Then there was a controversy with Napoleon Bouchard about the right to put a fish-house on a certain part of the beach: settled with a stick, after Napoleon had drawn a knife.Then there was a running warfare with Virgile and Ovide Boulianne, the free traders, who were his rivals in dealing with the Indians for their peltry: still unsettled.After this fashion the record of his relations with his fellow-citizens at Seven Islands was made up.He had their respect, but not their affection.He was the only Protestant, the only English-speaker, the most intelligent man, as well as the hardest hitter in the place, and he was very lonely.Perhaps it was this that made him take a fancy to Pichou.Their positions in the world were not unlike.He was not the first man who has wanted sympathy and found it in a dog.
Alone together, in the same boat, they made friends with each other easily.At first the remembrance of the hot pipe left a little suspicion in Pichou's mind; but this was removed by a handsome apology in the shape of a chunk of bread and a slice of meat from Dan Scott's lunch.After this they got on together finely.It was the first time in his life that Pichou had ever spent twenty-four hours away from other dogs; it was also the first time he had ever been treated like a gentleman.All that was best in him responded to the treatment.He could not have been more quiet and steady in the boat if he had been brought up to a seafaring life.When Dan Scott called him and patted him on the head, the dog looked up in the man's face as if he had found his God.And the man, looking down into the eye that was not disfigured by the black patch, saw something that he had been seeking for a long time.
All day the wind was fair and strong from the southeast.The chaloupe ran swiftly along the coast past the broad mouth of the River Saint-Jean, with its cluster of white cottages past the hill-encircled bay of the River Magpie, with its big fish-houses past the fire-swept cliffs of Riviere-au-Tonnerre, and the turbulent, rocky shores of the Sheldrake: past the silver cascade of the Riviere-aux-Graines, and the mist of the hidden fall of the Riviere Manitou:
past the long, desolate ridges of Cap Cormorant, where, at sunset, the wind began to droop away, and the tide was contrary So the chaloupe felt its way cautiously toward the corner of the coast where the little Riviere-a-la-Truite comes tumbling in among the brown rocks, and found a haven for the night in the mouth of the river.
There was only one human dwelling-place in sight As far as the eye could sweep, range after range of uninhabitable hills covered with the skeletons of dead forests; ledge after ledge of ice-worn granite thrust out like fangs into the foaming waves of the gulf.Nature, with her teeth bare and her lips scarred: this was the landscape.
And in the midst of it, on a low hill above the murmuring river, surrounded by the blanched trunks of fallen trees, and the blackened debris of wood and moss, a small, square, weather-beaten palisade of rough-hewn spruce, and a patch of the bright green leaves and white flowers of the dwarf cornel lavishing their beauty on a lonely grave.This was the only habitation in sight--the last home of the Englishman, Jack Chisholm, whose story has yet to be told.
In the shelter of this hill Dan Scott cooked his supper and shared it with Pichou.When night was dark he rolled himself in his blanket, and slept in the stern of the boat, with the dog at his side.Their friendship was sealed.
The next morning the weather was squally and full of sudden anger.
They crept out with difficulty through the long rollers that barred the tiny harbour, and beat their way along the coast.At Moisie they must run far out into the gulf to avoid the treacherous shoals, and to pass beyond the furious race of white-capped billows that poured from the great river for miles into the sea.Then they turned and made for the group of half-submerged mountains and scattered rocks that Nature, in some freak of fury, had thrown into the throat of Seven Islands Bay.That was a difficult passage.The black shores were swept by headlong tides.Tusks of granite tore the waves.Baffled and perplexed, the wind flapped and whirled among the cliffs.Through all this the little boat buffeted bravely on till she reached the point of the Gran Boule.Then a strange thing happened.
The water was lumpy; the evening was growing thick; a swirl of the tide and a shift of the wind caught the chaloupe and swung her suddenly around.The mainsail jibed, and before he knew how it happened Dan Scott was overboard.He could swim but clumsily.The water blinded him, choked him, dragged him down.Then he felt Pichou gripping him by the shoulder, buoying him up, swimming mightily toward the chaloupe which hung trembling in the wind a few yards away.At last they reached it and the man climbed over the stern and pulled the dog after him.Dan Scott lay in the bottom of the boat, shivering, dazed, until he felt the dog's cold nose and warm breath against his cheek.He flung his arm around Pichon's neck.
"They said you were mad! God, if more men were mad like you!"II
Pichou's work at Seven Islands was cut out for him on a generous scale.It is true that at first he had no regular canine labour to perform, for it was summer.Seven months of the year, on the North Shore, a sledge-dog's occupation is gone.He is the idlest creature in the universe.
But Pichou, being a new-comer, had to win his footing in the community; and that was no light task.With the humans it was comparatively easy.At the outset they mistrusted him on account of his looks.Virgile Boulianne asked: "Why did you buy such an ugly dog?" Ovide, who was the wit of the family, said: "I suppose M'sieu' Scott got a present for taking him.""It's a good dog," said Dan Scott."Treat him well and he'll treat you well.Kick him and I kick you."Then he told what had happened off the point of Gran' Boule.The village decided to accept Pichou at his master's valuation.
