CHAPTER XXXVI
DREAMS
Christmas was but a week distant. For the first time in years JeanMarcel possessed a dog-team, and through the long December nights he hadcome to a decision to talk to Julie Breton once more, as in the olddays, before she left Whale River forever.
Led by Fleur, Colin, Angus and Jules, now grown to huge huskies, alreadyabreast of their mother in height and bulk of bone, and showing the wolfstrain in their rangy gait and in red lower-lids of their amber eyes,were jingling down the river trail to the festivities at the post. For,from Fort Chimo, west across the wide north, to Rampart House, Christmasand New Years are kept. From far and wide come dog-teams of the redhunters down the frozen river trails for the feasting and merrymaking atthe fur-posts. Two weeks, "fourteen sleeps" on the trail, going andcoming, is not held by many a hardy hunter and his family too high aprice to pay for a few short days of trading and gossip and dancing.There are many who trap too far from the posts and in country tooinaccessible to make the journey possible, but throughout the whitedesolation of the fur lands the spirit of Christmas is strong and yearlythe frozen valleys echo to the tinkling of the bells of dog-teams andthe laughter of the children of the snows.
Over the beaten river trail, ice-hardened by the passage of many sledspreceding them, romped Fleur and her sons, toying with the weight of thetwo men and the food bags on the sled. At times, Jean and Michel ranbehind the team to stretch their legs and start their chilled blood, forit was forty below zero. But to the dogs, travelling without wind atforty below on a beaten trail, was sheer delight. Often, on the highbarrens of the Salmon they had slept soundly in their snow holes atminus sixty.
As Jean watched his great lead-dog, her thick coat of slate-gray andwhite glossy with superb vitality, set a pace for her rangy sons whichsent the white miles sliding swiftly past, his heart sang.
Good all day for a thousand pounds, they were, on a broken trail, andsince November he had in vain sought the limit of their staying power.Not yet the equals of their mother in pulling strength, at eighteenmonths their wolf-blood had already given the puppies her stamina. Whata team to bring the Christmas mails up the coast from East Main! hethought, idly whirling the whip of plaited caribou hide which had neverflecked the ears of Fleur, but which he sometimes needed when theexcitable Colin or Angus scented game and, puppy-like, started to bolt.No dogs on the coast could take the trail from these sons of Fleur. Nodog-team he had ever seen could break-out and trot away with a thousandpounds. That winter they had done it with a load of caribou meat on thebarrens. Yes, next year he would accept Gillies' offer and put Fleur andher sons on the winter-mail--Fleur, and the team she had given him; hisFleur, whom he had followed and fought for: who had in turn battled forhis life.
"Marche, Fleur!" he called, his eyes bright with his thoughts.
The lead-dog leaped from a swinging trot into a long lope, straighteningthe traces, followed by the team keen for a run. Away they raced in thegood going of the hard trail. Then, in early afternoon when the sun hunglow in the dim west, the men turned into the thick timber of the shores,where, sheltered from the wind, they shovelled out a camp ground withtheir snow-shoes and built a roaring fire while the puppies, ravenousfor their supper, yelped and fretted until Jean threw them the frozenfish which they caught in the air and bolted.
Before Jean and Michel had boiled their tea and caribou stew, fourshaggy shapes with noses in tails were asleep in the snow, indifferentto the sting of the strengthening cold which made the spruces aroundthem snap, and split the river ice with the boom of cannon.
Wrapped in his fur robe before the fire, Marcel lay wondering if heshould find Julie Breton still at Whale River.
Hours later, waking with a groan, Marcel sat upright in his blankets.Near him the tired Michel snored peacefully. Throwing a circle of lighton the surrounding spruce, huge embers of the fire still burned. Themoon was dead, a veil of haze masking the dim stars. It was bitter cold.Half out of his covering, the startled _voyageur_ shivered, but it wasnot from the bite of the air. It was the stark poignancy of the dreamfrom which he had escaped, that left him cold.
He had stood by the big chute of the Conjuror's Falls on the Ghost,known as the "Chute of Death," and as he gazed into the boilingmaelstrom of white-water, the blanched face of Julie Breton had lookedup at him, her lips moving in hopeless appeal, as she was swept fromsight.
Into the roaring flume he had plunged headlong, frenziedly seeking her,as he vainly fought down through the gorge, buffeted and mauled by thechurning water, but though he hunted the length of the river below,never found her.
Again, he was travelling with Fleur and the team in a blizzard, when outof the smother of snow before him beckoned the wraith of JulieBreton--always just ahead, always beckoning to him. Pushing his dogs totheir utmost he never drew nearer, never reached the wistful face heloved, luring him through the curtain of snow.
Marcel freshened the fire and lighted his pipe. It was long before hethrew off the grip of his dreams and slept.
The Whelps of the Wolf Page 37