FROM THE FAR FRONTIERS
For days Marcel's youth and strength battled with the fever aggravated
by infection in the deep wound. All that Gillies and Pere Breton could
do for the stricken man was done, but barring the simple remedies which
stock the medicine chest of a post in the far north and the most limited
knowledge of surgery possessed by the factors, the recovery of a patient
depends wholly upon his vitality and constitution. With medical aid
beyond reach, men die or fight back to health through the toughness of
their fiber alone.
There was a time when Jean Marcel journeyed far toward the dim hills of
a land from which there is no trail home for the feet of the _voyageur_.
There were nights when Julie Breton sat with her brother and Jules, or
McCain, stark fear in their hearts that the sun would never again lift
above the Whale River hills for Jean Marcel, never again his daring
paddle flash in sunlit white-water, or his snow-shoes etch their webbed
trail on the white floor of the silent places.
And during these days the impatient Wallace chafed with longing for the
society of Julie whose pity for the sick man had made of her an
indefatigable nurse. A few words in the morning and an hour or two at
night was all the time she allotted the man to whom she had given her
heart.
To the demand of the Inspector in the presence of Pere Breton that Julie
should substitute a Cree woman as nurse, she had replied:
"He has no one but us. His people are dead. He has been like a brother
to me. I can do no less than care for him, poor boy!"
"Yes," added Pere Breton, "he is as my son. Julie is right," and added,
with a smile, "you two will have much time in the future to see each
other."
So Wallace had been forced to make the best of it.
By the time that the steamer, _Inenew_, from Charlton Island, appeared
with the English mail, and the supplies and trade-goods for the coming
year, Jean Marcel had fought his way back from the frontiers of death.
So relieved seemed the girl, who had given lavishly of her young
strength, that she allowed Mrs. Gillies to take her place in the sick
room while she spent with Wallace the last days of his stay at Whale
River.
Once more the post people saw the lovers constantly together and more
than one head shook sadly at the thought of the one who had lost, lying
hurt, in heart and body, on a cot at the Mission, while another took his
place beside Julie Breton.
At last, the steamer sailed for Fort George and no one in the group
gathered at the landing doubted that the heart of Julie Breton went with
it when they saw the light in her dark eyes as she bade the handsome
Wallace good-bye.
It was an open secret now, communicated by Wallace to the factor, that
he was to become a Catholic that autumn, and in June take Julie Breton
as a bride away to East Main.
* * * * *
During the tense days when the fever heightened and the life of Jean
Marcel hung on the turn of a leaf, there had been no repetition of the
visit of Fleur to the sick room. But so loudly did she wail her
complaint at her enforced absence from the man battling for his life, so
near in the Mission house, that it was necessary to confine her with her
puppies at a distance.
Once again conscious of his surroundings and rapidly gaining strength,
Marcel insisted on seeing his dog. So, daily, under watchful guard,
Fleur was taken into the room, often with a clumsy puppy, round and
fluffy, who alternately nibbled with needle-pointed milk-teeth at Jean's
extended hand, making a great to-do of snarling in mock anger, or
rolled squealing on its back on the floor, while Fleur sprawled
contentedly by the cot, tail beating the floor, love in her slant eyes
for the master who now had found his voice, whose face once more shone
with the old smile, which was her life.