He stroked the slate-gray back
which trembled with her desire for a run with the master, then circling
her shaggy neck with his arms, his face against hers, while she fretted
as though she knew Jean was leaving her, said: "A'voir, Fleur!" and
closed the gate.

She stood grieving, her black nose thrust between the slab pickets, the
slant eyes following Marcel's back until he disappeared. Then she raised
her head and, in the manner of her kind, voiced her disappointment in a
long howl. And the wail of his puppy struck with strange insistence upon
the ears of Jean Marcel--like a premonition of misfortune which the
future held for him and which he often recalled in the weeks to come.

As the canoe of the Company journeyed through the Strait of the Spirit,
flocks of gray geese, which were now leading their broods out to the
coast islands from the muskegs of the interior, rose ahead, to sail away
in their geometric formations, while clouds of pin-tail and black duck
patrolled the low beaches.

Jean left his cargo for the Huskies in a stone cache and running into a
south-wester, while homeward bound, did not reach Whale River for a
fortnight. As he approached the post, he made out at the log landing
the Company steamer _Inenew_, loaded with trade goods from the depot at
Charlton Island. Through the clearing, now almost bare of tepees, for
the trade was over, he walked to the Mission. The door was opened by
Julie Breton.

"Bon-jour, Ma'm'selle Breton!" and he seized the unresponsive hand of
the girl.

"I am glad to see you home safely, Jean." Something in the face and
voice of the girl checked him.

"What is the matter, Julie?" he asked. "Pere Henri; he is not ill?"

"No, Jean. Pere Henri is well, but----"

"You do not seem glad to see me again, Julie!"

"I am glad. You know that----"

"Well," he flung out, hurt at the girl's constrained manner, "I'll go
and see someone who will welcome Jean Marcel with no sober face----"

"Jean!" she said as he turned away.

"What is it, Ma'm'selle Breton?" and he smiled into her troubled eyes.
"Fleur has missed me, I know. She will give Jean Marcel a true welcome
home."

"Jean--she is not there--they stole her!"

The face of Jean Marcel twisted with pain.

"Mon Dieu! Stole my Fleur--my puppy?"

"Yes, they took her from the stockade, two nights ago--two men who came
up the coast after dogs."

With face buried in his arms to hide the tears misting his eyes, he
leaned aga