JOAN
On the edge of the cedar and spruce forest old Pierre Radisson built the
fire. He was bleeding from a dozen wounds, where the fangs of the wolves
had reached to his flesh, and he felt in his breast that old and
terrible pain, of which no one knew the meaning but himself. He dragged
in log after log, piled them on the fire until the flames leaped tip to
the crisping needles of the limbs above, and heaped a supply close at
hand for use later in the night.
From the sledge Joan watched him, still wild-eyed and fearful, still
trembling. She was holding her baby close to her breast. Her long heavy
hair smothered her shoulders and arms in a dark lustrous veil that
glistened and rippled in the firelight when she moved. Her young face
was scarcely a woman's to-night, though she was a mother. She looked
like a child.
Old Pierre laughed as he threw down the last armful of fuel, and stood
breathing hard.
"It was close, _ma cheri_" he panted through his white beard. "We were
nearer to death out there on the plain than we will ever be again, I
hope. But we are comfortable now, and warm. Eh? You are no longer
afraid?"
He sat down beside his daughter, and gently pulled back the soft fur
that enveloped the bundle she held in her arms. He could see one pink
cheek of baby Joan. The eyes of Joan, the mother, were like stars.
"It was the baby who saved us," she whispered. "The dogs were being torn
to pieces by the wolves, and I saw them leaping upon you, when one of
them sprang to the sledge. At first I thought it was one of the dogs.
But it was a wolf. He tore once at us, and the bearskin saved us. He was
almost at my throat when baby cried, and then he stood there, his red
eyes a foot from us, and I could have sworn again that he was a dog. In
an instant he turned, and was fighting the wolves. I saw him leap upon
one that was almost at your throat."
"He _was_ a dog," said old Pierre, holding out his hands to the warmth.
"They often wander away from the posts, and join the wolves. I have had
dogs do that. _Ma cheri_, a dog is a dog all his life. Kicks, abuse,
even the wolves can not change him--for long. He was one of the pack. He
came with them--to kill. But when he found _us_--"
"He fought for us," breathed the girl. She gave him the bundle, and
stood up, straight and tall and slim in the firelight. "He fought for
us--and he was terribly hurt," she said. "I saw him drag himself away.
Father, if he is out there--dying--"
Pierre Radisson stood up. He coughed in a shuddering way, trying to
stifle the sound under his beard. The fleck of crimson that came to his
lips with the cough Joan did not see. She had seen nothing of it during
the six days they had been traveling up from the edge of civilization.
Because of that cough, and the stain that came with it, Pierre had made
more than ordinary haste.
"I have been thinking of that," he said. "He was badly hurt, and I do
not think he went far. Here--take little Joan and sit close to the fire
until I come back."
The moon and the stars were brilliant in the sky when he went out in the
plain. A short distance from the edge of the timber-line he stood for a
moment upon the spot where the wolves had overtaken them an hour before.
Not one of his four dogs had lived. The snow was red with their blood,
and their bodies lay stiff where they had fallen under the pack. Pierre
shuddered as he looked at them. If the wolves had not turned their first
mad attack upon the dogs, what would have become of himself, Joan and
the baby? He turned away, with another of those hollow coughs that
brought the blood to his lips.
A few yards to one side he found in the snow the trail of the strange
dog that had come with the wolves, and had turned against them in that
moment when all seemed lost. It was not a clean running trail. It was
more of a furrow in the snow, and Pierre Radisson followed it, expecting
to find the dog dead at the end of it.
In the sheltered spot to which he had dragged himself in the edge of the
forest Kazan lay for a long time after the fight, alert and watchful.
He felt no very great pain. But he had lost the power to stand upon his
legs. His flanks seemed paralyzed. Gray Wolf crouched close at his side,
sniffing the air. They could smell the camp, and Kazan could detect the
two things that were there--_man_ and _woman_. He knew that the girl was
there, where he could see the glow of the firelight through the spruce
and the cedars. He wanted to go to her. He wanted to drag himself close
in to the fire, and take Gray Wolf with him, and listen to her voice,
and feel the touch of her hand. But the man was there, and to him man
had always meant the club, the whip, pain, death.
Gray Wolf crouched close to his side, and whined softly as she urged
Kazan to flee deeper with her into the forest. At last she understood
that he could not move, and she ran nervously out into the plain, and
back again, until her footprints were thick in the trail she made. The
instincts of matehood were strong in her. It was she who first saw
Pierre Radisson coming over their trail, and she ran swiftly back to
Kazan and gave the warning.
Then Kazan caught the scent, and he saw the shadowy figure coming
through the starlight. He tried to drag himself back, but he could move
only by inches. The man came rapidly nearer. Kazan caught the glisten of
the rifle in his hand. He heard his hollow cough, and the tread of his
feet in the snow. Gray Wolf crouched shoulder to shoulder with him,
trembling and showing her teeth. When Pierre had approached within fifty
feet of them she slunk back into the deeper shadows of the spruce.
Kazan's fangs were bared menacingly when Pierre stopped and looked down
at him. With an effort he dragged himself to his feet, but fell back
into the snow again. The man leaned his rifle against a sapling and bent
over him fearlessly. With a fierce growl Kazan snapped at his extended
hands. To his surprise the man did not pick up a stick or a club. He
held out his hand again--cautiously--and spoke in a voice new to Kazan.
The dog snapped again, and growled.
The man persisted, talking to him all the time, and once his mittened
hand touched Kazan's head, and escaped before the jaws could reach it.
Again and again the man reached out his hand, and three times Kazan felt
the touch of it, and there was neither threat nor hurt in it. At last
Pierre turned away and went back over the trail.
When he was out of sight and hearing, Kazan whined, and the crest along
his spine flattened. He looked wistfully toward the glow of the fire.
The man had not hurt him, and the three-quarters of him that was dog
wanted to follow.
Gray Wolf came back, and stood with stiffly planted forefeet at his
side. She had never been this near to man before, except when the pack
had overtaken the sledge out on the plain. She could not understand.
Every instinct that was in her warned her that he was the most dangerous
of all things, more to be feared than the strongest beasts, the storms,
the floods, cold and starvation. And yet this man had not harmed her
mate. She sniffed at Kazan's back and head, where the mittened hand had
touched. Then she trotted back into the darkness again, for beyond the
edge of the forest she once more saw moving life.
The man was returning, and with him was the girl. Her voice was soft
and sweet, and there was about her the breath and sweetness of woman.
The man stood prepared, but not threatening.
"Be careful, Joan," he warned.
She dropped on her knees in the snow, just out of reach.
"Come, boy--come!" she said gently. She held out her hand. Kazan's
muscles twitched. He moved an inch--two inches toward her. There was the
old light in her eyes and face now, the love and gentleness he had known
once before, when another woman with shining hair and eyes had come into
his life. "Come!" she whispered as she saw him move, and she bent a
little, reached a little farther with her hand, and at last touched his
head.
Pierre knelt beside her. He was proffering something, and Kazan smelled
meat. But it was the girl's hand that made him tremble and shiver, and
when she drew back, urging him to follow her, he dragged himself
painfully a foot or two through the snow. Not until then did the girl
see his mangled leg. In an instant she had forgotten all caution, and
was down close at his side.
"He can't walk," she cried, a sudden tremble in her voice. "Look, _mon
père!_ Here is a terrible cut. We must carry him."
"I guessed that much," replied Radisson. "For that reason I brought the
blanket. _Mon Dieu_, listen to that!"
From the darkness of the forest there came a low wailing cry.
Kazan lifted his head and a trembling whine answered in his throat. It
was Gray Wolf calling to him.
It was a miracle that Pierre Radisson should put the blanket about
Kazan, and carry him in to the camp, without scratch or bite. It was
this miracle that he achieved, with Joan's arm resting on Kazan's shaggy
neck as she held one end of the blanket. They laid him down close to the
fire, and after a little it was the man again who brought warm water and
washed away the blood from the torn leg, and then put something on it
that was soft and warm and soothing, and finally bound a cloth about it.
All this Was strange and new to Kazan. Pierre's hand, as well as the
girl's, stroked his head. It was the man who brought him a gruel of meal
and tallow, and urged him to eat, while Joan sat with her chin in her
two hands, looking at the dog, and talking to him. After this, when he
was quite comfortable, and no longer afraid, he heard a strange small
cry from the furry bundle on the sledge that brought his head up with a
jerk.
Joan saw the movement, and heard the low answering whimper in his
throat. She turned quickly to the bundle, talking and cooing to it as
she took it in her arms, and then she pulled back the bearskin so that
Kazan could see. He had never seen a baby before, and Joan held it out
before him, so that he could look straight at it and see what a
wonderful creature it was. Its little pink face stared steadily at
Kazan. Its tiny fists reached out, and it made queer little sounds at
him, and then suddenly it kicked and screamed with delight and laughed.
At those sounds Kazan's whole body relaxed, and he dragged himself to
the girl's feet.
"See, he likes the baby!" she cried. "_Mon père_, we must give him a
name. What shall it be?"
"Wait till morning for that," replied the father. "It is late, Joan. Go
into the tent, and sleep. We have no dogs now, and will travel slowly.
So we must start early."
With her hand on the tent-flap, Joan, turned.
"He came with the wolves," she said. "Let us call him Wolf." With one
arm she was holding the little Joan. The other she stretched out to
Kazan. "Wolf! Wolf!" she called softly.
Kazan's eyes were on her. He knew that she was speaking to him, and he
drew himself a foot toward her.
"He knows it already!" she cried. "Good night, _mon père_."
For a long time after she had gone into the tent, old Pierre Radisson
sat on the edge of the sledge, facing the fire, with Kazan at his feet.
Suddenly the silence was broken again by Gray Wolf's lonely howl deep in
the forest. Kazan lifted his head and whined.
"She's calling for you, boy," said Pierre understandingly.
He coughed, and clutched a hand to his breast, where the pain seemed
rending him.
"Frost-bitten lung," he said, speaking straight at Kazan. "Got it early
in the winter, up at Fond du Lac. Hope we'll get home--in time--with the
kids."
In the loneliness and emptiness of the big northern wilderness one falls
into the habit of talking to one's self. But Kazan's head was alert, and
his eyes watchful, so Pierre spoke to him.
"We've got to get them home, and there's only you and me to do it," he
said, twisting his beard. Suddenly he clenched his fists.
His hollow racking cough convulsed him again.
"Home!" he panted, clutching his chest. "It's eighty miles straight
north--to the Churchill--and I pray to God we'll get there--with the
kids--before my lungs give out."
He rose to his feet, and staggered a little as he walked. There was a
collar about Kazan's neck, and he chained him to the sledge. After that
he dragged three or four small logs upon the fire, and went quietly into
the tent where Joan and the baby were already asleep. Several times
that night Kazan heard the distant voice of Gray Wolf calling for him,
but something told him that he must not answer it now. Toward dawn Gray
Wolf came close in to the camp, and for the first time Kazan replied to
her.
His howl awakened the man. He came out of the tent, peered for a few
moments up at the sky, built up the fire, and began to prepare
breakfast. He patted Kazan on the head, and gave him a chunk of meat.
Joan came out a few moments later, leaving the baby asleep in the tent.
She ran up and kissed Pierre, and then dropped down on her knees beside
Kazan, and talked to him almost as he had heard her talk to the baby.
When she jumped up to help her father, Kazan followed her, and when Joan
saw him standing firmly upon his legs she gave a cry of pleasure.
It was a strange journey that began into the North that day. Pierre
Radisson emptied the sledge of everything but the tent, blankets, food
and the furry nest for baby Joan. Then he harnessed himself in the
traces and dragged the sledge over the snow. He coughed incessantly.
"It's a cough I've had half the winter," lied Pierre, careful that Joan
saw no sign of blood on his lips or beard. "I'll keep in the cabin for a
week when we get home."
Even Kazan, with that strange beast knowledge which man, unable to
explain, calls instinct, knew that what he said was not the truth.
Perhaps it was largely because he had heard other men cough like this,
and that for generations his sledge-dog ancestors had heard men cough as
Radisson coughed--and had learned what followed it.
More than once he had scented death in tepees and cabins, which he had
not entered, and more than once he had sniffed at the mystery of death
that was not quite present, but near--just as he had caught at a
distance the subtle warning of storm and of fire. And that strange thing
seemed to be very near to him now, as he followed at the end of his
chain behind the sledge. It made him restless, and half a dozen times,
when the sledge stopped, he sniffed at the bit of humanity buried in the
bearskin. Each time that he did this Joan was quickly at his side, and
twice she patted his scarred and grizzled head until every drop of
blood in his body leaped riotously with a joy which his body did not
reveal.
This day the chief thing that he came to understand was that the little
creature on the sledge was very precious to the girl who stroked his
head and talked to him, and that it was very helpless. He learned, too,
that Joan was most delighted, and that her voice was softer and thrilled
him more deeply, when he paid attention to that little, warm, living
thing in the bearskin.
For a long time after they made camp Pierre Radisson sat beside the
fire. To-night he did not smoke. He stared straight into the flames.
When at last he rose to go into the tent with the girl and the baby, he
bent over Kazan and examined his hurt.
"You've got to work in the traces to-morrow, boy," he said. "We must
make the river by to-morrow night. If we don't--"
He did not finish. He was choking back one of those tearing coughs when
the tent-flap dropped behind him. Kazan lay stiff and alert, his eyes
filled with a strange anxiety. He did not like to see Radisson enter the
tent, for stronger than ever there hung that oppressive mystery in the
air about him, and it seemed to be a part of Pierre.
Three times that night he heard faithful Gray Wolf calling for him deep
in the forest, and each time he answered her. Toward dawn she came in
close to camp. Once he caught the scent of her when she circled around
in the wind, and he tugged and whined at the end of his chain, hoping
that she would come in and lie down at his side. But no sooner had
Radisson moved in the tent than Gray Wolf was gone. The man's face was
thinner, and his eyes were redder this morning. His cough was not so
loud or so rending. It was like a wheeze, as if something had given way
inside, and before the girl came out he clutched his hands often at his
throat. Joan's face whitened when she saw him. Anxiety gave way to fear
in her eyes. Pierre Radisson laughed when she flung her arms about him,
and coughed to prove that what he said was true.
"You see the cough is not so bad, my Joan," he said. "It is breaking up.
You can not have forgotten, _ma cheri_? It always leaves one red-eyed
and weak."
It was a cold bleak dark day that followed, and through it Kazan and
the man tugged at the fore of the sledge, with Joan following in the
trail behind. Kazan's wound no longer hurt him. He pulled steadily with
all his splendid strength, and the man never lashed him once, but patted
him with his mittened hand on head and back. The day grew steadily
darker and in the tops of the trees there was the low moaning of a
storm.
Darkness and the coming of the storm did not drive Pierre Radisson into
camp. "We must reach the river," he said to himself over and over again.
"We must reach the river--we must reach the river--" And he steadily
urged Kazan on to greater effort, while his own strength at the end of
the traces grew less.
It had begun to storm when Pierre stopped to build a fire at noon. The
snow fell straight down in a white deluge so thick that it hid the tree
trunks fifty yards away. Pierre laughed when Joan shivered and snuggled
close up to him with the baby in her arms. He waited only an hour, and
then fastened Kazan in the traces again, and buckled the straps once
more about his own waist. In the silent gloom that was almost night
Pierre carried his compass in his hand, and at last, late in the
afternoon, they came to a break in the timber-line, and ahead of them
lay a plain, across which Radisson pointed an exultant hand.
"There's the river, Joan," he said, his voice faint and husky. "We can
camp here now and wait for the storm to pass."
Under a thick clump of spruce he put up the tent, and then began
gathering fire-wood. Joan helped him. As soon as they had boiled coffee
and eaten a supper of meat and toasted biscuits, Joan went into the tent
and dropped exhausted on her thick bed of balsam boughs, wrapping
herself and the baby up close in the skins and blankets. To-night she
had no word for Kazan. And Pierre was glad that she was too tired to sit
beside the fire and talk. And yet--
Kazan's alert eyes saw Pierre start suddenly. He rose from his seat on
the sledge and went to the tent. He drew back the flap and thrust in his
head and shoulders.
"Asleep, Joan?" he asked.
"Almost, father. Won't you please come--soon?"
"After I smoke," he said. "Are you comfortable?"
"Yes, I'm so tired--and--sleepy--"
Pierre laughed softly. In the darkness he was gripping at his throat.
"We're almost home, Joan. That is our river out there--the Little
Beaver. If I should run away and leave you to-night you could follow it
right to our cabin. It's only forty miles. Do you hear?"
"Yes--I know--"
"Forty miles--straight down the river. You couldn't lose yourself, Joan.
Only you'd have to be careful of air-holes in the ice."
"Won't you come to bed, father? You're tired--and almost sick."
"Yes--after I smoke," he repeated. "Joan, will you keep reminding me
to-morrow of the air-holes? I might forget. You can always tell them,
for the snow and the crust over them are whiter than that on the rest of
the ice, and like a sponge. Will you remember--the airholes--"
"Yes-s-s-s--"
Pierre dropped the tent-flap and returned to the fire. He staggered as
he walked.
"Good night, boy," he said. "Guess I'd better go in with the kids. Two
days more--forty miles--two days--"
Kazan watched him as he entered the tent. He laid his weight against the
end of his chain until the collar shut off his wind. His legs and back
twitched. In that tent where Radisson had gone were Joan and the baby.
He knew that Pierre would not hurt them, but he knew also that with
Pierre Radisson something terrible and impending was hovering very near
to them. He wanted the man outside--by the fire--where he could lie
still, and watch him.
In the tent there was silence. Nearer to him than before came Gray
Wolf's cry. Each night she was calling earlier, and coming closer to the
camp. He wanted her very near to him to-night, but he did not even whine
in response. He dared not break that strange silence in the tent. He lay
still for a long time, tired and lame from the day's journey, but
sleepless. The fire burned lower; the wind in the tree-tops died away;
and the thick gray clouds rolled like a massive curtain from under the
skies. The stars began to glow white and metallic, and from far in the
North there came faintly a crisping moaning sound, like steel
sleigh-runners running over frosty snow--the mysterious monotone of the
Northern Lights. After that it grew steadily and swiftly colder.
To-night Gray Wolf did not compass herself by the direction of the wind.
She followed like a sneaking shadow over the trail Pierre Radisson had
made, and when Kazan heard her again, long after midnight, he lay with,
his head erect, and his body rigid, save for a curious twitching of his
muscles. There was a new note in Gray Wolf's voice, a wailing note in
which there was more than the mate-call. It was The Message. And at the
sound of it Kazan rose from out of his silence and his fear, and with
his head turned straight up to the sky he howled as the wild dogs of the
North howl before the tepees of masters who are newly dead.
Pierre Radisson was dead.