hrough
his admiration for Marcel's daring and his confidence in the man whose
reputation since the hearing and the fight with the Lelacs had been now
firmly established with the Whale River Crees. When Marcel had
repeatedly assured the boy that he had neither seen the trail of _Matchi
Manito_, the devil, nor once heard the wailing of a giant Windigo
through all the long snows of the past winter in the Salmon country,
Michel's pride at the offer had finally conquered his fears. So leaving
the puppy he had given Julie as the nucleus for a Mission dog-team, and
presenting Gillies with another, Marcel packed the three remaining
children of Fleur whom he had named in honor of his three staunch
friends, Colin, Jules and Angus, into the canoe already deep with
supplies, and gripping the hands of those who had assembled on the
beach, eased the craft into the flood-tide.

"Good-bye and good luck, Jean!" called Gillies.

"De rabbit weel be few; net beeg cache of feesh before de freeze-up!"
urged the practical Jules.

"No fear, Jules. We ketch all de feesh en de lac," laughed Jean. Then
his eyes sought Julie Breton's sober face as he said in French:

"I will not come back for Christmas, Julie. The pups will not be old
enough for the trail."

With the conviction that he was saying good-bye to Julie Breton
forever--that on his return in June, she would be far in the south with
Wallace, he pushed off as she called, "_Bon voyage, Jean! Dieu vous
benisse!_" (God bless you!)

When the paddles of Jean and Michel drove the boat into the stream, the
whining Fleur, beholding her world moving away from her, plunged into
the river after the _voyageurs_.

"Go back, Fleur!" ordered Jean sternly. "You travel de shore; de cano'
ees too full wid de pup." So the protesting Fleur turned back to follow
the shore. The puppies, yet too young and clumsy to keep abreast of the
tide-driven canoe, on the broken beach of the river, had to be
freighted.

When the boat was well out in the flood, Marcel waved his cap with a
last "A'voir!"

Far up-stream, a half-hour later, rhythmic flashes, growing swiftly
fainter and fainter, until they faded from sight, marked for many a long
moon the last of Jean Marcel.

* * * * *

September waned, and the laggard rear-guard of the brant and Hutchins
geese, riding the first stinging northers, passed south in the wake of
the wavies. On the heels of September followed a week of m