Palsied with dread, their feet frozen to the beach, the young ruffians awaited the swift vengeance of their enemy. And it came.
Hard by, a rifle crashed in the boulders. With a scream, a Husky reeled backward with a shattered hand, as his gun, torn from his grasp by the impact of the bullet, rattled on the stones. A second shot, splintering the butt of his rifle, hurled the other to his knees. Then with a demonical yell, Marcel sprang from his ambush.
Running like caribou jumped by barren-ground wolves, the panic-stricken Huskies fled from the place of horror, pursued by the ricochetting bullets of the white demon, until they disappeared up the shore.
"A'voir, M'sieurs!" cried Marcel. "De nex' tam you ambush cano', don' let eet dref behin' de point." And shaking with laughter, turned to his yelping puppy, frenzied with excitement.
"De Husky t'ink we not go to Whale Riviere, eh?" he said, stroking the trembling shoulders of the worrying dog. "But Jean and hees petite chienne, dey see Julie Breton jus' de same."
Putting his puppy in the canoe, Marcel continued on down the river.
When the shots from ambush whined past his face, Marcel had flattened to the floor of the craft, both for cover and to deceive the Huskies. The second shots convinced him that he had but two to deal with. Slitting the bark skin near the gunwale, that he might watch the shore without betraying the fact that he was conscious, and thereby draw their fire, while they were protected from his by the boulders, he learned that the craft was working toward the beach.
His plan was swiftly made. Driven by the racing current, the canoe had already left the Esquimos, following the shore, in the rear. He would allow the craft to ground and hold his fire until they were on top of him. But the boat finally reached the beach at a point hidden from the pursuing Huskies. With a bound Marcel was out of the canoe and concealed among the rocks. Great as was the temptation to leave the men who had ambushed him in cold blood, shot upon the beach, a sinister warning to their fellows, the thought of Kovik's position at the camp forced him to content himself with disarming and sending them shrieking up the shore with his bullets worrying their heels.
Often, during the day, as Marcel put mile after mile of the Salmon between himself and the camp at the rapids, the puppy cocked curious ears as the new master ceased paddling, to roar with laughter at the memory of two flying Esquimos.