Shortly, Kovik left the group and walked rapidly toward Marcel, followed at a distance by his people.
"Dey keel you, but Kovik say you fr'en' wid spirit; he come down riv' an' eat Husky," explained the worried defender of Jean. "Kovik say you shoot wid spirit gun, all de Husky; so you go, queek!"
The broad face of Kovik split in a grim smile as he gripped the hand of the relieved Marcel and pushed off his canoe. Thus, doubly, had the loyal Esquimo paid for the life of his son.
With the emotions of a man suddenly reprieved from a sentence of death, Marcel poled his canoe out into the current. Behind him, the Esquimos had already joined Kovik on the shore, when, warned by a shout from his friend, Marcel instinctively ducked as a seal spear whistled over his head. Some doubter was testing the magic of the white demon.
Seizing his paddle Jean swiftly crossed the river and secured his precious net. But he was not yet rid of his enemies. If the young men, conquering their fear of his friendship with demons, at once launched their kayaks, they could overhaul his loaded canoe. But once clear of the last tepees, with his pursuers behind him, he was confident that he could pick them off with his rifle as fast as they came up in their rocking craft.
With all the power of his iron back and shoulders, Jean drove his canoe on the strong current; but Kovik had the Huskies in hand and they did not follow. Shortly he had passed the last lodge on the shore and the camp was soon in the distance. It seemed like a dream—his peril of the last hour; and now, a free man again, with his puppy in the bow, he was on his way to the coast and Julie Breton.
Suddenly two rifles cracked in the rocks on the near beach. The paddle of Marcel dropped from his limp hands. Headlong he lurched to the floor of the canoe. Again the guns spat from the boulders. Two bullets whined over the birch-bark. But save for the yelping puppy in the bow, there was no movement in the canoe, as it slid, the cat's-paw of the current.
Waving their arms in triumph at the collapse of the feared white man, whose magic had been impotent before their bullets, the Huskies hurried along shore after the canoe. Carried by breeze and current, with its whimpering puppy and silent human freight the craft grounded a half-mile below the ambush. On came the chattering pair of assassins, already quarrelling over the division of the outfit of the dead man—delirious with the sweetness of their vengeance for the rough handling the stricken one in the canoe had meted out to them but an hour before. The dog, although lashed to the bow thwart, had managed to crawl out of the boat and was struggling with the thongs which held her, when the Huskies came running up. Staring into the birch-bark, they turned to each other gray faces on which was written ghastly fear.
The canoe was empty!
The white man they had thought to find a bloodied heap, was, after all, a maker of magic—a friend of demons. Kovik had told the truth. They were lost!