CHAPTER XVII
THE TURN OF THE TIDE
Before dawn, a cold nose nuzzling his face buried in his robe, wakedMarcel.
"Fleur, hungry? Eet ees better to sleep w'en dere ees no breakfast," heprotested.
The warm tongue sought the face of the drowsy man, and the dog, not tobe put off, thrust her nose roughly into his robe, whimpering as shepulled at his capote.
"Poor Fleur!" he muttered. "No more meat for de pup! Lie down! Jean eesver' tired."
But the dog, bent on arousing the master, grew only the more insistent.Seizing an arm in her jaws, she dragged Marcel from his rabbit-skinblankets.
As he sat upright, wide awake, Fleur sniffed long at the frosty air,then dashed yelping into the dusk up the trail toward the barren.Turning, she ran back to camp, whining excitedly.
"Tiens! W'at you smell, Fleur?" cried Marcel tearing his rifle withshaking hands from its skin case and cramming cartridges into a pocket.Could it be, he wondered, could it be the deer at last? No, only astarving wolf or lynx, prowling near the camp, likely. But still hewould go! The love of life was yet strong in Jean Marcel now that agleam of hope warmed his heart.
Slipping his toes into the thongs of his snow-shoes, he made Fleur fastto a tree, and started. He was so weak from lack of food that often hewas forced to stop in the climb, shaken by his hammering heart. At last,exhausted, he dragged himself to the shoulder of the barren and onunsteady legs moved along the edge of the scrub, his eyes straining topierce the wall of dusk which shut the plateau from his sight. But theshadows still blanketed the barren; so testing the light wind, that hemight move directly out toward the game when the light grew stronger, hesat down to save his strength for the stalk. Only too clearly, hisweakness warned him that it was his last hunt. By another day, eventhough he managed the climb, his trembling hands would prevent thelining of his sights on game.
As opal and rose faintly streaked the east, the teeth of the hunter,waiting to read the fate daylight would disclose, chattered in thestinging air. But a space now, and he would know whether he were tocreep back to his blankets and wait for stark despair to steady the handwhich would bring swift release for Fleur and himself, or whether meat,food, life, were scraping with round-toed hooves the snow from thecaribou moss out there in the dim dawn.
Daylight filtered over the floor of snow to meet Marcel lying at the topof a rise out on the barren, waiting. As the light at length opened upthe treeless miles, a sob shook the lean frame of the hunter. Tearswelled in the deep-set eyes to course down and freeze upon his face, forthere, on the snow before him, were the _blue-gray shapes of caribou_.
Three deer were feeding almost within range while farther out, graypatches, moving on the snow, marked other bands. At last the springmigration had reached him, and barely in time. He would see Whale Riveragain when June came north. And Fleur, fretting back there in camp athis absence, after the lean days would revel and grow gigantic on deermeat.
Painfully Marcel crawled within easy range of the nearest caribou. As heattempted to line his sights in order to hit two with the first shot, ashe had often done, the waving of his gun barrel in his trembling handsswept him cold with fear. The exertion of crawling to his position hadcruelly shaken his nerves. So he rested.
Then he carefully took aim. As he fired, his heart skipped a beat, forhe thought he had missed. But to his joy a caribou bounded from thesnow, ran a few feet and fell, while another, stopping to scent the airbefore circling up-wind, gave him a second shot. The deer was badly hitand the next shot brought it down.
The tension of the crisis passed, the shattered nerves relaxed, and fora space the starving hunter lay limp in the snow. But warned by hisrapidly numbing fingers, he forced himself to his feet and went to thedeer. Out on the barren beyond the sound of his rifle scattered bands ofcaribou were feeding. Meat to take them through the big "break-up" ofApril was at hand. The lean face of Jean Marcel twisted into a grimsmile.
_He had beaten the long snows._
Stopping only to take the tongues and a piece of haunch, Marcel returnedto his hungry dog. Frantic with the faint scent of caribou brought bythe breeze off the barren, the famished Fleur chafed and fretted for hisreturn.
"Here, Fleur, see what Jean Marcel got for you!"
The husky, maddened by the scent of the blood-red meat, plunged at herleash, her jaws dripping with slaver. Throwing her a chunk of frozenhaunch which she bolted greedily, Marcel filled his kettle with snow andputting in a tongue and strips of steak to boil, lay down by his fire.
The Whelps of the Wolf Page 18