Left on the Labrador Part 19

"With the dogs about you'll be wantin' to learn to use the whip,"

suggested Toby. "They fears un worse than a stick. 'Tis fine sport to learn to crack un, and you'll soon learn to do that, whatever."

Toby brought forth the dog whip. It was a cruel looking instrument, with a lash of braided walrus hide, thirty-five feet in length, and a heavy wooden handle about eighteen inches long. Toby was quite expert in its use. He could snap it with a report like a pistol shot, and at twenty-five or thirty feet distance he could, with the tip of the whip, strike a chip that was no bigger than a half dollar. When he had given an exhibition of his skill, he pa.s.sed the whip to Charley.

"Now you try to snap un," said he.

It was great fun learning to handle the long whip, and though in his first awkward attempts Charley sometimes wound the lash around his own neck, where it left a red, smarting ring, with much practice he learned, in the course of two or three days, to snap it fairly well and without danger to himself.

During the days that followed Toby and Charley used the dogs and sledge, or komatik, as Toby called it, to haul wood that Toby had cut in the near-by forest. During this time Charley was gradually becoming familiar with the dogs, and sometimes Toby would permit him to guide the komatik, though he himself was always present to exact obedience from the team.

The wood hauling was done in the afternoon, while the mornings were devoted to a visit to the rabbit snares and several marten traps, which Toby had set in the woods, and to the two fox traps on the marsh. Five fine martens had been caught, but no fox had been lured into either trap, when Toby suggested one morning, three weeks after the arrival of the dogs, that they drive the team on the coast ice to a point opposite the marsh, and by a short cut through the forest drive out upon the marsh.

"I'm thinkin' if we moves the fox traps from the mesh to the barrens we'd be gettin' a fox there," said he. "'Twould be a long walk out to the barrens to tend un, but if we takes the dogs and komatik we'd have good travelin' for un everywhere exceptin' through the short neck of woods."

"Let's do!" Charley agreed enthusiastically. "It'll be a lot quicker, and it will give us a fine trip with the dogs every day when we go to look at the traps."

And so it was arranged, and so it came to pa.s.s that on that very day Charley met with his first adventure with the dogs, and a most unusual one it was, as Toby declared.

While it was nearly twice as far to the marsh by this roundabout route, the bay ice was in excellent condition for the dogs, and they traveled so briskly that they arrived at the point where they were to turn into the woods much too soon for Charley. Here in the deep snow it was necessary for them to tramp a trail for the dogs with their snowshoes, but the distance was short to the marsh, and once there the dogs again had a good hard bottom to walk upon.

Toby took up the two fox traps, and drove the team to the edge of the barrens, where the dogs were brought to a stop, and under the threat of the whip compelled to lie down.

"'Tis rocky and bad travelin' in here, and if we takes the komatik we'll have to help the dogs pull un some places," said Toby. "The wind sends the snow abroad from the rocks, and plenty of places they're bare. I'm thinkin' now if you stays with the dogs and komatik, I'll go and set the traps. I'll be back in half an hour, whatever."

"All right," agreed Charley. "I'll stay with them."

"If they tries to get up, take the whip and make un lie down," Toby directed. "Keep un lyin' down."

Toby strode away upon his snowshoes, and quickly disappeared over a low knoll. For the first time Charley was alone with the dogs, and he felt some pride in the fact that they were under his direction.

Suddenly Sampson became restless, and he and Tinker rose to their feet.

Charley snapped the whip over them, and reluctantly they lay down.

But it was only for a moment. All of the dogs had their noses in the air, and before Charley could quiet them they were all on their feet restlessly sniffing the air. Charley swung the whip, and shouted at them to lie down, but they were beyond his control, and would not lie down, but jumped and strained at their traces, giving out short whines and howls. He struck at Sampson with the b.u.t.t end of the whip, and Sampson snapped at him with ugly fangs, and would have sprung upon him had the dog's trace not held him in leash.

Then the komatik broke loose. Charley threw himself upon it, still clinging to the whip, as the dogs, at a mad gallop, turned across a neck of the marsh and toward a low hill that rose at the edge of the barrens and a quarter of a mile to the westward.

The komatik bounced from side to side with every hummock of ice it struck, and several times was in imminent danger of overturning.

Charley shouted "Ah! Ah!" at the top of his voice in vain effort to stop the mad beasts, and then "Ouk! Ouk! Ouk!" and "Rahder! Rahder! Rahder!"

in the hope that they would swing to the right or to the left and return to the starting point.

But on they went, howling more excitedly and going faster and faster until, suddenly, at the farther side of the neck of marsh and at the very edge of the barrens, the komatik struck a rock and with the impact the bridle, a line of walrus hide which connected the dogs' traces to the komatik, snapped. The yelping, howling dogs, freed from the komatik, ran wildly and eagerly on, and soon pa.s.sed over the lower slopes of the hill and out of sight.

Charley, dazed at what had happened, watched the dogs disappear. Then, in sudden realization that they had escaped from him and were gone, he ran after them calling them excitedly but vainly.

He had not run far when all at once he saw them swing down over the brow of the hill toward the komatik, and he turned about and ran to the komatik to intercept them with the whip, which he was still dragging.

The dogs were before him, a snarling, fighting ma.s.s. He was sure they would tear each other to pieces. He was about to lay the whip upon them when to his amazement he discovered that there were many more than eight dogs fighting, and that the strangers were even more ferocious creatures than those of the team, and wore no harness.

He brought down his whip upon the savage ma.s.s. Immediately one of the strange animals turned upon him, showing its gleaming white fangs, and with short, snapping yelps was about to spring at him, when Sampson, taking advantage of the animal's diverted attention, snapped his fangs into its neck.

Then it was that the truth dawned upon Charley. The strange beasts were not dogs, but a pack of the terrible northern wolves of which he had heard. It was plain, too, that the dogs were no match for them, and then the thought came to him that he had no firearms and no means of protecting himself against them.

XVIII

THE FIGHT WITH THE WOLVES

A Cold sweat broke out upon Charley's body. His knees went limp. He felt like one receiving the sentence of death. He was sure that he would presently be torn to pieces by the savage beasts.

The wolves were getting the better of the fight. They were one less in number than the dogs, but the dogs were hampered by their harness, and they were not as free to spring aside and snap at their enemy as were the wolves. Tucker and Traps, bleeding and mangled, were falling back and trying to escape. The other dogs were fighting valiantly, but they were fighting a losing fight, and Charley's untrained eyes could see that there would soon be an end of it, with the wolves victors.

Toby had taken his rifle with him, and Charley was unarmed. There was no chance for defence, and no escape. There was not a tree nearer than the farther side of the marsh that he could climb, and long before he could reach the woods the fight would be over and the wolves would be after him.

His eyes, as he looked helplessly about, fell upon an ax tucked under the lashings of the komatik. With nervous hands he drew it forth, and held it ready to strike at the first attacking animal.

Sampson and a big gray wolf were facing each other, and each maneuvering for an opening to snap at the other's throat. The wolf's back was toward Charley, and not two paces away. With a sudden impulse he sprang forward and brought the ax down upon the creature's head. It fell and lay still.

He had killed it with one blow.

The two wolves that were attacking Tucker and Traps, sensing a new and more formidable enemy, turned upon Charley. Swinging his ax he held them at bay, while they crouched, watching for an opening, their lips drawn back from their ugly fangs, while with ferocious snaps and yelps they voiced their defiance.

Then came the sharp report of a rifle, and one of the wolves fell. Then another report, and the other crumpled by the side of its dead mate.

The remainder of the pack, suddenly aware of a new and unknown danger, broke from the dogs and ran, with bullets from Toby's rifle raising little spurts of snow around them until they disappeared over a spur of the hill.

"I hears the fightin'," said Toby, "and I runs as fast as I can. I sees you knock that un over with the ax. 'Twere wonderful plucky, Charley, to fight un with an ax."

Charley sank, weak and trembling, upon the komatik.

"I--thought--they'd--kill--me," he said.

"'Twere lucky I hears un." Toby stooped and felt of the fur of one of those he had shot. "They's prime, and we gets three of un, whatever.

They pays six dollars for wolf skins at the post, and we'll be gettin'

eighteen dollars for un. The dogs gets cut up some, but not so bad, and they'll get over un."

Charley made no response. He was not interested in the character or value of the fur. He was too close to the peril from which he had escaped. He had been face to face with what he had believed to be certain death. How could Toby treat the incident with so little concern, and apparently with so little appreciation of the grave danger just ended? He was giving first thought to the value of the pelts, as though that mattered in the least.

Toby, on his part, did not in any degree deprecate the peril in which Charley had been placed, but now that it was ended, why should he talk about it or even think about it? This was a habit of his life, a life of unremitting endeavour in a stern land with its own dangers and adventures which Toby accepted as a matter of course and to be expected.

In his city streets Charley might dodge an automobile at a crossing and escape with his life by a hair's breadth, but Charley would scarcely give such an adventure a second thought. But to Toby such would have been an adventure to think and talk about and to remember with a thrill.

To Toby now, the matter of chief importance was the fact that he and Charley had earned the trade value of three wolf pelts, which was eighteen dollars, and that was a good day's wages. The danger was at an end and behind them, and no longer worth a thought; the reward was before them, and Toby began immediately, as a habit of life, to enjoy it in antic.i.p.ation.

While life warmth was still in the carca.s.ses, the boys turned their attention to the removal of the pelts, after first securing the dogs and repairing the broken bridle. As Charley worked his interest in his trophy grew, and he was as proud of it as he had ever been of anything in his life. He had killed a wolf at close quarters! It was an achievement to be proud of, and what normal boy or man would not have been proud of it?

This was the first pelt that Charley had ever secured by his own effort, and when they reached home he insisted upon stretching it himself, with a word or two of advice from Toby. Then, with a sheathknife, and with much pride, he sc.r.a.ped it free from every particle of clinging flesh and fat.

None of the dogs, as an examination disclosed, was seriously injured, though Tucker and Traps had suffered severe lacerations from the wolf fangs, and these two were relieved from team work for several days.