"He fires at Jean de Gravois, and it is Jean
who can hamstring a caribou at three hundred yards on the run!"
For an instant, at the crack of his rifle, there was no movement
ahead; then something rolled from the sledge and lay doubled up in the
snow. A hundred yards beyond it, the huskies stopped in a rabble and
turned to look at the approaching strangers.
Beside it Jean stopped; and when he saw the face that stared up at
him, he clutched his thin hands in his long black hair and cried out,
in shrill amazement and horror:
"The saints in Heaven, it is the missioner from Churchill!"
He turned the man over, and found where his bullet had entered under
one arm and come out from under the other. There was no spark of life
left. The missioner was already dead.
"The missioner from Churchill!" he gasped again.
He looked up at the warm sun, and kicked the melting snow under his
moccasined feet.
"It will thaw very soon," he said to himself, looking again at the
dead man, "and then he will go into the lake."
He headed his Malemutes back to the forest. Then he ran out and cut
the traces of the exhausted huskies, and with his whip scattered them
in freedom over the ice.
"Go to the wolves!" he shouted in Cree. "Hide yourselves from the
post, or Jean de Gravois will cut out your tongues and take your skins
off alive!"
When he came back to the top of the mountain, Jean found Iowaka making
hot coffee, while Jan was bundled up in furs near the fire.
Pages:
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81