Lavalle ducked his head quickly at the unexpected sight in the gully, and lay on the snow, thinking.
“Dat ees Verbaux, certainement. Ah get heem et le caribou, by gar! Dat magnifique! Ah go leetle furdaire h’along, an’ mak’ good shoot.”
He slid down the hillside a few yards, then worked his way to the top again, pushing the rifle slowly along the crust. Just below him, Jules had finished the skinning, and was deftly unjointing the caribou’s quarters. Lavalle shoved the rifle carefully in front of his eyes, took aim between Verbaux’s broad shoulders, and pulled the trigger.
Jules heard a dull explosion, and dropped instantly by the caribou carcass; then, looking up slowly, he saw on the hilltop near by a man writhing and rolling as if in agony. He watched several minutes: the man’s contortions grew less; finally he lay spasmodically kicking.
“He try keel Jules,” said Verbaux, as he stood up and advanced warily toward the prostrate figure. It was no sham, and Jules uttered an exclamation of disgust at what he saw. Lavalle, in creeping along the hillside, had unwittingly plugged the rifle-barrel heavily with wet snow; and when, after taking aim at Jules, he had fired, the old barrel had exploded, and the breech-block had “blown back” in his face. The heavy bolt had torn away one cheek, and the raw flesh lay gaping on the jaw-bone; Lavalle’s forehead was pierced and gashed in several places by bits of the shell, and a jagged rip in the skull over the left temple showed where a piece of metal had forced its way through the skin. The gun itself lay a few feet off, dismantled and useless.
“Dat good so; you try keel me,” said Jules, thoughtfully, as he watched the twitchings of the torn and distorted features. “Jules go now.”
He turned and left the hill and its repulsive occupant. He cut strips from the caribou-hide, and with them fastened a quarter of meat on his back, and another over his chest, to balance the weight; then, taking the skin under his arm, he started off. When he had gone a little way he stopped and looked back at the shape lying on the reddened snow. He stood motionless for several minutes, then he threw off his load.
“Bah! Jules Verbaux, you got vone too beeg heart!” he said to himself sarcastically, as he went back to the wounded man. He tore long pieces from his own shirt, and skilfully laid the ragged flesh of the cheek in its place, fastening it there with the cloth; the slit in the skull he drew together with rough care, and pinned the flaps of loose skin with a bit of wood which he sharpened and cleaned with his knife for the purpose. Then he gently pricked out the steel pieces that he could see embedded in Lavalle’s face. The semi-conscious man moved, and muttered incoherently, “Ah go-in’ ke-e-el Ver-baux main-te-nant,” and he feebly threw up his arms as though holding a gun. The flesh around the eyes was so swollen that he could not open them, and he lay there whispering and tossing.
“’Ow he comme so queeck, hein?” thought Jules to himself; then he took Lavalle’s back trail and found the sledge; the dogs were asleep in a warm mass. He straightened their harness and drove the team up to the wounded man, picked him off the snow like a feather, and stretched him carefully on the boards of the sledge, lashing him securely. The dogs went on, Jules holding a trace so that the speed should not be too great. At the bottom of the hill he gathered the quarters of meat and the skin, and secured them on the sledge at Lavalle’s feet. Then “Mush! Allez!” he shouted, and the team scampered on, he following swiftly, controlling their speed by a long thong fastened to one of the sledge-runners. Over hill and across flat they went, hour after hour, till the forest-land was reached. Here Jules swerved the dogs to the northeast, and kept on.
Lavalle became more conscious, and struggled against the thongs that tied him fast; then he began to whimper, and the tears forced themselves through the puffed eyelids and ran down over his ears. Jules paid no attention, and they travelled on. The afternoon grew dark, a breeze sprang up, and in a little while veils of mist unfolded themselves over the barrens, and Jules pulled out his muffler, winding it round his neck as he strode along. The mist became heavier and changed into a chill rain that soaked rapidly through the wounded man’s clothes.