"Oh, the chain 'e parted,An' the schooner drove ashore;An' the wives of the handsNever seed un any more—No more:Never seed un no mor-or-or-ore!"
"Oh, the chain 'e parted,An' the schooner drove ashore;An' the wives of the handsNever seed un any more—No more:Never seed un no mor-or-or-ore!"
It was a song weird and sad enough for a little lad like Toby Farr to make. Before a bogie-stove in the forecastle of a schooner at anchor, Toby Farr could yarn of foul weather in a way to set the flesh of a man's back creeping with fear; but it was told of him at Jolly Harbour,and laid to the sad songs he made, that in a pother of northeasterly weather he was no great hand for laughter.
"'Tis Toby's first season at the ice, Bill," said Jonathan. "Eh, Toby?"
"Ay, sir."
"An' gran'pa come along with you, didn't he, Toby? You wanted ol' gran'pa for company, didn't you? Eh, Toby?"
"Ay, sir."
"Isn't got no father, is you, Toby?"
"No, sir."
"Isn't got nobody but gran'pa t' fetch you up—is you? Eh, Toby?"
"I'm content, sir."
"Hear that, Bill! He's content! An' he've been doin' well out here over the side on the ice. Isn't you, Toby?"
"Is I, gran'pa?" It was a flash of hope.
"Isyou!"
"Ay—is I, sir?" It was eager. "Is I been doin' well, sir—as you'd have me do?"
"That you is!"
"Is you tellin' me the truth, gran'pa? It isn't jus' t' hearten me, is it?"
"'Tis the truth! You is doin' better, Toby,than your father done at your age. I never knowed a lad t' do so well first time on ice like this. An' you was all on fire t' come t' the ice, wasn't you, Toby?"
"I wanted t' come, sir."
"An' you've not repented, Toby? Mm-m?"
"No, sir." The lad stared about and sighed. "I'm glad I come, sir."
Jonathan turned to Archie with his face all in a pucker of joy.
"There's spirit, sir!" he declared.
"Ay," said Archie; "that's brave enough, God knows!"
"I been cronies with Toby, Bill," Jonathan went on, to Bill o' Burnt Bay, "ever since he was born. A ol' man like me plays with children. He've nothin' else t' do. An' I'm enjoyin' it out here at the ice with Toby. 'Tis a pleasure for a ol' man like me t' teach the young. An' I'm wonderful fond o' this here gran'son o' mine. Isn't I, Toby? Eh, lad?"
"That you is, gran'pa!" the lad agreed. "You been wonderful good t' me all my life long."
"Hear that, Bill!" Jonathan exclaimed.
The lad was mannerly and grave.
"I wisht, sir," said he, "that my conduct might win your praise."
And then Cap'n Saul called them aboard with a saucy toot of the whistle, as though they had been dawdling the day in pranks and play.
CAP'N SAUL CALLED THEM ABOARD
CAP'N SAUL CALLED THEM ABOARD
In Which a Gale of Wind Almost Lays Hands on the Crew of the "Rough and Tumble," Toby Farr is Confronted With the Suggestion of Dead Men, Piled Forward Like Cord-Wood, and Archie Armstrong Joins Bill o' Burnt Bay and Old Jonathan in a Roar of Laughter
In Which a Gale of Wind Almost Lays Hands on the Crew of the "Rough and Tumble," Toby Farr is Confronted With the Suggestion of Dead Men, Piled Forward Like Cord-Wood, and Archie Armstrong Joins Bill o' Burnt Bay and Old Jonathan in a Roar of Laughter
Archie Armstrongand Toby Farr made friends that night. The elder boy was established as the patron of the younger. Toby was aware of Archie's station—son and heir of the great Sir Archibald Armstrong; but being outport born and bred, Toby was not overawed. Before it was time to turn in he was chatting on equal terms with Archie, just as Billy Topsail had chatted, in somewhat similar circumstances, on Archie's first sealing voyage.
Toby sang songs that night, too—songs for the crew, of his own making; and he yarned for them—tales of his own invention. It occurred to Archie more than once that Toby possessed a talent that should not be lost—that something ought to be done about it, that somethingmustbe done about it; and Archie determined that something should be done about it—Archie was old enough to understand the power of his prospective wealth and his own responsibility with relation to it.
And that night, below, when Toby Farr was curled up asleep, Archie learned more of this queer matter of Jonathan and the lad. He learned that it was in the mind of old Jonathan Farr that he would not last long in the world—that he was wistful to have the lad hardened before the time of his departure fell. Proper enough: for of all that Jonathan had to leave the lad, which was much, when you come to think it over, he could leave him no better fortune than a store of courage and the will and skill to fend for himself.
But the ice was no fit place for Jonathan Farr—a lean, weary old dog like Jonathan Farr. Ah, well, said he, what matter? For his time was on the way, and the lad was heartened and taught in his company; and as for the frost that might bite his old flesh, and as for the winds that might chill the marrow of his old bones, it was nothing at all to suffer that much, said he, in thecause of his own son's son, who was timid, as his father had been, in youth, and his father's father before him.
"Ay," said Archie; "but the lad's too young for the ice."
"True, Archie—he's tender," said Jonathan; "but I've no certainty o' years. An' I done well with his father, Archie, at his age."
"'Twould go hard with a tender lad like Toby in time of trouble."
"No, no, Archie——"
"He'd never live it through, Jonathan."
"Ay," Jonathan replied; "but I'm here, Archie—me! An' that's jus' what I'm here for—t' keep un safe from harm while I teaches un t' fend for hisself."
"You!" Bill o' Burnt Bay put in, in banter.
"I'm old—true," says Jonathan. "Yet I've a shot left in the locker, Bill, against a time o' need."
Next day Cap'n Saul found the herds—a patch of harps and new-whelped young. The crew killed all that day. At dusk the men were used to the slaughter, and could bat a seal and travel the ice without fear or awkwardness. There was a pretty prospect indeed of making a quickvoyage of it. And this would mean a puff and bouquet of praise for Cap'n Saul in the St. John's newspapers, and a sixty dollar share in the fat for every man and lad of the crew: "Rough and Tumble, Cap'n Saul Galt, First Arrival. In With Thirty Thousand!"—all in big, black letters to startle folks' eyes and set the tongues of the town clacking.
It would be news of a size to make the town chatter for a fortnight; it would spread to the outports; it would give Cap'n Saul all the sealing glory of that year. There would be great stir and wonder in Water Street when Cap'n Saul went by; and there would be a lively gathering for congratulations in the office of the owners when Cap'n Saul swaggered in to report what everybody knew, that Saul Galt, of theRough and Tumble, was the first of the fleet to come in with a load.
Sir Archibald Armstrong himself would be there to clap the skipper on the back.
"I congratulate you, Cap'n Saul!" he would say. "I'm proud o' ye, sir!"
Driving this way and that, and squirming along, nosing and ramming and blasting acourse through the floes, theRough and Tumbleloaded fifteen thousand seals in a week. It was still gray weather—no wind to matter; and the sea was flat in the lakes and lanes, and the ice was abroad, and no great frost fell to scorch the crew. Bill o' Burnt Bay was master of the Third Watch—the watch of Jonathan Farr and Toby. At dawn the First Watch filed over the side, every man with a gaff and a tow-rope and a biscuit or two; and all day long they killed and sculped and towed and panned the fat—all smothered in blood.
Meanwhile theRough and Tumbleran away out of sight to land the Second Watch on another field, and beyond that, then, to land the Third Watch; and then she made back through the ice to stand by and pick up the First Watch. And when she had picked up the First Watch, and stowed away the seals, and had gathered the Second Watch, it was dusk and after every night, and sometimes long after, when she got back to pick up Bill o' Burnt Bay's watch, which was the last to leave the floe.
Thus it was labour all day and sweat most of the night—torches on the pans where the sculped seal lay; and torches on deck—the decks all redand slippery with blood and fat and ice. And it looked well for them, every one—a load of fat and the first to port with it.
Toby Farr killed and sculped and towed and panned a lad's full share of the fat.
"Well, sir," said Archie, one day, "how you getting along?"
"I thrives, sir," Toby replied.
"A cock so soon!" said Bill.
"My gran'pa," says Toby, "is teachin' me."
Archie laughed.
"Is you apt?" Bill inquired.
"I've learned courage," Toby replied, "an' 'tis a hard lesson t' learn."
"God knows!" Bill agreed.
"I'll be jus' 's fit an' able 's anybody, mark me," Toby boasted, "afore this v'y'ge is out!"
"I believe you!" said Archie.
Foul weather fell with the crews on the floe—a brief northeast gale of cold wind. The floe went crunching to the southwest—jumping along with the wind like a drove of scared white rabbits. And the pans packed; and the lakes began to close—the lanes to close. Bill o' Burnt Bay gathered his watch in haste. Seals? Drop the seals! It was time for caution—quick work forcrews and ship. Cap'n Saul snatched the other watches from the ice and footed it back for Bill's watch before the press nipped theRough and Tumbleand caught her fast; and Bill's watch was aboard before dusk, leaving the kill to drift where the wind had the will to drive it.
Cap'n Saul was proud of the smart work—smelling out a swift gale of northeasterly wind with that old foul-weather nose of his, and picking his crew from the ice with the loss of not a man. It was a narrow shave, though—narrow enough to keep a man's heart in his mouth until he got a mug of hot tea in his stomach. And that night there was talk of it below—yarns of the ice: the loss of theGreenland'smen in a blizzard—poor, doomed men, cut off from the ship and freezing to madness and death; and of how theGreenlandsteamed into St. John's Harbour with her flag at half-mast and dead men piled forward like cord-wood.
Tales of frosty wind and sudden death—all told in whispers to saucer eyes and open mouths.
"A sad fate, Toby!" said Jonathan, to test the lad's courage. "Mm-m?"
Toby shrugged his shoulders.
"Yep," said he.
"All them poor dead men in a heap!"
"Sad enough, sir."
"Cast away in the cold an' all froze stiff!"
"Yep."
"Hard as stone!"
"Yep."
"An' piled for'ard like cord-wood!"
"Sad sight, sir. Yep."
"Oh, dear me!" said Jonathan.
Toby put a hand on the old man's shoulder. It was to hearten his grandfather's courage. And Toby smiled.
"Cheer up, gran'pa!" said he. "You isn't afeared, is you?"
"Hear that, Bill!" cried Jonathan.
Toby whistled a tune.
"Whistlin'!" said Bill. "Yet afore this v'y'ge is out ye may lie a blue corpse yourself on the ice!"
And Toby yawned.
"Yep," said he.
It was a cure. Archie and Bill and Jonathan burst into a roar of laughter. Toby was timid no longer. He could not be frightened by tales and gruesome suggestions to his imagination.
In Which Archie Armstrong and Billy Topsail Say Good-bye to Toby Farr for the Present, and, Bound Down to Our Harbour with Doctor Luke, Enter Into an Arrangement, From Which Issues the Discovery of a Mysterious Letter and Sixty Seconds of Cold Thrill
In Which Archie Armstrong and Billy Topsail Say Good-bye to Toby Farr for the Present, and, Bound Down to Our Harbour with Doctor Luke, Enter Into an Arrangement, From Which Issues the Discovery of a Mysterious Letter and Sixty Seconds of Cold Thrill
Whathappened next was the astonishing meeting of Archie Armstrong and Billy Topsail in Tom Lute's cottage on Amen Island. The rising blast of wind that threatened to interrupt Doctor Luke's passage of Ship's Run, and thus cost Terry Lute the "fiddle finger" he cherished, so dealt with the floe, at sea, where the men of theRough and Tumblewere at work, that Archie was cut off from return to the ship. At first the adventure wore a grave appearance; but Archie knew the coast, and was aware, also, that the land near which theRough and Tumblehad debarked her crew in the morning was the land of Amen Island.
That there was an hospitable settlement onAmen Island, Cap'n Saul had told him. It was towards Amen Island, then, that his endeavour was directed, when the shifting ice cut him off from the ship and dusk caught him on the floe. And he had no great difficulty in making the shore. The floe, in the grip of the wind, drifted towards the land and came in contact with it before night fell.
Archie had a long, stumbling search for the cottages of Amen. That was the most trying aspect of his experience. In the end, however, pretty well worn out, but triumphant, he caught sight of the light in Tom Lute's cottage; and he knocked on the door and pushed into the kitchen just when Doctor Luke, having lanced Terry Lute's finger, and having been informed that Terry Lute's fiddle was a jew's-harp, had joined Billy Topsail in the hearty laughter that the amazing disclosure excited.
It was late then. Archie and Billy and Doctor Luke were all feeling the effect of the physical labour of that stormy night; and when Billy and Archie had exchanged news in sufficient measure to ease their curiosity, and when Doctor Luke and Archie, who were old friends, had accomplished the same satisfying end, and Black Walt andhis assistant had departed, and when Terry Lute and Tom Lute and Terry Lute's mother had recovered from their delight, the simple household turned in to sleep as best it could.
In the morning—which means almost immediately after dawn—Archie Armstrong insisted upon his own way. And his own way was happy and acceptable. TheRough and Tumblelay offshore. She was within sight from the window of Tom Lute's cottage. Undoubtedly Cap'n Saul had a searching party—probably the whole crew-out after Archie Armstrong; and undoubtedly the old man was in a fever and fury of anxiety—a fury of anxiety because, no great wind having blown, and the ice having been driven against the coast, his alarm for Archie's safety need not be great, whereas the delay caused by Archie's misadventure would surely arouse a furious impatience.
Consequently Archie sought to relieve both his anxiety and his impatience; and to this end he set out over the ice, with Billy Topsail and Doctor Luke, to board theRough and Tumble, where Billy Topsail was wanting to shake the hand of his old friend, Bill o' Burnt Bay, and Archie was eager to have Doctor Luke "inspect" Toby Farr and his grandfather. It was in Archie's mind to "make a man" of Toby.
"Cap'n Saul," said Archie, by and by, "will you be sailing to the s'uth'ard?"
"A mad question!" Cap'n Saul growled.
"Yes; but, sir——"
"Isn't you got no sense at all? How can I tell where the ice will go?"
Archie grinned.
"It wasn't very bright, sir," he admitted. "Still, Cap'n Saul, is there any chance——"
"Why?"
"I want to go down with Doctor Luke, sir, to Our Harbour. But I don't want to be left on the coast until the mail-boat comes north. If you think youmightbe in the neighbourhood of Our Harbour, and could send a boat ashore for me, sir, I'll take a chance."
"I might," Cap'n Saul replied. "An' the way the ice sets, I think I will. Will that do ye?"
"It will, sir!"
"If the ice goes t' sea——"
"You'll leave me. I understand that."
"I'll leave ye like a rat!"
Archie laughed.
"Billy," said he, gleefully, "I'll go south with you!" And to Cap'n Saul: "How long will you give me, sir?"
"I'll give you a week."
"Make it ten days, sir?"
"Archie," Cap'n Saul replied, "I thought you was a b'y o' some sense. How can I say a week or ten days? I'll pick you up if I can. An' that's all I'll say. What I'm here for isswiles. An' swiles I'll have, b'y, no matter whether you're left on the coast or not."
Archie flushed.
"Cap'n Saul, sir," said he, "I beg pardon. You see, sir, I—I——"
Cap'n Saul clapped him on the back.
"Archie, b'y," said he, putting an arm over the boy's shoulder, "I'll pick you up if I can. An' if I can't"—Cap'n Saul accomplished a heavy wink—"there'll be some good reason why I don't. Now, you mark me!"
Upon that understanding Archie packed a seaman's bag and went back to Amen Island with Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail. First, however, he shook the hand of Bill o' Burnt Bay, and shook the hand of Toby Farr, and shook the hand of Jonathan Farr. And BillyTopsail shook hands with them all, too. Billy Topsail liked the quality of Toby Farr. They were to go through a gale of wind together—Archie and Billy and Bill and Jonathan and little Toby Farr. And Billy and Archie were to learn more of the quality of Toby Farr—to stand awed in the presence of the courage and nobility of Jonathan Farr.
Thus it came about that Doctor Luke, Billy Topsail and Archie Armstrong, near dusk, two days later, drove Doctor Luke's dogs into Bread-and-Butter Tickle, on the way south to Doctor Luke's hospital at Our Harbour. There was sickness near by—at Round Cove and Explosion Bight; and as Doctor Luke was in haste, he was in something of a quandary. Doctor Luke's solution and immediate decision were sufficient.
Billy Topsail was to carry medicine and directions, especially directions, which had a good deal to do with the virtues of fresh air, to ease the slight trouble at Explosion Bight, and Doctor Luke would himself attend to the serious case at Round Cove, setting off at once and returning before noon of the next day, all being well.
Billy's errand was the longer; it might be two or three days before he could get back—Explosion Bight lay beyond Poor Luck Barrens—but at any rate a start for Our Harbour would be made as soon as he got back. As for Archie Armstrong, he was to kick his heels and feed the dogs at Bread-and-Butter Tickle—a prospect that he did not greatly enjoy, but was disposed to make the best of. As it turned out, the issue of the whole arrangement gave him sixty seconds of thrill that he will never forget.
In the operation of the plan, returning from Explosion Bight, where he had executed his directions, dusk of a scowling day caught Billy Topsail on the edge of the woods. And that was a grave matter—Billy Topsail was in driven haste. As the white wilderness day had drawn on, from a drab dawn to a blinding noon, and from noon to the drear, frosty approach of night, the impression of urgency, in the mystery that troubled him, grew large and whipped him faster.
When he loped from the timber into the wind, high above the sea, he was dog-tired and breathless. It was offshore weather then; a black night threatened; it was blowing in tepid gray gusts from the southwest; a flutter of wetsnow was in the gale. In the pool of ghostly, leaden dark, below Spear Rock, of Yellow Head, the ice of Skeleton Arm was wrenched from the coast; and with an accumulation of Arctic bergs and drift-pans, blown in by the last nor'easter, it was sluggishly moving into the black shadows of the open sea. And having observed the catastrophe, in a swift, sweeping flash, Billy Topsail stopped dead on the ridge of Spear Rock, dismayed and confounded.
To camp on Spear Rock was no incident of his dogged intention.
Bread-and-Butter Tickle, to which a persistent, feverish impression of urgency, divined from the puzzling character of the incident of the night before, had driven Billy Topsail since the drab dawn of that day, lay across the darkening reaches of Skeleton Arm. In the snug basin, beyond the heads of the narrows, the lamps were lighted in the cottages of the place. It was a twinkling, beckoning hospitality; it invited Billy Topsail to supper and to bed—to the conclusion of his haste and to the relief of his mystification.
But on the Labrador coast, as elsewhere, the longest way round is often the shortest way home. It was two miles across Skeleton Arm toBread-and-Butter Tickle, on a direct line from Spear Head; it was four miles alongshore to Rattle Water Inlet, at the head of Skeleton Arm, and eight from Rattle Water to the lights of Bread-and-Butter. Billy Topsail reflected upon the discrepancy—the flurry of snow, too, and the swift approach and thick quality of the night; and having surveyed the ice, the fragments of which seemed still to be sufficiently in contact for crossing, he clambered down Spear Head to the shore of the sea.
"Can I cross?" he wondered.
After further reflection:
"I don't know," he concluded.
What mystified Billy Topsail, and drove and challenged him, as he had never been mystified and driven and challenged before, was a letter. Billy Topsail had come through the scrub timber and barrens beyond the first wild hills of Long-Age Inlet; and having came to the fork in the trail from Run-By-Guess to Poor Luck Barrens, where he was to camp for the night, he had been confronted by a new-cut stick, stoutly upright in the snow of the trail, and a flutter of red flannel rag, and a letter, snapped in the cleft head of the stick.
That the solitary wilderness of his journey should be so concerned with the outport world of that coast as to produce a letter was amazing; and that the letter should present itself, in the nick of time, where, probably, no other traveller except the mail-man had passed since the first snow fell, and that a fluttering flannel rag should declare its whereabouts, as though confidently beseeching instant conveyance to its destination, was more stimulating to Billy Topsail's reflection than mere amazement could be.
"Now," thought he, "what's this?"
It was darkly, vitally mysterious.
"'Tis the queerest thing ever I knowed!"
The letter was a folded brown paper, sealed tight, doubtless with a paste of flour and water; and it was inscribed in an illiterate scrawl:Brednbutr—which Billy Topsail had the wit to decipher at once. Bread-and-Butter—nobody in particular at Bread-and-Butter; anybody at all at Bread-and-Butter. Need was signified; haste was besought—a letter in a cleft stick, left to do its own errand, served by its own resources, with a fluttering red flannel rag to arrest and entreat the traveller.
Obviously it was intended for the mail-man.But the mail-man, old Bob Likely, with his long round—the mail-man, where was he? Billy Topsail did not open the letter; it was sealed—it was an inviolate mystery. Fingering it, scrutinizing it, in astonished curiosity, he reflected, however, upon the coincidence of its immediate discovery—the tracks were fresh in the snow and the brown paper was not yet weather-stained; and so remarkable did the coincidence appear that he was presently obsessed with the impulse to fulfill it.
He pushed back his cap in bewilderment.
"Jus' seems t' me," he reflected, gravely, "as if I wasmeantt' come along an' find this letter."
It was, truly, a moving coincidence.
"I ought t' be shot," Billy Topsail determined, "if I doesn't get this here letter t' Bread-and-Butter the morrow night!"
In Which the Letter is Opened, Billy and Archie are Confronted by a Cryptogram, and, Having Exercised Their Wits, Conclude that Somebody is in Desperate Trouble
In Which the Letter is Opened, Billy and Archie are Confronted by a Cryptogram, and, Having Exercised Their Wits, Conclude that Somebody is in Desperate Trouble
Itwas a woman's doing. The signs of a woman were like print—little tracks in the snow—a woman's little foot; and the snow was brushed by a skirt. What woman? A girl? It was a romantic suggestion. Billy Topsail was old enough to respond to the appeal of chivalry. A perception of romance overwhelmed him. He was thrilled. He blushed. Reflecting, thus, his thought tinged with the fancies of romance, his chivalry was fully awakened. No; he would not open the letter. It was a woman's letter. An impulse of delicacy forbade him to intrude. Wrong? Perhaps. Yet it was a fine impulse. He indulged it. He stowed the letter away. And at dawn, still in a chivalrous glow, he set out for Bread-and-Butter Tickle, resolved to deliver the letter that night; and he was caught by dusk on the ridge of Spear Head, with a flurryof wet snow in the wind and the night threatening thick.
Having come to the edge of the moving ice, Billy Topsail looked across to the lights of Bread-and-Butter.
"Might 's well," he decided.
Between Spear Head and Bread-and-Butter Tickle, that night, Billy Topsail had a nip-and-tuck time of it. It was dark. Snow intermittently obscured his objective. The ice was fragmentary—driving and revolving in a slow wind. It was past midnight when he hauled down the heads of Bread-and-Butter and knocked Archie Armstrong out of bed.
"Archie," said he, "I found a queer thing."
Archie's sleepiness vanished.
"Queer?" he demanded, eagerly. "Something queer? What is it?"
"'Tis a letter."
"A letter! Where is it?"
Billy related the circumstances of the discovery of the letter. Then he said:
"'Tis a sealed letter. I wants t' show it t' Doctor Luke."
"He's not back."
"Not back? That's queer!"
"Oh, no," said Archie, easily; "the case has turned out to be more serious than he thought and has detained him. Where's the letter?"
Billy gave the letter to Archie.
"Bread-and-Butter," Archie read. "No other address. Thatisqueer. What shall we do about it?"
"I don't know," Billy replied. "What doyousay?"
"I say open it," said Archie, promptly.
"Would you?"
"There's nothing else to do. Open it, of course! It is addressed to Bread-and-Butter. Well, we're in Bread-and-Butter. Doctor Luke isn't here. If he were, he'd open it. There is something in this letter that somebody ought to know at once. I'm going to open it."
"All right," Billy agreed.
Archie opened the letter and stared and frowned and pursed his lips.
"What does it say?" said Billy.
"I can't make it out. Have a try yourself. Here—read it if you can."
Billy was confronted by a cryptogram:
Dokr com quk pops goncras im ferd
Dokr com quk pops goncras im ferd
"What do you make of it?" said Archie.
"I'm not much of a hand at readin'," Billy replied; "but I knows that first word there or I misses my guess."
"What is it?"
"D-o-k-r. That means what it sounds like. It meansDoctor."
Archie exclaimed.
"That's it!" said he. "And the second word's plain.C-o-m—that'sCome."
"'Doctor, come,'" said Billy.
"Right. Somebody's in trouble. Deep trouble, too. The third word isQuick. 'Doctor, come quick.' We're right so far.P-o-p-s. What's that?"
"It meansFather."
"Right. 'Doctor, come quick. Pop's——' What now? 'G-o-n-c-r-a-s.' What in the world is that? It must be a kind of sickness. Can't you guess it, Billy?"
Billy puzzled.
"G-o-n-c-r-a-s. I don't know what it means."
"Anyhow," Archie put in, "the next word must beI'm. Don't you think so, Billy? No? Looks like that. Hum-m! Look here, Billy—what'sF-E-R-D? What does it sound like?"
"Sounds likefeared."
"Of course it does! That's right! 'I'm afeared.' Billy, this is a pretty serious matter. Why should the writer of this be afraid? Eh? You think a woman wrote the letter? Well, she's afraid of something. And that something must be the sort of sickness her father has. Shake your nut, Billy. What sort of sickness could she be afraid of?"
"G-o-n-c-r-a-s. Gon-cras."
"Gon-cras. Gon-cras. Gon-cras."
"Gone," Billy suggested.
"Crazy!" cried Archie.
"Right!" said Billy.
"We've got it!" Archie exulted. "'Doctor, come quick. Pop's gone crazy. I'm afeared.' That's the message. What shall we do?"
"We can't do anything now."
"How's the ice on the Arm, Billy?"
"Movin' out. A man couldn't cross now. I barely made it."
"Will the Arm be free in the morning?"
"No; it will not. The Arm will be fit for neither foot nor punt in the morning. T' get t' Poor Luck Barrens a man would have t' skirt the Arm t' Rattle Water an' cross the stream."
"We'll have to do something, Billy. We can't leave that poor girl alone with a madman."
"We'll tell Doctor Luke——"
"Yes; but what if Doctor Luke isn't back in the morning?"
"We'll go ourselves."
Archie started.
"Go?" he inquired, blankly. "Gowhere? We don't know where this letter came from. It isn't signed."
"Ah, well," said Billy, "somebody in Bread-and-Butter will know. Let's turn in, Archie. If we're t' take the trail the morrow, we must have rest."
And they turned in.
In Which Archie and Billy Resolve Upon a Deed of Their Own Doing, and are Challenged by Ha-Ha Shallow of Rattle Water
In Which Archie and Billy Resolve Upon a Deed of Their Own Doing, and are Challenged by Ha-Ha Shallow of Rattle Water
Neitherboy slept very much. In Samuel Jolly's spare bed (it was called a spare bed)—where they had tumbled in together—they did more talking than sleeping. And that could not be helped. It was a situation that appealed to the imagination of two chivalrous boys—a woman all alone on Poor Luck Barrens with a madman. When morning came they were up with the first peep of the light; and they were in a nervous condition of such a sort that neither would hesitate over a reckless chance if it should confront them in an attempt to help the writer of the letter of the cleft stick.
"Who is she?" Archie demanded of Samuel Jolly.
"Jinny Tulk, sir—Trapper George's daughter."
"How does she come to be at Poor Luck Barrens?"
"Trapper George has a trappin' tilt there, sir.They're both from this harbour. They goes trappin' on Poor Luck Barrens in the winter. Jinny keeps house for her pop."
"All alone?"
"Ay, sir; there's nobody livin' near."
Archie turned to Billy.
"Look here, Billy," said he, anxiously, "we'vegotto go. I can't bear it here—with that poor girl all alone——"
"Doctor Luke——"
"We can't wait for Doctor Luke."
"That's jus' what I was goin' t' say," said Billy. "We'll leave word for Doctor Luke that we've gone. He can follow. An' when we gets there, we can keep Trapper George quiet until Doctor Luke comes."
"When shall we start?"
"Now!"
Outbound from Bread-and-Butter, fortified with instructions, Billy Topsail and Archie Armstrong made along the shore of Skeleton Arm, by the long trail, and were halted before noon at Rattle Water. The ice had gone out of Rattle Water. At the ford the stream was deep, swift, bitter cold—manifestly impassable; and above, beyondSerpent Bend, the water of Ha-ha Shallow, which was the alternative crossing, was in a turmoil, swelling and foaming over the boulders in its wide, shallow bed.
Except where the current eddied, black, flecked with froth, Ha-ha Shallow was not deep. A man might cross—submerged somewhat above the knees, no more; but in the clinging grip and tug of the current his footing would be delicately precarious, and the issue of a misstep, a stumble, a lost balance, would be a desperate chance, with the wager heavily on grim Death.
It was perilous water—the noisy, sucking white rush of it, frothing over the boulders, and running, icy cold, in choppy, crested waves, where the channel was a bed of stones and gravel. Yet the path to the tilt at Poor Luck Barrens lay across and beyond Ha-ha Shallow of Rattle Water.
Billy Topsail and Archie Armstrong surveyed the rapids in a dubious silence.
"Hum!" Archie coughed.
Billy Topsail chuckled.
"You've no fancy for the passage?" he inquired.
"I have not. Have you?"
"I don't hanker for it, Archie. No, sir—not me!"
"Can it be done?"
"No, b'y."
"No; it can't be done," Archie declared. "You're right."
They stared at the tumultuous stream.
"Come along," said Archie, with decision, his teeth set; "we'll try that ice below again."
Below Ha-ha Shallow, where the stream dropped into a deep, long pool, lying between low cliffs, fringed with the spruce of that stunted wilderness, Rattle Water was bridged with ice. There had been flood water in the early spring break-up—a rush of broken ice, a jam in Black Pool, held by the rocks of its narrow exit; and the ice had been caught and sealed by the frosts of a swift spell of bitter weather.
The subsidence of Rattle Water, when the ice below Black Pool ran off with the current into the open reaches of Skeleton Arm, had left the jam suspended. It was a bridge from shore to shore, lifted a little from the water; but in the sunshine and thaw and warm rain of the subsequent interval it had gone rotten. Its heavy collapse was imminent.
And of this Billy Topsail and Archie had made sure on the way up-stream from the impassable ford to the impassable white water of Ha-ha Shallow. The ice-bridge could not be crossed. It awaited the last straw—a rain, a squall of wind, another day of sunshine and melting weather. Billy had ventured, on pussy-feet, and had withdrawn, threatened by a crack, his hair on end.
A second trial of the bridge had precisely the same result. Archie cast a stone. It plumped through.
"Soft 's cheese," said Billy.
Another stone was cast.
"Hear that, Billy?"
"Clean through, Archie."
"Yes; clean through. It's all rotten. We can't cross. Give me a hand. I'll try it."
With a hand from Billy Topsail, Archie let himself slip over the edge of the cliff to an anxious footing on the ice.
He waited—expectant.
"Cautious, Archie!" Billy warned.
Nothing happened.
"Cautious!" Billy repeated. "You'll drop through, b'y!"
Archie took one step—and dropped, crashing, with a section of the bridge, which momentarily floated his weight. Billy caught his hand, as the ice disintegrated under his feet, and dragged him ashore.
"It can't be done," said Archie.
"No, b'y; it can't."
"We'll try Ha-ha Shallow again. We'vegotto get across."
A moment, however, Archie paused. A startling possibility possessed his imagination. It was nothing remote, nothing vague; it was real, concrete, imminent. Standing on the brink of the rock at the point where the ice-bridge began, he contemplated the chances of Rattle Water. With a crossing of Ha-ha Shallow immediately in prospect, there was something for affrighted reflection in the current below. And the suggestion was vivid and ugly.
There the water was flowing black, spread with creamy puffs of foam; and it ran swift and deep, in strong, straight lines, as it approached the Black Pool ice and vanished beneath. There was a space between the ice and the fallen current—not much: two feet, perhaps; but it occurred to Archie, with sudden, shockingforce, that two feet were too much. And the deep, oily, adherent flow of the current, and the space between the ice and the water, and the cavernous shadow beneath the ice, and the gurgle and lapping of the pool, made the flesh of his back uneasy.
"A nasty fix," he observed.
"What's that, Archie?"
"If a man lost his feet in the current."
"He'd come down like a chip."
"He would. And he'd slip under the ice. Watch these puffs of foam. What would happen to a man under there, Billy?"
"He'd drown in the pool. He couldn't get out."
"Right, Billy," Archie agreed, shortly. "He'd drown in the pool. He couldn't get out. The current would hold him in there. Come along."
"Shall we try it, Archie?"
"We'll look it over."
"An' if we think——"
"Then we'll do it!"
Billy laughed.
"Archie," said he, "I—I—Ilikesyou!"
"Shucks!" said Archie.
Archie walked the length of Ha-ha Shallow, from the swift water above Black Pool to LoonLake, and returned, still searching the rapid for a good crossing, to a point near the Black Pool ice, where a choppy ripple promised a shallow, gravelled bottom. The stream was wide, shelving slowly from the shore—it was prattling water; but there was a fearsomely brief leeway of distance between the stretch of choppy ripple and the deep rush of the current as it swept into the shadows under the Black Pool ice.
Directly below the ripple, Rattle Water narrowed and deepened; nearing Black Pool, the banks were steep, and above the rising gorge, which the banks formed, and running the length of it, the current swelled over a scattering of slimy boulders and swirled around them. It was a perilous place to be caught. In the gravel-bottomed ripple, the water was too swift, too deep, for an overbalanced boy to regain his feet; and in the foaming, hurrying, deeper water below, the rough drift to Black Pool was inevitable: for the boulders were water-worn and round, and the surface was as slippery as grease with slime.
Having stared long enough at the alluring stretch of choppy ripple, Archie Armstrong came to a conclusion.
In Which Billy Topsail Takes His Life in His Hands and Ha-Ha Shallow Lays Hold of It With the Object of Snatching It Away
In Which Billy Topsail Takes His Life in His Hands and Ha-Ha Shallow Lays Hold of It With the Object of Snatching It Away
"Well," said Archie, "I'll try it."
"You won't!" said Billy.
"I will!"
"You won't!"
Archie looked Billy in the eye.
"Why not?" he inquired.
"I'm goin' t' try it myself."
"You're not!"
"I am!"
Both boys burst into a laugh. It was an amiable thing to do. And there could have been no better preparation for the work in hand.
"Look here, Billy——" Archie began.
"No," Billy insisted; "it won't do. You haves your way always, Archie. An' now I'm goin' t' have my turn at it. I'll try it first. An' if I gets across you can follow."
"You might stumble."
"I know that."
"Look here, Billy——"
"No, no, b'y! I'm goin' first. I won't make a fool o' myself. We got t' get across this stream if we can. An' we've got t' get on t' Poor Luck Barrens. But I won't make a fool o' myself, Archie. I promise you that. I'll go jus' as far as I can. I'll go with care—jus' as far as I can. An' if 'tis no use tryin' any more, I'll come back. That's a promise. I'll come back. An' then——"
"Ay, Billy?"
"I'll try somewhere else."
"Billy," said Archie, "I—I—Ilikesyou!"
"Stop your jawin'!" said Billy.
Then Archie said:
"If you fall in the current I'll pull you out, Billy. You trustme."
Billy spoke gravely:
"You'll do no such thing."
"What!" cried Archie. "Not try to save——"
"No."
"Why, Billy," Archie protested, "you're just plain foolish to ask me not to——"
"No," said Billy, again; "it isn't foolish. I won't have it."
Archie said nothing.
"Now," said Billy, "I'll try my hand at it."
The gravity and untoward chances of the attempt were not ignored. Both boys were aware of them. A simple thing to splash into the first shallow inches of Rattle Water and there deliberate an advance—true enough; but Billy Topsail was in earnest about crossing. He would venture far and perilously before he turned back—venture to the brink of safety, and tentatively, definitely into the dragging grip of the deeper current beyond. A boy who proposes to go as far as he can is in the way of overreaching himself. Beyond his utmost, whatever his undertaking, lies a mocking, entreating temptation to his courage—an inch or two more.
"Billy!" said Archie.
"Ay?"
"Do you think that if you fall in the current I'll stand by and——"
"I hopes you will, Archie, If I loses my feet, I goes down-stream. That's plain. No man could catch his feet in that water. An' if I goes all the way down-stream, I goes clean under Black Pool ice. An' if I goes under Black Pool ice, I can't get out, because the current will hold me there. That's plain, too. You couldn't pull me out o' the stream. If you could do that, Icould get out alone. You'd jus' go down with me. So you leave me go."
"Billy, I——"
"Oh, I isn't goin' t' fall anyhow, Archie. An' if I does, I'll make a fight. If I can grab anything on the way down; an' if I can hang in the stream, we'll talk it over again."
"Billy——"
"That's all, Archie."
With that Billy Topsail, the pack of food on his back (since if he won the other bank he must have sustenance for the chances of his journey to Poor Luck Barrens), waded into the water.
Presently Billy Topsail was ankle deep in the stream. The water foamed to his calves. Suspense aggravated him. He splashed on—impatient to come to the crisis that challenged him. It was a stony bed—loose, round, slippery stones; and a stone turned—and Billy Topsail tottered in the deeper suck of the current. It was nothing to regain his balance in that shallow. And he pushed on. But by and by—time being relative to suspense, it seemed a long, long time to Archie Armstrong, waiting on the snowy bank—by and by Billy Topsail was knee deepand anxiously engaged; and mid-stream, where the ripple was dancing down in white-capped, choppy waves, was still proportionately far distant.
Billy paused, then, to settle his feet. The footing was treacherous; the water was white to his thighs—the swift, dizzy, noisy passage was confusing. For a new advance he halted to make good his grip of the bottom and to brace and balance himself against the insistent push of the current.
Archie shouted:
"You're doing fine, Billy!"
In the bawling rush of the stream it was hard to hear Archie. Still, Billy heard. And he nodded—but did not dare to turn.
"Go slow," Archie called, "and you'll make it!"
Billy thought so too. He was doing well—it seemed a reasonable expectation. And he ventured his right foot forward and established it. It was slow, cautious work, thrusting through that advance, feeling over the bottom and finding a fixed foundation; and dragging the left foot forward, in resistance to the current, was as slow and as difficult. A second step, accomplished with effort; a third, achieved at greaterrisk; a fourth, with the hazard still more delicate—and Billy Topsail paused again.
It was deeper. The broken waves washed his thighs; the heavy body of the water was above his knees; he was wet to the waist with spray; and in the deeper water, by the law of displacement, he had lost weight. The water tended to lift him: the impulse was up to the surface—the pressure down-stream. In this respect the current was like a wrestler who lifts his opponent off his feet before he flings him down.
And in the meantime the current tightened its hold.
In Which Ha-Ha Shallow is Foiled, Archie Armstrong Displays Swift Cunning, of Which He is Well Aware, and Billy Topsail, Much to His Surprise, and not Greatly to His Distaste, is Kissed by a Lady of Poor Luck Barrens
In Which Ha-Ha Shallow is Foiled, Archie Armstrong Displays Swift Cunning, of Which He is Well Aware, and Billy Topsail, Much to His Surprise, and not Greatly to His Distaste, is Kissed by a Lady of Poor Luck Barrens
Anotheradvance of the right foot; an increased depth of two inches; a sudden, upward thrust of the water; a rolling stone: Billy Topsail tottered—struggled for balance, like a man on a tight-rope, and caught and held it; but in the wrenching effort his pack had shifted and disturbed his natural poise. He faced up-stream, feet spread, body bent, arms extended; and in this awkward posture, at a disadvantage, he swayed dangerously, incommoded by the pack, his legs quivering in the current.
Deliberately, then, Billy contorted himself until the pack slipped from his shoulder to its place on his back; and upright again, established once more, he dragged his left foot by inches against the current, set it above the right, forced it into place, and turned to face the opposite shore.He was fairly mid-stream, now. Another confident, successful step—a moment more of cool behaviour and intelligent procedure—and the grip of the current would begin to fail.
All this while the tumbling water had worked its inevitable effect. It was noisy; it ran swift; it troubled Billy Topsail—the speed and clatter of it. And he was now confused and dizzy. Now, too, he was conscious of the roar of the stream below. More clamorously, more vividly, it asserted itself—reiterated and magnified its suggestion of disaster. It could not be ignored. Billy Topsail abstracted his attention. It returned to the menace.
There it was—the roar of the stream below: the deep, narrow rush of it, swelling over the boulders, curling around them, plunging irresistibly towards the Black Pool ice, and vanishing into the stifling gloom beneath, in a swift, black, silent stream, flecked with creamy puffs of foam. A misstep, a false stone, a lost balance—a man would then drift fast and helpless, bruised by the bottom, flung against the boulders and stunned, smothered by the water, cast into Black Pool and left to sink in still water. It was the logical incident of failure.
Aware of the cumulative effect of fear, conscious of the first creeping paralysis of it, Billy Topsail instantly determined upon the next step. It must be taken—it must be taken at once. Already the weakness and confusion of terror was a crippling factor to be dealt with. He must act—venture. He moved in haste; there was a misstep, an incautious faith in the foothold, a blind chance taken—and the current caught him, lifted him, tugged at him, and he lost his feet, flung his arms in the air, toppled over, drifted off with the current, submerged, and was swept like driftwood into the deep rush below.
He rose, gasped, sank—came breathless to the surface; and self-possessed again, and fighting for life against hope, instinctively, but yet with determined intelligence, grasping breath when he could and desperately seeking handhold, foothold—fighting thus he was dragged a bruising course through the narrowing channel towards Black Pool and at last momentarily arrested his drift with a failing grip of a boulder.
Archie Armstrong ran down-stream. No expedient was in his horrified mind. The impulse was to plunge in and rescue Billy if he could. That was all. But the current was swifter thanhe; he was outstripped—stumbling along the rocky, icy shore. When he came abreast of Billy, who was still clinging to the rock in mid-stream, he did plunge in; but he came at once to a full stop, not gone a fathom into the current, and stood staring.
Billy Topsail could not catch the bottom in the lee of the rock. Even there the current was too strong, the depth of water too great, the lee too narrow, the rock too small for a wide, sufficient backwater. Black Pool was within twenty fathoms. Billy's clutch was breaking. In a moment he would be torn away. Yet there was a moment—a minute or more of opportunity. And having assured himself of this grace, Archie Armstrong splashed ashore, without a word or a sign, scaled the bank and ran down-stream to the bridge of Black Pool ice.
The bridge was rotten. It was rotten from bank to bank. It would not bear the weight of a man. Archie Armstrong knew it. Its fall was imminent. It awaited the last straw—a dash of rain, a squall of wind. The ice was thick; there was a foot of it. And the bridge was heavy; its attachment to the low cliffs was slight; in a day—next day, perhaps—it wouldfall of its own weight, lie inert in the pool, drift slowly away to the open reaches of Skeleton Arm and drive to sea.
Archie Armstrong, hanging by his hands from the edge of the low cliff, broke a great fragment from the rock and thus reduced the stability of the whole; and hanging from the edge of the same low cliff, a few fathoms below, grasping the roots of the spruce, he broke a second fragment loose with his weight—a third and a fourth. And the structure collapsed. It fell in thick, spacious fragments on the quiet water of the pool, buoyant and dry, and covered the face of the water, held imprisoned by the rocks of the narrow exit.
When Billy Topsail came drifting down, Archie Armstrong, waiting on the ice, helped him out and ashore.
"Better build a fire, Archie," said Billy, presently.
"I'm doing that very thing, Billy."
"Thanks, Archie."
"Cold, b'y?"
"I'll take no harm from the wettin'."
"Harm! A hardy kid like you! I laugh!"
Billy grinned.
"When I'm rested," said he, "I'll wring out my clothes. By the time we've had a snack o' soggy grub I'll be dry. An' then we'll go on."
"On it is!"
Billy looked up.
"Archie," said he, "that was marvellous—clever!"
"Clever?" inquired Archie. "What was clever?"
And Archie Armstrong grinned. He knew well enough what was clever.
Nobody was mad at Poor Luck Barrens. But somebody was in a raving delirium of fever. And that was big George Tulk—Trapper George of Bread-and-Butter Tickle. It was a tight little tilt on the edge of the timber—winter quarters: a log shanty, with a turf roof, deep in a drift of snow, to which a rising cloud of smoke attracted the attention of Archie and Billy Topsail. No; what was alarming at Poor Luck Barrens was not a frenzy of insanity—it was the delirium of pneumonia.
Jinny Tulk was glad enough to receive the help of Billy Topsail and Archie Armstrong.
By and by Billy asked:
"Was it you put the letter in the cleft stick?"
Jinny smiled.
"Ay," said she.
"I found it," said Billy.
With that Jinny Tulk kissed Billy Topsail before he could stop her. She was old enough for that; and she was so wholesome and pretty that when Billy had reflected upon the incident he determined that he would not try to stop her should she attempt it again.
"How'd you like it?" Archie teased him, privately, when Doctor Luke had arrived and Trapper George was resting.
Billy blushed.
"'Twasn't so awful," was his stout reply.
Archie burst out laughing. Billy blushed again. Then he, too, laughed.
"I 'low I got my reward," said he.
By that time Trapper George was doing well. Doctor Luke was watchfully at work. And Doctor Luke and Jinny Tulk, with the help of a spell of frosty weather and an abundance of healing fresh air, and assisted by the determined constitution of Trapper George Tulk himself, who had formed the fixed habit of surviving adverse conditions—Doctor Luke and JinnyTulk worked an improvement, which passed presently into a state of convalescence and ultimately became a cure. It was no easy matter. Trapper George Tulk put one foot over the border—took a long look into the final shadows. But Doctor Luke was a good fighter. And he happened to win.