on edge, electrified; and one of these often-repeated words was the Cree for home.

That night the anchor-watch on the Elbe drowsed at their posts. For an hour the flood-tide had been sweeping past the ship toward the Albany delta. So thick hung the smother of mist that the single lantern lighting the forecastle-hatchway was drowned at thirty feet. Amidships the husky lay curled, with his nose in his bushy tail, beside the fur-pack.

Suddenly the animal straightened, lifting his head to sniff the baffling air.

"Whish you, Loup!" came the whispered words out of the blackness. The dog sprang to his feet, every muscle tense. Murmuring in Cree followed. The tail of the husky switched back and forth, but the rising whine was stifled by a familiar hand closing on his nose, while an arm of his master encircled him.

Swiftly a collar of plaited caribou hide was knotted on the husky's neck. Attached to the collar was a water-proof pouch of sealskin containing the strip of hide with this message in Cree characters burned in with the wire the previous night:

"Yellow-beard ship off river-mouth. When fog lift' they come in boats to steal fur, burn post. I steer boat close in Whitefish Point. Wait there. Good-bye, wife, children! The good God help you! "."

To sever the rope which Loup had chewed nearly through that afternoon was a matter of seconds.