CHAPTER II.
In his joy at his good luck, Marcel had momentarily forgotten the ancient feud between the Eskimo and the Cree. Then he realized his position. These rapids of the Salmon were an age-old fishing ground of the Husky. No birch bark had ever run the broken waters behind him—no Indian hunted so far north. If among these people there were any who traded at Whale River where Cree and Eskimo met in amity, they would recognize the son of the old Hudson’s Bay Company head man, André Marcel, and welcome him. But should they chance to be wild Huskies who did not come south to the post, they would mistake him for a Cree and, resenting his entering their territory, attack him.
Drawing his loaded rifle from its skin case, he placed it at his feet and poled his canoe slowly toward the shore where a bedlam of howls from the dogs signaled his approach. The clamor quickly emptied the lodges scattered along the beach. A group of Huskies now watched the progress of the strange craft, every man armed with rifle or seal spear. The canoe was so close that only by a miracle could Marcel hope to escape down stream if they started shooting.
The Frenchman snubbed his boat, leaning on his pole while his anxious eyes searched for a familiar figure in the skin-clad throng which talked and gesticulated excitedly. But among them he found no friendly face.
“Kekway!” he called. “I am white man from Whale Riviere!”
His muscles tensely set, he watched for a hostile movement from the Huskies silenced by his shout. No answer was returned from the shore. His hopes died. They were wild Eskimos and would show no mercy to the supposed Cree invader of their hereditary fishing ground.
Yet the hostility which the Frenchman awaited was delayed. Not a gun in the whispering throng on the beach was raised; not a word in Eskimo addressed the stranger. Mystified, Marcel called again, this time in post Husky:
“I am a white man, from the fort at Whale River. Is there one among you who trades there?”
The tension of the sullen group seemed to relax. Pointing to a thickset figure striding up the beach, a Husky shouted:
“There is one who goes to Whale River!”
Marcel expelled the air from his lungs with relief. One wrong move, and a hail of lead would have emptied his canoe. Then to his joy he recognized the man who approached.
“Kovik!” he shouted. “It ees Jean Marcel from Whale Riviere!”
The Husky waved his hand to Marcel, then turned to his comrades. For a space there was much talk and shaking of heads; then he called to Jean to come ashore.
Grounding his canoe, Marcel gripped the hand of the grinning Kovik while the other Huskies fell back, eying them with mingled curiosity and fear.
“Husky say you bad spirit. Kovik say you are son of little chief at Whale River. W’ere you come?”
It was clear, now, why the Eskimos had not wiped him out. They had thought him a demon, for Eskimo tradition, as well as Cree, made the upper Salmon the abode of evil spirits.
“I look for huntin’ ground, on de head of riviere,” said Jean.
“Good dat Kovik come,” returned the Eskimo. “Some say shoot you; some say you eat de bullet an’ de Husky.”
Jean laughed: “No, I camp wid no Windigo up riviere; but I starve.”
At this gentle hint, Marcel was invited to join in the supper of boiled seal and goose which was waiting at the tepee. When Kovik had prevailed upon some of the older Eskimos to forget their fears and shake hands with the man who had appeared from the land of spirits, Jean stowed his outfit on the cache of the Husky, freed his canoe of water and, placing it beside his packs, joined the family party. Shaking hands in turn with Kovik’s grinning wife and children, who remembered him at Whale River, Marcel hungrily attacked the kettle, into which each dipped fingers and cup indiscriminately. Finishing, he passed a plug of company niggerhead to his hosts and lit his own pipe.
“W’ere you’ woman?” abruptly inquired the thickset mother of many.
“No woman,” replied Marcel, thinking of three spruce crosses in the mission cemetery at Whale River.
“No woman, you? No huskee?” pressed the curious wife of Kovik.
“No famile.” And Jean told of the deaths of parents and younger brother, from the plague of the summer before. But he failed to mention the fact that most of the dogs at the post had been wiped out at the same time.
“He good man—Marcel! He fr’en’ of me!” lamented Kovik. Sucking his pipe, he gravely nodded again and again. Surely, he intimated, the Hudson’s Bay Company had displeased the spirits of evil, to have been so punished. Then he asked: “W’ere you dog?”
“On Whale Riviere,” returned Jean grimly—referring to their bones.
His eyes were on the great dogs sprawled about the beach. He had seen no such sled dogs as these at the post, not even with the Eskimos. But his grave face betrayed no sign of what was in his mind.
Massive of bone and frame, with coats unusually heavy, even for the far-famed Ungava breed, Jean noted the strength and size of these magnificent beasts as a horse man marks the points of a blooded colt. Somewhat apart from the other dogs of Kovik, tumbling and roughing each other, frolicked four clumsy puppies, while the mother, a great slate-gray and white animal, lay near, watching her progeny through eyes whose lower lids, edged with red, marked the wolf strain. While those slant eyes kept restless guard, to molest one of her leggy, yelping imps of Satan would have been the bearding of a hundred furies.
One puppy, in particular, Marcel noticed as they romped and roughed each other on the shore, or with a brave show of valor, noisily charged their recumbent mother, only to be sent about their business with the mild reprimand of a nip from her long fangs. Larger, and of sturdier build than her brothers, this puppy, in marking, was the counterpart of the mother, having the same slate-gray patches on head and back and wearing white socks. As he watched her bully her brothers, Jean resolved to buy that four-months-old puppy.
As the Northern twilight filled the river valley, the Huskies returned to the lodge, where Jean squeezed in between the younger members of the family whose characteristic aroma held sleep from him long enough for him to decide on a plan of action. Before he started to trade for huskies he must learn if the Eskimos knew that dogs were scarce at the fur posts. If rumor of this, relayed up the coast, had reached them, he would be lucky to get even a puppy. They would send their spare dogs to the posts.
The following morning, at the suggestion of Kovik, Marcel set his gill net for whitefish on the opposite shore of the wide river, as the younger Eskimos showed unmistakably by their actions that his presence at the salmon fishing, soon to begin, was resented. But Jean needed food for his journey down the coast and for the dogs he hoped to buy, so ignored the dark looks cast at him. But not until evening did he casually suggest to Kovik that he, Kovik, had more dogs than he could feed through the summer. The broad face of Kovik widened in a mysterious smile.
“You geeve black fox for dog?” he asked.
Marcel’s hopes fell at the words. It was an unheard-of price for a dog. The Husky knew of the scarcity. But masking his chagrin, the Frenchman laughed in ridicule:
“I geeve otter for dog.”
Kovik shook his head, his narrowed eyes wrinkling in amusement: “No dogs at Whale Riv’—or Fort Geor’. Me trade dogs at Whale Riv’.”
It was useless to bargain further. The Husky knew the value of his dogs at the posts, and Jean could not afford to rob his fur pack to get one. There was much that he needed at Whale River. And then there was Julie. It was necessary to increase his credit with the company to pay for the home he would some day build for Julie and himself. So, when Kovik promptly refused a valuable cross-fox pelt for a dog, the disheartened boy gave it up.
But he still coveted the slate-gray and white puppy. Never had he seen a husky of her age with such bone—such promise as a sled dog. And her spirit—at four months she would bare her puppy fangs at an infringment of her rights by an old dog, as though she already wore the scars of many a brawl. Handsomer than her brothers, leader of the litter through a build more rugged, a stronger will.
The next morning, by way of strategic approach, Jean Marcel again offered a high price for a grown dog. But the smiling Kovik would not relent. Then Marcel suddenly pointing at the female puppy, offered the pelt of a marten for her. To Jean’s surprise, the owner refused to part with any of the litter. They would be better than the adult dogs, these children of the slate-gray husky, he said. It was a bitter moment for the lad who had swung his canoe inshore at the Husky camp with such high hopes. And he realized that it would be useless to turn north from the mouth of the Salmon in search of dogs. Now that they had learned of conditions at the fur posts, no Eskimos bound south for the spring trade would sell a dog at a reasonable price.
As Marcel watched with envious eyes the puppies which he realized were beyond his means to obtain, the cries of the eldest son of his host aroused the camp. Above them, in the chutes at the foot of the white water, flashes of silver marked the leaping vanguards of the salmon run, on their way to spring-fed streams at the river’s head. Seizing their salmon spears the Eskimos hurried upstream to take their stands on rocks which the fish might pass.
Having no spear Jean watched the thick set son of Kovik wade through the strong current out to a rock within spearing reach of a deep chute of black water. Presently the crouching lad drove his spear into the flume at his feet and was struggling on the rock With a large salmon. Killing the fish with his knife, he threw it, with a cry of triumph, to the beach. Again he waited, muscles tense, his right arm drawn back for the lunge. Again, as a silvery shape darted up the chute, the boy struck with his spear. But so anxious was he to drive the lance home, that, missing the fish, his lunge carried him headfirst into the swift water.
With a shout of warning to those above, Jean Marcel ran down the beach. His canoe was out of reach on the cache with the Husky’s kayak and the clumsy skin umiak of the family was useless for quick work. In his sealskin boots and clothes the lad would be carried to the foot of the rapids and drowned. Jean reached the “boilers” below the white water before the body of the help less Eskimo appeared. Plunging into the ice-cold river, he swam out into the current below the tail of the chute, and when the half-drowned lad floundered to the surface, seized him by his heavy hair. As they were swept downstream, an eddy threw their bodies together, and in spite of Marcel’s desperate efforts, the arms of the Husky closed on him. Strong as he was, the Frenchman could not break the grip, and they sank.
Marcel rose to the surface fighting to free himself from the clinging Eskimo; his sinewy fingers found the throat of the half-conscious boy and taking a long breath, he again went down with his burden. When the two came up Marcel was free. With a grip on the long hair of the now senseless lad he made the shore, dragging the Husky from the water.
Shaking with cold he was lying panting beside the still body of the boy when the terrified Eskimos reached them.
The welcome heat of a large fire soon thawed the chill from the bones of Marcel, but the anxious parents of the young Husky desperately rolled and pounded him, starting his blood and ridding his stomach of water, before he finally regained his voice, begging them to cease. With the boy out-of danger they turned to his rescuer, and only by vigorous objection did Marcel escape the treatment administered the Husky.
“You lak’ seal in de water,” cried the relieved father with admiration, when he had lavished his thanks upon Jean; for the Eskimos, although passing their lives on or near the water, because of its low temperature, never learn to swim.
“My fader taught me to swim in shallow lak’ by Fort George,” explained the Frenchman.
“He die—eef you no sweem lak’ seal,” added the grateful mother, her round face oily with sweat from the vigorous rubbing of her son, now snoring peacefully by the fire.
Then the Huskies returned to their fishing, for precious time was being wasted. The boy’s spear was found washed up on the beach and loaned to Jean, who labored the remainder of the day spearing salmon for his journey down the coast.
That evening, after supper, he sat on a stone in front of the tepee watching the active puppies. Inside the skin lodge the, Eskimo and his wife conversed in low tones. Shortly they appeared and Kovik, grinning from long side lock to side lock, said:
“You good man! You trade dat dog?” He pointed at the large slate-gray puppy sprawled near them.
The dark features of Jean Marcel lighted with eagerness.
“I geeve two marten for de dog,” he said, rising quickly.
The Husky turned to the woman, shaking his head. Then, seemingly changing his mind, Kovik seized the puppy by the loose skin of her neck and dragged her, protesting vigorously, to Jean, while the mother dog came trotting up, ears erect, curious as to what he was doing with her progeny.
“Dees you’ dog!” said the Eskimo.
Marcel patted the back of the puppy, still in the grasp of her owner, while she muttered her wrath at the touch of the stranger. Although evidently these Huskies wished to make him pay dearly for the dog, he was glad to get her, even at such a price. He went to the cache, loosened the lashings of his fur pack, and returned with two prime marten pelts, offering them to the Eskimo. Again Kovik’s broad face was divided by a grin.
“You lak’ seal in riv’—ketch de boy. Take dog—no want skin!” The Husky pushed the pelts away.
Marcel’s eyes widened in surprise as he stammered: “You—you geeve to me—dat puppy?”
Kovik nodded, grinning with delight at the success of his little ruse. But the young Frenchman’s eyes were suspiciously moist as he wrung the Eskimo’s hand. Now, after all, he was not to return empty-handed to Whale River, the laughingstock of his partners. It had been worth his while—this plunge into the Bad Lands. Now, in two years he should have the dog team of his dreams. Some day this four months’ old puppy should make the fortune of Jean Marcel.
He could not know how much more vital a part than that in his life—and in the life of Julie Breton—this wild puppy with the white socks was to play.