VWRECKED
There was much to be done in Pinch-In Tickle that everything in and about Skipper Zeb's cabin, which they were to leave the following morning, should be snug and tight and tidy for the winter. There were boats to be hauled out of the water and covered, that they might be protected from the ice and snow, fishing gear and boat equipment to stow, and much cleaning to be done about the fish stage and cabin. Then there was Skipper Zeb's big trap boat to make ready for the voyage up the bay. A mast step had to be repaired, sails mended, and no end of tinkering before it met with Skipper Zeb's approval.
"I never says a thing's good enough unless 'tis right," declared Skipper Zeb. "I likes to have my boats, and fishin' gear and dog trappin's ship shape before I starts to use un. When I stops usin' they I leaves un as right as I can so they'll be ready to use when I needs un again."
For a little while Charley, the picture of gloom, watched Skipper Zeb and Toby stowing gear. Presently Skipper Zeb, who had been observing Charley out of the corner of his eye, suggested:
"Come on, lad, and lend a hand. Toby and I needs help to haul the boats up. Work's a wonderful fine medicin' for folks that's feelin' homesick. Lend Toby and me a hand, and you'll be forgettin' all about this fix you're in. I were thinkin' we'd taken all the kinks out o' that fix, and that we made out 'twere no fix at all."
"I guess I would like to help, if you'll let me," Charley admitted. "It isn't much fun standing around and doing nothing. What can I do?"
"We'll pull this un up first, she's heaviest," and Skipper Zeb indicated one of two boats that were moored at the landing. "You take the port side of un along with Toby, and I'll take the starb'rd side, and when I bawls 'Heave ho!' we'll all heave on her together."
Charley did as he was directed, and while he did not believe that he was lending much assistance, he did his best with each "heave ho!" boomed by Skipper Zeb, and in duetime the two boats were removed to a desirable distance from high tide level. Timbers were now placed under them to elevate them from the ground, and a roofing of heavy planking built over them.
It was all novel and interesting to Charley. He lent a hand here and there, and as they worked Skipper Zeb and Toby talked of the fishing season just ended, and of the winter hunting and trapping, and of journeys on snowshoes and with dogs and sledge, and related many exciting adventures, until Charley quite forgot that he was marooned in a strange land among strangers.
Before candles were lighted that evening, Charley had placed Skipper Zeb and Toby in the category of the heroes of his favourite books of adventure. Here he was in a wilderness as remote as any of which he had ever read, and here he was with folk who were living the life and doing the deeds and meeting the adventures of which he had often read with breathless interest. When he went to sleep that night in a bunk with Toby he would have been glad that the mail boat had not returned for him, had it not been for the regret he felt for the grief he knew that his mother and father would suffer when Mr.Wise would report to them that he had been lost.
They ate breakfast by candle-light the following morning, and daybreak was still two hours away when Charley embarked with Skipper Zeb and the family for the voyage to Double Up Cove.
Skipper Zeb and Toby hoisted leg-o'-mutton sails on the foremast and mainmast under the lee of the land though the sails did not fill to Skipper Zeb's satisfaction, and he and Toby each shipped a big oar and pulled for a little until they were in the open bay and beyond the shelter of the hills. Then they stowed the oars, and Skipper Zeb took the tiller.
A good breeze now bellied the sails, and almost immediately the morning darkness swallowed up the outline of the cabins. No star, no light, no land was to be seen, and Charley was only conscious of the swishing waters that surrounded them. He wondered how Skipper Zeb could know the direction with no landmarks to guide him. How vast and mysterious this new world was! How far away and unreal the land from which he had come! He tried to visualize home, and the city streets with crowded traffic andjostling people; and crouching down in the boat a thought of the luxury and comfort of his snug bed, in which he would now have been cozily tucked were he there, came to him, and he drew the collar of his ulster more closely around his ears, and thrust his hands into its deep pockets.
For a long time no one spoke, and a sense of great loneliness was stealing upon him, when Skipper Zeb, lighting his pipe, remarked:
"'Tis a good sailin' breeze, and come day 'twill be smarter, with more sea, and I'm thinkin' more snow."
"How long a trip is it?" asked Charley.
"'Tis a short cruise. With a fair wind like we has now we makes un in five or six hours, whatever," explained Skipper Zeb. "We never bides here so late in the year. 'Tis wonderful late for us. We always goes before the end of September month. This year I stays to help Mr. McClung."
"It's a fine, big boat," said Charley.
"She's a wonderful fine boat!" boasted Skipper Zeb. "Twenty-eight foot over all. I buys she last year from a schooner crew, south bound after the fishin' ends. They wants to sell she bad, because they has noroom to stow she on deck, and in the rough sea that were runnin' they couldn't tow she. I buys she for thirty dollars!"
"That was cheap, I should think," said Charley.
"'Twere, now!" and there was pride in Skipper Zeb's voice. "I'll tell you how 'twere. We needs a trap boat wonderful bad for our cruisin', and I says to Mrs. Twig, 'We'll skimp and save till we gets enough saved to buy un.' So each year we saves a bit, sometimes more and sometimes less, goin' without this and that, and not mindin', because when we goes without somethin' we thinks about what a fine boat 'tis goin' to help us get. And so we keeps savin' and savin' and skimpin' and skimpin'. We were savin' for un for four years——"
"Five years, Zeb," Mrs. Twig corrected.
"You're right, Sophia, 'twere five years, and we has thirty dollars saved. Then along comes the schooner with the boat, and the skipper says to me, 'Skipper Zeb, you wants a trap boat. I'll sell you this un.' 'How much does you want for un?' says I. 'You can have she for fifty dollars,' says he, 'and that's givin' she to you.' 'All I has is thirty dollars,' says I. 'Give me the thirty dollarsand take un,' says he. 'I'd have to leave un behind whatever.' And so I gets un."
"Youwerelucky!" said Charley.
"Lucky! Not that!" objected Skipper Zeb. "'Twere the Lard's doin's. He knows how bad I wants un, and how we skimps to get un, and He says to that skipper, 'You just sell that trap boat to Skipper Zeb Twig for thirty dollars,' and the skipper just ups and sells un to me.Isays the Lard were good, and I thanksHefor un, and not luck."
The northeast wind was rising. Charley huddled down in the bottom of the boat, where he found some protection. A gray dawn was breaking, and this is the coldest and bleakest hour of the day. With dawn both wind and cold increased, until by mid-forenoon half a gale was blowing.
"We're makin' fine headway," said Toby. "We'll be getting to Double Up Cove by twelve o'clock,whatever."
"I'm wishin' 'twere a bit calmer," observed Skipper Zeb, looking critically at the sky, "but there's no signs of un."
"Can't we make a landin' somewhere, and wait for un to calm down?" asked Mrs. Twig solicitously. "I fears cruisin' when 'tis so rough."
"They's no fair shore to land on this side o' the Duck's Head," answers Skipper Zeb.
White horses were chasing each other over the surrounding sea. A half hour later the wind had developed into a gale. Skipper Zeb reefed the mainsail. Then taking a long oar from the boat, he dropped it between two pegs astern, and while he used this as a sculling oar to steer the boat, Toby unshipped the rudder and dragged it aboard.
"She's makin' leeway," Skipper Zeb explained, "and I can hold she up to the wind better with the oar than the tiller."
A roller broke over the boat, and left a foot of water in the bottom. Toby seized a bucket, and began to bail it out. Charley was now thoroughly frightened, but with a bucket thrust into his hand by Mrs. Twig, he assisted Toby.
The boat was on her beam ends, even with shortened sail. The air was filled with flying spray, and now came the snow that Skipper Zeb had predicted.
"We'll make a landin' in the lee of the Duck's Head," shouted Skipper Zeb, his voice booming above the tumult of sea and wind.
Violet was crying, and clinging to her mother.
"Don't be scared, now!" Skipper Zeb reassured, though he was plainly anxious. "There'll be a fine lee above the Duck's Head!"
"There's the Duck's Head!" Toby's voice suddenly came in warning.
"I sees un!" Skipper Zeb shouted back in confirmation.
"Take care the reef! She's straight ahead!" yelled Toby.
"She's makin' leeway the best I can do," came back from Skipper Zeb. "Lend me a hand, Toby!"
Toby sprang to his assistance. The long oar bent under the superhuman effort that the two put forth, but the boat was coming up. Charley saw, in dim outline through the snow, a high, black mass of rock jutting out in a long point. It bore a strong resemblance to a duck's neck and head, and as though to form the duck's bill a reef extended for several yards beyond into the water and over this the sea with boom and roar heaved in mighty breakers, sending the spray a hundred feet into the air. If they failed to pass that awful boiling caldron they would belost. It was a terrifying spectacle, and Charley's heart stood still.
They were close upon the reef. Skipper Zeb's face was tense. He was working like a giant, and Toby, too, was putting all the strength he possessed upon the sculling oar. With a scant margin to spare, they were at last shooting past the outer rocks, when the oar snapped with a report that was heard above the boom of the breakers.
An instant later came a crash, Violet screamed in terror, and Charley felt the bottom of the boat rise beneath his feet.
VITHE CAMP AT THE DUCK'S HEAD
When Skipper Zeb's oar broke, the boat, now at the mercy of the wind, was driven upon a submerged rock at the tip end of the reef extending some twenty yards out from the cliff known as the Duck's Head. Here it stuck for what seemed to Charley a long time, reeling in the surf until he was quite certain it would roll over and they would all be drowned. Mrs. Twig, clinging with Violet to the mainmast, gave a shrill cry of despair, and Violet screamed in terror. Then a mighty sea lifted them like a chip from the rock, and swept the boat onward and beyond the reef.
Rolling and wallowing in the angry sea, which threatened every moment to swallow it up, the boat still floated to the astonishment of all, and Skipper Zeb and Toby, with feverish zeal shipping a fresh oar, began sculling toward the sheltered and calm waters under the lee of the Duck's Head.
The wind in their quarter helped them, and with a few mighty strokes of the oar the boat was carried beyond the reach of the rollers, and a few minutes later, submerged to her gunwale, grounded upon a narrow strip of gravelly beach on the western side of the Duck's Head, and Skipper Zeb carried Violet ashore, while the other half drowned and half frozen voyageurs followed.
A quantity of driftwood lined the base of the cliff. With an ax, which Skipper Zeb recovered from the boat, he quickly split some sticks, whittled shavings with his jack-knife from the dry hearts of the split sticks, lighted these with a match from a supply which he carried in a small corked bottle, and which were thus protected from the water, and in an incredibly short time a cheerful fire was blazing.
"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," remarkedToby, "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 afix! 'Tis a wonderful bad fix! Dad can't be gettin' us out ofthisfix, 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 ofus! But you gets out of un,whatever! 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 besttheycan 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 ofshe," 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 getthe 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 hemight 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 ofthem 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 weturns 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. Hehad 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.
VIIA 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 pigmiesas 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'llsoften 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 hadtheir 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'sspine. 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'thatfix, 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 SkipperZeb 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 oneto 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 observedwith 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 comfortableand 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.
VIIITHE 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'thattwine, whatever. 'Tis stout as a small cable. I gets un in July month from Skipper Mudge o' the schoonerLucky Hand.I asks he last fall when he goes home from the fishin' to get un for me in St. John's. That'sstring, now,thatis! '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."
"That'll hold un! 'Tis fine twine," agreed Toby, testing it. "Come on, Charley! We'll set a rare lot o' snares this evenin', and have rabbit for dinner to-morrow."
The boys hurried into their adikeys, and Toby carrying his rifle, and Charley a light ax, which Toby selected from three or four in the shed, the two set out.
"We can't set snares too handy to the house," advised Toby, turning into the forest behind the cabin, with Charley following. "The dogs would find untoohandy, when we gets the team home from Skipper Tom's."
A thick bramble of dwarf willows and mooseberry bushes lined the shore betweenthe water of the bay and the spruce forest, and to avoid this Toby laid his course through the forest behind the tangle. Charley, thrilled with a sense of adventure, followed Toby eagerly as he led the way for some time in silence. This was Charley's first trapping expedition in a real wilderness! He wondered whether there were wolves or other wild animals lurking among the shadows, and he was glad that Toby had his rifle.
Suddenly Toby stopped. The white surface of the snow was covered with a thick network of tracks, among the forest trees and back among the bramble.
"They's plenty o' rabbits here," and Toby pointed to the tracks. "I never sees so much rabbit footin'. I'm thinkin' 'tis far enough so the dogs'll not be findin' the snares, and we'll start to set un here."
"Are these all rabbit tracks?" asked Charley in amazement. "There must be thousands of them!"
"Aye, there's a rare fine band of un about," agreed Toby with an appraising glance. "Here's a fine run, now! We'll be settin' the first snare on this run."
Toby pointed to a beaten path or runway,indicating that rabbits had passed back and forth over it many times.
He proceeded at once to cut a spruce sapling. From the middle of one side of this he trimmed off the branches with his ax, leaving the thick branches on both ends and on the other side. He then laid the sapling across the runway where the runway passed between two trees, placing it in such manner that the branches on each end of the sapling supported it about eighteen inches above the snow, and the trimmed section of the sapling left an opening for the runway.
On each side of the runway he now placed an upright stick, and between the sticks and the trees on each side made a thick network of branches, that only the gateway between the sticks, with the sapling above, would be open for the passage of rabbits, and there would be no temptation to pass around or to jump over the obstruction of branches on the upper side of the sapling.
This done, he made a slipnoose on one end of a piece of twine. The other end of the twine he tied to the sapling directly over the runway, and spreading the noose around the gateway through the barricade, stood up and surveyed his work.
"There she is, all ready for un to come along and get caught," he said with pride.
"Don't you bait it with anything?" asked Charley, who had watched the making of the snare with much interest.
"No, we don't bait un," explained Toby. "'Tis a runway where rabbits goes, and they'll go right through un without bait, and get caught."
"Rabbits must be chumps to walk right into a contraption like that without any reason, when they've miles of space to go around," Charley declared.
"They're wonderful foolish creatures," said Toby. "They never seems to know enough to go around."
Darkness comes early at this season in that northern latitude, and when the boys had set six snares they suddenly became aware that it was nearly sunset. They must set out on their return to the cabin without delay.
"Thisisthe life!" exclaimed Charley, as they turned back. "Seems to me an afternoon never flew so fast!"
"When I'm busy workin' I finds the time does go wonderful fast," agreed Toby. "Havin' you along it went a wonderful lotfaster'n when I'm alone, too. 'Tis fine to have you here, Charley!"
"I'm having a great time, too! It's a peck of fun getting off here in the woods away from everything, and setting snares."
"Aye, 'tis that."
"When shall we know whether we have caught anything?"
"We'll come and look at un first thing in the marnin'."
"I can't wait to see!"
"'Twill be more fun when we sets marten and fox traps. I'm goin' to ask Dad to let us have some traps, and we can trap together, and I'm not doubtin' we'll be gettin' some fur. We'll be partners."
"That'll be great! When can we start setting them?"
"When we comes back from goin' with Dad to his path."
"Where are we going now? We're not going the way we came."
"I'm takin' a short way through the timber. We may see some pa'tridges."
They walked for a few minutes in silence, when Toby, who was in the lead, suddenly stopped, and examined the snow at his feet.
"What is it?" asked Charley in excitement,as Toby pointed to some large tracks in the snow.
Toby, looking in the direction in which the tracks led, said nothing for a moment. They were large tracks—nearly large enough for those of a bear, and the steps taken by the animal that made them were short steps.
"What tracks are they?" Charley repeated, with bated breath. "Are they wolf tracks or bear tracks?"
"They looks something like bear tracks, but 'tis not a bear made un," answered Toby. "'Tis not heavy enough for a bear, and bear tracks has nail marks. This un has no nail marks. A bear steps longer, too. 'Tis the track of a lynx, I'm thinkin'."
"Is a lynx dangerous?" asked Charley, a strange tingle chasing up and down his spine.
"They're not like to be unless they gets cornered," said Toby. "Anything fights when 'tis cornered. Even a fox would do that. This track is fresh. 'Twere just made. I'm thinkin' the lynx is handy by, and we might get a shot at un. He's around huntin' rabbits. Let's follow he."
"All right, I'm for it!" agreed Charley, quite excited at the prospect of a lynx hunt.
The two boys set forward in silence, following the well defined trail left by the animal. They had gone but a short distance when Toby stopped and pointed at a red-stained and trampled place in the snow, with some bits of fur lying about.
"He kills a rabbit here," whispered Toby. "See how fresh 'tis. That stick is fresh wet with the rabbit's blood. 'Tis sure a lynx. 'Tis the only beast makin' that big track that kills rabbits. I knows now 'tis a lynx."
"It must beverynear!" whispered Charley, his heart beating fast.
"We're like to see he any minute," agreed Toby. "He's right handy. We'll have to be keepin' wonderful quiet now."
"Will he run when he sees us?" asked Charley anxiously.
"He's not like to run at first. 'Tis the way of the lynx to stop and look before he goes, but 'twould be easy to lose sight of he and lose a shot here in the timber."
Never was Charley more excited. They continued on the trail with increased caution. In every dark shadow Charley fancied he saw the figure of a crouching beast about to spring upon them. He knew that a lynx was a big cat, and he could not but wonder if, inspite of Toby's assurance, it would not attack them from ambush. He had seen fierce panthers in the zoo at home, and with every step the lynx grew in his imagination to the proportions of the panther.
He recalled a story he had read of an attack a lynx had made upon a hunter, and the more he thought of it the surer he was that at any moment he would feel the lynx upon his back clawing and tearing at his throat. Afraid, wild eyed, and peering into every shadowy recess as they advanced, he still had no thought of deserting Toby. Come what might, he was determined to see the adventure through. In this he was heroic. One who faces danger without fear or appreciation of the danger displays no bravery. But he who faces danger, drawn on by duty as Charley felt it his duty now to stick by the side of Toby, believing himself in great peril, but still not flinching, is truly brave.
The sun had dropped behind the western hills, and the first hint of twilight was settling among the trees, when Toby without warning halted and froze where he stood. Then it was that Charley saw in the shadows ahead two eyes glowing like balls of fire and the outlines of a great crouching creature.