Part 24 (1/2)
That night when Julie had fed Fleur, she opened the stockade gate and stroking the great head of the dog, said slowly:
”Fleur would see Jean, Jean Marcel?”
At the sound of the master's name, Fleur's ears went forward, her slant eyes turning here and there for a sight of the familiar figure. Then with a whine she looked at Julie as if for explanation.
”Fleur will see Jean, soon. Will Fleur behave for Julie?”
With a yelp the husky leaped through the gate and ran to and fro outside, sniffing the air; then as if she knew the master were not there, returned, s.h.a.ggy body trembling, every nerve tense with antic.i.p.ation, slant eyes eagerly questioning as she whimpered her impatience.
Taking the dog by her plaited collar of caribou hide, to it Julie knotted a rope and led her into the Mission where McCain, Jules and Pere Breton waited.
”Fleur will be good and not hurt Jean. She must not leap on his bed. He is very sick.”
Seeming to sense that something was about to happen having to do with Marcel, Fleur met the girl's hand with a swift lick of her tongue. With the rope trailing behind, the end of which Jules and McCain seized to control the dog in case she became unmanageable, Julie Breton opened the door of Marcel's room, where with fever-flushed face the unconscious man lay on a low cot, one arm hanging limply to the floor. When the husky saw the motionless figure, she p.r.i.c.ked her ears, thrusting her muzzle forward, and sniffed, and as her nose revealed the glad news that here at last lay the lost Jean Marcel, she raised her head and yelped wildly.
Then swiftly muzzling Marcel's inert body she started to spring upon the bunk to wake him, when Julie Breton's arms circled her neck and aided by the drag on the rope, checked her.
”Down, Fleur! No! No! You must not hurt Jean.”
Seeming to sense that the mute Marcel was not to be roughly played with, the intelligent dog, whimpering like one of her puppies, caressed the free hand of the sick man, then, ignoring the weight on the rope dragging her back, she strained forward to reach his neck with her tongue, for his head was turned from her. But Jean Marcel did not return her caress.
Puzzled by his indifference, then sensing that harm had come to the unconscious Marcel, the dog raised her head over the cot and rocked the room with a wail of sorrow.
The wounded man sighed and turning, moaned:
”They took Fleur and now they take Julie. There is nothing left--nothing left!”
At the words, the nose of the overjoyed dog reached the hot face of Marcel, but his eyes did not see her.
Again Julie's strong arms circled Fleur's neck, restraining her. The slant eyes of the husky looked long into the pale face which showed no recognition; then she quietly sat down, resting her nose on his arm. And for hours, with Julie seated beside her, Fleur kept vigil beside the bed, until the priest and McCain insisted on the dog's removal.
When Jules brought a crying puppy outside the window of the sick room, for a time Fleur listened to the call of her offspring without removing her eyes from Marcel's face. But at length, maternal instinct temporarily conquered the desire to watch by the stricken man. Her unweaned puppies depended on her for life and for the moment mother love prevailed. With a final caress of the limp hand of Marcel, reluctantly, with head down and tail dragging, she followed Julie to the stockade.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
FROM THE FAR FRONTIERS
For days Marcel's youth and strength battled with the fever aggravated by infection in the deep wound. All that Gillies and Pere Breton could do for the stricken man was done, but barring the simple remedies which stock the medicine chest of a post in the far north and the most limited knowledge of surgery possessed by the factors, the recovery of a patient depends wholly upon his vitality and const.i.tution. With medical aid beyond reach, men die or fight back to health through the toughness of their fiber alone.
There was a time when Jean Marcel journeyed far toward the dim hills of a land from which there is no trail home for the feet of the _voyageur_.
There were nights when Julie Breton sat with her brother and Jules, or McCain, stark fear in their hearts that the sun would never again lift above the Whale River hills for Jean Marcel, never again his daring paddle flash in sunlit white-water, or his snow-shoes etch their webbed trail on the white floor of the silent places.
And during these days the impatient Wallace chafed with longing for the society of Julie whose pity for the sick man had made of her an indefatigable nurse. A few words in the morning and an hour or two at night was all the time she allotted the man to whom she had given her heart.
To the demand of the Inspector in the presence of Pere Breton that Julie should subst.i.tute a Cree woman as nurse, she had replied: