Left on the Labrador Part 23

For some time the dogs had persisted in edging toward the right, which was seaward, though Toby held them to their course with the whip. After a little while he called to Charley to come back.

"I'm thinkin' you don't go straight since the snow comes and you can't see the hill," he explained. "I'll be goin' ahead for a bit and you drive."

"All right," agreed Charley. "I can drive the team, and you'll know the way better in the snow."

Still the dogs were obstinate. They at once recognized the change in drivers, and took advantage of Charley's inexperience. Charley used the whip, but he could not handle it as effectively as a driver should, and the dogs gave little heed to it. They insisted upon taking an angle to the right of Toby's trail, and Charley found that he could not straighten them out upon the trail.

In desperation he ran forward to the side of the team, with the whip handle clubbed, to compel obedience. Sampson showed his fangs, and snapped at Charley's legs. This was a signal for open rebellion on the part of the whole team. They came to a standstill, and faced him, showing their fangs, and one or two of them sprang at him, but were held in leash by their traces.

Toby, looking behind, discovered the situation and came running to Charley's a.s.sistance. Taking the whip from Charley he quickly had the mutinous dogs reduced to sullen submission.

"I'll not be goin' ahead of un again," said Toby. "'Tis not helpin' to make they go any. The dogs act wonderful queer. They won't follow like they always has."

Toby urged them forward. They whined and whimpered, and at last some of them lay down, and Toby was compelled to beat them into action.

It was directly after this that they came to open water. The boys looked at each other in consternation.

"What'll we do?" asked Charley.

"I'm not knowin'," confessed Toby. "The ice has gone abroad from the sh.o.r.e, and we're driftin' out to sea."

"Shall we be--lost?" asked Charley in dull terror.

"It may be she's just settled off from sh.o.r.e here," suggested Toby hopefully. "She may be holdin' fast up the bay above the narrows. We'll try un whatever."

He commanded the dogs to go on. They sprang to the traces, but turned to the right. Against their will, and with free use of the whip, he succeeded in swinging them to the left and up the wind. Reluctantly and slowly they moved. They seemed aware of their danger. They were dissatisfied.

At length Tinker, the leader, squat upon his belly. Toby cracked the whip over him with a command to go on, and he turned upon his back, paws in air, as though in meek appeal. Toby clipped him with the tip of the lash, and he sprang up, turning to the right, and Toby lashed him back into the course to the left. He gave no display of savagery, as did Sampson, but appeared to be beseeching his young master to do something his master could not understand.

The cold had grown intense. The wind had become a stiff gale. The air was filled with a blinding dust of snow, so thick that Tinker, the leader, could scarcely be seen from the komatik. The wind was in their face, and Toby and Charley and the dogs struggled against it as against an unseen wall. The ice was heaving with an under swell. Now the komatik would be climbing an incline, now dashing down another.

At last the dogs in sullen mutiny rebelled against further action.

Tinker squatted upon the ice, and the other dogs followed his example, save Sampson, who faced about at Toby, snarling and showing his fangs.

No beating could induce them to move ahead in the direction in which they had been traveling, though they made several attempts to swing about to the right.

XXI

THE CARIBOU HUNT

The mutinous dogs eyed Toby's whip. They feared the whip, but no fear of it could induce them to advance farther, in the face of the storm, upon the unstable ice.

"What can we do now?" asked Charley in an appealing tone.

"I'm not knowin' what's ailin' the dogs," answered Toby rather uncertainly. "I can't make un go ahead, and we can't bide here, whatever. I'm fearin' with the way the ice heaves she's gone abroad at the narrows. 'Tis no worse to the east'ard than 'tis here, and that's the way the dogs wants to go. I'm thinkin' to let un go that way."

"But that will be going out to sea!" exclaimed Charley in alarm.

"Aye, but the mouth of the bay is quite a bit out past Deer Harbour, and we're a good bit inside Deer Harbour P'int now," Toby explained. "Till we gets beyond the mouth of the bay I'll be hopin' to get ash.o.r.e. We'll turn back before we goes too far, unless the ice floats us out."

"Let's get farther from the edge of the ice anyhow," said Charley, as a great heave of the ice under his feet nearly threw him down.

"Aye, 'tis like to break up here any time. We'll let the dogs have their will," agreed Toby, but not hopefully.

With that he commanded the dogs to rise, which they did readily, and breaking the komatik loose he gave them the order to the right, and away they went with a will, and with apparent satisfaction that they had won their way in facing toward the eastward.

Now, with the wind nearly behind them, the animals traveled steadily, and with no urging. It was much less trying, too, for Toby and Charley as well as for the dogs.

"The ice has about stopped its roll," said Charley presently, and with fresh hope. "It's a lot steadier."

"She is that," admitted Toby. "I were just thinkin' that the dogs knows more than we does about un."

And so it proved. Following the ice that bounded the open water along the north sh.o.r.e of the bay, they observed that the chasm of water separating the ice from the land was narrowing. Presently, to their great joy, the open water came to an abrupt end, with the ice firmly connected with the sh.o.r.e.

"We're just across from the p'int outside Deer Harbour," said Toby. "We can make un to Deer Harbour now, and bide there till the storm pa.s.ses.

We'll be findin the Deer Harbour ice fast, I'm not doubtin'."

"But we'll keep close to sh.o.r.e!" suggested Charley cautiously.

"Aye, we'll do that," agreed Toby. "We'll be takin' no more chances with the ice."

An hour later they again drove up to Skipper Cy Blink's trading store, and received a hearty welcome from the Skipper.

"I'm wonderful glad to see you! Wonderful glad!" greeted the Skipper.

"I've been blamin' myself ever since you goes for lettin' you start with the wind the way she were, and fearin' all the time you'd be gettin'

caught in a break up."

Skipper Cy Blink made much of the bear that Charley had killed with his new rifle, and admitted that such game would surely have made him forget, quite as readily as it had the boys, about the danger of the ice going abroad.

"'Twere fine you knocks he over," enthused the Skipper. "I never could have let a white bear pa.s.s without _tryin_' to knock he over, whatever.

You lads bide here in comfort till the storm pa.s.ses. 'Twill be a short un. I'm thinkin' 'twill clear in the night, and the wind'll shift nuth'ard before to-morrow marnin', and before to-morrow evenin' the ice'll be fast again on the bay."

And, as Skipper Cy had said, so it came to pa.s.s, and on the second morning after their return Toby and Charley turned again toward Pinch-In Tickle and Double Up Cove, with the ice beneath them as firm and solid and safe as ever it was.

How glad the boys were to reach Pinch-In Tickle! There would be no more danger of bad ice to face, and the difficult ballicaders were behind them, a fact that was particularly appreciated by Charley.

They made a rousing fire in the stove, and fried some bear's meat to satisfy a hunger that had been acc.u.mulating since they had left Deer Harbour in the morning. Then a fishing net that needed repairs was made ready to lash upon the komatik with the load in the morning, the dogs were fed, and they settled for a cozy evening while they talked over their adventures, and Charley's new rifle.

"'Tis the finest shootin' rifle I _ever_ sees," declared Toby, adding wistfully: "I wishes I had one like she. Maybe with the silver fox Dad'll be lettin' me have un."

"When I get home I'll have my Dad send you one, Toby," Charley promised impulsively. "Don't say a thing to your father about it and I'll send you one and him one too. I'd let you have mine, only it's the first one I ever owned, and I shot the bear with it."

"Charley, you're wonderful kind!" and Toby's face beamed with pleasure.

"But," he added seriously, "'twould be too much, Charley. You mustn't send un."