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Ungava

by R. M. Ballantyne · English · Gutenberg #21707 · 653,353 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Ungava

Author: R. M. Ballantyne


        
Release date: June 6, 2007 [eBook #21707]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21707

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNGAVA ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




UNGAVA, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

Introduction.

The following story is intended to illustrate one of the many phases of
the fur-trader's life in those wild regions of North America which
surround Hudson's Bay.

Most of its major incidents are facts--fiction being employed chiefly
for the purpose of weaving these facts into a readable form.

If this volume should chance to fall into the hands of any of those who
acted a part in the first settlement of Ungava, we trust that they will
forgive the liberty that has been taken with their persons and
adventures, remembering that transpositions, modifications, and
transformations are necessary in constructing a tale out of the "raw
material."

We take this opportunity of expressing to the Leader of the adventurous
band our grateful acknowledgements for his kindness in placing at our
disposal the groundwork on which this story has been reared.

R.M.  Ballantyne.



CHAPTER ONE.

THE FOREST, AND THE LEADERS OF THE FOLORN-HOPE--A GOOD SHOT--A
CONSULTATION--AN ICE-FLOE, AND A NARROW CHANCE OF ESCAPE IN A SMALL WAY.

"Hallo! where are you!" shouted a voice that rang through the glades of
the forest like the blast of a silver trumpet, testifying to lungs of
leather and a throat of brass.

The ringing tones died away, and naught was heard save the rustling of
the leafy canopy overhead, as the young man, whose shout had thus rudely
disturbed the surrounding echoes, leaned on the muzzle of a long rifle,
and stood motionless as a statue, his right foot resting on the trunk of
a fallen tree, and his head bent slightly to one side, as if listening
for a reply.  But no reply came.  A squirrel ran down the trunk of a
neighbouring pine, and paused, with tail and ears erect, and its little
black eyes glittering as if with surprise at the temerity of him who so
recklessly dared to intrude upon and desecrate with his powerful voice
the deep solitudes of the wilderness.  They stood so long thus that it
seemed as though the little animal and the man had been petrified by the
unwonted sound.  If so, the spell was quickly broken.  The loud report
of a fowling-piece was heard at a short distance.  The squirrel
incontinently disappeared from the spot on which it stood, and almost
instantaneously reappeared on the topmost branch of a high tree; while
the young man gave a smile of satisfaction, threw the rifle over his
shoulder, and, turning round, strode rapidly away in the direction
whence the shot proceeded.

A few minutes' walk brought him to the banks of a little brook, by the
side of which, on the projecting root of a tree, sat a man, with a dead
goose at his feet and a fowling-piece by his side.  He was dressed in
the garb of a hunter; and, from the number of gray hairs that shone like
threads of silver among the black curls on his temples, he was evidently
past the meridian of life--although, from the upright bearing of his
tall, muscular frame, and the quick glance of his fearless black eye, it
was equally evident that the vigour of his youth was not yet abated.

"Why, Stanley," exclaimed the young man as he approached, "I've been
shouting till my throat is cracked, for at least half an hour.  I verily
began to think that you had forsaken me altogether."

"In which case, Frank," replied the other, "I should have treated you as
you deserve, for your empty game-bag proves you an unworthy comrade in
the chase."

"So, so, friend, do not boast," replied the youth with a smile; "if I
mistake not, that goose was winging its way to the far north not ten
minutes agone.  Had I come up half an hour sooner, I suspect we should
have met on equal terms; but the fact is that I have not seen hair or
feather, save a tree-squirrel, since I left you in the morning."

"Well, to say truth, I was equally unfortunate until I met this luckless
goose, and fired the shot that brought him down and brought you up.  But
I've had enough o' this now, and shall back to the fort again.  What say
you?  Will you go in my canoe or walk?"

The young man was silent for a few seconds; then, without replying to
his companion's question, he said,--"By-the-bye, is it not to-night that
you mean to make another attempt to induce the men to volunteer for the
expedition!"

"It is," replied Stanley, with a alight frown.  "And what if they still
persist in refusing to go?"

"I'll try once more to shame them out of their cowardice.  But if they
won't agree, I'll compel them to go by means of more powerful arguments
than words."

"'Tis not cowardice; you do the men injustice," said Frank, shaking his
head.

"Well, well, I believe I do, lad; you're right," replied Stanley, while
a smile smoothed out the firm lines that had gathered round his lips for
a few seconds.  "No doubt they care as little for the anticipated
dangers of the expedition as any men living, and they hesitate to go
simply because they know that the life before them will be a lonely one
at such an out-o'-the-way place as Ungava.  But we can't help that,
Frank; the interests of the Company must be attended to, and so go they
_must_, willing or not willing.  But I'm annoyed at this unexpected
difficulty, for there's a mighty difference between men who volunteer to
go and men who go merely because they must and can't help it."

The young man slowly rubbed the stock of his rifle with the sleeve of
his coat, and looked as if he understood and sympathised with his
friend's chagrin.

"If Prince were only here just now," said he, looking up, "there would
be no difficulty in the matter.  These fellows only want a bold, hearty
comrade to step forward and show them the way, and they will follow to
the North Pole if need be.  They look upon our willingness to go as a
mere matter of course, though I don't see why we should be expected to
like banishment more than themselves.  But if Prince were--"

"Well, well, Prince is _not_ here, so we must do the best we can without
him," said Stanley.

As he spoke, the trumpet note of a goose was heard in the distance.

"There he goes!--down with you!" exclaimed Frank, darting suddenly
behind the stump of the tree, while his companion crouched beside him,
and both began to shout at the top of their voices in imitation of the
goose.  The bird was foolish enough to accept the invitation
immediately, although, had it been other than a goose, it would have
easily recognised the sound as a wretched counterfeit of the goose
language.  It flew directly towards them, as geese always do in spring
when thus enticed, but passed at such a distance that the elder
sportsman was induced to lower his piece.

"Ah! he's too far off.  You'd better give him a shot with the rifle,
Frank; but you're sure to miss."

"To hit, you mean," cried his companion, flushing with momentary
indignation at this disparaging remark.  At the same moment he took a
rapid aim and fired.  For a few yards the goose continued its forward
flight as if unhurt; then it wavered once or twice, and fell heavily to
the ground.

"Bravo, boy!" cried Stanley.  "There, don't look nettled; I only jested
with you, knowing your weakness on the score of rifle-shooting.  Now,
pick up your bird, and throw it into the canoe, for I must away."

Frank finished reloading his piece as his friend spoke, and went to pick
up the goose; while the other walked down to the edge of the rivulet,
and disengaged a light birch-bark canoe from the long grass and sedges
that almost hid it from view.

"Make haste, Frank!" he shouted; "there's the ice coming up with the
flood-tide, and bearing down on the creek here."

At a short distance from the spot where the sportsmen stood, the
streamlet already alluded to mingled its waters with a broad river,
which, a few miles farther down, flows into James's Bay.  As every one
knows, this bay lies to the south of Hudson's Bay, in North America.
Here the river is about two miles wide; and the shores on either side
being low, it has all the appearance of an extensive lake.  In spring,
after the disruption of the ice, its waters are loaded with large floes
and fields of ice; and later in the season, after it has become quite
free from this wintry encumbrance, numerous detached masses come up with
every flood-tide.  It was the approach of one of these floes that called
forth Stanley's remark.

The young man replied to it by springing towards the canoe, in which his
companion was already seated.  Throwing the dead bird into it, he
stooped, and gave the light bark a powerful shove into the stream,
exclaiming, as he did so, "There, strike out, you've no time to lose,
and I'll go round by the woods."

There was indeed no time to lose.  The huge mass of ice was closing
rapidly into the mouth of the creek, and narrowing the only passage
through which the canoe could escape into the open water of the river
beyond.  Stanley might, indeed, drag his canoe up the bank, if so
disposed, and reach home by a circuitous walk through the woods; but by
doing so he would lose much time, and be under the necessity of carrying
his gun, blanket, tin kettle, and the goose, on his back.  His broad
shoulders were admirably adapted for such a burden, but he preferred the
canoe to the woods on the present occasion.  Besides, the only risk he
ran was that of getting his canoe crushed to pieces.  So, plunging his
paddle vigorously in the water, he shot through the lessening channel
like an arrow, and swept out on the bosom of the broad river just as the
ice closed with a crash upon the shore and ground itself to powder on
the rocks.

"Well done!" shouted Frank, with a wave of his cap, as he witnessed the
success of his friend's exploit.

"All right," replied Stanley, glancing over his shoulder.

In another moment the canoe disappeared behind a group of willows that
grew on the point at the river's mouth, and the young man was left
alone.  For a few minutes he stood contemplating the point behind which
his companion had disappeared; then giving a hasty glance at the priming
of his rifle, he threw it across his shoulder, and striding rapidly up
the bank, was soon lost to view amid the luxuriant undergrowth of the
forest.



CHAPTER TWO.

HEADQUARTERS--THE MEN--DISPUTATION AND UNCERTAINTY--NEW USES FOR THE
SKINS OF DEAD BOYS!--MUTINOUS RESOLVES.

Moose Fort, the headquarters and depot of the fur-traders, who prosecute
their traffic in almost all parts of the wild and uninhabited regions of
North America, stands on an island near the mouth of Moose River.  Like
all the establishments of the fur-traders, it is a solitary group of
wooden buildings, far removed beyond the influences--almost beyond the
ken--of the civilised world, and surrounded by the primeval wilderness,
the only tenants of which were, at the time we write of, a few scattered
tribes of Muskigon Indians, and the wild animals whose flesh furnished
them with food and whose skins constituted their sole wealth.  There was
little of luxury at Moose Fort.  The walls of the houses within the
stockade, that served more as an ornament than a defence, were of
painted, in some cases unpainted, planks.  The floors, ceilings, chairs,
tables, and, in short, all the articles of furniture in the place, were
made of the same rough material.  A lofty scaffolding of wood rose above
the surrounding buildings, and served as an outlook, whence, at the
proper season, longing eyes were wont to be turned towards the sea in
expectation of "the ship" which paid the establishment an annual visit
from England.  Several large iron field-pieces stood before the front
gate; but they were more for the sake of appearance than use, and were
never fired except for the purpose of saluting the said ship on the
occasions of her arrival and departure.  The first boom of the cannon
unlocks the long-closed portals of connection between Moose Fort and
England; the second salvo shuts them up again in their frozen domains
for another year!  A century and a half ago, the band of "adventurers
trading into Hudson's Bay" felled the first trees and pitched their
tents on the shores of James's Bay, and successive generations of
fur-traders have kept the post until the present day; yet there is
scarcely a symptom of the presence of man beyond a few miles round the
establishment.  Years ago the fort was built, and there it stands now,
with new tenants, it is true, but in its general aspect unchanged; and
there it is likely to remain, wrapped in its barrier of all but
impregnable solitude, for centuries to come.

Nevertheless, Moose is a comfortable place in its way, and when
contrasted with other trading establishments is a very palace and temple
of luxury.  There are men within its walls who can tell of log-huts and
starvation, solitude and desolation, compared with which Moose is a
terrestrial paradise.  Frank Morton, whom we have introduced in the
first chapter, said, on his arrival at Moose, that it appeared to him to
be the very fag-end of creation.  He had travelled night and day for six
weeks from what he considered the very outskirts of civilisation,
through uninhabited forests and almost unknown rivers, in order to get
to it; and while the feeling of desolation that overwhelmed him on his
first arrival was strong upon him, he sighed deeply, and called it a
"horrid dull hole."  But Frank was of a gay, hearty, joyous disposition,
and had not been there long ere he loved the old fort dearly.  Poor
fellow! far removed though he was from his fellow-men at Moose, he
afterwards learned that he had but obtained an indistinct notion of the
signification of the word "solitude."

There were probably about thirty human beings at Moose, when Mr George
Stanley, one of the principal fur-traders of the place, received orders
from the governor to make preparations, and select men, for the purpose
of proceeding many hundred miles deeper into the northern wilderness,
and establishing a station on the distant, almost unknown, shores of
Ungava Bay.  No one at Moose had ever been there before; no one knew
anything about the route, except from the vague report of a few Indians;
and the only thing that was definitely known about the locality at all
was, that its inhabitants were a few wandering tribes of Esquimaux, who
were at deadly feud with the Indians, and generally massacred all who
came within their reach.  What the capabilities of the country were, in
regard to timber and provisions, nobody knew, and, fortunately for the
success of the expedition, nobody cared!  At least those who were to
lead the way did not; and this admirable quality of total indifference
to prospective dangers is that which, to a great extent, insures success
in a forlorn hope.

Of the leaders of this expedition the reader already knows something.
George Stanley was nearly six feet high, forty years of age, and endued
with a decision of character that, but for his quiet good humour, would
have been deemed obstinacy.  He was deliberate in all his movements, and
exercised a control over his feelings that quite concealed his naturally
enthusiastic disposition.  Moreover, he was married, and had a daughter
of ten years of age.  This might be thought a disadvantage in his
present circumstances; but the governor of the fur-traders, a most
energetic and active ruler, thought otherwise.  He recommended that the
family should be left at Moose until an establishment had been built,
and a winter passed at Ungava.  Afterwards they could join him there.
As for Frank Morton, he was an inch taller than his friend Stanley, and
equally powerful; fair-haired, blue-eyed, hilarious, romantic,
twenty-two years of age, and so impulsive that, on hearing of the
proposed expedition from one of his comrades, who happened to be present
when Stanley was reading the dispatches, he sprang from his chair, which
he upset, dashed out at the door, which he banged, and hurried to his
friend's quarters in order to be first to volunteer his services as
second in command; which offer was rendered unnecessary by Stanley's
exclaiming, the moment he entered his room--

"Ha, Frank, my lad, the very man I wanted to see!  Here's a letter from
headquarters ordering me off on an expedition to Ungava.  Now, I want
volunteers; will you go!"

It is needless to add that Frank's blue eyes sparkled with animation as
he seized his friend's hand and replied, "To the North Pole if you like,
or farther if need be!"

It was evening.  The sun was gilding the top of the flagstaff with a
parting kiss, and the inhabitants of Moose Fort, having finished their
daily toil, were making preparations for their evening meal.  On the end
of the wharf that jutted out into the stream was assembled a picturesque
group of men, who, from the earnest manner in which they conversed, and
the energy of their gesticulations, were evidently discussing a subject
of more than ordinary interest.  Most of them were clad in corduroy
trousers, gartered below the knee with thongs of deer-skin, and coarse,
striped cotton shirts, open at the neck, so as to expose their sunburnt
breasts.  A few wore caps which, whatever might have been their original
form, were now so much soiled and battered out of shape by long and
severe service that they were nondescript; but most of these hardy
backwoodsmen were content with the covering afforded by their thick,
bushy locks.

"No, no," exclaimed a short, thick-set, powerful man, with a somewhat
ascetic cast of countenance; "I've seen more than enough o' these
rascally Huskies [Esquimaux].  'Tis well for me that I'm here this
blessed day, an' not made into a dan to bob about in Hudson's Straits at
the tail of a white whale, like that poor boy Peter who was shot by them
varmints."

"What's a dan?" asked a young half-breed who had lately arrived at
Moose, and knew little of Esquimau implements.

"What a green-horn you must be, Francois, not to know what a dan is!"
replied another, who was inclined to be quizzical.  "Why, it's a sort of
sea-carriage that the Esquimaux tie to the tail of a walrus or sea-horse
when they feel inclined for a drive.  When they can't get a sea-horse
they catch a white whale asleep, and wake him up after fastening the dan
to his tail.  I suppose they have conjurers or wizards among them, since
Massan told us just now that poor Peter was--"

"Bah! gammon," interrupted Francois with a smile, as he turned to the
first speaker.  "But tell me, Massan, what is a dan?"

"It's a sort o' float or buoy, lad, used by the Huskies, and is made out
o' the skin o' the seal.  They tie it with a long line to their whale
spears to show which way the fish bolts when struck."

"And did they use Peter's skin for such a purpose?" inquired Francois
earnestly.

"They did," replied Massan.

"And did you see them do it?"

"Yes, I did."

Francois gazed intently into his comrade's face as he spoke; but Massan
was an adept at what is usually called drawing the long bow, and it was
with the most imperturbable gravity that he continued--

"Yes, I saw them do it; but I could not render any assistance to the
poor child, for I was lying close behind a rock at the time, with an
arrow sticking between my shoulders, and a score o' them oily varmints
a-shoutin', and yellin', and flourishing their spears in search o' me."

"Tell us how it happened, Massan.  Let's hear the story," chorused the
men, as they closed round their comrade.

"Well then," began the stout backwoodsman, proceeding leisurely to fill
his pipe from an ornamented bag that hung at his belt, "here goes.  It
was about the year--a--I forget the year, but it don't matter--that we
were ordered off on an expedition to the Huskies; 'xactly sich a one as
they wants us to go on now, and--but you've heerd o' that business,
lads, haven't you?"

"Yes, yes, we've heard all about it; go on."

"Well," continued Massan, "I needn't be wastin' time tellin' you how we
failed in that affair, and how the Huskies killed some of our men and
burnt our ship to the water's edge.  After it was all over, and they
thought they had killed us all, I was, as I said, lyin' behind a great
rock in a sort o' cave, lookin' at the dirty villains as they danced
about on the shore, and took possession of all our goods.  Suddenly I
seed two o' them carry Peter down to the beach, an' I saw, as they
passed me, that he was quite dead.  In less time than I can count a
hundred they took the skin off him, cut off his head, sewed up the hole,
tied his arms and legs in a knot, blew him full o' wind till he was fit
to bu'st, an' then hung him up to dry in the sun!  In fact, they made a
_dan_ of him!"

A loud shout of laughter greeted this startling conclusion.  In truth,
we must do Massan the justice to say, that although he was much in the
habit of amusing his companions by entertaining them with anecdotes
which originated entirely in his own teeming fancy, he never actually
_deceived_ them, but invariably, either by a sly glance or by the
astounding nature of his communication, gave them to understand that he
was dealing not with fact but fiction.

"But seriously, lads," said Francois, whose intelligence, added to a
grave, manly countenance and a tall, muscular frame, caused him to be
regarded by his comrades as a sort of leader both in action and in
council, "what do you think of our bourgeois' plan?  For my part, I'm
willing enough to go to any reasonable part o' the country where there
are furs and Indians; but as for this Ungava, from what Massan says,
there's neither Indians, nor furs, nor victuals--nothin' but rocks, and
mountains, and eternal winter; and if we do get the Huskies about us,
they'll very likely serve us as they did the last expedition to Richmond
Gulf."

"Ay, ay," cried one of the others, "you may say that, Francois.  Nothin'
but frost and starvation, and nobody to bury us when we're dead."

"Except the Huskies," broke in another, "who would save themselves the
trouble by converting us all into dans!"

"Tush, man! stop your clapper," cried Francois, impatiently; "let us
settle this business.  You know that Monsieur Stanley said he would
expect us to be ready with an answer to-night.--What think you, Gaspard?
Shall we go, or shall we mutiny?"

The individual addressed was a fine specimen of an animal, but not by
any means a good specimen of a man.  He was of gigantic proportions,
straight and tall as a poplar, and endowed with the strength of a
Hercules.  His glittering dark eyes and long black hair, together with
the hue of his skin, bespoke him of half-breed extraction.  But his
countenance did not correspond to his fine physical proportions.  True,
his features were good, but they wore habitually a scowling, sulky
expression, even when the man was pleased, and there was more of sarcasm
than joviality in the sound when Gaspard condescended to laugh.

"I'll be shot if I go to such a hole for the best bourgeois in the
country," said he in reply to Francois' question.

"You'll be dismissed the service if you don't," remarked Massan with a
smile.

To this Gaspard vouchsafed no reply save a growl that, to say the best
of it, did not sound amiable.

"Well, I think that we're all pretty much of one mind on the point,"
continued Francois; "and yet I feel half ashamed to refuse after all,
especially when I see the good will with which Messieurs Stanley and
Morton agree to go."

"I suppose _you_ expect to be a bourgeois too some day," growled Gaspard
with a sneer.

"Eh, tu gros chien!" cried Francois, as with flashing eyes and clinched
fists he strode up to his ill-tempered comrade.

"Come, come, Francois; don't quarrel for nothing," said Massan,
interposing his broad shoulders and pushing him vigorously back.

At that moment an exclamation from one of the men diverted the attention
of the others.

"Voila! the canoe."

"Ay, it's Monsieur Stanley's canoe.  I saw him and Monsieur Morton start
for the swamp this morning."

"I wonder what Dick Prince would have done in this business had he been
here," said Francois to Massan in a low tone, as they stood watching the
approach of their bourgeois' canoe.

"Can't say.  I half think he would have gone."

"There's no chance of him coming back in time, I fear."

"None; unless he prevails on some goose to lend him a pair of wings for
a day or two.  He won't be back from the hunt for three weeks good."

In a few minutes more the canoe skimmed up to the wharf.

"Here, lads," cried Mr Stanley, as he leaped ashore and dragged the
canoe out of the water; "one of you come and lift this canoe up the
bank, and take these geese to the kitchen."

Two of the men instantly hastened to obey, and Stanley, with the gun and
paddles under his arm, proceeded towards the gateway of the fort.  As he
passed the group assembled on the wharf, he turned and said--

"You'll come to the hall in an hour, lads; I shall expect you to be
ready with an answer by that time."

"Ay, ay, sir," replied several of the men.

"But we won't go for all your expectations," said one in an undertone to
a comrade.

"I should think not," whispered another.

"I'll be hanged, and burnt, and frozen if _I_ do," said a third.

In the meantime Mr Stanley walked briskly towards his dwelling, and
left the men to grumble over their troubles and continue their debate as
to whether they should or should not agree to go on the pending
expedition to the distant regions of Ungava.



CHAPTER THREE.

SHOWS HOW STANLEY DEIGNED TO CONSULT WITH WOMANKIND--THE OPINIONS OF A
CHILD DEVELOPED--PERSUASION FAILS--EXAMPLE TRIUMPHS--THE FIRST
VOLUNTEERS TO UNGAVA.

On reaching his apartment, which was in an angle of the principal
edifice in the fort, Mr Stanley flung down his gun and paddles, and
drawing a chair close to his wife, who was working with her needle near
a window, took her hand in his and heaved a deep sigh.

"Why, George, that's what you used to say to me when you were at a loss
for words in the days of our courtship."

"True, Jessie," he replied, patting her shoulder with a hand that rough
service had rendered hard and long exposure had burnt brown.  "But the
producing cause then was different from what it is now.  _Then_ it was
love; _now_ it is perplexity."

Stanley's wife was the daughter of English parents, who had settled many
years ago in the fur countries.  Being quite beyond the reach of any
school, they had been obliged to undertake the instruction of their only
child, Jessie, as they best could.  At first this was an easy matter,
but as years flew by, and little Jessie's mind expanded, it was found to
be a difficult matter to carry on her education in a country in most
parts of which books were not to be had and schoolmasters did not exist.
When the difficulty first presented itself, they talked of sending
their little one to England to finish her education; but being unable to
bring themselves to part with her, they resolved to have a choice
selection of books sent out to them.  Jessie's mother was a clever,
accomplished, and lady-like woman, and decidedly pious, so that the
little flower, which was indeed born to blush unseen, grew up to be a
gentle, affectionate woman--one who was a lady in all her thoughts and
actions, yet had never seen polite society, save that of her father and
mother.  In process of time Jessie became Mrs Stanley, and the mother
of a little girl whose voice was, at the time her father entered,
ringing cheerfully in an adjoining room.  Mrs Stanley's nature was an
earnest one, and she no sooner observed that her husband was worried
about something, than she instantly dropped the light tone in which she
at first addressed him.

"And what perplexes you now, dear George?" she said, laying down her
work and looking up in his face with that straightforward, earnest gaze
that in days of yore had set the stout backwoodsman's heart on fire, and
still kept it in a perennial blaze.

"Nothing very serious," he replied with a smile; "only these fellows
have taken it into their stupid heads that Ungava is worse than the land
beyond the Styx; and so, after the tough battle that I had with you this
morning in order to prevail on you to remain here for a winter without
me, I've had to fight another battle with them in order to get them to
go on this expedition."

"Have you been victorious?" inquired Mrs Stanley.

"No, not yet."

"Do you really mean to say they are _afraid_ to go?  Has Prince refused?
are Francois, Gaspard, and Massan cowards?" she inquired, her eye
kindling with indignation.

"Nay, my wife, not so.  These men are not cowards; nevertheless they
don't feel inclined to go; and as for Dick Prince, he has been off
hunting for a week, and I don't expect him back for three weeks at
least, by which time we shall be off."

Mrs Stanley sighed, as if she felt the utter helplessness of woman in
such affairs.

"Why, Jessie, that's what you used to say to me when you were at a loss
for words in the days of our courtship," said Stanley, smiling.

"Ah, George, like you I may say that the cause is now perplexity; for
what can _I_ do to help you in your present difficulty?"

"Truly not much.  But I like to tell you of my troubles, and to make
more of them than they deserve, for the sake of drawing forth your
sympathy.  Bless your heart!" he said, in a sudden burst of enthusiasm,
"I would gladly undergo any amount of trouble every day, if by so doing
I should secure that earnest, loving, anxious gaze of your sweet blue
eyes as a reward!"  Stanley imprinted a hearty kiss on his wife's cheek
as he made this lover-like speech, and then rose to place his
fowling-piece on the pegs from which it usually hung over the fireplace.

At that moment the door opened, and a little girl, with bright eyes and
flaxen hair, bounded into the room.

"O mamma, mamma!" she said, holding up a sheet of paper, while a look of
intense satisfaction beamed on her animated countenance, "see, I have
drawn Chimo's portrait.  Is it like, mamma?  Do you think it like?"

"Come here, Eda, my darling, come to me," said Stanley, seating himself
on a chair and extending his arms.  Edith instantly left the portrait of
the dog in her mother's possession, and, without waiting for an opinion
as to its merits, ran to her father, jumped on his knee, threw her arms
round his neck, and kissed him.  Edith was by no means a beautiful
child, but miserable indeed must have been the taste of him who would
have pronounced her plain-looking.  Her features were not regular; her
nose had a strong tendency to what is called snubbed, and her mouth was
large; but to counterbalance these defects she had a pair of large,
deep-blue eyes, soft, golden hair, a fair, rosy complexion, and an
expression of sweetness at the corners of her mouth that betrayed
habitual good-nature.  She was quick in all her movements, combined with
a peculiar softness and grace of deportment that was exceedingly
attractive.

"Would you like to go, my pet," said her father, "to a country far, far
away in the north, where there are high mountains and deep valleys,
inhabited by beautiful reindeer, and large lakes and rivers filled with
fish; where there is very little daylight all the long winter, and where
there is scarcely any night all the long, bright summer?  Would my Eda
like to go there?"

The child possessed that fascinating quality of being intensely
interested in all that was said to her.  As her father spoke, her eyes
gradually expanded and looked straight into his, while her head turned
slowly and very slightly to one side.  As he concluded, she replied,
"Oh! very, very, _very_ much indeed," with a degree of energy that made
both her parents laugh.

"Ah, my darling! would that my lazy men were endued with some of your
spirit," said Stanley, patting the child's head.

"Is Prince a lazy man, papa?" inquired Edith anxiously.

"No, certainly, Prince is not.  Why do you ask?"

"Because I love Prince."

"And do you not love all the men?"

"No," replied Edith, with some hesitation; "at least I don't love them
_very_ much, and I hate one."

"Hate one!" echoed Mrs Stanley.  "Come here, my darling."

Eda slipped from her father's knee and went to her mother, feeling and
looking as if she had said something wrong.

Mrs Stanley was not one of those mothers who, whenever they hear of
their children having done anything wrong, assume a look of intense,
solemnised horror, that would lead an ignorant spectator to suppose that
intelligence had just been received of some sudden and appalling
catastrophe.  She knew that children could not be deceived by such
pieces of acting.  She expressed on her countenance precisely what she
felt--a slight degree of sorrow that her child should cherish an evil
passion, which, she knew, existed in her heart in common with all the
human race, but which she expected, by God's help and blessing, to
subdue effectually at last.  Kissing Eda's forehead she said
kindly,--"Which of them do you hate, darling?"

"Gaspard," replied the child.

"And why do you hate him?"

"Because he struck my dog," said Eda, while her face flushed and her
eyes sparkled; "and he is always rude to everybody, and very, _very_
cruel to the dogs."

"That is very wrong of Gaspard; but, dearest Eda, do you not remember
what is written in God's Word,--`Love your enemies?'  It is wrong to
_hate_ anybody."

"I know that, mamma, and I don't wish to hate Gaspard, but I can't help
it.  I wish if I didn't hate him, but it _won't_ go away."

"Well, my pet," replied Mrs Stanley, pressing the child to her bosom,
"but you must pray for him, and speak kindly to him when you meet him,
and that will perhaps put it away.  And now let us talk of the far-off
country that papa was speaking about.  I wonder what he has to tell you
about it."

Stanley had been gazing out of the window during the foregoing colloquy,
apparently inattentive, though, in reality, deeply interested in what
was said.  Turning round, he said--

"I was going to tell Eda that you had arranged to follow me to that
country next year, and that perhaps you would bring her along with you."

"Nay, George, you mistake.  I did not arrange to do so--you only
proposed the arrangement; but, to say truth, I don't like it, and I
can't make up my mind to let you go without us.  I cannot wait till next
year."

"Well, well, Jessie, I have exhausted all my powers of persuasion.  I
leave it entirely to yourself to do as you think best."

At this moment the sound of deep voices was heard in the hall, which was
separated from Stanley's quarters by a thin partition of wood.  In a few
seconds the door opened, and George Barney, the Irish butler and general
factotum to the establishment, announced that the "min wos in the hall
awaitin'."

Giving Eda a parting kiss, Stanley rose and entered the hall, where
Francois, Massan, Gaspard, and several others were grouped in a corner.
On their bourgeois entering, they doffed their bonnets and bowed.

"Well, lads," began Stanley, with a smile, "you've thought better of it,
I hope, and have come to volunteer for this expedition--" He checked
himself and frowned, for he saw by their looks that they had come with
quite a different intention.  "What have you to say to me?" he continued
abruptly.

The men looked uneasily at each other, and then fixed their eyes on
Francois, who was evidently expected to be spokesman.

"Come, Francois, speak out," said Stanley; "if you have any objections,
out with them; you're free to say what you please here."

As he spoke, and ere Francois could reply, Frank Morton entered the
room.  "Ah!" he exclaimed, as he deposited his rifle in a corner and
flung his cap on the table, "in time, I see, to help at the council!"

"I was just asking Francois to state his objections to going," said
Stanley, as his young friend took his place beside him.

"Objections!" repeated Frank; "what objections can bold spirits have to
go on a bold adventure?  The question should have been, `Who will be
first to volunteer?'"

At this moment the door of Stanley's apartment opened, and his wife
appeared leading Eda by the hand.

"Here are two volunteers," she said, with a smile; "pray put us at the
head of your list.  We will go with you to any part of the world!"

"Bravo!" shouted Frank, catching up Eda, with whom he was a great
favourite, and hugging her tightly in his arms.

"Nay, but, wife, this is sheer folly.  You know not the dangers that
await you--"

"Perhaps not," interrupted Mrs Stanley; "but _you_ know them, and that
is enough for me."

"Indeed, Jessie, I know them not.  I can but guess at them.--But, ah!
well, 'tis useless to argue further.  Be it so; we shall head the list
with you and Eda."

"And put my name next," said a deep-toned voice from behind the other
men.  All turned round in surprise.

"Dick Prince!" they exclaimed; "you here?"

"Ay, lads," said a tall man of about forty, who was not so remarkable
for physical development (though in this respect he was by no means
deficient) as for a certain decision of character that betrayed itself
in every outline of his masculine, intelligent countenance--"ay, lads,
I'm here; an' sorry am I that I've jist comed in time to hear that
you're sich poor-spirited rascals as to hang back when ye should jump
for'ard."

"But how came you so opportunely, Prince?" inquired Stanley.

"I met an Injin, sir, as told me you was goin' off; so I thought you
might want me, and comed straight back.  And now, sir, I'm ready to go;
and so is Francois," he continued, turning to that individual, who
seized his hand and exclaimed, "That am I, my boy--to the moon if ye
like!"

"And Massan, too," continued Prince.

"All right; book me for Nova Zembla," replied that worthy.

"So, so," cried Mr Stanley, with a satisfied smile.  "I see, lads, that
we're all of one mind now.  Is it not so?  Are we agreed?"

"Agreed! agreed!" they replied with one voice.

"That's well," he continued.  "Now then, lads, clear out and get your
kits ready.--And ho!  Barney, give these men a glass of grog.--Prince, I
shall want to talk with you this evening.  Come to me an hour hence.--
And now," he added, taking Eda by the hand, "come along, my gentle
volunteers; let's go to supper."



CHAPTER FOUR.

EXPLANATORY, BUT NOT DRY!--MURDEROUS DESIGNS THWARTED BY VIGOROUS
TREATMENT--THE CATTLE PAY FOR IT!--PREPARATIONS FOR A LONG, LONG VOYAGE.

In order to render our story intelligible, it is necessary here to say a
few words explanatory of the nature and object of the expedition
referred to in the foregoing chapters.

Many years previous to the opening of our tale, it was deemed expedient,
by the rulers of the Hudson's Bay Fur Company, to effect, if possible, a
reconciliation or treaty of peace between the Muskigon Indians of
James's Bay and the Esquimaux of Hudson's Straits.  The Muskigons are by
no means a warlike race; on the contrary, they are naturally timid, and
only plucked up courage to make war on their northern neighbours in
consequence of these poor people being destitute of firearms, while
themselves were supplied with guns and ammunition by the fur-traders.
The Esquimaux, however, are much superior to the Muskigon Indians
physically, and would have held their adversaries in light esteem had
they met on equal terms, or, indeed, on any terms at all; but the evil
was that they never met.  The Indians always took them by surprise, and
from behind the rocks and bushes sent destruction into their camps with
the deadly bullet; while their helpless foes could only reply with the
comparatively harmless arrow and spear.  Thus the war was in fact an
annual raid of murderers.  The conceited Muskigons returned to their
wigwams in triumph, with bloody scalps hanging at their belts; while the
Esquimaux pushed farther into their ice-bound fastnesses, and told their
comrades, with lowering brows and heaving bosoms, of the sudden attack,
and of the wives and children who had been butchered in cold blood, or
led captive to the tents of the cowardly red men.

At such times those untutored inhabitants of the frozen regions vowed
vengeance on the Indians, and cursed in their hearts the white men who
supplied them with the deadly gun.  But the curse was unmerited.  In the
councils of the fur-traders the subject of Esquimau wrongs had been
mooted, and plans for the amelioration of their condition devised.
Trading posts were established on Richmond Gulf and Little Whale River;
but owing to circumstances which it is unnecessary to detail here, they
turned out failures, and were at length abandoned.  Still, those in
charge of the districts around Hudson's Bay and Labrador continued to
use every argument to prevail on the Indians to cease their murderous
assaults on their unoffending neighbours, but without much effect.  At
length the governor of East Main--a territory lying on the eastern
shores of James's Bay--adopted an argument which proved eminently
successful, at least for one season.

His fort was visited by a large band of Muskigons from Albany and Moose
districts, who brought a quantity of valuable furs, for which they
demanded guns and ammunition, making no secret of their intention to
proceed on an expedition against their enemies the Esquimaux.  On
hearing of this, the governor went out to them, and, in a voice of
extreme indignation, assured them that they should not have an ounce of
supplies for such a purpose.

"But we will pay you for what we ask.  We are not beggars!" exclaimed
the astonished Indians, into whose calculations it had never entered
that white traders would refuse good furs merely in order to prevent the
death of a few Esquimaux.

"See," cried the angry governor, snatching up the nearest bale of
furs--"see, that's all I care for you or your payment!" and hurling the
pack at its owner's head, he felled him therewith to the ground.  "No,"
he continued, shaking his fist at them, "I'll not give you as much
powder or shot as would blow off the tail of a rabbit, if you were to
bring me all the skins in Labrador!"

The consequence of this vigorous conduct was that the Indians retired
crestfallen--utterly discomfited.  But in the camp that night they
plotted revenge.  In the darkness of the night they slaughtered all the
cattle around the establishment, and before daybreak were over the hills
and far away in the direction of their hunting-grounds, loaded with
fresh beef sufficient for the supply of themselves and their families
for the winter!  It was a heavy price to pay; but the poor Esquimaux
remained unmolested that year, while the Indians received a salutary
lesson.  But the compulsory peace was soon broken, and it became
apparent that the only effectual way to check the bloodthirsty
propensity of the Indians was to arm their enemies with the gun.  The
destruction of the first expedition to the Esquimaux, and the bad
feeling that existed in the minds of the natives of Richmond Gulf
consequent thereon, induced the fur-traders to fix on another locality
for a new attempt.  It was thought that the remote solitudes of Ungava
Bay, at the extreme north of Labrador,--where the white man's axe had
never yet felled the stunted pines of the north, nor the ring of his
rifle disturbed its echoes,--would be the spot best suited for the
erection of a wooden fort.

Accordingly, it was appointed that Mr George Stanley should select a
coadjutor, and proceed with a party of picked men to the scene of action
as early in the spring as the ice would permit, and there build a fort
as he best could, with the best materials he could find; live on
whatever the country afforded in the shape of food; establish a trade in
oil, whalebone, arctic foxes, etcetera, etcetera, if they were to be
got; and bring about a reconciliation between the Esquimaux and the
Indians of the interior, if that were possible.  With the careful
minuteness peculiar to documents, Stanley's instructions went on to
point out that he was to start from Moose--with two half-sized canoes,
each capable of carrying ten _pieces_ or packages of 90 pounds weight
each, besides the crew--and _bore_ through the ice, if the ice would
allow him, till he should reach Richmond Gulf; cross this gulf, and
ascend, if practicable, some of the rivers which fall into it from the
height of land supposed, but not positively known, to exist somewhere in
the interior.  Passing this height, he was to descend by the rivers and
lakes (if such existed) leading to the eastward, until he should fall
upon a river reported to exist in these lands, and called by the natives
_Caniapuscaw_, or South River, down which he was to proceed to the scene
of his labours, Ungava Bay; on reaching which he was considerately left
to the unaided guidance of his own discretion!  Reduced to their lowest
term and widest signification, the instructions directed our friend to
start as early as he could, with whom he chose, and with what he liked;
travel as fast as possible over _terra incognita_ to a land of ice--
perhaps, also, of desolation--and locate himself among bloody savages.
It was hoped that there would be found a sufficiency of trees wherewith
to build him a shelter against a prolonged winter; in the meantime he
might enjoy a bright arctic summer sky for his canopy!

But it was known, or at least supposed, that the Esquimaux were fierce
and cruel savages, if not cannibals.  Their very name implies something
of the sort.  It signifies _eaters of raw flesh_, and was bestowed on
them by their enemies the Muskigons.  They call themselves _Innuit_-men,
or warriors; and although they certainly do eat raw flesh when necessity
compels them--which it often does--they asserted that they never did so
from choice.  However, be this as it may, the remembrance of their
misdeeds in the first expeditions was fresh in the minds of the men in
the service of the fur-traders, and they evinced a decided unwillingness
to venture into such a country and among such a people,--an
unwillingness which was only at length overcome when Mrs Stanley and
her little daughter heroically volunteered to share the dangers of the
expedition in the manner already narrated.

Stanley now made vigorous preparations for his departure.  Some of the
men had already been enrolled, as we have seen, and there were more than
enough of able and active volunteers ready to complete the crews.

"Come hither, lads," he cried, beckoning to two men who were occupied on
the bank of the river, near the entrance to Moose Fort, in repairing the
side of a canoe.

The men left their work and approached.  They were both Esquimaux, and
good stout, broad-shouldered, thick-set specimens of the race they were.
One was called Oolibuck, [_This name is spelt as it should be
pronounced.  The correct spelling is Ouligbuck_], the other Augustus;
both of which names are now chronicled in the history of arctic
adventure as having belonged to the well-tried and faithful interpreters
to Franklin, Back, and Richardson, in their expeditions of north-west
discovery.

"I'm glad to see you busy at the canoe, boys," said Stanley, as they
came up.  "Of course you are both willing to revisit your countrymen."

"Yes, sir, we is.  Glad to go where you choose send us," answered
Oolibuck, whose broad, oily countenance lighted up with good-humour as
he spoke.

"It will remind you of your trip with Captain Franklin," continued
Stanley, addressing Augustus.

"Me no like to 'member dat," said the Esquimau, with a sorrowful shake
of the head.  "Me love bourgeois Franklin, but tink me never see him
more."

"I don't know that, old fellow," returned Stanley, with a smile.
"Franklin is not done with his discoveries yet; there's a talk of
sending off another expedition some of these days, I hear, so you may
have a chance yet."

Augustus's black eyes sparkled with pleasure as he heard this.  He was a
man of strong feeling, and during his journeyings with our great arctic
hero had become attached to him in consequence of the hearty and
unvarying kindness and consideration with which he treated all under his
command.  But the spirit of enterprise had been long slumbering, and
poor Augustus, who was now past the prime of life, feared that he should
never see his kind master more.

"Now I want you, lads, to get everything in readiness for an immediate
start," continued Stanley, glancing upwards at the sky; "if the weather
holds, we shan't be long off paying your friends a visit.  Are both
canoes repaired?"

"Yes, sir, they is," replied Oolibuck.

"And the baggage, is it laid out?  And--"

"Pardon, monsieur," interrupted Massan, walking up, and touching his
cap.  "I've jest been down at the point, and there's a rig'lar
nor'-wester a-comin' down.  The ice is sweepin' into the river, an'
it'll be choked up by to-morrow, I'm afraid."

Stanley received this piece of intelligence with a slight frown, and
looked seaward, where a dark line on the horizon and large fields of ice
showed that the man's surmise was likely to prove correct.

"It matters not," said Stanley, hastily; "I've made arrangements to
start to-morrow, and start we shall, in spite of ice or wind, if the
canoes will float!"

Massan, who had been constituted principal steersman of the expedition,
in virtue of his well-tried skill and indomitable energy, felt that the
tone in which this was said implied a want of confidence in his
willingness to go under _any_ circumstances, so he said gravely--

"Pardon, monsieur; I did not say we could not start."

"True, true, Massan; don't be hurt.  I was only grumbling at the
weather," answered Stanley, with a laugh.

Just then the first puff of the coming breeze swept up the river,
ruffling its hitherto glassy surface.

"There it comes," cried Stanley, as he quitted the spot.  "Now, Massan,
see to it that the crews are assembled in good time on the beach
to-morrow.  We start at daybreak."

"Oui, monsieur," replied Massan, as he turned on his heel and walked
away.  "Parbleu! we shall indeed start to morrow, an it please you, if
all the ice and wind in the polar regions was blowed down the coast and
crammed into the river's mouth.  C'est vrai!"



CHAPTER FIVE.

ICE LOOKS UNPROPITIOUS--THE START--AN IMPORTANT MEMBER OF THE PARTY
NEARLY FORGOTTEN--CHIMO.

Stanley's forebodings and Massan's prognostications proved partly
incorrect on the following morning.  The mouth of the river, and the sea
beyond, were quite full of ice; but it was loose, and intersected in all
directions by lanes of open water.  Moreover, there was no wind.

The gray light of early morning brightened into dawn, and the first
clear ray of the rising sun swept over a scene more beautiful than ever
filled the fancy of the most imaginative poet of the Temperate Zones.
The sky was perfectly unclouded, and the surface of the sea was
completely covered with masses of ice, whose tops were pure white like
snow, and their sides a delicate greenish-blue, their dull, frosted
appearance forming a striking contrast to the surrounding water, which
shone, when the sun glanced upon it, like burnished silver.  The masses
of ice varied endlessly in form and size, some being flat and large like
fields, others square and cornered like bastions or towers--here a
miniature temple with spires and minarets, there a crystal fortress with
embrasures and battlements; and, in the midst of these, thousands of
broken fragments, having all the varied outlines of the larger masses,
appearing like the smaller houses, cottages, and villas of this floating
city of ice.

"Oh how beautiful!" exclaimed little Edith, as her father led her and
Mrs Stanley towards the canoes, which floated lightly in the water,
while the men stood in a picturesque group beside them, leaning on their
bright red paddles.

"It is indeed, my pet," replied Stanley, a smile almost of sadness
playing around his lips.

"Come, George, don't let evil forebodings assail you to-day," said Mrs
Stanley in a low tone.  "It does not become the leader of a forlorn hope
to cast a shade over the spirits of his men at the very outset."  She
smiled as she said this, and pressed his arm; but despite herself, there
was more of sadness in the smile and in the pressure than she intended
to convey.

Stanley's countenance assumed its usual firm but cheerful expression
while she spoke.  "True, Jessie, I must not damp the men; but when I
look at you and our darling Eda, I may be forgiven for betraying a
passing glance of anxiety.  May the Almighty protect you!"

"Is the country we are going to like this, papa?" inquired Eda, whose
intense admiration of the fairy-like scene rendered her oblivious of all
else.

"Yes, dear, more like this than anything else you have ever seen; but
the sun does not always shine so brightly as it does just now, and
sometimes there are terrible snow-storms.  But we will build you a nice
house, Eda, with a very large fireplace, so that we won't feel the
cold."

The entire population of Moose Fort was assembled on the beach to
witness the departure of the expedition.  The party consisted of fifteen
souls.  As we shall follow them to the icy regions of Ungava, it may be
worth while to rehearse their names in order as follows:--

  MR. AND MRS. STANLEY and EDITH.
  FRANK MORTON.
  MASSAN, the guide.
  DICK PRINCE, principal hunter to the party.
  LA ROCHE, Stanley's servant and cook.
  BRYAN, the blacksmith.
  FRANCOIS, the carpenter.
  OOLIBUCK, AUGUSTUS, and MOSES, Esquimau
  interpreters.
  GASPARD, labourer and fisherman.
  OOSTESIMOW and MA-ISTEQUAN, Indian guides
  and hunters.

The craft in which these were about to embark were three canoes, two of
which were large and one small.  They were made of birch bark, a
substance which is tough, light, and buoyant, and therefore admirably
adapted for the construction of craft that have not only to battle
against strong and sometimes shallow currents, but have frequently to be
carried on the shoulders of their crews over rocks and mountains.  The
largest canoe was sixteen feet long by five feet broad in the middle,
narrowing gradually towards the bow and stern to a sharp edge.  Its
loading consisted of bales, kegs, casks, and bundles of goods and
provisions; each bale or cask weighed exactly 90 pounds, and was called
a _piece._ There were fifteen pieces in the canoe, besides the crew of
six men, and Mr Stanley and his family, who occupied the centre, where
their bedding, tied up in flat bundles and covered with oiled cloth,
formed a comfortable couch.  Notwithstanding the size and capacity of
this craft, it had been carried down to the beach on the shoulders of
Massan and Dick Prince, who now stood at its bow and stern, preventing
it with their paddles from rubbing its frail sides against the wharf;
for although the bark is tough, and will stand a great deal of tossing
in water and plunging among rapids, it cannot sustain the slightest blow
from a rock or other hard substance without being cracked, or having the
gum which covers the seams scraped off.  To those who are unacquainted
with travelling in the wild regions of the north it would seem
impossible that a long journey could be accomplished in such tender
boats; but a little experience proves that, by judicious treatment and
careful management, voyages of great length may be safely accomplished
in them--that they are well adapted for the necessities of the country,
and can be taken with greater ease through a rough, broken, and
mountainous region than ordinary wooden boats, even of smaller size,
could be.

The second canoe was in all respects similar to the one we have
described, excepting that it was a few inches shorter.  The third was
much smaller--so small that it could not contain more than three men,
with their provisions and a few bales, and so light that it could with
the greatest ease be carried on the shoulders of one man.  It was
intended to serve as a sort of pioneer and hunting craft, which should
lead the way, dart hither and thither in pursuit of game, and warn the
main body of any danger that should threaten them ahead.  It was manned
by the two Indian guides, Oostesimow and Ma-istequan, and by Frank
Morton, who being acknowledged one of the best shots of the party, was
by tacit understanding regarded as commissary-general.  It might have
been said that Frank was the best shot, were it not for the fact that
the aim of Dick Prince was perfect, and it is generally admitted that
perfection cannot be excelled.

Although differing widely in their dispositions and appearance, the men
of the expedition were similar at least in one respect--they were all
first-rate, and had been selected as being individually superior to
their comrades at Moose Fort.  And a noble set of fellows they looked,
as they stood beside their respective canoes, leaning on their little,
brilliantly coloured paddles, awaiting the embarkation of their leaders.
They all wore new suits of clothes, which were sufficiently similar to
give the effect of a uniform, yet so far varied in detail as to divest
them of monotony, and relieve the eye by agreeable contrast of bright
colours.  All of them wore light-blue cloth capotes with hoods hanging
down behind, all had corduroy trousers gartered below the knee, and all
wore moccasins, and had fire-bags stuck in their belts, in which were
contained the materials for producing fire, tobacco, and pipes.  So far
they were alike, but the worsted belts of some were scarlet, of others
crimson, and of others striped.  Some gartered their trousers with
thongs of leather, others used elegant bands of bead-work--the gifts,
probably, of sorrowing sweethearts, sisters, or mothers--while the
fire-bags, besides being composed some of blue, some of scarlet cloth,
were ornamented more or less with flowers and fanciful devices elegantly
wrought in the gaily-dyed quills of the porcupine.

On seeing Stanley and his wife and child approaching, Massan gave the
order to embark.  In a moment every man divested himself of his capote,
which he folded up and placed on the seat he was to occupy; then,
shaking hands all round for the last time, they stepped lightly and
carefully into their places.

"All ready, I see, Massan," said Stanley, as he came up, "and the ice
seems pretty open.  How say you? shall we make a good day of it?"

Massan smiled dubiously as he presented his thick shoulder as a support
to Mrs Stanley, while she stepped into her place.  He remembered the
conversation of the previous evening, and determined that, whatever
should happen, he at least would not cast the shadow of a doubt on their
prospects.  But in his own mind he suspected that their progress would
be interrupted ere long, as the wind, although very light--almost
imperceptible--was coming from the north-west.

"It'll be full flood in less nor half an hour," he replied, "and--(take
care, Miss Edith, give me your little hand; there, now, jump light)--and
we'll be past the p'int by that time, and git the good o' the ebb till
sun-down."

"I fear," said Frank Morton, approaching, "that the ice is rather thick
for us; but it don't much matter, it will only delay us a bit--and at
any rate we'll make good way as far as the point."

"True, true," said Stanley; "and it's a great matter to get fairly
started.  Once off we must go forward.  All ready, lads?"

"Ay, ay, sir."

"Now, Frank, into your canoe and show us the way; mind we trust to your
guidance to keep us clear of blind alleys among these lanes of water in
the ice."

At this moment Edith--who had been for the last few minutes occupied in
alternately drying her eyes and kissing her hands to a group of little
children who had been her play-fellows during her sojourn at the fort--
uttered a loud exclamation.

"Oh! oh! papa, mamma--Chimo!--we've forgot Chimo!  Oh me! don't go away
yet!"

"So we have!" said her father; "dear me, how stupid to forget our old
friend!--Hallo!  Frank, Frank, we've forgot the dog," shouted Stanley to
his young comrade, who was on the point of starting.

On hearing this, Frank gave a long, shrill whistle.  "That'll bring him
if he's within ear-shot."

When the well-known sound broke upon Chimo's ear, he was lying coiled up
in front of the kitchen fire, being privileged to do so in consequence
of his position as Edith's favourite.  The cook, having gone out a few
minutes previously, had left Chimo to enjoy his slumbers in solitude, so
that, when he started suddenly to his feet on hearing Frank's whistle,
he found himself a prisoner.  But Chimo was a peculiarly strong-minded
and strong-bodied dog, and was possessed of an iron will!  He was of the
Esquimau breed, and bore some resemblance to the Newfoundland, but was
rather shorter in the legs, longer in the body, and more powerfully
made.  Moreover, he was more shaggy, and had a stout, blunt,
straightforward appearance, which conveyed to the beholder the idea that
he scorned flattery, and would not consent to be petted on any
consideration.  Indeed this was the case, for he always turned away with
quiet contempt from any of the men who attempted to fondle him.  He made
an exception, however, of little Edith, whom he not only permitted to
clap him to any extent, but deliberately invited her to do so by laying
his great head in her lap, rubbing himself against her, and wagging his
bushy tail, as if to say, "Now, little girl, do what you will with me!"
And Eda never refused the animal's dumb-show request.  When she was very
young and had not much sense--at which time Chimo was young too, but
possessed of a great deal of sense--she formed a strong affection for
the Esquimau dog, an affection which she displayed by putting her little
arms round his neck and hugging him until he felt a tendency to
suffocation; she also pulled his ears and tail, and stuffed her fat
little hands into his eyes and mouth,--all of which dreadful actions she
seemed to think, in her childish ignorance, must be very pleasant to
Chimo, and all of which the dog appeared really to enjoy.  At all
events, whether he liked it or not, he came regularly to have himself
thus treated every day.  As Eda grew older she left off choking her
favourite and poking out his eyes, and contented herself with caressing
him.  Chimo also evinced a partiality for Mr Stanley and Frank Morton,
and often accompanied the latter on his hunting excursions; but he
always comported himself towards them with dignified hauteur, accepting
their caresses with a slight wag of acknowledgment, but never courting
their favour.

On jumping up, as we have already said, and observing that the door was
shut, the dog looked slowly and calmly round the apartment, as if to
decide on what was best to be done; for Chimo was a dog of great energy
of character, and was never placed in any circumstances in which he did
not pursue some decided course of action.  On the present occasion there
was not a hole, except the key-hole, by which he could hope to make his
escape.  Yes, by-the-bye, there was a hole in the window, which was made
of parchment; but as that was merely the bullet-hole through which the
animal that had given his skin for a window had been shot, and was not
larger than a shilling, it did not afford much hope.  Nevertheless Chimo
regarded it with a steady gaze for a minute or two, then he turned to
the fire, and having satisfied himself that the chimney was
impracticable, being full of flames and smoke, he faced the window once
more, and showed his teeth, as if in chagrin.

"Whew-ew!  Chimo-o-o!" came Frank's voice, floating faintly from afar.
Chimo took aim at the bullet-hole.  One vigorous bound--a horrible
crash, that nearly caused the returning cook to faint--and the dog was
free.

"Ah, here he comes!--good dog!" cried Frank, as the animal came bounding
over intervening obstacles towards the canoes.  Chimo made straight for
the small canoe, in answer to his master's call; but, like many dogs and
not a few men, he owned a higher power than that of a master.  The voice
of his little mistress sounded sweetly in his ear, like the sound of a
silver bell.  "O Chimo, Chimo! my darling pet! come here--here."  It was
a soft, tiny voice at the loudest, and was quite drowned amid the
talking and laughter of the men, but Chimo heard it.  Turning at a sharp
angle from his course, he swept past the light canoe, and bounding into
that of Mr Stanley, lay down beside Eda and placed his head in her lap,
where it was immediately smothered in the caresses of its young
mistress.

Mr Stanley smiled and patted his little girl on the shoulder, as he
said, "That's right, Eda; the love of a faithful dog is worth having and
cherishing."  Then turning towards the stern of the canoe, where Massan
stood erect, with his steering paddle ready for action, he said to that
worthy--

"Now, Massan, all ready; give the word."

"Ho, ho, boys; forward!"

The paddles dipped simultaneously in the water with a loud, gurgling
sound; the two large canoes shot out into the stream abreast of each
other, preceded by the light one, which, urged forward by the powerful
arms of Frank and the two Indians, led the way among the floating fields
of ice.  The people on shore took off their caps and waved a last
farewell.  Dick Prince, who possessed a deep, loud, sonorous voice,
began one of those beautiful and wild yet plaintive songs peculiar to
the _voyageurs_ of the wilderness.  The men joined, with a full, rich
swell, in the chorus, as they darted forward with arrow-like speed--and
the voyage began.



CHAPTER SIX.

CHARACTER PARTIALLY DEVELOPED--DUCKS FOR SUPPER--A THREATENED "NIP"--
BUNDLED OUT ON THE ICE.

Fortunately the wind veered round to the south-east soon after the
departure of the canoes from Moose Fort, and although there was not
enough of it to ruffle the surface of the river, it had the effect of
checking the influx of ice from James's Bay.  The tide, too, began to
ebb, so that the progress of the canoes was even more rapid than it
appeared to be; and long before the sun set, they were past the point at
the mouth of the river, and coasting along the shores of the salt ocean.

Outside of them the sea was covered with hummocks and fields of ice,
some of which ever and anon met in the cross currents caused by the
river, with a violent shock.  Close to the shore, however, the thickness
of the ice caused it to strand, leaving a lane of open water, along
which the canoes proceeded easily, the depth of water being much more
than sufficient for them, as the largest canoe did not draw more than a
foot.  Sometimes, however, this space was blocked up by smaller
fragments, and considerable difficulty was experienced in steering the
canoes amongst them.  Had the party travelled in boats, they would have
easily dashed through many of these checks; but with canoes it is far
otherwise.  Not only are their bark sides easily broken, but the seams
are covered with a kind of pitch which becomes so brittle in ice-cold
water that it chips off in large lumps with the slightest touch.  For
the sea, therefore, boats are best; but when it comes to carrying the
craft over waterfalls and up mountain sides, for days and weeks
together, canoes are more useful, owing to their lightness.

"Take care, Massan," said Mr Stanley, on approaching one of these
floes.  "Don't chip the gum off if you can help it.  If we spring a
leak, we shan't spend our first night on a pleasant camping-ground, for
the shore just hereabouts does not look inviting."

"No fear, sir," replied Massan.  "Dick Prince is in the bow, and as long
as his mouth's shut I keep my mind easy."

"You appear to have unlimited confidence in Prince," said Stanley, with
a smile.  "Does he never fail in anything, that you are so sure of him?"

"Fail!" exclaimed the steersman, whose paddle swept constantly in a
circle round his head, while he changed it from side to side as the
motions of the canoe required--"fail! ay, that does he sometimes.
Mortal man must get on the wrong side o' luck now and then.  I've seen
Dick Prince fail, but I never saw him make a mistake."

"Well, I've no doubt that he deserves your good opinion.  Nevertheless,
be more than ordinarily careful.  If you had a wife and child in the
canoe, Massan, you would understand my anxiety better."  Stanley smiled
as he said this, and the worthy steersman replied in a grave tone,--"I
have the wife and child of my bourgeois under my care."

"True, true, Massan," said Stanley, lying back on his couch and
conversing with his wife in an undertone.

"'Tis curious," said he, "to observe the confidence that Massan has in
Prince; and yet it would be difficult to say wherein consists the
superiority of the one over the other."

"Perhaps it is the influence of a strong mind over a weaker," suggested
his wife.

"It may be so.  Yet Prince is an utterly uneducated man.  True, he
shoots a hair's-breadth better than Massan; but he is not a better
canoe-man, neither is he more courageous, and he is certainly less
powerful: nevertheless Massan looks up to him and speaks of him as if he
were greatly his superior.  The secret of his power must lie in that
steady, never-wavering inflexibility of purpose, that characterises our
good bowman in everything he does."

"Papa," said Edith, who had been holding a long conversation with Chimo
on the wonders of the scene around them--if we may call that a
conversation where the one party does all the talking and the other all
the listening--"papa, where shall we all sleep to-night?"

The thought seemed to have struck her for the first time, and she looked
up eagerly for an answer, while Chimo gave a deep sigh of indifference,
and went to sleep, or pretended to do so, where he was.

"In the woods, Eda.  How do you think you will like it?"

"Oh, I'm sure I shall like it very much," replied the little one.  "I've
often wished to live in the woods altogether like the Indians, and do
nothing but wander about and pull berries."

"Ah, Jessie," said Stanley, "what an idle little baggage your daughter
is!  I fear she's a true chip of the old block!"

"Which do you consider the old block," retorted Mrs Stanley--"you or
me?"

"Never mind, wife; we'll leave that an open question.--But tell me, Eda,
don't you think that wandering about and pulling berries would be a very
useless sort of life?"

"No," replied Edith, gravely.  "Mamma often tells me that God wants me
to be happy, and I'm quite sure that wandering about all day in the
beautiful woods would make me happy."

"But, my darling," said Stanley, smiling at the simplicity of this
plausible argument in favour of an idle life, "don't you know that we
ought to try to make others happy too, as well as ourselves?"

"Oh yes," replied Eda, with a bright smile, "I know that, papa; and I
would try to make everybody happy by going with them and showing them
where the finest flowers and berries were to be found; and so we would
all be happy together, and that's what God wants, is it not?"

Mr Stanley glanced towards his wife with an arch smile.  "There,
Jessie, what think you of that?"

"Nay, husband, what think you?"

"I think," he replied in an undertone, "that your sagacious teaching
against idleness, and in favour of diligence and attention to duty, and
so forth, has not taken very deep root yet."

"And _I_ think," said Mrs Stanley, "that however wise you men may be in
some things, you are all most incomprehensibly stupid in regard to the
development of young minds."

"Take care now, Jessie; you're verging upon metaphysics.  But you have
only given me your opinion of men as yet; you have still to say what you
think of Eda's acknowledged predilection for idleness."

"Well," replied Mrs Stanley, "I think that my sagacious teaching, as
you are pleased to call it, has taken pretty firm root already, and that
Eda's speech is one of the first bright, beautiful blossoms, from which
we may look for much fruit hereafter; for to make one's self and one's
fellow-creatures happy, _because such is the will of God_, seems to me a
simple and comprehensive way of stating the whole duty of man."

Stanley's eyes opened a little at this definition.  "Hum! _multum in
parvo_; it may be so," he said; and casting down his eyes, he was soon
lost in a profound reverie, while the canoe continued to progress
forward by little impulsive bounds, under the rapid stroke of the
paddles.  Eda rested her fair cheek on the shaggy brow of Chimo, and
accompanied him to the land of nod, until the sun began to sink behind
the icebergs on the seaward horizon, where a dark line indicated an
approaching breeze.

Massan cast an uneasy glance at this from time to time.  At length he
called to his friend in the bow, "Hello, Prince! will it come stiff;
think ye?"

"No," replied Prince, rising and shading his eyes with his hand; "it'll
be only a puff; but that's enough to drive the ice down on us, an' shut
up the open water."

"It's my 'pinion," said Massan, "that we should hold away for the p'int
yonder, an' camp there."

Dick Prince nodded assent, and resumed his paddle.

As he did so the report of a gun came sharply over the water.

"Ha!" exclaimed Stanley, looking out ahead; "what's that?"

"Only Mr Frank," said Massan; "he's dowsed two birds.  I see'd them
splash into the water."

"That's right," said Stanley; "we shall have something fresh for the
kettle to-night.  And, by the way, we'll need all we can kill, for we
haven't much provision to depend on, and part of it must be reserved in
case of accidents, so that if Frank does not do his duty, we shall have
to live on birch bark, Massan."

"That would be rayther tough.  I'm afeerd," replied the steersman,
laughing.  "I've tried the tail o' a deer-skin coat afore now, an' it
wasn't much to boast of; but I niver tried a birch-bark steak.  I doubt
it would need a power o' chewin?"

By this time the two large canoes had drawn gradually nearer to the
leading one.  As they approached, Frank ordered his men to cease
paddling.

"Well, Frank, what success?" said Stanley, as they came up.

"There's our supper," cried Frank, tossing a large duck into the canoe;
"and there's a bite for the men," he added, sending a huge gray goose
into the midst of them.  "I saw a herd of reindeer on the other side of
the point; but the ice closed up the passage, and prevented me from
getting within range.  It will stop our further progress for to-night
too; so I waited to advise you to camp here."

"There it comes!" cried Dick Prince.  "Jump out on the ice, lads, and
unload as fast as you can."

As Dick spoke he sprang on to a field of ice which was attached to the
shore, and drawing the canoe alongside, began hastily to remove the
cargo.  His example was instantly followed by the men, who sprang over
the gunwales like cats; and in less than five minutes the cargoes were
scattered over the ice.  Meanwhile, the breeze which Massan had observed
continued to freshen, and the seaward ice bore rapidly down on the
shore, gradually narrowing and filling up the lanes of water among which
the travellers had been hitherto wending their way.  Dick Prince's
sudden action was caused by his observing a large, solid field, which
bore down on them with considerable rapidity.  His warning was just in
time, for the goods were scarcely landed and the three canoes lifted out
of the water, when the ice closed in with a crash that would have ground
the frail barks to pieces, and the passage was closed up.  So completely
was every trace of water obliterated, that it seemed as though there
never had been any there before.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

SHOWS HOW THE PARTY MADE THEMSELVES AT HOME IN THE BUSH--TALK ROUND THE
CAMP FIRE--A FLASH OF TEMPER--TURNING IN.

The spot where they were thus suddenly arrested in their progress was a
small bay, formed by a low point which jutted from the mainland, and
shut out the prospect in advance.  There was little or no wood on the
point, except a few stunted willows, which being green and small would
not, as La Roche the cook remarked, "make a fire big enough to roast the
wing of a mosquito."  There was no help for it, however.  The spot on
which Massan had resolved to encamp for the night was three miles on the
other side of the point, and as the way was now solid ice instead of
water, there was no possibility of getting there until a change of wind
should drive the ice off the shore.  Moreover, it was now getting dark,
and it behoved them to make their preparations with as much speed as
possible.  Accordingly, Massan and Prince shouldered one canoe, Francois
and Gaspard carried the other, and the light one was placed on the
shoulders of Bryan the blacksmith; La Roche took the provision-basket
and cooking utensils under his special charge; while the three Esquimau
interpreters and the two Indian guides busied themselves in carrying the
miscellaneous goods and baggage into camp.  As for Chimo, he seated
himself quietly on a lump of ice, and appeared to superintend the entire
proceedings; while his young mistress and her mother, accompanied by
Frank and Stanley, crossed the ice to the shore, to select a place for
their encampment.

But it was some time ere a suitable place could be found, as the point
happened to be low and swampy, and poor Eda's first experience of a life
in the woods was stepping into a hole which took her up to the knees in
mud and water.  She was not alone, however, in misfortune, for just at
the same moment Bryan passed through the bushes with his canoe, and
staggered into the same swamp, exclaiming as he did so, in a rich brogue
which many years' residence among the French half-breeds of Rupert's
Land had failed to soften, "Thunder an' turf! such a blackguard counthry
I niver did see.  Och, Bryan dear, why did ye iver lave yer native
land?"

"Pourquoi, why, mon boy? for ver' goot raison," cried La Roche, in a
horrible compound of French and broken English, as he skipped lightly
past, with a loud laugh, "for ver' goot raison--dey was tired of you to
home, vraiment.  You was too grande raskale; dey could not keep you no
longer."

"Thrue for ye, La Roche," replied the blacksmith, "thrue for ye, boy;
they sartinly could not keep me on nothin', an' as the murphies was all
sp'iled wi' the rot, I had to lave or starve."

At last, after a long search, Frank Morton found a spot pretty well
adapted for their purpose.  It was an elevated plot of gravel, which was
covered with a thin carpet of herbage, and surrounded by a belt of
willows which proved a sufficient shelter against the wind.  A low and
rather shaggy willow-tree spread its branches over the spot, and gave to
it a good deal of the feeling and appearance of shelter, if not much of
the reality.  This was of little consequence, however, as the night
proved fine and comparatively mild, so that the black vault of heaven,
spangled with hosts of brilliant stars, amply compensated for the want
of a leafy canopy.

Under the willow-tree, Frank and La Roche busied themselves in spreading
a very small white tent for Mr Stanley and his family.  Frank himself,
although entitled from his position in the Company's service to the
luxury of a tent, scorned to use one, preferring to rough it like the
men, and sleep beneath the shelter of the small canoe.  Meanwhile, Mr
Stanley proceeded to strike a light with his flint and steel; and Bryan,
having deposited his burden near the tent, soon collected a sufficiency
of driftwood to make a good fire.  Edith and her mother were not idle in
the midst of this busy scene.  They collected a few bundles of dried
twigs to make the fire light more easily, and after the blaze was
casting its broad glare of light over the camp, and the tent was
pitched, they assisted La Roche in laying the cloth for supper.  Of
course, in a journey like this, none but necessary articles were taken,
and these were of the most homely character.  The kettle was the
tea-pot, the cups were tin pannikins, and the table-cloth was a large
towel, while the table itself was the ground, from the damp of which,
however, the party in the tent were protected by an ample oil-cloth.

When all the things were carried up, and the men assembled, the camp
presented the following appearance: in the centre of the open space,
which nature had arranged in the form of a circle, blazed the fire; and
a right jovial, sputtering, outrageous fire it was, sending its sparks
flying in all directions, like the artillery of a beleaguered fortress
in miniature, and rolling its flames about in fierce and wayward
tongues, that seemed bent on licking in and swallowing up the entire
party, but more especially La Roche, who found no little difficulty in
paying due attention to his pots and kettles.  Sometimes the flames
roared fiercely upwards, singeing off the foliage of the overhanging
willow as they went, and then, bursting away from their parent fire,
portions of them floated off for a few seconds on the night air.  On the
weather side of this fire stood Mr Stanley's tent, under the
willow-tree, as before described, its pure white folds showing strongly
against the darkness of the sky beyond.  The doorway, or curtain of the
tent, was open, displaying the tea-equipage within, and the smiling
countenances of Stanley and his wife, Frank and Eda, who, seated on
blankets and shawls around the towel, were preparing to make an assault
on the fat duck before mentioned.  This duck had been split open and
roasted on a piece of stick before the blaze, and now stood with the
stumps of its wings and legs extended, as if demanding urgently to be
eaten--a demand which Chimo, who crouched near the doorway, could scarce
help complying with.

To the right of the tent was placed the small canoe, bottom up, so as to
afford a partial protection to the bedding which Oostesimow was engaged
in spreading out for Frank and himself and his comrade Ma-Istequan.
Facing this, at the other side of the fire, and on the left of the tent,
the largest canoe was turned up in a similar manner, and several of the
men were engaged in covering the ground beneath it with a layer of
leaves and branches, above which they spread their blankets; while
others lounged around the fire and smoked their beloved pipes, or
watched with impatient eyes the operations of Bryan, who, being
accustomed to have familiar dealings with the fire, had been deemed
worthy of holding the office of cook to the men, and was inducted
accordingly.

It is due to Bryan to say that he fully merited the honour conferred
upon him; for never, since the days of Vulcan, was there a man seen who
could daringly dabble in the fire as he did.  He had a peculiar
sleight-of-hand way of seizing hold of and tossing about red-hot coals
with his naked hand, that induced one to believe he must be made of
leather.  Flames seemed to have no effect whatever on his sinewy arms
when they licked around them; and as for smoke, he treated it with
benign contempt.  Not so La Roche: with the mercurial temperament of his
class he leaped about the fire, during his culinary operations, in a way
that afforded infinite amusement to his comrades, and not unfrequently
brought him into violent collision with Bryan, who usually received him
on such occasions with a strong Irish growl, mingled with a disparaging
or contemptuous remark.

Beyond the circle of light thrown by the fire was the belt of willows
which encompassed the camp on all sides except towards the sea, where a
narrow gap formed a natural entrance and afforded a glimpse of the ocean
with its fields and hummocks of ice floating on its calm bosom and
glancing in the faint light of the moon, which was then in its first
quarter.

"How comfortable and snug everything is!" said Mrs Stanley, as she
poured out the tea, while her husband carved the duck.

"Yes, isn't it, Eda?" said Frank, patting his favourite on the head, as
he held out her plate for a wing.  "There, give her a bit of the breast
too," he added.  "I know she's ravenously hungry, for I saw her looking
at Chimo, just before we landed, as if she meant to eat him for supper
without waiting to have him cooked."

"O Frank, how can you be so wicked?" said Eda, taking up her knife and
fork and attacking the wing with so much energy as almost to justify her
friend's assertion.

"Snug, said you, Jessie? yes, that's the very word to express it," said
Stanley.  "There's no situation that I know of (and I wasn't born
yesterday) that is so perfectly snug, and in all respects comfortable,
as an encampment in the woods on a fine night in spring or autumn."

"Or winter," added Frank, swallowing a pannikin of tea at a draught,
nodding to Chimo, as much as to say, "Do that if you can, old fellow,"
and handing it to Mrs Stanley to be replenished.  "Don't omit winter--
cold, sharp, sunny winter.  An encampment in the snow, in fine weather,
is as snug as this."

"Rather cold, is it not?" said Mrs Stanley.

"Cold! not a bit," replied Frank, making a reckless dive with his hand
into the biscuit-bag; "if you have enough wood to get up a roaring fire,
six feet long by three broad and four deep, with a bank of snow five
feet high all around ye, a pine-tree with lots of thick branches
spreading overhead to keep off the snow, and two big green blankets to
keep out the frost--(another leg of that widgeon, please)--you've no
notion how snug it is, I assure you."

"Hum!" ejaculated Stanley, with a dubious smile, "you forgot to add--a
youthful, robust frame, with the blood careering through the veins like
wildfire, to your catalogue of requisites.  No doubt it is pleasant
enough in its way; but commend me to spring or autumn for thorough
enjoyment, when the air is mild, and the waters flowing, and the woods
green and beautiful."

"Why don't you speak of summer, papa?" said Eda, who had been listening
intently to this conversation.

"Summer, my pet! because--"

"Allow me to explain," interrupted Frank, laying down his knife and
fork, and placing the forefinger of his right hand in his left palm, as
if he were about to make a speech.  "Because, Eda, because there is such
a thing as heat--long-continued, never-ending, sweltering heat.  Because
there are such reprehensible and unutterably detestable insects as
mosquitoes, and sand-flies, and bull-dogs; and there is such a thing as
being bitten, and stung, and worried, and sucked into a sort of partial
madness; and I have seen such sights as men perpetually slapping their
own faces, and scratching the skin off their own cheeks with their own
nails, and getting no relief thereby, but rather making things worse;
and I have, moreover, seen men's heads swelled until the eyes and noses
were lost, and the mouths only visible when opened, and their general
aspect like that of a Scotch haggis; and there is a time when all this
accumulates on man and beast till the latter takes to the water in
desperation, and the former takes to intermittent insanity, and that
time is--_summer_.--Another cup, please, Mrs Stanley.  'Pon my
conscience, it creates thirst to think of it."

At this stage the conversation of the party in the tent was interrupted
by a loud peal of laughter mingled with not a few angry exclamations
from the men.  La Roche, in one of his frantic leaps to avoid a tongue
of flame which shot out from the fire with a vicious velocity towards
his eyes, came into violent contact with Bryan while that worthy was in
the act of lifting a seething kettle of soup and boiled pork from the
fire.  Fortunately for the party whose supper was thus placed in
jeopardy, Bryan stood his ground; but La Roche, tripping over a log,
fell heavily among the pannikins, tin plates, spoons, and knives, which
had been just laid out on the ground in front of the canoe.

"Ach! mauvais chien," growled Gaspard, as he picked up and threw away
the fragments of his pipe, "you're always cuttin' and jumpin' about like
a monkey."

"Oh! pauvre crapaud," cried Francois, laughing; "don't abuse him,
Gaspard.  He's a useful dog in his way."

"Tare an' ages! you've done it now, ye have.  Bad luck to ye! wasn't I
for iver tellin' ye that same.  Shure, if it wasn't that ye're no bigger
or heavier than a wisp o' pea straw, ye'd have druve me and the soup
into the fire, ye would.  Be the big toe o' St. Patrick, not to mintion
his riverince the Pope--"

"Come, come, Bryan," cried Massan, "don't speak ill o' the Pope, an'
down wi' the kettle."

"The kittle, is it?  Sorra a kittle ye'll touch, Massan, till it's cool
enough to let us all start fair at wance.  Ye've got yer mouth and
throat lined wi' brass, I believe, an' would ate the half o't before a
soul of us could taste it!"

"Don't insult me, you red-faced racoon," retorted Massan, while he and
his comrades circled round the kettle, and began a vigorous attack on
the scalding mess; "my throat is not so used to swallowin' fire as your
own.  I never knowed a man that payed into the grub as you do.--Bah! how
hot it is.--I say, Oolibuck, doesn't it remember you o' the dogs o' yer
own country, when they gits the stone kettle to clean out?"

Oolibuck's broad visage expanded with a chuckle as he lifted an enormous
wooden spoonful of soup to his ample mouth.  "Me tink de dogs of de
Innuit [Esquimaux] make short work of dis kettle if 'e had 'im."

"Do the dogs of the Huskies eat with their masters?" inquired Francois,
as he groped in the kettle with his fork in search of a piece of pork.

"Dey not eat _wid_ der masters, but dey al'ays clean hout de kettle,"
replied Moses, somewhat indignantly.

"Ha!" exclaimed Massan, pausing for a few minutes to recover breath;
"yes, they always let the dogs finish off the feast.  Ye must know,
comrades, that I've seed them do it myself--anyways I've seed a man that
knew a feller who said he had a comrade that wintered once with the
Huskies, which is pretty much the same thing.  An' he said that
sometimes when they kill a big seal, they boil it whole an' have a
rig'lar feast.  Ye must understand, mes garcons, that the Huskies make
thumpin' big kettles out o' a kind o' soft stone they find in them
parts, an' some o' them's big enough to boil a whole seal in.  Well,
when the beast is cooked, they take it out o' the pot, an' while they're
tuckin' into it, the dogs come and sit in a ring round the pot to wait
till the soup's cool enough to eat.  They knows well that it's too hot
at first, an' that they must have a deal o' patience; but afore long
some o' the young uns can't hold on, so they steps up somewhat desperate
like, and pokes their snouts in.  Of course they pulls them out pretty
sharp with a yell, and sit down to rub their noses for a bit longer.
Then the old uns take courage an' make a snap at it now and again, but
very tenderly, till it gits cooler at last, an' then at it they go,
worryin', an' scufflin', an' barkin', an' gallopin', just like Moses
there, till the pot's as clean as the day it wos made."

"Ha! ha! oh, ver' goot, tres bien; ah! mon coeur, just tres
splendiferous!" shouted La Roche, whose risibility was always easily
tickled.

"It's quite true, though--isn't it, Moses?" said Massan, as he once more
applied to the kettle, while some of his comrades cut up the goose that
Frank had shot in the afternoon.

"Why, Moses, what a capacity you have for grub!" said Francois.  "If
your countrymen are anything like you, I don't wonder that they have
boiled seals and whales for dinner."

"It'll take a screamin' kittle for a whale," spluttered Bryan, with his
mouth full, "an' a power o' dogs to drink the broth."

"You tink you funny, Bryan," retorted Moses, while an oily smile beamed
on his fat, good-humoured countenance; "but you not; you most dreadful
stupid."

"Thrue for ye, Moses; I was oncommon stupid to let you sit so long
beside the kittle," replied the Irishman, as he made a futile effort to
scrape another spoonful from the bottom of it.  "Och! but ye've licked
it as clane as one of yer own dogs could ha' done it."

"Mind your eye!" growled Gaspard, at the same time giving La Roche a
violent push, as that volatile worthy, in one of his eccentric
movements, nearly upset his can of water.

"Oh! pardon, monsieur," exclaimed La Roche, in pretended sorrow, at the
same time making a grotesque bow that caused a general peal of laughter.

"Why, one might as well travel with a sick bear as with you, Gaspard,"
said Francois half angrily.

"Hold your jaw," replied Gaspard.

"Not at your bidding," retorted Francois, half rising from his reclining
posture, while his colour heightened.  Gaspard had also started up, and
it seemed as if the little camp were in danger of becoming a scene of
strife, when Dick Prince, who was habitually silent and unobtrusive,
preferring generally to listen rather than to speak, laid his hand on
Gaspard's broad shoulder and pulled him somewhat forcibly to the ground.

"Shame on you, comrades!" he said, in a low, grave voice, that instantly
produced a dead silence; "shame on you, to quarrel on our first night in
the bush!  We've few enough friends in these parts, I think, that we
should make enemies o' each other."

"That's well said," cried Massan, in a very decided tone.  "It won't do
to fall out when there's so few of us."  And the stout voyageur thrust
his foot against the logs on the fire, causing a rich cloud of sparks to
ascend, as if to throw additional light on his remark.

"Pardon me, mes comrades," cried Francois; "I did not intend to
quarrel;" and he extended his hand to Gaspard, who took it in silence,
and dropping back again to his recumbent posture, resumed his pipe.

This little scene was witnessed by the party in the tent, who were near
enough to overhear all that was said by the men, and even to converse
with them if they should desire to do so.  A shade of anxiety crossed
Mr Stanley's countenance, and some time after, recurring to the
subject, he said--

"I don't feel quite easy about that fellow Gaspard.  He seems a sulky
dog, and is such a Hercules that he might give us a deal of trouble if
he were high-spirited."

A slight smile of contempt curled Frank's lip as he said, "A strong arm
without a bold heart is not of more value than that of my Eda here in
the hour of danger.  But I think better of Gaspard than you seem to do.
He's a sulky enough dog, 'tis true; but he is a good, hard worker, and
does not grumble; and I sometimes have noticed traces of a better spirit
than usually meets the eye.  As for his bulk, I think nothing of it; he
wants high spirit to make it available.  Francois could thrash him any
day."

"Perhaps so," replied Stanley; "I hope they won't try their mettle on
each other sooner than we expect.  Not that I care a whit for any of the
men having a round or two now and then and be done with it; but this
fellow seems to `nurse his wrath to keep it warm.'  On such an
expedition as ours, it behoves us to have a good understanding and a
kindly feeling in the camp.  One black sheep in the flock may do much
damage."

"He's only piebald, not black," said Frank, laughing, as he rose to quit
the tent.  "But I must leave you.  I see that Eda's eyes are refusing to
keep open any longer, so good-night to you all, and a sound sleep."

Frank's concluding remarks in reference to him were overheard by
Gaspard, who had risen to look at the night, and afterwards kneeled near
the tent, in order to be at some distance from his comrades while he
said his prayers; for, strange though it may seem, many of the rough and
reckless voyageurs of that country, most of whom are Roman Catholics,
regularly retire each night to kneel and pray beneath a tree before
lying down on their leafy couches, and deem the act quite consistent
with the swearing and quarrelling life that too many of them lead.  Such
is human nature.  As Gaspard rose from his knees Frank's words fell upon
his ear, and when he drew his blanket over his head that night there was
a softer spot in his heart and a wrinkle less on his brow.

When Frank stepped over to the place where his canoe lay, the aspect of
the camp was very different from what it had been an hour before.  The
fire had burned low, and was little more than a mass of glowing embers,
from which a fitful flame shot forth now and then, casting a momentary
glare on the forms of the men, who, having finished their pipes, were
all extended in a row, side by side, under the large canoe.  As they
possessed only a single green blanket each, they had to make the most of
their coverings, by rolling them tightly around their bodies, and
doubling the ends down under their feet and over their heads; so that
they resembled a row of green bolsters, all their feet being presented
towards the fire, and all their heads resting on their folded capotes.
A good deal of loud and regular snoring proved that toil and robust
health seldom court the drowsy god long in vain.  Turning to his own
canoe, Frank observed that his Indian friends were extended out under
it, with a wide space between them, in which his own bedding was neatly
arranged.  The grave sons of the forest had lain down to rest long
before their white comrades, and they now lay as silent and motionless
as the canoe that covered their heads.  Being a small canoe, it did not
afford protection to their legs and feet; but in fine weather this was
of no consequence, and for the morrow they cared not.

Before lying down Frank kneeled to commend himself and his comrades to
the protection of God; then stirring up the embers of the fire, he
pulled out a small Bible from his breast pocket and sat down on a log to
read.  Frank was a careless, rollicking, kind-hearted fellow, and how
much there was of true religion in these acts none but himself could
tell.  But the _habit_ of reading the Word, and of prayer, had been
instilled into him from infancy by a godly mother, and he carried it
with him into the wilderness.

When he drew his blanket over him and laid his head on his capote the
stars were still twinkling, and the moon still sailed in a clear sky and
gave silver edges to the ice upon the sea.  All was calm and solemn and
beautiful, and it seemed as if it could never be otherwise in such a
tranquil scene.  But nature does not always smile.  Appearances are
often deceitful.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

BRYAN'S ADVENTURE WITH A POLAR BEAR, ETCETERA.

Ice, ice, ice! everything seemed to have been converted into ice when
the day broke on the following morning and awoke the sleepers in the
camp.  A sharp frost during the night, accompanied by a fall of snow,
had, as if by magic, converted spring into winter.  Icy particles hung
upon and covered, not only the young leaves and buds of the bushes, but
the branches also, giving to them a white and extremely airy appearance.
Snow lay on the upper sides of the canoes, and weighed heavily on the
tent, causing its folds, once seemingly so pure and white, to look dirty
by contrast.  Snow lay on the protruding legs of the men, and encircled
the black spot where rested the ashes of last night's brilliant fire.
Ice grated on the pebbles of the shore; ice floated on the sea; icy
hummocks and mounds rose above its surface; and icebergs raised their
pinnacles on the far-off horizon, and cut sharply into the bright blue
sky.

It was cold, but it was not cheerless; for when Eda put out her head at
the curtain doorway of the tent, and opened her eyes upon the magic
scene, the sun's edge rose above the horizon, as if to greet her, and
sent a flood of light far and near through the spacious universe,
converting the sea into glass, with islands of frosted silver on its
bosom.  It was a gorgeous scene, worthy of its great Creator, who in His
mysterious working scatters gems of beauty oftentimes in places where
there is scarce a single human eye to behold their excellence.

Although the sea was covered with ice, there were, nevertheless, several
lanes of open water not far from the shore; so that when Stanley called
a council, composed of Frank Morton, Dick Prince, and Massan, it was
agreed unanimously that they should attempt to proceed.  And it was well
that they did so; for they had not advanced many miles, winding their
way cautiously among the canals of open water, when they doubled a
promontory, beyond which there was little or no ice to be seen, merely a
few scattered fragments and fields, that served to enhance the beauty of
the scene by the airy lightness of their appearance in contrast with the
bright blue of the sea and sky, but did not interrupt the progress of
the travellers.  The three canoes always maintained their relative
positions during the journey as much as possible.  That is to say, Frank
and the two Indians went first in the small canoe, to lead the way,
while the two large canoes kept abreast of each other when the open
water was wide enough to permit of their doing so.  This, besides being
more sociable, enabled the two crews to join in the chorus of those
beautiful songs with which they frequently enlivened the voyage.

During all this day, and for many days following, they continued to
enjoy fine weather and to make rapid progress.  Sometimes the ice was
pretty thick, and once or twice they narrowly escaped being nipped by
collapsing masses, which caused them to jump out, hastily throw the
baggage on the ice, and haul the canoes out of the water.  On these
occasions the men proved themselves to be sterling fellows, nearly all
of them being cool, prompt, and collected in the moment of danger.  No
doubt there were exceptions.  La Roche, when any sudden crisis of danger
arose, usually threw himself blindly over the side of the canoe on to
the ice with the lightness and agility of a harlequin.  He recked not
whether he came down on his head or his feet, and more than once nearly
broke his neck in consequence of his precipitancy.  But La Roche was no
coward, and the instant the first burst of excitement was over he rushed
to render effective assistance.  Bryan, too, although not so mercurial
as La Roche, was apt to lose self-command for about five minutes when
any sudden danger assailed him, so that he frequently sat still, staring
wildly straight before him, while the others were actively unloading the
canoes; and once, when the danger was more critical than usual, having
sat till the canoe was empty, and paid no attention to a prompt, gruff
order to jump ashore, he had been seized by the strong arms of Gaspard
and tossed out of the canoe like a puppy dog.  On these occasions he
invariably endeavoured to make up for his fault by displaying, on
recovery, the most outrageous and daring amount of unnecessary
recklessness,--uttering, at the same time, an amazing number of strange
expressions, among which "Tare an' ages!"  "Och! murder!" and several
others less lucid in signification, predominated.  Chimo was always
first ashore, and instantly wheeled round to greet Eda, who was also
_always_ second, thanks to the strong and prompt arm of Francois, who
sat just in front, and by tacit agreement took her under his special
charge.  As for Mrs Stanley, the arm that was rightfully her own, and
had been her shield in many a scene of danger, proved ever ready and
able to succour the "first volunteer" to Ungava.

At times the sea was quite free of ice, and many miles were soon added
to the space which separated the little band of adventurers from the
rest of the human world.  Their encampments varied according to the
nature of the coast, being sometimes among pine-trees, or surrounded by
dwarf willows; at other times on the bare sand of the sea-shore; and
occasionally at the extremity of long-projecting capes and promontories,
where they had to pitch their tent and make their beds in the clefts of
the solid rock.  But wherever they laid them down to rest--on the rock,
or on the sand, or within the shade of the forest--it was always found,
as Mrs Stanley remarked of the first night's encampment, that they were
extremely comfortable and eminently snug.

They were successful, too, in procuring an ample supply of fresh
provisions.  There were ducks and geese of various kinds, and
innumerable quantities of plover, cormorants, gulls, and eider-ducks,
the eggs of which they found in thousands.  Many of these birds were
good for food, and the eggs of most of them, especially those of the
eider-duck, were excellent.  Reindeer were also met with; and, among
other trophies of his skill as a hunter, Frank one day brought in a
black bear, parts of which were eaten with great gusto by the Esquimaux
and Indians, to the immense disgust of Bryan, who expressed his belief
that the "haythens was barely fit to live," and were most justly locked
out from society in "thim dissolate polar raygeons."  There were many
seals, also, in the sea, which put up their ugly, grotesque heads ever
and anon, gazed at the canoes with their huge, fishy eyes, as in
surprise at the sight of such novel marine monsters, and then sank
slowly beneath the wave.  These animals were never molested, out of
respect to the feelings of the two Indians, who believed them to be
gods, and assured Stanley that the destruction of one would infallibly
bring down ill-luck and disaster on the heads of the party.  Stanley
smiled inwardly at this, but gave orders that no seals should be shot--
an order which all were very willing to obey, as they did not require
the animals either for food or any other purpose.  Several white polar
bears were seen, but they also were spared, as they require a great deal
of shot to kill them, if not hit exactly behind the ear; and besides,
neither their bodies nor skins were of any use to the travellers.

Thus all went favourably for a time.  But life is a chequered story, and
the sun of prosperity does not always shine, as we shall see.

One fine morning, as they were paddling cheerfully along in the
neighbourhood of Cape Jones, it struck Mr Stanley that he might prove
the correctness of his sextant and other instruments before entering
upon the country which to most of the party was _terra incognita_.  This
was the more necessary that he could not depend on the guidance of
Oostesimow and Ma-Istequan, they having travelled only once, long ago,
through part of the country, while the latter part of it was totally
unknown to them.  It was one of those beautiful mornings that are
peculiar to arctic regions, when the air is inexpressibly still, and all
inanimate nature seems hushed in profound repose--a repose which is
rather rendered more effective than otherwise by the plaintive cries of
wild-fowl or the occasional puffing of a whale.  There was a peculiar
brilliancy, too, in the atmosphere, caused by the presence of so many
fields and hummocks of white ice, looming fantastically through a thin,
dry, gauze-like haze, which, while it did not dim the brightness of the
solar rays, lent an additional charm to every object by shrouding it in
a veil of mystery.

On passing the point the men ceased rowing, and proceeded to solace
themselves with a five-minutes' pipe--an indulgence which voyageurs
always claim as their due after a long spell at the oars or paddles.

"Put ashore here, Massan," said Stanley, turning to the guide; "I shall
take an observation, if possible, and you can set the men to hunt for
eggs.  We shall want them, as the larder is rather low just now."

Massan muttered assent, and, shouting to the other canoe to put ashore,
ran alongside the rocks.

"You'd better hail the little canoe," said Stanley, as he landed.  "I
shall want Mr Morton to assist me."

Massan stepped upon an elevated rock, and, shading his eyes with his
hands, looked earnestly ahead where he observed the little canoe almost
beyond vision, and just going to double a point of land.  Transferring
his hands to his mouth, he used them as a trumpet, and gave forth a
shout the like of which had never startled the echoes of the place
before.

"It's no use, sir," said Massan; "he's past hearin'.  I'm afeerd that
they're off in the direction o' the White Bear Hills, in hopes o'
gittin' a shot."

"Try again, Massan," urged Stanley; "raise your pipe a little higher.
Perhaps it will reach them."

Massan shook his head.  "Try it, Bryan," he said, turning to the
Irishman, who was sitting on a rock leisurely filling his short, black
pipe.

"Is it to halloo ye want me?" replied Bryan, rising.  "Shure the great
gun of Athlone itself could niver hold a candle to ye, Massan, at
yellin'; but I'll try, anyhow;" and putting his hands to his mouth he
gave forth a roar compared to which Massan's was nothing.  There was a
sort of crack in the tone of it, however, that was so irresistibly
ridiculous that the whole party burst incontinently into a fit of
laughter.  Loud though it was, it failed to reach the ears of those in
the little canoe, which in a few seconds doubled the point and
disappeared.

"Ah, bad luck to it!" said Bryan, in disgust; "the pipe's damaged
intirely.  Small pace to ye, Bob Mahone; for shure it was howlin' and
screechin' at your wake like a born scrandighowl that broke it."

"Never mind, lad; what remains of it is not bad," said Stanley,
laughing, as he proceeded to open the box containing his scientific
instruments.

Meanwhile his wife and Edith wandered along the rocks picking up shells
and pebbles; and the men dispersed, some to smoke and chat, others to
search for eggs.  Bryan and La Roche, who were both aspiring geniuses,
and had formed a sort of rough attachment to each other, asked
permission to take a walk to the point ahead, where they would wait for
the canoes.  Having obtained it, they set off at a good round pace, that
would have been "throublesome to kape up," as Bryan remarked, "with
payse in yer shoes!"

"Why you come for to jine de company?" inquired La Roche, as they jogged
along.

"Why? bekase I'd nothin' else to do, as the ould song says.  Ye see,
Losh," (Bryan had invented a contraction for his friend's name, which he
said was "convanient")--"ye see, Losh, there may be more nor wan raison
for a gintleman lavin' his native land in order to thravel in furrin
parts.  It's thrue I had nothin' in the univarse to do, for I could
niver git work nohow, an' whin I got it I could niver kape it.  I niver
could onderstan' why, but so it was.  Nivertheless I managed to live
well enough in the ould cabin wid the murphies--"

"Vat is murphies?" inquired La Roche.

"Bliss yer innocent face, don't ye know it's praties?"

"'Tis vat?"

"Praties, boy, or pit-taties, if I must be partic'lar."

"Ah! goot, goot, I understan'--pettitoes.  Oui, oui, ye call him _pomme
de terre_."

"Hum! well, as I was sayin', I got on pretty well wid the pumdeterres
an' the pig, but the pig died wan day--choked hisself on a murphy--that
is, a pumbleterre; an' more betoken, it was the last murphy in the
house, a powerful big wan that my grandmother had put by for supper.
After this ivery thin' wint to smithereens.  The rot came, and I thought
I should have to list for a sodger.  Well, Bob Mahone died o' dhrink and
starvation, an' we had a beautiful wake; but there was a rig'lar shindy
got up, an' two or three o' the county p'lice misbehaved themselves, so
I jist floored them all, wan after the other, an' bolted.  Well, I wint
straight to Dublin, an' there I met wid an ould friend who was the
skipper o' a ship bound for New York.  Says he, `Bryan, will ye go?'
Says I, `Av coorse; 'an 'shure enough I wint, an' got over the say to
'Meriky.'  But I could niver settle down, so, wan way or another, I came
at last to Montreal and jined the Company; an' afther knockin' about in
the Columbia and Mackenzie's River for some years, I was sint to Moose,
an' here I am, Losh, yer sarvant to command."

"Goot, ver' goot, mais peculiaire," said La Roche, whose intimacy with
this son of Erin had enabled him to comprehend enough of his jargon to
grasp the general scope of his discourse.

"Av ye mane that lavin' the ould country was _goot_," said Bryan,
stooping to pick up a stone and skim it along the smooth surface of the
sea, "p'raps ye're right; but there's wan thing I niver could make my
mind aisy about," and the blacksmith's voice became deep and his face
grave as he recalled these bygone days.

"Vat were dat?" inquired La Roche.

"Why, ye see, Losh, I was so hard druve by the p'lice that I was forced
to lave wid-out sayin' good day to my ould mother, an' they tould me it
almost broke her heart; but I've had wan or two screeds from the priest
wid her cross at them since, and she's got over it, an' lookin' out for
my returnin'--bliss her sowl!--an' I've sint her five pounds ivery year
since I left: so ye see, Losh, I've great hope o' seein' her yit, for
although she's ould she's oncommon tough, an' having come o' a
long-winded stock, I've great hopes o' her."

Poor Bryan! it never entered into his reckless brain to think that,
considering the life of almost constant peril he led in the land of his
pilgrimage, there was more hope of the longevity of his old mother than
of himself.  Like many of his countrymen, he was a man of strong,
passionate, warm feelings, and remarkably unselfish.

"Is your contry resemblance to dat?" inquired La Roche, pointing, as he
spoke, towards the sea, which was covered with fields and mountains of
ice as far out as the eye could discern.

"Be the nose o' my great-grandmother (an' that was be no manes a short
wan), no!" replied Bryan, with a laugh.  "The say that surrounds ould
Ireland is niver covered with sich sugar-plums as these.  But what have
we here?"

As he spoke they reached the point at which they were to await the
coming up of the canoes, and the object which called forth Bryan's
remark was the little canoe, which lay empty on the beach just beyond
the point.  From the manner in which it lay it was evident that Frank
and his Indians had placed it there; but there was no sign of their
presence save one or two footprints on the sand.  While La Roche was
examining these, his companion walked towards a point of rock that
jutted out from the cliffs and intercepted the view beyond.  On turning
round this, he became suddenly rooted to the spot with horror.  And
little wonder, for just two yards before him stood an enormous polar
bear, whose career was suddenly arrested by Bryan's unexpected
appearance.  It is difficult to say whether the man or the beast
expressed most surprise at the rencounter.  They both stood stock still,
and opened their eyes to the utmost width.  But the poor Irishman was
evidently petrified by the apparition.  He turned deadly pale, and his
hands hung idly by his sides; while the bear, recovering from his
surprise, rose on his hind legs and walked up to him--a sure sign that
he was quite undaunted, and had made up his mind to give battle.  As for
La Roche, the instant he cast his eyes on the ferocious-looking
quadruped, he uttered a frightful yell, bounded towards a neighbouring
tree, and ceased not to ascend until its topmost branches were bending
beneath his weight.  Meanwhile the bear walked up to Bryan, but not
meeting with the anticipated grapple of an enemy, and feeling somewhat
uneasy under the cataleptic stare of the poor man's eyes--for he still
stood petrified with horror--it walked slowly round him, putting its
cold nose on his cheek, as if to tempt him to move.  But the five
minutes of bewilderment that always preceded Bryan's recovery from a
sudden fright had not yet expired.  He still remained perfectly
motionless, so that the bear, disdaining, apparently, to attack an
unresisting foe, dropped on his forelegs again.  It is difficult to say
whether there is any truth in the well-known opinion that the calm,
steady gaze of a human eye can quell any animal.  Doubtless there are
many stories, more or less authentic, corroborative of the fact; but
whether this be true or not, we are ready to vouch for the truth of
_this_ fact--namely, that under the influence of the blacksmith's gaze,
or his silence it may be, the bear was absolutely discomfited.  It
retreated a step or two, and walked slowly away, looking over its
shoulder now and then as it went, as if it half anticipated an onslaught
in the rear.

We have already said that Bryan was no craven, and that when his
faculties were collected he usually displayed a good deal of reckless
valour on occasions of danger.  Accordingly, no sooner did he see his
shaggy adversary in full retreat, than the truant blood returned to his
face with a degree of violence that caused it to blaze with fiery red,
and swelled the large veins of his neck and forehead almost to bursting.
Uttering a truly Irish halloo, he bounded forward like a tiger, tore
the cap off his head and flung it violently before him, drew the axe
which always hung at his belt, and in another moment stood face to face
with the white monster, which had instantly accepted the challenge, and
rose on its hind legs to receive him.  Raising the axe with both hands,
the man aimed a blow at the bear's head; but with a rapid movement of
its paw it turned the weapon aside and dashed it into the air.  Another
such blow, and the reckless blacksmith's career would have been brought
to an abrupt conclusion, when the crack of a rifle was heard.  Its echo
reverberated along the cliffs and floated over the calm water as the
polar bear fell dead at Bryan's feet.

"Hurrah!" shouted Frank Morton, as he sprang from the bushes, knife in
hand, ready to finish the work which his rifle had so well begun.  But
it needed not.  Frank had hit the exact spot behind the ear which
renders a second ball unnecessary--the bear was already quite dead.



CHAPTER NINE.

A STORM BREWING--IT BURSTS, AND PRODUCES CONSEQUENCES--THE PARTY TAKE TO
THE WATER PER FORCE--ALL SAVED.

"Ah, Bryan! `a friend in need is a friend indeed,'" said Frank, as he
sat on a rock watching the blacksmith and his two Indians while they
performed the operation of skinning the bear, whose timely destruction
has been related in the last chapter.  "I must say I never saw a man
stand his ground so well, with a brute like that stealing kisses from
his cheek.  Were they sweet, Bryan?  Did they remind you of the fair
maid of Derry, hey?"

"Ah! thrue for ye," replied the blacksmith, as he stepped to a rock for
the purpose of whetting his knife; "yer honour was just in time to save
me a power o' throuble.  Bad skran to the baste! it would have taken
three or four rounds at laste to have finished him nately off, for
there's no end o' fat on his ribs that would have kep' the knife from
goin' far in."

Frank laughed at this free-and-easy way of looking at it.  "So you think
you would have killed him, do you, if I had not saved you the trouble?"

"Av coorse I do.  Shure a man is better than a baste any day; and
besides, had I not a frind at my back ridy to help me?"  Bryan cast a
comical leer at La Roche as he said this, and the poor Frenchman
blushed, for he felt that his conduct in the affair had not been very
praiseworthy.  It is due to La Roche to say, however, that no sooner had
he found himself at the top of the tree, and had a moment to reflect,
than he slid rapidly to the bottom again, and ran to the assistance of
his friend, not, however, in time to render such assistance available,
as he came up just at the moment the bear fell.

In half an hour afterwards the two large canoes came up, and Bryan and
his little friend had to undergo a rapid fire of witticism from their
surprised and highly-amused comrades.  Even Moses was stirred up to say
that "Bryan, him do pratty well; he most good 'nuff to make an Eskimo!"

Having embarked the skin of the bear, the canoes once more resumed their
usual order and continued on their way.  The carcass of the bear being
useless for food, was left for the wolves; and the claws, which were
nearly as large as a man's finger, were given by Frank to the
blacksmith, that he might make them into a necklace, as the Indians do,
and keep it in remembrance of his rencounter.

But the weather was now beginning to change.  Dick Prince, whose black
eye was ever roving about observantly, told Massan that a storm was
brewing, and that the sooner he put ashore in a convenient spot the
better.  But Stanley was anxious to get on, having a long journey before
him, at the termination of which there would be little enough time to
erect a sufficient protection against the winter of the north; so he
continued to advance along shore until they came to a point beyond which
there was a very deep bay that would take them many hours to coast.  By
making a traverse, however, in a direct line to the next point, they
might cross it in a much shorter time.

"How say you, Prince? shall we cross?" asked Stanley, as they rested on
their paddles and cast furtive glances up at the dark clouds and across
the still quiet bay.

Prince shook his head.  "I fear we won't have time to cross.  The clouds
are driving too fast and growin' black."

"Well, then, we had better encamp," said Stanley.--"Is there a proper
place, Massan, hereabouts?"

"No, sir," replied the guide.  "The stones on the beach are the only
pillows within six mile o' us."

"Ho! then, forward, boys, make a bold push for it," cried Stanley; "if
it does begin to blow before we're over, we can run back again at all
events."

In another moment the canoes swept out to sea, and made for the point
far ahead like race-horses.  Although the clouds continued to gather,
the wind did not rise, and it seemed as though they would get over
easily, when a sudden gust came off the shore--a direction whence, from
the appearance of the clouds, it had not been expected.  Ruffling the
surface of the water for a few seconds, it passed away.

"Give way, boys, give way," cried Massan, using his large steering
paddle with a degree of energy that sent the canoe plunging forward.
"We can't go back, an' if the storm bursts off the shore--"

A loud peal of thunder drowned the remainder of the sentence, and in a
few seconds the wind that had been dreaded came whistling violently off
the shore and covered the sea with foam.  The waves soon began to rise,
and ere long the frail barks, which were ill calculated to weather a
storm, were careering over them and shipping water at every plunge.

It now became a matter of life and death with them that they should gain
the point, for, deeply loaded as they were, it was impossible that they
could float long in such a sea.  It is true that a wind off the shore
does not usually raise what sailors would consider much of a sea; but it
must be remembered that, although it was off shore, the bay which they
were crossing extended far inland, so that the gale had a wide sweep of
water to act upon before it reached them.  Besides this, as has already
been explained, canoes are not like boats.  Their timbers are weak, the
bark of which they are made is thin, the gum which makes their seams
tight is easily knocked off in cold water, and, in short, they cannot
face a sea on which a boat might ride like a sea-gull.

For a considerable time the men strained every nerve to gain the
wished-for point of land, but with so little success that it became
evident they would never reach it.  The men began to show signs of
flagging, and cast uneasy glances towards Stanley, as if they had lost
all hope of accomplishing their object, and waited for him to suggest
what they should do.  Poor Mrs Stanley sat holding on to the gunwale
with one hand and clasping Edith round the waist with the other, as she
gazed wistfully towards the cape ahead, which was now almost lost to
view under the shadow of a dark cloud that rolled towards them like a
black pall laden with destruction.

"God help us!" murmured Stanley, in an undertone, as he scanned the
seaward horizon, which was covered with leaden clouds and streaks of
lurid light, beneath which the foaming sea leaped furiously.

"Call upon Me in the time of trouble, and I will deliver thee," said
Mrs Stanley, who overheard the exclamation.

Stanley either heard her not or his mind was too deeply concentrated on
the critical nature of their position to make any reply.  As she buried
her face in her hands, Edith threw her trembling arms round her mother
and hid her face in her bosom.  Even Chimo seemed to understand their
danger, for he crept closer to the side of his young mistress and whined
in a low tone, as if in sympathy.  The waves had now increased to such a
degree that it required two of the men to bail incessantly in order to
prevent their being swamped, and as Stanley cast a hurried glance at the
other canoes, which were not far off, he observed that it was as much as
they could do to keep afloat.  "Could we not run back, Massan?" asked
Stanley, in despair.

"Unposs'ble, sir," replied the guide, whose voice was almost drowned by
the whistling of the wind.  "We're more nor half-way over, an' it would
only blow us farther out to sea if we was to try."

While the guide spoke, Stanley was gazing earnestly in the direction of
the horizon.

"Round with you, Massan," he exclaimed suddenly; "put the canoe about
and paddle straight out to sea.--Hallo!" he shouted to the other canoes,
"follow us out to sea--straight out."

The men looked aghast at this extraordinary order.  "Look alive, lads,"
continued their leader; "I see an island away there to leeward.  Perhaps
it's only a rock, but any way it's our only chance."

The canoes' heads were turned round, and in another moment they were
driving swiftly before the wind in the direction of the open sea.

"Right, right," murmured Dick Prince, as they made towards this new
source of hope; "mayhap it's only a bit o' ice, but even that's better
than nothin'."

"If 'tis only ice," cried La Roche, "ye have ver' pauvre chance at all."

"Shure, an' if we are to go ashore at all, at all," said Bryan, whose
spirits had suddenly risen with this gleam of hope from fifty degrees
below to fifty above zero--"if we are to go ashore at all, at all, it's
better to land on the ice than on the wather."

With such a breeze urging them on, the three canoes soon approached what
appeared to be a low sand-bank, on which the sea was dashing in white
foam.  But from the tossing of the waves between them and the beach, it
was difficult to form a conjecture as to its size.  Indeed, at times
they could scarcely see it at all, owing to the darkness of the day and
the heavy rain which began to fall just as they approached; and more
than once Stanley's heart sank when he lost sight of the bank, and he
began to think that he had made a mistake, and that they were actually
flying out to the deep sea, in which case all hope would be gone for
ever.  But God's mercy was extended to them in this hour of peril.  The
island appeared to grow larger as they neared it, and at last they were
within a stone's-throw of the shore.  But a new danger assailed them
here.  The largest canoe, which neared the island first, had begun to
leak, and took in water so fast that the utmost efforts of those who
bailed could not keep it under, and from the quantity that was now
shipped they made very little way.  To add to the horror of the scene,
the sky became very dark, and another crash of thunder pealed forth
accompanied by a blinding flash of lightning.

"Paddle, boys, paddle for your lives!" cried Stanley, throwing off his
coat, and seizing a tin dish, with which he began to throw out the
water.

The canoe rose on a huge wave which broke all round it.  This nearly
filled it with water, and carried it towards the shore with such
velocity that it seemed as if they should be dashed in pieces; but they
fell back into the trough of the sea, and lay motionless like a heavy
log, and in a sinking condition.

"Now, lads, look out for the next wave, and give way with a will," cried
Massan.  The worthy steersman acted rather too energetically on his own
advice, for he dipped his paddle with such force that it snapped in two.

"Be ready to jump out," cried Dick Prince, standing up in the bow in
order to give more power to his strokes.

As he spoke, Stanley turned to his wife, and said, "Jessie, hold on by
my collar; I'll take Eda in my arms."  At that instant the canoe gave a
lurch, and before Stanley could grasp his child, they were all
struggling in the sea!  At this awful moment, instead of endeavouring to
do as her husband directed, Mrs Stanley instinctively threw her arms
around Edith, and while the waves were boiling over her, she clasped the
child tightly to her bosom with her left arm, while with her right she
endeavoured to raise herself to the surface.  Twice she succeeded, and
twice she sank, when a box of merchandise providentially struck her arm.
Seizing this, she raised herself above the water, and poor Edith gasped
convulsively once or twice for air.  Then the box was wrenched from her
grasp by a wave, and with a wild shriek she sank again.  Just then a
strong arm was thrown around her, her feet touched the ground, and in a
few seconds she was dragged violently from the roaring waves and fell
exhausted on the beach.

"Thanks be to God, we are saved!" murmured Mrs Stanley, as her husband
assisted her to rise and led her beyond the reach of the waves, while
Edith still clung with a deadly grasp to her mother's neck.

"Ay, Jessie, thank God indeed!  But for His mercy we should have all
been lost.  I was floundering about beside the canoe when your scream
showed me where you were, and enabled me to save you.  But rest here, in
the lee of this bale.--I cannot stay by you.  Frank is in danger still."

Without waiting for a reply, he sprang from her side and hurried down to
the beach.  Here everything was in the utmost confusion.  The two large
canoes had been saved and dragged out of the reach of the waves, and the
men were struggling in the boiling surf to rescue the baggage and
provisions, on which latter their very lives depended.  As Stanley
reached the scene of action, he observed several of the men watching the
small canoe which contained Frank and his two Indians.  It had been left
some distance behind by the others, and was now approaching with arrow
speed on the summit of a large wave.  Suddenly the top of the billow
curled over, and in another moment the canoe was turned bottom up!  Like
a cork it danced on the wave's white crest, then falling beneath the
thundering mass of water, it was crushed to pieces and cast empty upon
the beach.  But Frank and his men swam like otters, and the party on
shore watched them with anxious looks as they breasted manfully over the
billows.  At last a towering wave came rolling majestically forward.  It
caught the three swimmers in its rough embrace, and carrying them along
on its crest, launched them on the beach, where it left them struggling
with the retreating water.  Those who have bathed in rough weather on an
exposed coast know well how difficult it is to regain a firm footing on
loose sand while a heavy wave is sweeping backward into its parent
ocean.  Frank and the two Indians experienced this; and they might have
struggled there till their strength had been exhausted, were it not for
Stanley, Prince, and Massan, who rushed simultaneously into the water
and rescued them.

As the whole party had now, by the goodness of God, reached the land in
safety, they turned their undivided energies towards the bales and boxes
which were rolling about in the surf.  Many of these had been already
collected, and were carried to the spot where Mrs Stanley and Edith lay
under the shelter of a bale.  As the things were successively brought up
they were piled around the mother and child, who soon found themselves
pretty well sheltered from the wind, though not from the rain, which
still fell in torrents.  Soon after Frank came to them, and said that
all the things were saved, and that it was time to think of getting up
some sort of shelter for the night.  This was very much needed, for poor
Edith was beginning to shiver from the wet and cold.

"Now then, Francois, Massan," shouted Frank, "lend a hand here to build
a house for Eda.  We'll be all as snug as need be in a few minutes."

Despite the cold and her recent terror, the poor child could not help
smiling at the idea of building a house in a few minutes, and it was
with no little curiosity that she watched the operations of the men.
Meanwhile Mr Stanley brought some wine in a pannikin, and made Edith
and his wife drink a little.  This revived them greatly, and as the rain
had now almost ceased they rose and endeavoured to wring the water out
of their garments.  In less than half an hour the men piled the bales
and boxes in front of the largest canoe, which was turned bottom up, and
secured firmly in that position by an embankment of sand.  Over the top
of all, three oil-cloths were spread and lashed down, thus forming a
complete shelter, large enough to contain the whole party.  At one end
of this curious house Mr Stanley made a separate apartment for his wife
and child, by placing two large bales and a box as a partition; and
within this little space Edith soon became very busy in arranging
things, and "putting the house to rights," as she said, as long as the
daylight lasted, for after it went away they had neither candles nor
fire, as the former had been soaked and broken, and as for the latter no
wood could be found on the island.  The men's clothes were, of course,
quite wet, so they cut open a bale of blankets, which had not been so
much soaked as the other goods, having been among the first things that
were washed ashore.

At the time they were wrecked the dashing spray and the heavy rain,
together with the darkness of the day, had prevented the shipwrecked
voyageurs from ascertaining the nature of the island on which they had
been cast; and as the night closed in while they were yet engaged in the
erection of their temporary shelter, they had to lie down to rest in
ignorance on this point.  After such a day of unusual fatigue and
excitement, they all felt more inclined for rest than food; so, instead
of taking supper, they all lay down huddled together under the canoe,
and slept soundly, while the angry winds whistled round them, and the
great sea roared and lashed itself into foam on the beach, as if
disappointed that the little band of adventurers had escaped and were
now beyond the reach of its impotent fury.



CHAPTER TEN.

THE SAND-BANK--DISMAL PROSPECTS--CONSULTATIONS--INTERNAL ARRANGEMENTS
EXPOSED AND DETAILED.

Of all the changes that constantly vary the face of nature, the calm
that succeeds a storm is one of the most beautiful, and the most
agreeable, perhaps, to the feelings of man.  Few conditions of nature
convey to the mind more thoroughly the idea of complete repose--of deep
rest after mortal strife, of sleep after exhausting toil; and those who
have passed through the violence of the storm and done battle with its
dangers are, by the physical rest which they enjoy after it is over, the
more fitted to appreciate and sympathise with the repose which reigns
around them.

When the sun rose, on the morning after the storm, it shone upon a scene
so calm and beautiful, so utterly unconnected with anything like the sin
of a fallen world, and so typical, in its deep tranquillity, of the mind
of Him who created it, that it seemed almost possible for a moment to
fancy that the promised land was gained at last, and that all the dark
clouds, the storms and dangers, the weary journeyings and the troubles
of the wilderness, were past and gone for ever.  So glorious was the
scene that when Edith, rising from her rude couch and stepping over the
prostrate forms of her still slumbering companions, issued from the
shelter of the canoe and cast her eyes abroad upon the glassy sea, she
could not restrain her feelings, and uttered a thrilling shout of joy
that floated over the waters and reverberated among the glittering crags
of the surrounding icebergs.

The island on which the travellers had been cast was a mere knoll of
sand, not more than a few hundred yards in circumference, that scarcely
raised its rounded summit above the level of the water, and at full tide
was reduced to a mere speck, utterly destitute of vegetation.  The sea
around it was now smooth and clear as glass, though undulated by a long,
regular swell, which rolled, at slow, solemn intervals, in majestic
waves towards the sand-bank, where they hovered for a moment in curved
walls of dark-green water, then, lipping over, at their crests, fell in
a roar of foam that hissed a deep sigh on the pebbles of the beach, and
left the silence greater than before.  Masses of ice floated here and
there on the surface of the deep, the edges and fantastic points of
which were tipped with light.  Not far from the northern extremity of
the sand-bank a large iceberg had grounded, from the sides of which
several pinnacles had been hurled by the shock and now lay stranded on
the beach.

The shout with which Edith had welcomed the morning roused the whole
party, and in a few minutes they were all assembled outside of their
little hut, some admiring the scene, others--of a less enthusiastic and
more practical turn--examining the circumstances of their position, and
considering the best course that should be pursued in their difficulty.

Mr Stanley, Dick Prince, and Massan, as was their wont, held a council
upon the existing state of things, and after much gazing round at the
sea and up at the sky, and considerable grunting of his deep voice and
rubbing of his capacious chin, on the part of the latter, he turned to
Dick Prince, as if appealing to his superior sagacity, and said--

"Well, ye see, my 'pinion's jist this: yonder's the mainland there"
(pointing to the eastward, where, about ten miles distant, the rocks and
trees were seen distorted and faintly looming through a tremulous haze),
"an' there's our canoes _there_" (jerking his thumb over his shoulder in
the direction of the large canoes, whose torn sides and damaged ribs, as
they lay exposed on the sand, bore sad testimony to the violence of the
previous night's storm), "and there's the little canoe yonder,"
(glancing towards the craft in question, which lay on the beach a
hopelessly-destroyed mass of splinters and shreds of bark that projected
and bristled in all directions, as in uncontrollable amazement at the
suddenness and entirety of its own destruction).  "Now, that bein' the
case, an' the baggage all wet, an' the day parfitly beautiful, an' the
sun about hot enough to bile the sea, we can't do better nor stay where
we are, an' mend the canoes, dry the goods, an' start fair to-morrow
mornin'."

Stanley looked at Prince, as if expecting a remark from him; but the
grave countenance of the silent bowman indicated that he was absorbed in
contemplation.

"'Tis quite evident, Massan," said Stanley, "that we must repair the
canoes; but a few hours could do that, and I don't like the idea of
staying another night on a strip of sand like this, which, I verily
believe, another stiff nor'-wester would blow away altogether.--But what
say you, Prince?  Do you advise our remaining?"

"Yes," replied Dick, "I do.  Ye see there's no fear of another storm
soon.  'Tis a good chance for dryin' the goods, so I vote for stoppin'."

"Well, then, we shall stay," replied Stanley.  "To say truth, I agreed
with you at first, Massan, but it's always advisable to look at both
sides of a question--"

"Yes, and `in the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom,'" said Frank
Morton, coming up at the moment, and tapping his friend on the shoulder.
"If you will include me in your confabulation, you shall have the
benefit of deep experience and far-sighted sagacity."

"Come, then, Master Frank," replied Stanley, "what does your sagacity
advise on the point of our staying on this sandbank?  Shall we spend
another night on it in order to dry the goods, or shall we up and away
to _terra firma_ as soon as the canoes are seaworthy?"

"Stay, of course," said Frank.  "As to the sand-bank, 'tis firm enough,
to my mind, after resisting the shock of the wave that dashed me ashore
last night.  Then we have everything we need--shelter and food, and even
fuel."  As Frank mentioned the last word, he glanced round with a rueful
countenance and pointed to the bark and timbers of his broken canoe.

"True, Frank, we have wherewith to boil the kettle, and as the
water-cask was full when we started yesterday morning, there will be
enough at least for one or two days."

"By the way, that reminds me that Eda and your wife are particularly
desirous of having breakfast," said Frank.  "In fact they sent me
specially to lay their melancholy case before you; and I have great
fears that Eda will lay violent hands on the raw pork if her morning
meal is delayed much longer.  As for Chimo, he is rushing about the
island in a state of ravenous despair; so pray let us be going."

"Be it so, Frank," said Stanley, taking his friend's arm, and sauntering
towards the canoe, while Massan and Prince went to inform their comrades
of the determination of their leader.

In an hour after the above discourse breakfast was over, and the men,
under Stanley's inspection, arranged and examined the baggage, which,
considering that it had been rolled about by the surf for a considerable
time, was not so much soaked as might have been expected.  The two kegs
of gunpowder were first inspected, being the most valuable part of the
cargo, as on them depended much of their future livelihood.  They were
found to be quite dry, except a small portion of powder at the seams of
the staves, which, having caked with the moisture, had saved the rest
from damage.  Some of the bales, however, containing knives and other
hardware, were very wet, and had to be opened out and their contents
wiped and spread out to dry.  Blankets, too, and other woollen garments
that had suffered, were also spread out on the sand, so that in a short
time the little island was quite covered with a strange assortment of
miscellaneous articles, that gave to it the appearance of a crowded
store.  The entire wealth of the fur-traders was now exposed to view,
and it may perhaps be interesting to enumerate the different articles,
in order to give some idea of the outfit deemed necessary on such an
expedition.

And, first, there were two kegs of gunpowder, as before mentioned,
containing each thirty pounds, with four bags of ball and three of shot
of various sizes--in all, about 250 pounds of lead.  Six nets of four
and a half inch mesh.  A large quantity of twine for making nets--most
of the men being able to construct these useful articles.  A small bag
of gun-flints.  Sixty pounds of roll tobacco.  Twelve large axes.  Six
augers.  Seven dozen scalping-knives.  Six pounds of variously-coloured
beads.  Two dozen fire-steels, and a pretty large assortment of awls,
needles, thread, nails, and such like small articles, which, though
extremely useful, were too numerous and comparatively insignificant to
mention in detail.  Besides these, there was a small bale containing
gaudy ornaments and attractive articles, which were intended as
propitiatory presents to the Esquimaux when they should be met with.
Then there were two runlets of salt pork, containing about ninety pounds
each, and in the centre of each runlet were two hams.  A barrel of flour
and a barrel of oatmeal constituted all their provision, if we except a
small cask of hard biscuit, and a little tea and sugar, which were the
private property of Stanley and Frank Morton.  There was also a large
deerskin tent, capable of holding from twenty to thirty men, which was
intended to be used while they were engaged in building their winter
residence at Ungava.  As to arms, each man had one of the long
single-barrelled fowling-pieces that are supplied by the Fur Company to
the natives, and are styled Indian guns.  Stanley had a double-barrelled
flint fowling-piece; and Frank had a rifle, besides a single gun of a
description somewhat finer than that supplied to the Indians.  Of course
each man carried a scalping-knife and an axe in his belt, not for the
purpose of self-defence, but for carving their food and cutting their
fuel.

It may be well to remark here that the goods and provisions which we
have detailed above were merely intended as a supply for their immediate
necessities, and to enable them to commence active operations at once on
arriving at their destination, while the heavy stores and goods
necessary for the year's trade were to be forwarded in a small sloop
from the depot direct through Hudson's Straits to Ungava Bay.

When the work of unpacking and exposing the things to dry in the sun was
accomplished, it was long past noon, and high time for dinner; so a fire
was lighted by Bryan, who cut up another portion of Frank's canoe for
the purpose.  A rasher of pork and a flour cake were disposed of by each
of the party in a surprisingly short time, and then the men bestirred
themselves in mending the canoes.  This was a more troublesome job than
they expected, but being accustomed not only to mend but to make canoes,
they worked with a degree of skill and diligence that speedily put all
to rights.  In Massan's canoe there was a hole large enough, as Bryan
remarked, to stick his head through, though it was a "big wan, an' no
mistake."  Taking up a roll of bark, which was carried with them for the
purpose, Massan cut from it a square patch, which he _sewed_ over the
hole, using an awl for a needle and the fibrous roots of the pine tree,
called wattape, for thread.  After it was firmly sewed on, the seams
were covered with melted gum, and the broken spot was as tight and
strong as ever.  There were next found several long slits, one of them
fully three feet, which were more easily managed, as they merely
required to be sewed and covered with gum.  Several broken ribs,
however, were not so easily repaired.  Had there been any wood on the
island, Massan's quick knife would have soon fashioned new ribs; as it
was, he had to make the best job he could, by splicing the old ones with
several pieces abstracted from Frank's little canoe.

It was sunset before all was put in complete order, the goods repacked,
and placed in readiness for a start at daybreak on the following
morning.  After all was done, the remains of the small canoe were
converted into a bonfire, round which the tired and hungry travellers
assembled to smoke and chat, while supper was being prepared by the
indefatigable Bryan and his friend La Roche.  As the day faded away the
stars came out, one by one, until they glittered in millions in the sky,
while the glare of the fire became every moment more and more intense as
the darkness deepened.  It was a strange, wild scene,--especially when
viewed from the extremity of the little sand-bank, which was so low as
to be almost indiscernible in the dark night, and seemed scarce a
sufficient foundation for the little busy group of human beings who
stood radiant in the red light of their camp-fire, like a blazing gem
cast upon the surface of the great, cold sea.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

START AFRESH--SUPERSTITIOUS NOTIONS--THE WHIRLPOOL--THE INTERIOR--
FISHING IN THE OLD WAY ON NEW GROUND, AND WHAT CAME OF IT--A COLD BATH--
THE RESCUE--SAVED--DEEPER AND DEEPER INTO THE WILDERNESS.

As if to make amends for its late outrageous conduct, the weather, after
the night of the great storm, continued unbrokenly serene for many days,
enabling our travellers to make rapid progress towards their
destination: It would be both tiresome and unnecessary to follow them
step by step throughout their journey, as the part of it which we have
already described was, in many respects, typical of the whole voyage
along the east coast of Hudson's Bay.  Sometimes, indeed, a few
incidents of an unusual character did occur.  Once they were very nearly
being crushed between masses of ice; twice the larger canoe struck on a
hummock, and had to be landed and repaired; and frequently mishaps of a
slighter nature befell them.  Their beds, too, varied occasionally.  At
one time they laid them down to rest on the sand of the sea-shore; at
another, on the soft turf and springy moss of the woods.  Sometimes they
were compelled to content themselves with a couch of pebbles, few of
which were smaller than a man's fist; and, not unfrequently, they had to
make the best they could of a flat rock, whose unyielding surface seemed
to put the idea of anything like rest to flight, causing the thin men of
the party to growl and the fat ones to chuckle.  Bryan was one of the
well-favoured, being round and fleshy; while his poor little friend La
Roche possessed a framework of bones that were so sparingly covered with
softer substance, as to render it a matter of wonder how he and the
stones could compromise the matter at all, and called forth from his
friend frequent impertinent allusions to "thridpapers, bags o' bones,
idges o' knives, half fathoms o' pump water," and such like curious
substances.  But whatever the bed, it invariably turned out that the
whole party slept soundly from the time they lay down till the time of
rising, which was usually at the break of day.

Owing to the little Indian canoe having been wrecked on the sand-bank,
Frank and his men had to embark in the smaller of the large canoes; a
change which was in some respects a disadvantage to the party, as Frank
could not now so readily dash away in pursuit of game.  However, this
did not much matter, as, in a few days afterwards, they arrived at the
mouth of the river by which they intended to penetrate into the interior
of the country.  The name of the river is Deer River, and it flows into
Richmond Gulf, which is situated on the east shore of Hudson's Bay, in
latitude 56 degrees North.  Richmond Gulf is twenty miles long, and
about the same in breadth; but the entrance to it is so narrow that the
tide pours into it like a torrent until it is full.  The pent-up waters
then rush out on one side of this narrow inlet while they are running in
at the other, causing a whirlpool which would engulf a large boat and
greatly endanger even a small vessel.  Of course it was out of the
question to attempt the passage of such a vortex in canoes, except at
half flood or half ebb tide, at which periods the waters became quiet.
On arriving at the mouth of the gulf, the travellers found the tide out
and the entrance to it curling and rolling in massive volumes, as if all
the evil water-spirits of the north were holding their orgies there.
Oostesimow and Ma-Istequan, being by nature and education intensely
superstitious, told Stanley--after they had landed to await the flow of
the tide--that it was absolutely necessary to perform certain ceremonies
in order to propitiate the deities of the place, otherwise they could
not expect to pass such an awful whirlpool in safety.  Their leader
smiled, and told them to do as they thought fit, adding, however, that
he would not join them, as he did not believe in any deities whatever,
except the one true God, who did not require to be propitiated in any
way, and could not be moved by any other means than by prayer in the
name of Jesus Christ.  The red men seemed surprised a little at this,
but, with their proverbial stoicism, refrained from any further or more
decided expression of feeling.

Nevertheless, the Indians sufficiently showed their faith in their own
doctrines by immediately setting about a series of curious and elaborate
ceremonies, which it was impossible to comprehend, and decidedly
unprofitable to describe.  They appeared, however, to attach much
importance to their propitiatory offerings, the chief among which seemed
to be a few inches of tobacco, with which it was fondly hoped the
deities of the gulf would condescend to smoke the pipe of peace while
their red children ventured to trespass a little on their domain; and
hard indeed must have been the hearts of the said spirits had they
refused so valuable an offering, for tobacco is the life and marrow, the
quintessence of terrestrial felicity, the very joy and comfort of a
voyageur, and the poor Indians had but little of it to spare.

While this was going on, Bryan stood with his back to the fire, a
remarkably short and peculiarly black pipe in his mouth, and his head
inclined sagaciously to one side, as if he designed, by dint of a
combination of intense mental abstraction, partial closing of his eyes,
severe knitting of his brows, and slow but exceedingly voluminous
emission of smoke, to come to a conclusion in regard to the unfathomable
subject of Indian superstition.  La Roche, steeped in unphilosophic
indifference on such matters, and keenly alive to the gross cravings of
hunger, busied himself in concocting a kettle of soup; while the rest of
the party rambled about the beach or among the bushes in search of eggs.
In this latter search Frank and Edith were very successful, and
returned with pockets laden with excellent eggs of the eider-duck, which
were immediately put into the kettle, and tended not a little to
increase the excellence of the soup and the impatience of the men.

Meanwhile the tide rose, the power of the current was gradually checked,
and towards noon they passed the dangerous narrows in safety.  From the
view that was now obtained of the interior, it became evident that the
worst of their journey yet lay before them.  On arriving at the mouth of
Deer River, the mountains were seen to rise abruptly and precipitously,
while far away inland their faint blue peaks rose into the sky.  Indeed
from this point the really hard work of the voyage may be said to have
commenced; for scarcely had they proceeded a few miles up the river,
when their further progress, at least by water, was effectually
interrupted by a rapid which came leaping madly down its rocky bed, as
if the streams rejoiced to escape from the chasms and mountain gorges,
and find rest at last on the ample bosom of the great deep.

"What think ye of that, boy?" said Stanley to Frank Morton, as they
leaped from their respective canoes, and stood gazing at the rugged glen
from which the rapid issued, and the wild appearance of the hills
beyond.  "It seems to me that report spoke truly when it said that the
way to Clearwater Lake was rugged.  Here is no despicable portage to
begin with; and yonder cliffs, that look so soft and blue in the far
distance, will prove to be dark and hard enough when we get at them, I
warrant."

"When we get at them!" echoed Mrs Stanley, as she approached, leading
Edith by the hand.  "Get at them, George!  Had any one asked me if it
were possible to pass over these mountains with our canoes and cargoes,
I should have answered, `Decidedly not!'"

"And yet you were so foolish and reckless as to be the first to
volunteer for this decidedly impossible expedition!" replied Stanley.

"There you are inconsistent," said Mrs Stanley, smiling.  "If reckless,
I cannot be foolish, according to your own showing; for I have heard you
give it as your opinion that recklessness is one of the most essential
elements in the leaders of a forlorn hope.  But really the thing does
seem to my ignorant mind impossible.--What think you, Eda?"

Mrs Stanley bent down and looked into the face of her child, but she
received no reply.  The expanded eyes, indeed, spoke volumes; and the
parted lips, on which played a fitful, exulting smile, the heightened
colour, and thick-coming breath, told eloquently of her anticipated
delight in these new regions, which seemed so utterly different from the
shores of the bay: but her tongue was mute.

And well might Mrs Stanley think the passage over these mountains
impossible; for, except to men accustomed to canoe travelling in the
American lakes and rivers, such an attempt would have appeared as
hopeless as the passage of a ship through the ice-locked polar seas in
winter.

Not so thought the men.  Already several of the most active of them were
scrambling up the cliffs with heavy loads on their backs; and, while
Stanley and his wife were yet conversing, two of them approached
rapidly, bearing the large canoe on their shoulders.  The exclamation
that issued from the foremost of these proved him to be Bryan.

"Now, bad luck to ye, Gaspard! can't ye go stidy?  It's mysilf that'll
be down on me blissid nose av ye go staggerin' about in that fashion.
Sure it's Losh, the spalpeen, that would carry the canoe better than
you."

Gaspard made no reply.  Bryan staggered on, growling as he went, and in
another minute they were hid from view among the bushes.

"What do you see, Frank?" inquired Stanley; "you stare as earnestly as
Bryan did at the white bear last week.  What is't, man?  Speak!"

"A fish," replied Frank.  "I saw him rise in the pool, and I'm certain
he's a very large one."

"Very likely, Frank; there ought to be a fish of some sort there.  I've
been told--hist! there he's again.  As I live, a salmon! a salmon,
Frank!  Now for your rod, my boy."

But Frank heard him not, for he was gone.  In a few minutes he returned
with a fishing-rod, which he was busily engaged in putting up as he
hurried towards the rocks beside the pool.

Now, Frank Morton was a fisher.  We do not mean to say that he was a
fisher by profession; nor do we merely affirm that he was rather fond of
the gentle art of angling, or generally inclined to take a cast when he
happened to be near a good stream.  By no means.  Frank was more than
that implies.  He was a steady, thorough-going disciple of Izaak Walton;
one who, in the days of his boyhood, used to flee to the water-side at
all seasons, in all weathers, and despite all obstacles.  Not only was
it his wont to fish when he could, or how he could, but too often was he
beguiled to fish at times and in ways that were decidedly improper;
sometimes devoting those hours which were set apart expressly for the
acquirement of Greek and Latin, to wandering by mountain stream or tarn,
rod in hand, up to the knees in water, among the braes and woodlands of
his own native country.  And Frank's enthusiasm did not depend entirely
on his success.  It was a standing joke among his school-fellows that
Frank would walk six miles any day for the chance of a nibble from the
ghost of a minnow.  Indeed he was often taunted by his ruder comrades
with being such a keen fisher that he was quite content if he only
hooked a drowned cat during a day's excursion.  But Frank was
good-natured; he smiled at their jests, and held on the even tenor of
his way, whipping the streams more pertinaciously than his master
whipped _him_ for playing truant; content alike to bear ignominy and
chastisement, so long as he was rewarded by a nibble, and overjoyed
beyond expression when he could return home with the tail of a
two-pounder hanging over the edge of his basket.  Far be it from us to
hold up to ridicule the weakness of a friend, but we cannot help adding
that Master Frank made the most of his tails.  His truthful and manly
nature, indeed, would not stoop to actual deception, but he had been
known on more than one occasion to offer to carry a friend's waterproof
fishing-boots in his basket, when his doing so rendered it impossible to
prevent the tails of his trout from protruding arrogantly, as if to
insinuate that there were shoals within.  Another of Frank's weaknesses
was, upon the hooking of every fish, to assert, with overweening
confidence and considerable excitement, that it was a tremendously big
one.  Experience had, during all his piscatorial career, contradicted
him ninety-nine times out of every hundred; but Frank's firm belief in
his last minnow being a big trout--at least until it lay gasping on the
bank at his feet--was as unshaken after long years of mistaken
calculation as when first he sallied forth to the babbling brook with a
willow branch, a fathom of twine, and a crooked pin!

Such untiring devotion, of course, could not fail to make Frank
particularly knowing in all the details and minutiae of his much-loved
sport.  He knew every hole and corner of the rivers and burns within
fifteen miles of his father's house.  He became mysteriously wise in
regard to the weather; knew precisely the best fly for any given day,
and, in the event of being unhappily destitute of the proper kind, could
dress one to perfection in ten minutes.  As he grew older and taller,
and the muscles on his large and well-made limbs began to develop, Frank
slung a more capacious basket on his back, shouldered a heavier rod,
and, with a pair of thick shoes and a home-spun shooting suit, stretched
away over the Highland hills towards the romantic shores of the west
coast of Scotland.  Here he first experienced the wild excitement of
salmon-fishing; and here the Waltonian chains, that had been twining and
thickening around him from infancy, received two or three additional
coils, and were finally riveted for ever.  During his sojourn in
America, he had happened to dwell in places where the fishing, though
good, was not of a very exciting nature; and he had not seen a salmon
since the day he left home, so that it is not matter for wonder that his
stride was rapid and his eye bright while he hurried towards the pool,
as before mentioned.

He who has never left the beaten tracks of men, or trod the unknown
wilderness, can have but a faint conception of the feelings of a true
angler as he stands by the brink of a dark pool which has hitherto
reflected only the antlers of the wild deer--whose dimpling eddies and
flecks of foam have been disturbed by no fisher since the world began,
except the polar bear.  Besides the pleasurable emotions of strong hope,
there is the additional charm of uncertainty as to what will rise, and
of certainty that if there be anything piscatine beneath these
fascinating ripples it undoubtedly _will_ rise--and bite too!  Then
there is the peculiar satisfaction of catching now and then a drop of
spray from, and hearing the thunder of, a cataract, whose free, surging
bound is not yet shackled by the tourist's sentimental description; and
the novelty of beholding one's image reflected in a liquid mirror whose
geographical position is not yet stereotyped on the charts of man.  Alas
for these maps and charts!  Despite the wishes of scientific geographers
and the ignorance of unscientific explorers, we think them far too
complete already; and we can conceive few things more dreadful or
crushing to the enterprising and romantic spirits of the world than the
arrival of that time (if it ever shall arrive) when it shall be said
that _terra incognita_ exists no longer--when every one of those
fairy-like isles of the southern seas, and all the hidden wonders of the
polar regions, shall be put down, in cold blood, on black and white,
exposed profanely on the schoolroom walls, and drummed into the thick
heads of wretched little boys who don't want to learn, by the
unsympathising hands of dominies who, it may be, care but little whether
they do or not!

But to return.  While Frank stood on the rocks, attaching to the line a
salmon-fly which he had selected with much consideration from his book,
he raised his eyes once or twice to take a rapid glance at his position
and the capabilities of the place.  About fifty yards further up the
river the stream curled round the base of a large rock, and gushed into
a pool which was encircled on all sides by an overhanging wall, except
where the waters issued forth in a burst of foam.  Their force, however,
was materially broken by another curve, round which they had to sweep
ere they reached this exit, so that when they rushed into the larger
pool below they calmed down at once, and on reaching the point where
Frank stood, assumed that oily, gurgling surface, dimpled all over with
laughing eddies, that suggests irresistibly the idea of fish not only
being there, as a matter of course, but being there expressly and solely
for the purpose of being caught!  A little further down, the river took
a slight bend, and immediately after, recurring to its straight course,
it dashed down, for a distance of fifty yards, in a tumultuous rapid,
which swept into sudden placidity a few hundred yards below.  Having
taken all this in at a glance, Frank dropped the fly into the water and
raised his rod to make a cast.  In this act he almost broke the rod, to
his amazement; for, instead of whipping the fly lightly out of the
water, he dragged a trout of a pound weight violently up on the bank.

"Bravo!" cried Stanley, laughing heartily at his friend's stare of
mingled wonder and amazement,--"bravo, Frank!  I'm no fisher myself, but
I've always understood that fish required a little play before being
landed.  However, you have convinced me of my ignorance.  I see that the
proper way is to toss them over your head!  A salmon must be rather
troublesome to toss, but no doubt, with your strong arms, you'll manage
it easily, hey?"

"Why, what an appetite they must have!" replied Frank, answering his
friend's badinage with a smile.  "If the little fellows begin thus, what
will not the big ones do?"

As he spoke, he disengaged the fish and threw it down, and made the next
cast so rapidly, that if another trout was waiting to play him a similar
trick, it must have been grievously disappointed.  The line swept
lightly through the air, and the fly fell gently on the stream, where it
had not quivered more than two seconds when the water gurgled around it.
The next moment Frank's rod bent like a hoop, and the line flew through
the rings with whirring rapidity, filling these lonely solitudes for the
first time with the pleasant "music of the reel."  Almost before Frank
had time to take a step in a downward direction, fifty yards were run
out, the waters were suddenly cleft, and a salmon sprang like a bar of
burnished silver twice its own height into the air.  With a sounding
splash it returned to its native element; but scarcely had its fins
touched the water, when it darted towards the bank.  Being brought up
suddenly here, it turned at a tangent, and flashed across the pool
again, causing the reel to spin with renewed velocity.  Here the fish
paused for a second, as if to collect its thoughts, and then coming,
apparently, to a summary determination as to what it meant to do, it
began steadily to ascend the stream, not, indeed, so rapidly as it had
descended, but sufficiently so to give Frank some trouble, by means of
rapidly winding up, to keep the line tight.  Having bored doggedly
towards the head of the rapid, the fish stopped and began to shake its
head passionately, as if indignant at being foiled in its energetic
attempts to escape.  After a little time, it lay sulkily down at the
bottom of the pool, where it defied its persecutor to move it an inch.

"What's to be done now?" asked Stanley, who stood ready to gaff the fish
when brought near to the bank.

"We must rouse him up," said Frank, as he slowly wound up the line.
"Just take up a stone and throw it at him."

Stanley looked surprised, for he imagined that such a proceeding would
frighten the fish and cause it to snap the line; but seeing that Frank
was in earnest, he did as he was directed.  No sooner had the stone sunk
than the startled fish once more dashed across the river; then taking a
downward course, it sped like an arrow to the brink of the rough water
below.  To have allowed the salmon to go down the rapid would have been
to lose it, so Frank arrested the spinning of his reel and held on.  For
a second or two the rod bent almost in a circle, and the line became
fearfully rigid.

"You'll break it, Frank," cried Stanley, in some anxiety.

"It can't be helped," said Frank, compressing his lips; "he must not go
down there.  The tackle is new; I think it will hold him."

Fortunately the tackle proved to be very good.  The fish was arrested,
and after one or two short runs, which showed that its vigour was
abated, it was drawn carefully towards the rocks.  As it drew near it
rolled over on its side once or twice--an evident sign of being much
exhausted.

"Now, Stanley, be careful," said Frank, as his friend stepped cautiously
towards the fish and extended the gaff.  "I've seen many a fine salmon
escape owing to careless gaffing.  Don't be in a hurry.  Be sure of your
distance before you strike, and do it quickly.  Now, then--there--give
it him!  Hurrah!" he shouted, as Stanley passed the iron hook neatly
into the side of the fish, and lifted it high and dry on the rocks.

The cheer to which Frank gave vent, on this successful termination to
the struggle, was re-echoed heartily by several of the men, who, on
passing the spot with their loads, had paused and become deeply
interested spectators of the sport.

"Powerful big fish, sir," said Bryan, throwing down his pack and taking
up the salmon by the gills.  "Twinty pounds at laste, av it's an ounce."

"Scarcely that, Bryan," said Stanley; "but it's not much less, I
believe."

"Ah! oui, 'tis ver' pritty.  Ver' superb for supper," remarked La Roche.

The little Frenchman was right in saying that it was pretty.  Unlike the
ordinary salmon, it was marked with spots like a trout, its head was
small and its shoulders plump, while its silvery purity was exceedingly
dazzling and beautiful.

"'Tis a Hearne-salmon," said Massan, approaching the group.  "I've seed
lots o' them on the coast to the south'ard o' this, an' I've no doubt
we'll find plenty o' them at Ungava."

While the men were discussing the merits of the fish, Frank had hooked
another, which, although quite as large, gave him much less trouble to
land; and before the men had finished carrying the canoes and goods over
the portage, he had taken three fish out of the same pool.  Wishing,
however, to try for a larger one nearer the sea, he proceeded to take a
cast below the rapid.

Meanwhile, La Roche, whose activity had enabled him to carry over his
portion of the cargo long before his comrades, came to the pool which
Frank had just left, and seating himself on a large stone, drew forth
his tobacco-pouch.  With a comical leer at the water which had so
recently been deprived of its denizens, he proceeded leisurely to fill a
pipe.

It is impossible to foresee, and difficult to account for, the actions
of an impulsive human being.  La Roche sat down to smoke his pipe, but
instead of smoking it, he started to his feet and whirled it into the
river.  This apparently insane action was followed by several others,
which, as they were successively performed, gradually unfolded the drift
of his intentions.  Drawing the knife which hung at his girdle, he went
into the bushes, whence he quickly returned, dragging after him a large
branch.  From this he stripped the leaves and twigs.  Fumbling in his
pocket for some time, he drew forth a piece of stout cord, about four
yards long, with a cod-hook attached to the end of it.  This line had
been constructed some weeks before when the canoes were wind-bound at a
part of the coast where La Roche, desirous of replenishing the kettle,
had made an unsuccessful attempt at sea-fishing.  Fastening this line to
the end of his extemporised rod, La Roche proceeded to dress his hook.
This he accomplished by means of the feather of a duck which Frank shot
the day before, and a tag from his scarlet worsted belt; and, when
finished, it had more the appearance of some hideous reptile than a gay
fly.  However, La Roche surveyed it for a moment or two with an
expression of deep satisfaction, and then, hurrying to the brink of the
water, made a violent heave.

"Oh! cent milles tonnerres!" he exclaimed angrily, as the enormous hook
caught in the leg of his trousers.  The large and clumsy barb was deeply
imbedded, so there was no help for it but to use the knife.  The second
throw was more successful, and the hook alighted in the water with a
splash that ought to have sent all the fish in the pool away in
consternation.  Instead of this, however, no sooner did the reptile
trail upon the stream than a trout dashed at it in such violent haste
that it nearly missed it altogether.  As it was, it hooked itself very
slightly, and the excitable Frenchman settled the matter by giving the
line a violent tug, in his anxiety to land the fish, that pulled the
hook entirely out of its mouth.

"Ah! c'est dommage, ver' great; mais try it encore, my boy," exclaimed
the mortified angler.  The next throw, although well accomplished,
produced nothing; but at the third attempt, ere the reptile had settled
on the water for a second, it was engulfed by a salmon fully six pounds
weight, and La Roche's rod was almost drawn out of his grasp.

"Hilloa, Losh! what have ye got there?" exclaimed Bryan, as, with
several of the men, he approached to where the Frenchman and the salmon
strove in uncertain conflict.

"By the mortial, he's hucked a whale!  Out with it, boy, afore it pulls
ye in!" said the Irishman, running to the rescue.

Just then the salmon gave a pull of more than ordinary vigour, at the
same moment La Roche slipped his foot, and, ere Bryan could lay hold of
him, fell headlong into the water and disappeared.  Bryan's hands hung
helplessly down, his jaw dropped, and his eyes opened wide, as he gazed
in mute wonderment at the spot where his friend's toes had vanished.
Suddenly he wrenched off his cap and flung it down, and proceeded to
tear off his coat, preparatory to leaping into the river to the rescue,
when his arms were pinioned to his sides by the powerful grip of Massan.

"Come, Bryan," said he, "you know very well that you can't swim; you'd
only make things worse."

"Och! murder! _he_ can't swim neither.  Let me go, ye black villain.
Thunder an' turf! will ye see the poor lad drownded forenint yer two
eyes?" cried the poor Irishman, as he made violent but unavailing
struggles to get free.  But Massan knew that to allow him to escape
would only add to the number requiring to be saved, and as he himself
could not swim, he saw at once that the only service he could render
under the circumstances would be to hold the Irishman down.  Clasping
him, therefore, as in a vice, he raised his head and gave a shout for
help that rolled in deep echoes among the overhanging cliffs.  Another
shout was uttered at the same instant.  Edith, who happened to come up
just as La Roche's head emerged from the water gasping for breath,
uttered a wild shriek that made more than one heart among the absentees
leap as they flew to the rescue.

Meanwhile La Roche rose and sank several times in the surges of the
pool.  His face on these occasions exhibited a mingled expression of
terror and mischievous wildness; for although he could not swim a
stroke, the very buoyancy of his mercurial temperament seemed partially
to support him, and a feeling of desperate determination induced him to
retain a death-like gripe of the rod, at the end of which the salmon
still struggled.  But his strength was fast going, and he sank for the
fourth time with a bubbling cry, when a step was heard crashing through
the adjacent bushes, and Dick Prince sprang down the slope like a deer.
He did not pause when the scene burst upon his view, but a smile of
satisfaction played upon his usually grave face when he saw Edith safe
on the banks of the stream.  Another spring and an agile bound sent him
headlong into the pool about a yard from the spot where La Roche had
last sunk.  Scarcely had he disappeared when the dog Chimo bounded
towards the scene of action, and, with what intent no one could tell,
leaped also into the water.  By this time Frank, Stanley, and nearly all
the party had assembled on the bank of the river, ready to render
assistance.  In a few seconds they had the satisfaction of seeing Dick
Prince rise, holding poor La Roche by the collar of his capote with his
left hand, while he swam vigorously towards the shore with his right.
But during the various struggles which had taken place they had been
gradually sucked into the stream that flowed towards the lower rapid,
and it now became apparent to Prince that his only chance of safety was
in catching hold of the point of rock that formed the first obstruction
to the rush of water.  Abandoning all effort, therefore, to gain the
bank beside him, he swam with the current, but edged towards the shore
as he floated down.

"Hallo!  La Roche!" he exclaimed loudly.  "Do you hear? do you
understand me?"

"Ah! oui, vraiment.  I not dead yit."

"Then let go that rod and seize my collar, and mind, sink deep in the
water.  Show only enough o' your face to breathe with, or I'll drown
ye."

The Frenchman obeyed to the extent of seizing Dick's collar and sinking
deep in the water, so as not to overburden his friend; but nothing could
induce him to quit the rod to which he had clung so long and so
resolutely.  Prince's arms being now free, one or two powerful strokes
placed him beyond the influence of the strong current, and as he passed
the rocks before mentioned, he seized an overhanging branch of a small
shrub, by which he endeavoured to drag himself ashore.  This, however,
he found to be impossible, partly owing to the steepness of the shelving
rock, and partly to the fact that Chimo, in his ill-directed attempts to
share in the dangers of his friends, had seized La Roche by the skirts
of the coat in order to prevent himself from going down the stream.
Those on shore, on seeing Prince make for the rock, ran towards the
spot; but having to make a slight detour round the bend of the river,
they did not reach it until he seized the branch, and when Frank, who
was the first, sprang down, the slope to the rescue, he found them
streaming out and waving to and fro in the current, like some monstrous
reptile--Dick holding on to the branch with both hands, La Roche holding
on to Dick, Chimo holding on by his teeth to La Roche, and the
unfortunate salmon holding on to the line which its half-drowned captor
scorned to let go.

A few seconds sufficed to drag them dripping from the stream; and the
energetic little Frenchman no sooner found his feet on solid ground than
he hauled out his fish and landed it triumphantly with his own hand.

"'Tis a pretty fish, La Roche," said Frank, laughing, as he busied
himself in taking down his rod, while several of the men assisted Dick
Prince to wring the water out of his clothes, and others crowded round
La Roche to congratulate him on his escape--"'tis a pretty fish, but it
cost you some trouble to catch it."

"Throuble, indeed!" echoed Bryan, as he sat on a rock smoking his pipe;
"troth it's more nor him came to throuble by that same fish: it guve me
the throuble o' bein' more nor half choked by Massan."

"Half choked, Bryan! what mean you?" asked Frank.

"Mane?  I just mane what I say; an' the raison why's best known to
himself."

A loud peal of laughter greeted Massan's graphic explanation of the
forcible manner in which he had prevented the Irishman from throwing
himself into the river.

The party now turned earnestly to the more serious duties of the
journey.  Already too much time had been lost in this "playing
themselves with fish," as Stanley expressed it, and it behoved them to
embark as speedily as possible.  About a mile above the pool which had
nearly proved fatal to La Roche was the head of a series of
insurmountable rapids, which extended all the way down to the waterfall.
Beyond this was a pretty long reach of calm water, up which they
proceeded easily; but as they advanced the current became so strong that
no headway could be made with the paddles, and it was found necessary to
send a party of the men ashore with a long line, by means of which the
canoes were slowly dragged against the current.  At length they came to
shallow water, which necessitated another portage; and as it was about
sunset when they reached it, Stanley ordered the tent to be pitched for
the night, and the fire lighted, under the shadow of a stupendous
mountain, the rocky sides of which were sprinkled with dwarf pine trees,
and partially covered with brush and herbage.  Here Edith and her mother
discovered multitudes of berries, the most numerous being cloud and crow
berries; both of which were found to be good, especially the former, and
a fragrant dish of these graced the towel that evening at supper.

Thus, day by day, our adventurous travellers penetrated deeper and
deeper into the heart of the wilderness, which became more savage and
mountainous as they left the coast.  Stanley drew forth his quadrant and
compass, wherewith he guided the party towards their future home.  At
night, after the labour of the day was over, he and Frank would spread
their charts in the blaze of the camp fire, and study the positions of
the land so far as it was laid down; while Edith sat beside her mother,
helping her to repair the torn and way-worn habiliments of her husband
and Frank, or listening with breathless interest to the men, as they
recounted their experiences of life in the different regions through
which they had travelled.  Many of these tales were more or less
coloured by the fancy of the narrators, but most of them were founded on
fact, and proved an unfailing source of deep interest to the little
child.  Frank's fishing-rod was frequently in requisition, and often
supplied the party with more than enough of excellent fish; and at every
new bend and turn of the innumerable lakes and rivers through which they
passed, reindeer were seen bounding on the mountain-sides, or trotting
down the ravines to quench their thirst and cool their sides in the
waters; so that food was abundant, and their slender stock of provisions
had not to be trenched upon, while the berries that grew luxuriantly
everywhere proved a grateful addition to their store.  Thus, day by day,
they slowly retreated farther and farther from the world of mankind--
living in safety under the protection of the Almighty, and receiving the
daily supply of all their necessities from His fatherly and bountiful
hand; thus, day by day, they rose with the sun, and lay down at night to
rest upon the mountain's side or by the river's bank; and thus, day by
day, they penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of the unknown
wilderness.



CHAPTER TWELVE.

A NEW SCENE--THE ESQUIMAU--DEER-SLAYING--ENEMIES IN THE BUSH.

Turn we now to another, a more distant, and a wilder scene.  Near the
bleak shores of Hudson's Straits there flows a river which forms an
outlet to the superfluous waters of the almost unknown territory lying
between the uninhabited parts of Labrador and that tract of desert land
which borders Hudson's Bay on the east, and is known to the fur-traders
by the appellation of East Main.  This river is called the Caniapuscaw,
and discharges itself into Ungava Bay.

The scene to which we would turn the reader's attention is upwards of
twenty miles from the mouth of this river, at a particular bend, where
the stream spreads itself out into a sheet of water almost worthy of
being called a lake, and just below which two bold cliffs shut out the
seaward view, and cause an abrupt narrowing of the river.  The scene is
peculiar, and surpassingly grand.  On each side of the stream majestic
mountains raise their bald and rugged peaks almost into the clouds.
Little herbage grows on the more exposed places, and nothing, save here
and there a stunted and weather-worn pine, breaks the sharp outline of
the cliffs.  But in the gorges and dark ravines--for there are no
valleys--clumps of small-sized spruce--fir and larch trees throw a
softness over some of the details of a spot whose general aspect is one
of sterility.  The mountains rise in a succession of irregular steps or
terraces, whose faces are so precipitous that they cannot be ascended.
To accomplish the feat of scaling the mountain-tops it would be
necessary to clamber up a ravine until the first terrace should be
gained, then, walking along that, ascend the next ravine, and so on.  At
the upper end of the lake (as we shall hereafter call this wide part of
the river) lies a low island, fringed with a scanty growth of willows;
and not far from this, on the eastern bank of the river, lies a small
patch of level sand.  This spot is somewhat peculiar, inasmuch as it is
backed by a low platform of rock, whose surface is smooth as a table.
At the foot of this rock bubbles a little spring, which, meandering
through a tangled spot of stunted shrubbery ere it mingles with the
sand, gives unusual green-ness and vitality to the surrounding herbage.
On the edge of this rocky platform sat the figure of a man.

It was evening.  The declining sun shot its last few rays over the brow
of the opposite mountains, and bathed him in mellow light, as he sat
apparently contemplating the scene before him.  The man's costume
bespoke him a native of the savage region in the midst of which he
seemed the only human being.  But although an Esquimau, he exhibited
several physical peculiarities not commonly supposed to belong to that
people.  To an altitude of six feet three he added a breadth of shoulder
and expansion of chest seldom equalled among men of more highly-favoured
climes; and his real bulk being very greatly increased by his costume,
he appeared to be a very giant--no unfitting tenant of such giant
scenery.  The said costume consisted of an extremely loose coat or shirt
of deerskin, having the hair outside, and a capacious hood, which
usually hung down behind, but covered his head at this time, in order to
protect it from a sharp north-west breeze that whirled among the gullies
of the mountains, and surging down their sides, darkened the surface of
the water.  A pair of long sealskin boots encased his limbs from foot to
thigh; and a little wallet or bag of sealskin, with the hair outside,
hung from his shoulders.  Simple although this costume was, it had a
bulky rotundity of appearance that harmonised well with the giant's
frank, good-humoured countenance, which was manly, firm, and massive,
besides being rosy, oily, and fat.  In the latter peculiarity he partook
of the well-known characteristic of his tribe; but the effeminacy in
appearance that is produced by a round, fat face was done away in the
case of our giant by a remarkably black though as yet downy moustache
and beard, of a length suitable to twenty-three winters.  His hair was
long, straight, and black, besides being uncommonly glossy--an effect
attributable to the prevalence of whale-oil in these regions.  On the
forehead the locks were cut short, so as to afford free scope to his
black eyes and sturdy-looking nose.  By his side lay a long hunting
spear, and a double-bladed paddle, fully fifteen feet long; which latter
belonged to a kayak, or Esquimau canoe, that lay on the sand close to
the water's edge.  Sitting there, motionless as the rocks around him,
the giant looked like a colossal statue of an Esquimau.  He was no
figure of stone, however, but a veritable human being, as was proved by
his starting suddenly from his reverie and hastening towards the spring
before mentioned, at which he stooped and drank rapidly, like one who
had to make up for lost time.

After a few hurried gulps, the man strode towards his canoe; but as he
went his restless eye became fixed on the branching antlers of a deer,
that were tossed in the air on the summit of a neighbouring cliff.  Like
one who is suddenly paralysed, the Esquimau stood transfixed in the
attitude in which he had been arrested.  He did not even seem to
breathe, as the antlers moved to and fro, clearly defined against the
blue sky.  At length they disappeared, and the animal to which they
belonged slowly descended a ravine towards the river.  Then, as if set
free from a spell, the man glided into his kayak, and swept rapidly but
noiselessly behind a projecting point of rock, where he waited patiently
till the deer took to the water.  He had not long to wait, however, for
in a few minutes afterwards the deer, followed by several companions,
walked out upon the patch of sand, snuffed the air once or twice, and
entered the stream with the intention of crossing.

But there was an enemy near whom they little dreamed of--not an enemy
who would dash excitedly into the midst of them, or awaken the thunders
of the place with his noisy gun, but a foe who could patiently bide his
time, and take cool and quiet advantage of it when it came.  When the
deer had proceeded about a hundred yards into the river, the Esquimau
dipped his paddle twice, and the narrow, sharp-pointed canoe, which, at
a short distance, seemed little more than a floating plank, darted
through the water and ranged alongside of the startled animals.  The
fattest of the herd was separated from its fellows and driven towards
the shore from which it had started, while the others struggled across
the river.  Once or twice the separated deer endeavoured to turn to
rejoin its comrades--an attempt which was frustrated by the Esquimau,
who could paddle infinitely faster over the water in his skin canoe than
the deer could swim.  As they neared the shore, the giant cast on it one
or two glances, and having made up his mind as to the most convenient
spot for landing, he urged the point of his canoe between the antlers of
the deer, and steered it in this manner to the sand-bank.  The deer,
thus directed, had no resource but to land where its persecutor chose;
but no sooner did its foot touch ground, than it sprang convulsively
forward in the vain hope to escape.  The same instant its captor's canoe
shot beside it.  Grasping the long lance before mentioned in his hand,
he placed its glittering point on the deer's side, tickled it slowly to
ascertain that it was between two ribs, and, with a quick thrust,
stabbed it to the heart.  A convulsive shudder, as the deer's head sank
in the stream, proved that, though cold-blooded in appearance, the
action was more effective and less cruel than many other more approved
methods of killing game.

Our Esquimau thought neither of the method of slaying his deer nor of
man's opinion regarding it.  His sole object was to procure supper,
having tasted nothing since early morning; and the manner in which he
ate showed at once the strength of his appetite and his total
indifference to cookery, for he ate it raw.  There was a certain
appearance of haste in all his actions which, however, seemed
unaccountable, considering the peaceful nature of the vast solitudes
around him.  Scarcely had he cut off and devoured a portion of the deer
than he hastened again to his canoe, and darted like an arrow from the
shore.  This is no exaggerated simile.  The long, thin, sharp Esquimau
kayak is highly suggestive of an arrow in its form, and much more so in
its extraordinary speed.  It consists of an extremely light framework of
wood covered with sealskin parchment, which is stretched upon it all
over as tight as a drum.  The top of the canoe being covered as well as
the bottom, it is thus, as it were, decked; and a small hole in the
middle of this deck admits its occupant.  The kayak can only hold one
person.  The paddle, as already said, is a long pole with a blade at
each end.  It is dipped alternately on each side, and is used not only
to propel the kayak, but to prevent it from upsetting.  Indeed, so
liable is it to upset that nothing but the wonderful adroitness of its
occupant prevents it from doing so with every swing of his body.

Quick, however, though the kayak sped over the rippling wave, it could
not have escaped the messenger of death that seemed about to be
dispatched after it by a dark-skinned, red-painted Indian, who, at the
moment the vessel left the shore, leapt from behind a rocky point, and,
levelling a long gun, took a steady aim at the unconscious Esquimau.  A
little puff of powder answered to the click of the lock, as the gun
missed fire.  With an exclamation of anger the savage seized his
powder-horn to reprime, when a rude grasp was laid on his shoulder, and
another Indian, who, from the eagle feather in his hair, and his general
bearing, appeared to be a chief, exclaimed--

"Fool! you have the impatience of a woman, and you have not yet shown
that you have the heart of a man.  Would the scalp of yon
Eater-of-raw-flesh pay us for coming so far from our hunting-grounds?
If your gun had spoken among these mountains, we would have found the
empty wigwams of his people, instead of fringing our belts with their
scalps."

With a frown of anger the chief turned on his heel and retraced his
steps into the ravine from which he had emerged, followed by his abashed
and silent companion.

Meanwhile the Esquimau, ignorant of the fate from which he had just
escaped, continued to ply his paddle with right good will.  The little
craft, obedient to the powerful impulse, combined as it was with the
current of the ebb-tide, flew rather than floated toward the narrows,
through which it passed, and opened up a view of the ice-encumbered
waters of Ungava Bay.  Directing his course along the western shores of
the river, the Esquimau speedily reached the coast at a point where
several low, rough-built summer huts clustered near the shore.  Here he
ran his kayak into a little creek, and, having lifted it beyond tide
mark, betook himself to his dwelling.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

SAVAGE LOVE--A WIFE PURCHASED--THE ATTACK--THE FLIGHT--THE ESCAPE--THE
WOUNDED MAN.

Scarcely had the stout Esquimau proceeded a few steps along the shore,
when he was met by a young girl who laid her hand on his arm.  Taking
her gently by the shoulders, he drew her towards him and kissed her on
both cheeks--an action which caused her to blush deeply as, with a half
smile half frown on her face, she pushed him away.

Love is the same all the world over, whether it glows beneath the
broad-cloth and spotless linen of a civilised gentleman, or under the
deerskin coat of a savage.  And its expression, we suspect, is somewhat
similar everywhere.  The coy repulse of pretended displeasure came as
naturally from our plump little arctic heroine as it could have done
from the most civilised flirt, and was treated with well-simulated
contrition by our arctic giant, as they walked slowly towards the huts.
But the Esquimau had other matters than love in his head just then, and
the girl's face assumed a grave and somewhat anxious look as he
continued to whisper in her ear.

At the little hamlet they separated, and the maiden went to her
grandfather's abode; while her lover, lifting the skin-curtain door of a
rudely-constructed hut, entered his own humble dwelling.  The room was
empty, and its owner did not seem as if he meant to cheer it with his
presence long.  In one corner lay a pile of miscellaneous articles,
which he removed, and, taking the tusk of a walrus which lay near his
hand, began to dig with it in the sand.  In a few seconds it struck a
hard substance, and the Esquimau, putting his hand into the hole, drew
forth a glittering axe, upon which he gazed with supreme satisfaction.

Now be it known to you, reader, that among the Esquimaux of the frozen
north iron is regarded with about as much delight as gold is by
ourselves.  And the reason is simple enough.  These poor people live
entirely upon the produce of the chase.  Polar bears, seals, walruses,
and whales are their staff of life.  To procure these animals, spears
are necessary; to skin and cut them up, knives are needful.  But bone
and stone make sorry knives and spears; so that, when a bit of iron, no
matter how poor its quality or small its size, can be obtained, it is
looked on as the most valuable of possessions; and the ingenuity
displayed by Esquimaux in fashioning the rudest piece of metal into the
most useful of implements is truly astonishing, proving, in the most
satisfactory way, that necessity is indeed the mother of invention.  The
precious metal is obtained in two ways: by the discovery of a wreck,
which is extremely rare; and by barter with those tribes which sometimes
visit the Moravian settlements of Labrador.  But neither source is very
productive.  Even a nail is treasured as a blessing, while an axe is a
fortune!  When our giant, therefore, drew forth the shining implement,
and gazed with delight at its keen edge, he experienced as great
satisfaction as a miser does when gloating over his banker's book!

Having satisfied himself that the axe was free from all approximation to
rust, he stuck it into a belt of raw hide, which he put on for the
express purpose of sustaining it, as Esquimaux do not generally wear
belts.  He then sallied forth, and walked with the air of a man who
wears the grand cross of the Legion of Honour.  As he went to the hut in
which lived the oldest man of the tribe, the shade of anxiety, which had
clouded his brow more than once during the day, again rested on his
face.  On entering, he observed the old Esquimau listening with anxious
countenance to the young girl whom we have already introduced to the
reader.

Now this girl--Aneetka by name--was by no means an angel in Esquimau
habiliments.  Among civilised folk probably she would not have been
deemed even pretty.  Nevertheless, in the eyes of her lover she was most
decidedly beautiful, and round, and fat, and rosy, and young, awkward,
and comfortable!  And the giant loved her--never so strongly, perhaps,
as when he saw her striving to allay the fears of her old grandfather.
But this same grandfather was obstinate.  He wanted her to become the
wife of an Esquimau who lived far to the westward, and who once had
dealings with the fur-traders, and from whom he expected to derive
considerable advantages and gifts of bits of hoop-iron and nails.  But
_she_ wanted to become the giant's wife; so there the matter stood.

"The spirits o' the wind and sea protect us, and may the god o' the mist
cover us!" said the old man, as the young Esquimau sat down on a dead
seal beside him.  "Is it true that you saw the men of fire?"

This was, of course, said in the language of the Esquimaux, and we
render it as literally as possible.

"Yes, it is true," replied the young man.  "I saw them at the rapid
water in Caniapuscaw, and I took kayak to bring the news."

Various exclamations of mingled surprise and anger escaped from the
compressed lips of several stalwart natives, who had crowded into the
tent on hearing of the arrival of their comrade.

"Yes," continued the young man, "we must go away this night.  They had
fire-tubes, and there were thirty men.  We have only ten."

Again a murmur ran through the listeners, but no one spoke for a few
seconds.

"Did they see you?" asked the old man anxiously.

"No.  I came on them suddenly, when I was chasing deer, and almost ran
into their camp; but I saw, and fell in the grass.  I thought the chief
raised his head quickly when I fell; but he looked down again, and I
crawled away."

In this the young Esquimau was mistaken.  He knew little of the craft
and the quickness of the Red Indian, and easily fell into the snare of
his savage enemy, who, having been momentarily startled by the sudden
sound of the Esquimau approach, had endeavoured to throw him off his
guard, by pretending that although he heard the sound he thought nothing
of it.  But no sooner had the Esquimau retired than he was closely
followed and watched by the whole party.  They could have easily shot
him, but refrained from doing so, that he might unwittingly be their
guide to the habitations of his people.  The rapid flight of his kayak
distanced his pursuers at first, but they made up for this during an
hour or two in the night, when the tired Esquimau allowed himself a
short season of repose to r

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