One hundred and fifty miles down the wind-harassed East Coast, was a man who could save Julie Breton. The mind of Marcel held one thought only as his hurrying dogs loped down the river trail to the Bay. Dark though it was, for the stars were veiled, Fleur never faltered, keeping the trail by instinct and the feel of her feet.
Reaching the Bay the trail swung south skirting the beach, often cutting inland to avoid circling long points and shoulders of shore; at the Cape of the Winds—the midwinter vortex of unleashed Arctic blasts—making a deep cut to the sheltered valley of the Little Salmon. Marcel was too dog-wise to push his huskies as they swung south on the sea-ice, for no sled-dogs work well after eating.
As the late moon slowly lifted, he shook his head, for it was a moon of snow. If only the weather held until he could bring his man from Fort George, but fate was against him. That he could average fifty miles a day going and coming, with the light sled, he was confident. He knew what hearts beat in those shaggy breasts in front—what stamina he had never put to the supreme test, lay in their massive frames. He knew that Fleur would set her sons a pace, at the call of Jean Marcel, that would eat the frozen miles to Fort George, as they had never before slid past a dog-runner. But once a December norther struck down upon them on their return, burying the trail in drift, with its shot-like drive in the teeth of man and dogs, it would kill their speed, as a cliff stops wind.
He had intended to camp for a few hours, later in the night, to rest his dogs, but the warning of the ringed moon flicked him with fear, as a whiplash stings a lagging husky. It meant in December, snow and wind. He must race that wind to the lee of Big Island, so he pushed on through the night over the frozen shell of the Bay, stopping only once to boil tea and rest his over-willing dogs.
As day broke blue and bitter in the ashen east, a team of spent huskies with ice-hung lips and flews swung in from the trail skirting the lee shore of Big Island and the driver in belted caribou capote, a rim of ice from his frozen breath circling his lean face, made a fire from cedar kindlings brought on the sled, boiled tea and pemmican, and feeding his dogs, lay down in his robes. In twelve hours of constant toil the dogs of Marcel had put Whale River sixty white miles behind.
At noon he shook off the sleep which weighted his limbs, forced himself from his blankets, ate and pushed on. Although the air smelled of snow, and in the north, brooding, low-banked clouds hugged the Bay, snow and wind still held off.
In early afternoon as the sun buried itself in the ice-fields, muffled rays lit the bald shoulders of the distant Cape of the Four Winds, seventy miles from his goal.
"Haw, Fleur!" he called, and the lead-dog swung inland, to the left, on the short-cut across the Cape.
As yet the tough Ungavas had shown no signs of lagging. With their superb vitality and staying power, they had travelled steadily through the night, after a half day on the river. Led by their tireless mother, each hour they had put five miles of snowy trail behind them. With the weather steady, Marcel had no doubt of when he would reach Whale River, for the weight of an extra man on the sled would be little felt on a hard trail and he would run much himself. But with the menace of snow and wind hanging over him, he travelled with a heavy heart.
On Christmas Eve, again a ringed moon rose as the dogs raced down an icy trail into the valley of the Little Salmon. The conviction that a December blizzard, long overdue, was making in the north to strike down upon him, paralyzing his speed, drove him on through the night. Reckless of himself, he was equally reckless of his dogs, led by the iron Fleur. It was well that her still growing sons had the blood of timber wolves in their veins, for Fleur, sensing the frenzy of Marcel to push on and on, responded with all her matchless stamina.