Another day of fruitless wandering in which he had pushed as far east as his fading strength would take him, and Jean shared the last of the food with his dog. He had fought hard to find the deer, had already travelled one hundred miles into the barrens, but he felt that it was no use; he was beaten. The spirit of the coureurs whose blood coursed his veins would drive him on and on, but without food the days of his hunting would be few. Henceforth it would be caribou hide boiled with moss from the barrens to ease the pinch of his hunger, but his strength would swiftly go. Then, when hope died, rather than leave his dog to the wolves, he would shoot Fleur and lying down beside her in his blanket, place the muzzle of his rifle against his own head.
Two days, in which Marcel and Fleur drank the liquor from stewed caribou hide and moss while he continued to hunt, followed. As he staggered into camp at the end of the second day the man was so weak that he scarcely found strength to gather wood for his fire. Fleur now showed signs of slow starvation in her protruding ribs and shoulders. Her heavy coat no longer shone with gloss but lay flat and lusterless. Vainly she whimpered for the food that her heart-sick master could not give her. With the dog beside him, Marcel lay by the fire numbed into indifference to his fate. The torment of hunger had vanished leaving only great weakness and a dazed brain. He thought of the three wooden crosses at Whale River; how restful it would be to lie beside them behind the Mission, instead of sleeping far in the barrens where the great winds beat ceaselessly by over the treeless snows. There Julie Breton might have planted forest flowers on the mound that marked the grave of Jean Marcel. But no, he had forgotten; Julie Breton would not be at Whale River. Julie would live at East Main and some day at her feet would play the children of Wallace. Julie would be married in the spring at Whale River, while the wolves and ravens were scattering the whitened bones of Jean Marcel over the valley, and there would be no rest—no rest.
What hopes he had had of a little house of their own at Whale River when he entered the service of the Company and drove the mail packet down the coast, with the team that Fleur would give him. How often he had pictured that home where Julie and the children would wait his return from summer voyage and winter trail; Julie Breton, whom he had loved from boyhood and whom, he had once prided himself, should love him, some day, when he had proved his manhood among the swart men of the East Coast.
All a dream—a dream. Julie was happy. She would soon marry the great man at East Main, while in a few days Jean Marcel was going to snuff out—smoulder a while, as a fire from lack of wood, dying by inches—by inches; and then two shots.
Poor Fleur! It had all come to pass because he had dared to follow and bring her home—had had no time to cache fish and game in the fall. She would have been better off with the half-breeds on the Rupert, where the caribou had gone. They would have kicked her, but fed her too. Yes, she would have been better there. Now he would take her with him, his own dog, when the time came. No more starvation for her, and a death in the barrens when she met the white wolves. Yes, he would take her with him.
So rambled the thoughts of Jean Marcel, as he lay with his dog facing the creeping death his rifle would cheat, until kindly sleep brought him surcease—sleep, followed by dreams of the wide barrens trampled by herds of the returning caribou, of juicy steaks sizzling over the fire, while Fleur gnawed contentedly at huge thigh bones.