At last they camped at the Point of the Caribou and ate. To-morrow, he thought, would be Christmas. A Merry Christmas indeed for Jean Marcel. Then he slept. The next afternoon as they passed Wastikun, the Isle of Graves, the wind shifted to the northeast and the snow closed in on the dog-team nearing its goal. The blizzard had come, and Jean Marcel, knowing what miles of drifts; what toil breaking trail to give footing to his team in the soft snow; what days of battling the drive of the wind whipping their faces with needle-pointed fury, awaited their return, groaned aloud. For it meant, battle as he would, he might now reach Whale River too late; he might find that Julie Breton had not waited, but over weary, had gone out into the sunset.
In the early evening, forty-eight hours out of Whale River, four white wraiths of huskies with a ghost-like driver, turned in to the trade-house at Fort George. The spent dogs lay down, dropping their frosted masks in the snow, the froth from their mouths rimming their lips with ice.
Sheeted in white from hood to moccasins, the voyageur entered the trade-house in a swirl of snow and called for the factor. A bearded man engaged in conversation with another white man, behind the trade counter, rose at Jean's entrance.
"I am from Whale River, M'sieu. My name is Jean Marcel. Here ees a lettair from M'sieu Gillies." Marcel handed an oil-skin envelope to McKenzie, the factor, who surveyed with curiosity the ice-crusted stranger with haggard eyes who came to Fort George on Christmas night.
At the mention of Whale River, the man who had been in conversation with McKenzie behind the counter, also rose to his feet. And Marcel, who had not seen his face, now recognized him. It was Inspector Wallace.
"Too bad! Too bad!" muttered the factor, reading the note, "and we're in for a December blizzard."
"What is it, McKenzie?" demanded Wallace, coming from behind the counter and reaching for Gillies' note.
The narrowed eyes of Marcel watched the face of Wallace contract with pain as he read of the peril of the woman he loved.
"Tell me what you know, Marcel!" Wallace demanded brokenly.