POOR FLEUR
As the weeks went by, the food cache at the camp on the Ghost steadily
shrank. The nets under the ice and the set-lines were now bringing no
fish. More and more Jean slept in his half-way camp ten miles north, for
although the short rations he fed Fleur had been obtained solely by his
own efforts, Joe and Antoine objected to the well-nourished look of the
puppy while they grew thin and slowly weakened. But, for generations,
the huskies have been accustomed to starvation, and if not slaving with
the sleds, will for weeks show but slight effect from short rations.
Besides, Fleur had, from necessity and instinct, become a hunter, and
many a ptarmigan and stray rabbit she picked up foraging for herself.
To increase the difficulty of hunting for food, January had brought
blizzard after blizzard, piling deep with drifts the trails to their
trap-lines, which they still visited regularly, for the starved lynxes
were coming to the bait of the flesh of their kin in greater and greater
numbers. Twice, seeking the return of the caribou, the desperate men
travelled far into the barrens beaten by the withering January winds,
returning with wind-burned, frost-blackened faces, for no man may face
for long the needle-pointed scourge of the midwinter northers off the
Straits.
Finally, in desperation, when the flour was gone, and the food cache
held barely enough meat and fish for two weeks, Joe and Antoine insisted
that, while they had food to carry them through, they make for the post.
"You can crawl into de post lak a starving Cree because you were too
lazy to net feesh. I will stay in de bush with my dog," was Jean's
scornful reply.
But the situation was desperate. With two months remaining before the
big thaw in April, when they could rely on plenty of fish, there seemed
but one alternative, unless the caribou returned or the fish began to
move. A few trout and an occasional rabbit and ptarmigan would not keep
them alive until the "break-up," when the bear would leave their
"washes" and the caribou start north. Already with revolting stomachs
they had begun to eat starved lynx. If only they could get beaver, but
there were no beaver on the Ghost. It was clear that they must find game
shortly or retreat to Whale River.
One night Jean reached his fish cache on his return from a three days'
hunt toward the Salmon waters. At last he had found beaver, and caching
two at his tent, with his heart high with hope, was bringing the
carcasses of three more to his partners. As he approached the cache in
the gathering dusk, to his surprise he found the fresh tracks of
snow-shoes.
"Ah-hah!" he muttered, his mouth twisted in a grim smile, "so dey rob de
cache of Jean Marcel while he travel sixty mile to get dem beaver!"
The last of Fleur's pitiful little store of fish was gone. The cache was
stripped.
Jean shook his head sadly. So he could no longer trust these men whose
hunger had made them thieves, he mused. Well, he would break with them
at once. "Poor Fleur!" He patted the sniffing nose of his dog.
Bitter with the discovery, Marcel drove Fleur over the trail to the
camp. Opening the slab-door he surprised the half-breeds gorging
themselves from a steaming kettle of trout. But hunger had driven them
past all sense of shame. Looking up sullenly, they waited for him to
speak.
"Bon soir, my friends! I see you have had luck at de lines," he
surprised them with. "I have three nice fat beaver for you."
The hollow eyes of Joe and Antoine met in a questioning look. Then
Piquet brazened it out.
"Beaver, eh? Dat soun' good, fat beaver!" and he smacked his thin lips
greedily.
"W'ere you get beaver, Jean?" asked Antoine, now that the tension due to
Jean's appearance had relaxed.
"W'ere I tell you I would fin' dem, nord, een de valley of de spirits,"
he laughed.
Marcel heaped a tin dish from the kettle, and slipping outside, fed
Fleur.
"Here, Fleur!" he called, "ees some of feesh dat Joe has boiled for you.
Wat, you lak' eet bettair raw? Well, Joe he lak' eet boiled."
Returning, Jean ate heartily of the lake trout. When he had finished and
lighted his pipe, he said: "You weel fin' de beaver on de cache. I leeve
een de morning for Salmon riviere country."
"W'at, you goin' leave us, Jean?" cried Antoine visibly disturbed.
"Oui, I don't trap wid t'ief!" The cold eyes of Marcel bored into those
of Beaulieu which wavered and fell. But Piquet accepted the challenge.
"W'at you t'ink, Jean Marcel, you geeve dose feesh to de dog w'en we
starve?" he sullenly demanded. "We eat de dog, also, before we starve."
"You eat de dog, eh, Joe Piquet? Dat ees good joke. You 'av' to keel de
dog and Jean Marcel first, my frien'," sneered Marcel. "I net feesh for
my dog and you not help me but laugh; now you tak' dem from my dog.
Bien! I am tru wid you both! I geeve you de beaver and bid you, bon
jour, to-morrow!"
Antoine was worried, for he knew too well what the loss of Marcel would
mean to them in the days to come. But the sullen Piquet in whom toil and
starvation were bringing to the surface traits common to the half-breed,
treated Marcel's going with seeming indifference.