Under the Great Bear Part 26

What he saw in that first glance was so utterly incredible that it could not be true, though if it were it would be the most welcome and beautiful sight in all the world. Yet it was only a ship! Just one ship and a lot of men! The ship was not even a handsome one, being merely a three-masted steam sealer, greasy and smeared in every part with coal soot from her tall smoke stack. She lay a mile or so away, but well within the pack, through the outer edge of which she had forced a pa.s.sage. The men, evidently her crew, who were on the ice near the foot of Cabot's ridge, were a disreputable looking lot, ragged, dirty, unkempt, and as b.l.o.o.d.y as so many butchers. And that is exactly what they were--butchers engaged in their legitimate business of killing the seals that, coming up from the south to meet the drifting ice pack, had crawled out on it by thousands to rear their young.

This was all that Cabot saw; yet the sight so affected him that he laughed and sobbed for joy. Then he stood up, and, with glad tears blinding his eyes, tried to shout to the men beneath him, but could only utter hoa.r.s.e whispers; for, in his overpowering happiness, he had almost lost the power of speech. As he could not call to them he began to wave his arms to attract their attention, and then, all at once, he was nearly paralysed by a hail from close at hand of:

"h.e.l.lo there, ye bloomin' idjit! Wot's hup?"

Whirling around, Cabot saw, standing only a few rods away, a man who had evidently just climbed the opposite side of the ridge. He recognised him in an instant, as he must have done had he met him in the most crowded street of a great city, so distinctively peculiar was his figure.

"David! David Gidge!" he gasped, recovering his voice for the effort, and in another moment, flinging his arms about the astonished mariner's neck, he was pouring out a flood of incoherent words.

"Wal, I'll be jiggered!" remarked Mr. Gidge, as he disengaged himself from Cabot's impulsive embrace and stepped back for a more comprehensive view. "Your voice sounds familiar, Mister, but I can't say as I ever seen you before. I took ye fust off fer a b'ar, and then fer a Huskie. When I seen you was white, I 'lowed ye might be one of the 'Marmaid's' crew, seeing as she was heading fer the pack 'bout the time we struck it. Now, though, as I say, I'm jiggered ef I know exectly who ye be."

"Why, Mr. Gidge, I'm Cabot Grant, who----"

"Of course. To be sartin! Now I know ye!" interrupted the other.

"But where's White? What hev ye done with Whiteway Baldwin?"

"He's back there on the ice helpless with a crippled leg, freezing and starving to death; but if you'll come at once I'll show you the way, and we may still be in time to save him."

With instant comprehension of the necessity for prompt action, Mr.

Gidge, who, as Cabot afterwards learned, was first mate of the sealer "Labrador," turned and shouted in stentorian tones to the men who were working below:

"Knock off, all hands, and follow me. Form a line and keep hailing distance apart, so's we'll find our way back after dark. There's white men starving on the ice. One of ye go to the ship and report. Move lively! Now, lad, I'm ready."

Two hours later Cabot and David Gidge, with, a long line of men streaming out behind them, reached the little hut. There was no answer to the cheery shouts with which they approached it, and, as they crawled through its low entrance, they were filled with anxious misgivings. What if they were too late after all? No spark of fire lighted the gloom or took from the deadly chill of the interior, and no voice bade them welcome. But, as David Gidge struck a match, a low moaning sounded from one side, and told them that White was at least alive.

It took but a minute to remove him from the hut, together with the few things worth taking away that it contained. Then it was left without a shadow of regret, and the march to the distant ship was begun. Four men carried White, who seemed to have sunk into a stupor, while two more supported Cabot, who had become suddenly weak and so weary that he begged to be allowed to sleep where he was.

"It's been a close call for both of 'em," said David Gidge, "and now, men, we've got to make the quickest kind of time getting 'em back to the ship."

Fortunately there were plenty of willing hands to which the burdens might be shifted, for the "Labrador" carried a crew two hundred strong, and, as the little party moved swiftly from one shouting man to another, it constantly gained accessions.

At length the sealer was reached, and the rescued lads were taken to her cabin, where the ship's doctor, having made every possible preparation for their reception, awaited them. They were given hot drinks, rubbed, fed, and placed between warm blankets, where poor, weary Cabot was at last allowed to fall asleep without further interruption.

The animal sought by the sealers of Newfoundland amid the furious storms and crashing floes of the great ice pack is not the fur-bearing seal of Alaska, but a variety of the much less important hair seal, which may be seen almost anywhere along the Atlantic coast. From its skin seal leather is made, but it is chiefly valuable for the oil yielded by the layer of fat lying directly beneath the skin and enveloping the entire body. These seals would hardly be worth hunting unless they could be captured easily and in quant.i.ties; but, on their native ice in early spring, the young seals are found in prime condition and in vast numbers. Each helpless victim is killed by a blow on the head, "sculped" or stripped of his pelt, and the flayed body is left lying in a pool of its own blood.

The crew of a single vessel will thus destroy thousands of seals in a day, and in some prosperous years the total kill of seals has pa.s.sed the half million mark. Now only about a dozen steamers are engaged in the business, but by them from 200,000 to 300,000 seals are destroyed each spring. The movements of sealing vessels are governed by rigidly enforced laws that forbid them to leave port before the 12th of March, to kill a seal before the 14th of the same month, or after the 20th of April, and prohibit any steamer from making more than one trip during this short open season. The crews are paid in shares of the catch, and men are never difficult to obtain for the work, as the sealing season comes when there is nothing else to be done.

As March was not yet ended when our lads were received aboard the "Labrador," and as she would not return to port until the last minute of the open season had expired, they had before them nearly a month in which to recover their exhausted energies and learn the business of sealing. White had suffered so severely, and reached such a precarious condition, that he required every day of the allotted time for recuperation, and even at its end his strength was by no means fully restored. Cabot, on the other hand, woke after a thirty-six-hour nap, ravenously hungry, and as fit as ever for anything that might offer.

After that, although he could never bring himself to a.s.sist in clubbing baby seals to death, he took an active part in the other work of the ship, thereby fully repaying the cost of the food eaten by himself and White.

Of course, with their very first opportunity, both lads eagerly plied David Gidge with questions concerning the welfare of the Baldwin family and everything that had happened during their long absence. Thus they learned to their dismay that another suit had been brought against the Baldwin estate that threatened to swallow what little property had been left, and that White, having been convicted of contempt of court for continuing the lobster factory after an adverse decision had been rendered, was now liable to a fine of one thousand dollars, or imprisonment, as soon as he landed.

"But what has become of my mother and sister?" asked White.

"They are in Harbour Grace," answered David Gidge, "stopping with some kin of mine. You see, all three of us was brung to St. Johns as witnesses, and there wasn't money enough to take us back till I could come sealing and make some."

"You are a trump, David Gidge!" exclaimed Cabot, while White gratefully squeezed the honest fellow's hand.

"I promised to look arter 'em till you come back," said the sailorman, simply.

At length the sealing season closed, and the prow of the "Labrador" was turned homeward, but even now, after many an anxious discussion, our lads were undecided as to what they should do upon landing. But a solution of the problem came to Cabot on the day that the steamer entered Conception Bay and anch.o.r.ed close off Bell Island, to await the moving of a great ice ma.s.s that had drifted into the harbour.

"I know what we'll do!" he cried.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

a.s.sISTANT MANAGER OF THE MAN-WOLF MINE.

As the deeply laden sealer drew near to land, Cabot had impatiently scanned the coast of the great island that he had once thought so remote, but which, after his long sojourn in the Labrador wilderness, now seemed almost the same as New York itself. When the "Labrador" entered Conception Bay, at the head of which lies Harbour Grace, her home port, and was forced by ice to anchor, he inquired concerning a small island that lay close at hand.

"Bell Island," he repeated meditatively, on being told its name. "Isn't there an iron mine on it?"

"Sartain," replied David Gidge. "The whole island is mostly made of iron."

"Then it is a place that I particularly want to visit, and I know what we will do. Of course, White, we can't let you go to prison, but at the same time you haven't, immediately available, the money with which to pay that fine. I have, though, right in St. Johns. So, if you will endorse that New York draft to me, I will carry it into the city, deposit it at the bank, draw out the cash, and take the first train for Harbour Grace, so as to be there with more than enough money to pay your fine when you arrive. After that I propose that we both go on to New York, where I am almost certain I can get you something to do that will pay even better than a lobster factory. If that plan strikes you as all right, and if Mr. Gidge will set me ash.o.r.e here, I'll just take a look at Bell Island and then hurry on to St. Johns."

The plan appearing feasible to White, Cabot--taking with him only his bag of specimens, to which he intended to add others of the Bell Island ore--bade his friends a temporary farewell, and was set ash.o.r.e. As the country was still covered with snow, he had slung his snowshoes on his back, and as he was still clad in the well-worn fur garments that had been so necessary in Labrador, his appearance was sufficiently striking to attract attention as soon as he landed. One of the very first persons who spoke to him proved to be the young superintendent of the mine he wished to visit, and, when this gentleman learned that Cabot had just returned from Labrador, he offered him every hospitality. Not only did he show him over the mine and give him all possible information concerning it, but he kept him over night in his own bachelor quarters, and provided a boat to take him across to Portugal Cove on the mainland in the morning.

From that point, there being no conveyance, Cabot was forced to walk the nine miles into St. Johns, which city he did not reach until nearly noon.

Even there, where fur-clad Arctic explorers are not uncommon, Cabot's costume attracted much attention. Disregarding this, he inquired his way to the Bank of Nova Scotia, where he presented the letter of credit that he had carefully treasured amid all the vicissitudes of the past ten months. The paying teller of the bank examined it closely, and then took a long look at the remarkable-appearing young man who had presented it.

Finally he said curtly:

"Sign your name."

Cabot did so, and the other, after comparing the two signatures, retired to an inner room. From it he reappeared a few moments later and requested Cabot to follow him inside, where the manager wished to see him.

The manager also regarded our lad with great curiosity as he said:

"You have retained this letter a long time without presenting it."

"And I might have retained it longer if I had not been in need of money,"

rejoined Cabot, somewhat nettled by the man's manner.

"You are Cabot Grant of New York?"

"I am."

"Not yet of age?"

"Not quite."

"And you have a guardian?"

"I have."