THE FRIEND OF DEMONS
When Marcel put his canoe into the water the following morning, to cross
to his net, three young Esquimos, who had been loitering near Kovik's
lodge, followed him to the beach, and as he left the shore, hurled at
his back a torrent of Husky abuse.
What he had hoped to avoid had come. It would have been better to listen
to Kovik's warning against delaying his departure and attempting to fish
at the rapids after the salmon arrived. The use of the boy's spear, the
day previous, had brought the feeling among the younger men to a head.
They meant to drive him down river.
Removing the whitefish and small salmon, Jean lifted his net and
stretching it to dry on the shore, recrossed the stream. On the beach
awaiting his return were the Huskies. Clearly, they had decided that he
was possessed of no supernatural powers and could now be bullied with
impunity. As he did not wish to embroil his friend Kovik in his defense,
when he had smoked his last catch he would leave. But the blood of the
fighting Marcels was slowly coming to a boil. If these raw fish-eaters
thought that they could frighten the grandson of the famous Etienne
Lacasse, and the son of Andre Marcel, whose strength was a tradition on
the East Coast, he could show them their mistake. Still, avoid trouble
he must, for a fight would be suicide.
So ignoring the Huskies, who talked together in low tones, Marcel
landed, cleaned some fish for the Koviks' kettle, and carried them up to
the tepee where the family were still asleep. Returning, the hot blood
rose to the bronzed face of the Frenchman at what he saw.
The three Esquimos were coolly feeding his fish to the dogs.
Reckless of the consequences, in the blind rage which choked him, Marcel
reached the pilferers of his canoe before they realized that he was on
them. Seizing one by his long hair, with a wrench he hurled the
surprised Husky backward into the water and sent a second reeling to the
stony beach with a fierce blow in the face. The third, retreating from
the fury of the attack of the maddened white man, drew his skinning
knife; but seizing his paddle, Marcel sent the knife spinning with a
vicious slash which doubled the screaming Husky over a broken wrist.
Turning, he saw his first victims making down the beach toward the
tepees, while the uproar of the dogs was swiftly arousing the camp.
Then, as his blood cooled and his judgment returned, the youth, who had
suffered and dared much that he might have dogs for the next long snows,
realized the height of his folly. They had baited him into furnishing
them with an excuse for attacking him. Now even the faithful Kovik would
be helpless against them. He would never see Whale River and Julie
Breton again. Already the Huskies were emerging from their tepees, to
hear the tale of his late antagonists. There was no time to lose before
they rushed him.
Bounding up the beach to Kovik's tepee for his rifle, he rapidly
explained the situation to the Esquimo, while in his ears rang the
shouts of the excited Huskies and the yelping of the dogs. Jean did not
hope to escape alive from this bedlam, but of one thing he was sure, he
would die like a Marcel, with a smoking gun in his hands.
Urging Jean to get his fur-pack and smoked fish to his canoe at once,
Kovik hurried down the shore to the knot of wildly excited Esquimos.
With the aid of the grateful wife and son of Kovik, Marcel's canoe was
swiftly loaded and his treasured puppy lashed in the bow. But the rush
up the beach of an infuriated throng bent on his death, which Marcel
stoically awaited beside a large boulder, was delayed. Not a hundred
yards distant, the doughty Kovik, the center of an arguing mob, was
fighting with all the wits he possessed for the man who had saved his
son. For Marcel to attempt to escape by water would only have drawn the
fire of the Huskies and nullified Kovik's efforts, and their kayaks,
faster than any canoe, were below him. A break for the "bush," even if
successful, in the end, meant starvation. So with extra cartridges
between his teeth, and in his hands, Jean Marcel grimly fingered the
trigger-guard of his rifle, as he waited at the boulder for the turn of
the dice down the shore.
Minutes, each one an eternity to the man at bay, passed. But Kovik still
held his men, and Marcel clearly noted a change in the manner of the
Huskies. The shouting had ceased. His friend was winning.
Shortly, Kovik left the group and walked rapidly toward Marcel, followed
at a distance by his people.
"Dey keel you, but Kovik say you fr'en' wid spirit; he come down riv'
an' eat Husky," explained the worried defender of Jean. "Kovik say you
shoot wid spirit gun, all de Husky; so you go, queek!"
The broad face of Kovik split in a grim smile as he gripped the hand of
the relieved Marcel and pushed off his canoe. Thus, doubly, had the
loyal Esquimo paid for the life of his son.
With the emotions of a man suddenly reprieved from a sentence of death,
Marcel poled his canoe out into the current. Behind him, the Esquimos
had already joined Kovik on the shore, when, warned by a shout from his
friend, Marcel instinctively ducked as a seal spear whistled over his
head. Some doubter was testing the magic of the white demon.
Seizing his paddle Jean swiftly crossed the river and secured his
precious net. But he was not yet rid of his enemies. If the young men,
conquering their fear of his friendship with demons, at once launched
their kayaks, they could overhaul his loaded canoe. But once clear of
the last tepees, with his pursuers behind him, he was confident that he
could pick them off with his rifle as fast as they came up in their
rocking craft.
With all the power of his iron back and shoulders, Jean drove his canoe
on the strong current; but Kovik had the Huskies in hand and they did
not follow. Shortly he had passed the last lodge on the shore and the
camp was soon in the distance. It seemed like a dream--his peril of the
last hour; and now, a free man again, with his puppy in the bow, he was
on his way to the coast and Julie Breton.
Suddenly two rifles cracked in the rocks on the near beach. The paddle
of Marcel dropped from his limp hands. Headlong he lurched to the floor
of the canoe. Again the guns spat from the boulders. Two bullets whined
over the birch-bark. But save for the yelping puppy in the bow, there
was no movement in the canoe, as it slid, the cat's-paw of the current.
Waving their arms in triumph at the collapse of the feared white man,
whose magic had been impotent before their bullets, the Huskies hurried
along shore after the canoe. Carried by breeze and current, with its
whimpering puppy and silent human freight the craft grounded a half-mile
below the ambush. On came the chattering pair of assassins, already
quarrelling over the division of the outfit of the dead man--delirious
with the sweetness of their vengeance for the rough handling the
stricken one in the canoe had meted out to them but an hour before. The
dog, although lashed to the bow thwart, had managed to crawl out of the
boat and was struggling with the thongs which held her, when the Huskies
came running up. Staring into the birch-bark, they turned to each other
gray faces on which was written ghastly fear.
The canoe was empty!
The white man they had thought to find a bloodied heap, was, after all,
a maker of magic--a friend of demons. Kovik had told the truth. They
were lost!
Palsied with dread, their feet frozen to the beach, the young ruffians
awaited the swift vengeance of their enemy. And it came.
Hard by, a rifle crashed in the boulders. With a scream, a Husky reeled
backward with a shattered hand, as his gun, torn from his grasp by the
impact of the bullet, rattled on the stones. A second shot, splintering
the butt of his rifle, hurled the other to his knees. Then with a
demonical yell, Marcel sprang from his ambush.
Running like caribou jumped by barren-ground wolves, the panic-stricken
Huskies fled from the place of horror, pursued by the ricochetting
bullets of the white demon, until they disappeared up the shore.
"A'voir, M'sieurs!" cried Marcel. "De nex' tam you ambush cano', don'
let eet dref behin' de point." And shaking with laughter, turned to his
yelping puppy, frenzied with excitement.
"De Husky t'ink we not go to Whale Riviere, eh?" he said, stroking the
trembling shoulders of the worrying dog. "But Jean and hees petite
chienne, dey see Julie Breton jus' de same."
Putting his puppy in the canoe, Marcel continued on down the river.
When the shots from ambush whined past his face, Marcel had flattened to
the floor of the craft, both for cover and to deceive the Huskies. The
second shots convinced him that he had but two to deal with. Slitting
the bark skin near the gunwale, that he might watch the shore without
betraying the fact that he was conscious, and thereby draw their fire,
while they were protected from his by the boulders, he learned that the
craft was working toward the beach.
His plan was swiftly made. Driven by the racing current, the canoe had
already left the Esquimos, following the shore, in the rear. He would
allow the craft to ground and hold his fire until they were on top of
him. But the boat finally reached the beach at a point hidden from the
pursuing Huskies. With a bound Marcel was out of the canoe and concealed
among the rocks. Great as was the temptation to leave the men who had
ambushed him in cold blood, shot upon the beach, a sinister warning to
their fellows, the thought of Kovik's position at the camp forced him to
content himself with disarming and sending them shrieking up the shore
with his bullets worrying their heels.
Often, during the day, as Marcel put mile after mile of the Salmon
between himself and the camp at the rapids, the puppy cocked curious
ears as the new master ceased paddling, to roar with laughter at the
memory of two flying Esquimos.