The Whelps of the Wolf

by George P. Marsh

  CHAPTER X

  THE CAMP ON THE GHOST

  Although the stinging winds with swirls of fine snow were alreadydriving down the valleys, and nightly the ice filmed the eddies and thebackwaters, yet the swift river remained open to the speeding canoeuntil, one frosty morning, Marcel waked in camp at the Conjuror's Fallsto find that the ice had over-night closed in on the quiet reaches ofthe Ghost just above, shackling the river for seven months against canoetravel.

  Caching his boat and supplies on spruce saplings, he circled each peeledtrunk with a necklace of large inverted fish-hooks, to foil the raids ofthat arch thief and defiler of caches, the wolverine. That night hereached the camp of his partners.

  Antoine Beaulieu and Joe Piquet, like Marcel, had lost their immediatefamilies in the plague, and the year before, had been only too glad tojoin the Frenchman in a trapping partnership of mutual advantage. Forwhile Marcel, son of the former Company head man, with a schooling atthe Mission, and a skill and daring as canoeman and hunter, beyond theirown, was looked upon as leader by the half-breeds, Antoine was a goodhunter, while Joe Piquet's manual dexterity in fashioning snow-shoes,making moccasins and building bark canoes rendered him particularlyuseful. Marcel's feat of the previous spring in finding the headwatersof the Salmon and his appearance at Whale River with a pure bred Ungavahusky, to the amazement of the Crees, had increased his influence withhis partners; but his determination to go south after his dog when itwas already high time for the three men to start for theirtrapping-grounds had left them in a sullen mood. Because they could usethem, if he did not return from the south, they had packed his suppliesover the portages of the Whale and up the Ghost to their camp, but hadnetted no extra whitefish for the dog they felt he would not bring home.

  That night they sat long over the fire in the shack they had built theautumn previous, listening to Marcel's tale of the rescue of Fleur andof the great goose grounds of the south coast.

  In the morning Jean waked with the problem of a supply of fish for Fleurand himself troubling him, for one of the precepts of Andre Marcel hadbeen, "Save your fish for the tail of the winter, for no one knows wherethe caribou will be." Down at Conjuror's Falls, he had cached less thantwo months' rations for his dog, and they were facing seven months ofthe long snows. To be sure, she could live on meat, if meat was to behad, but a husky thrives on fish, and Marcel determined that she shouldhave it.

  Confident of finding game plentiful, his partners, with the usual lackof foresight of the Crees, had netted less than three months' supply ofwhitefish and lake-trout. This emergency store Marcel knew would beconsumed by February, however plentiful the caribou proved to be, forthe Crees seldom possess the thrift to save against the possible springfamine. So he determined to set his net at once.

  Borrowing Joe's canoe, he packed it through the "bush" to a good fishlake where he set the net under the young ice, and baited lines; thentaking Fleur, he started cruising out locations for his trap-lines innew country, far toward the blue hills of the Salmon watershed, wheregame signs had been thick the previous spring.

  Toward the last of October when the snow began to make deep, Fleur'seducation as a sled-dog began. Already the fast growing puppy wascreeping up toward one hundred pounds in weight, and soon, under thekind but firm tutelage of the master, was as keen to be harnessed for arun as a veteran husky of the winter trails.

  When he had set and baited his traps over a wide circle of new countryto the north, Jean returned to his net and lines, and at the end of tendays had a supply of trout and whitefish for Fleur, which he cached atthe lake. On his return, Antoine and Joe derided his labors when thecaribou trails networked the muskegs, but Marcel ignored them.

  It looked like a good winter for game. Snow-shoe rabbits were plentifuland wherever their runways led in and out of the scrub-spruce and fircovers, there those furred assassins of the forest, the fox and thelynx, the fisher and the marten, were sure to make theirhunting-grounds. During November and December, when pelts are at theirbest, the men made a harvest at their traps. The caribou were still onthe barrens feeding on the white moss from which they scraped the snowwith their large, round-toed hoofs, and the rabbit snares furnished stewwhenever the trappers craved a change from caribou steaks. But no Indianwill eat rabbit as a regular diet while he can get red meat. Thisvarying hare of the north, which, so often, in the spring, from Labradorto the Yukon, stands between the red trapper and starvation, has aflavor which quickly palls on the taste, and never quite seems tosatisfy hunger. The Crees often speak of "starving on rabbits."

  During these weeks following the trap-lines, learning the ways of thewinter forest after a puppyhood on the coast, as Fleur grew in bulk andstrength, so her affection deepened for Jean Marcel. Now nearly a yearold, she easily drew the sled loaded with the meat of a caribou intocamp, on a beaten trail. At night in the tent Marcel had pitched andbanked with snow, as a half-way camp on the round of his trap-lines, shewould sit with hairy ears pointed, watching his every movement, lookingunutterable adoration as he scraped his pelts, stretching them on framesto dry or mended his clothes and moccasins. Then, before he turned in tohis plaited, rabbit-skin blankets, warmer by far than any fur robesknown in the north, Fleur invariably demanded her evening romp. Taking ahand in her jaws which never closed, she would lift her lips, baring herwhite fangs in a snarl of mimic anger, as she swung her head from sideto side, until, seizing her, Jean rolled her on her back, while rumblesand growls from her shaggy throat voiced her delight.

  Back at the main camp, Fleur, true to her breed, merely tolerated thepresence of Antoine and Joe, indifferent to all offers of friendship.Moving away at their approach, she suffered neither of them to placehand upon her. At night she slept outside in the snow, where the thickmat of fine fur under the long hair rendered her immune to cold.

  And all these weeks Jean Marcel was fighting out his battle with self.Always, the struggle went ceaselessly on--the struggle with his heartto give up Julie Breton. Reason though he would, that he had nothing togive her, while this great man of the Company had everything, his lovefor the girl kept alive the embers of hope. He carried the memory of hersweetness over the white trails by day and at night again wandered withher in the twilight as in the days before the figure of Wallace darkenedhis life.

  As Christmas approached, Jean wondered whether Wallace would spend it inWhale River, and was glad that they had not intended, because of thegreat distance, to go back for the festivities at the post. Should heever see her again as Julie Breton? he asked himself. Wallace wouldchange his religion. Surely no man would balk at that, to get Julie. Andthe spring would see them married. Well, he should go on loving her--andFleur; there was no one else.