Under the Great Bear Part 14

"Yes, that is Labrador, and those are the Bradore Hills back of Forteau."

CHAPTER XVI.

MOSQUITOES OF THE FAR NORTH.

While Cabot gazed eagerly at the lofty but still distant coast towards which all their hopes were now directed, his companion was casting anxious glances to the eastward, where a low hanging bank of cloud betokened an advancing fog. He had good reason to be apprehensive, for this northern entrance to the gulf of St. Lawrence forms the shortest route for steamers plying between Canadian and European ports.

Consequently many of them use it during the brief summer season when it is free from ice. At the same time it is a stormy stretch of water, tormented by powerful currents, and generally shrouded in fog.

Early in the season countless icebergs, borne southward by the Arctic current that hugs the Labrador coast, drift aimlessly over its troubled surface, and even at midsummer it is a pa.s.sage to be dreaded. White, being familiar with its many dangers, had good cause for anxiety, as he saw one of them about to enfold his little craft. He consulted the compa.s.s, took his bearings with the utmost care, and then as Cabot, finding his view obscured, turned to him with a look of inquiry, remarked:

"Yes, we are in for it, and you'd better keep a sharp lookout for steamers. It wouldn't be very pleasant to run one down and sink it, you know."

"I should say not," responded Cabot as he started for the bow of the schooner, where, steadying himself by a stay, he peered into the thickening mist curtain. For half an hour or so he saw nothing, though during that time the hoa.r.s.e bellowing of a steam whistle, approaching closely and then receding, told of a pa.s.sing ship. While the lookout was still listening to this a black form, magnified to gigantic size by his apprehensions and the opaqueness through which he saw it, loomed up directly ahead and apparently not a rod away. With a sharp cry of warning the lad sprang aft, while a yell of dismay came from the stranger. The next moment, both vessels having been headed sharply into the wind, lay side by side, heaving and grinding against each other, with their sails slatting noisily overhead.

As our lads realised the true character of the other craft, they were ready to laugh at their fright of a minute earlier, for she was only an open fishing boat, carrying three men, a woman, and a couple of children.

"We took ye for a steamer, first sight," remarked one of the men.

"And we did the same by you," laughed White. "Who are you and where are you bound?"

"Mail boat from L'Anse Au Loup for Flower Cove," replied the man, "and as we're not sure of our compa.s.s we'd be obleeged if you'd give us a bearing."

"With pleasure. Come aboard and take it for yourself. If you'll wait just a minute I'll have a letter ready for you."

So saying the young skipper dived below and hastily pencilled a line to his mother, telling of their safety up to that time.

While he was thus engaged Cabot learned that owing to the recent arrival of a steamer from St. Johns provisions were plentiful on that part of the Labrador coast, but were believed to be scarce further north.

As a result of this information the "Sea Bee" was headed more to the eastward after the boats had again parted company, for, as White said, there was no use wasting time running in to Blanc Sablon, Forteau, or any of those places at which the trading steamer had touched. "It is too bad," he continued, "for I did hope to dispose of our cargo somewhere along here. If we could do that we might be home again inside of ten days. Now, if we have to go far to the northward, it may be two or three weeks longer before we again sight Blomidon."

"I am sorry for your sake," replied Cabot, "though I would just as soon spend a month up here as not. I only wish we could land somewhere along here, for I am curious to see what land of a country Labrador is."

This wish was gratified late that afternoon, when the fog lifted in time to disclose the fine harbour of Red Bay, into which, White said, they would run, so as to spend the night quietly at anchor, with both watches turned in at once.

At Red Bay, therefore, Cabot had his first taste of life in Labrador.

The sh.o.r.es looked so green and attractive that he wondered why the only settlement in sight--a collection of a dozen huts and fish houses, should be located on a rocky islet, bare and verdureless. He asked White, who only laughed, and said he'd find out soon enough by experience.

After they had come to anchor and lowered the sails, White got an empty water cask into the dinghy, saying that first of all they must go about a mile to a trout stream at the head of the bay for some fresh water.

"Trout stream!" cited Cabot. "How I wish I had my fishing tackle.

Trout for supper would be fine."

"There are other things equally important with tackle for trout fishing in this country," remarked White.

"What, for instance?"

"You'll know inside of half an hour," was the significant reply.

So they rowed up the bay, Cabot filled with curiosity and White chuckling with antic.i.p.ation. The further they went the more was Cabot charmed with the beauty of the scene and the more desirous did he become to ramble over the green slopes on which, as White a.s.sured him, delicious berries of several varieties were plentiful. At length they opened a charming valley, through which wound and tumbled a sparkling brook thickly bordered by alders and birches. At one side were several substantial log cabins, but as they were evidently uninhabited Cabot began to undress, declaring that he must have a bath in that tempting water.

"Better keep your shirt on until we have filled the cask," advised White, at the same time stepping overboard in the shallows at the mouth of the stream without removing any of his clothing. They pulled the boat up until it grounded, and then White began hurriedly to fill the water barrel, while Cabot waded a short distance up stream to see if he could discover any trout. All at once he stopped, looked bewildered, and then started back on a run. At the same time he slapped vigorously at his bare legs, brushed his face, waved his arms, and uttered exclamations of frantic dismay. The air about him had been suddenly blackened by an incredible swarm of insects that issued in dense clouds from the low growth bordering the stream, and attacked the unfortunate youth with the fury of starvation.

"What's the matter?" inquired White innocently, as his companion rushed past him towards the open.

"Matter!" retorted the other. "I'm on fire with the bites of these infernal things, and we want to get out of here in a hurry or they'll sting us to death."

"Oh, pshaw!" laughed White, though he also was suffering greatly.

"You've only struck a few ordinary Labrador mosquitoes and black flies."

"Mosquitoes and black flies!" cried Cabot. "Hornets and red-hot coals, you'd better say. How can you stand them? Your skin must be thicker than sole leather."

"I can't very well," admitted White, "but this cask has got to be filled, and the sooner we do it the quicker we can get away. Break off a couple of leafy branches to fight with and then keep 'em off both of us as well as you can. It will only take a few minutes longer."

In spite of their efforts at self-defence, faces, hands, and Cabot's bare legs were covered with blood before their task was completed, and they were once more in the boat pulling furiously for the wind-swept water of the open bay.

"I never expected to find mosquitoes this far north," said Cabot, as the pests began to disappear before the freshening breeze and the rowers paused for breath.

"Strangers are apt to be unpleasantly surprised by them," replied White, "but they are here all the same, and they extend as far north as any white man has ever been. I have been told that they are as bad in Greenland as here, and I expect they flourish at the North Pole itself.

They certainly are the curse of Labrador, and until ice makes in the fall they effectually prevent all travel into the interior. Even the Indians have to come to the coast in summer to escape them, while the whites who visit this country for the fishing make their settlements on the barest and most wind-swept places. The few who live here the year round have summer homes on the coast, but build their winter houses inland, at the heads of bays or the mouths of rivers, where there is timber to afford some protection from the cold. Those are winter houses back there."

"I wondered why they were abandoned," said Cabot, "but I don't any longer."

"By the way," suggested White, "you forgot to try the trout fishing.

Shall we go back?"

"I wouldn't go fishing on that stream if every trout in it was of solid gold and I could scoop them out with my hands," a.s.serted Cabot. "In fact, I don't know of anything short of starvation, or dying of thirst, that would take me back there."

After supper our lads went ash.o.r.e at the island settlement, and were hospitably received by the dwellers in its half-dozen stoutly built, earthen-roofed houses. These were constructed of logs, set on end like palisades, and while they were scantily furnished, they were warm and comfortable. In them Cabot, who was regarded with great curiosity on account of having come from the far foreign city of New York, asked many questions, and acquired much information concerning the strange country to which Fate had brought him. Thus he learned that Labrador is a province of Newfoundland, and that while its prolific fisheries attract some 20,000 people to its bleak sh.o.r.es every summer, its entire resident white population hardly exceeds one thousand souls. He was told that from June to October news of the outside world is received by steamer from St. Johns every two or three weeks, but that during the other eight months of the year only three mails reach the country, coming by dog sledge from far-away Quebec.

While Cabot was gathering these and many other interesting bits of information, White was becoming confirmed in his belief that to make a successful trading trip he must carry his goods far to the northward.

So at daybreak of the following morning the "Sea Bee" was once more got under way, and ran up the rock-bound coast past Chateau Bay, with its superb Castle Rock, to Battle Harbour, the metropolis of Labrador, which place was reached late the same evening.

At this point, which is at the eastern end of the Belle Isle Strait, is a resident population of some two hundred souls, a hospital, a church, a schoolhouse, and a prosperous mercantile establishment. Here our lads found a large steamer loading with dried fish for Gibraltar, and here Cabot became greatly interested in the rose-tinted quartz that forms so striking a feature of Labrador scenery.

At Battle Harbour they were still advised to push farther on, and so, bidding farewell to this outpost of civilisation, the "Sea Bee" again spread her dusky wings and set forth for the mission stations of the far North, where it was hoped a profitable market might be found.

CHAPTER XVII.

IMPRISONED BY AN ICEBERG.

The brief northern summer was nearly ended. Its days were growing short and chill, its nights long and cold. The month of October was well advanced, and flurries of snow heralded the approach of winter.