CHAPTER XV.
The snows were fading fast before the rain and sleet of the big thaw. Often, at night, the softening winds shifted, to drive in raw from the north, again tightening the land with frost. But each day, as May neared, the sun swung higher and higher, slowly scattering the snows to flood the ice of myriad lakes and rivers. Already, already Marcel had thrilled to the trumpets of the gray vanguards of the Canadas. On fair days the sun flashed from white fleets of wavies, bound through seas of April skies to far arctic ports.
With May the buds of birch and poplar began to swell, later to lighten with the soft green of their young leaves the somber reaches of upland jack pine and spruce. At dawn now, from dripping spires, whitethroat and hermit thrush, fleeter than the spring, startled the drowsing forest with a reveille of song.
One afternoon in May on his return from picking up a line of traps to be cached for use the following winter, Marcel went to the neighboring pond to lift his net. For safety on the rapidly sponging ice he wore his snowshoes and carried a twelve-foot spruce pole. He had reset the net and was lashing an anchor line to a stake when suddenly the honeycombed shell crumbled beneath his feet.
As he sank, he lunged for the pole he had dropped to set the net, but the surface settled under his leap, carrying him into the water. Fighting in the mush ice for the pole almost within reach, to his horror he found his right foot trapped. He could not move farther in that direction. The snowshoe was caught in the net.
Marcel turned back floundering to the edge of firm ice, where he held himself afloat. Fast numbing with cold as he clung, caught like a beaver in a trap, he knew that it was but a matter of minutes. Fleur, if only Fleur were there! But Fleur was hunting in the bush.
With a great effort he braced himself on his elbows, got his frozen fingers between his teeth, and blew the signal. Once heard, his dog had never failed to answer it.
To the joy of the man slowly chilling to the bone, a yelp sounded in the forest. Rallying his ebbing strength, again Marcel whistled. Shortly Fleur appeared on the shore, sighted the master and bounded through the surface slop out to the fishing hole. Reaching Marcel, the husky seized a skin sleeve of his capote and, arching her great back, fought the slippery footing in a mad effort to drag him from the water. But the net held him fast.
“De stick, Fleur! De stick dere!” Marcel pointed toward the pole.
Sensing his gesture, the dog brought the pole to the ice edge. Then with the pole bridging the hole, its ends on firm ice, Marcel worked his way to the submerged net, but the sinkers had hopelessly tangled the meshes with his snowshoe. Under his soggy capote was his knife. His stiff fingers fumbled desperately with the knot of his sash but failed to loose it. Again Fleur seized his sleeve and pulled until she rolled backward with a patch of the tough hide in her teeth.
The situation of the trapped man seemed hopeless. The chill of the water was fast numbing his senses. Already his heart slowed with the torpor of slow freezing. With difficulty he kept the excited Fleur from plunging beside him into the mush ice.
Then with a final effort he got his free leg, with its snowshoe, over the pole, and seizing the husky’s tail with both hands, cried:
“Marche, Fleur! Marche!”
Settling low between widespread forelegs, the dog dug her nails into the soft ice and hurled her weight into a fierce lunge. As her feet slipped, the legs of the husky worked like piston rods, showering Marcel’s face with water, her nails gouging the ice, while she fought the drag of the net.
At last something gave way, Marcel felt himself move, and the great dog slowly drew her master over the pole and up on the ice with the net still anchored to his right foot.
Still gripping Fleur’s tail in his left hand, with the other he finally reached his knife and, groping in the icy water, slashed the heel thong of the caught shoe. Free, Marcel limped to his camp, Fleur now leaping beside him, now marching proudly with his sleeve in her teeth.
The heat of the fire and the hot broth soon started the blood of the half-frozen Frenchman, who lay muffled in a blanket. Near him sprawled the husky, who had sensed only too acutely on the ice the danger menacing her master and would not now leave his sight, but with head on paws watched the blanketed figure through eyes which spoke the thoughts she could not express: “Jean may need Fleur again. She will stay with him by the fire.”
Once too often Marcel had gambled with the rotten spring ice and had barely missed paying for his rashness. To drown in a hole like a muskrat, after pulling out of starvation with a cache heavy with meat and fish, was unthinkable!