"No, that we will not," agreed Gillies. "He thought a lot of your father, Jean."
"Wal," said Jean proudly, "I weel have good dog-team een two year. Dat pup, she ees wort' all de work an' trouble to get her."
"You're lucky," said Gillies. "It's mighty hard on our hunters not to have good dogs, but they couldn't pay the Huskies' price. The Crees only took three for breeding purposes, and six cost us a thousand in trade. The rest were taken to Fort George and East Main."
The days at the Mission with Père Breton and Julie raced by—hours of unalloyed happiness for Jean after ten months in the "bush." Not a day passed that did not find him romping with the great puppy who had learned to gaze at her tall master through slant eyes eloquent with love. Each morning when he visited the Mission fish nets and his own, the puppy rode in the bow of the canoe. Each afternoon, often accompanied by Julie Breton, they went for a run up the river shore. Man and dog were inseparable.
When he heard that Kovik had arrived, Jean brought Fleur down to the shore, to find the family absent from their lodge. To Marcel's amazement, his puppy at first failed to recognize her brothers, who, yelping madly, rushed her in a mass.
With flattened ears, and mane stiffened on neck and back, their doughty sister met them half-way. Bowling one over, she shouldered another to the ground, where she threatened him with a fierce display of teeth. And not until their worried mother, made fast to a stake, had recognized her lost daughter and lured her within reach of her tongue, did the nose of Jean's puppy reveal to her the identity of her kin. Then there was a mad frolic in which she bullied and roughed her brothers as in the forgotten days before the master with the low voice and the hand that never struck her, took her away in his canoe.
When Kovik appeared in his umiak with his squat wife and family, there was a general handshaking.
"How you leeve my fr'en' on de Salmon, Kovik?"
The Husky gravely shook his head.
"Kovik have troub' wid young men you shoot. Dey say Kovik bad spirit too. You not hurt by dem?"