rapped 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 now 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 snow-shoe, over
the pole, and seizing the husky's tail with both hands, cried:

"Marche, Fleur! Marche!"

Settling low between wide-spread fore-legs, 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. Slowly the great
dog drew her master over the pole and upon 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 mused, he had gambled with the rotten spring ice,
and now had barely missed paying for his rashness. To drown in a hole
like a muskrat, after pulling out of the starvation days with a cache
heavy with meat and fish, was unthinkable. But, after all, what did it
matter? Life would be of small value now with Julie out of it.

CHAPTER XX

THE DEAD MAN TELLS HIS TALE

When, late in May, the snow had left the open places reached by the sun
and the ice cleared the rivers, Marcel was ready to make his first trip
to the camp on the Ghost. Poor Antoine would have to lie content in a
shallow grave among the boulders of the river shore, for the frost was
still in the ground. Before the weather softened Jean had smoked the
remainder of his meat and now he faced a ten-mile portage with his
outfit. Before the trails went bad he could have freighted o