IN THE EYES OF THE CREES
Day by day the ebb-tide brought in the canoes of returning Crees.
Gradually tepees filled the post clearing. And with the coming of the
hunters from the three winds, was heard many a tale of famine in far
valleys; of families blotted out; of little victims of starvation and
disease; of the aged too frail to endure through the lean moons of the
rabbit-plague until the return of the caribou, which had spelt life to
those who waited.
Tragedy there had been, as in every winter of famine; but however
sinister were the secrets which, that spring, many a mute valley held
locked in its green forests, no rumors of such, except the tale of the
murders on the Ghost, had reached Whale River. Pitiless desertion of the
aged and the helpless, death by violence, doubtless, the starving moon
had shone upon; but none had lived to tell the tale, none had seen the
evidence, except those who had profited with their lives, and their lips
were forever sealed. And so, as Marcel had foreseen, to the gathering
families of Crees who themselves had but lately escaped the maw of the
winter, the tale of the Lelacs, expanding as it travelled, found ready
acceptance.
As yet, Jean, chafing under the odium of his position at the post, had
not faced his accusers. But the plan of his defense which had been
decided on after a conference with Gillies and Pere Breton, depended for
its success on the trading of their fur by the Lelacs, and the uncle and
cousins of Joe Piquet for some reason had traded no fur. So the proud
Frenchman went his way among the hunters at Whale River with a high head
and silent tongue.
Many of those who, the spring previous, had lauded his daring in
entering the land of the Windigo and voyaging to the coast by the Big
Salmon, now, at his appearance exchanged significant glances, avoiding
the steady eyes of the man they had condemned without a hearing. Shawled
women and girls, who formerly, at the trade, had cast approving glances
at the wide-shouldered youth with the clean-cut features, now whispered
pointedly as he passed and children often shrank from him in terror as
from one defiled. But Marcel had been prepared for the effect of the
tale of the Lelacs upon the mercurial red men, in the memories of many
of whom still lurked the ghosts of deeds of their own whose ghastly
details the ears of no man would ever hear.
Since his return he had not once met the Lelacs face to face. Always
they had hastily avoided him when he appeared on the way to his canoe or
the trade-house. Jean had been strictly ordered by Gillies under no
circumstances to seek trouble with his accusers or their friends, so he
ignored them. And their disinclination to encounter the son of the
famous Andre Marcel had not gone unmarked by the keen eyes of more than
one old hunter. Many a red man and half-breed, friends of the father,
who respected the son, had frankly expressed to him their disbelief in
the charges of the Lelacs, accepting his story which Gillies had
published to the Crees, that Beaulieu had been stabbed by Joe Piquet
while Marcel was absent and Piquet killed later by the dog. Strongly
they had urged him to make the Lelacs eat their lies, promising their
support; but Jean had explained that it was necessary to wait; later his
day would come.
Occasionally when Marcel crossed the post clearing, pulsing with the
varied life of the spring trade, to descend the cliff trail to his
canoe, there marched by his side one whose name, also, was anathema with
many of the Crees. That comrade was Fleur. The story of Piquet's death
as told by Jean at the trade-house, though scouted by the Lelacs, had,
nevertheless, left a deep impression; and the great dog, now called the
"man-killer," who towered above the scrub huskies of the Indians as a
mastiff over a poodle, was given a wide berth. But to avoid trouble
with the Cree dogs, Jean kept Fleur for the most part in the Mission
stockade. There Gillies and McCain and Jules had come to admire the bulk
and bone of the husky they had last seen as a lumbering puppy, now in
size and beauty far surpassing the Ungavas bought by the Company of the
Esquimos. There, Crees, still friendly to Jean, lingered to gossip of
the winter's hardships and stare in admiration at his dog. There, too,
Julie romped with Fleur, grown somewhat dignified with the gravity of
her approaching responsibilities. For, to the delight of Jean, Fleur was
soon to present him with the dog-team of his dreams.
Then when the umiaks of the Esquimos began to arrive from the coast,
packed with tousle-headed children and the priceless sled-dogs, taking
Fleur, Jean sought out his old friend Kovik of the Big Salmon. As he
approached the skin lodge on the beach, beside which the kin of Fleur
were made fast to prevent promiscuous fighting with strange dogs, she
answered their surly greeting with so stiff a mane, so fierce a show of
fangs, that Jean pulled her away by her rawhide leash, lest her
reputation suffer further by adding fratricide to her crimes.
Playmates of her puppyhood, mother who suckled her, she had forgotten
utterly; vanished was all memory of her kin. She held but one
allegiance, one love; the love approaching idolatry she bore the young
master who had taken her in that far country from the strange men who
beat her with clubs; who had brought her north again through wintry
seas; who had companioned her through the long snows and in the dread
days of the famine had shared with her his last meat. The center and sum
of her existence was Jean Marcel. All other living things were as
nothing.
"Kekway!" cried the squat pair of Huskies, delighted at the appearance
of the man who had given them back their first born. "Kekway!" chuckled
a half-dozen round-faced children, shaking Jean's hand in turn.
"Huh!" grunted the father, his eyes wide with wonder at the sight of
Fleur, ears flat, muttering dire threats at her yelping brethren
straining at their stakes, "dat good dog!"
"Oui, she good dog," agreed Jean. "Soon I have dog-team lak Husky!"
Shifting a critical eye from Fleur to his own dogs the Esquimo nodded.
"Ha! Ha! You ketch boy in water, you get bes' dog."
The Esquimo had not erred in his judgment of puppies. He had indeed
given the man who had cheated the Big Salmon of his son the best of the
litter. At sixteen months, Fleur stood inches higher at the shoulder
and weighed twenty pounds more than her brothers. Truly, with the speed
and stamina of their sire, the timber wolf, coupled with Fleur's courage
and power, these puppies, whose advent he awaited, should make a
dog-team unrivalled on the East Coast.
"Cree up dere," continued the Esquimo, pointing toward the post
clearing, "say de dog keel man."
Marcel nodded gravely. "Oui, man try kill me, she kill heem."
"Huh! De ol' dog keel bad Husky, on Kogaluk one tam."
Fleur indeed had come from a fighting strain--dogs that would battle to
the death or toil in the traces until they crumpled on the snow, for
those they loved or to whom they owed allegiance.