The Literary World Seventh Reader Part 20

A DEAL IN BEARS

When a whaling ship is beset in the ice of Davis Straits, there is little work for her second engineer, once the engines have been nicely tallowed down. Now, I am no man that can sit in his berth and laze. If I've no work to do, I get a-thinking about my home at [v]Ballindrochater and the ministry, which my father intended I should have adorned, and what a fool I've made of myself, and this is depressing. I was not over-popular already on the _Gleaner_ on account of some prophecies I had made in anger, which had unfortunately come true. The crew, and the captain, too, had come to fear my prophetic powers.

At last I bethought me of sporting on the ice. There was head-money offered for all bears, foxes, seals, musk-oxen, and such like that were shot and gathered. So I went to the skipper, and he gave me a Henry rifle, well rusted, and eight cartridges.

"Show me you can use those, McTodd," says he, "and I'll give you more."

I made a big mistake with that rusty old gun. I may be a sportsman, but before that I'm an engineer, and it seemed to me that Heaven sent metal into this world to be kept bright and clean. So I took the rifle all to pieces and made the parts as smooth and sweet as you'd see in a gun-maker's shop, barring rust-pits, and gave them a nice daubing of oil against the Arctic weather. Then I put on some thick clothes I had made, and all the other clothes I could get loaned me, and climbed out over the rail on to the [v]floe.

The _Gleaner_ lay in a bay some two miles from the sh.o.r.e, and let me tell you, if you do not know it, that Arctic ice is no skating-rink.

There are great hills, and knolls, and bergs, and valleys spread all over, and even where it's about level, the underfoot is as hard going as a newly-metalled road before the steam-roller has pa.s.sed over it.

The air was clear enough when I left the bark, and though the [v]mercury was out of use and coiled up snugly in the bulb, it wasn't as cold as you might think, for just then there was no wind. It's a breeze up in the Arctic that makes you feel the chill. There was no sun, of course; there never is sun up there in that dreary winter: but the stars were burning blue and clear, and every now and then a big [v]catherine wheel of [v]aurora would show off, for all the world like a firework exhibition.

My! but it was lonely, though, once you had left the ship behind! There was just the scrunching of your feet on the frost [v]rime, and not another sound in the world. Even the ice was frozen too hard to squeak.

And overhead in that purple-black Heaven you never knew Who was looking down at you. Out there in that cold, bare, black, icy silence, I had occasion to remember that Neil Angus McTodd had been a sinner in his time, and it made me shiver when I glanced up toward those blue, cold stars and the deep purple darkness that lay between and behind them.

It may be that I was thinking less of my hunting than was advisable, for of a sudden I woke up to the sound of heavy feet padding over the crisp frost rime. I turned me round sharply enough, but as far as the dim light carried there was nothing alive to be seen through the gloom. As soon as I stopped, the footsteps stopped, too, and I don't mind admitting that my scalp tickled.

However, when I'd hauled up the hammer of the Henry, and it dropped into position with a good, wholesome _cluck_, my nervousness very soon filtered out. There's a comfort about a heavy-bore rifle like a Henry--which is the kind always used by whalers and sealers--that you can't get from those fancy little guns. And then, as it seemed that the animal, whatever it might be, wasn't going to move till I did, I shuffled my high sealskin boots on the crisp snow to make believe that I was tramping again.

The creature started after me promptly. It was hard to tell the direction, because every sound in that icy silence was echoed by a thousand bergs and hummocks of ice; but presently from behind a small splintered ridge of the floe there strolled out what seemed to me the largest bear in the Arctic regions. You must know that the night air there has a [v]deceptive light--it enlarges things--and the beast appeared to me as standing some five feet six inches high at the shoulder, and measuring some twenty feet from nose to tail.

There was myself and there was the bear in the dark middle of that awful loneliness, with no one to interfere; and as there was only one of us to get home, I preferred it should not be he. So I took a brace on myself, and stood with the Henry ready to fire.

There was nothing you might call [v]diffidence about that bear. He slouched along up to me at a steady walk, with the hair and skin on him swinging about as though it was too large for his carca.s.s and he was wearing a misfit. He seemed to look upon me as dinner, and no hurry needful. There was a sort of calm certainty about him that made me angry.

I was not what you might call a marksman in those days, and so I set a bit of [v]hummock about ten yards off as a limit where I could not very conveniently miss, and waited until the bear should come opposite that.

Well, he came to it right enough in his own time. There was, as I have said before, no diffidence about the creature. And then I raised the Henry and fired her off.

_Cluck_ went the hammer on the nipple, but there was no bang.

My! it was a misfire, and there was the bear coming down on me as steady and unconcerned as a [v]traction engine! I clawed out that cartridge and crammed in another. The bitter cold of the metal skinned my fingers like escaping steam. Then I c.o.c.ked the gun again, shouldered it, and pulled trigger again.

Once more she wouldn't go off!

The bear was now nearly on top of me and was beginning to rear on its hind legs. Somehow the rifle came into my hand muzzle-end, and I hit the great brute across the eyes with the b.u.t.t hard enough to have felled an ox.

I might as well have struck it with a cane. _Whack_ came a big yellow-white paw, the Henry went flying, and my wrists tingled with the jar; and there was I left looking, I've no doubt you'll think, very humorous.

The bear might have finished me then if it had chosen. But it must needs turn aside to go snuffling at the rifle and lick the oil off the locks.

I turned and footed it.

Now, at the best of times, I am no [v]sprinter, and in the great mountain of clothes one wears up there in the cold Arctic night, no man can make much speed. Besides, the way was that uneven it was a case of hands and scramble more often than plain running over the sharp, spiky level.

The bear, once he had finished his snuffle and lick at the Henry, came on at a dreadful pace, making nothing of those obstacles that balked me,--he had been born up there, you know. He laid himself out--I could see over my shoulder--like one of those American trotting horses, caring nothing for the ups and downs and ankle-breaking ice. In about two shakes he was snorting at my heels again, till I could almost feel his hot breath. The bundle of clothes hampered me. I stripped off my outer over-all and let it drop behind me.

The bear stopped and snuffed that, but I didn't stay to watch him. I got a good fifty [v]fathoms ahead of him whilst he was thus occupied. But presently, when he'd got all his satisfaction out of that, on he comes again, and I had to give him my coat. I hadn't a chance of equaling him in pace, but the trick with the clothing never tired him. Fifty fathoms was the least gain I made over a single piece, and as I got lower down toward my skin he stayed over the clothes longer.

But still the _Gleaner_ was a long way off, over very tumbled ice, and there I was careering on in a costume which was barely enough for decency, and certainly insufficient for the climate.

However, it was little enough the bear cared for such refinements as those. I stripped off my last garment as I ran, and gained nigh on two hundred yards whilst he investigated it; and there were the bark's upper spars showing above the hummocks half a mile away, with me in nothing but my long seal-skin boots!

But there was no help for it. Up came the hot breath behind me, and I leaned up against a hummock and stripped off a boot. I hailed the _Gleaner_ with what breath I had left, but no one gave heed. Away went the other boot, and there I was running, mother-naked, over the jagged floe, leaving blood on every footmark.

Right up to the vessel did the outrageous beast chase me, and then when I got on board and called for guns, it slunk away into the shadows of a berg and was seen no more. My feet were cut to the bone; I was frost-nipped in twenty places, and you may imagine I had had a poor enough time of it. But the thought of that canvas over-all which I had thrown away first kept me cheerful. It was indeed a very humorous circ.u.mstance. Ye see it was a borrowed one.

I got down below to a berth, and the steward, who was rated as a doctor, tended me. But Captain Black put sourness on the whole affair. He came down to my bunk and said, "Where's that Henry?"

"Lying quiet on the ice," said I.

"Do you mean to say you left that rifle behind? My rifle!"

"I did that same. The thing wasn't strong enough to fire a cartridge. I tried two."

And then Black used violent and unjustifiable language. I was in no condition to give him a fair exchange. Besides, I made an unfortunate admission. I owned up to taking the rifle apart and cleaning her. I owned up, too, that I'd been free with the oil.

Black stuck out his face at me, and his fringe of beard fairly bristled.

"And you call yourself an engineer! You talk about having gone through the shops! Put your filthy engine-room oil on my Henry's locks, would you? Why, you idiot, have you yet to learn that oil freezes up here as hard as cheese, and you've made up the lock s.p.a.ce of that poor rifle into one solid chunk?"

"I never thought of that."

"To look at your face, you've yet to start thinking at all."

So we had it out, and as I was now aroused, I gave him some words on the inefficient way he ran his ship. At last I threatened to prophesy again, and this cooled him off. I offered to go hunting bears for him and he became quite polite.

"I'll make you an offer touching those bears," he said. "For every skin you bring here aboard, I'll give you seven shillings [v]bonus above your share as a member of the ship's company. I'll give you another rifle, two rifles if you like, and a fine bag of cartridges. But, you beggar, I make one condition. You take yourself off and away from the ship to do your hunting. You may make yourself a snow house to stay in, and live on the meat you kill."

"You wish to murder me?"

"I wish to be rid of you, and that's the truth. Man, I believe you're Jonah resurrected. We've had no luck since first you put your foot on my deck planks. And, what's more, the crew is of my way of thinking. So, refuse my offer, and I'll put you in irons and keep you there till I can fling you ash.o.r.e at [v]Dundee."

Now there is no doubt Black meant what he said, and so I did not waste dignity by arguing with him. I had no taste for the irons, and as for being turned out on the ice--well, I had a plan ahead. But I didn't intend to leave Black more comfortable than I could help.

So I shut my eyes and said that the ship would have very bad luck that winter, that there would be much sickness aboard. (This was an easy guess.) I said, considering this fact, I was glad to leave such an unwholesome ship.

The crew were just aching to get rid of me. This prophesying sort of grows on a man; once you've started it, you've got to go on with it at all costs, and I could no more resist just letting my few remarks slip round amongst the men than I can resist eating when I'm hungry.

The nerves of the _Gleaner_ people were in strings from the cold and the blackness of the Arctic night, and it put the horrors on the lot of them. The one thing they wanted was to see the last of me. They gave me almost anything I fancied, but my means of transport were small. There was a bit of a sledge, which I packed with some food, two Henry rifles and a few tools, five hundred cartridges, and the clothes I stood in. No more could be taken.

Then I went on deck into the bitter cold and over the side, and stood on the ice, ready to start on my journey. The crew lined the rail to see me off, and I can tell you their faces were very different. The older ones were savage and cared little how soon Jonah might die. The younger ones were crying to see a fellow driven away into that icy loneliness, far from shelter.

But for myself I didn't care. I had method in all this performance. Soon after we were beset in the ice, a family of Esquimaux had come on the _Gleaner_ to pay a polite call and get what they could out of us. They were that dirty you could have chipped them with a scaling hammer, but they were very friendly. One buck who stepped down into the engine room--[v]Amatikita, he said his name was--had some English, and came to the point as straight as anything.

"Give me a [v]dlink, Cappie," says he.

"This is a dry ship," says I.