The Lure of the Labrador Wild Part 21

There was no doubt about it, he would have to take chances with another raft. Although his rags were beginning to freeze to his body, he did not stop to build a fire, neither did he wait to eat anything. At first it seemed hopeless to try to launch a raft; for the bank on the western side of the island was very steep. Farther north, however, ice had formed in the river for some distance from the sh.o.r.e, and to this ice George dragged fallen trees and bound them as he had done before.

It was the labour of hours, the trees having to be dragged for considerable distances. Once more afloat, George found no difficulty in touching bottom with his pole, and in the gathering dusk he reached the other sh.o.r.e.

Supposing that he was still many miles from a place where there was any possibility of finding a human being, he decided to bivouac for the night; but first he must examine the rowboat he had sighted from the island. This made necessary the fording of a small stream. Hardly had he emerged from the water, when, from among the spruce trees farther back from the sh.o.r.e, there came a sound that brought him to a sudden standstill and set his heart to thumping wildly against his ribs. It was a most extraordinary sound to hear when one supposed one was alone in a wilderness, and when all had been solemnly still save for the dashing of waves upon a sh.o.r.e. On the night air there came floating to George the cry of a little child.

"When I heard that youngster scream," said George, in telling me about the incident, "I knew folks was there, and I dropped my bag, and I tore my piece of blanket from my shoulders, and I runned and I runned."

In the course of the summer Donald Blake had built himself a log house on the spot to which George was so wildly fleeing. The rowboat George had spied belonged to him, but the house, standing back in a thick clump of trees, had not been visible from the water. On the evening of George's arrival, Donald and his brother Gilbert were away, and Donald's wife and another young woman who stayed with her to keep her company were alone. The latter young woman, with Mrs. Blake's baby in her arms, was standing at the door of the house, when suddenly she heard a crashing noise in the bush in front of her, and the next moment there loomed up before her affrighted vision in the gloaming the apparition of a gaunt and ragged man, dripping wet, and running towards her with long, black hair and straggling beard streaming in the wind.

She turned and fled into the house.

"O Mrs. Blake! O Mrs. Blake!" she cried, "'tis somethin' dreadful comin'! 'tis sure a wild man!"

Greatly alarmed, Mrs. Blake went to the door. George, panting and still dripping, stood before her.

"Lord ha' mercy!" she piously exclaimed, throwing up her arms.

"Don't be scared, ladies," panted George; "I couldn't hurt a rabbit.

Ain't there any men here?"

His ingratiating manner rea.s.sured the frightened women, and explanations followed. All the natives of the vicinity of Hamilton Inlet had been wondering what had become of us, and Mrs. Blake quickly grasped the situation. Kindness itself, she took George in. Donald and Gilbert, she said, would be back directly. She made him hot tea, and put on the table for him some grouse stew, mola.s.ses, and bread and b.u.t.ter, all the time imploring him to sit down and warm himself. But George was too excited to sit down. Up and down he paced, the melting ice on his rags making tiny rivulets on his hostess's spotless floor.

Most of the breeds who live near the western end of Hamilton Inlet are remarkably cleanly, this probably being due to their Scotch blood.

George at length calmed himself sufficiently to turn his attention to the meal that had been prepared for him. He had salt for his meat, mola.s.ses to sweeten his tea and a bountiful supply of good bread. He ate greedily, which fact he soon had cause to regret; for later in the evening he began to bloat, and for several days thereafter he writhed with the colic. But for the present he thought of nothing save the satisfaction of the appet.i.te that had been regenerated by the food he had been able to obtain after leaving me. It was especially difficult for him to tear himself away from the bread. As there must be an end to all things, however, George eventually stopped eating, and then he started to go for his bag. But Mrs. Blake said:

"No, Donald'll get he. Sit down, sir, and rest."

A little later Donald and Gilbert appeared. We had made Donald's acquaintance, it will be remembered, at Rigolet; it was he who had sailed his boat up the Nascaupee and had given us the most information about that river. When he had heard George's story, there was no need to urge him to make haste. Lithe, ambitious, and in the habit of doing a dozen things at a time, Donald was activity itself. His brother Gilbert, a young fellow of seventeen, commonly called Bert, was also eager to start to the rescue of Hubbard and me. They told George it was fortunate he had arrived when he did, as in a day or so they would have been away on their trapping paths.

"But didn't you see Allen Goudie's tilt, sir?" asked Donald, when George had finished telling about his trip down what he supposed to be the Nascaupee River. "She's on th' Nascaupee right handy to th' bank, and in fair sight from th' river, sir."

"If there's a tilt on the Nascaupee," said George, "you can kick me."

Donald asked him to tell more about the river we were on, and George drew a rough map of its leading features. Then it was that George learned that the river of our distress was really the Susan.

"And we pa.s.sed right by the mouth of the Nascaupee?" he asked.

He was informed that such was the case.

"Well," said George, "I'll be blamed!" "Blamed" was George's most violent expletive; I never heard him use profanity.

Donald told George he must not think of going back with the rescuing party, as his weakness would r.e.t.a.r.d its progress. So George marked on the map he had made of the Susan's course the general situation of our last camp. He warned Donald that the deep snow up the valley might have prevented me from reaching the tent, but that in any event they would find me near the river.

Hearing that, Donald quickly decided that more men were needed for the rescuing party; for if either Hubbard or I was found alone the party would have to separate in order to continue the search for the other man. The packs, besides, would be too heavy for two men to carry and make the rapid progress that was necessary. Fortunately Allen Goudie and a young fellow named Duncan McLean were at the former's winter tilt on the Nascaupee, seven miles across the lake from Donald's. The hour was late and the lake was rough, but Donald and Gilbert started for them in their rowboat immediately after making ready their packs of provisions and camp equipment, prepared for an early start up the Susan the next day.

At noon (October 28th) they were back with both Allen and Duncan, and at once loaded the packs into the boat. Then the four men rowed up through the little lake to the first rapid on the Susan, hauled the boat up on the sh.o.r.e, donned their snowshoes, shouldered their packs, and started up the valley. Running when they could, which the rough country would not permit of their doing often, they camped at night ten miles above their boat.

The next morning (October 29th) they cached some provisions to lighten their packs, and as they proceeded fired a rifle at intervals, thinking there was now a chance of coming upon either Hubbard or me. As a matter of fact they must have pa.s.sed me towards evening. They were on the north side of the river, and it was the evening when I staggered down the north sh.o.r.e, to cross the ice at dusk and make my last bivouac in the lee of a bank on the south sh.o.r.e. Whether I had crossed the river before they came along, or whether, hidden by the trees and the falling snow, I pa.s.sed them un.o.bserved on the same sh.o.r.e, I do not know; the fact is, they camped that night about a mile and a half above me, and about twelve miles below Hubbard's tent.

There was only one thing that saved me from being left alone to die--these trappers' keen sense of smell. In the morning (October 30th) while they were breaking camp preparatory to continuing on up the valley, Donald Blake fancied that he smelled smoke. He spoke to Allen Goudie about it, and both men stood and sniffed the air. Yes, Allen smelled smoke, too. It was unmistakable. The wind was blowing up the valley; therefore someone must have a fire below them. Hastily finishing the work of breaking camp, the four men shouldered their packs and turned back.

Close down to the sh.o.r.e of the river they scrambled, and hurried on, shouting and discharging a rifle. At length they paused, to give exclamations of satisfaction. They had found my track leading across the ice to the other sh.o.r.e. Only a moment they paused, and then, following the trail, they broke into a run, redoubling their shouts and repeatedly discharging the rifle. They had smelled my smouldering rotten stump, but if a whiff of smoke was now rising it was too small for them to see. My trail, however, led them to the bank over which they heard my feeble answering shout. So down the bank they scrambled, to come to a sudden halt, transfixed with amazement, as they told me afterwards, that such a wreck as I could stand and live.

The spectacle I presented certainly must have been an unusual one--a man all skin and bones, standing in drawers and stocking feet, with the remnants of a pair of trousers about his hips, there in the midst of the snow-covered forest. They were heavily clad and had their caps pulled far down over their ears to protect them from the biting wind, while I did not even have my hat on.

It was some time before I could realise that living men were before me.

As if in a half-dream, I stood stupidly gazing at them. But with the return of sensibility I recollected that George had gone to find Donald Blake, and gradually it dawned upon me that he was there. I spoke his name "Donald Blake." At that Donald stepped forward and grasped my hand warmly and firmly like an old friend.

"Did George get out and send you?" I asked.

"Yes, sir; it was he that sent us, sir. He's safe at my house."

"Have you found Hubbard?"

"Not yet, sir. We smelled smoke a mile and a half above, where our camp was last night, an' came down to find you, sir."

I remember telling Donald that he had better leave me something to eat, and go on to Hubbard as fast as he could. He replied that Duncan and Bert, the two young fellows, would stay with me, while he and Allen would continue on up the valley. During this talk, the kind-hearted trappers had not been idle. While two of them cut wood for a rousing fire and put the kettle on for tea, the others made a cosey couch close to the blaze and sat me on it. They gave me a very small piece of bread and b.u.t.ter.

"You'd better eat just a small bit at first, sir," said Allen. "You're fair starved, and much grub at th' beginnin' might be th' worse for you."

Before I had my tea, Donald and Allen were ready to start. Allen hesitated for a moment; then asked:

"If the other man be dead, sir?"

"Dead?" I said. "Oh, no, he won't be dead. You'll find him in the tent waiting for you."

"But if he be dead?" persisted Allen. "He may be, and we sure can't bring th' body out now, sir."

Although still struggling against the fear that my reason told me was only too well founded, I requested, that in the event of what they thought possible proving to be the case, they wrap the body in the blankets they would find in the tent, and build for it a stage high enough from the ground to protect it from animals. I also asked that they bring back with them all the things they should find in the tent, including the rifle and camera, and especially the books and papers of all descriptions.

Promising that all should be done as I wished, and again cautioning me against eating too much, Allen and Donald departed, leaving me a prey to anxiety and fear as to the news they should bring back.

XX. HOW HUBBARD WENT TO SLEEP

A pot of hot tea soon was ready, and I drank some of it.

"I hopes you feels better, sir," then spoke young Duncan MacLean. "A smoke'll taste good now. Got a pipe, sir?"

I produced my pipe, and he held out to me a plug of tobacco.

"Take he an' fill th' pipe, sir."

With the plug in my possession, I drew my sheath-knife to cut it. But Gilbert Blake objected.

"He's a big un, sir, to cut tobacca with. Let me fill he, sir."

Obediently I handed him my pipe to be filled, and when it had been returned to me one of the boys struck a match and held it to the bowl while I puffed. Then Duncan took the plug from the log where Gilbert had left it, and, holding it out to me, said: