Left on Labrador

C >> Charles Asbury Stephens >> Left on Labrador

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"Now let it storm, if it wants to!" cried Weymouth: "we've got a
water-proof seal-skin at least!"

An arch of stones, with our spider set in the top, was then built over
the fire to protect it from the weather.

"How long will this walrus last for firewood, suppose?" I asked.

"Oh! two or three days, for a guess," Donovan thought.

"After that, what?" said Wade.

"It's no use to trouble ourselves about that now," said Kit: "the
Bible expressly forbids it. Besides, we've had trouble enough for one
day. I'm for turning in and having a nap."

"Not much fun in turning in on a bare ledge, I fancy," Wade replied.
"We shall miss our mattresses."

"A bare rock is a rather hard thing to bunk on, I do think," Raed
remarked, peeping under the walrus-skin. "If we were in Maine, now, we
should qualify that with a 'shake-down' of spruce-boughs. Didn't see
any thing of the evergreen sort among the rocks, did you, Wash?"

We had not. It then occurred to me that we had observed several little
shrubs common to the mountains of Labrador, and known to naturalists
as the Labrador tea-plant.

"Any thing is better than the bare rock," Raed remarked, when I spoke
of this shrub; and we all sallied out to glean an armful.

While thus engaged, Wade and Kit espied a bed of moss in a hollow
between the crags, a portion of which was dry enough for our purpose.
After bringing an armful of the tea-plant, we made a trip to the
moss-patch. What we could all bring at once piled upon the coarse
shrubs made a bed by no means to be despised by--cast-aways.

"I presume there's no need of mounting guard or setting a watch here,"
Donovan said.

"How do we know that some party of Huskies or Indians has not been
watching our movements all day?" Weymouth suggested.

"I don't think it likely," said Raed. "We may all venture to go to
sleep, I guess, and trust to Guard to keep watch for us."

"I don't know about that," Kit remarked, patting the old fellow's
head. "He's eaten so much of our woodpile, that he will be but a
drowsy sentinel, I'm afraid."

The fire was replenished with blubber; and we all lay down on our
mossy beds inside our fresh-smelling tent.

The sun must have been still high in the north-west; but so wild and
dark were the clouds, that it had grown quite dark by nine o'clock.
The damp wind-gusts sighed; the surf swashed drearily on the rocks.
Despite all our efforts to bear up and seem gay, a weight of doubt and
danger rested heavily on our spirits. "Where is 'The Curlew' _now_?"
was the question that would keep constantly recurring, followed by a
still more ominous query, "What would become of us if she should not
return?"

"Isn't there a town out on the Atlantic coast of Labrador, a town or a
village, settled by the Moravian missionaries?" Raed asked suddenly,
after we had been lying there quietly for some minutes.

"Seems to me there is," Kit replied after a moment of reflection.

"There's one indicated on our geography-maps, I'm pretty sure, called
_Nain_, or some such scriptural name. Don't you remember it, Wash?"

I did distinctly; and also another, either above or below it on the
coast, called Hopedale, colonized by missionaries from South
Greenland.

"Those Moravians are very good folks, I've heard," Wade said. "They're
a very pious, Christian people. I have read, too, that they have
succeeded in Christianizing many of the coast Esquimaux."

"Those Huskies must make queer Christians!" exclaimed Donovan.

"How far do you suppose it is out to those towns, Nain, say, from
here, for a guess?" Raed asked a few minutes after.

"I was just thinking of that," said Kit. "Well, I should say four
hundred miles."

"Not less than six hundred," said Wade.

I thought it as likely to be seven or eight hundred.

"That would be a good way to travel on foot," muttered Raed
reflectively.

"Yes, it would," said Kit. "Still I shouldn't quite despair of doing
it if there was no other way out of this."

"How long would it take us, do you suppose?" Raed asked after another
pause. "How many miles a day could we make, besides hunting and
getting our food?"

"Not more than twelve on an average," Kit thought.

"Suppose it to be seven hundred miles, that would take us near sixty
days," Raed remarked; "seventy, counting out Sundays."

"We never could do that in the world!" Wade exclaimed. "It would take
us till midwinter, in this country! We should starve! We should freeze
to death!"

"Couldn't very well do both," Kit observed rather dryly.

"The journey would be well-nigh impossible, I expect," Raed remarked.
"On getting in from the coast, we should probably meet with no
sea-fowl, no seals: in fact, I hardly know what we should be able to
get for game. I have heard that caribou-deer are common in Labrador;
but they are, as we know from experience in the wilderness about Mount
Katahdin, very difficult to kill. And then our cartridges!"

"We might possibly attach ourselves to some party of Esquimaux going
southward," Kit suggested.

"And be murdered by them for our guns and knives," exclaimed Wade.

"Oh, no! not so bad as that, I should hope. But let's go to sleep now,
and discuss this to-morrow."

There was something horrible to our feelings in this thought of our
perfect isolation from the world. I think Wade realized it, or at
least felt it, more than either of the other boys. Kit either didn't
or wouldn't seem to mind it much after the first hour or two. Raed
probably saw the chances of our getting away more clearly than any of
us; but I doubt if he felt the wretchedness of our situation so keenly
as either Wade or myself. He was always cool and collected in his
plans, and not a little inclined to stoicism as regarded personal
danger. These philosophical persons are apt to be so. What the most of
folks feel badly about they laugh at: it is better so, perhaps. Yet
pity and sympathy are good things in their way. They help hold society
together; and are, I think it likely, about its strongest bonds of
union. As for Weymouth and Donovan, they bore it all very lightly:
indeed, they didn't seem to give the subject any great thought,
farther than to exclaim occasionally that it was "rough on us," and a
"tough one." Sailors always have a vein of recklessness in their
mental processes. It comes from their manner of life,--its constant
peril. They learn the uselessness of "borrowing trouble."

Once in the night I woke,--woke from a pleasant dream of home. For
several seconds I was utterly bewildered; did not know where I was.
Then it burst upon me; and such a wave of desolation and trouble broke
with the realization, that the tears would start in spite of all
shame. It was raining on the green hide overhead with a peculiarly
soft patter. The strong odor of burning fat from the fire filled our
rude tent; to which were added the fresh, sick smells from the great
newly-butchered carcass of the walrus. The boys were sound asleep,
breathing heavily. Guard roused up at our feet to scratch himself,
then snuggled down again. The wind howled dismally, throwing down
gusts of rain. It dripped and pattered off the skin-covering on to the
boat and on to the rocks. Now and then a faint scream from high aloft
declared the passage of some lonely seabird; and the ceaseless swash
and plash of the sleepless sea filled out in my mind a picture of
home-sick misery. It is no time, or at least the worst of all times,
to reflect on one's woes in the night when just awakened from dreams:
better turn over and go to sleep again. But I had not got that lesson
quite so well learned then, and so lay cultivating my wretchedness for
nearly an hour, picturing our future wanderings among these northern
solitudes, and our final starvation. "Perchance," I groaned to myself,
"in after-years, some party of adventurers may come upon our white
bones, what the gluttons leave of them." I even went farther; for I
was presuming enough to imagine that our melancholy disappearance
might become the subject of some future ballad. How would it begin?
What would they say of _me_? What had I done in the world to deserve
any thing by way of a line of praise or a tear of pity? Nothing that
I could think of. At best, the ballad, if written at all (and of that
I was beginning to have my doubts the more I thought it over), could
but run,--

"Whilom in Boston town there dwelt a youth
Who ne'er did well except in dying young."

That was as far as I could get with it: in fact, that was about all
there was to be said by way of eulogy. The sea seemed to get hold of
those two lines somehow, and kept repeating them with its eternal
_swish-swash, swash-swish_.

The rain pattered it out in its heroic pentameters,--

_Pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat!_

_Pity-pat, pat-pit, pat-pit, pity-pit, pit-pat!_

All at once the regular rhythm of the sea was broken by a slight
splash out of time. Instantly my morbid ear detected it, and I
listened intently. Something was splashing along in the water.

"Sea-fowl," I hastily assured myself. No, that was not likely, either;
for it was quite dark, and the sea rather rough.

"The Huskies trying to surprise us?" It might be. Something was
certainly splashing the water very near. Why didn't Guard notice it?
Talk about a dog's keen ears!--there lay the Newfoundland snoring
loudest of anybody! Just then a scraping sound, accompanied by a dull
rattling of the shingle among the rocks, startled me afresh. We were
being surprised, stole upon, by something, undoubtedly. Repressing a
strong inclination to yell out, I arose softly, and peeped past the
drooping, flapping side of the walrus-skin. The splashings were now
still more distinct; and I saw, dimly through the rain and darkness, a
large, dark object near the water. What could it be? A hundred fearful
fancies darted into my mind. Then there came a gruff snort; and the
great dusky form heaved up higher on the rocks, upon which lay the
carcass of the sea-horse. It seemed to be moving around it, making a
dull, scraping noise. Suddenly a deep, horrid groan, ending in a
prolonged bellow, burst on the damp air. Guard bounded up with a
growl, and rushed out barking. Raed and Kit jumped up. They were all
scrambling up. There was a moment of uncertain silence; then Kit
cried,--

"Hollo! What was that?"

"Don't be scared," I said. "It's another walrus, I guess. Keep still;
but get your guns ready."

"Another walrus, did you say?" muttered Raed, coming to look out.

"I think it's one come up to smell round the carcass of the one we've
killed."

"So it is!" exclaimed Raed. "Like as not, it's this one's mate. What a
hideous noise!" for the huge creature was giving vent to the most
terrific snortings and snufflings.

We could hear it butt its head against the carcass.

"It has come round here hunting for its mate," said Kit. "That's its
way of showing grief, I suppose."

Guard was darting up to it, barking furiously: but the great beast did
not at first seem to pay much attention to the dog; till on a sudden
it turned, with another dreadful bellowing,--we thought the dog had
bitten one of its tail flippers,--and came waddling after him,
snorting, and gnashing its tusks. Guard fell back toward our shelter.

"Shoot him!" Raed exclaimed.

Kit and Donovan both fired at the monster; but, with ferocious snorts,
it kept after the dog.

"Run!" shouted Weymouth. "Out of this!" for the dog was backing right
in upon us.

We had to scurry out in a hurry to avoid being penned there. Guard,
like a fool, kept backing in that direction. By the time we had got
clear of the shelter, he had got himself backed into it; and, the
sea-horse essaying to follow him, the oar that held up the skin in
front was knocked away, and down it came, burying the dog, and
partially covering the walrus. A fearful uproar of barking, howling,
and snorting, followed. Presently Guard got out from under, and ran
yelping off, leaving his pursuer floundering about under the hide. Kit
rushed up, and thrust his bayonet into the creature's exposed side;
when with a mighty squirm it turned itself, knocking down the boat,
and sending our stone wall flying in all directions. The battle was
now fairly begun. We all closed in round the animal, thrusting at it
with our bayonets anywhere we could stab. Yet it fought ferociously,
with bellowings enough to make one's blood run chill. It seemed
marvellous how a creature so unwieldy could turn itself so rapidly.
Pain and rage made it no mean antagonist. Once Raed's musket was sent
flying out of his hands several rods; and Wade, thrusting at its head,
had his bayonet wrenched off at a single twist. We afterwards found it
bent up and broken. I think Weymouth gave it a mortal wound by firing
a bullet into its head; though Kit and I repeatedly ran our bayonets
into its sides clean up to the rings. It succumbed at last, dying
hard, with many a finishing thrust.

The gray morning light was beginning to outline the dreary shore. The
chilly rain still poured. The reader can imagine in what a plight we
were. The fire had gone out. Our skin-tent lay in a wad; and in the
midst of our beds sprawled the dead sea-horse, weltering in its blood;
while we ourselves, drenched with rain and bespattered with gore,
stood round, steaming from our warlike exertions.

"This is a pretty how-d'y'-do!" Kit exclaimed. "Look at our 'shake
downs!'--all blood and mire!"

"Well, we've got another _wood-pile_," said Donovan.

"I wish it had selected a more fitting time to make its appearance,"
Raed muttered. "It has demoralized us completely."

"Nothing to do but re-organize," laughed Kit. "Get the painter-line.
Let's drag him off."

That was a heavy job, and took us nigh half an hour. Then there were
the blood-soaked moss and tea-plant shrubs to get up and throw away,
the wall to rebuild, the boat to set up, and the skin to repitch on
the oars. All this time it continued to rain hard, with mingled flakes
of snow. A tough time, we called it. And, after the tent was pitched
again, we had no fire; and could only crouch, wet and shivering, on
the bare ledge. I never felt more uncomfortable: my bones all ached;
my head ached: I was sick. Wade was worse off than myself even.
Throwing himself flat on the rock, he buried his face in his arms, and
lay so for more than an hour. Raed and Kit sat blackguarding each
other to keep up their spirits. Donovan was trying to dry some
pine-splinters to build a fire with by sitting on them. Weymouth was
cutting out blubber from the skinned carcass for the fire, so soon as
the splinters could be dried. Two matches were burned trying to kindle
the pine-shavings. We thought our fire dearly purchased at such a
cost.

"Only four more," remarked Donovan gravely.

"We must not let it go out again," Raed said. "We must sit up, some of
us, in future, to tend it."

Any thing like the dreary gloom of that morning I hope never to
experience again. Sea, sky, and crags seemed all of one color,--lead.
Seven or eight miles to southward, the mountains of the mainland
(Labrador) showed their black bases under the fog-clouds. The great
island to the south-east seemed to have been dipped in ink, so
funereal was its hue.

The rain had frustrated our attempt at salt manufacture. We had to
take our breakfast of fried goose in all the _freshness_ of nature.

Our clothes gradually dried on us.

During the forenoon Kit sallied out on a hunting excursion, and, about
noon, returned with a fine, plump, canvas-backed duck, which we ate
for our dinner.

Toward four o'clock it stopped raining. Donovan and Weymouth improved
the chance to skin the sea-horse we had killed during the night, it
was rather larger than the first one, and had prodigious stiff, wiry
whiskers about its upper lip, some of which we kept for a curiosity.
They were over a foot in length, and as large as a coarse
darning-needle. The tusks, too, were broken out, and laid aside.

During the night it faired; and the morning was sunny. Wade had become
very unwell. He had taken cold from his drenching, and was shivering
and feverish by turns. His courage, too, was clean down to zero. He
_knew_ we should never see home again, and didn't seem to care whether
he lived or not. That is about as bad a way as a fellow can get into
ever. I was little better than sick myself; and, while the others went
off after eggs and game, I stayed to keep the fire going and take care
of Wade. No small stint I had of it too; for he was peevish and touchy
as a young badger. I knew he ought to take something hot of the
herb-tea sort, and so started off and gathered a dipperful of the
tea-plant leaves. Then, getting a lump of ice, I melted it, and made a
strong dish of the "tea." Wade was lying under the shelter, face down
into his coat-sleeve. Carrying in the steaming dipper, I told him I
thought he had better take some of it: it would, I hoped, help his
cold, &c.

No: he wouldn't touch it!

I then reasoned a while. This not having any perceptible effect, I
next resorted to coaxing.

No: he wouldn't drink the stinking stuff!

Now, no doctor, I take it, likes to have his potions called "stinking
stuff." I began to remonstrate; and from that--not being in a very
amiable frame of mind--I ere long got mad, and was on the point of
pitching into the sufferer, when it occurred to me that for a doctor
to be caught thrashing his patient would be a very unbecoming
spectacle! So I contented myself with giving him a "setting-up;"
calling him, according to the best of my recollections, supported by
the subsequent testimony of the patient, an "ungrateful dog," "peep,"
"nincompoop," _et als._: after listening to which for a space, Wade
got up and drank the _tea_. Peace was immediately restored with this
act of obedience; and I proceeded to get him to bed. Pulling down the
boat, I filled it half up with such of the shrubs and moss as had not
been besmirched with the blood of the walrus. Wade then got into it. I
made him a pillow of the geese-feathers by piling them into the bow
under his head, and spreading over them my pocket-handkerchief. I next
had him take off his boots, and set a hot rock from the fire at his
feet. What to cover him up with was something of a problem. I managed
it by putting on a layer of the moss, and laying the thwarts of the
boat over this. Then, feeling somewhat fatigued after my labors, I
crept in with him; and, ere long, we both went to sleep. The
hunting-party coming back, two or three hours after, laden with eggs
and brant geese, awoke me. Wade was sweating profusely beneath the
boards and moss. We took care not to wake him till near eight o'clock,
evening; when he got up, considerably better.

The next day (July 26) was spent in the manufacture of salt; not the
manufacture of it exactly, either, but the extraction of it from
sea-water. We were getting perfectly frantic for salt. The fresh food
sickened us. I think we should soon have been really ill from the want
of it. Filling the hollow in the ledge with the sea-water, we first
tried to get fire enough about it to make the water boil. This we
found it impossible to do, and so had recourse to a plan suggested by
Kit. It was to get eight or ten stones about the size of the tin
bumper, and heat them in the fire. When red-hot, these were
successively rolled into the water in the hollow, raising great clouds
of steam, and soon causing it to boil furiously. Continuing this
stone-heating process for three or four hours, we succeeded in
boiling away fully half a dozen pailfuls of water. There was then
found to be a thin stratum of salt deposited along the bottom of the
hollow. How we crowded around it, wetting the ends of our fingers, and
licking it up! Eggs were then fried by the dozen, and eaten with a
relish that only salt can give. I should add, however, that this
appeared to me to be a very poor quality of salt; or else it had other
mineral matter mixed with it, giving it a slightly bitter taste.

The quantity obtained at this our first boiling was so small, that we
ate it all that night, and with our breakfast next morning.

The next forenoon was passed boiling down a second vatful. Wade and I
attended to the salt-making, while the rest of the party went off to
the islet next to the west after eggs and game. In the evening we
provided ourselves with fresh "shake-downs" of moss and the tea-plant.

The 28th was devoted by Raed, Kit, and Donovan to a trip down to the
mainland on the south. Raed wanted to see what sort of a country it
was, with a view to our attempt at going down to Nain in case "The
Curlew" should not come back. They did not get back till nine in the
evening. They had found the hills and mountains along the coast to be
mere barren ridges of lichen-clad rock, with moss-beds in the
hollows. But from the summit of the high ridge, about two miles in
from the shore, they had seen with the glass, to the southward, what
seemed to be low thickets of stunted evergreen,--fir or spruce. From
this Raed argued that fuel might be obtained by a party travelling
through the country; and, from that, went on to picture these thickets
to abound with deer and hares.

CHAPTER XIII.

More Salt.--Some Big Hailstones.--A Bright Aurora.--The
Lookout.--An _Oomiak_ heaves in Sight.--The Huskies land on a
Neighboring Island.--Shall we join them?--A Bold, Singular,
not to say Infamous, Proposition from Kit.--Some Sharp
Talk.--Kit's Project carried by Vote.

During the 29th, 30th, and 31st (Sunday) of the month, we were
employed much as upon the 27th; viz., boiling for salt, and egging
along the cliffs. We wanted to get as much salt on hand as possible;
and, by untiring industry, succeeded in getting about a quart ahead.
But to do this we had been obliged to keep up a smart fire, which had
consumed nearly all the walrus-blubber from both carcasses. Where to
get the next supply of fuel was an open question. No more sea-horses
had showed themselves. We concluded that this pair were all that had
been in the vicinity.

On the night of the 31st, a terrible storm of wind, thunder, and hail,
swept across the straits from the north-west. Raed picked up
hailstones in front of our shelter, after the cloud had passed, which
were two inches and a half in diameter. They struck down upon the
rocks with almost incredible violence. Any ordinary canvas-tent would
have been riddled by them: but our tough walrus-skin bore the brunt,
and sheltered us completely. The sea, during the hail-fall, seemed to
boil with a loud peculiar roar, and was white with bubbles and foam.
There was a very bright aurora the following night. The next morning
was fair; but a ghastly greenish haze gave the sky an aspect of
strange pallor. Somehow we felt uneasy under it. After breakfast, Kit
and I went up to the top of the ledges overlooking the straits to the
north, east, and west, to see if we could discover any vessels. Some
of us used generally to make our way up here every four or five hours
to take a long look. For an hour we sat gazing off on the heaving
expanse, flecked white with ice-patch, and bounded far to the north by
a low line of black mountains. The breadth of the straits here was not
far from seventeen leagues.

"Seven days since we were _retired_ here," Kit remarked at length.

Seven days! It seemed seven ages.

"Kit, what do you think of the chance of our getting off from here?"

"Wash, I don't know: I don't dare to think."

"Do you really believe Capt. Mazard will come back?"

"Why, if he's not captured, nor wrecked in a gale, nor jammed up in
the ice, he will come back."

"You have no doubt he will come back if he can?"

"Why, no: I know he will come if he can. He wouldn't leave us here.
Besides, you know, Wash, that we owe him and all the crew for his and
their services. I don't say that they would come back any quicker on
that account: still they would be likely to want their pay, you know."

"That's true."

"But, Kit, if 'The Curlew' shouldn't make its appearance, do you
believe we could get down to Nain, or any of those Esquimau
coast-villages?"

"I don't know, Wash: we could try."

"Seven hundred miles through such a country as this! Would it be
possible?"

"It would be no use to stay here, you know, if we found the schooner
wasn't coming back. We must, of course, make an effort to get away. It
would be foolish to stay here till winter came on. I don't suppose it
would be possible for us to winter here: we should freeze to death in
spite of every thing we could do. The cold is awfully intense through
the winter months. Not even the Esquimaux try to winter on the straits
here. Besides, it's about time for the sea-fowl to fly southward. We
can't live after they're gone."

"But only think of a sixty-days' tramp over these barren mountains!
Our boots wouldn't last a hundred miles! Our socks are worn through
now!"

"Have to make moccasons."

"We never should get through alive. I don't believe Wade would stand
it to go a quarter of the distance. He's sick now, and, worse still,
has no courage. He acts strangely."

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