THE MEETING IN THE MARSHES
Two days later, after rounding Point Comfort, Marcel was crossing the
mud-flats of Gull Bay. At last the stalk was on, for somewhere in the
vast marshes of the Hannah Bay coast, camped the men he had followed
four hundred miles to meet face to face and fight for his dog. Somewhere
ahead, through the gray mist, back in the juniper and alder scrub beyond
the wide reaches of tide-flats and goose-grass, was Fleur, a prisoner.
That night in camp at East Point, while he cleaned the action and bore
of his rifle, the clatter of the geese in the muskeg behind the far
lines of spruce edging the marshes, filled him with wonder. Never on the
bold East Coast had he heard such a din of geese gathering for the long
flight. At dawn, for it was windy, lines of gray Canadas passing
overhead bound out to the shoals, waked him with their clamor. The tide
was low, and he carried his canoe across the mud-flats through flocks of
plover, snipe and yellow-legs, feeding behind the ebb, while teal and
black-duck swarmed along the beaches.
As he poled his canoe south through the shoals, he recalled the tales
his father had told him of the marshes of Hannah Bay, the greatest
breeding ground of the gray goose and black duck in all the wide north.
Everywhere along the bars and sand-spits the gray Canadas were idling,
always with an erect, keen-eyed sentinel on guard. Farther out, white
islands of snowy geese flashed in the sun, as here and there a "wavy"
rose on the water to flap his black-tipped wings. Just in from their
Arctic breeding-grounds, they were lingering for a month's feast on
toothsome south-coast goose-grass before seeking their winter home on
the great Gulf two thousand miles away.
Slowly throughout the morning Marcel travelled along the mud-flats bared
for miles by the retreating tide. At times the breeze carried to his
ears the faint sound of firing, but there were goose-boats from Moose
and Rupert House on the coast, and it meant little. That night as the
tide covered the marshes he ran up a channel of the Harricanaw delta
seeking a camp-ground on its higher shores.
Landing he was looking for drift-wood for his fire when suddenly he
stopped.
"Ah! You have been here, my friends."
In the soft mud of the shore ran the clearly marked tracks of a man and
dog. The footprints of the dog seemed large for Fleur, but Marcel had
not seen her in six weeks and the puppy was growing fast.
"Fleur!" he said aloud, "will you remember Jean Marcel after all these
weeks with them?"
He had seen no smoke of a fire and the tracks were at least two days
old. His men were doubtless on the west shore of the bay where the water
for miles inland to the spruce networked the marshes, and the rank grass
grew to the height of a man's head; but he would find them. The guns of
the hunters would betray their whereabouts.
He drew a long breath of relief. At last he had reached the end of the
trail. He could now come to grips with his enemies. To the thief, the
law of the north is ruthless, and ruthlessly Jean Marcel was prepared to
exact, if need be, the last drop of the blood of these men in payment
for this act. It was now his nerve and wit against theirs, with Fleur as
the stake. The blood of Andre Marcel and the _coureurs-de-bois_, which
stirred in his veins, was hot for the fight which the days would bring.
Before dawn Jean was taking advantage of the high tide, and when the
first light streaked the east, was well on his way. As the sun lifted
over the muskeg behind the bay he saw, hanging in the still air, the
smoke of a fire.
Quickly turning inshore, he ran his canoe up a waterway and into the
long grass. There he waited until the tide went out, listening to the
faint reports of the guns of the hunters. At noon, having eaten some
cold goose and bannock, he took his rifle and started back over the
marsh. Slowly he worked his way, keeping to the cover of the grass and
alders, circling around the wide, open spaces, pock-marked with
water-holes and small ponds.
Knowing that the breeds would not take the dog with them to their blinds
but would tie her up, he planned to stalk the camp up-wind, in order not
to alarm Fleur, who might betray his presence to his enemies if by
accident they were in camp, in the afternoon, when the geese were
moving. After that--well, he should see.
At last he lay within sight of the tent, which was pitched on a tongue
of high ground running out into the rush-covered mud-flats. The camp was
deserted. His eyes strained wistfully for the sight of the shaggy shape
of his puppy. Pain stabbed at his heart. She was not there. What could
it mean? Distant shots from the marsh to the west marked the absence of
at least one of the breeds. But where was Fleur?
Marcel was too "bush-wise" to take any chances. Still keeping to cover,
he made his approach up-wind until he lay within a stone's throw of the
tent, when a shift in the breeze warned a pair of keen nostrils that
some living thing skulked not far off.
The heart of Jean Marcel leaped as the howl of Fleur betrayed his
presence, for huskies never bark. Grasping his rifle, he waited. The
uproar of the dog brought no response. The breeds were both away.
Rising, he ran to the excited puppy lashed to a stake back of the tent.
"Fleur! _Ma petite chienne!_" Dropping his rifle, he approached his dog
with outstretched arms. With flattened ears, the puppy crouched,
growling at the stranger, her mane bristling.
"Fleur! Don't you know me, pup?" continued Marcel in soothing tones,
holding out his hand.
The puppy's ears went forward. She sniffed long at the hand that had
once caressed her. Slowly the growl died in her throat.
"Fleur! Fleur! My poor puppy! Don't you remember Jean Marcel?"
Again the puzzled dog drew deep whiffs through her black nostrils. Back
in her brain memory was at work. Slowly the soothing tones of the voice
of Marcel stirred the ghosts of other days; vague hints, blurred by the
cruelty of weeks, of a time when the hand of a master caressed her and
did not strike, when a voice called to her as this voice--then another
sniff, and she knew. With a whimper her warm tongue licked his hand, and
Jean Marcel had his puppy in his arms. Mad with joy, the yelping husky
strained at her rawhide bonds as her anxious master examined a great
lump on her head, and her ribs, ridged with welts from kick and blow.
"So they tied her up and beat her, my Fleur? Well, she not leave Jean
Marcel again. Were he go, Fleur go!"
Suddenly in his ears were hissed the words:
"W'at you do wid dat dog?" And a fierce blow on the back of the head
hurled the kneeling Marcel flat on his face.
For a space he lay stunned, his numbed senses blurred beyond thought or
action. Then, as his dazed brain cleared, the realization that life hung
on his presence of mind, for he would receive no mercy from the thieves,
held him limp on the ground as though unconscious.
Snarling curses at the crumpled body of his victim, the half-breed was
busy with the joining of some rawhide thongs. Then Jean's dizziness
faded. Cautiously he raised an eyelid. The breed was bending over him
with a looped thong. Not a muscle moved as the Frenchman waited. Nearer
leaned the thief. He reached to slip the looped rawhide over one of
Marcel's outstretched hands, when, with a lunge from the ground, the
arms of the latter clamped on his legs like a sprung trap. With a
wrench, the surprised thief was thrown heavily.
Cat-like, the hunter was on his man, bearing him down. And then began a
battle in which quarter was neither asked nor given. Heavier but slower
than the younger man, the thief vainly sought to reach Marcel's throat,
for the Frenchman's arms, having the under grip, blocked the half-breed
from Jean's knife and his own. Over and over they rolled, locked
together; so evenly matched in strength that neither could free a hand.
Near them yelped Fleur, frantic with excitement, plunging at her stake.
Then the close report of a gun sounded in Marcel's startled ears. A
great fear swept him. The absent thief was working back to camp. It was
a matter of minutes. Was it to this that he had toiled down the coast in
search of his dog--a grave in the Harricanaw mud? And the face of Julie
Breton flashed across his vision.
Desperate with the knowledge that he must win quickly, if at all, he
strained until the fingers of his left hand reached the haft of the
breed's knife. But a twinge shot through his shoulder like the stab of
steel, as the teeth of his enemy crunched into his flesh, and he lost
his grip. Maddened by pain, Marcel wrenched his right arm free and had
his own knife before the fingers of the thief closed on his wrist,
holding the blade in the sheath. Then began a duel of sheer strength.
For a time the straining arms lifted and pushed, at a dead lock. With
veins swelling on neck and forehead, Marcel fought to unsheath his
knife; but the half-breed's arm was iron, did not give. Again a gun was
fired--still nearer the camp.
With help at hand, the thief, safe so long as he held his grip, snarled
in triumph in the ear of his trapped enemy. But his peril only increased
the Frenchman's strength. The fighting blood of the Marcels boiled in
his veins. With a fierce heave of the shoulders the hand gripping the
knife moved upward. The arm of the thief gave way, only to straighten.
Then with a wrench that would not be denied, Jean tore the blade from
the sheath.
Frantically now, the breed, white with sudden fear, fought the sinewy
wrist, advancing inexorably, on its grim mission. In short jerks, Marcel
hunched the knife toward its goal. As he weakened, the knotted features
of the one who felt death creeping to him, inch by inch, went gray. The
hand fighting Marcel's wrist dripped with sweat. Panting hoarsely, like
a beast at bay, the thief twisted and writhed from the pitiless steel.
Then in his ears rang the voice of the approaching hunter.
With a cry of despair, the doomed half-breed called to the man who had
come too late. Already the knuckles of Marcel were high on his ribs.
With a final wrench, the blade was lunged home.
The cry was smothered in a cough. The man who had beaten his last puppy
gasped, quivered convulsively; then lay still.
Bathed in sweat, shaking from the strain and exertion of the long
battle, Marcel got stiffly to his feet and seized his rifle. Again the
camp was hailed from the marsh. It was evident that the goose-hunter had
not sensed the cry of his partner or he would not have betrayed his
position. Doubtless he was poling up a reed-masked waterway with a load
of geese.
Jean smiled grimly, for the thief would have only his shotgun loaded
with fine shot, for large shot is not used for geese in the north.
Hurriedly searching the tent, he found a rifle which he threw into the
rushes; then loosed Fleur.
The half-breed was in his power, but he wanted no prisoner. To stay and
beat this man as Fleur had been beaten would have been sweet, but of
blood he had had enough. For an instant his eyes rested on the ghastly
evidence of his visit, awaiting the return of the hunter; then he took
Fleur and started across the marsh for his canoe.
To the dead man, who, to the theft of Fleur would have lightly added the
death of her master, Marcel gave no thought. As for the other, when he
found his dead partner, fear of an ambush would prevent him from
following their trail.
Reaching his canoe, Jean divided a goose with Fleur and, when it became
dark, started for East Point. That the half-breed's partner might
attempt to follow him and seek revenge, he had no doubt, but with the
shotgun alone, for Jean had taken the only rifle at their camp, the
thief's sole chance would be to stalk Marcel while he slept. However, as
the sea was flat and the tide ebbing, Marcel was confident that daylight
would find him well up the coast toward Point Comfort.