# When the Prince Came Home

Extracted from Scribner's magazine, vol. 55, 1914, pp. 644-657.
WHEN THE PRINCE CAME HOME
By George T. Marsh
THE door of the trade-house at Rupert was thrown open, admitting a blast of biting air and a flurry of powdery snow, followed by the rugged figure of Bruce Cristy, son of the factor.
"The Queen of Sheba's pups have come, father," he cried, "and Michel says they're the likeliest-looking litter he's ever seen at Rupert House."
The factor, grinning with pleasure, reached for his foxskin cap. "We'll have a look at 'em. It's time we had some good dogs at Rupert."
Now the Queen, an Ungava-bred husky, bought when a puppy from a Whale River Eskimo, was far and away the best sled-dog at the post, and the pride of the big Scotchman. Massive of bone and frame, with the stamina of a caribou, she had won, as a yearling, a place in the traces of the Hudson's Bay Company's winter packet that took the mail north up the east coast. Therefore, it was with high hope that Cristy floundered over the narrow dog-trail in the deep snow to an unoccupied shack behind the trade-house.
In the open door of the building stood two of the shaggy veterans of the mail-teams, peering curiously with wolfish eyes into the interior, while from a deep throat within a low, menacing rumble, like the muffled threats of a September northwester gathering on James Bay, held them at the threshold. For there was not a slant-eyed husky at Rupert House that had not felt the white fangs of the Queen, who long since had asserted her sovereignty by right of the power that lay in the lunge and slash of her punishing jaws.
As the factor and his son entered the shack, the growl changed to a whine of recognition from the great dog, who lay on some old sacking in the corner, with six blind, whimpering balls of fur.
"Well, Queenie, old girl, you've sure done yourself proud," chuckled the delighted Cristy, patting the head that sought his hand. "Let's have a look at the family."
One after another he picked up the squealing puppies, his practised fingers sensing the bone and build of each as if he were fit already for the collar and traces of the winter trails.
"Hello! Here's one that's the picture of the old lady herself," he continued, lifting a squirming puppy for inspection.
"Look! He's got the same white star on his chest, and the four white socks," cried Bruce.
"Yes, and in bone and build he's the best of the lot," added his father. "I guess we'll name him Prince right here, for he's got the right to the title. Some day he'll lead the winter packet a day ahead of time into Whale River, and Mackay'll have to find a new joke. We'll have some sled-dogs worth their whitefish at Rupert yet, lad."
That year the spring came early to Rupert Land. The melting snow of April brought to the huskies a swift release from the winter's thraldom to collar and traces, and snow-shoes were discarded by the little colony for the slush-proof sealskin boot. Then the ice began to boom and churn and grind day after day past the post to the salt bay. The great river, swollen by the floods from far Mistassini, crept foot by foot up the high shores until it seethed and hissed almost at the level from which, for two centuries, the brave little fort had hurled a mute defiance at the sullen north. Bound for the marshes of the west coast, long lines of gray geese, led by veteran couriers of the air, crossed like caravans the blue desert of the sky. White hosts of wavies, their snowy wings flapping in the sun's rays like huge banners, passed high overhead to their nesting-places in nameless arctic islands. In the wake of the gray and the white squadrons came the little brothers of the air, duck and yellow-legs, warbler and thrush. And soon, from the neighboring forest, piped the heralds of soft days in Rupert Land.
With the waxing of the spring the sons and daughters of the Queen grew into hulking, leggy puppies, always in the way of every one, including themselves. But reckless indeed of the safety of his throat would have been the half-breed who kicked them from his path while the restless, narrow eyes of the Queen kept vigilant watch. And it was not long before the puppy with the white socks and star-emblazoned chest began to realize the promise of his earliest youth. Soon his fiercer spirit, aided by the might of his sturdier build, brought his kinsmen into subjection, and he became the acknowledged leader in every puppy plot and misadventure about the trade-house and factor's quarters.
It was the Prince who was found under the trade-house endeavoring to bolt Cristy's best pair of sealskin boots. It was the Prince who, unobserved, gnawed into a bag of flour, and on appearing before his family, an apparition in white, was set upon fiercely by his kinsmen in a body, who failed to recognize him in his new rôle of purity. Not until he had administered to them a sound drubbing, in the course of which activity he lost his disguise, was he readmitted to membership in the family circle. Again, it was the Prince who, at the tender age of three months, demonstrated to the half-wild tom-cat of the Cristys that a husky pup with a star on his chest and the teeth of an otter was not to be cuffed with impunity. Thereafter, Lynx curled a tail somewhat shorter than he formerly wore, and affected a decided hitch in his gait.
But though the Prince soon acquired a reputation for a peppery temper and the love of a brawl, Bruce Cristy early discovered that he, alone, of the children of the Queen, not even momentarily could be lured from the side of his master by coaxing or bribery. Early he acquired the trick of rushing full-tilt at Bruce, in his lumbering puppy gait, yelping as he ran, only, on reaching him, to seize a hand in his open jaws, and, raising his slant eyes, to wait with fiercely wagging tail for the other hand to grasp his nose and roll him on his wriggling back.
So the northern summer passed, and with the first bite in the air came the gray and the white squadrons from the north to feed on the succulent goose-grass of the south coast marshes. Under Bruce the Company Indians manned the goose-boats and left for the annual hunt on Hannah Bay for the winter's supply. With the exception of Cristy and some of the older post Crees, Rupert House was devoid of men.
It was a soft, lazy afternoon at the end of September—weather which always precedes the cold storm that ushers in the Indian summer on the bay. A week of the latter and the stinging winds would sweep down from the north, bringing the brant and the first flurry of snow. The dogs of the factor's mail-teams were sprawled around the trade-house, asleep in the sun. But sleep this golden afternoon was not for the offspring of the Queen. Vainly, under the lead of the Prince, master of sports, they had romped from trade-house to river shore, and back to the spruce forest in the rear, in search of adventure. They had pawed and pulled at the inert anatomy of the Queen, only to be met with dire threats of chastisement in the form of low growls and lazy exposure of white canines as her head fell again in sleep. At last, in desperation, the hulking Prince picked up a bleached caribou shin-bone, and shaking it as he would a rabbit, challenged his comrades to take it.
With yelps of delight the pursuit began. Pell-mell around the trade-house went the pack at the heels of the big puppy. Back again they came, scrambling over each other in wild confusion as they slid down the steep river bank in full cry. Then up again and over to the forest raced the squealing huskies, hard in pursuit of one too fleet to be overtaken. Soon, out of the forest galloped the Prince, and headed for the trade-house. Arriving there, he stopped and allowed his nearest pursuers to come almost within reach, then, shaking his bone in their faces, he fled up the river shore toward the mission and the cabins of the post Indians a few hundred yards off.
The puppy had not covered half the distance when from the grass back of the mission-house rose a big white husky, opening his red mouth in a wide yawn as he stretched. For a moment he surveyed the authors of the bedlam which had wakened him; then, with ears erect and hair on neck bristling, began to walk slowly through the long grass toward the oncoming puppies. Farther away, near the Indian shacks, other huskies rose, shook themselves, and turned in quest of the cause of this ruthless interference with their slumbers.
When the Prince and his pursuers had covered half the distance to the mission-house, the white sentinel watching them threw back his head and roused the post with the long-drawn call to arms of the half-wild descendants of the timber-wolves.
The challenge of the white husky stopped the romping puppies in their tracks. Young as they were, they already knew the meaning of the slogan. Sensing the peril into which their heedless crossing of the post dead-line had placed them, they turned and fled for the safety of the trade-house. At the same time the Prince, far in front of his pursuing comrades, stopped, dropped his bone, and, with ears pricked and hair on neck and back stiffly erect, stood for an instant watching the white husky, who, as he trotted toward him, repeated the long howl of battle.
Immediately from the Indian shacks came the answer of the supporting columns. Then realizing the fate in store for a half-grown husky from the factor's quarters, caught alone near the mission-house, he lifted his head with a yelp of defiance and turned back. But the delay due to this momentary act of bravado cost him dear. As they raced, the white dog, followed at a distance by his comrades, gained on the puppy at every bound. Now he crossed the frontier, but the trade-house still lay two hundred yards away. On came the big husky, yelping as he ran, until hardly a hundred feet separated them. Then, aware of the hopelessness of his attempt to escape, the puppy gave poignant proof of the blood royal that raced in his veins. Suddenly swerving, he checked himself, and, crouching with head lowered and feet braced widely apart, the fighting rage of a hundred wolfish forebears blazing in his narrow eyes, he awaited the rush of the white husky with a snarl.
THE PRINCE SLASHED WITH HIS SHARP TEETH
The big dog, surprised at being met jaw-to-jaw by his quarry, whom he anticipated pulling down from behind, and unable to stop himself, leaped as he reached the puppy, while the Prince, springing forward at the same instant, slashed with his sharp teeth a deep gash in the white body as it passed over him. Gathering himself like a flash, the big dog turned and jumped back, sinking his long fangs into the shoulder of the infuriated son of the Queen. But no yelp of fear or pain left the throat of the puppy as he closed in what would have been a death-grapple with his heavier and more skilful adversary, had not, at the instant that the white husky's superior weight bore him down, a gray streak shot through the air from behind, and a great slate-gray body catapulted into the white one, rolling it over and over, while punishing fangs slashed again and again into the white shoulders and chest, seeking the throat. Then, over the three, like tides on a reef, the yelping pack from the Cree cabins and the sled-dogs of the mail-teams, hurrying to support the Queen, met. Instantly there arose over Rupert House the wild din of two-score huskies, mad with the lust for blood, battling to the death.
Leaving the white husky gasping out his life through a ripped throat, the Queen, infuriated with the sight of the blood of her own body welling from the wounds of her puppy, stood over him, fighting like a demon. Lunging, slashing right and left with her knifelike fangs, she battled with her comrades against overwhelming odds, for the life of her son. But, though the dogs of the mail-teams were far outnumbered, they were picked animals, chosen for strength and endurance, veterans of a score of similar frays, and fighting together, as is their custom, they were more than holding their own, when the big factor, striking right and left with an axe-helve in each hand, sprang into the middle of the yelping, blood-smeared riot of enraged huskies. Yet not until reinforced by the Crees left at the post, and after a merciless use of the club, did Cristy finally separate the maddened brutes and stop the fight. Snarling their smothered rage as they limped, at times stopping to lick their wounds, slowly the dogs of the Crees were driven to their quarters. And behind them in the grass they left the stiffening bodies of the of their number that never again would mingle in fur-post brawl.
The battle over, Cristy turned anxiously to the Queen, who lay, oblivious to her own wounds, beside the limp body of her son, washing with her healing tongue the ugly slashes in chest and shoulder.
"How did this thing start, Antoine? I wouldn't lose this puppy for a dozen black-fox skins," he asked his half-breed clerk as he carried the torn body of the Prince to the trade-house.
"First tam I hear de husky shout, I look and I see de white dog chase de Prince pup. De oders run, but de pup he stop and mak' fight. Den de Queen, she travel lak timber-wolf for de white husky. Dat Prince, he ver' cross for a pup. I tink he mak' some beeg fight w'en he grow up; pull de sled lak bull-moose."
"So it was the Queen who killed the white husky?"
"Ah-hah! She keel heem lak he was snow-shoe rabbit."
When they had washed and dressed the wounds of the Prince, they placed him on the sacking in the shack where he had come into the world. There the Queen, hurt but superficially, kept guard night and day. Then the goose-boats returned from the Bay with their feathered freight of gray geese, wavy, and brant.
On hearing the news, Bruce hurried to his hurt puppy. In the doorway of the shack stood the Queen, who put her great paws on his chest in an endeavor to lick his face; then led him to the sacking in the corner of the room. At the sound of Bruce's voice, the fevered puppy raised his head with a feeble yelp, struggling to get to his feet, but his bandaged chest and shoulders held him helpless, so he lay with wrinkling nose extended toward his master, his bushy tail beating the floor.
The stalwart young Scot, with more than a suspicion of mist in his eyes, kneeling, pressed his bronzed face against that of the overjoyed puppy.
"So they chewed up my Prince pup, did they?" he whispered into a pointed ear. "Well, they got what they deserved. He fought the white husky with the red eyes, didn't he? Yes, he did. Another year and they won't bother this pup much, I guess not."
Under the careful nursing of Bruce the wounds of the Prince soon healed, but the November snows had whitened the wastes of Rupert Land before he had regained his strength, and the winter was far advanced when his chest could bear the pull and drag of his first collar and harness.
With June returned the red fur-hunters from the upper Rupert and Nottaway river country to trade at the post. Tepees now dotted the cleared ground, while bark canoes like mushrooms covered the shore; and the buoys of nets set for the whitefish that came in with the flood-tide, floated in lines on the river's surface. Rupert House had suddenly wakened with life and color. By day the swarthy children of the forest traded their winter's hunt of fur for the supplies of the Great Company, or lounged around the trade-house, smoking and exchanging the gossip of the north. At twilight the laughter of women and the voices of children at play filled the air, for the dread moons of the long snow, with their cold and famine, were passed and the days of plenty at hand.
One evening two French half-breeds, lean from privation, with clothes and moccasins worn to ribbons, turned a shattered Peterborough canoe into the post. The strangers said that in the previous summer they had crossed the Height of Land from the Lake St. John country, by way of the Roberval River and the Sinking Lakes, on the Labrador border, where they had trapped their furs. It was the most valuable winter's hunt that two men had brought to the post in the memory of the oldest Indian, and the suspicions of Cristy were aroused.
Part of their furs the breeds traded for a canoe, provisions, and ammunition, but refused to barter the foxskins. This convinced the factor that they intended to return to Lake St. John, where the free traders would pay them cash.
One morning Rupert House waked to find the strangers gone. That night when Bruce fed the sled-dogs, the Prince was missing. Then he knew that the husky had been taken from Rupert in the canoe of the half-breeds.
Quickly the post was aroused. Gathering his best voyageurs in the trade-room, Cristy addressed them in Cree.
"The last sleep the strangers from the south left Rupert House. With them they took the light of my eyes. And the heart of my son is sad. They journeyed far to trade their furs at the Big Water. This they did because they feared the heavy hands of the fathers at Ottawa, for they have broken the law. To-night a canoe takes the river trail to Mistassini, another follows the coast to Moose, and a third journeys up the Big Water to East Main Fort, to bring back these men and the dog, which I prize. There is much flour and tea for the canoe that brings back the dog, and the Company debt of the crew shall be forgotten."
The voyageurs launched the canoes, with supplies for the pursuit, and disappeared in the dusk.
Far into the night the factor and his son sat speculating as to how the thieves had managed to overpower the great puppy and spirit him away without arousing the camp while at intervals, outside, where the dogs slept in the grass, the deep throat of the Queen voiced her grief at the absence of her son, in a long, mournful howl.
Early in August a packet from Moose Factory, with government despatches from Ottawa, told the story. The posts on the east coast were ordered to arrest two French half-breeds, accused of the murder, on the upper Roberval, of a Montagnais, and the wounding of several others, in a successful attempt to rob a party of trappers of their winter's hunt.
Then the fur brigade arrived from Mistassini, and with it Michel and his tattered voyageurs. They had searched the length of the Rupert and the Marten Lakes trail to the south, but only once had found signs of the dog and the fleeing thieves. The factor at Mistassini wrote that he was crippled with rheumatism, and asked for an assistant.
"Well, here's where you get your chance to see some of the Height of Land country," said his father, handing Bruce the letter.
Three days later Bruce Cristy bade his family good-by, and started with the returning fur brigade for the great lake in whose half-mythical waters the white man's paddle has seldom dipped. Stepping into a birch-bark manned by four Crees, he placed his Winchester in its skin case at his feet, and turned grimly to his father, who stood on the shore.
"If they are hunting in the Mistassini country this winter and we don't get them, it won't be because I have hugged the fire at the post; and if I'm ever within rifle-shot and don't burn some powder, it won't be because I've forgotten my dog."
"Good-by, lad! Take care of yourself! We'll see you in the summer," called his father as the stalwart youth seized his paddle and gave the signal to start.
The five blades, driven by the toil-hardened backs and shoulders of the crew, churned the water in the wake of the brigade, and the long craft, followed by cries of "Bo'-jo'! Bo'-jo'!" from the little group of Crees on the shore, shot forward on its three-hundred-mile journey.
On arriving at Mistassini in September, Bruce found the factor Craig unable to walk, so he took active charge of the post. While most of the Crees were as yet in their summer camps on the lakes, curing fish for the winter, he sent canoes warning them to keep a sharp lookout for the renegades from Lake St. John, and promised a reward for the dog. But the couriers returned with no news of the Prince.
In October the stinging winds brought the snow to the lonely post far on the Height of Land, and the thoroughfares began to close with the early ice. Then for a month the little settlement was marooned in the snow-swept solitudes, while the ice was making on the wide lakes and swift rivers, strong enough for men and dog-teams to travel. With the coming of the freezing November moon Bruce Cristy left the post with two dog-teams for the Sinking Lakes. Christmas found him still in the forests of the Labrador border, travelling from camp to camp of the Cree and Montagnais trappers who traded at Mistassini, searching for news of two half-breed strangers, and a big husky with star-emblazoned chest. Finally, disheartened after two months' fruitless wandering, he turned back on the Mistassini trail.
It was a bitter January day on the wind-harried level of the great lake, with the air filled with powdery snow that cut the faces of the men like whip-lashes. Gradually the travelled trail, ice-hardened at Christmas by the friction of many feet and runners, filled with drift, and the brisk trot of the dogs slowed to a walk as the light waned and the early dusk crept out from the deeply shadowed spruce shores. Jean, the French Cree driver at the gee-pole of the slowly moving sled, was searching the neighboring forest for a place to camp, while behind him walked Cristy, occupied with his thoughts.
Suddenly the lead dog yelped, starting the team forward on a trot. Looking up, Bruce saw a dog-team far ahead on the trail.
"It must be our boys," he said. "Stir up those huskies, Jean. Peter may have some news."
The driver cracked his whip at the leader's ears, and the pursuit began. From the first they gained rapidly. Soon hardly a mile separated the teams. Then catching a side view where the trail turned at right angles to round a point of the shore, Cristy's heart leaped, for the sled ahead, on which the driver rode, was drawn by a lone husky.
Bruce gripped the arm of the Cree. "There's only one dog on that sled, Jean! Come on!" Springing in front of the team, he ran up the trail.
At Cristy's approach the huddled figure on the sled gave no sign. At intervals an arm rose and fell, lashing the dog forward to the unequal task. Hardly a rifle-shot separated them when the exhausted dog, after repeated attempts to drag the sled through a drift, lay down on the trail. Again the whip rose and fell, rose and fell, but the husky did not move. Slowly the driver got up from the sled, and reeling forward struck the dog savagely on the head with the butt of the whip, then, carried off his balance by the blow, fell headlong to the snow at the dog's side. Like a flash the husky turned, and before the man could regain his feet lunged at his throat, forcing him, struggling, backward upon the trail. Once, twice, three times the fangs of the maddened brute tore at the throat of the helpless driver. Then, while the infuriated beast still worried the crumpled figure in the snow, Bruce reached them.
The gaunt husky, baring his while fangs with a snarl, turned from the lifeless body. Raising his massive head, across which, from nose to ears, ran great welts left by the dog-whip, he glared with narrow, blood-shot eyes at the new enemy. And on the shaggy chest the frozen ooze from a harness-sore stained with a crimson smear a large white star.
"Prince! Prince! don't you know me, boy?" cried his master, dropping his fur mittens, and reaching out with palms upward toward the angered dog, whose blood was still hot with the rage of battle.
The husky, expecting a blow from a dog-whip, and receiving no attack, stood for an instant confused. But the approach of the yelping team again aroused his lighting blood, and he faced around in his traces to defend himself, hair on back bristling.
"Good old Prince! Don't you remember me, boy? Don't you remember the Queen, the Queen, your old mother, Prince?"
Gradually, as Bruce repeated the words once so familiar to the wanderer, the bared fangs were covered. The pointed ears of the husky laid back against the skull, slowly righted themselves as the soothing tones of the voice he once loved stirred the ghosts of vague memories of other days, blurred by months of cruelty and starvation.
As his lost master continued to talk, the dog thrust forward his bruised muzzle and, with ears pricked, sniffed at Bruce's hand.
"Good old Prince! We've found him at last!" Bruce continued, his fingers now touching the extended nose of the puzzled dog. Then with a long whiff memory returned, and the husky recognized the beloved hand of his master of the happy days.
With a yelp, the starved Prince, fore feet uplifted, threw himself at Bruce. A pair of strong arms circled the shaggy neck, and a wind-burnt face sought the scarred head, while into a furry ear, amid whines of delight, were poured the things a man says only to his dog.
A slash of the knife freed the Prince from the harness. Kneeling on his snow-shoes, Cristy ran his fingers over the lumps and bruises on the great emaciated body that told the story of long months of slavery under brutal masters. Finding no broken bones, he turned to the dead man in the snow who had paid so dearly for every welt. For a moment, as Bruce gazed at the face, distorted in death, with glazed, sunken eyes staring sightless into the bitter night, pity held him; until the touch of a battered nose seeking his hand again hardened his heart.
"When their grub gave out," said Bruce, "I suppose he knifed the other one and started for the post."
They buried the murderer in the deep snow of the shore and left him to the tender mercies of his kind, the furred assassins of the forest. Then they made camp and fed the famished dog.
When the Prince had regained his strength, back at the post, Bruce decided not to wait until the thoroughfares cleared for canoe travel in May, but to leave for home on the first crust.
So one March afternoon found the Prince leading the dog-team slowly over the lump ice marking the long stretch of the Kettle Rapids, far down the Rupert River. Whirlpools, shoots, and cross-currents, defying the inexorable cold long after the swift river closes elsewhere, keep the Rupert House trail broken here until January. Then, succumbing to the fierce temperature of the midwinter nights, the rapids freeze throughout their length in irregular mounds and ridges.
For an hour they had been hugging the shore, avoiding the treacherous footing of midstream. At last, on turning a bend, the white shell of the Rupert again stretched level before them.
With a cheery "Marche, Prince!" Cristy broke into the snow-shoe swing, half-walk, half-trot, which eats up the miles as does no gait on bare ground. In answer to the command, the willing leader started the team at a fast trot. Out into mid-river, where the going was good on the hard crust, swung Cristy, followed by his dogs. Then, as they left the foot of the rapids, without warning the ice sank under them, plunging driver and yelping dogs into the water.
With a few powerful strokes Cristy fought his way to the sound ice. Behind him, the Prince and the second dog struggled desperately against the drag of the sinking sled, holding the rear dogs under. Supporting himself with one arm, Bruce called to the panting husky, straining every nerve to reach his master. "Come on. Prince! Come on, Prince!" he cried, working desperately with numbed fingers to get at his knife. Then the swift current carried sled and helpless huskies down-stream under the struggling Prince, momentarily easing the strain on the traces which bound him to them, and he reached and got his fore feet on the ice at his master's side. At the same instant Cristy freed his knife from its sheath. And as sled and drowning dogs were sucked under the ice, and the nails of the Prince's clinging fore feet slipped slowly toward the edge, while the doomed dog voiced his despair in a smothered whine, the traces were slashed.
Freed from the deadly weight, with a heave of his shoulders the husky raised himself half out of water, when the body of his master at his side furnished a foot-hold for a hind leg, and the dog was out.
Stiffening under the paralyzing chill and hampered by skin capote and snow-shoes, Cristy was weakening rapidly, when the Prince, sensing his master's peril, braced himself at the slippery edge of the firm ice and seized an arm in his strong teeth. Then as he strained for a foothold, with fore legs planted wide apart and nails biting deep into the treacherous surface, the thick back of the great husky bowed slowly into an arc, and the freezing man was dragged to safety.
The dazed Cristy got to his feet and staggered to the shore, where he stood for a while staring helplessly at the grave of his faithful huskies. At length he turned to the dog at his side, who held in his half-open jaws his master's unmittened hand, begging with beating tail for recognition.
Silently the man knelt and, seizing in his arms the shaggy neck, crushed his face against the great head.
"We're square now, boy. I won't forget and you won't forget," he said hoarsely, as the happy Prince sat motionless. "But we're a hundred miles from home, boy, and not an ounce of grub, or a blanket, and the wind's risin', and it'll go twenty below before daylight. It's travel day and night for us if we ever see Rupert again, and there'll be no whitefish and tea and bannocks on the way."
For answer, a cold nose and a hot red tongue sought the man's face, while the shivering Cristy threw off his ice-caked capote and squeezed the water as best he could from his freezing clothes.
THE FREEZING MAN WAS DRAGGED TO SAFETY
Then man and dog, side by side, started down the desolate river guarded by the pitiless hills, in the race against cold and starvation. Somewhere below, he knew there was an old Company cache. The bitter wind, drawing up-stream between the ridges, was strengthening. No man might face its stinging drive that night and save his face and hands. Already the blood was leaving his fingers in the frozen mittens. So he hurried to make the cache before the dusk.
White mile after mile the man and dog left behind them, but no sign of the cache. Cristy wondered if he had passed it, buried in the snow. It had been there in the fall, not far below the Kettle Rapids, and he must find it soon. He was travelling head down to avoid the sting of the wind, but his fingers might go at any time, and he thought of what that would mean.
Finally, he decided to plunge into the first timbered hollow and make camp. What a mockery that would be for man and dog—without food! Still, a roaring fire would help. But without an axe? Unless he found down timber, he couldn't hope for much of a fire without an axe, and the night would be bitter. The heart of the half-frozen youth sank. He thought of the family at Rupert that would not know his fate until the spring canoe from Mistassini reached the post with the news that he had left the lake in March. Or possibly the sled with the dogs would be washed ashore and found by the Nemiskau Crees on their way to the sirring trade. So he mused as his snow-shoes crunched the brittle crust.
Then he pulled himself together. Men had travelled in the north farther without food, and in midwinter, too, when the wind was worse, and the nights forty and fifty below. Out of the wind it wouldn't be so bad. A thaw was due any time, and the wind never blows long in March in the north. But they must get into the first thick spruce soon, or— Then, half buried in the snow on the shore, he saw the cache.
"Come on, boy!" he cried, and shortly was shovelling an entrance through the low door. Inside, some snow had drifted through chinks in the walls, but the roof was wind-proofed by the crust; and his spirits rose, for there at the end of the shack stood a rusty tent stove.
When he had gathered birch-bark and dry spruce sticks, his stiffened fingers fumbled for his match-box. With an exclamation of fear he swiftly searched each of his pockets. As he did, the lean face went pale under the weather-tanned skin. Turning to the dog, he cried:
"The matches went down with the sled, boy! We're done for! We'll never see Rupert now!"
As a last resort, he carefully explored the shack, but it had been unused for years, and he found no matches, but stumbled upon what the wood-mice had left of an old Company blanket. Again he searched the room for that which meant warmth and life, but in vain.
Then the desperate youth set to work banking in the walls of the cache with snow to make it wind-proof. This accomplished, he sealed the low doorway and prepared to fight through the bitter hours for his life. His woollen clothes, thanks to the severe exercise, were partially dry; so were the socks he wore next his feet. The outer ones he took off, kneaded until they were soft, wrung out what moisture he could, and put on again.
Scraping and pounding the ice from the heavy coat of the Prince, who, owing to the thick under-fur of soft hair and the hardihood of his breed, was immune to cold, Cristy made the dog lie down, and wrapping the blanket around them, clasped the great beast closely to his own. Through the bitter hours the warmth of the dog's body alone kept the heart of his master beating and the blood moving in his feet and hands.
At last the blue March dawn broke over the cache on the Rupert, and with it the wind fell. Later the rising sun overtook on the river trail a traveller with a ragged blanket slung on his back, and a slate-gray husky. Once the dog ran ahead, and turning, rushed yelping back to take in his jaws a mittened hand, and march, swishing a bushy tail, beside the man as if urging him to a faster pace. But the traveller, with head down and haggard eyes, swung stiffly on at the same stride, for Rupert House lay ninety white miles away, and one who starves must save his strength.
Three days later old Michel opened the door of the trade-house at Rupert, stepped into the caribou thongs of his snow-shoes, and shuffled up the high river shore toward his cabin. At last the winter was breaking. The strong March sun, reflected from the sparkling white level of river and bay, fairly blinded the eyes. The tough old breed had not deigned to slip on the rabbit-skin mitts that hung from his neck by a cord, and in the sun his cap of cross-fox with its bushy tail dangling jauntily behind seemed too warm. Yet lately the nights had been bitter, with much wind. In a week, perhaps, the snow would melt a little each day at noon, to freeze hard again at sunset. Then in a few sleeps would come the big March thaw, and the trails would close for a moon. So he mused as his snow-shoes lazily creaked on the crust.
Suddenly the tall figure stopped in its tracks, a lean hand shading the keen eyes.
"Ah-hah!"
The exclamation was followed by a long silence as he stood, motionless, gazing up the river.
"Cree comin'!" he muttered after a time, and shortly added, "De rabbit, he give out in hees countree for sure."
With narrowed eyes still shaded, the watcher followed the moving spots on the snow far up the river trail.
"Ver' strange ting!" he finally said aloud. "He travel all over de riviere lak' he seek wid 'mal de tête.'" The old man slowly shook his head. "De husky, why he jump de trail? Ver' strange ting!"
Presently the approaching objects on the wide river further enlightened the keen eyes.
"Ah-hah!" This time with more vehemence, for the black spots were beginning to assume shape. "Dere ees no sled. De Cree starve out for sure."
Nearer came the one seeking the succor of Rupert House from the pitiless north. Then the old man expelled his breath with a long "Hah!" The mystery of the uncertain course of the stranger was solved.
"Snow-blind!" he said, and turned back to the trade-house, to reappear with the factor and two Company men.
"A snow-blind Cree, with a lone husky, you say, Michel?" inquired Cristy, his eyes following the pointing finger.
"Snow-blind, right enough, and starved, poor devil! There he goes off the trail now. Why, the dog's pulling him back; he's leading him. He's hitched to the husky."
For a moment, in silence, they watched the uncertain progress of man and dog. Then the factor exclaimed:
"There, he's gone down! Michel, harness a team to the cariole! We'll go and get him."
Stunned, or too weak to rise, the snow-blind stranger lay where he fell, while the dog nosed the prostrate form. Then the husky threw back his head and roused the dogs of Rupert House with a long howl.
Cristy and a post half-breed were rapidly approaching when the fallen man, with an effort, got to his feet and, clinging to a trace that circled the dog's neck, again staggered forward. The big husky, excited by the answering howls of the post dogs appearing from all directions, dragged his reeling master up the trail. On came the strange pair, stricken voyageur and faithful dog, but as Cristy reached them, the legs of the man doubled under him and he lurched forward on the snow. With a whine the husky turned to the motionless figure. Then he faced the strangers with a warning growl, and the astonished Cristy saw on his broad chest a large white star.
"Prince! By heaven, it's the pup!" cried the amazed factor.
On guard over the body of his master, whose face was invisible, the huge husky, narrow eyes blazing, held the two men in their tracks.
"Don't y' know me, Prince? Good old Prince!" coaxed Cristy, reaching a hand toward the dog, who stood perplexed by the voice of the factor and the familiar white buildings grouped on the shore ahead.
With a moan, the one in the snow turned and raised himself on an elbow. Across the lean, bearded face a strip of torn shirt was bound, to shield the inflamed eyes from the sun-glare on the crust. A mittenless hand, blue from frost-bite, reached up and touched the dog. Then the wanderer said weakly:
"I hear the huskies—Prince. We must be home—at last!"
"Bruce! Bruce! my lad!" cried his father, rushing to his stricken son.
With a bound the dog met the factor half-way, but the great fangs did not strike, for he had recognized his old friend.
Tenderly the starved and half-delirious youth was placed in the cariole sled and brought to the post.
Huskies, hurrying from far and near at the challenge from the river, already had been driven away when the Queen appeared. They were climbing the shore trail when she came trotting up to the great dog who marched beside the cariole sled within reach of his master's hand. The Prince pricked up his ears, whined uncertainly, and saluted her with a loud bark. With a low rumble of resentment in her throat at the presence at Rupert House of a strange husky whose shoulders topped her own by inches, she gingerly approached nearer. For a moment slant eyes looked into slant eyes, as mother and son stood motionless. Then, yelping wildly, the Prince sprang toward her. Surprised, the Queen stood on the defensive, when her bulky puppy carromed into her shoulders, rolling her over and over; but as they met, her nose, like a flash, caught the glad news. Then there followed a medley of yelps, leaps, caresses, and acrobatic expressions of unbounded canine delight such as Rupert House had witnessed in the memory of no living man. Bereft of their senses, mother and son raced up the high shores, round the trade-house, over to the factor's quarters and return, barking like mad.
When Bruce Cristy's mother took him into her arms at the factor's door, there happened to the proud Queen, in the presence of the post, that which no husky before had had either the strength or daring to attempt. Running at her side, the joy-maddened Prince, weakened by three days' fast though he was, suddenly seized the Queen by the back of her great neck and, with a wrench, threw her on the snow. And to the amazement of the onlookers, instead of the swift punishment which they anticipated would be meted out to him for his audacity, his cold nose felt the swift lick of a hot tongue as she gained her feet, and again joined him in a mad frolic.
So did the Queen welcome her lost son.
That night Bruce Cristy lay in bed with snow compresses cooling the inflamed eyes and aching head. While, at intervals, his mother fed him nourishing broth, he briefly told the story of the finding of the Prince, his fight for life at the Kettle Rapids, and the long struggle home without fire or food.
Later, as his worn-out son slept, Cristy tiptoed to the door and, slipping into his snow-shoes, sought the shack behind the trade-house. Softly entering on moccasined feet, he smiled at the picture that the light from the low moon shining through the door revealed. For there, lying sprawled upon the sacking in the corner where he came into the world, lay the wanderer, sleeping deeply after a bountiful supper, while at his side, with her nose resting on the big-boned, hairy fore paws of her son, the Queen kept guard. At times as she slept her deep chest swelled and then contracted as she heaved a contented sigh in her dreams, which were sweet, for at last the Prince had come home.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1945, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 78 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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