Left on the Labrador Part 6

A SNUG BERTH

It was Charley Norton's first experience in a wilderness camp, but he slept quite as well as he could have slept in his own bed at home, and perhaps more soundly. He had lain down wearied with the day's excitement and exertion, as he had never been wearied before.

The strokes of an ax outside awakened him, and he hurried out to find Skipper Zeb and Toby preparing breakfast over an open fire. It was early. The sky was studded with stars, and he stood for a moment to look out over the starlit and now peaceful waters of the bay. No longer were the shrieking winds and the booming breakers to be heard, and no sound broke the silence other than the gentle rhythmic lap of the waters over the reef.

Rising above the snow-covered foreground, towered the grim cliff of the Duck's Head. The two figures bending over the brightly burning fire at its base were pigmies as compared to its great bulk. The romance and the mystery of the scene thrilled Charley. He breathed deeply of the crisp, frosty, perfumed air, as he hastened to join Skipper Zeb and Toby.

"Right on time!" exclaimed Skipper Zeb. "Were you sleepin' warm and snug the night? I keeps the fire on in the stove to make un warm. The blankets were a bit damp."

"I never woke up till I heard you chopping wood," said Charley.

"Feelin' good after yesterday's wettin' and chillin'?" asked Skipper Zeb solicitously.

"Fine and dandy!" Charley answered. "Isn't it great out here!"

"'Tis a fine marnin'," agreed Skipper Zeb. "Toby and I thinks we'll be makin' an early start, so I'll be comin' early with the boat."

"May I go with you?" asked Charley eagerly.

"Well, now!" and Skipper Zeb looked doubtfully at Charley's leather shoes and heavy ulster. "You'd be findin' that coat a weary burden, and you'd be gettin' wonderful cold feet."

"I were dryin' out my other adikey," suggested Toby. "Charley might wear un. I'll soften up my other skin boots for he, and let him have a pair of my duffle socks."

"Aye," agreed Skipper Zeb, "he might wear they. Get un, b'y."

In a moment Toby produced from the tent an adikey made of heavy white woolen cloth, a pair of thick woolen slippers made of heavy blanket cloth, and a pair of knee-high black sealskin boots with moccasin feet.

The latter were hard as boards, but by rubbing the skin upon the rounded end of a stick Toby soon had them soft and pliable.

Charley took off his leather shoes, donned the woolen slippers, and over these pulled the sealskin boots which met his knickers, and with a buckskin draw string tied the boot tops just below the knees. Then, removing his ulster, he drew the hooded adikey over his head.

"You looks now like you belong here," commented Toby, much pleased.

"Anyhow," said Charley, "I feel a lot more comfortable, dressed this way."

"Now we'll eat a bit and get started," suggested Skipper Zeb, pa.s.sing the frying-pan which contained fried salt pork, smoking hot. "We'll be leavin' Mother and Vi'let to rest as long as they wants."

It was a half hour later, and dawn was just breaking, when Skipper Zeb and Toby picked up their rifles, and with Skipper Zeb in the lead, and Charley bringing up the rear, they set out for Double Up Cove.

For a little while they followed the sh.o.r.e, single file, making their way through tangles of willow brush, or over piles of boulders that had been loosed from the cliffs above by the frosts of untold winters, and rolled down to the base of the cliff. It was the hardest work Charley had ever done, and he felt some pride in the fact that he was able to keep close at Toby's heels, quite unaware that Skipper Zeb was making what to him and Toby was a slow pace, in order that Charley's unaccustomed legs might not lag too far behind.

Presently the cliffs receded into sloping hills, covered with a forest of spruce and tamarack, and here they turned into the forest along the slopes, where walking proved much easier, though still more difficult than Charley had expected.

Suddenly some birds arose with a great whir of wings, and alighted in a tree.

"Spruce pa'tridges!" exclaimed Toby.

In a twinkling Skipper Zeb and Toby had their rifles at their shoulders, and with the report of the rifles, which was almost simultaneous, two of the birds fell to the snow below.

To Charley's astonishment, the remaining birds did not fly from the tree, and still they remained when two more were shot, and in the end Skipper Zeb and Toby bagged the whole flock of nine. In each case the head had been neatly clipped off by the bullet, and the body of the bird was unmarred and uninjured.

"We has two good meals whatever," remarked Skipper Zeb, as they gathered up the birds. "We'll pluck un whilst they're warm. 'Tis easier to do than after they gets cold. 'Twill give us a bit of time to rest."

"Why didn't the others fly after you shot the first ones?" asked Charley. "I expected they'd be frightened and all fly away after the first shot."

"That's the way with spruce pa'tridges," explained Skipper Zeb. "They has a wonderful foolish way with un. They don't fly when you shoots.

They're so tame you could almost knock un over with a stick. They flies in a tree when we comes, thinkin' we're like a fox and can't climb a tree, and knowin' nothin' about guns there they sets and lets us shoot un."

To Skipper Zeb and Toby, the shooting of the grouse had meant no more than a means of securing necessary food. In that land where there are no domestic animals or birds, men must hunt the wild things to supply their table, just as a farmer in civilized lands kills chickens from his flock to supply his table. Charley a.s.sisted in plucking the birds, and silently admiring the marksmanship of his companions, determined that he, too, would learn to shoot well.

The sun had risen, and the winter forest gleamed and sparkled under its rays. Through the trees the waters of the bay glinted like molten silver. The air was redolent with forest fragrance. An impudent Labrador Jay[3] scolding them in its harsh voice, came so close that Charley could almost have caught it with his bare hands. Chickadees[4] chirped in the trees. A three-toed arctic woodp.e.c.k.e.r hammered industriously upon a tree trunk. In the distance a red squirrel chattered happily and noisily.

A thrill of exultation tingled Charley's spine. He was doing the very thing that his father had believed too hard for him to do, and in a wilder country than his father had ever seen. How proud and pleased his father would be when he reached home and told of what he had seen and done! It would compensate for all the suffering at his supposed loss.

"Plenty of rabbits this year," remarked Toby, calling Charley's attention to a network of tracks that covered the snow. "We'll be settin' snares for un. 'Tis great sport."

"Oh, can we snare them?" said Charley. "That will be great."

"Aye," promised Toby, "and we'll be settin' marten traps too. Here's some marten signs now. There's fine signs of marten this year."

"You catch martens for the fur, don't you?" asked Charley.

"Aye," answered Toby. "They has wonderful fine fur. Weren't you ever seein' a marten?"

"No," confessed Charley, "I never saw one."

"You'll be seein' they this winter, whatever," promised Toby.

Toby pointed to the tracks of a small animal in the snow.

It was mid-forenoon when they suddenly came upon a cabin in the midst of a clearing at the edge of the forest, and looking out upon the water.

"Well, now, and here we be safe and sound and in good time!" announced Skipper Zeb.

He opened a door leading into an enclosed porch, which was built against one end of the cabin, and through the porch they entered the cabin.

Charley observed that neither the porch door nor the inner door was locked, and that the latches of both were made of wood, and opened by pulling a string, which hung outside.

"Not so bad a place to be cast away in!" boomed Skipper Zeb, surveying the room with pride after depositing his gun upon the beams overhead.

"What does you think of your new home, now? 'Twere easy enough to get you out o' _that_ fix, says I! Easy enough!"

"It's great!" exclaimed Charley in appreciation. "I'm going to have a bang-up time with you! I feel at home already!"

"That's fine, now! Fine!" and Skipper Zeb slapped Charley on the shoulder with his big hand and laughed his hearty laugh. "No worries!

To-day's to-day and to-morrow's to-morrow! Cast away with plenty o' grub and a snug shelter and berth! Not so bad! Not so bad! That's gettin' out of a fix, now! Half the time a man worries there's nothin' to worry about. The worst fix a man ever gets in can't last. There's sure to be an end to un."

"It seems like a lot to ask of you--taking me into your home this way,"

said Charley appreciatively. "Dad'll make it up to you some day, after I get home."

"Nothin' to make up, if you means pay me!" broke in Skipper Zeb, rather resenting the implication that he might expect payment. "'Tis the way of The Labrador, and the way of the Lard, to share what we has with castaway folk or folk that's in trouble. 'Tis a pleasure to have you with us, lad. Mrs. Twig and I'll just be havin' two lads instead of one the winter, and we were always wishin' we has two. So here you be out o'