Steve Young Part 52

"But I'm not, Watty; it seems a shame and cowardly to crawl after a beautiful animal and murder it."

"She isna a peautiful animal," said Watty scornfully. "She's fat, put she's not so big and bonnie as a Hieland stag, and her horns are puir scrats o' things. Hey, but ye should see the tines on the het of a bonnie ret-teer! She's only coot to eat; ant she must kill the beasties, or else she'd pine to deat."

Watty was right, and they could approach the deer without fear of attack. As it happened, it proved to be the finest shot that day, and after it had been gralloched (as the Highlanders term the opening and cleaning of a stag), by the Nors.e.m.e.n, the light sledge was brought into requisition, the men harnessed themselves to it, and the reindeer was dragged to where the game had been left for picking up on their return; but to the surprise of all it was missing.

"It must have been here that we left it," said the captain, glancing round at the wilderness of rocks reaching from them to the mountain-foot.

"Of course; here are the marks," said the doctor.

At that minute, with a quiet smile, Johannes touched Steve's arm and pointed. The boy followed the direction indicated, and saw something moving on the mountain-side.

"Yes, I see it!" cried Steve. "There goes our deer." For, plainly enough, though over a mile away, possibly two miles, for the air was wonderfully clear, there was a white-coated bear calmly dragging off for its own dinner the deer which had fallen to the doctor's piece.

"Well, of all the thievish impudence!" he cried. "Come along, and let's give him a lesson."

"No, I think not to-day," said the captain; "we are all tired and hungry. We should not care for the flesh now."

"But the bear and his skin?"

"We could not take him to-day; we can track him another time. If we shot him now, we should have to leave the carca.s.s, and the skin might be torn. Let's get back to the other deer."

The doctor nodded, and, to Steve's great delight, they pressed on, picked up the next deer, and then all at once Steve handed his gun to Johannes and started off at a trot toward the valley by which they had come.

"Hi! Where's he going?" cried the doctor, as the men loaded the sledge.

"I don't know," said the captain. "Yes, I do: he has run on to light a fire where we found the coal, so as to cook some of the meat."

"Yes, that's it," said the doctor. "I hope he'll have a good fire. One gets horribly hungry out here."

They trudged on till they came to where the next deer lay waiting to be picked up. This was the last, and, quite satisfied with their load, they made their way steadily on toward the nearly perpendicular rocks where the coal had been discovered cropping out from the face.

"That's the place, isn't it?" said the doctor, pointing and shifting his rifle from one shoulder to the other.

"Yes, sir!" cried Watty Links eagerly. "She can see ta big white ullet flitting aboot and roond and roond because Meester Stevey's leeting ta fire. She wushes she'd gane. She can leet a fire better tan Meester Stevey, and she could ha' blow in it wi' her brath and beat it wi' her bonnet to mak' a big blaze coom sune."

"Did Mr Stephen say to you that he was going to light a fire?"

"Phut!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Watty, emitting a sound like an angry turkey-c.o.c.k, and ruffling up and speaking indignantly. "And t.i.t she thenk she would have let her go and light a fire if she hat kenned aboot it? She'd ha'

gane hersel', and not let the young chentleman touch the coal stuff.

She wadna tell me, and rin away to leet the fire her nainsel', because she thocht she could do it better. But where's the smok?"

"Perhaps you are right," said the captain; "but I don't see any smoke.

He would have been there by now."

"He has chosen some corner out of the wind," suggested the doctor, as he watched the great bird circling about the face of the cliff, but from their distance looking less than a pigeon.

"We ought to have a specimen of those owls," said the captain as they trudged on, rather wearily now, their pieces seeming to have grown wonderfully heavy.

"Marsham, my good friend," said the doctor, "there is only one specimen in natural history that interests me now, and that is the fleshy tissue known as steak or collops, frizzled over a good clear fire. After I have exhibited, as we doctors say, a dose of that to myself, I shall be quite ready to talk about owls; not before."

"See him, Johannes?" said the captain, dropping back to take hold of one of the tracking lines, and helping to pull the sledge and ease the men.

"No, sir. He has been troubled to get the fire to burn. Maybe he has no matches. For there was plenty of rough coal lying about, and dry stuff that would soon catch alight. But it will be something to find the fire ready to burn; and we can soon get some bits of meat to roast."

"I don't see any signs of that, my lad," said the captain, after they had gone a little farther. "Of course that was why he ran on. Did he say anything to you about it?"

"Not a word, sir. He made a sudden dart off and was gone."

"Perhaps he has a fire where we cannot see it," said the captain; "and it tells well for the coal that it burns with so little smoke. It will be capital for the engines."

They trudged on, quite satisfied that they had not the other deer to drag as well, for the ground was very rugged, and Captain Marsham suggested to the doctor that if they had had the bear-skin the task would not have been much lighter. Still, every one was cheerful, and tugged heartily at his track rope; but there was no sign of the lad when they reached the foot of the coal cliff.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

LOST.

"Ahoy, there! Ahoy!" shouted the doctor again and again, startling the great owl from its eagle-like eerie and making the rocks echo the cry.

But there was no response, and the party looked at each other for an explanation of the position.

"He has not been here," said the captain, "and we must go back and search. How tiresome, when we are so weary!"

"I wish you had not brought him," grumbled the doctor. "I say, isn't anybody going to make a fire?"

"Look here, sir!" cried Jakobsen suddenly from where he stood by a big ma.s.s of rock.

"Yes! what is it?" cried the captain; and he stepped toward the man, followed by the others, to where Jakobsen pointed down to a ring of stones, within which was a quant.i.ty of dry, heathery stuff with a number of weather-worn lumps of coal.

"No mistake about his having been here," said the doctor, taking out a box of matches, which, to his astonishment, was s.n.a.t.c.hed from his fingers by Watty, who dropped upon his knees, struck and shaded a match, applied it to the light stuff, which blazed up at once, and then began to fan it with his bonnet in one hand, as he kept on adding little bits of coal with the other.

"She'll soon have a ferry pig fire," said Watty, "and she'd petter get ta steaks retty to frizzle. She can cook peautifully the noo."

This was to Jakobsen, who nodded, drew his knife, and began to cut off a haunch from one of the deer, for Johannes was looking about uneasily.

"See anything of him, my man?" said the captain.

"No, sir. He must be gathering coal together to help the fire; but I've been down both these rifts, and he is not there."

"It's very strange," said the captain uneasily. "So unlike him to rush off in that way."

"He was thinking of our comfort, sir," said Johannes gravely; "and how good it would be for us to find a fire ready."

"He must be about here somewhere," said the captain. "Shout, will you?"

Johannes made the rocks echo again and again, but the only effect was the starting of the owl into flight till the cries and their echoes ceased, when it settled once more high up the mountain-side.

There were several narrow, gully-like places within reach, up either of which the boy might have gone, and the question arose as to the reason for his so doing.