Three deer were feeding almost within range while farther out, gray patches, moving on the snow, marked other bands. At last the spring migration had reached him, and barely in time. He would see Whale River again when June came north. And Fleur, fretting back there in camp at his absence, after the lean days would revel and grow gigantic on deer meat.
Painfully Marcel crawled within easy range of the nearest caribou. As he attempted to line his sights in order to hit two with the first shot, as he had often done, the waving of his gun barrel in his trembling hands swept him cold with fear. The exertion of crawling to his position had cruelly shaken his nerves. So he rested.
Then he carefully took aim. As he fired, his heart skipped a beat, for he thought he had missed. But to his joy a caribou bounded from the snow, ran a few feet and fell, while another, stopping to scent the air before circling up-wind, gave him a second shot. The deer was badly hit and the next shot brought it down.
The tension of the crisis passed, the shattered nerves relaxed, and for a space the starving hunter lay limp in the snow. But warned by his rapidly numbing fingers, he forced himself to his feet and went to the deer. Out on the barren beyond the sound of his rifle scattered bands of caribou were feeding. Meat to take them through the big "break-up" of April was at hand. The lean face of Jean Marcel twisted into a grim smile.
He had beaten the long snows.
Stopping only to take the tongues and a piece of haunch, Marcel returned to his hungry dog. Frantic with the faint scent of caribou brought by the breeze off the barren, the famished Fleur chafed and fretted for his return.
"Here, Fleur, see what Jean Marcel got for you!"
The husky, maddened by the scent of the blood-red meat, plunged at her leash, her jaws dripping with slaver. Throwing her a chunk of frozen haunch which she bolted greedily, Marcel filled his kettle with snow and putting in a tongue and strips of steak to boil, lay down by his fire.