d so it was with John Hunter, clergyman,
physician, and man. New to the north, he had come from England at the
call for volunteers to shepherd the souls and bodies of the people of
the solitudes, and without hesitation, he agreed to undertake a journey
which the older heads at Fort George knew might well culminate in the
discovery later, by a searching party, of two stiffened bodies buried
beside a starved dog-team, somewhere in the drifts behind the Cape of
the Four Winds.

Marcel and the dogs were in sore need of a few hours' rest for the
grilling duel with snow and wind, before them, so, when he had eaten,
Jean turned into a bed in the Mission.

At midnight Jean hitched his dogs and waked Hunter. Leaving Fort George
asleep in the smother of snow, down to the river trail, into the white
drive of the norther plunged the dog-team.

Giving the trail-wise Fleur her head in the black night, Jean, with
Hunter, followed the sled carrying their food and robes. Turning from
the swept river ice into the Bay, dogs and men met the full beat of the
blasts with heads lowered to ease the hammering of the pin-pointed
scourge whipping their faces. With the neighboring shore smothered in
murk, Marcel, trusting to Fleur's instinct to keep the trail over the
blurred white floor which only increased the blackness above, followed
the sled he could barely see. Speed against the wind was impossible, and
at all hazards he must keep the trail, for if they swung to the west on
the sea-ice they were doomed to wander until they froze. He would push
on and camp, until daylight, in the lee of the Isle of Graves. With the
light they would begin to travel. Then on the open ice, where there was
little drift, he would give Fleur and her pups the chance to prove their
mettle, for there would be little rest. And beyond, at the rendezvous of
the winds, they would have ten miles inland through the drifts. The
unproven sons of Fleur would indeed need the stamina of wolves to take
them through the days to come.

At last the trail, which the lead-dog had held solely by keeping her
nose to the ice, ran in under the bold shore of Wastikun. There, after
feeding the dogs, they burrowed into the snow in the lee of the cliffs
wrapped in their fur robes. With the wind, the temperature had risen and
men and dogs slept hard until dawn. Then, hot tea, bread and pemmican
spurred the fighting heart of Marcel with hope. The wind had eased, but
powdery snow still drove