"Could it be?" he queried aloud. Curious, the priest glanced at his patient, then went outside to the stockade. There, with gray nose thrust between the pickets, stood Fleur. As he approached, the dog growled, then sniffing, recognized a friend of the master, who sometimes fed her, and whined.
"What is the matter, Fleur? Do you miss Jean Marcel?"
At the mention of the loved name, the dog lifted her massive head and the deep throat again vibrated with the utterance of her grief for one who had not returned.
"She has waked to find the blanket of Jean Marcel empty," mused the priest, "and mourns for him." Père Breton returned to his vigil beside the wounded man.
When the early dawn flushed the east, the grieving Fleur was still at her post at the stockade gate awaiting the return of Jean Marcel. And not until the sun lifted above the blue hills of the valley of the Whale, did she cease her lament to seek her complaining puppies.
At daylight McCain and Jules coming to relieve the weary priest found Julie sitting with him. The wound was a long slashing one, but the lungs of Marcel seemed to have escaped. The fever would run its course. There was little to do but wait, and hope against infection.
Greeting Julie, whose dark eyes betrayed a lack of sleep, whose face reflected an agony of anxiety, the men called Père Breton outside the Mission.
"The Lelacs will not go south for trial, Father," said McCain, drily.
"What do you mean? Won't go south; why not?" demanded the astonished priest.
"Well, because there's no need of it now," went on McCain mysteriously.