Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter Thirteen.Was it an Old Man’s Dream?—Sunday on Mid-Ocean—Land Ho!—A Strange Adventure—Lost in the Great Forest.Captain McBain and our heroes stayed up for hours that night after old man Magnus left, talking and musing upon the strange story they had just been listening to.“Think you,” said Ralph, “there is much in it, or is it merely an old man’s dream?”“An old man’s dream!” said McBain. “No, I do not; old men do not dream such dreams as those, but, like Magnus himself, I put little faith in the spirit part of the story.”“The question then to be answered,” said Allan, “is, where did Jan Jansen stay during the four or five years of his sojourn in the polar seas?”“Well,” said McBain, “I have thought that over too, and I think it admits of a feasible enough answer, without having recourse to the spirit theory. There is a mystery altogether about the regions of the Pole that has never been revealed.”“In fact,” said Rory, “nobody has ever been there to reveal it.”“That is just it,” contained McBain; “our knowledge of the country is terribly meagre, and merely what we have gleaned from sealers or whalers—men, by the way, who are generally too busy, looking after the interests of their owners, to bother their heads about exploration—or from the tales of travellers who have attempted—merely attempted, mind you—to penetrate as far north as they could.”“True,” said Ralph.“England,” continued McBain, “has not all the credit to herself, brave though her sailors be, of telling us all we know about the Pole and the country—lands and seas—around it. Why, I myself have heard tales from Norwegian walrus-hunters, the most daring fellows that ever sailed the seas, that prove to my facile satisfaction that there is an open ocean near the North Pole, that there are islands in it—the Isle of Alba if you like—and that these islands are inhabited. You may tell me it is too cold for human beings to live there; you may ask me where they came from. To your first assertion I would reply that the inhabitants may depend to a great extent for heat on the volcanic nature of the islands themselves, just as they depend in winter for light on the glorious aurora, or the radiant light of stars and moon. When you ask me where they came from, I have but to remind you that Spitsbergen and the islands around it were, before their glacial period, covered with vegetation of the most luxuriant kind, that mighty trees grew on their hills and in their dales, and that giants of the lower animal kingdom roamed through the forests, the wilder beasts preying on the flocks and herds that came down at mid-day to quench their thirst in the streams and in the lakes; Man himself must have lived there too, and if he still exists in the regions of the Pole, he is but the descendant of a former race.“With some of these tribes Jan Jansen no doubt lived: they were good to him, perhaps so good that he got lazy and wouldn’t work, and so they were glad to get rid of him.”“And what about the mammoth caves—do you believe in them too?” said Allan.“Ah! ha!” cried Ralph, laughing; “our brother Allan has an eye to the main chance, you see; he wants to ‘malt’ money.”“I want to see all I can see on this cruise,” said Allan, reddening a little as he spoke, “and I want if possible to make the voyage pay. Well, bother take you, Ralph, call it ‘makin’ money’ if you like.”“The gigantic mammoth,” continued McBain, “used inhabit the far northern regions, where they existed in millions. Now human nature is the same all over the world, and, I suppose, always has been. Man is a collecting animal; the North American Indians collect scalps—”“Misers collect money,” said Rory, “and little boys stamps.”“In some parts of the world,” McBain went on, “the natives make giant pyramids of the antlers of deer; the King of Dahomey prefers human skulls, and if there be caves filled with mammoth tusks, as the traditions of the Norwegians would lead us to believe, they were doubtless collected by the natives as trophies of the hunt, and stowed away in caves. The mammoth you know was the largest kind of elephant—”“Och!” cried Rory, interrupting McBain; “what an iconoclast you are to be sure; what a breaker of images?”“Explain, my boy,” said McBain, smiling, for he could spy fun in Rory’s eye.“You say the mam-mothwas an elephant,” said Rory. “Och! sure it was myself was thinking all the time it was a kind of a butterfly.”“Indeed, indeed, Rory,” said Ralph, “I think it is time little boys like you were in bed.”“Well, boys,” said McBain, rising, “maybe it is time we all turned in, and thankful we have to be for a quiet night, for a fair wind, and a clear sea. Dream about your ‘butterfly,’ Rory, my son, for depend upon it we’ll see him yet.”Next day was Sunday. How inexpressibly calm and delightful, when weather is fine and wind is fair, is a Sunday at sea. It is then indeed a Sabbath, a day of quiet rest.On this particular morning, saving a few fleecy cloudlets that lay along the southern horizon, there was no cloud to be seen in all the blue sky, and the sun shone warmly down on the snowy canvas and white decks of theSnowbird, as she coquetted over the rippling sea. The men, dressed in their neatest suits, were assembled aft on the quarter-deck, near the binnacle, so that even the man at the wheel could join in the beautiful Form of Prayer to be used at Sea, read by McBain in rich and manly tones. Had you climbed into the maintop of that yacht, that white speck on the ocean’s blue, and gazed around you on every side, you would have scanned the horizon in vain for a sight of a single living thing. They were indeed alone on the wide ocean. Alone, yet not alone, for One was with them to whom they were now appealing. “One terrible in all His works of wonder, at whose command the winds do blow, and who stilleth the raging of the tempest.”Prayers over, Ap pipes down, the men move forward to read or to talk, and by-and-bye it will be the dinner-hour; this is “plum-dough” day, and, mind you, sailors are just like schoolboys, theythinkabout this sort of thing. Oscar, the Saint. Bernard, has mounted on top of the skylight—his favourite resting-place in fine weather—and laid himself down to sleep in dog fashion, with one eye a little open, and one ear on half-cock to catch the faintest unusual sound.“Do you know,” said Ralph, looking over the bulwarks and down at the gliding water, “I think I should like to live at sea.”“Ay, ay,” said Rory, “if it was always like this, O! thou fair-weather sailor, but when we’re lying-to in a gale of wind, Ralph, that is the time I like to see you, fast in your armchair, with the long legs of you against the bulkheads to steady yourself, and trying in vain to swallow a cup of tea. Oh! then is the time you look so pleasant.”Ralph looked at this teasing shipmate of his for a moment or two with a kind of amused smile on his handsome face, then he pulled his ear for him and walked away aft.About five days after this Rory came on deck; he had been talking to Captain McBain in his cabin. The captain was working out the reckoning, during which I don’t think Rory helped him very much.“Well, Rory,” said Allan, “you’ve been plaguing the life out of poor McBain, I know. But tell us the news—where are we?”“Indeed,” said Rory, with pretended gravity, “we’re in a queer place altogether, and I don’t know that ever we’ll get out of it.”“Out of what?” cried Ralph; “speak out, man—anything gone wrong?”“Indeed then,” replied Rory, “there has been a collision.”“A collision?”“Yes, a collision between the latitude and the longitude, and they’re both standing stock still at 60.”“I’ll explain,” said McBain, who had just joined them. “The good shipSnowbird, latitude 60 degrees North, longitude 60 degrees West.”“Now do you see, Mr Obtuse?” said Rory.“I do,” said Ralph, “but no thanks to you.”Next morning land was in sight on the lee bow, and by noon they had cast anchor and clewed sails in a small bay near a creek.“Not a very hospitable-looking shore, is it?” said McBain; “but never mind, here are birds in plenty, and no doubt we’ll find fur as well as feather. So be ready by to-morrow for a big shoot.”“I’mready now,” said Rory, “just for a small ‘explore,’ you know, and we’ll come back by sunset and report.”“And I’ll go with him,” said Allan.“Mind you don’t get lost,” cried McBain; “and we don’t expect a big bag, you know.”Rory carried his rifle, Allan his gun; they were armed for anything, and felt big enough to tackle a bear for that matter. They pulled straight in-shore and up the creek, and to their joy they found at the head of it a nice stream; not a river by any means, but still navigable enough for more than a mile for their little craft. They soon came to a rapid, almost a waterfall, indeed, and not thinking it expedient to carry their boat, or to proceed farther on water, they landed, made her fast to the stump of an old tree, and trudged on in quest of adventure, with their guns over their shoulders.“Now,” said Rory, pausing to gaze around him, after they had walked on in silence over a wild and scraggy heath for more than an hour, “if we had merely come in quest of the beautiful and the picturesque, and if I had brought my sketch-book with me, it strikes me we would have been rewarded, but as for shooting, why, we would have done well to have stopped on the seashore and kept potting away at the gulls.”The scenery about them was indeed lovely, with a loveliness peculiarly its own. It was summer in this wild northern land; everywhere the moorlands and plains were carpeted with the greenest of grass, or bedecked with mosses and lichens of every hue imaginable, from the sombrest brown to the brightest scarlet. Of wild flowers there were but few, but heaths, still green, there were in abundance, and many curious wild shrubs they had never seen before; but they knew the juniper-plant and the sweet-scented wild myrtle. Why, it was the same that adorned the braes of Arrandoon! Then there were fruit-trees of various kinds, and trees that bore large pink and white flowers. It seemed odd to our heroes to see big flowers growing on tree-tops, but this, and indeed everything else around them, only served to remind them that they were in a foreign land. What they missed the most were the wild flowers and the song of birds. Birds there were, but they were silent: they would rush out from a bush, or flutter down from a tree, to gaze curiously at them, then be off again. The horizon was bounded by rugged hills, surrounded by a forest of pine-trees.“I think,” said Rory, “we should climb that sugar-loaf hill. What a grand view we would get. Let us walk towards the wood; we are sure to find game there.”“Do you know in what direction our ship lies?” said Allan.“That I don’t,” said Rory; “but if we follow the stream we are sure to find the boat.”“But we have left the stream. Do you think you know in what direction that lies?”“Pooh! no!” cried Rory. “Oh, look, Allan! look at that lovely blue and crimson bird! Fire, boy, fire!”Allan fired and Rory bagged the beauty.Then on they went, firing now at some strange bird and now at a weasel or polecat, taking little heed of where they were going, just as heedless as youth so often is.There was a ravine between them and the forest, which the purple haze of distance had hidden from their view, but, as they were bent on reaching the pines by hook or by crook, they descended. The grass grew greener at the bottom of this dale, and here they found a stream of pure water, with a bottom of golden sand and boulders. This was a temptation not to be resisted, so they threw themselves down on the bank after quenching their thirsty and proceeded, in a languid and dreamy kind of manner, to watch the movements of the shoals of speckled trout that gambolled in the stream, chasing each other round the stones, and poking each other in the ribs with their round slimy noses.“Don’t they look happy?” said Rory, “and wouldn’t they eat nicely?”“Which reminds me,” said Allan, “that I’ve something good in my bag.”“And ain’t I hungry just!” Rory said; and his eyes sparkled as Allan produced, all neatly begirt with a towel of sparkling whiteness, a dish containing a pie of such delicious flavour that when it was finished, and washed down with what Rory, mimicking the rich brogue of his countrymen, called “a taste of the stramelet,” they both thought they had never dined so well before.Half-a-dozen wood-pigeons flew hurriedly over them. Rory seized Allan’s gun and fired, and one dropped dead within a dozen yards of them. Such a beauty, so plump and so large.“That is our game,” cried Rory; “let us on to the wood. We’ll get such bags as will make Ralph chew his tongue with regret that he wasn’t with us.”“Hoo-hoo-hooo-o!” resounded from the spruce thickets as they neared the woods.“Here, at them?” cried Allan, excitedly. “Now for it, my boy!”“Yes,” said Rory; “it’s all very well, but I can’t pot them so well with the rifle.”“Then in all brotherly love and fairness we’ll exchange guns every twenty minutes.”As it was arranged so it was carried out. They crept along under the trees.“Hoo-hoo-hooo-o!” cried the great blue-grey birds, rising in the air on flapping wings. Bang, bang, bang! Down they came thick and fast. The sportsmen had many little mishaps, and tore their clothes considerably, but the fun was so “fine” they did not mind that much.After about three hours of this,—“I say,” says Rory, “isn’t it getting duskish!”“Bless me!” cried Allan, looking at his watch, “I declare it is long past seven o’clock. Let us start for the brook at once and find our boat.”“You mustn’t shout,” said Rory, “till you’re out of the wood.”“We came this way, I know,” said Allan.They went that way, but only seemed to get deeper and deeper into the forest. They tried another direction with the same result; another and another, but all to no purpose. Then they looked at each other in consternation.“We’re lost!” cried Allan. “How could we have been so mad?”“We can gain nothing, though,” said Rory, “by crying about it;” and downhesat.“I see nothing for it but to follow your example,” said Allan, dolefully; and down he sat also.“What a pretty little pair of babes in the wood we make, don’t we?” continued Allan, after a pause.“What a pity we ate all Peter’s pie, though,” says Rory; “but we won’t let down our hearts. The moon will be up ere long, but sleep here to-night we’ll have to. If we tried now to find our way we’d only be going round and round, with no more chance of finding our way than a dog has of catching his tail.”Presently there was a whirring noise, and a great black bird, apparently as big as a Newfoundland, alighted on an adjoining tree.“It is an eagle,” said Rory. “Down with him.”“It’s a wild turkey,” said Allan, coming back with the spoil.He had hardly laid it down when an immense, great, gaunt, and hungry-looking wolf seemed to start from the very earth in front of them. Rory fired, but missed.“In case,” said Allan, “we have a visit from any more of these gentry, let us light a fire.”This was soon done, and the blaze from the burning wood caused the gloom of the forest to close around them like a thick black pall, and, lit up by the glare of the fire, their faces and figures stood out in bold relief. It was like a picture of Rembrandt’s.“In the morning, you know,” Allan remarked, “we will find our way out of the wood by blazing the trees.”“What, would you set fire to the forest?” laughed Rory.“No, Mr Greenhorn,” said Allan, “only chip a bit of bark here and there off the trees’ stems to prevent us from going round in a circle.”“Well,” said Rory, “you know how the thing is done, I don’t.”The night wore on; it was very quiet in that gloomy pine-wood. The moon rose slowly over the horizon, but her beams could hardly penetrate the thick branches of the spruce firs. The fire burnt low, only starting occasionally into a fitful blaze; the two friends from talking fell to nodding, then their weary heads dropped on their arms, and they slept.But is this forest quite so deserted as the two friends imagined? No; for behold that dark figure gliding swiftly from tree to tree through the chequered moonlight; and now the branches are pushed aside, and he stands erect before them. Tall he is, gaunt and ungainly, dressed from the crown of the head to his moccasined feet in skins, and armed with gun, dagger, and revolver. He stands for a moment in silence, then quite aloud, and with a strong Yankee nasal twang,—“Well, I’m skivered!” he says.Rory rose on his feet first, and had his rifle at the stranger’s neck in the twinkling of an eye.“Who are you?” he cries. “Speak quick, or I fire!”“Seth,” was the reply. “Now put aside that tool, or see if I don’t put a pill through you.”“What seek you here?”“Well!” said Seth, “Idolike cheek when it is properly carried out. Here you two chaps have been a-prowling round my premises all day, and a-potting at my pigeons; you’ve been and shot my pet turkey, and you’ve fired at my mastiff, and now you ask me what I want on my own property. I’ve heard of cheek before, but this licks all.”“Well, well, well!” cried Allan, laughing, “I declare we thought the land uninhabited.”“So it is,” said the Yankee; “there ain’t a soul within three days’ journey o’ here, bar old trapper Seth that you see before you.”“And we took your mastiff for a wolf,” said Rory, “and your turkey for a gaberlunzie. Troth, it’s too bad entirely.”(Gaberlunzie,Scotticefor an old beggar man. Rory no doubt meant to say capercailzie, the wild turkey of the Scottish woods.)“You see there are no game laws in this land, and no trespass laws either,” said Seth, “else I’d take you prisoners; but if you’ll come and help old Seth to eat his supper, it’ll be more of a favour than anything else, that’s all.”“That we will, with pleasure,” said Rory and Allan, both in one breath.Seth’s cottage was about as wild and uncouth as himself or his mastiff. No wonder, by the way, they took the latter for a wolf, but the trapper made them right welcome. The venison steaks were delicious, and although they had to “fist” them, knives and forks being unknown in Seth’s log hut, they enjoyed them none the less. After supper this solitary trapper, who felt civilised life far too crowded for him, entertained them with tales of his adventures till long past midnight; then he spread them couches of skins, and their slumbers thereon were certainly sweeter than they would have been in the centre of the cold forest.

Captain McBain and our heroes stayed up for hours that night after old man Magnus left, talking and musing upon the strange story they had just been listening to.

“Think you,” said Ralph, “there is much in it, or is it merely an old man’s dream?”

“An old man’s dream!” said McBain. “No, I do not; old men do not dream such dreams as those, but, like Magnus himself, I put little faith in the spirit part of the story.”

“The question then to be answered,” said Allan, “is, where did Jan Jansen stay during the four or five years of his sojourn in the polar seas?”

“Well,” said McBain, “I have thought that over too, and I think it admits of a feasible enough answer, without having recourse to the spirit theory. There is a mystery altogether about the regions of the Pole that has never been revealed.”

“In fact,” said Rory, “nobody has ever been there to reveal it.”

“That is just it,” contained McBain; “our knowledge of the country is terribly meagre, and merely what we have gleaned from sealers or whalers—men, by the way, who are generally too busy, looking after the interests of their owners, to bother their heads about exploration—or from the tales of travellers who have attempted—merely attempted, mind you—to penetrate as far north as they could.”

“True,” said Ralph.

“England,” continued McBain, “has not all the credit to herself, brave though her sailors be, of telling us all we know about the Pole and the country—lands and seas—around it. Why, I myself have heard tales from Norwegian walrus-hunters, the most daring fellows that ever sailed the seas, that prove to my facile satisfaction that there is an open ocean near the North Pole, that there are islands in it—the Isle of Alba if you like—and that these islands are inhabited. You may tell me it is too cold for human beings to live there; you may ask me where they came from. To your first assertion I would reply that the inhabitants may depend to a great extent for heat on the volcanic nature of the islands themselves, just as they depend in winter for light on the glorious aurora, or the radiant light of stars and moon. When you ask me where they came from, I have but to remind you that Spitsbergen and the islands around it were, before their glacial period, covered with vegetation of the most luxuriant kind, that mighty trees grew on their hills and in their dales, and that giants of the lower animal kingdom roamed through the forests, the wilder beasts preying on the flocks and herds that came down at mid-day to quench their thirst in the streams and in the lakes; Man himself must have lived there too, and if he still exists in the regions of the Pole, he is but the descendant of a former race.

“With some of these tribes Jan Jansen no doubt lived: they were good to him, perhaps so good that he got lazy and wouldn’t work, and so they were glad to get rid of him.”

“And what about the mammoth caves—do you believe in them too?” said Allan.

“Ah! ha!” cried Ralph, laughing; “our brother Allan has an eye to the main chance, you see; he wants to ‘malt’ money.”

“I want to see all I can see on this cruise,” said Allan, reddening a little as he spoke, “and I want if possible to make the voyage pay. Well, bother take you, Ralph, call it ‘makin’ money’ if you like.”

“The gigantic mammoth,” continued McBain, “used inhabit the far northern regions, where they existed in millions. Now human nature is the same all over the world, and, I suppose, always has been. Man is a collecting animal; the North American Indians collect scalps—”

“Misers collect money,” said Rory, “and little boys stamps.”

“In some parts of the world,” McBain went on, “the natives make giant pyramids of the antlers of deer; the King of Dahomey prefers human skulls, and if there be caves filled with mammoth tusks, as the traditions of the Norwegians would lead us to believe, they were doubtless collected by the natives as trophies of the hunt, and stowed away in caves. The mammoth you know was the largest kind of elephant—”

“Och!” cried Rory, interrupting McBain; “what an iconoclast you are to be sure; what a breaker of images?”

“Explain, my boy,” said McBain, smiling, for he could spy fun in Rory’s eye.

“You say the mam-mothwas an elephant,” said Rory. “Och! sure it was myself was thinking all the time it was a kind of a butterfly.”

“Indeed, indeed, Rory,” said Ralph, “I think it is time little boys like you were in bed.”

“Well, boys,” said McBain, rising, “maybe it is time we all turned in, and thankful we have to be for a quiet night, for a fair wind, and a clear sea. Dream about your ‘butterfly,’ Rory, my son, for depend upon it we’ll see him yet.”

Next day was Sunday. How inexpressibly calm and delightful, when weather is fine and wind is fair, is a Sunday at sea. It is then indeed a Sabbath, a day of quiet rest.

On this particular morning, saving a few fleecy cloudlets that lay along the southern horizon, there was no cloud to be seen in all the blue sky, and the sun shone warmly down on the snowy canvas and white decks of theSnowbird, as she coquetted over the rippling sea. The men, dressed in their neatest suits, were assembled aft on the quarter-deck, near the binnacle, so that even the man at the wheel could join in the beautiful Form of Prayer to be used at Sea, read by McBain in rich and manly tones. Had you climbed into the maintop of that yacht, that white speck on the ocean’s blue, and gazed around you on every side, you would have scanned the horizon in vain for a sight of a single living thing. They were indeed alone on the wide ocean. Alone, yet not alone, for One was with them to whom they were now appealing. “One terrible in all His works of wonder, at whose command the winds do blow, and who stilleth the raging of the tempest.”

Prayers over, Ap pipes down, the men move forward to read or to talk, and by-and-bye it will be the dinner-hour; this is “plum-dough” day, and, mind you, sailors are just like schoolboys, theythinkabout this sort of thing. Oscar, the Saint. Bernard, has mounted on top of the skylight—his favourite resting-place in fine weather—and laid himself down to sleep in dog fashion, with one eye a little open, and one ear on half-cock to catch the faintest unusual sound.

“Do you know,” said Ralph, looking over the bulwarks and down at the gliding water, “I think I should like to live at sea.”

“Ay, ay,” said Rory, “if it was always like this, O! thou fair-weather sailor, but when we’re lying-to in a gale of wind, Ralph, that is the time I like to see you, fast in your armchair, with the long legs of you against the bulkheads to steady yourself, and trying in vain to swallow a cup of tea. Oh! then is the time you look so pleasant.”

Ralph looked at this teasing shipmate of his for a moment or two with a kind of amused smile on his handsome face, then he pulled his ear for him and walked away aft.

About five days after this Rory came on deck; he had been talking to Captain McBain in his cabin. The captain was working out the reckoning, during which I don’t think Rory helped him very much.

“Well, Rory,” said Allan, “you’ve been plaguing the life out of poor McBain, I know. But tell us the news—where are we?”

“Indeed,” said Rory, with pretended gravity, “we’re in a queer place altogether, and I don’t know that ever we’ll get out of it.”

“Out of what?” cried Ralph; “speak out, man—anything gone wrong?”

“Indeed then,” replied Rory, “there has been a collision.”

“A collision?”

“Yes, a collision between the latitude and the longitude, and they’re both standing stock still at 60.”

“I’ll explain,” said McBain, who had just joined them. “The good shipSnowbird, latitude 60 degrees North, longitude 60 degrees West.”

“Now do you see, Mr Obtuse?” said Rory.

“I do,” said Ralph, “but no thanks to you.”

Next morning land was in sight on the lee bow, and by noon they had cast anchor and clewed sails in a small bay near a creek.

“Not a very hospitable-looking shore, is it?” said McBain; “but never mind, here are birds in plenty, and no doubt we’ll find fur as well as feather. So be ready by to-morrow for a big shoot.”

“I’mready now,” said Rory, “just for a small ‘explore,’ you know, and we’ll come back by sunset and report.”

“And I’ll go with him,” said Allan.

“Mind you don’t get lost,” cried McBain; “and we don’t expect a big bag, you know.”

Rory carried his rifle, Allan his gun; they were armed for anything, and felt big enough to tackle a bear for that matter. They pulled straight in-shore and up the creek, and to their joy they found at the head of it a nice stream; not a river by any means, but still navigable enough for more than a mile for their little craft. They soon came to a rapid, almost a waterfall, indeed, and not thinking it expedient to carry their boat, or to proceed farther on water, they landed, made her fast to the stump of an old tree, and trudged on in quest of adventure, with their guns over their shoulders.

“Now,” said Rory, pausing to gaze around him, after they had walked on in silence over a wild and scraggy heath for more than an hour, “if we had merely come in quest of the beautiful and the picturesque, and if I had brought my sketch-book with me, it strikes me we would have been rewarded, but as for shooting, why, we would have done well to have stopped on the seashore and kept potting away at the gulls.”

The scenery about them was indeed lovely, with a loveliness peculiarly its own. It was summer in this wild northern land; everywhere the moorlands and plains were carpeted with the greenest of grass, or bedecked with mosses and lichens of every hue imaginable, from the sombrest brown to the brightest scarlet. Of wild flowers there were but few, but heaths, still green, there were in abundance, and many curious wild shrubs they had never seen before; but they knew the juniper-plant and the sweet-scented wild myrtle. Why, it was the same that adorned the braes of Arrandoon! Then there were fruit-trees of various kinds, and trees that bore large pink and white flowers. It seemed odd to our heroes to see big flowers growing on tree-tops, but this, and indeed everything else around them, only served to remind them that they were in a foreign land. What they missed the most were the wild flowers and the song of birds. Birds there were, but they were silent: they would rush out from a bush, or flutter down from a tree, to gaze curiously at them, then be off again. The horizon was bounded by rugged hills, surrounded by a forest of pine-trees.

“I think,” said Rory, “we should climb that sugar-loaf hill. What a grand view we would get. Let us walk towards the wood; we are sure to find game there.”

“Do you know in what direction our ship lies?” said Allan.

“That I don’t,” said Rory; “but if we follow the stream we are sure to find the boat.”

“But we have left the stream. Do you think you know in what direction that lies?”

“Pooh! no!” cried Rory. “Oh, look, Allan! look at that lovely blue and crimson bird! Fire, boy, fire!”

Allan fired and Rory bagged the beauty.

Then on they went, firing now at some strange bird and now at a weasel or polecat, taking little heed of where they were going, just as heedless as youth so often is.

There was a ravine between them and the forest, which the purple haze of distance had hidden from their view, but, as they were bent on reaching the pines by hook or by crook, they descended. The grass grew greener at the bottom of this dale, and here they found a stream of pure water, with a bottom of golden sand and boulders. This was a temptation not to be resisted, so they threw themselves down on the bank after quenching their thirsty and proceeded, in a languid and dreamy kind of manner, to watch the movements of the shoals of speckled trout that gambolled in the stream, chasing each other round the stones, and poking each other in the ribs with their round slimy noses.

“Don’t they look happy?” said Rory, “and wouldn’t they eat nicely?”

“Which reminds me,” said Allan, “that I’ve something good in my bag.”

“And ain’t I hungry just!” Rory said; and his eyes sparkled as Allan produced, all neatly begirt with a towel of sparkling whiteness, a dish containing a pie of such delicious flavour that when it was finished, and washed down with what Rory, mimicking the rich brogue of his countrymen, called “a taste of the stramelet,” they both thought they had never dined so well before.

Half-a-dozen wood-pigeons flew hurriedly over them. Rory seized Allan’s gun and fired, and one dropped dead within a dozen yards of them. Such a beauty, so plump and so large.

“That is our game,” cried Rory; “let us on to the wood. We’ll get such bags as will make Ralph chew his tongue with regret that he wasn’t with us.”

“Hoo-hoo-hooo-o!” resounded from the spruce thickets as they neared the woods.

“Here, at them?” cried Allan, excitedly. “Now for it, my boy!”

“Yes,” said Rory; “it’s all very well, but I can’t pot them so well with the rifle.”

“Then in all brotherly love and fairness we’ll exchange guns every twenty minutes.”

As it was arranged so it was carried out. They crept along under the trees.

“Hoo-hoo-hooo-o!” cried the great blue-grey birds, rising in the air on flapping wings. Bang, bang, bang! Down they came thick and fast. The sportsmen had many little mishaps, and tore their clothes considerably, but the fun was so “fine” they did not mind that much.

After about three hours of this,—

“I say,” says Rory, “isn’t it getting duskish!”

“Bless me!” cried Allan, looking at his watch, “I declare it is long past seven o’clock. Let us start for the brook at once and find our boat.”

“You mustn’t shout,” said Rory, “till you’re out of the wood.”

“We came this way, I know,” said Allan.

They went that way, but only seemed to get deeper and deeper into the forest. They tried another direction with the same result; another and another, but all to no purpose. Then they looked at each other in consternation.

“We’re lost!” cried Allan. “How could we have been so mad?”

“We can gain nothing, though,” said Rory, “by crying about it;” and downhesat.

“I see nothing for it but to follow your example,” said Allan, dolefully; and down he sat also.

“What a pretty little pair of babes in the wood we make, don’t we?” continued Allan, after a pause.

“What a pity we ate all Peter’s pie, though,” says Rory; “but we won’t let down our hearts. The moon will be up ere long, but sleep here to-night we’ll have to. If we tried now to find our way we’d only be going round and round, with no more chance of finding our way than a dog has of catching his tail.”

Presently there was a whirring noise, and a great black bird, apparently as big as a Newfoundland, alighted on an adjoining tree.

“It is an eagle,” said Rory. “Down with him.”

“It’s a wild turkey,” said Allan, coming back with the spoil.

He had hardly laid it down when an immense, great, gaunt, and hungry-looking wolf seemed to start from the very earth in front of them. Rory fired, but missed.

“In case,” said Allan, “we have a visit from any more of these gentry, let us light a fire.”

This was soon done, and the blaze from the burning wood caused the gloom of the forest to close around them like a thick black pall, and, lit up by the glare of the fire, their faces and figures stood out in bold relief. It was like a picture of Rembrandt’s.

“In the morning, you know,” Allan remarked, “we will find our way out of the wood by blazing the trees.”

“What, would you set fire to the forest?” laughed Rory.

“No, Mr Greenhorn,” said Allan, “only chip a bit of bark here and there off the trees’ stems to prevent us from going round in a circle.”

“Well,” said Rory, “you know how the thing is done, I don’t.”

The night wore on; it was very quiet in that gloomy pine-wood. The moon rose slowly over the horizon, but her beams could hardly penetrate the thick branches of the spruce firs. The fire burnt low, only starting occasionally into a fitful blaze; the two friends from talking fell to nodding, then their weary heads dropped on their arms, and they slept.

But is this forest quite so deserted as the two friends imagined? No; for behold that dark figure gliding swiftly from tree to tree through the chequered moonlight; and now the branches are pushed aside, and he stands erect before them. Tall he is, gaunt and ungainly, dressed from the crown of the head to his moccasined feet in skins, and armed with gun, dagger, and revolver. He stands for a moment in silence, then quite aloud, and with a strong Yankee nasal twang,—

“Well, I’m skivered!” he says.

Rory rose on his feet first, and had his rifle at the stranger’s neck in the twinkling of an eye.

“Who are you?” he cries. “Speak quick, or I fire!”

“Seth,” was the reply. “Now put aside that tool, or see if I don’t put a pill through you.”

“What seek you here?”

“Well!” said Seth, “Idolike cheek when it is properly carried out. Here you two chaps have been a-prowling round my premises all day, and a-potting at my pigeons; you’ve been and shot my pet turkey, and you’ve fired at my mastiff, and now you ask me what I want on my own property. I’ve heard of cheek before, but this licks all.”

“Well, well, well!” cried Allan, laughing, “I declare we thought the land uninhabited.”

“So it is,” said the Yankee; “there ain’t a soul within three days’ journey o’ here, bar old trapper Seth that you see before you.”

“And we took your mastiff for a wolf,” said Rory, “and your turkey for a gaberlunzie. Troth, it’s too bad entirely.”

(Gaberlunzie,Scotticefor an old beggar man. Rory no doubt meant to say capercailzie, the wild turkey of the Scottish woods.)

“You see there are no game laws in this land, and no trespass laws either,” said Seth, “else I’d take you prisoners; but if you’ll come and help old Seth to eat his supper, it’ll be more of a favour than anything else, that’s all.”

“That we will, with pleasure,” said Rory and Allan, both in one breath.

Seth’s cottage was about as wild and uncouth as himself or his mastiff. No wonder, by the way, they took the latter for a wolf, but the trapper made them right welcome. The venison steaks were delicious, and although they had to “fist” them, knives and forks being unknown in Seth’s log hut, they enjoyed them none the less. After supper this solitary trapper, who felt civilised life far too crowded for him, entertained them with tales of his adventures till long past midnight; then he spread them couches of skins, and their slumbers thereon were certainly sweeter than they would have been in the centre of the cold forest.

Chapter Fourteen.Oscar Finds the Truants—Breakfast for Seven—Seth Spins a Yarn—The Walrus-Hunters—The Indians—Beautiful Scenery—A Week’s Good Sport.Rap—rap—rap! Rat—tat—tat—tat!“What, ho! within there.” Rat—tat—tat!Bow—wow—wow.Old Seth had been up hours ago, and far away in the forest, but sleep still sealed the eyelids of both Allan and Rory, although it must have been pretty nearly eight bells, in the morning watch.Rat—tat—tat! “Hi! hi! any one within?”After a considerable deal of the silly sort of dreaming that heavy sleepers persist in conducting on such occasions, when you are trying your very best to awake them, Rory first, then Allan heard the sound, became sensible at once, and sprang from their couches of skins.“Why,” cried Rory, “it is McBain’s voice as sure as a gun is a gun.”“That it is,” said the gentleman referred to, entering the wigwam, accompanied by Ralph and Oscar, “and if I had known the door was only latched, it is in I would have been to shake you. Pretty pair of truants you are.”“Indeed,” said Ralph, “we had almost given you up for lost, and a weary night of suspense we have had.”You may be sure Oscar the Saint Bernard was not slow in expressing his delight at this reunion. Some large dogs are not demonstrative, but Oscar was an exception; he was not even content with simply leaping on Allan’s shoulders and half smothering him with caresses. No, this would not satisfy a dog of his stamp; he must let off the steam somehow, so he seized Allan’s hat, and next moment he was careering round and round among the forest trees, in a circle with a radius of about fifty yards, and at the rate of twenty knots an hour. Having thus relieved himself of his extra excitement, he returned to the hut, gave up the hat, and lay quietly down to look at his master.“Yes,” said McBain, “but there was no good starting a search expedition last night, you know, so we left the yacht at daybreak and here we are.”“And here we wouldn’t be,” added Ralph, “but for that honest dog.”While they were talking, Seth returned with dog and gun, bearing on his shoulders a young doe, its eyes not yet glazed, so recently had it been shot.“Well, gentlemen,” he said, throwing down his burden at the door, while Oscar ran out to say “How d’ye do?” to the mastiff, “I’m skivered. A kind o’ right down skivered.”“Well,” said McBain smiling, “I trust it is a pleasant sensation.”“Sensation?” said Seth, “here’s where the sensation lies. I go out to shoot a doe for breakfast, and when I come back, if I don’t find three more on ye. Seven of us and only one doe! But never mind, the old trapper’ll do his level utmost. But I say, though, seven of us to one doe. Well, Iamskivered!”When men of the world meet in foreign lands, especially in wild foreign forests, they can dispense with a deal of ceremony, and the old trapper was soon talking away as free-and-easily, and as merrily, with our travellers as if he had known them all his life.But it would have done your heart good to have seen Seth preparing breakfast. He built a log fire outside the hut and placed an immense tripod over it; on this he hung an immense pot, all in gipsy-fashion. This was what Seth called the “dirty work.” That finished, this curious old trapper at once set about transforming himself intochef, first and foremost placing a basin and spoon handy for each of his visitors, not forgetting the dogs, and the former were surprised to see everything scrupulously clean. Seth retired for a few minutes with the deer, and in a surprisingly short time reappeared with a large wooden tray, containing evidently everything that would be required for the morning’s meal, and old Seth had divested himself of his coat and skin cap, and now wore an immense leathern apron, with a clean linen cap, while his sleeves were rolled up above the elbows.Our heroes lay on the grass talking and laughing and looking lazily on, but enjoying the sight nevertheless. It was evidently a curry on a grand scale that Seth was going to give them, and he soon had about a dozen sliced onions simmering in fat; when they were enough done the doe’s flesh was added, and then Seth set about compounding his curry out of freshly-grated turmeric and many curious herbs. His pestle and mortar were rude but efficient. This was the longest part of the operation, and he had to pause often to take off the lid and stir up the flesh, and every time he did this the two dogs, who had sworn eternal friendship when first they met, must needs walk round to the lee side of the old trapper, and hold their heads high in the air to sniff the fragrant steam.And now Seth added the goat’s milk, then the curry, and lastly the flour; after this he left the mess to simmer while he busied himself in preparations for dishing up. Our heroes were intensely hungry, but they were also intensely happy, and when hunger and happiness both go together, it is a sure sign that a man is in health.“Well, I do declare,” said Ralph, passing his dish for the third if not the fourth time, “I don’t think I ever enjoyed a breakfast more in my life.”“Nor I either; and fancy getting freshly-baked bread,” said Allan.“And the drink,” said McBain, lifting a foaming mug to his lips, “what a glad surprise!”Simple heather ale it was, reader, made from the heath-tops and sweetened with wild honey.“And you tell us,” said McBain, “that you’ve been alone in this forest for twelve long years?”“Not alone,” said Seth, pointing with his foot to the mastiff. “I had he, and his father and mother before him.”“And you’re your own baker and brewer?”“Blame me,” replied Seth, “if I ain’t my own everything, and bar a couple of journeys a year of a hundred odd miles to sell my furs, and buy powder and an old newspaper, I never sees a soul save the Yack Injuns. A little civilisation goes a long way with Seth.”“I dare say,” says Rory, “you built your house yourself?”“Shouldn’t wonder if I did,” said Seth. “And I cleared all the space you see around; I knocked the forest about a bit, I can tell you, gentlemen; the spruce pines that grow to the north and east of the wigwam are left on purpose for shelter, for in winter it does blow a bit here—ay, and snow a bit as well, and there is sometimes a week and more that old Seth can’t put his nose over the threshold. And that’s just the time, gentlemen, that I receives visitors, skiver ’em!”“What, Indians?” asked Rory.“Oh! no, sirree,” said the Yankee trapper; “’tain’t likely any Injun could live in a storm that Seth couldn’t stand. No, b’ars, sir, b’ars.”“Ah! bears! yes, I see, and I suppose you give them a warm reception?”Seth chuckled to himself as he replied, “Whatever I gives ’em, gentlemen, I serves it up hot. Then their skins come in handy for blankets and such, you see.”“And the Indians—when do they pay you a visit?”“After the first fall of snow,” said Seth—“soon as they can chivey along in their caribou sledges.”“It must be grand fun,” said Allan, “that chiveying along, as you call it, in a caribou sledge.”“It is,” said Seth, “when once you get used to it, and you have a deer you can trust. I remember the time when the Yacks knew nothing at all about training deer for the work. A party of Norwegians, in a tub of a walrus brig, got stranded round north here some years ago. Well, sir, the Injuns were going to kill every man Jack of them.”“Savage are they, then?” said McBain. “Not a bit of it!” replied Seth; “they were going to kill them for fun, that was all!”“Troth?” says Rory, “they must have a drop of the rale ould Oirish blood in them, these same Yacks?”“They ain’t Yacks quite, though,” says Seth, “though I calls ’em so; they ain’t so indolent as a Yack; they are bigger, too, and a deal more treacherous.”“Did they kill the poor fellows?” asked McBain. “Not a bit of it!” Seth replied. “Nary a one o’ them. Seth interceded. Though I say it,” continued the trapper, “as mebbe shouldn’t say it, and wouldn’t say it if there was anybody else to say it for me, Seth had some little influence with these wily blueskins—it ain’t red that they be, mind you, but blue. They’ll never forget the first taste of my temper they had. Plunket’s mother were livin’ then, and a fine dog she was, and so was Plunket himself, although not much more’n a year old. The old lady was left to keep the house one day, and Plunket and I went to look for caribou. When we returns in the evening I could tell at a glance the Injuns had been on to us. Everything was upside down; everything was taken away they could carry, and poor Ino was lying wounded and bleeding in a corner; the scoundrels had tomahawked her. You should have seen the way Plunket set his back up and ran round and round the place. But his turn didn’t come then for a bit. We just kept quiet for a few weeks, and nursed Ino back to life. We knew they’d return, and they did. Lying awake I was one morning, when I hears Plunket give a low growl. I knew something was up, so I kept the dogs still and waited to see what the next move would be. Half-an-hour and more passed, then a great brown bare arm stole in through the hole in the door-top; in the hand was a knife, which was moved across the leathern hinges. Gentlemen, Plunket had a mouthful of that arm ere ever you’d say ‘axe’! ‘Hold on, Plunket!’ I cried, and the good dog didn’t need two biddings, I can tell you; he stuck to his prisoner like grim Death to a dead nigger, until, with a bar and a rope, I had made sure the arm couldn’t be withdrawn. Well, you should have heard the yell that blueskin gave. But a louder yell than his rang all around the hut next minute, and I knew then, gentlemen, it was to be war to the knife-hilt. My windows are small, but the walls are strong, and I was safe enough for a bit. I fired through each shutter as a kind of warning to ’em; then I crept upstairs to the little garret and prepared to give them pepper! Fifteen I could count in all, armed with tomahawks and spears; fifteen, and Plunket’s prisoner. Sixteen in all, and only three of us! No use their trying to get in in an ordinary way, they soon gave up that game, and drew off and held a council. I didn’t want to begin the game of killing, gentlemen, or now I could have had three with one bullet. The conclusion they came to was to burn this old trapper out. But you see, gentlemen, this old trapper didn’t mean to be burnt out if he could help it. Shame on the wretches! they didn’t mind even burning the poor Injun who was fast to the door. Well, when they began to make the faggots, I just let them have it as hot as ever I could. It was my six-shooting rifle, and it didn’t seem a moment ere three had bit the dust, and a fourth, wounded, jumped over the ravine yonder. Well, after this it ’peared to me the fight just began in real earnest. They tried to scale the hut, and they tried to scale the trees. From both positions they came down faster than they went up. They threw their hatchets and they threw their spears, but, worse than all, they fired and threw their faggots. In that case, thinks I, it’s time I brought out my reserves, so, giving them one other rattling volley, I got down as quick as feet would take me. ‘Come, good dogs!’ I cried; ‘now to give them fits!’ Gentlemen, I was about as “mad” (a Yankeeism signifying angry) as ever I was in my life, and the dogs were madder, and the way I laid around me with my club when I got out must have been fine to see; but the way that mastiff went for them blueskins was finer. The field was all our own in five minutes; the garrison was unscathed, the enemy had six killed, and it must have taken the others weeks to mend their dog-holes.”“What about Plunket’s prisoner?” asked Rory.“Plunket’s prisoner,” said Seth, “came in very handy. It was spring, you see, and there were potatoes to plant and maize and onions to sow, and what not I tied the creature to Plunket for safety. He had plenty of rope, and when he saw I didn’t mean to kill him he started and worked away like a New Hollander. When everything was in the ground—and that took us three weeks—I started him off with a message to Quimo, his chief, and I can tell you, gentlemen, no Yack Injun has ever drawn knife on old Seth since.”“But,” said Rory, “weren’t you going to tell us about the Norwegian walrus-hunters?”“Oh!” said Seth, “it was like this. I heard of the shipwreck, and I went right away over with Plunket to see if I could be of any service. And it was well for those hunters I did. I found fires alight to torture them, and irons heating to make them skip and jump. The blueskin chief was in high glee; he was expecting rare fun, he told me, ‘Well, Quimo,’ says I to him, ‘you always was about the peskiest old idgit ever I came across.’ ‘How now,’ says he, ‘great and mighty hunter?’ ‘You’re an almighty squaw,’ says I; ‘why don’t you wear a “neenak” and carry an “awwee”? Come now, Quimo, let me be master of ceremonies, I’ll show you better fun than you could make.’ ‘My white brother,’ said Quimo, ‘is very wise.’ ‘And you’re an old fool,’ says I. This wasn’t flattery, gentlemen, I own, but old Seth knows the Indian character well.”(Neenak: the short apron of sealskin the women of some tribes of Yack Indians wear.)(Awwee: baby or young one, applied to animals as well as human beings.)“I goes straight to where the Norwegians were lying bound, and cuts their cords. ‘Now,’ says I to them, ‘you’ve got to dance and sing and do all you can to please these Injuns; and, mind, you’re doing it for dear life!’ Gentlemen, I laugh to myself sometimes even yet when I think of the capers them four poor chaps cut. Old Quimo roared again, and laughed till the tears rolled down his dirty cheeks; then he vowed by the sun (the god of the Yack), that the hatchet should be buried for ever between him and the white man.“But these Norwegians stopped and settled down among the tribe, and they have taught them caribou sleighing and hunting the walrus with iron-shod spears, instead of the old caribou-horn toasting-forks they used to use. But come, gentlemen, old Seth would keep you talking here all day. Let us get up and be doing, for I reckon you came ashore for a bit of a shoot.”“That we did!” said McBain, “and if you’ll be our guide, you shall have as much tobacco as will last you for a year.”The tears seemed to stand in Seth’s eyes with delight at the prospect. “I guess,” he said, “this old trapper knows where the best caribou are to be had, and so does Plunket too.”With Seth, to make up his mind was to act, and in five minutes he had rehabilitated himself in his skins, slung on his shot-belt, and shouldered his rifle. Rory was now bemoaning his fate in not having broughthisrifle instead of a fowling-piece, but Seth soon got him over that difficulty. He strode into the wigwam, and presently reappeared with a very presentable weapon indeed, and soon after, in true Indian file, they were threading their way through the forest, the mastiff first and Oscar second, seeming determined to follow the lead and do whatever the other dog did. The road—or rather, I should say, their way, for path there was none—led upwards and inland, and after a walk of fully an hour they came out into a broad open plain. This they crossed, and then wound round some hills—high enough to have been called mountains in England—when suddenly, on rounding a spur of one of these, a scene was opened out before them that my pen is powerless to describe. They stood at the mouth of a beautiful glen, or ravine, the whole bottom of which was a sheet of water that reflected the sky’s blue and the cloudlets that floated like foam flakes above, while the lofty and rugged cliffs that surrounded the lake were green-fringed with trees, the silvery birch and the white-flowered mountain ash showing charmingly out against the more sombre hues of pine and firs; and above all were the everlasting hills, their jagged peaks white-tipped with snow, on which the sun shone with silver radiance. Patches of colour here and there relieved the green of the trees, for yonder was a bold bluff, covered with scarlet lichens, and closer to the water were patches of crimson and white foxglove. Cascades, too, formed by the melting snows, could be descried here and there, and the noise they made as they joined the lake fell upon the ear like the hum that arises from a distant city.They stood entranced, and Rory was thinking he would rather be armed with sketch-book than rifle, when—“Hist!” cried Seth.They followed his eye. On a rock right above them stood boldly out against the sky a tall stag; you might have counted every branch in his antlers.“Don’t fire!” cried Seth.It was too late. Bang went Rory’s rifle, and the echoes reverberated from rock to rock, fainter and more faint, till they were lost in the distance. Down rolled the stag.“I guess that has spoiled our day’s sport,” said Seth, quietly. “Listen.”What is it they hear? The whole earth seems to tremble, and there is a sound comes from the woods like that of far-off thunder?“They’re off,” said Seth; “that was a general stampede. In half-an-hour more we’d have had some fine skirmishing. They had been down to drink and were resting afterwards.”Rory had to pay for his experience anyhow in a three hours’ manoeuvring march. They did outflank the deer at last, but they were somewhat wild, and the sport was only fair.It was nightfall ere they reached Seth’s wigwam once more, and they were thoroughly tired, and glad to rest while Seth cooked the supper in a way that only Seth could.That night they spent in the wigwam; next day they went on board, and Seth went with them, their object being to organise a little expedition against the caribou. McBain meant to make a week’s stay here to replenish his larder fore and aft, ere they tripped anchor and made sail for wilder regions to the westward and north.You may be sure Rory did not forget his sketch-book, nor a light canoe he had which one man could carry on his back.They had a week of such glorious sport, both in fishing and shooting, that when the last evening came round both Ralph and Rory averred that they would like to stay among these wooded hills for ever.“I guess,” said Seth, “you’d get tired of it.”“Doyou ever tire of it?” asked McBain, and he asked the question with a purpose.“There are times,” said Seth, looking into the log fire around which they sat, and giving a kind of sigh, “when I think that a little change would do myself and Plunket a power of good.”“You shall have it,” cried McBain, jumping up and catching the old man by the hand, “you and Plunket too. Come with us in theSnowbird, we’ll make you as comfortable and happy as the day is long.”“If I thought I’d be of any use—” began Seth.“Of use, man,” cried McBain; “you’re the handiest fellow ever I met in my life.”“And that you’d bring me home again.”“If we don’t we’ll never return more ourselves,” said McBain.“Then, gentlemen,” said the trapper, “I’ll accept your offer. There!”

Rap—rap—rap! Rat—tat—tat—tat!

“What, ho! within there.” Rat—tat—tat!

Bow—wow—wow.

Old Seth had been up hours ago, and far away in the forest, but sleep still sealed the eyelids of both Allan and Rory, although it must have been pretty nearly eight bells, in the morning watch.

Rat—tat—tat! “Hi! hi! any one within?”

After a considerable deal of the silly sort of dreaming that heavy sleepers persist in conducting on such occasions, when you are trying your very best to awake them, Rory first, then Allan heard the sound, became sensible at once, and sprang from their couches of skins.

“Why,” cried Rory, “it is McBain’s voice as sure as a gun is a gun.”

“That it is,” said the gentleman referred to, entering the wigwam, accompanied by Ralph and Oscar, “and if I had known the door was only latched, it is in I would have been to shake you. Pretty pair of truants you are.”

“Indeed,” said Ralph, “we had almost given you up for lost, and a weary night of suspense we have had.”

You may be sure Oscar the Saint Bernard was not slow in expressing his delight at this reunion. Some large dogs are not demonstrative, but Oscar was an exception; he was not even content with simply leaping on Allan’s shoulders and half smothering him with caresses. No, this would not satisfy a dog of his stamp; he must let off the steam somehow, so he seized Allan’s hat, and next moment he was careering round and round among the forest trees, in a circle with a radius of about fifty yards, and at the rate of twenty knots an hour. Having thus relieved himself of his extra excitement, he returned to the hut, gave up the hat, and lay quietly down to look at his master.

“Yes,” said McBain, “but there was no good starting a search expedition last night, you know, so we left the yacht at daybreak and here we are.”

“And here we wouldn’t be,” added Ralph, “but for that honest dog.”

While they were talking, Seth returned with dog and gun, bearing on his shoulders a young doe, its eyes not yet glazed, so recently had it been shot.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said, throwing down his burden at the door, while Oscar ran out to say “How d’ye do?” to the mastiff, “I’m skivered. A kind o’ right down skivered.”

“Well,” said McBain smiling, “I trust it is a pleasant sensation.”

“Sensation?” said Seth, “here’s where the sensation lies. I go out to shoot a doe for breakfast, and when I come back, if I don’t find three more on ye. Seven of us and only one doe! But never mind, the old trapper’ll do his level utmost. But I say, though, seven of us to one doe. Well, Iamskivered!”

When men of the world meet in foreign lands, especially in wild foreign forests, they can dispense with a deal of ceremony, and the old trapper was soon talking away as free-and-easily, and as merrily, with our travellers as if he had known them all his life.

But it would have done your heart good to have seen Seth preparing breakfast. He built a log fire outside the hut and placed an immense tripod over it; on this he hung an immense pot, all in gipsy-fashion. This was what Seth called the “dirty work.” That finished, this curious old trapper at once set about transforming himself intochef, first and foremost placing a basin and spoon handy for each of his visitors, not forgetting the dogs, and the former were surprised to see everything scrupulously clean. Seth retired for a few minutes with the deer, and in a surprisingly short time reappeared with a large wooden tray, containing evidently everything that would be required for the morning’s meal, and old Seth had divested himself of his coat and skin cap, and now wore an immense leathern apron, with a clean linen cap, while his sleeves were rolled up above the elbows.

Our heroes lay on the grass talking and laughing and looking lazily on, but enjoying the sight nevertheless. It was evidently a curry on a grand scale that Seth was going to give them, and he soon had about a dozen sliced onions simmering in fat; when they were enough done the doe’s flesh was added, and then Seth set about compounding his curry out of freshly-grated turmeric and many curious herbs. His pestle and mortar were rude but efficient. This was the longest part of the operation, and he had to pause often to take off the lid and stir up the flesh, and every time he did this the two dogs, who had sworn eternal friendship when first they met, must needs walk round to the lee side of the old trapper, and hold their heads high in the air to sniff the fragrant steam.

And now Seth added the goat’s milk, then the curry, and lastly the flour; after this he left the mess to simmer while he busied himself in preparations for dishing up. Our heroes were intensely hungry, but they were also intensely happy, and when hunger and happiness both go together, it is a sure sign that a man is in health.

“Well, I do declare,” said Ralph, passing his dish for the third if not the fourth time, “I don’t think I ever enjoyed a breakfast more in my life.”

“Nor I either; and fancy getting freshly-baked bread,” said Allan.

“And the drink,” said McBain, lifting a foaming mug to his lips, “what a glad surprise!”

Simple heather ale it was, reader, made from the heath-tops and sweetened with wild honey.

“And you tell us,” said McBain, “that you’ve been alone in this forest for twelve long years?”

“Not alone,” said Seth, pointing with his foot to the mastiff. “I had he, and his father and mother before him.”

“And you’re your own baker and brewer?”

“Blame me,” replied Seth, “if I ain’t my own everything, and bar a couple of journeys a year of a hundred odd miles to sell my furs, and buy powder and an old newspaper, I never sees a soul save the Yack Injuns. A little civilisation goes a long way with Seth.”

“I dare say,” says Rory, “you built your house yourself?”

“Shouldn’t wonder if I did,” said Seth. “And I cleared all the space you see around; I knocked the forest about a bit, I can tell you, gentlemen; the spruce pines that grow to the north and east of the wigwam are left on purpose for shelter, for in winter it does blow a bit here—ay, and snow a bit as well, and there is sometimes a week and more that old Seth can’t put his nose over the threshold. And that’s just the time, gentlemen, that I receives visitors, skiver ’em!”

“What, Indians?” asked Rory.

“Oh! no, sirree,” said the Yankee trapper; “’tain’t likely any Injun could live in a storm that Seth couldn’t stand. No, b’ars, sir, b’ars.”

“Ah! bears! yes, I see, and I suppose you give them a warm reception?”

Seth chuckled to himself as he replied, “Whatever I gives ’em, gentlemen, I serves it up hot. Then their skins come in handy for blankets and such, you see.”

“And the Indians—when do they pay you a visit?”

“After the first fall of snow,” said Seth—“soon as they can chivey along in their caribou sledges.”

“It must be grand fun,” said Allan, “that chiveying along, as you call it, in a caribou sledge.”

“It is,” said Seth, “when once you get used to it, and you have a deer you can trust. I remember the time when the Yacks knew nothing at all about training deer for the work. A party of Norwegians, in a tub of a walrus brig, got stranded round north here some years ago. Well, sir, the Injuns were going to kill every man Jack of them.”

“Savage are they, then?” said McBain. “Not a bit of it!” replied Seth; “they were going to kill them for fun, that was all!”

“Troth?” says Rory, “they must have a drop of the rale ould Oirish blood in them, these same Yacks?”

“They ain’t Yacks quite, though,” says Seth, “though I calls ’em so; they ain’t so indolent as a Yack; they are bigger, too, and a deal more treacherous.”

“Did they kill the poor fellows?” asked McBain. “Not a bit of it!” Seth replied. “Nary a one o’ them. Seth interceded. Though I say it,” continued the trapper, “as mebbe shouldn’t say it, and wouldn’t say it if there was anybody else to say it for me, Seth had some little influence with these wily blueskins—it ain’t red that they be, mind you, but blue. They’ll never forget the first taste of my temper they had. Plunket’s mother were livin’ then, and a fine dog she was, and so was Plunket himself, although not much more’n a year old. The old lady was left to keep the house one day, and Plunket and I went to look for caribou. When we returns in the evening I could tell at a glance the Injuns had been on to us. Everything was upside down; everything was taken away they could carry, and poor Ino was lying wounded and bleeding in a corner; the scoundrels had tomahawked her. You should have seen the way Plunket set his back up and ran round and round the place. But his turn didn’t come then for a bit. We just kept quiet for a few weeks, and nursed Ino back to life. We knew they’d return, and they did. Lying awake I was one morning, when I hears Plunket give a low growl. I knew something was up, so I kept the dogs still and waited to see what the next move would be. Half-an-hour and more passed, then a great brown bare arm stole in through the hole in the door-top; in the hand was a knife, which was moved across the leathern hinges. Gentlemen, Plunket had a mouthful of that arm ere ever you’d say ‘axe’! ‘Hold on, Plunket!’ I cried, and the good dog didn’t need two biddings, I can tell you; he stuck to his prisoner like grim Death to a dead nigger, until, with a bar and a rope, I had made sure the arm couldn’t be withdrawn. Well, you should have heard the yell that blueskin gave. But a louder yell than his rang all around the hut next minute, and I knew then, gentlemen, it was to be war to the knife-hilt. My windows are small, but the walls are strong, and I was safe enough for a bit. I fired through each shutter as a kind of warning to ’em; then I crept upstairs to the little garret and prepared to give them pepper! Fifteen I could count in all, armed with tomahawks and spears; fifteen, and Plunket’s prisoner. Sixteen in all, and only three of us! No use their trying to get in in an ordinary way, they soon gave up that game, and drew off and held a council. I didn’t want to begin the game of killing, gentlemen, or now I could have had three with one bullet. The conclusion they came to was to burn this old trapper out. But you see, gentlemen, this old trapper didn’t mean to be burnt out if he could help it. Shame on the wretches! they didn’t mind even burning the poor Injun who was fast to the door. Well, when they began to make the faggots, I just let them have it as hot as ever I could. It was my six-shooting rifle, and it didn’t seem a moment ere three had bit the dust, and a fourth, wounded, jumped over the ravine yonder. Well, after this it ’peared to me the fight just began in real earnest. They tried to scale the hut, and they tried to scale the trees. From both positions they came down faster than they went up. They threw their hatchets and they threw their spears, but, worse than all, they fired and threw their faggots. In that case, thinks I, it’s time I brought out my reserves, so, giving them one other rattling volley, I got down as quick as feet would take me. ‘Come, good dogs!’ I cried; ‘now to give them fits!’ Gentlemen, I was about as “mad” (a Yankeeism signifying angry) as ever I was in my life, and the dogs were madder, and the way I laid around me with my club when I got out must have been fine to see; but the way that mastiff went for them blueskins was finer. The field was all our own in five minutes; the garrison was unscathed, the enemy had six killed, and it must have taken the others weeks to mend their dog-holes.”

“What about Plunket’s prisoner?” asked Rory.

“Plunket’s prisoner,” said Seth, “came in very handy. It was spring, you see, and there were potatoes to plant and maize and onions to sow, and what not I tied the creature to Plunket for safety. He had plenty of rope, and when he saw I didn’t mean to kill him he started and worked away like a New Hollander. When everything was in the ground—and that took us three weeks—I started him off with a message to Quimo, his chief, and I can tell you, gentlemen, no Yack Injun has ever drawn knife on old Seth since.”

“But,” said Rory, “weren’t you going to tell us about the Norwegian walrus-hunters?”

“Oh!” said Seth, “it was like this. I heard of the shipwreck, and I went right away over with Plunket to see if I could be of any service. And it was well for those hunters I did. I found fires alight to torture them, and irons heating to make them skip and jump. The blueskin chief was in high glee; he was expecting rare fun, he told me, ‘Well, Quimo,’ says I to him, ‘you always was about the peskiest old idgit ever I came across.’ ‘How now,’ says he, ‘great and mighty hunter?’ ‘You’re an almighty squaw,’ says I; ‘why don’t you wear a “neenak” and carry an “awwee”? Come now, Quimo, let me be master of ceremonies, I’ll show you better fun than you could make.’ ‘My white brother,’ said Quimo, ‘is very wise.’ ‘And you’re an old fool,’ says I. This wasn’t flattery, gentlemen, I own, but old Seth knows the Indian character well.”

(Neenak: the short apron of sealskin the women of some tribes of Yack Indians wear.)

(Awwee: baby or young one, applied to animals as well as human beings.)

“I goes straight to where the Norwegians were lying bound, and cuts their cords. ‘Now,’ says I to them, ‘you’ve got to dance and sing and do all you can to please these Injuns; and, mind, you’re doing it for dear life!’ Gentlemen, I laugh to myself sometimes even yet when I think of the capers them four poor chaps cut. Old Quimo roared again, and laughed till the tears rolled down his dirty cheeks; then he vowed by the sun (the god of the Yack), that the hatchet should be buried for ever between him and the white man.

“But these Norwegians stopped and settled down among the tribe, and they have taught them caribou sleighing and hunting the walrus with iron-shod spears, instead of the old caribou-horn toasting-forks they used to use. But come, gentlemen, old Seth would keep you talking here all day. Let us get up and be doing, for I reckon you came ashore for a bit of a shoot.”

“That we did!” said McBain, “and if you’ll be our guide, you shall have as much tobacco as will last you for a year.”

The tears seemed to stand in Seth’s eyes with delight at the prospect. “I guess,” he said, “this old trapper knows where the best caribou are to be had, and so does Plunket too.”

With Seth, to make up his mind was to act, and in five minutes he had rehabilitated himself in his skins, slung on his shot-belt, and shouldered his rifle. Rory was now bemoaning his fate in not having broughthisrifle instead of a fowling-piece, but Seth soon got him over that difficulty. He strode into the wigwam, and presently reappeared with a very presentable weapon indeed, and soon after, in true Indian file, they were threading their way through the forest, the mastiff first and Oscar second, seeming determined to follow the lead and do whatever the other dog did. The road—or rather, I should say, their way, for path there was none—led upwards and inland, and after a walk of fully an hour they came out into a broad open plain. This they crossed, and then wound round some hills—high enough to have been called mountains in England—when suddenly, on rounding a spur of one of these, a scene was opened out before them that my pen is powerless to describe. They stood at the mouth of a beautiful glen, or ravine, the whole bottom of which was a sheet of water that reflected the sky’s blue and the cloudlets that floated like foam flakes above, while the lofty and rugged cliffs that surrounded the lake were green-fringed with trees, the silvery birch and the white-flowered mountain ash showing charmingly out against the more sombre hues of pine and firs; and above all were the everlasting hills, their jagged peaks white-tipped with snow, on which the sun shone with silver radiance. Patches of colour here and there relieved the green of the trees, for yonder was a bold bluff, covered with scarlet lichens, and closer to the water were patches of crimson and white foxglove. Cascades, too, formed by the melting snows, could be descried here and there, and the noise they made as they joined the lake fell upon the ear like the hum that arises from a distant city.

They stood entranced, and Rory was thinking he would rather be armed with sketch-book than rifle, when—

“Hist!” cried Seth.

They followed his eye. On a rock right above them stood boldly out against the sky a tall stag; you might have counted every branch in his antlers.

“Don’t fire!” cried Seth.

It was too late. Bang went Rory’s rifle, and the echoes reverberated from rock to rock, fainter and more faint, till they were lost in the distance. Down rolled the stag.

“I guess that has spoiled our day’s sport,” said Seth, quietly. “Listen.”

What is it they hear? The whole earth seems to tremble, and there is a sound comes from the woods like that of far-off thunder?

“They’re off,” said Seth; “that was a general stampede. In half-an-hour more we’d have had some fine skirmishing. They had been down to drink and were resting afterwards.”

Rory had to pay for his experience anyhow in a three hours’ manoeuvring march. They did outflank the deer at last, but they were somewhat wild, and the sport was only fair.

It was nightfall ere they reached Seth’s wigwam once more, and they were thoroughly tired, and glad to rest while Seth cooked the supper in a way that only Seth could.

That night they spent in the wigwam; next day they went on board, and Seth went with them, their object being to organise a little expedition against the caribou. McBain meant to make a week’s stay here to replenish his larder fore and aft, ere they tripped anchor and made sail for wilder regions to the westward and north.

You may be sure Rory did not forget his sketch-book, nor a light canoe he had which one man could carry on his back.

They had a week of such glorious sport, both in fishing and shooting, that when the last evening came round both Ralph and Rory averred that they would like to stay among these wooded hills for ever.

“I guess,” said Seth, “you’d get tired of it.”

“Doyou ever tire of it?” asked McBain, and he asked the question with a purpose.

“There are times,” said Seth, looking into the log fire around which they sat, and giving a kind of sigh, “when I think that a little change would do myself and Plunket a power of good.”

“You shall have it,” cried McBain, jumping up and catching the old man by the hand, “you and Plunket too. Come with us in theSnowbird, we’ll make you as comfortable and happy as the day is long.”

“If I thought I’d be of any use—” began Seth.

“Of use, man,” cried McBain; “you’re the handiest fellow ever I met in my life.”

“And that you’d bring me home again.”

“If we don’t we’ll never return more ourselves,” said McBain.

“Then, gentlemen,” said the trapper, “I’ll accept your offer. There!”

Chapter Fifteen.The Old Trapper Buries his Valuables—The “Snowbird” Goes on her Voyage—Ice—A Whale in Sight—A Fall! A Fall!—In at the Death—The “Trefoil” on Fire.Old Seth the trapper had a deal to do before he could accompany our heroes on board theSnowbird. “For ye see, gentlemen,” he explained to them, “as soon’s they find out that the Old Bear, as they somewhat irreverently nominate this child, has left his wigwam, I guess the Yacks’ll pretty quickly come skooting around here, to pick up whatever they’re likely to lay their dirty hands on, so I reckon I’ll just bury my valuables.”A very practical individual was Seth, and when once he made up his mind to do a thing he just did it straight away; so, as soon as they had eaten their last breakfast at his wigwam, assisted by one or two of the yachtsmen, the burial of the valuables commenced. A large hole was dug not far from the door of the hut, and this was carefully lined with hay, and on the hay were piled Seth’s household goods, in the shape of pots and pans, and plates and dishes, and every variety of cooking and kitchen utensil, with the greater portion of the old man’s armouryplushis wardrobe. Not the best portion of the latter, however; no, only some of his skin suits, for shortly before these were deposited in their temporary grave, Seth had retired for a space to the privacy of his garret.“I reckon,” he said to himself, with a smile, as he began to undress, “that old Seth’ll kinder astonish the weak nerves of these English sailors.” Don’t suppose they’d guess the old trapper was in possession of anything decent to put on. He reckoned upon astonishing our travellers, and he certainly was not far out of his reckoning, for when he again appeared in their midst, arrayed in a long blue coat with brass buttons, shoes with silver buckles, silk stockings, and knee-breeches, white collar up to his eyes, and crowned with a beaver hat of immense longitude, and with a face as serious and long as your own, reader, when you look into the bowl of a silver spoon, Rory, whose risibility was never under the most perfect control, simply rolled on the grass and screamed. Allan was the next to go off, and then Ralph exploded, and finally McBain. Even Oscar joined the chorus in a round of bow-bows, and the only two of the whole party that contained themselves were Seth and his mastiff.“Guess,” said Seth, quietly recommencing the burial of his valuables, “you’re kinder ’stonished to find Seth can be civilised when he likes.”Well, as soon as more hay had been placed in the grave, and the earth packed down over all.“P’r’aps,” said Seth, “you gentlemen think the funeral’s over now.”“It’s finished now, isn’t it?” asked McBain.“Nary a bit of it,” said the old man; “I know the Yacks too well to leave the grave like that. They’d spot it at once, and have ’em up before you’d say bullet.”The trapper’s wisdom was well shown in his next move. This was to heap a quantity of brushwood and logs on the top of all, and set fire to them.He watched the progress of the fire until it was well alight, and the biggest logs began to crackle.That same forenoon the first and second mates of theSnowbirdwere leaning over the bulwarks, looking at the shore, when the sound of oars fell upon their ears, and next minute the yacht’s cutter hove in sight round the point.“Why,” said Stevenson, “who on earth have they got on board?”“Old John Brown, I should think,” said the second mate.“Well,” continued Stevenson, “I do wonder how many queer old customers the captain will pick up before the end of the cruise. Ap ain’t a chicken, and Magnus isn’t a youth, but this new old one beats all. Shouldn’t wonder if it ain’t Methuselah himself. Anyhow, Mitchell, if we do happen to want to rig a jury mast one of these days, this venerable old bit o’ timber in the long hat will be just the thing.”When the anchor was up once more, sail set, and theSnowbirdagain holding on her voyage, bowling along under a ten-knot breeze, Stevenson approached to where Seth stood against the capstan.“I say,” says Stevenson.“Sir to you,” says Seth.“You’re a friend o’ the captain’s, ain’t you?”“That’s so,” from Seth.“Well, that makes you a friend of mine,” from Stevenson. “Shake hands.”Seth did shake hands, and Stevenson winced as he pulled his hand away.“What an iron-fisted old sinner you are!”“I reckon,” said Seth, quietly, “I can hold pretty tight for an old ’un.”“Now,” continued Stevenson, “let me give you a piece of advice.”“Spit it out,” said Seth.“Well then, it is this: get rid of these antediluvian togs o’ yours. I won’t say you look a guy, but the suit ain’t shipshape, I assure you, and it makes you look—well, just a little remarkable; and mind you, if it comes on to blow only just a little bit, that venerable tile o’ yours’ll go overboard—sharp, and your wig too, if you wear one.”“Look here, young man,” said Seth, “you talk pretty straight, you do; but as far as the wig is concerned, I wear my own hair as yet; as regards the togs, as you call ’em, I hain’t got nothing else to put on but skins. Skins wouldn’t suit a civilised ship. So unless you can fix me up decent and different, don’t talk, that’s all.”“That’s fair, that’s right, Methus—I mean, Mr Seth.”“Bother your misters,” said the old trapper; “I’m Seth, simply Seth.”“Well, Seth,” said Stevenson, “see here, I can fix you in a brace of shakes; you ain’t much more’n a yard taller than me. Come below, Methus—ahem! Seth. Mind your hat. It would be a pity to crush that, you know.”When Seth appeared on deck again, rigged out in a suit of Stevenson’s, albeit his legs stuck rather far through their covering, and his long bony wrists were nicely displayed, it must be confessed that hedidlook a little less remarkable.Where was Seth to sleep at night? Was he to be a cabin passenger? Nay, Seth himself decided the matter by simply taking the big mastiff in his arms, and lying down on a skin in front of the galley-fire.As for the dog himself, he began to improve in condition from the very day he came on board, and before he was a week at sea he was positively getting fat. But the Yankee trapper remained as lanky as ever. Do not think, however, that honest Seth was of no service on board; old as he was, he proved a very useful fellow. He assisted the cook, the cooper, and the sailmaker all in turns; and when he was not assisting them he was squatting on deck, making and mending fishing-tackle, and busking fishhooks with feathers, to make them represent flies.TheSnowbirdhad now got so far into the northern and western bays that, summer although it was, the weather was far from warm, but it continued fine. Immense snow-clad pieces of ice were to be seen daily, sometimes even hourly, and the yacht often sailed so closely to them that the very blood and marrow of the onlookers felt as if suddenly frozen into ice itself.One morning a berg was reached larger than any they had yet seen, and the vessel had to alter her course considerably in order to avoid it. To all appearance it was an island in the midst of the dark sea, and quite an hour elapsed ere it was rounded, and the ship could again be kept away on the right tack. Hardly had she been put so, when,—“A sail!” was the shout from the crow’s-nest—“a sail on the weather bow.”Captain McBain went aloft himself to have a look at her, the yacht in the meantime being kept close to the wind. When he came down Rory and Allan went eagerly to meet him.“What is she?” said the former. “Our old friend the pirate?”“Nay,” said McBain, “not this time; it’s a whaler, right enough; all her boats are hanging handy, and she is evidently on the outlook for blubber. Peter!” he cried, speaking down the main hatch, “have lunch ready in a couple of hours. I think,” he continued, addressing our heroes, “we’ll board her. Would any of you like to go?”Of course they would, every one of the three of them.While they were discussing luncheon Stevenson came below.“We’re nearly close abreast of her,” he said, “and I’ve been signalling. She’s an English barque—theTrefoil, from Hull.”“Been whaling, I suppose?” said McBain.“Yes, sir,” said Stevenson; “she’s been wintered, and is now engaged at the summer fishing. She’s dodging now; and I’ve had the foreyard hauled aback.”“Thank you, Mr Stevenson. Call away the gig if the men have dined. Let them dress in their smartest. We’ll be up in a few minutes.”It was a lovely day; a gentle swell was on, broken into myriads of rippling wavelets by a southern wind, and on it the tall-masted barque rocked gently to and fro. The gig was soon lowered and manned, and, with Rory as coxswain, they left theSnowbird’sside. How pretty she looked! This thought must have been in every one’s mind as they gazed on her beautiful lines, and thence at the large but cumbersome vessel they were rapidly approaching. Hard weather and hard usage she must have experienced since leaving England. The paint was planed and ploughed off her bows and sides in all directions, and the woodwork itself deeply furrowed and indented.“It is evident enough she has been in the nips,” said McBain, “pretty often, too.”A Jacob’s-ladder was thrown overboard as they approached, and a rope, when up they sprang, and next moment stood on the deck of the Greenlandman, lifting their hats with true sailor courtesy as soon as they touched her timbers.Rough and unkempt both the seamen and officers looked beside our smart, gaily-dressed yachtsmen, but they accorded them a kindly welcome nevertheless. They were invited down below, and found themselves in a little octagon-shaped saloon, with a stove on one side, and doors opening off every other. So small was this crib, as one might call it, that, with the captain and the mate, our friends quite filled it.The captain was a tall, stout, blustering fellow of about forty years of age, who welcomed them in, roughly but not unkindly, and showered upon them about a dozen questions without waiting for an answer to either. What was the latest from England? Were we at war? Was Hool (Hull) still in the same place? Had they brought newspapers? What would they drink? Ending up with—“Steward, bring the bottles—confound you! what are you standing grinning there at, like a vixen fox? Sharp’s the word, quick’s the motion.”There were many words in this sailor’s vocabulary that I do not think it right to repeat, as they were not fit for ears polite.“What!” he cried, when McBain assured him they neither of them cared to drink—“what, a teetotal ship! Why, how the humpty-dumpty do you manage to keep the cold out, then?”“Coffee,” was the laconic reply.“Well, well, well!” said the Greenland captain, filling himself up half a tumblerful of rum, and drinking it off at one gulp. “But sit down all the same, and give us all the news.”That they would, and that they did, and they answered all his questions with extreme politeness, and were just on the eve of asking him some in return anent his own adventures, when that cry, so musical and exciting to the ear of the Greenland whaler, was shouted from the mast-head, and taken up by those below, and resounded all over the ship from stem to stern, and back again—“A fall! a fall! a fall!”The captain sprang to his feet, almost capsizing the bottles in his excitement.“Hurrah, men! hurrah!” he roared, as he sprang up the companion, “luck’s going to turn after all. Hurrah, men! a fall!—yes, a fall in good earnest! Away, boats! Tumble in, lads! tumble in!”Our friends were left in theTrefoil’ssaloon, all staring in blank astonishment save McBain. “Listen!” said the latter.They did, and could hear every now and then three blows struck on the deck, as if by a sledge-hammer, followed immediately by a sentence bellowed from stentorian lungs, but of which they could only distinguish the first word and the last. These were “Away!” and “Ahoy!”“Whatever is up?” cried Rory at last; “is the ship going down, or has everybody taken sudden leave of his senses?”“There’s a whale in sight; that’s it!” McBain replied.“But what is the knocking?” continued Rory.“Oh, that is to awaken the sleepers,” explained McBain; “they have no boatswain’s pipe in these ships, so they knock with their booted feet. But come, let us go on deck and see the fun.”The captain met them at the top of the companion.“We’re off, you see!” he cried, hurriedly. “Come on board and dine with me. I’m going to spear that fish myself; I haven’t a harpooner worth a dump. Keep in the rear of my boat if you’re going to follow, and you’ll see the fun and be in at the death?”In at the death! Strangely prophetic were the captain’s words; our heroes remembered them afterwards for many a long day.“A fall! a fall! Yonder she rips! yonder she spouts! A fall! a fall!”The men were tumbling up the hatches—pouring up. You could hardly have believed so many men had been below. They ran along the decks and trundled into the hanging boats like so many monkeys; the tackles are let go, blocks creak, and one by one they disappear beneath the bulwarks and reach the water, with a flop and a plash that tell of speed and excitement. And now they are off. The men bend well to their oars, and, encouraged by the shouts of the coxswain and harpooner, they fly over the water—together first, but soon in a line, for it is a race, and the first harpooner that strikes the fish will be well rewarded.But where is the whale? Why, yonder; two goodly miles to leeward. You can only see three parts of it—black dots above the water; the skull, the back, and the tail tip.McBain and his boys were left almost alone, for here were hardly men enough to work the ship, and the silence that had succeeded the noise and shouting was intense in its gloominess.“Come, lads!” cried McBain, “we mustn’t stop here; let us see the fun; let us follow the hunt, and be in at the death!”TheSnowbird’sgig was speedily alongside, and in a few minutes more was bounding over the rippling waters to where the other boats were. It needed not McBain’s “Give way, my lads! give way with a will!” to make the men do their utmost. They too were wild with excitement.But see, the boats are spreading out; they are no longer together; the whale has dived, and there is no saying where she may come up. Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes of suspense creep slowly away; the crew of the gig have been lying on their oars. But look! there she is again! her huge bulk appears in the very midst of the boats. Let her go either way, or any way, she is sure of a shot. She makes a dash for it. Bang, bang, bang! from the bows of three of the boats. She is struck—twice struck—but she but increases her speed, the line goes spinning over the bows; there is blood in her wake, and the men bend now to their oars with the fury of maniacs. She is badly hurt; she is confused; she stops for a moment to lash the water madly with her tail, then dives once more. But she cannot sulk long, breathe she must. And the boats still go tearing on, and the lines are being coiled in again. The other boats move on ahead, too; they want to surround “the fish.” One of these is the captain’s boat; they can see his burly form in the bow. Mindful of his words, the gig keeps on in her wake.“Back astern, men!” cries McBain, as the giant whale rises almost under their very bows. “Back, back for your lives!”To say that our heroes were astonished at the size and strength of the angry monster, would but poorly express the amount of their surprise. Their hearts seemed to stand still with awe. They were thunderstruck. Ah! and here was thunder too, those awful blows! The sound may be heard miles and miles away on a still day. I know, reader, of nothing in nature that gives one a greater idea of vastness, of strength and power, than a whale’s body raised high in air and curved round in the attitude of striking; the skin seems tightened over, it glitters like a gigantic piston-rod, and it seems trebly powerful. But oh! to be under that dreadful tail.When, awestruck and half-drowned with spray, our heroes managed to look around them, the thunder had ceased, the whale was gone; there were blood and foam in front of them, beyond that the wreck of the captain’s boat. She was so smashed up that she hadn’t even sunk; her timbers lay all about, and clinging to them the drowning and maimed wretches that had not been killed outright. The gig and two other boats made haste to assist. In at the death! They were indeed in at the death. The captain was among the slain. His body was found floating, strange to say, at some considerable distance from the wreck. He seemed in a deep quiet sleep. Alas! it was a sleep from which he would awake no more in this world.And the whale had gone. She had made direct for the island of ice and dived beneath it, and there the lines were cut.But hark! adown the wind comes the sound of a signal-gun; a minute goes by, then there is another. All eyes are turned towards theTrefoil, and now smoke can be distinctly seen rolling slowly up from her decks, near the bows.Once again the signal-gun.TheTrefoilis on fire!

Old Seth the trapper had a deal to do before he could accompany our heroes on board theSnowbird. “For ye see, gentlemen,” he explained to them, “as soon’s they find out that the Old Bear, as they somewhat irreverently nominate this child, has left his wigwam, I guess the Yacks’ll pretty quickly come skooting around here, to pick up whatever they’re likely to lay their dirty hands on, so I reckon I’ll just bury my valuables.”

A very practical individual was Seth, and when once he made up his mind to do a thing he just did it straight away; so, as soon as they had eaten their last breakfast at his wigwam, assisted by one or two of the yachtsmen, the burial of the valuables commenced. A large hole was dug not far from the door of the hut, and this was carefully lined with hay, and on the hay were piled Seth’s household goods, in the shape of pots and pans, and plates and dishes, and every variety of cooking and kitchen utensil, with the greater portion of the old man’s armouryplushis wardrobe. Not the best portion of the latter, however; no, only some of his skin suits, for shortly before these were deposited in their temporary grave, Seth had retired for a space to the privacy of his garret.

“I reckon,” he said to himself, with a smile, as he began to undress, “that old Seth’ll kinder astonish the weak nerves of these English sailors.” Don’t suppose they’d guess the old trapper was in possession of anything decent to put on. He reckoned upon astonishing our travellers, and he certainly was not far out of his reckoning, for when he again appeared in their midst, arrayed in a long blue coat with brass buttons, shoes with silver buckles, silk stockings, and knee-breeches, white collar up to his eyes, and crowned with a beaver hat of immense longitude, and with a face as serious and long as your own, reader, when you look into the bowl of a silver spoon, Rory, whose risibility was never under the most perfect control, simply rolled on the grass and screamed. Allan was the next to go off, and then Ralph exploded, and finally McBain. Even Oscar joined the chorus in a round of bow-bows, and the only two of the whole party that contained themselves were Seth and his mastiff.

“Guess,” said Seth, quietly recommencing the burial of his valuables, “you’re kinder ’stonished to find Seth can be civilised when he likes.”

Well, as soon as more hay had been placed in the grave, and the earth packed down over all.

“P’r’aps,” said Seth, “you gentlemen think the funeral’s over now.”

“It’s finished now, isn’t it?” asked McBain.

“Nary a bit of it,” said the old man; “I know the Yacks too well to leave the grave like that. They’d spot it at once, and have ’em up before you’d say bullet.”

The trapper’s wisdom was well shown in his next move. This was to heap a quantity of brushwood and logs on the top of all, and set fire to them.

He watched the progress of the fire until it was well alight, and the biggest logs began to crackle.

That same forenoon the first and second mates of theSnowbirdwere leaning over the bulwarks, looking at the shore, when the sound of oars fell upon their ears, and next minute the yacht’s cutter hove in sight round the point.

“Why,” said Stevenson, “who on earth have they got on board?”

“Old John Brown, I should think,” said the second mate.

“Well,” continued Stevenson, “I do wonder how many queer old customers the captain will pick up before the end of the cruise. Ap ain’t a chicken, and Magnus isn’t a youth, but this new old one beats all. Shouldn’t wonder if it ain’t Methuselah himself. Anyhow, Mitchell, if we do happen to want to rig a jury mast one of these days, this venerable old bit o’ timber in the long hat will be just the thing.”

When the anchor was up once more, sail set, and theSnowbirdagain holding on her voyage, bowling along under a ten-knot breeze, Stevenson approached to where Seth stood against the capstan.

“I say,” says Stevenson.

“Sir to you,” says Seth.

“You’re a friend o’ the captain’s, ain’t you?”

“That’s so,” from Seth.

“Well, that makes you a friend of mine,” from Stevenson. “Shake hands.”

Seth did shake hands, and Stevenson winced as he pulled his hand away.

“What an iron-fisted old sinner you are!”

“I reckon,” said Seth, quietly, “I can hold pretty tight for an old ’un.”

“Now,” continued Stevenson, “let me give you a piece of advice.”

“Spit it out,” said Seth.

“Well then, it is this: get rid of these antediluvian togs o’ yours. I won’t say you look a guy, but the suit ain’t shipshape, I assure you, and it makes you look—well, just a little remarkable; and mind you, if it comes on to blow only just a little bit, that venerable tile o’ yours’ll go overboard—sharp, and your wig too, if you wear one.”

“Look here, young man,” said Seth, “you talk pretty straight, you do; but as far as the wig is concerned, I wear my own hair as yet; as regards the togs, as you call ’em, I hain’t got nothing else to put on but skins. Skins wouldn’t suit a civilised ship. So unless you can fix me up decent and different, don’t talk, that’s all.”

“That’s fair, that’s right, Methus—I mean, Mr Seth.”

“Bother your misters,” said the old trapper; “I’m Seth, simply Seth.”

“Well, Seth,” said Stevenson, “see here, I can fix you in a brace of shakes; you ain’t much more’n a yard taller than me. Come below, Methus—ahem! Seth. Mind your hat. It would be a pity to crush that, you know.”

When Seth appeared on deck again, rigged out in a suit of Stevenson’s, albeit his legs stuck rather far through their covering, and his long bony wrists were nicely displayed, it must be confessed that hedidlook a little less remarkable.

Where was Seth to sleep at night? Was he to be a cabin passenger? Nay, Seth himself decided the matter by simply taking the big mastiff in his arms, and lying down on a skin in front of the galley-fire.

As for the dog himself, he began to improve in condition from the very day he came on board, and before he was a week at sea he was positively getting fat. But the Yankee trapper remained as lanky as ever. Do not think, however, that honest Seth was of no service on board; old as he was, he proved a very useful fellow. He assisted the cook, the cooper, and the sailmaker all in turns; and when he was not assisting them he was squatting on deck, making and mending fishing-tackle, and busking fishhooks with feathers, to make them represent flies.

TheSnowbirdhad now got so far into the northern and western bays that, summer although it was, the weather was far from warm, but it continued fine. Immense snow-clad pieces of ice were to be seen daily, sometimes even hourly, and the yacht often sailed so closely to them that the very blood and marrow of the onlookers felt as if suddenly frozen into ice itself.

One morning a berg was reached larger than any they had yet seen, and the vessel had to alter her course considerably in order to avoid it. To all appearance it was an island in the midst of the dark sea, and quite an hour elapsed ere it was rounded, and the ship could again be kept away on the right tack. Hardly had she been put so, when,—

“A sail!” was the shout from the crow’s-nest—“a sail on the weather bow.”

Captain McBain went aloft himself to have a look at her, the yacht in the meantime being kept close to the wind. When he came down Rory and Allan went eagerly to meet him.

“What is she?” said the former. “Our old friend the pirate?”

“Nay,” said McBain, “not this time; it’s a whaler, right enough; all her boats are hanging handy, and she is evidently on the outlook for blubber. Peter!” he cried, speaking down the main hatch, “have lunch ready in a couple of hours. I think,” he continued, addressing our heroes, “we’ll board her. Would any of you like to go?”

Of course they would, every one of the three of them.

While they were discussing luncheon Stevenson came below.

“We’re nearly close abreast of her,” he said, “and I’ve been signalling. She’s an English barque—theTrefoil, from Hull.”

“Been whaling, I suppose?” said McBain.

“Yes, sir,” said Stevenson; “she’s been wintered, and is now engaged at the summer fishing. She’s dodging now; and I’ve had the foreyard hauled aback.”

“Thank you, Mr Stevenson. Call away the gig if the men have dined. Let them dress in their smartest. We’ll be up in a few minutes.”

It was a lovely day; a gentle swell was on, broken into myriads of rippling wavelets by a southern wind, and on it the tall-masted barque rocked gently to and fro. The gig was soon lowered and manned, and, with Rory as coxswain, they left theSnowbird’sside. How pretty she looked! This thought must have been in every one’s mind as they gazed on her beautiful lines, and thence at the large but cumbersome vessel they were rapidly approaching. Hard weather and hard usage she must have experienced since leaving England. The paint was planed and ploughed off her bows and sides in all directions, and the woodwork itself deeply furrowed and indented.

“It is evident enough she has been in the nips,” said McBain, “pretty often, too.”

A Jacob’s-ladder was thrown overboard as they approached, and a rope, when up they sprang, and next moment stood on the deck of the Greenlandman, lifting their hats with true sailor courtesy as soon as they touched her timbers.

Rough and unkempt both the seamen and officers looked beside our smart, gaily-dressed yachtsmen, but they accorded them a kindly welcome nevertheless. They were invited down below, and found themselves in a little octagon-shaped saloon, with a stove on one side, and doors opening off every other. So small was this crib, as one might call it, that, with the captain and the mate, our friends quite filled it.

The captain was a tall, stout, blustering fellow of about forty years of age, who welcomed them in, roughly but not unkindly, and showered upon them about a dozen questions without waiting for an answer to either. What was the latest from England? Were we at war? Was Hool (Hull) still in the same place? Had they brought newspapers? What would they drink? Ending up with—

“Steward, bring the bottles—confound you! what are you standing grinning there at, like a vixen fox? Sharp’s the word, quick’s the motion.”

There were many words in this sailor’s vocabulary that I do not think it right to repeat, as they were not fit for ears polite.

“What!” he cried, when McBain assured him they neither of them cared to drink—“what, a teetotal ship! Why, how the humpty-dumpty do you manage to keep the cold out, then?”

“Coffee,” was the laconic reply.

“Well, well, well!” said the Greenland captain, filling himself up half a tumblerful of rum, and drinking it off at one gulp. “But sit down all the same, and give us all the news.”

That they would, and that they did, and they answered all his questions with extreme politeness, and were just on the eve of asking him some in return anent his own adventures, when that cry, so musical and exciting to the ear of the Greenland whaler, was shouted from the mast-head, and taken up by those below, and resounded all over the ship from stem to stern, and back again—“A fall! a fall! a fall!”

The captain sprang to his feet, almost capsizing the bottles in his excitement.

“Hurrah, men! hurrah!” he roared, as he sprang up the companion, “luck’s going to turn after all. Hurrah, men! a fall!—yes, a fall in good earnest! Away, boats! Tumble in, lads! tumble in!”

Our friends were left in theTrefoil’ssaloon, all staring in blank astonishment save McBain. “Listen!” said the latter.

They did, and could hear every now and then three blows struck on the deck, as if by a sledge-hammer, followed immediately by a sentence bellowed from stentorian lungs, but of which they could only distinguish the first word and the last. These were “Away!” and “Ahoy!”

“Whatever is up?” cried Rory at last; “is the ship going down, or has everybody taken sudden leave of his senses?”

“There’s a whale in sight; that’s it!” McBain replied.

“But what is the knocking?” continued Rory.

“Oh, that is to awaken the sleepers,” explained McBain; “they have no boatswain’s pipe in these ships, so they knock with their booted feet. But come, let us go on deck and see the fun.”

The captain met them at the top of the companion.

“We’re off, you see!” he cried, hurriedly. “Come on board and dine with me. I’m going to spear that fish myself; I haven’t a harpooner worth a dump. Keep in the rear of my boat if you’re going to follow, and you’ll see the fun and be in at the death?”

In at the death! Strangely prophetic were the captain’s words; our heroes remembered them afterwards for many a long day.

“A fall! a fall! Yonder she rips! yonder she spouts! A fall! a fall!”

The men were tumbling up the hatches—pouring up. You could hardly have believed so many men had been below. They ran along the decks and trundled into the hanging boats like so many monkeys; the tackles are let go, blocks creak, and one by one they disappear beneath the bulwarks and reach the water, with a flop and a plash that tell of speed and excitement. And now they are off. The men bend well to their oars, and, encouraged by the shouts of the coxswain and harpooner, they fly over the water—together first, but soon in a line, for it is a race, and the first harpooner that strikes the fish will be well rewarded.

But where is the whale? Why, yonder; two goodly miles to leeward. You can only see three parts of it—black dots above the water; the skull, the back, and the tail tip.

McBain and his boys were left almost alone, for here were hardly men enough to work the ship, and the silence that had succeeded the noise and shouting was intense in its gloominess.

“Come, lads!” cried McBain, “we mustn’t stop here; let us see the fun; let us follow the hunt, and be in at the death!”

TheSnowbird’sgig was speedily alongside, and in a few minutes more was bounding over the rippling waters to where the other boats were. It needed not McBain’s “Give way, my lads! give way with a will!” to make the men do their utmost. They too were wild with excitement.

But see, the boats are spreading out; they are no longer together; the whale has dived, and there is no saying where she may come up. Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes of suspense creep slowly away; the crew of the gig have been lying on their oars. But look! there she is again! her huge bulk appears in the very midst of the boats. Let her go either way, or any way, she is sure of a shot. She makes a dash for it. Bang, bang, bang! from the bows of three of the boats. She is struck—twice struck—but she but increases her speed, the line goes spinning over the bows; there is blood in her wake, and the men bend now to their oars with the fury of maniacs. She is badly hurt; she is confused; she stops for a moment to lash the water madly with her tail, then dives once more. But she cannot sulk long, breathe she must. And the boats still go tearing on, and the lines are being coiled in again. The other boats move on ahead, too; they want to surround “the fish.” One of these is the captain’s boat; they can see his burly form in the bow. Mindful of his words, the gig keeps on in her wake.

“Back astern, men!” cries McBain, as the giant whale rises almost under their very bows. “Back, back for your lives!”

To say that our heroes were astonished at the size and strength of the angry monster, would but poorly express the amount of their surprise. Their hearts seemed to stand still with awe. They were thunderstruck. Ah! and here was thunder too, those awful blows! The sound may be heard miles and miles away on a still day. I know, reader, of nothing in nature that gives one a greater idea of vastness, of strength and power, than a whale’s body raised high in air and curved round in the attitude of striking; the skin seems tightened over, it glitters like a gigantic piston-rod, and it seems trebly powerful. But oh! to be under that dreadful tail.

When, awestruck and half-drowned with spray, our heroes managed to look around them, the thunder had ceased, the whale was gone; there were blood and foam in front of them, beyond that the wreck of the captain’s boat. She was so smashed up that she hadn’t even sunk; her timbers lay all about, and clinging to them the drowning and maimed wretches that had not been killed outright. The gig and two other boats made haste to assist. In at the death! They were indeed in at the death. The captain was among the slain. His body was found floating, strange to say, at some considerable distance from the wreck. He seemed in a deep quiet sleep. Alas! it was a sleep from which he would awake no more in this world.

And the whale had gone. She had made direct for the island of ice and dived beneath it, and there the lines were cut.

But hark! adown the wind comes the sound of a signal-gun; a minute goes by, then there is another. All eyes are turned towards theTrefoil, and now smoke can be distinctly seen rolling slowly up from her decks, near the bows.

Once again the signal-gun.

TheTrefoilis on fire!

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