he first week in September. This meant a race with the
"freeze-up" into Whale River, for with the autumn headwinds, it would
take him a month, travel as he might. Though he sorely needed geese for
food on his way north, there was no time to waste at Hannah Bay, so
Marcel paddled steadily all night. At dawn, in the mist off Gull Bay,
Fleur became so restless with the scent of the shoals of geese, which
the canoe was raising, that Jean was forced to put a gag of hide in her
mouth while he drifted with the tide on the "wavies" and shot a week's
supply of food.

At daylight he went ashore, concealed his canoe behind some boulders,
and trusting to Fleur's nose and ears to guard him from surprise, slept
the sleep of exhaustion. Later, while his breakfast was cooking, Jean
revelled in his reunion with his dog. In the weeks since he had last
seen her she had fairly leaped in height and weight. Food had been
plenty with the half-breeds and Fleur was not starved, but his blood
boiled at the evidence she bore of the breeds' brutality. He now
regretted that he had not ambushed the confederate of the man he had
beaten, and branded him, also, as the puppy had been marked.

Though Fleur was but six months old, the heavy legs and already massive
lines of her head gave promise of a maturity, unusual, even in the
Ungava breed. Some day, mused Marcel, as Fleur looked her love of the
master through her slant, brown eyes, her head on his knee, he would
have a dog-team equal to the famous huskies of his grandfather, Pierre
Marcel, who once took the Christmas mail from Albany to Fort Hope, four
hundred and fifty miles, over a drifted trail, in twelve days.

"Yes, some day Fleur will give Jean Marcel a team," he said aloud, and
rubbed the gray ears while Fleur's hairy throat rumbled in delight as
though she were struggling to answer: "Some day, Jean Marcel; for Fleur
will not forget how you came from the north and brought her home." And
then the muscles of his lean face twisted with pain as he went on: "But
who will there be to work for with Julie gone?"

That day, holding the nose of his canoe on Mount Sherrick, Jean crossed
the mouth of Rupert Bay and headed up the coast. In three days he was at
East Main, where he bought dried whitefish for Fleur, for huskies thrive
on whitefish as on no other food, and salt to cure geese; then started
the same night for Fort George. Two days out he was driven ashore by
the first north-wester and held pr