As Jules’s eyes roamed over the dazzling space, he saw whole hillsides split and sag deeply, the heavy melting snow sinking on the light, dry powder underneath. His great, wide snow-shoes were on his feet, and the fur tote-bag beside him bulged with pelts, for it had been a good morning at the traps. He looked up sharply, keenly, as a faint, far-away sound struck on his ever-listening ears—Pop! pop! pop-pop! very distant, but plainly discernible. Jules jumped to his feet and shaded his eyes. Out of the snowy distance came a dozen black specks, travelling swiftly over the country. “Caribou! Feefteen! Somme vone mak’ shooting là-bas!” Soon the frightened animals were close to him, their heads thrown high, their little tails straight up, and their long legs twinkling as the herd sped by with even, graceful trot. One staggered a little, swayed, but kept on bravely with the rest. Jules’s sharp eyes saw the flecks of blood on its hind quarter.
“By gar! Ah get dat caribou!” he said aloud.
He threw the bag hastily over his shoulders, and stuck the muffler in a pocket; then, cap in hand, he left the clump and started off at great speed after the fleeing animals, which were again specks on the horizon beyond him.
Shortly afterward, from the white nothingness out of which the caribou had come, a larger speck appeared, and travelled nearly as fast as they had. It grew into a sledge and seven dogs, and on the sledge was a trapper named Lavalle. “Mush—ei-i!” his voice sounded weakly in space. As the outfit swung past the place where Jules had stopped, Lavalle caught sight of the wide tracks on the soft crust. He checked his dogs and tumbled from the sledge.
“C’est Verbaux,” he said to himself. “Les autres dey tol’ to me hees shoe-marrk, an’ dat’s eet certainement.”
He examined the tracks at his feet carefully. They were wide and short, and the toe-bar indentation was high on the front; the lacings were of broad, thick bands, as the trail plainly showed, and the front of the snow-shoe turned in slightly.
“Ah vould lak’ b’en to catch heem,” Lavalle said longingly, and walked up on the snow clump, looking about. “He ees gon’ ’way; mais Tritou he come aftaire me dam’ queeck, and to-mor’ ve go catch Verbaux,” he muttered. Then seeing the single dot disappearing to the northward, “Voilà mon woun’ caribou!” he cried, and, leaping down to the sledge, hurried the dogs on and forgot about Jules.
The team raced ahead across the softening snow; the sledge-runners sank in often with a scrunch, and Lavalle would lift the body up and then go on. As they passed over a rise in the barren he looked forward carefully, but saw nothing of the wounded caribou.
“He fall somme place not far,” he said to himself, and kept the dogs to their work. The country was more level here for several miles, and when the sledge approached the next hill he stopped the team at the foot of it, and, rifle in hand, stole noiselessly up the side; then, dropping to his hands and knees, crept on and peered over the top.
In the little gully on the other side lay a dead caribou, and bending over it was a tall man who was rapidly stripping the skin from the steaming body.