Bobby of the Labrador Part 18

JIMMY'S SACRIFICE

For a little way the dogs traveled at a gallop, and Bobby and Skipper Ed had lively work while this lasted, guiding the _komatiks_ between the ice hummocks. But it was not long before the first excitement of going upon a journey wore off, and after their manner the animals, with tails curled over their backs, settled down to a steady pulling. Now and again they came upon a ridge of ice piled up by the tide, and then it was necessary to lift at the _komatiks_ and help the dogs.

Presently the ice hummocks were left behind and the smooth, white surface of the frozen bay stretched out before them. The snow which covered the ice had been beaten down and hard packed by the wind, and the sledge runners slid over its surface so easily that the dogs increased their pace to a steady, rapid trot.

The weather was fearfully cold. The runners of the sledge squeaked and creaked. Frost flakes on the hard packed snow glistened and scintillated in the moonlight and soon the _netseks_ of the travelers were covered with white h.o.a.r frost, ice formed upon their eyelashes and Skipper Ed's breath froze upon his beard until presently his face was almost hidden by a ma.s.s of ice.

They ran by the side of the _komatiks_ to keep warm, only now and again riding for a little way to rest, and as they ran or walked they chatted gaily, contemptuous of the cold, and keenly enjoying in antic.i.p.ation the sport and adventure in store for them.

And so they traveled for three full hours before the first hint of daylight came stealing up over the white horizon in the southeast, and at length, very slowly, as though reluctant to show his face, and uncertain of his welcome, the sun peeked timidly over the ice field.

Then, rea.s.sured, he boldly lifted his round, glowing face full into view, giving cheer and promise to the frozen world.

To the sledge traveler the dreariest hour of the day, and the hour of bitterest cold, is that immediately preceding sunrise. As though by consent our three friends during this period fell into silence, and none spoke until the sun looked out over the ice, and the frost-covered snow--each frost flake a miniature prism--was set a-sparkling and a-glinting as though the snow was thick sown with diamonds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: They ran by the side of the _komatiks_ to keep warm]

"Glorious! Isn't it glorious!" exclaimed Bobby, dropping by Jimmy's side upon the _komatik_, and removing a hand from its mitten for a moment to pick small particles of ice from his eyelashes.

Jimmy for answer drew his right hand from its mitten, and clapping it over Bobby's nose began to rub the member vigorously.

"There, now it's all right," said he, donning his mitten again after a minute or two of rubbing. "Your nose was going dead.[E] The end of it was white."

[E] Freezing.

"I never felt it," laughed Bobby. "Just look at the Skipper back there.

He's a perfect image of Santa Claus!"

"Exactly!" exclaimed Jimmy, looking back at Skipper Ed. "He's exactly like the picture of Santa Claus in that old magazine you and I used to look at so much, only a good deal more real."

"If he was driving reindeers, now, instead of dogs," laughed Bobby, "and I met him with all that ice on his beard, and his _netsek_ white and glistening with the frost that way, I'd think he had stepped right out of the old picture book."

"Good old Partner!" said Jimmy. "I think I'll drop back with him a while and keep him company."

And, dropping lightly from the moving _komatik_, he waited to run along for a while with Skipper Ed, while Bobby ran alone with his own sledge.

Once a lonely raven coming from somewhere out of the blank s.p.a.ces alighted on the ice a quarter of a mile in advance of Bobby's team and directly in its track. The dogs saw it immediately, and in an instant they were after it at a mad gallop. Bobby threw himself upon the sledge, in high glee at the wild pace, and Skipper Ed's team, quite sure they were missing something very much worth while, set out in hot pursuit.

In seeming disregard for his safety, the raven, c.o.c.king his head first on one side, then on the other, surveyed the approaching dogs with interest, and to Bobby it seemed that the dogs would surely catch him.

Old Tucktu, the leader, was apparently of the same mind and very sure of a tasty morsel, and they were almost upon him before the raven, too dignified to hurry, rose leisurely on his wings, tantalizingly near to Tucktu's nose, and flapped away another quarter of a mile to repeat, with evident enjoyment, the episode, and then, unscathed, he disappeared again into the blank s.p.a.ces.

When the raven had gone and the excitement was at an end, Bobby and Skipper Ed shouted "_Ah_!" at their teams, and ran ahead with their long whips as the dogs stopped, to compel the panting animals to lie down and remain quiet while they straightened out the tangled traces and made merry over the rapid ride they had enjoyed. Then, extracting some hardtack biscuits from their bags, they sat on the sledges and ate their dry luncheon while the dogs jogged leisurely on again.

The sun was setting when Bobby, now well in the lead, halted his team at Abel Zachariah's old fishing place on Itigailit Island to await Skipper Ed and Jimmy. The sea, far out in the direction in which Abel had found Bobby in the drifting boat that August morning, was frozen, and a little way out from Itigailit Island the smooth ice gave place to mountainous ridges and hummocks where, earlier in the season, rough seas had piled ma.s.sive blocks one upon another and left them there to freeze and catch the drifting snow. Far out beyond the pressure ridges Bobby could see a dark line which marked the edge of the sea ice and the place where open water began. That was the _sena_ for which they were bound.

"Don't you think we'd better build our _igloo_ here?" Bobby suggested as the others came up. "It's getting late and we can't do any hunting tonight, anyway, and perhaps there won't be any good drifts out there."

"Yes, by all means," agreed Skipper Ed. "We'll have plenty of time in the morning to go out, and if the hunting proves good, and we prefer to stay there, we can build an _igloo_ at our leisure. If we get plenty of seals we will want to haul them in here to land to cache them, and then if the ice breaks up before we get them all hauled home, we can take them in the boat. And while we are hauling them in here from the _sena_ we'll have a snug _igloo_ at each end of the trail, where we can make hot tea, if we wish, and drink it in comfort."

They found an excellent drift in a spot well sheltered from the wind, and because he was taller and stronger than Bobby and a better builder than Jimmy, Skipper Ed, with a snow knife which looked very much like a sword but had a wider blade, which was straight instead of curved, marked a circle about ten feet in diameter upon the drift.

Then he cut a wedge out of the snow in the center, and with this as a beginning he carved from each side of the hole blocks of the hard-packed snow, each block about two feet long and a foot and a half wide and ten inches thick. These he placed on edge around the circle, fitting their ends close together by tr.i.m.m.i.n.g them as he found necessary, with the knife.

Bobby and Jimmy, each with a knife, now began also to cut other slabs from a drift outside the circle, and pa.s.sed them to Skipper Ed when he had exhausted his supply within the circle. They were very heavy, these blocks, and as much as the boys could manage.

When Skipper Ed had built a row of blocks completely around the circle, he trimmed the first blocks which he had placed to a wedge, that he might build his circle of blocks up in a spiral.

Each block of snow was so placed that it was braced against the one next it, and its top leaned a little inward, so that as the walls of the _igloo_ rose each was smaller than the one preceding it, until at last a key block in the top completed the dome-shaped structure. As the house grew Bobby plastered the joints between the blocks full of snow, making its outside smooth like the surface of a snowdrift.

When Skipper Ed had finished the building, he cut a circular place through the side, close down to the bottom, and just large enough to permit him to crawl out. Now with a snowshoe he shoveled the loose snow out of the opening, and leveled the floor within.

Bobby and Jimmy in the meantime busied themselves unlashing the loads upon the sledges and unharnessing the dogs. When this was done Bobby with an ax chopped frozen seal meat into pieces for the dogs' supper, while Jimmy with the long whip kept the hungry dogs at a distance, for with the unharnessing, and preparation of their supper, they collected into bunches, and sitting on their haunches, growled and snapped at one another, each fearful that his neighbor should gain an advantage, and all the time emitted dismal, whistling whines of impatience.

Presently Bobby stepped aside, Jimmy withdrew the menace of the whip, and in an instant the hungry beasts were upon their food, gulping it down as fast as they could pick it up, a snarling, snapping, yelping ma.s.s, and there was a fight or two that the boys were called upon to mediate by beating the animals apart.

By the time the feeding was over Skipper Ed had carried the harness into the _igloo_ and spread it evenly on the floor--for the dogs would have eaten their own harness if it had been left to them--and over the harness he laid caribou skins, and then carried in the sleeping bags and provisions. Nothing, indeed, was left outside, for nothing would have been safe from the ravenous beasts. And when the dogs were fed and all was made snug and safe the three crawled within, and closed the entrance to the _igloo_ with a big block of snow previously provided for the purpose.

They had brought with them two of Abel's old stone lamps. These were simply blocks of stone cut in the shape of a half moon, and hollowed out, to hold seal oil.

The lamps were now placed upon snow shelves, one on either side of the _igloo_, and the oil from a piece of blubber squeezed into them. Pieces of rags carefully placed along the straight side of the lamps served as wicks. These were lighted and burned with a smoky, yellow flame.

When the wicks were burning well a snow knife was stuck into the wall of the snow house over each lamp, and upon these knives kettles were suspended and filled with snow taken from the wall of the _igloo_. One of the kettles was removed when the snow was melted, and set aside for drinking water. The other was permitted to boil, tea was made, and then the fire was put out, for already the temperature inside the _igloo_ had become so warm that presently there would be danger of the snow dripping moisture.

"Now," said Skipper Ed, lighting a candle, for it was growing dark, "we're ready for supper. You chaps must be hungry."

"I could eat my boots!" declared Bobby.

"So could I!" exclaimed Jimmy, as he poured hot tea into Skipper Ed's and Bobby's cups and then helped himself. "I was glad enough when we decided to stop here."

"Isn't it fine and cozy," said Bobby, between mouthfuls of frozen boiled pork and hardtack. "I always find a snow _igloo_ cozy."

"It makes a pretty good shelter," Skipper Ed admitted, "but I never did care for an _igloo_. I'm too much of an Indian, I suppose, for I prefer a tent and a good wood fire, with its sweet smoke odor, and the companionship and shelter of the forest."

"Oh, I think an _igloo_ is nicer," insisted Bobby. "A tent gets cold at night when the fire goes out, and an _igloo_ keeps fine and warm. I could live in an _igloo_ all winter."

"You're a regular husky!" laughed Skipper Ed. "Partner and I are Indians, aren't we, Partner?"

"Yes, Partner, I like a tent better," agreed Jimmy, "but," he added, "I like our house better than a tent."

"It all depends upon what we're used to, after all," remarked Skipper Ed, "and comfort is a matter of comparison. I've no doubt that Bobby, had he never been sent adrift, and had he never found his way here, would now be living in a fine mansion somewhere, and if he had been brought here directly from the luxuries of that mansion would have found this _igloo_ unbearable, and instead of praising its comforts, as he is, would be denouncing it as unendurable, and the good supper we have just eaten as unfit to eat. And in that case it would have been a terrible hardship for him to spend even a single night here."

"I'm glad, then, that I came away from the mansion and its finery,"

declared Bobby. "But I've often wondered who the dead man was that Father found in the boat with me. I've often felt strange about that, and every summer when we're here I go over and look at his grave."

"I remember you spoke of him as 'Uncle Robert,'" said Skipper Ed.

"Perhaps he was your uncle."

"I wonder--and I wonder--" said Bobby. "I wonder if my real mother and father are living, and whether they have stopped feeling bad about me, and forgotten me. I--think--sometimes I'd give most anything to see them and tell them I'm happy."