He knew, too, that Bobby, when hunting with Abel upon the barrens, had weathered some terrific storms. These were experiences which he himself had never encountered, for he and Skipper Ed during their winter months on the trapping trails clung more closely to the forests, where they were protected from sweeping gales and could always find firewood in abundance, and could build a temporary shelter.
And pondering these things as he sat huddled upon the sledge, his hope that Bobby might after all be safe grew, and he felt a sense of vast relief steal over him. He was not so cold now, his brain was heavy with sleep and he began to doze.
Suddenly he again realized his own danger were he to submit to the sleep which the cold was urging upon him, and he sprang to his feet and jumped and jumped and shouted and swung his arms, until he could feel the blood tingling through his veins, and his brain awake.
"I must do something!" said he. "I must do something! Bobby is lost out there and I can"t help him, and I can"t stand this much longer. I must do something for myself or I"ll perish before morning."
Then he remembered the dogs, lying deep and snug under the drifts, and what Bobby had said about them, and with feverish haste he drew his snow knife and cut away the drift which now all but covered the _komatik_.
Then he took his sleeping bag from the load, and, digging deeper down and down into the drift, stretched the bag into the hole he had made, and slid into it, and in a little while the snow covered him, and he like the dogs lay buried beneath the drift.
CHAPTER XXV
A LONELY JOURNEY
Weary as Jimmy was, he lay awake for a long time, torn by emotions and filled with misgivings and wild imaginings. Would he ever see good old Partner again? Would he ever see the cozy cabin that had been his home through all these happy years? Would he ever again sit, snug in his big arm chair before the big box stove with its roaring fire, while Skipper Ed helped him with his studies or told him stories of the far-off fairy land of civilization?
Then for a time he fell to thinking about Bobby, and, in his old way, to worrying, and to wondering if, after all, he could not or should not make one more attempt to rescue his comrade.
"I never should have let him go that last time," he moaned. "If he perishes it will be my fault! I"m older and I should have thought further! I should have kept him back! But I"m so in the habit of letting him go ahead! Oh, I should have held him back! I should have held him back!"
And in this soliloquy Jimmy unconsciously admitted, though he did not know it, that Bobby was his leader still, as he always had been, and that Bobby"s will and judgment dominated. Bobby had decided to go upon that last attempt to find snow suitable for an _igloo_, and Bobby went, and Jimmy could no more successfully have interposed his judgment against Bobby"s than he could have stopped the blowing of the wind.
"No," he admitted to himself at last, "I could not have done anything more to find Bobby. In this terrible storm I would have perished, for it is physically impossible to move about."
And so presently Jimmy, easing his conscience, permitted his better judgment to prevail, though once he had been upon the point of digging out of his retreat and throwing himself again into the maelstrom of suffocating snow and darkness. And then he prayed the good Lord to preserve Bobby"s life and his own, and to guide them back to safety, as only He could, for they were in His care.
Even under the snowdrift that had quickly covered him Jimmy could hear the shrieking wind and thunderous pounding of ice and seas, and there was little wonder that at last he fancied the floe rising and falling beneath him, and he lay in momentary expectation of being cast into the water and crushed beneath mighty ice pans.
But Jimmy was young, and nature"s demands were strong upon him, and presently, snug under his acc.u.mulating blanket of snow, a drowsy warmth stole over him, and he slept.
How long he had been sleeping Jimmy did not know, when he awoke from a dream that he and Skipper Ed and Bobby were in a snow _Igloo_ and the top had fallen in and was suffocating him with its weight. For a moment, until he marshaled his wandering wits, he believed it no dream at all, but a reality, and then as the happenings of the previous afternoon and night were remembered, he realized his position, and Bobby"s going, and he began wildly digging away the snow with his hands.
It was a hard task, but at last he made an opening through the drift, and was astonished as he forced his way out to find that it was broad day and the sun shone brightly and a dead calm prevailed.
But a wild terror came upon him as he looked about. Less than fifty feet from the place where he had lain waves were breaking over the edge of the ice. On the opposite side and very close to him lay the land, and the ice upon which he stood was jammed against the land ice, offering him a clear road to safety.
But safety now meant nothing to Jimmy. The main ice pack from which his little section had broken, lay glimmering in the sunlight a full two miles to the southeast and well out to sea, and Bobby was either on that pack or had been lost in the sea. The discovery made Jimmy numb with fear and consternation.
He recognized the land near him as the farthermost point of Cape Harrigan. The pack in its southward drift had come in contact with Cape Harrigan"s long projection of land, the wind had severed the pack, and, while the comparatively small section of floe upon which he stood had remained jammed against the land, the main floe, reaching far out beyond the obstruction of the cape, had been swept on and on, and was now floating steadily southward.
In frantic frenzy Jimmy ran about and shouted, and searched every nook and turn of his little corner of the original floe for Bobby, but there was no trace of his missing comrade. Again and again he searched, but without reward. Bobby was gone and Jimmy no longer had any doubt that he had perished.
With heavy heart he at last set about with his snow knife, digging the _komatik_ from under the drift and getting his load in order, and then he roused the dogs from their drifts and drove them to the land. The great floe was now but a speck upon the far horizon.
There was nothing more he could do. He felt very much as Skipper Ed had felt the day before, and was feeling that very morning, and he remembered, and repeated over and over again, what Skipper Ed had so often said: "Our destiny is in G.o.d"s hands, and our destiny is His will."
Jimmy"s travels had carried him south nearly to Cape Harrigan on two or three occasions when he had been with Skipper Ed in their trap boat in summer, and he knew that he could not be above two days" journey from the head of Abel"s Bay, for now it was March and the days were growing long. And between Cape Harrigan and Abel"s Bay was a Hudson"s Bay trading post where he and Skipper Ed sometimes traded furs and salt trout for flour and pork and tea, and beyond this point he knew the sledge route well.
So, as there was nothing else to be done, he turned the dog team northward, in the hope that he might find the trading post and the old familiar trail.
The weather was keen, the air was filled with floating rime, which shimmered and sparkled in the sunshine, and Jimmy"s garments were covered with it, but, plodding disconsolately on and on, his heart heavy with the tragedy and his thoughts filled with Bobby and the happy years of comradeship that were ended, he did not feel or heed the cold or dazzling glitter of the snow, until in mid-afternoon his eyes began to trouble him, and he realized that snow-blindness was threatening.
Presently, however, the long, wolf-like howl of dogs came down to him over the ice, and rounding a point of land he discovered, directly ahead of him, and nestling at the foot of a great barren hill, the white buildings of the fort. His dogs immediately broke into a run, and a few moments later he was safe at the post.
The factor and the people were very hospitable and kind to Jimmy, after the manner of the Coast. They agreed that he had left nothing undone that he could have done. The tragedy was, after all, an incident of life, and all in a day"s work, and to some extent they reconciled him with himself, but they could not ease his sorrow.
They would not permit Jimmy to proceed further that night, though at first he protested that he must, that he might so much the sooner ease Skipper Ed"s anxiety, so far as his own safety was concerned. But the preceding twenty-four hours had tried his physical powers, and when he entered the heated post kitchen his eyes became so inflamed that he consented to stay.
The dogs, which had not received their daily portion the previous evening, were ravenous, and when they were fed Jimmy stretched his sleeping bag upon the floor in the kitchen and slipped into it, and almost immediately fell into deep slumber.
A mild attack of snow blindness held Jimmy prisoner all the next day.
This was exceedingly disappointing. Bright and early the following morning, however, wearing a pair of smoked goggles to protect his eyes from the daily increasing sun glare, he set out for home, and only halted for a little at the cabin of Abraham Moses, the nearest neighbor of Skipper Ed and Abel Zachariah, where he must needs stop for tea and bread, else Abraham would feel offended.
It was near sunset when he arrived again at Abel Zachariah"s. They met him as they had met Skipper Ed, and welcomed him warmly, and when they heard his story of Bobby"s disappearance they had no blame for him and no complaint, but said again that G.o.d had sent them Bobby, and G.o.d had called him back again, and G.o.d knew best, for He was good. And then Jimmy left them and hurried eagerly on to the cabin home that so recently had seemed lost to him forever. How good it looked that cold winter evening, and when he quietly pushed the door open and silently entered, and surprised Skipper Ed with his coming, and when Skipper Ed clasped him in his arms and thanked G.o.d over and over again for sparing his partner, Jimmy sank down in his chair and cried.
CHAPTER XXVI
CAST AWAY ON THE ICE
It was one of Bobby"s characteristics never to acknowledge himself defeated in anything he undertook to do, so long as there seemed a possibility of accomplishing the thing in hand. He had set out to find a suitable drift and to build a snow house. He was confident such a drift was to be found not far from the _komatik_ where he had left Jimmy, for in pa.s.sing to Itigailit Island and back with loads of seals earlier in the day he had observed some good hard drifts which he believed to be in this locality, though he was aware that in the blinding snow he may have stopped the dogs a little on one side or the other of them. So he felt a.s.sured that he and Jimmy had overlooked them in their previous search, and this time he was determined to find them.
This it was, then--this dislike to feel himself beaten--rather than dire necessity, that had sent him on the final search. And, too, the man who lives constantly in the wilderness never endures unnecessary hardships.
He makes himself as comfortable as the conditions under which he lives will permit, and provides himself as many conveniences and comforts as possible under the circ.u.mstances in which he finds himself, without burdening himself with needless luxuries.
Bobby had hinted to Jimmy that they might protect themselves under the snow, after the manner of the dogs. He had done this once during the winter, when he and Abel Zachariah were hunting together and were suddenly overtaken by a storm. But at best this was an uncomfortable method of pa.s.sing a night, and a last resort, and Bobby was therefore quite willing to endure preliminary discomfort in order to secure an _igloo_.
Engrossed in his search he wandered much farther afield than he had intended, and much farther than he knew, which was a reckless thing to do. And so it came about that presently, when his search was rewarded by a solid drift of hard-packed snow, and he shouted to Jimmy to come on with the dogs, no answer came from Jimmy, and Bobby, endeavoring to locate himself, became quite confused and uncertain as to the direction in which Jimmy and the _komatik_ lay, for his course had been a winding course, in and out among the hummocks, and in the blinding, swirling snow he could never see a dozen feet from where he stood.
Then he shouted again and listened intently, and again and again, but only the roar and boom of sea and pounding ice and the shrieking and weird moaning of the wind gave answer.
"Well, I"ve lost Jimmy, sure enough," he acknowledged to himself at last, after much futile shouting, "and I"m lost myself, too! I don"t know north from south, and I couldn"t hit in ten guesses in which direction the _komatik_ is! This is a pretty mess!"
Dusk was not far off, and there was no time to be lost, and without further parley or useless waste of breath and strength Bobby set bravely to work with his snow knife, as any wilderness dweller in similar case would have done, and in a little while had prepared for himself a grave-shaped cavern in the drift, with a stout roof of snow blocks, and when it was finished he crawled in and closed the entrance with a huge block.
This emergency shelter was, of course, not to be compared with a properly built _igloo_, but an _igloo_ he could scarcely have built in the face of the storm without a.s.sistance. It was, however, much more comfortable than a burrow in the drift, such as Jimmy had made, for it gave him an opportunity to turn over and stretch his limbs, and it afforded him, also, a considerable breathing s.p.a.ce.
""Twould be fine, now, if I only had my sleeping bag," he soliloquized, when he had at last composed himself in his improvised shelter. "I hope Jimmy"s just as snug. I told him about getting in the snow like the dogs do, and he"ll do it and be all right, and he"s got his sleeping bag, too."
Bobby was not given to vain regrets and needless worry, as we have seen, but nevertheless he could not keep his mind from the possible fate of himself and Jimmy, and think as he would he could conceive of no possible means of their escape, save in the possibility of the floe coming again in contact with land. Then his thoughts ran to Abel and Mrs. Abel, and before he was aware of it he was crying bitterly.
"If I"d only hurried on, as Skipper Ed told me to!" he moaned. "I"m always doing something! And there"s Jimmy in the--in the fix too! And it was all my fault!"