Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay Part 21

On one of these elevations they paused for a brief rest. The fog held as densely as ever, and out there where the great body of salt water lay it was an utter impossibility to see any distance. A whole armada of vessels might be anch.o.r.ed, not half a mile from the sh.o.r.e, and no one be any the wiser for it.

"Is this the real Hudson Bay proper?" asked Frank, while they stood thus, recovering their breath, after the last climb.

"Well, it's the lower part of it," explained Ned, "and called James Bay.

There are a great many islands to be run across in this section, and I've heard that seals have rookeries on some of them, if they haven't all been killed off."

"Well, we've seen seals and Polar bears and the big walrus--all in their native haunts, haven't we?" remarked Jimmy, turning to Frank, who with Ned had been on a long jaunt through Arctic ice floes some time before.

"And all of us stand a fair chance to see some more of the same, unless we get out of this country before the summer ends," Teddy chimed in.

"We'll find a way, all right," Jack told him; for it was always a hard thing to crush the spirit of the boy who could write such glowing accounts of trips and things for the readers of his father's big paper.

"Since we've rested up, suppose we make a fresh start," proposed Ned.

"We ought to soon come to where we followed that creek up and reached the tent colony about the mine opening," Jack was saying, as they started walking again.

"Unless I'm mighty much mistaken," Ned remarked, "we'll run across the same when we get to the bottom of this rise. I think I remember seeing this place before as we came along."

It turned out that Ned was right, for ere much more time had pa.s.sed, the little expedition stood on the bank of the creek.

"Broader than you thought, ain't it, Ned?" questioned Frank, as he eyed the stretch of water dubiously.

"Oh! we wouldn't expect to bridge it over here," was the answer the patrol leader made. "By following it up for a little ways, we'll find that it narrows considerably; and that's where we want to look sharp for a log that'll come in handy."

"Yes, I remember now that it wasn't over ten or twenty feet across at most, where we struck it last time," Teddy piped up, for he was keeping an accurate account of all that occurred, and hence had the figures down pat.

As soon as they found that the creek bed had come down to respectable proportions, the scouts began to scurry around, hunting for a fallen tree that might be made to answer for a bridge. This was soon found and carried to the spot selected, as the most suitable for their purpose.

There was only one way in which they could drop the bridge over and find an anchorage on the other sh.o.r.e. This was by raising it to a perpendicular position on the near bank and, then giving it a shove, have it fall on the other.

It required the combined strength of the scouts, backed up by the more powerful guides, to accomplish this feat in bridge building. Ned had figured to a fraction, it seemed, for when the log fell it rested at least a foot on either bank.

After that it was easy for them to cross over, though Teddy had to get down and crawl, he being addicted to dizzy spells when at any height, and not in the humor for taking a dip in the cold water of the creek.

The boys were for starting on immediately; first of all, Ned had them shove the friendly log from its mooring ash.o.r.e, so that it floated on the surface of the creek.

"You see," he went on to explain, "if any of those men happened along here and saw that bridge spanning the creek, they'd know we'd come this way. Now that we've thrown it into the water, it will float off and never give us away, anyhow."

They began to make more satisfactory progress after getting on the western side of the creek. All of them felt much encouraged though the morning remained dull and heavy, and there was always a chance that it might begin to rain.

Many times did they turn curious glances toward the mist-covered bay, as though speculating on what mysteries that fog might conceal.

As a rule it was seldom Teddy who made any discovery; but on this occasion the credit belonged to him. He suddenly drew the attention of the rest to something strange that had attracted his attention.

"I may be off my base, fellows," was the way he put it, "but I'm sure I heard people talking right then. And it came from out there, too, sure it did," with which he pointed straight toward the bay.

Jimmy might have laughed at such a suggestion, but before he could think to do anything like this, all of them plainly heard a human voice well up from the fog.

CHAPTER XVII.

ON BOARD THE WRECK.

Everybody could hear the sounds now. The conditions must have been favorable for carrying a human voice far over the water, because fog is a good conductor of sound.

Men were talking apparently, though the rumble of their voices alone came over the surface of the water, and no actual words could be distinguished.

"What's that other noise?" asked Teddy, as though puzzled.

"Must be oars working in the rowlocks," suggested Jack.

"Of course," declared the explorer, "how foolish of me to ask such a silly question. But seems I don't get the give-away sounds as clear as I did a minute or so ago."

"Good reason then," Frank told him; "because the boat they're rowing is heading out on to the bay."

"Then you think there must be some sort of vessel there, do you, Frank?"

asked Teddy, eagerly, as he tried in vain to penetrate the blanket of mist.

"I reckon there might be," replied Frank, "though, of course, we can't see anything of the same right now. That rowboat wouldn't be setting out into the big sheet of water, unless heading for a vessel."

"Could it have anything to do with that wonderful fleet that is always on the move, coming and going, according to the weather? How about that, Ned?" demanded Teddy.

Ned shook his head, to indicate that he did not know. There were some things calculated to spring up from time to time, which, as leader of the Wolf Patrol, he did not claim to know. This was one of them.

Fainter grew the rumble of voices belonging to the unseen sailors; and the click-clack of oars working in the rowlocks also began to die away.

Francois had listened with the rest. Being only an ignorant voyageur, with very little knowledge save along his chosen lines, of course the French Canadian was apt to have more or less superst.i.tion in his system.

It was a heritage he had imbibed with his mother's milk.

Francois had heard more or less about this weird, disappearing fleet of vessels that, for some time now, had been acting so mysteriously along the coast of the big bay. Like most of his cla.s.s, he believed that they were unreal, and possibly but the ghosts of brave vessels that in years gone by may have ploughed the green waters of Hudson Bay.

Although he said little or nothing on the subject, Francois did considerable thinking along those lines. He cast frequent uneasy looks away out through the mist, as though fearful lest he suddenly come face to face with some terrible mystery.

To him those voices were anything but natural. Possibly, he even pictured some ghostly figures sitting in a phantom boat, and speeding over the surface of the historical sheet of water, about which so much that is remarkable has been written, and, also, handed down from father to son, among the rangers and caribou hunters of the Canadian bush.

It had died away completely by now. To the scouts, this simply signified that the men in the boat had probably drawn so far away from the sh.o.r.e that their voices no longer carried across the water as before; but to Francois it meant that the phantoms had chosen to withdraw, it might be sinking beneath the surface of the bay.

After this little adventure the boys fell to thinking again about the stories they had heard about the fleet that seemed to continually hover along the sh.o.r.e of Hudson Bay, now appearing, and then vanishing in the most remarkable manner.

Just because Ned did not seem fit to announce that they would come to a halt and endeavor to get in communication with the vessel, to which the men in the rowboat undoubtedly belonged, Teddy and Jimmy jumped to the conclusion that he, too, must be uneasy about the character of that ship.

The truth of the matter was that Ned had begun to notice certain signs going to tell him there was soon about to come a change in the conditions of the weather. He felt a slight puff of air on his cheek, and coming from the south at that. It was only a breath, but straws show which way the wind blows, they say; and when the next puff marked a slight increase, Ned knew what would happen before a great while.

Once the wind did rise, and the fog would be blown out to sea, so that in all probability they would be able to discover what manner of vessel it was that had sent a boat ash.o.r.e, for some purpose or other.