Part 26 (1/2)

But the panic-stricken Michel would not be left alone, and when he had fastened the excited puppies, with shaking hands he drew his rifle from its skin case and joined Marcel.

Holding with difficulty on her rawhide leash the aroused Fleur leaping ahead in the soft footing, Marcel snow-shoed through the timber in the direction from which the sound had come.

After travelling some time they stopped to listen.

From somewhere ahead, seemingly but a few hundred yards down the valley, floated the eerie sobbing. Michel's gun slipped to the snow from his palsied hands.

Turning, Jean gripped the boy's arm.

”Why you come? You no good to shoot. De Windigo eat you w'ile you hunt for your gun.”

Picking up the rifle, the boy threw off the mittens fastened to his sleeve by thongs, and gritting his teeth, followed Marcel and Fleur.

Shortly they stopped again to listen. Straight ahead through the spruce the moaning rose and fell. Fleur, frantic to reach the mysterious enemy, plunged forward dragging Marcel, followed by the quaking boy who held his c.o.c.ked rifle in readiness for the rush of beast or devil. Pa.s.sing through scrub, a small clearing opened up before them. Checking Fleur, Marcel peered through the dim light of the forest into the opening lit by the stars, when the clearing echoed with the uncanny sound.

Marcel's keen eyes strained across the star-lit snow into the murk beyond, as Michel gasped in his ears:

”By Gar! I see noding dere! Eet ees de Windigo for sure!”

But the Frenchman was staring fixedly at a clump of spruce on the opposite edge of the opening. As the unearthly sobbing rose again into the night, he loosed the maddened dog and followed.

They were close to the spruce, when a great gray shape suddenly rose from the snow directly in their path. For an instant a pair of pale wings flapped wildly in their faces. Then a squawk of terror was smothered as the fangs of Fleur struck at the feathered shape of a huge snowy owl. A wrench of the dog's powerful neck, and the ghostly hunter of the northern nights had made his last patrol, victim of his own curiosity.

With a loud laugh Jean turned to the dazed Michel:

”Tak' good look at de Windigo, Michel. My fox trap hold heem fas' w'ile he seeng to de star.”

The amazed Michel stared at the white demon in the fox trap with open mouth. ”I t'ink--dat h'owl--de Windigo for sure,” he stuttered.

”I nevaire hear de h'owl cry dat way myself, Michel, but I know dat Fleur and my gun mak' any Windigo een dees countree look whiter dan dat bird. W'en we come near dees place I expect somet'ing een dat fox trap.”

And strangely, through the remaining moons of the long snows, the sleep of the lad was not again disturbed by the wailing of Windigos seeking to devour a young half-breed Cree by the name of Michel Beaulieu.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

RAW WOUNDS

June once again found Marcel paddling into Whale River. The sight of the high-roofed Mission, where, in the past, he had known so much of joy and pain, quickened his stroke. He wondered whether she had gone away with Wallace at Christmas, or whether there would be a wedding when the trade was over and the steamer would take them to East Main. Avoiding the Mission until he had learned from Jules what he so longed to know, Marcel went up to the trade-house where he found Gillies and McCain. Too proud to speak of what was nearest his heart, he told his friends of his winter in the Salmon country. It had paid him well, his long portage from the Ghost, the previous September, to the untrapped valleys to the north. When, unlas.h.i.+ng his fur-pack, he tossed on the counter three glossy black-fox pelts and six skins of soft silver-gray, alone worth well over a thousand dollars, even at the low prices of the far north, the eyes of Gillies and Angus McCain bulged in amazement. Cross fox, shading from the black of the back and shoulder to rich mahogany, followed; dark sheeny marten--the Hudson's Bay sable of commerce--and thick gray pelts of the fisher. Otter, lynx and mink made up the balance of the fur.

”Great Scott! the Salmon headwaters must be alive with fur!” exclaimed Gillies examining the skins, ”and most of them are prime.”

”Dere ees much fur een dat country,” laughed Jean, ”eef de Windigo don'

ketch you, eh, Michel?”

Michel, proud of his part in so successful a winter and in having bearded the demons of the Salmon in their dens and lived to tell the tale, blushed at the memory of the snowy owl.

”This is the largest catch of fur traded in my time at Whale River, Jean,” said Gillies. ”What are you going to do with all your credit? You can't use it on yourself; you'll have to get married and build a shack here.”