Toilers of the Trails/Out of the Mist
OUT OF THE MIST
OUT OF THE MIST
"Weel, w'at you t'ink, Loup? De Albanee onlee leetle piece now? We do good job to mak' for de sout' shore, eh?"
With a whine the great slate-gray husky in the bow turned his slant eyes from the white wall of mist enveloping the canoe to his master's face, as if in full agreement with the change of course.
The west coast of James Bay lay blanketed with fog from the drifting ice-fields far to the north. Early that morning, when the mist blotted out the black ribbon of spruce edging the coast behind the marshes of the low shore, Gaspard Laroque had swung his canoe in from the deep water. For hours now he had been feeling his way alongshore toward the maze of channels through which the Albany River reached the yellow waters of the bay.
Fifteen miles of mud-flat, sand-spit, and scrub-grown island marked the river's mouth, and his goal, the Hudson's Bay Company post. Fort Albany, lay on the easternmost thoroughfare of the delta. There waited the dusky wife and children he had not seen since his trip down the coast over the sea-ice at Christmas with the dog that now worried at the scent of the invisible flocks of geese that rose clamoring through the fog ahead of the boat. Bought when a puppy from an east-coast Eskimo at the Bear Islands, the husky had been his sole companion through the lonely moons of the winter before on the white wastes of his subarctic trapping-grounds.
"Whish you, Loup! Here we go!"
Swinging the nose of the boat well off the flat shore, the half-breed dropped to his knees, placed a battered brass compass on a bag in front of him, and, following the wavering needle at his knee, started straight out through the smother of mist across the delta of the many-mouthed Albany. Two, three hours passed, and still the narrow Cree blade bit into the flat surface of the bay as though driven by an engine rather than by human thew and sinew, when suddenly the husky lifted his nose, repeatedly sucking in and expelling the baffling air. Then with a whine he suddenly sat up, throwing the canoe off its bottom.
"Wat you do, Loup? You crazee? Lie down!"
But the husky did not lie down. Instead, his black nostrils quivered in long sniffs as he faintly sensed the strange odor that the moisture in the heavy air almost obliterated. Then the hairy throat of the great dog swelled in a low rumble as he strained against the bow brace, peering into the impenetrable mist.
"Ah-hah!" chuckled the Cree, interested. "Wat you t'ink you smell, eh? No goose mak' you so cross; mus' be seal."
In answer the hair on the dog's back lifted from ears to tail, and raising his nose, he broke into a long howl, a warning which his master knew full well meant that from somewhere out of that wilderness of mist human scent had drifted to the husky's palpitating nostrils.
Again from the dog's throat rolled the challenge of his wolfish forebears to the hidden enemies, and out of the fog ahead floated the answer of a human voice.
"Quey! Quey!" called the Cree in reply, and ceased paddling.
Again the voice called from the fog; again Laroque answered, and started paddling slowly in the direction of the sound. It was a canoe from Moose, he surmised, bound for Fort Albany, and he was nearer the south shore than he had reckoned. Then of a sudden out of the mist ahead broke the black mass of a ship.
The paddle of the surprised half-breed hung suspended over the water while the dog bellowed his rage at the mysterious thing looming through the fog. Clearly it was not the small company steamer from Moose Factory, which was not due at Albany for a month, after the fur-brigades had arrived from the up-river posts, but one of the big ships.
Still, what was one of the company ships from across the big water, which never entered the treacherous mouths of the Moose or the Albany, but unloaded at Charlton Island, a hundred miles east, doing here? Then it flashed across the Cree's brain that the vessel had missed the island in the thick weather and had run clear to the Albany flats, where she had anchored.
"Quey! Quey!" Laroque gave the Cree salutation to the men at the rail of the ship as he paddled alongside. "You goin' travel up de Albanee?" he added, with a grin. But there came no answer to his question.
Shortly a gold-braided cap crowning the bearded face of an officer appeared at the rail, and a gruff voice demanded:
"Where are you from and where bound?"
"I go to Albanee; been huntin' up de wes' coast las' long snows," replied the Cree, while the excited dog bared his white fangs in a snarl at the strangers peering down at the canoe.
"Keep your dog quiet!" the officer rasped.
Gaspard spoke to the husky.
"Now make your boat fast to the ladder and come aboard."
After the long months he had spent alone with his dog, the half-breed welcomed the opportunity for a chat and a meal of ship's rations with the crew of the vessel. Furthermore, she was out of her course, in a dangerous position, close in on the Albany shoals, and the captain needed the information he could give him. So lashing his canoe to the rope ladder dropped over the side, Laroque clambered aboard, followed by the yelps of his deserted dog.
Twice Laroque had seen ships of the Hudson's Bay Company loading furs at Charlton Island, but he knew at once from the looks of the long deck-house and the size of the vessel that she was not one of these. A group of sailors, talking together in a strange tongue, eyed with frank curiosity the swart trapper with gaudy Hudson's Bay sash, skinning-knife at belt, and sealskin moccasins as he followed one of the crew aft. At Charlton Island the men of the company ships spoke English and were friendly to Cree and Eskimo, he thought. Surely there was something queer about this ship.
On the after-deck three men in uniform were conversing in low tones. As he approached the group, the restless eyes of the Cree made out, behind the officers, two long shapes covered with tarpaulin, which failed to conceal their heavy metal standards rising from the deck-plates. What could these things be, he wondered. No Hudson's Bay ship carried such strange gear on its after-deck.
The curious eyes of Laroque were suddenly shifted to the bearded officer who had hailed him from the ship by the abrupt question:
"What's your name?"
The domineering manner of the speaker and the undisguised curiosity and amusement with which the others inspected the half-breed, from fox-skin cap to moccasins, stung the trapper's pride. He had boarded this ship to render the captain a service. The manner of these people was not to his taste. His face set hard as his small eyes met those of his questioner when he answered:
"Gaspard Laroque."
"You are an Indian?"
The tone of the officer brought the blood leaping into the face of Laroque. He, Gaspard Laroque, who held the record for the bitter Fort Hope winter trail from Albany, whose prowess as canoeman and hunter was known from the Elkwan barrens to Rupert House, was no sailor to be treated like a dog.
Squaring his wide shoulders, he flung the thick hair from his eyes with a toss of the head and said defiantly:
"My fader was French; my moder Cree. But I tell you somet'ing: eef de win' rise from de nord or eas', dees boat land on de beach lak dat," and leaning forward, Laroque snapped his fingers in the captain's face.
Choking with rage, the officer stood for a moment inarticulate. Then shaking a fist wildly, he loosed a torrent of unintelligible words at the half-breed, who watched him coolly through narrowed eyelids.
"Answer my questions promptly," the big sailor finally managed to sputter in English, "or I'll have you" Then regaining his self-control, he continued in calmer tone:
"You say you are bound for Fort Albany?"
The Cree nodded.
"How far do you think we are off the mouth of the river?"
"You are ver' close; onlee t'ree, four mile'. Dees ees bad place for beeg boat, ver' bad."
The reply had a decided effect on the officers, who conversed for some time in low tones; then the captain turned to Laroque.
"You know the Albany River—the channel up to the fort?"
The secret was out: this was not a company ship. These people were strangers to James Bay or they would know that the treacherous river channels were unnavigable for big boats. But what business could a strange craft have at Albany—a craft manned by a crew speaking a tongue unknown to the bay, with a captain who spoke English as no skipper of company ship or Newfoundland whaler spoke it?
"De channel to de fort no good for beeg boat," replied Laroque, his swart features, stone-hard in their immobility, masking the thoughts which harassed his brain.
"How deep is the channel at low tide?"
"Onlee seex, eight feet ovair de bar. No good for beeg boat," insisted the Cree, searching the bearded face before him for a glimmer of the purpose behind the question.
At the reply the captain turned to the men beside him, and spoke rapidly in the alien tongue, while the restless eyes of Gaspard Laroque swept deck and rigging, to fall again upon the shrouded shapes rising from the after-deck which first had baffled his curiosity. His inspection was interrupted by:
"How far above the mouth of the river is the fort?"
"Feefteen mile' dey call eet."
"How large is the garrison? How many guns have they? "
Laroque shook his head, but he was thinking hard.
"Do you understand me?" Then the officer articulated slowly as he added: "How many men are at the fort? How many guns are there, and what size?"
For a fraction of a second the small eyes of the Cree glowed with the light of a dawning comprehension, but the bold features remained set as if cut from rock. It was clear now. This strange craft meant danger to Fort Albany. She had come into the bay for the furs at the posts of the Hudson's Bay Company, and this captain wanted to know how well those furs were guarded.
Often, before the fire in his grandfather's tepee, he had heard the old man tell how long ago the French had sailed into Hudson's Bay and burned the fur-posts of the English; how once in these waters the English had fought great sea-fights with the French for the fur trade. But that was many, many long snows ago, in the time of his grandfather's grandfather. For generations now the ancient foes had been at peace. At Fort Albany, the Christmas before, the factor had told him that the French and the English had been fighting side by side since summer, across the big water, against a yellow-haired race who wished to rule the world. But the thunders of the Great War were heard but faintly on the shores of the far, subarctic bay.
"Answer me! How many men are at the fort?" fiercely demanded the officer, glaring into the face of the Cree.
The thought of the defenseless loved ones waiting for his return at the little unfortified fur-post, with its handful of company men and red trappers, spurred the active mind of Gaspard Laroque as the flick of a whip on a raw harness sore rouses a lagging husky. The French blood of his father spoke in his answer.
"Ver' manee men. Beeg gun', petit gun', all kin' gun' at de beeg fort at Albanee," Then an inspiration led him to point to the tarpaulin-covered shapes on the after-deck that first had puzzled him. "Beeg," he cried; "ver' much beeg dan dose gun'."
The faces of his audience palpably fell. Calling two sailors, the captain ordered the covering removed from one of the guns. It was the first modern piece of artillery Gaspard Laroque had seen,—the obsolete cannon at Moose Factory were relics of the Riel Rebellion,—but the fate of Fort Albany was in his hands; so he smiled derisively at the long steel barrel and polished mountings of the four-inch Krupp.
"Dat ees leetle pistol to dem beeg gun' at de fort," he laughed, to the amazement of the officers of the German commerce-destroyer Elbe, then added: "An' de men,"the lips of the crafty Cree moved as if he were making a mental calculation,—"ah-hah!" he finally announced, "de men at de fort mus' be, las' time I was dere, two, free hunder."
The big German captain seized the arm of the Cree.
"Three hundred men at the fort?" he cried. "Impossible! What are they there for?"
The swart features of Laroque relaxed in a wide grin at the discomfiture of his enemy, but behind that grin his active mind searched for a plausible answer. In a flash he had it.
"Las' Chreesmas-tam dey hear ship comin' to de bay to tak' de fur dees summer. Solger' travel from Canadaw on de snow." Gaspard marvelled at the ease with which he was playing the part.
It was interesting news for the officers of the Elbe, and, from their scowling faces and excited conversation, the Cree judged, highly disconcerting.
The council of war continued for some time; then the youngest of the group, a smooth-faced boy of twenty-four, turned to Laroque affably.
"You have a fine dog in your canoe. We will hoist him aboard with your stuff."
It was a polite way of informing the Cree that he was a prisoner; but it was a relief to hear that his shaggy comrade was not to be abandoned. For next to the wife and children at Albany Gaspard Laroque loved the great dog down there in the canoe worrying over the absence of his master as he loved nothing on earth.
"T'anks," said Laroque, gratefully. "I mak' heem good dog on ship."
The trapper followed the officer forward to where the canoe lay alongside. There was the husky, whimpering for the return of the man who had deserted him.
"Whish you, Loup!" the Cree called down, leaning over the rail.
The nose of the husky pointed upward in a yelp of delight at the sound of the beloved voice, his thick brush of a tail switching furiously to and fro in an ecstasy of welcome.
Calling some sailors, the lieutenant said to the Cree:
"Go below and make your dog fast to the tackle they lower; but remember, if you attempt to escape, you are a dead man,"
Laroque dropped down the ladder to the canoe, to meet the rough caresses of two hairy paws and swift licks from a hot tongue, while the rumble in the deep throat of the husky voiced his joy at his master's return.
As the nimble fingers of the Cree fashioned a sling from the lowered ropes for his protesting dog, his small eyes furtively swept the rail above him. The muzzles of a dozen rifles covered the canoe. To make a break for the cover of the fog would be suicide. They would get him before he wet his paddle.
Laroque first sent up his fur-pack and bags, then made his husky fast to the lowered lines. Rubbing the slate-gray head of the worried and perplexed dog, who resented being trussed up in a harness of rope, he gave the signal. Struggling to free himself as he hung suspended, snarling and snapping at his bonds, the infuriated animal was hoisted to the ship's deck by the men above.
Swiftly following by the ladder, Laroque reached the rail to find pandemonium loosed. There on the deck, surrounded by shouting seamen, the maddened husky rolled over and over with two sailors in a tangle of arms, legs, and rope, while his white fangs struck and slashed right and left in a desperate effort to fight himself clear.
Leaping from the rail, the Cree threw himself upon his dog, and after a struggle managed to separate the husky from his tattered victims, who bled from slashes of knife-like teeth in arm and leg, paying dearly for their recklessness in laying hands on a king husky from Ungava whose dignity had been sorely outraged by their roughness.
Clinging to the dog, whose blood boiled with the fighting lust of a hundred wolfish ancestors, the Cree waited with fear in his heart for the verdict of the officer on the conduct of his shaggy comrade. Surely now they would shoot him or pitch him overboard, he thought. But he looked up with surprise into a smiling face.
"That's a dog after my own heart," cried the young German, surveying with admiring eyes the magnificent animal who, held in the grip of his master, snarled defiance at the group of murmuring sailors well out of reach.
"De dog was scare' of de rope; he weel not bite dem now," urged Laroque in defense of his friend, and bending over, he poured into the pointed ears set flat on the massive head of the dog soothing words in Cree.
"Of course, when they hauled him on deck, the sailors put their hands on him, and he upset them like nine-pins. Lucky for them he wasn't loose," replied the officer, and the heart of Gaspard leaped with joy.
"Cast off that sling and make him fast to the ring-bolt there. He'll cool off soon. I've Great Danes of my own at home."
"How you come to dees countree?" the Cree hazarded, for he knew the passage through Hudson Straits at that time of year to be a perilous one.
The German smiled.
"I don't wonder you're surprised at our being here," he answered. "It got too hot for us in the north Atlantic. We lost the English cruisers that were chasing us in a Labrador fog. Then the captain decided to come into Hudson's Bay and do a little fur business."
"You strike de ice in de straits?"
"Oh, yes; we were in the floes two weeks—nearly lost the ship. But we're here now, and are going to make the English pay for our coal in good fur."
Laroque made Loup fast with an inch rope to the ring-bolt in the deck, and by means of much rubbing of flattened ears and back-scratching gradually soothed the fret out of the dog. Then he ordered the husky to guard the fur-pack and bags placed beside him, for had Loup been left alone without this responsibility, he would have made short work of the rope with his powerful fangs, and sought out his master.
The Cree was then led to the captain's cabin.
Since the first interview the manner of the big German had undergone a surprising change. The half-breed was received with marked cordiality. He accepted a proffered cigar, but refused to take the liquor pressed upon him. To the wily Laroque the purpose of these men was too evident. They confidently expected a half-breed trapper to drink himself drunk at the opportunity and betray the people of the post, all unaware of the danger which lurked so near in the fog off the river.
So overpowering a hatred of these strangers momentarily possessed him that it took all his self-command to keep his hand off his knife and then and there, in the narrow cabin, avenge this insult to his manhood. But the knowledge that the wit and daring of Gaspard Laroque alone stood between the safety of the little settlement at Albany and fire and pillage at the hands of these sea-wolves brought him to his senses.
Only the glitter in the deep-set eyes of the Cree evidenced the fierce emotion that had swayed him when the captain slapped his empty glass down upon a table and said:
"You say they have new guns at Albany. Are they mounted in earthworks surrounding the post, or is it an old stone fort?"
Laroque was stumped, but he caught at the suggestion in the first part of the question. He was playing the game through to the bitter end, so he hazarded:
"Oh, plentee new gun' in dirt-wall and stone-wall. Strong place, dees Fort Albanee."
It was painfully evident from the sober faces of his hearers that they were impressed with the magnitude of the undertaking before them.
For some time the officers debated in their native tongue while the Cree smiled inwardly at the consternation in the enemy's camp over the tale of a half-breed they despised. Truly the factor, MacGregor, would never recognize his log buildings, with their frail dog-stockade, from the description which the Germans had drawn from then* prisoner.
"Is the channel buoyed?" asked the lieutenant at length.
Laroque was at a loss how to answer, for the Germans were sure to find the buoys when the fog lifted, unless a scheme which had been forming in his mind should somehow work out, a forlorn hope, to be sure, and dependent on the fog hanging a day or two longer.
"Sometam few buoy'; but de channel shif ev'ry year, and de buoy' no good den. I don' know eef dey tak' buoy' up dees year," he finally answered.
"Oh, I guess you will remember the river well enough to take small-draft boats up to the fort." The captain winked at the others and laughed loudly. And the Cree's quick brain caught the meaning only too well. They would put him at the wheel of a launch, with a gun at his head to refresh his memory of that shifting Albany channel. Well, a man could die but once. He would beach the launch somewhere below the fort and take his medicine, but he'd carry one or two of these yellow-haired fur-thieves with him when he went. There was a chance that they might be seen through the factor's glasses and the warning not come too late if the post Crees could get at the boat and wipe out the crew. But if the launch should get back to the ship with the information that there were no signs of guns at the unfortified post, they would probably attack at once with the whole ship's crew.
The council of war ceased, and Laroque was asked:
"Could men land below and approach the post from the rear?"
This, most of all, was what the Cree feared the Germans might do, for the people at Albany would never know of their coming until they emerged from the scrub behind the post. The yelping of huskies was so common at Albany that no attention would be paid to it.
"No," he answered; "beeg swamp seex mile' long below Albanee."
Again the captain poured three fingers of brandy into a glass.
"Come, now, you're a good fellow," he urged, offering the liquor to Laroque. "The fog is wet; a little drink will warm you up."
Each of the officers filled a glass, waiting for the Cree to take the one in the captain's extended hand.
Gaspard Laroque grinned guilelessly into the face of his would-be seducer.
"De water of fire eet mak' me sick." With a grimace, he placed a sinewy hand over his stomach.
The eyes of the Germans met in dubious glances. Here was a new breed of barbarian, impervious to the seduction of alcohol. It was astounding, contrary to all experience. Slowly the disgusted captain returned the proffered brandy to the table.
"Now, see here," he began, and, reaching back into the drawer of his desk, brought out a handful of gold coin, clinking it in the Cree's impassive face. "You tell me the truth and pilot the launches up to the fort, and I'll make you rich, drop you anywhere you say on this coast, and nobody will know you met us. I'll fill your canoe with guns, shells, clothes, anything you want. What is this company to you? You sweat, freeze, and starve for your fur, and they cheat you out of it. The Indian is the company's dog. They barely keep you people from starving so that you will hunt more fur. Come, now, you play no tricks on us, and we'll fill your canoe from the ship's stores."
The German sat back satisfied that his appeal must have an effect on this inscrutable Indian.
Slowly the swart features of Gaspard relaxed. His small eyes glittered as he said, leaning forward eagerly:
"You geeve me all des outfit, grub, gun', blanket', if I show you de way up river to Albanee?"
"Yes, I'll make you a rich man among your people. No one will ever know. When we've got the fur at Albany, we'll land you anywhere you say. But if you lie to us,"—the German, with a black scowl, shook a huge fist in the Cree's face—"I'll skin—well, you know what you'll get."
"You fill de cano'?" asked Laroque, ignoring the threat,
"Yes."
"Ver' well, w'en you go?" he asked quickly.
"When the weather clears a launch will go up to reconnoitre."
"Ah-hah!" grinned Laroque. "I show de way." And German and Cree wrung each other's hands.
Laroque was assigned a bunk in the forecastle, where he took his duffle-bag, leaving the fur-pack on deck with Loup. The crew left the dark-skinned barbarian with the wicked-looking knife in his belt, which had not been taken from him, severely alone, though he met many an ugly look from the sailors, who he knew itched for a chance to wreak their vengeance on the great dog who had roughly handled two of their mates.
Although he was watched, for he was never out of sight of a sailor, evidently the orders were to treat the prisoner civilly. Escape was impossible, for his canoe had been slung on the deck-house, and to attempt to reach the shore by swimming would have been pure suicide. So he had the freedom of the ship, for clearly his captors were desirous of his good-will.
The black night closed in on the anchored ship with no sign of the fog lifting. Laroque obtained food from the galley, and fed his dog, fastened on the main-deck amidships; then, lighting his pipe, sat down on the fur-pack beside him. Now and then a petty officer, giving the tethered husky a wide berth, strolled by to assure himself that the Cree had not dissolved into the murk.
When his vigorous puffing had turned the pipe hot in his hand, Laroque took a piece of wire from his pocket and thrust one end into the bowl. For a space he smoked hard while he toyed with the head of the husky lying at his side. Often the dog would open his punishing jaws and close them gently on the hand of the man, at the same time voicing undying adoration in the low rumble in his deep throat.
In a few minutes Laroque removed the wire from his pipe, the end of which was now red-hot. Then between his moccasins he stretched on the deck a piece of dressed caribou-hide a foot long by a few inches in width. For a moment he listened for footsteps, then, striking a match, held it close to the hide between his feet and behind his dog's body while he burned slowly into the skin with the hot end of the wire a syllabic character of the Cree tongue.
Pipe after pipe he smoked as he crouched there in the dark on the deck with his dog, for the wire soon cooled and needed reheating. At the sound of footfalls the Cree would snuff the match out in his calloused hand and wait until the sailor passed. Once the smooth-faced lieutenant, whose watch it was, stopped to chat with him about the Northern sled-dogs and his own Great Danes on his father's place at home, but so thick was the fog that the Cree did not deign even to remove the wire which he was heating in his pipe at the time.
So, slowly and with much patience, Gaspard Laroque, working under the kindly curtain of the thick night, was able to cover the strip of hide with the phonetic writing of the Cree. Then grunting into the hairy ears of his friend, and with a parting scratch of the ever-receptive back, the trapper went to his bunk in the forecastle of the ship, which was vocal with the snoring of strong men deep in sleep, to dream of the burning of Fort Albany by a shore party of Germans and the loss of those he loved.
The following morning Gaspard Laroque went on deck, to find the bay still hidden by its pall of mist. No boat from the ship would go out in that fog, and he drew a deep breath of relief; for if the mist held on the west coast one more day,—and it looked like a regular July week of thick weather,—these yellow-haired pirates might yet be foiled of their prey by a despised half-breed.
The uneventful day was drawing to its close. Again they had had him in the captain's cabin, and again he had refused the brandy all but forced upon him, and had drawn from his imagination a vivid picture of the strength of Fort Albany in guns and men. As to Moose and Rupert House, he had not been there lately, he told his eager audience, but had heard that they had received reinforcements from Canada and were equally prepared for an attack from the sea.
Truly the stupidity of these strangers was approached only by that of the porcupine, he had whispered into Loup's pointed ears after the cross-questioning. The fools had hardly a month to wait to get the winter's hunt of all the James Bay country at Charlton Island, but they seemed ignorant of the existence of the big depot.
The remainder of the day the Cree had spent with his dog, feeding him in mid-afternoon a double ration from the galley. Time and again he had sprung to his feet from the fur-pack where he sat, and spurred the animal into a fury of excitement by speaking softly, pleadingly to him in Cree. Over and over he had repeated the same words, and at each repetition the husky had leaped to his feet with a whine, ears forward, nerves on edge, electrified; and one of these often-repeated words was the Cree for home.
That night the anchor-watch on the Elbe drowsed at their posts. For an hour the flood-tide had been sweeping past the ship toward the Albany delta. So thick hung the smother of mist that the single lantern lighting the forecastle-hatchway was drowned at thirty feet. Amidships the husky lay curled, with his nose in his bushy tail, beside the fur-pack.
Suddenly the animal straightened, lifting his head to sniff the baffling air.
"Whish you, Loup!" came the whispered words out of the blackness. The dog sprang to his feet, every muscle tense. Murmuring in Cree followed. The tail of the husky switched back and forth, but the rising whine was stifled by a familiar hand closing on his nose, while an arm of his master encircled him.
Swiftly a collar of plaited caribou hide was knotted on the husky's neck. Attached to the collar was a water-proof pouch of sealskin containing the strip of hide with this message in Cree characters burned in with the wire the previous night:
"Yellow-beard ship off river-mouth. When fog lift' they come in boats to steal fur, burn post. I steer boat close in Whitefish Point. Wait there. Good-bye, wife, children! The good God help you!
To sever the rope which Loup had chewed nearly through that afternoon was a matter of seconds. Then the Cree, taking the massive head in his arms, whispered the words that had aroused the husky during the day.
"Home!" he said. "Go Home, Loup! Home! Out dere!"
Though the husky trembled with excitement, every nerve alive, the intelligent animal seemed to sense the necessity for silence as the fingers of the Cree closed again on his nostrils.
"Home! Home!" Laroque repeated again and again, whispering the familiar names of his wife and the four-year-old boy with whom the dog had grown up from puppyhood and whom next to his master he loved above all others.
Then he lifted the excited Loup to the rail, while his voice broke in a farewell, "Bojo, Loup! Home!" and sent the dog he loved down into the black waters of the bay.
The heavy body of the husky struck the flat surface with a loud splash. To the eager ears of the Cree, who hung over the rail, peering into the blackness, came a smothered whine of farewell as the dog rose to the surface; then silence.
Aroused by the noise, the sleepy watch gave the alarm. Shots were fired blindly into the mist. Half-wakened sailors tumbled out of the forecastle-hatch; officers hurried forward from the after-cabin. From the bridge the search-light played around the ship against the impenetrable wall of fog. But the dauntless cause of the uproar, swept struggling past the bilges by the strong current, had turned with the tide, and was already straightened out on his long journey for the mouth of the Albany and home.
Meanwhile the Cree, who had glided forward cat-like, on moccasined feet, flattened himself against the rail when the first of the crew passed him, then, following the hurrying men, showed himself to a boatswain with a lantern, who led him aft to an officer vainly demanding the cause of the disturbance.
"I thought at first you had been foolish enough to try to swim ashore," said the young lieutenant. "I objected to putting you under guard, so I'm glad you're here."
"My husky chew de rope an' tak' to de water," vouchsafed the Cree.
"Your dog? Too bad! He'll never reach shore in this fog."
The severed rope at the ring-bolt told the story. It was evident that the husky had taken French leave as the German jokingly pointed out to the Cree. And Laroque now knew that no one had seen him steal out of the forecastle.
"I thought you said the dog wouldn't leave your fur-pack."
"Weel, I guess he hungree for rabbit-meat," replied Gaspard, lightly, but his sick heart was out there in the black night toward the Albany delta with his faithful friend battling his way blindly home.
It was all a matter of luck, Laroque told himself, as he lay in his bunk. He had waited until the tide was running hard before sending the dog off, and Loup was too clever to fight the current; he would swim with it. He had learned that as a puppy. But, unable to see the shore in the fog, he was more than likely to be swept into the main channel of the river and miss the flats to the north, where he could find the beach. In clear weather he would bet his life that the tireless Loup would make the post by sunrise. Once landed, the fifteen miles up the river shore would be nothing to the best sled-dog on the west coast. Loup would go directly to the cabin, and Gaspard's wife would see the pouch on the collar and take the message to the factor. It all depended on whether the husky in the scent-defying fog could smell the shore and bush and turn in instead of swimming blindly on up-river with the tide until exhausted. Then the Cree prayed to the Great Master, whom the Oblat fathers at Albany had taught him to reverence, for the life of his dog and the safety of those he loved.
For another day the fog-bank hung on the west coast; but in the evening a fresh northwest breeze followed the invisible sunset, and shortly the stars were out. The low islands of the Albany delta lay a dark smear on the western horizon.
At daylight the Elbe was alive with activity. An open launch lay off her leeward beam with an evil-looking quick-firer mounted on the bow. Other boats still at their davits were being overhauled and loaded with guns, ammunition, and provisions. Laroque was given his breakfast, then ordered to report to the captain aft.
"You are to pilot a scouting-party in the launch up the river. If you run the boat aground or do not immediately obey the orders of the officer in charge, you'll be shot instantly. Any sign of trickery, and you're a dead man. If you serve us well, I stand by my promise. You get your canoe filled from the ship's stores and a bag of gold."
As the officer snapped out the English words in his German accent, the fingers of the Cree itched for the handle of the knife at his belt. His swart face went still darker with the hate in his heart for this yellow-beard whom he would split as he split a dead caribou had they but stood face to face, alone, on the beach.
In command of the first officer of the Elbe, twenty men, armed with rifles, crowded into the launch. The Cree was glad that the friendly subaltern was not detailed with the party. Laroque was ordered to a post beside the wheel, handled by a quartermaster. Close at his back stood the lieutenant. Why, the Cree only too well knew.
The run to the mouth of the Albany was quickly made. As the launch entered the river the heart of Gaspard Laroque raced under the strain of uncertainty as to what the next few miles would disclose, for if Loup had reached the post, the Crees would have lost no time in cutting the channel-buoys, long spruce saplings driven into the mud.
They rounded a sand-spit, and for miles had a clear view of the river. Breathless, the Cree leaned forward, shading his narrowed eyes with his hand as he searched for the first buoy marking the channel. Quickly glancing from the east to the west shore for the lob-stick ranges of spruce fixing the position of the buoy, he again looked up-stream. His heart drummed in his chest. The sun-glare on the water bothered his eyes, so once more he sought the lob-stick ranges. Again he swept the locality where the sapling should rise twenty feet above the water. He sucked a great breath into his lungs and expelled it, for he saw that the buoy had been cut.
A thrill of pride swept Gaspard Laroque. Loup, his Loup, had won through out of the wilderness of that black night to the shore and Albany. His shaggy courier had fought his way home. The post knew of the coming of the Germans.
The Cree turned coolly to the officer, who held an automatic pistol pressed against the small of the half-breed's back.
"I not see de buoy. One was dere." He pointed in the general direction of the channel.
"Never mind the buoys; you know the channel. She draws only four feet. Take her on up the river."
"Ver' weel. I can show de way, but I lak' to see de buoy." Truly, he swore to himself, he would show the way to these men; for with the buoys out of the way, his course would not be questioned, and the old buoy off Whitefish Point, six miles above, was not so close to the shore by a hundred yards as he would steer that launch.
The tide was high, and there was little chance of his grounding the small-draft boat even on the flats, but as the Cree with the pistol at his back directed the course of the man at the wheel, he was thinking harder than he ever had thought in his life; for one short hour would see him a dead man or else Well, it would all be over soon.
On sped the launch past the low Albany shores. Not a buoy broke the surface of the wide river-mouth. The gunners in the bow with the one-pounder stood with eyes glued to their glasses. Huddled in the cock-pit, aft of the gasoline engine, the sailors sat in silence, grasping their rifles.
As the swift craft put mile after mile of the river behind her, the low scrub of the shore gradually gave way to heavier growth, and at last Whitefish Point, thrusting its spruce-clad silhouette far into the stream, opened up ahead.
Though the pulse of Gaspard Laroque pounded like a dog-runner's, his grim features gave no evidence of the tension under which he labored. Only a mile now, he thought.
The launch had covered half the distance when the Cree turned to the officer at his back and pointed ahead.
"De channel swing een close to dat point. Outside onlee free, four feet water." As he spoke, he stealthily shifted his footing. The helmsman, ordered by the officer, swung the launch inshore.
Shortly the Cree again protested:
"We run on de flat. Channel ees een shore."
Again the course of the boat was changed.
As they neared the point, the straining eyes of the half-breed were fixed on the willow scrub covering the upper beach. But suddenly his attention was attracted to a line of barely perceptible ripples at right angles to the channel, dead ahead.
"Ah-hah!" he breathed. "Nets!" and every muscle in his body stiffened.
The launch was almost on the nets when a gunner in the bow raised a shout of warning. Like a flash the Cree dropped to his knees, driving his knife into the body of the officer, as the automatic exploded. At the same instant the silence of the shore was shattered by a volley from a score of rifles in the willows. Again and again, in quick succession, the thick bush spat salvos of death on the doomed craft.
Its propeller fouled in the nets, the launch swung helpless in the current with its cargo of wounded and dead. At pointblank range of fifty yards the Cree hunters and Hudson's Bay men had wasted no shells.
Launching their hidden canoes, the company men boarded the boat, to find under the bodies of the dead officer and the helmsman the insensible form of Gaspard Laroque with a bullet-hole in the back.
They buried the dead on the beach, and with the few wounded survivors of the scouting party started for Albany. Two days later his scouts reported to MacGregor, the factor, that the morning following the ambush at Whitefish Point a large launch, after twice grounding on the flats at the river-mouth, had returned to the Elbe, which had shortly raised anchor and steamed away to the north.
It was Christmas at Fort Albany. The day previous the mail-team from Moose had arrived with important despatches from Ottawa. Assembled on the snow before the log trade-house, the post people and the Crees in for the New-year festivities faced the factor.
"Gaspard Laroque!" called the deep bass of MacGregor. The half-breed stepped forward from the crowd.
"In behalf of the Canadian Government, I present you with the Military Cross for conspicuous bravery," and the factor pinned the bronze medal on the embarrassed Gaspard's wide chest amid the shouts of the Crees.
"Loup!" cried the factor. At the sound of his name, the husky, unleashed by the Cree's wife, trotted up to his master, ears forward, tail in air, suspicious of the strange proceedings.
While Laroque held the dog, MacGregor took from its wrappings a brass-studded collar, from which hung a large silver medal, and read the inscription:
"Presented by the Canadian Government to Loup for distinguished conduct in carrying by sea and land the message which saved Fort Albany from the German raider Elbe, July, 1915."
On the reverse side of the medal were the words, "For Valor."
Amid the yelping of the dogs and the cheers of the people of Fort Albany, the neck of the great husky was encircled with the credentials of his nobility, and from the factor's broad palm he received on his shaggy shoulders the accolade of his knighthood.