Left on the Labrador
D >>
Dillon Wallace >> Left on the Labrador
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12
"Well, now!" Skipper Zeb exclaimed, genially, warming his hands before
the fire. "Here we are safe and sound and none of us lost, as I were
fearin' when we strikes the rock we might be! All of us saved by the
mercy of the Lard! How is you feelin' now, Vi'let?"
"I feels fine, with the fire," answered Violet, who was snuggling close
to her mother.
"That's pluck; now! And wet as a muskrat!" exclaimed Skipper Zeb,
laughing heartily, and quite as though it were an ordinary occurrence,
and they had not, a few minutes before, been in peril of their lives.
Turning to Charley, he asked: "And how be you, lad?"
"I'm all right now, thank you," said Charley shivering still with the
cold. "But I never was so wet and cold in my life, and I'm sure I'd have
frozen stiff if you hadn't made a fire in a hurry. It's lucky you had
some matches in a bottle, for that's all that kept them dry."
"No, no, 'twaren't luck!" objected Skipper Zeb. "'Twere just sense! I
never goes cruisin' without dry matches corked tight in a bottle handy
in my pocket, and I never uses un unless my other matches gets wet.
There's times when it's the only way to get a fire, and without un
to-day I'm not doubtin' some of us would have perished."
"I always carries un too," said Toby.
"Aye, a man that cruises in this land must always be ready to put a fire
on," commended Skipper Zeb.
"I'll remember that," said Charley.
"'Twere a narrow shave we has," remarked Toby, "but you always gets out
of fixes, Dad. When I looks through the snow and sees the white water
rollin' over the reef right handy ahead, and the wind drivin' us on to
un, I thinks, now here's a _fix_! 'Tis a wonderful bad fix! Dad can't be
gettin' us out of _this_ fix, whatever! I'll be just watchin' now, and
see! Dad can't get us out of this un! And then you gets the oar and
pulls us up into the wind, and we has room to pass fine, and then I
says, Dad's doin' it! Dad's gettin' us out of the fix! Then the oar
breaks, and I says that's the end of _us_! But you gets out of un,
_what_ever! You're wonderful fine at gettin' out of fixes, Dad!"
"'Tweren't me," objected Skipper Zeb, "'twere the Lard. We does the best
we can, and when the Lard sees we does our best, He steps in and helps.
He says, 'These folk does the best _they_ can to get out of this fix,
and I'll just step in and do what they can't do, and help un out of it,'
and that's what He does, and here we be, safe and sound."
"Is the boat wrecked?" asked Mrs. Twig. "Can't you fix un and use un any
more?"
"Well now, I'm not knowin' rightly yet, but I'm fearin' her bottom's
knocked out of she," answered Skipper Zeb. "If 'tis, 'twill be the end
of she, but we'll be makin' out as fine as can be without she."
"'Tis too bad to lose she after all our skimpin' and savin' to buy she,"
mourned Mrs. Twig. "You were wantin' she so bad, and we were savin' and
skimpin' for five years, and when you got she you were so pleased over
she, and she were helpin' you so in the fishin'."
"Aye, she were a fine help," admitted Skipper Zeb cheerfully. "But I
were thinkin' maybe she were a bit too big to be handy. Leastways to-day
is to-day and to-morrow is to-morrow, and if she's wrecked she's
wrecked, and that's the end of she. We won't worry and fuss about what's
gone and can't be helped, and maybe some day we'll be gettin' a better
boat. We'll just thank the Lard we're safe and sound."
Skipper Zeb put some fresh wood upon the fire, and then, pausing to rub
his hands over the blaze, he chuckled audibly.
"I'm feelin' wonderful glad to be thinkin' how all of us be alive and
safe," he said in explanation. "The Lard were wonderful good to us to be
bringin' us all ashore. Now we'll get snug. Toby, lad, we'll try to get
the things out of the boat, and we'll put up the tent and the stove, and
before night comes we'll be as dry and tight as ever we were in our
lives."
It was no easy matter to transfer the cargo from the submerged boat. It
was snowing hard, and the water was icy cold, and Skipper Zeb would not
permit Charley to go into the boat with himself and Toby.
"You be stayin' ashore," he directed, "and keep the fire up for Mrs.
Twig and Vi'let."
"But I want to help! I want to do my part!" protested Charley. "Perhaps
I can't do much, but I can do something. You've been so kind to me and
took me in when I had no place to go! Now I want to do what I can, and
not have you do everything for me."
"That's fine now! That's spirit! You'll be makin' a real Labradorman
before you leaves us. But not bein' used to un," Skipper Zeb explained,
"you'd be findin' the water a bit coolish. We're used to un. We're wet
at the fishin' all summer. 'Tis best you stays by the fire and gets
warmed up, and gets your clothes dry."
But when Charley insisted that he do something to help, Skipper Zeb
agreed that he might carry the things back from the shore, as they were
brought from the boat, and pile them near the fire.
"Then they'll be handy for us to get at and dry out, and the work'll be
keepin' you warm and free from chill," said Skipper Zeb, "and 'twill be
better than gettin' in the water with Toby and me."
Skipper Zeb and Toby, waist deep in the boat, rescued the various
articles of the cargo and passed them to Charley, who worked with a will
until everything was salvaged. A tent was then quickly set up in the lee
of the cliff, a tent stove placed in the tent, a fire lighted in the
stove, and in fifteen minutes the tent was warm and snug and cozy.
A bag of flour was now opened, and it was found that while the outside
was wet, the greater part of the center was dry, and in a jiffy Mrs.
Twig was mixing dough bread, a kettle was over for tea, and Skipper Zeb
had some bear's meat sizzling in the pan and sending forth a most
delicious and appetizing odour.
"Well, now!" exclaimed Skipper Zeb when they were all gathered in the
warm tent, and Mrs. Twig had piled their plates with meat and hot bread
and passed each of them a cup of steaming hot tea, "here we are in as
snug a berth as can be, safe and sound, with nothin' to worry about even
if we be a bit wet."
"It is cozy," agreed Charley, with a mouthful of the hot bread, "and I
never tasted anything so good!"
"Hunger be a wonderful fine spice for vittles," remarked Skipper Zeb.
"Are you all warmed up, now?"
Everybody was warm, and wet clothing was steaming in the overheated
tent.
"I'm wonderful thankful you makes the cruise to the Post early," said
Mrs. Twig. "'Twere fine to get our winter outfit in September month, and
get un safe up to Double Up Cove whilst fair weather held. If we'd had
un to-day all the flour and tea and hard bread[2] would be spoiled. As
'tis, we loses the boat and so much else it makes my heart sick to think
of un."
"Well, now!" exclaimed Skipper Zeb. "Worryin' when we has everything to
be thankful for! We has the boat for the cruise in September month, just
when we needs un most. Now we don't need un this year again. The things
we loses we'll make out without. Everything works fine for us, and here
we be, snug as a bear in his den, eatin' good vittles, even if we be a
bit wet."
"I can't help worryin' about the boat," insisted Mrs. Twig. "I'm 'tis
feelin' bad for you not havin' she."
"Don't feel bad about un, Mother," and there was a tenderness in Skipper
Twig's voice that Charley noted. "'Twere the Lard's doin's."
When the meal was finished Mrs. Twig and Violet were left in the tent to
dry their clothing, and to hang the blankets from the ridge in an
attempt to dry them also. With one of the sails a lean-to shelter was
made by the open fire outside, and while Skipper Zeb was busy with this,
Toby and Charley broke boughs for a seat, and here the three devoted
themselves to drying their own clothing.
"How can we get from here without a boat?" asked Charley.
"Now that's a fair question!" admitted Skipper Zeb, "but 'tis easy to
answer. We're not so far from Double Up Cove. I can walk un in an hour,
whatever. Toby and I goes in the marnin', if the sea calms down in the
night, and I'll be comin' with another boat. I'm thinkin' 'twill clear
before we turns in, whatever. 'Twere only a squall, and 'tis about
over. To-morrow's like to be a fair day."
Late in the afternoon, as Skipper Zeb predicted, the snow ceased, the
sky cleared and the wind moderated. The campfire outside was so cheerful
Mrs. Twig and Violet came out of the tent to cook their supper there;
and while Mrs. Twig cooked, Skipper Zeb laid a fragrant, springy bed of
boughs within the tent.
They all sat around the fire and ate in the light of its blaze. And when
they were through, Skipper Zeb lighted his pipe, and told stories of his
life at sea as a fisherman and on the winter trail as a trapper and
hunter that were as full of thrills as any Charley had ever read, until
it was time to go to the tent and to bed.
It had been the most exciting and adventurous day of Charley's life. He
was thankful for his escape. Within his heart welled something of the
exultation that one feels who meets and conquers obstacles. True, he had
done little himself to aid in the escape, but he had done something. He
had taken part in the transference of the cargo, and in pitching the
tent, and breaking boughs. He had helped make the camp, and had more
than the passive interest of a visitor in it.
What tales he would have to tell when he returned home! He had not
enjoyed the experience of the day as an experience, but already in
retrospect he was thrilled by it. The fellows would surely envy him!
When he was wet to the skin and chilled to numbness, he had longed again
and again for the warmth of the mail boat, even with its unsavoury
smells, and he had asked himself why he had been so foolish as to go
ashore. Now that he was dry and warm, his regrets passed, and he felt
himself quite a hero.
Within, the tent was warm and cozy. The air was perfumed with the spicy
fragrance of spruce mingled with the pleasant odour of the woodfire, the
incense of the wilderness. Outside he could hear the seas breaking upon
the cliff off the Duck's Head and over the reef, and listening to the
pounding seas outside, and the cheerful crackling of the fire in the
stove, he fell into pleasant dreams.
VII
A SNUG BERTH
It was Charley Norton's first experience in a wilderness camp, but he
slept quite as well as he could have slept in his own bed at home, and
perhaps more soundly. He had lain down wearied with the day's excitement
and exertion, as he had never been wearied before.
The strokes of an ax outside awakened him, and he hurried out to find
Skipper Zeb and Toby preparing breakfast over an open fire. It was
early. The sky was studded with stars, and he stood for a moment to look
out over the starlit and now peaceful waters of the bay. No longer were
the shrieking winds and the booming breakers to be heard, and no sound
broke the silence other than the gentle rhythmic lap of the waters over
the reef.
Rising above the snow-covered foreground, towered the grim cliff of the
Duck's Head. The two figures bending over the brightly burning fire at
its base were pigmies as compared to its great bulk. The romance and
the mystery of the scene thrilled Charley. He breathed deeply of the
crisp, frosty, perfumed air, as he hastened to join Skipper Zeb and
Toby.
"Right on time!" exclaimed Skipper Zeb. "Were you sleepin' warm and snug
the night? I keeps the fire on in the stove to make un warm. The
blankets were a bit damp."
"I never woke up till I heard you chopping wood," said Charley.
"Feelin' good after yesterday's wettin' and chillin'?" asked Skipper Zeb
solicitously.
"Fine and dandy!" Charley answered. "Isn't it great out here!"
"'Tis a fine marnin'," agreed Skipper Zeb. "Toby and I thinks we'll be
makin' an early start, so I'll be comin' early with the boat."
"May I go with you?" asked Charley eagerly.
"Well, now!" and Skipper Zeb looked doubtfully at Charley's leather
shoes and heavy ulster. "You'd be findin' that coat a weary burden, and
you'd be gettin' wonderful cold feet."
"I were dryin' out my other adikey," suggested Toby. "Charley might wear
un. I'll soften up my other skin boots for he, and let him have a pair
of my duffle socks."
"Aye," agreed Skipper Zeb, "he might wear they. Get un, b'y."
In a moment Toby produced from the tent an adikey made of heavy white
woolen cloth, a pair of thick woolen slippers made of heavy blanket
cloth, and a pair of knee-high black sealskin boots with moccasin feet.
The latter were hard as boards, but by rubbing the skin upon the rounded
end of a stick Toby soon had them soft and pliable.
Charley took off his leather shoes, donned the woolen slippers, and over
these pulled the sealskin boots which met his knickers, and with a
buckskin draw string tied the boot tops just below the knees. Then,
removing his ulster, he drew the hooded adikey over his head.
"You looks now like you belong here," commented Toby, much pleased.
"Anyhow," said Charley, "I feel a lot more comfortable, dressed this
way."
"Now we'll eat a bit and get started," suggested Skipper Zeb, passing
the frying-pan which contained fried salt pork, smoking hot. "We'll be
leavin' Mother and Vi'let to rest as long as they wants."
It was a half hour later, and dawn was just breaking, when Skipper Zeb
and Toby picked up their rifles, and with Skipper Zeb in the lead, and
Charley bringing up the rear, they set out for Double Up Cove.
For a little while they followed the shore, single file, making their
way through tangles of willow brush, or over piles of boulders that had
been loosed from the cliffs above by the frosts of untold winters, and
rolled down to the base of the cliff. It was the hardest work Charley
had ever done, and he felt some pride in the fact that he was able to
keep close at Toby's heels, quite unaware that Skipper Zeb was making
what to him and Toby was a slow pace, in order that Charley's
unaccustomed legs might not lag too far behind.
Presently the cliffs receded into sloping hills, covered with a forest
of spruce and tamarack, and here they turned into the forest along the
slopes, where walking proved much easier, though still more difficult
than Charley had expected.
Suddenly some birds arose with a great whir of wings, and alighted in a
tree.
"Spruce pa'tridges!" exclaimed Toby.
In a twinkling Skipper Zeb and Toby had their rifles at their
shoulders, and with the report of the rifles, which was almost
simultaneous, two of the birds fell to the snow below.
To Charley's astonishment, the remaining birds did not fly from the
tree, and still they remained when two more were shot, and in the end
Skipper Zeb and Toby bagged the whole flock of nine. In each case the
head had been neatly clipped off by the bullet, and the body of the bird
was unmarred and uninjured.
"We has two good meals whatever," remarked Skipper Zeb, as they gathered
up the birds. "We'll pluck un whilst they're warm. 'Tis easier to do
than after they gets cold. 'Twill give us a bit of time to rest."
"Why didn't the others fly after you shot the first ones?" asked
Charley. "I expected they'd be frightened and all fly away after the
first shot."
"That's the way with spruce pa'tridges," explained Skipper Zeb. "They
has a wonderful foolish way with un. They don't fly when you shoots.
They're so tame you could almost knock un over with a stick. They flies
in a tree when we comes, thinkin' we're like a fox and can't climb a
tree, and knowin' nothin' about guns there they sets and lets us shoot
un."
To Skipper Zeb and Toby, the shooting of the grouse had meant no more
than a means of securing necessary food. In that land where there are no
domestic animals or birds, men must hunt the wild things to supply their
table, just as a farmer in civilized lands kills chickens from his flock
to supply his table. Charley assisted in plucking the birds, and
silently admiring the marksmanship of his companions, determined that
he, too, would learn to shoot well.
The sun had risen, and the winter forest gleamed and sparkled under its
rays. Through the trees the waters of the bay glinted like molten
silver. The air was redolent with forest fragrance. An impudent Labrador
Jay[3] scolding them in its harsh voice, came so close that Charley
could almost have caught it with his bare hands. Chickadees[4] chirped
in the trees. A three-toed arctic woodpecker hammered industriously upon
a tree trunk. In the distance a red squirrel chattered happily and
noisily.
A thrill of exultation tingled Charley's spine. He was doing the very
thing that his father had believed too hard for him to do, and in a
wilder country than his father had ever seen. How proud and pleased his
father would be when he reached home and told of what he had seen and
done! It would compensate for all the suffering at his supposed loss.
"Plenty of rabbits this year," remarked Toby, calling Charley's
attention to a network of tracks that covered the snow. "We'll be
settin' snares for un. 'Tis great sport."
"Oh, can we snare them?" said Charley. "That will be great."
"Aye," promised Toby, "and we'll be settin' marten traps too. Here's
some marten signs now. There's fine signs of marten this year."
"You catch martens for the fur, don't you?" asked Charley.
"Aye," answered Toby. "They has wonderful fine fur. Weren't you ever
seein' a marten?"
"No," confessed Charley, "I never saw one."
"You'll be seein' they this winter, whatever," promised Toby.
Toby pointed to the tracks of a small animal in the snow.
It was mid-forenoon when they suddenly came upon a cabin in the midst of
a clearing at the edge of the forest, and looking out upon the water.
"Well, now, and here we be safe and sound and in good time!" announced
Skipper Zeb.
He opened a door leading into an enclosed porch, which was built against
one end of the cabin, and through the porch they entered the cabin.
Charley observed that neither the porch door nor the inner door was
locked, and that the latches of both were made of wood, and opened by
pulling a string, which hung outside.
"Not so bad a place to be cast away in!" boomed Skipper Zeb, surveying
the room with pride after depositing his gun upon the beams overhead.
"What does you think of your new home, now? 'Twere easy enough to get
you out o' _that_ fix, says I! Easy enough!"
"It's great!" exclaimed Charley in appreciation. "I'm going to have a
bang-up time with you! I feel at home already!"
"That's fine, now! Fine!" and Skipper Zeb slapped Charley on the
shoulder with his big hand and laughed his hearty laugh. "No worries!
To-day's to-day and to-morrow's to-morrow! Cast away with plenty o' grub
and a snug shelter and berth! Not so bad! Not so bad! That's gettin' out
of a fix, now! Half the time a man worries there's nothin' to worry
about. The worst fix a man ever gets in can't last. There's sure to be
an end to un."
"It seems like a lot to ask of you--taking me into your home this way,"
said Charley appreciatively. "Dad'll make it up to you some day, after I
get home."
"Nothin' to make up, if you means pay me!" broke in Skipper Zeb, rather
resenting the implication that he might expect payment. "'Tis the way of
The Labrador, and the way of the Lard, to share what we has with
castaway folk or folk that's in trouble. 'Tis a pleasure to have you
with us, lad. Mrs. Twig and I'll just be havin' two lads instead of one
the winter, and we were always wishin' we has two. So here you be out o'
your fix, and we're all happy as a swile on a sunny rock."
"I'm wonderful glad to have you, too," added Toby. "I gets wishin' I had
some one to hunt with me, when Dad's away. We'll be huntin' and
cruisin' about together, and have a fine time."
"It's just great to be with you!" and Charley said it with a full and
appreciative heart.
"Now, lads, help me put the boat in the water, and I'll pull over to the
Duck's Head for Mother and Vi'let and the cargo," said Skipper Zeb.
"Whilst I'm gone, Toby, put on a fire and make the house snug."
Charley and Toby helped Skipper Zeb launch a boat, which was drawn up
upon the beach below the cabin, and when he had set out for the Duck's
Head, the boys returned to the cabin, and Toby kindled a fire in a big
oblong box stove.
It was a small cabin, but snug and homelike, and much more comfortable
than the one they had left at Pinch-In Tickle. There was no covering
upon the floor, but the boards were white and clean with much scrubbing.
Sections of old newspapers and picture pages from old magazines were
pasted upon the log walls, and completely covered them. These kept out
no small degree of winter wind and cold, and at the same time did duty
as decorations. Charley observed with interest several guns resting
upon the beams overhead.
There were no chairs in the room, and storage chests served as seats. A
table occupied the center of the room, and this had doubtless been built
by Skipper Zeb himself. Against the side wall was a shelf upon which
stood a silent clock. At one side of the clock was a small Bible, at the
other a candlestick. A bed built against a corner of the room and a dish
closet completed its furnishings.
A partition across the rear of the cabin formed a second room, and built
against the wall, one at each end of this room, were two beds similar to
that in the living-room.
"I sleeps in this un in the big room, and you'll be sleepin' with me,"
Toby advised. "Mother and Dad and Violet sleeps in the beds in the back
room."
The rear of the entrance porch was piled with firewood ready for the
stove, ranked in tiers which reached nearly to the roof, while upon the
walls in front hung dog harness, several pairs of snowshoes, traps and
other gear incident to a hunter's life.
Primitive and crude as was the cabin, it appealed to Charley, doubtless
in contrast to his recent experiences, as most comfortable and
homelike. This feeling of comfort increased when Toby wound the clock,
and it began ticking its welcome.
Toby was quite excited at his return to his winter home. He must needs
see and show Charley everything inside and outside the cabin, and
Charley was interested in all he saw, but most of all in the big, broad
snowshoes and the dog harness.
"Where are the dogs?" Charley asked.
"We leaves un over at Tom Ham's whilst we were at the fishin' in
summer," explained Toby. "Tom Ham lives at Lucky Bight, ten miles to the
nuth'ard from here. We'll be goin' for un soon now."
"It must be fun traveling with dogs," said Charley.
"Aye, 'tis that," agreed Toby, "when the weather's fair and the
travelin' is good. When the weather's nasty with snow or high winds and
frost, or when the goin' is soft, 'tis hard cruisin' with dogs."
When Skipper Zeb returned at one o'clock with Mrs. Twig and Violet, and
the cargo from the wrecked boat, Toby and Charley had a pot of grouse
stewing upon the stove and ready for the dumplings which Mrs. Twig
quickly prepared.
"'Twill be fine for you lads to set some rabbit snares this evenin',"
suggested Skipper Zeb, when dinner was finished. "Rabbit stew would make
fine eatin'. Whilst you're gone, I'll be snuggin' up and makin' things
tidy around the house. Comin' Monday I'll start settin' up the traps on
my path, and I'm thinkin' to take you lads with me on the first round I
makes. When you gets back I'm thinkin' 'twill be well to get the dogs
from Tom Ham's if he don't bring un before. He'll have his wood hauled,
and there'll be good footin' for you lads to take the team and haul our
wood by then."
This was exciting news to Charley. The dogs! How he wanted to see Eskimo
sledge dogs in harness! And to set traps with a real trapper and hunter!
He could scarce wait for the time to come.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Hardtack.
[3] Similar to the Canada Jay, but with darker upper parts and head.
[4] The Hudsonian Chickadee.
VIII
THE TRAIL OF A LYNX
Evening down on The Labrador begins directly after twelve o'clock, noon,
and therefore by Labrador reckoning it was already evening. It was
Skipper Zeb's intention that the boys set out immediately, and he
emphasized this by bidding them:
"Bide a bit whilst I find some proper twine. The old twine you has last
year Toby, lad, were not strong enough to hold rabbits when you catches
un."
"'Twere wonderful poor twine," agreed Toby, "and I loses half the
rabbits, whatever, that gets in the snares."
Skipper Zeb began rummaging in one of the storage chests, and presently
produced a ball of heavy, smooth, closely wound twine.
"There's the best twine now I ever gets for snares," he declared with
some pride, handing it to Toby. "The rabbits'll not be breakin' _that_
twine, whatever. 'Tis stout as a small cable. I gets un in July month
from Skipper Mudge o' the schooner _Lucky Hand_. I asks he last fall
when he goes home from the fishin' to get un for me in St. John's. That's
_string_, now, _that_ is! 'Twill hold the biggest rabbit on the
Labrador."
"Are rabbits so strong?" asked Charley.
"Strong enough to break string that's not stout enough to hold un,"
laughed Skipper Zeb, explaining good-naturedly: "She has to be rare
stout to hold some of un. The string Toby has last year were rotten,
'twere so old, and he loses a rare lot o' rabbits that gets in the
snares with un breakin' the twine, so I gets new string for this year."
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12