Run, lads, and get to the door! I"ll stop and help hold them with my rifle till you get in!"
But Bobby and Jimmy would not have it so. They, too, turned, and in the dim light of the shadowed forest the three fired into the face of the pack until their rifles were empty. Whether or not any of the animals fell they could not see, but the pack paused for a moment in surprise.
Then the dogs charged them, and as the three reached the cabin door yelps and snarls told of the clash as the dogs met their wild kin of the hills in battle.
"Thank G.o.d!" again breathed Skipper Ed when the three, panting for breath, were safe in the cabin, a moment later, with the good stout door between them and the ravenous pack, which presently came snapping and snarling around the cabin. "I never saw such a pack of wolves before. I never knew that they gathered in such numbers in these days. There must be at least thirty of them."[C]
[Footnote C: Not many years ago a pack of upwards of thirty of these great northern wolves appeared a few miles to the southward of this point. One of my friends was driven to the shelter of his cabin to escape them.--Author.]
"The dogs! Partner, what will become of our dogs?" exclaimed Jimmy.
"They"ll kill our fine dogs!"
"I"m afraid they will," agreed Skipper Ed, who had lighted a lamp and was loading the magazine of his rifle. "Load up, partner. Load up, Bobby. We"ll see what we can do from cover."
"We must have killed some of them!" Bobby exclaimed excitedly. "I know I did! I saw three fall when we shot!"
"Yes, of course we did," agreed Skipper Ed, "but there are enough of them we didn"t kill. Here, you chaps," he added, raising a window three or four inches. "You should get some good shots from here. I"ll try my luck from the shed door."
They had turned the lamp low, that they might see the better what was going on out of doors. The wolves, baffled by the sudden disappearance of their quarry, were ranged a little distance from the porch door, save two or three of the bolder ones, which were sniffing at the door itself.
The dogs were nowhere to be seen.
"Look out!" called Bobby to Skipper Ed, who was about to open the porch door. "Some of them are right at the door!"
Then he and Jimmy began shooting. The wolves at the door fell, and Skipper Ed, opening the door a little way, joined in a fusillade at the main pack. The rapid reports of the rifles at close range, together with the flashes of fire from an unseen source, struck panic to the heart of the pack. A slightly wounded one turned and ran. That was a signal for panic, as is the way of men and beasts, and the whole pack followed in a mad, wild rush to the cover of the woods.
An instant and the last of the pack had faded into the shadows among the trees--all save those left sprawling and limp upon the snow, which would never roam the hills again, and one or two of the wounded, which were whining, like whipped dogs, and the clearing about the cabin was as deserted as ever it was.
"I"ll go out," said Skipper Ed, "and end the suffering of those wounded brutes. Build up the fire, partner, and put the kettle on, and we"ll have some tea. Then if there"s no sign of what"s left of the pack returning, we"ll haul the carca.s.ses into the shed, where we can skin them tomorrow."
There was a roaring, cheerful fire in the stove when Skipper Ed returned a few minutes later to report that twelve wolves lay dead outside.
"There must be some more down where we shot them at first," said he, as he drew off his _adikey_, "and some of those that got away were wounded, no doubt. At any rate we"ve cut the pack down so far in numbers that it won"t be a menace any longer."
"What"ll they do now?" asked Bobby, as the three settled into their easy chairs to wait for the kettle to boil.
"Go and look for caribou, and attend to their business, I suppose, and leave us quiet, peaceable folk alone," he laughed, adding: "I never saw such a pack before, though I"ve heard some of the old Eskimos say that years ago it used to happen now and again that packs like this appeared.
Wolves are cowardly beasts, but numbers give them courage. When six or eight get together, you have to look out for them, and when the pack grows to a dozen they"ll attack openly, and aren"t afraid of anything--not even man."
"Well, anyway we had the adventure we started out to get," laughed Bobby, "and a little more of it than we expected."
"Yes, and a nice haul of wolf pelts to boot," added Skipper Ed.
"We were lucky they didn"t get us," said Jimmy.
"Yes," agreed Skipper Ed, "lucky--the kind of luck we were talking about tonight. That is, the luck of the Almighty"s bounty and protection. We did the best we could, according to our lights, to protect and help ourselves, and so He helped, and brought us safely back, none the worse, and perhaps a little the stronger and better and richer in experience than we were an hour ago."
"It was a corking good adventure, anyhow!" broke in Bobby. "That sort of thing just makes me tingle all over! Somehow when I get out of a mess like that I feel a lot bigger and stronger and more grown up. It was great fun--now that it"s over."
"You"re a natural-born adventurer," laughed Skipper Ed. "You should have lived in the old days, when men had to fight for their life, or went out to find and conquer new lands."
"Well, I"m glad it"s over," Jimmy shuddered--"the run from the wolves--and that they"ve gone. I didn"t have time to feel much scared out there, but I"m scared now of what might have happened. I don"t like to get into such fixes."
"Well, it"s over, and all is well, and we"re none the worse for it. Now drink your hot tea, lads," counseled Skipper Ed. "We"ve work to do before we sleep."
They ate their hardtack biscuit, and sipped the hot tea silently for a little, listening the while to the snug and cheerful crackle of wood and roar of flames in the big box stove.
"Now," said Skipper Ed finally, "we"ll haul the wolves into the porch, and make them safe, for the dogs are like to tear at them, and injure the pelts."
The following morning the carca.s.ses of five additional wolves were discovered at the place where they had first fired upon the pack. Two of the dogs, mangled and torn by wolf fangs, were dead, and three others were so badly injured that for a long time they were unfitted for driving. But the others had discreetly decided that it was better "to run away and live to fight another day," and were none the worse for their scrimmage.
Bobby, of course, ran over to Abel"s cabin to tell the great news of the battle, and Abel and Mrs. Abel must needs return with him to a.s.sist in removing the pelts from the animals, and to spend the day with Skipper Ed and his partner. And a merry day it was for all of them, for wolf pelts could be traded at the mission store for necessaries. And none of them gave heed or thought to the danger the pelts had cost, save to give thanks to G.o.d for His deliverance; for dangers in that land are an incident of the game of life, and there the game of life is truly a man"s game.
CHAPTER IX
THE FISHING PLACES
Like every other healthy lad of his years Bobby loved fun and adventure, though he had early learned to carry upon his broad shoulders a full portion of the responsibilities of the household. In the bleak land where he lived there is no shifting of these responsibilities. Everyman, and every boy, too, must do his share to wrest a living from the sea and rocks, and Bobby had no thought but to do his part. If a boy cannot do one thing in Labrador, he can do another. He can cut wood, hunt small game, attend the fish nets, jig cod--there are a thousand things that he can do, and make sport of as he does them, too, as Bobby did, until he grows to man"s estate.
Each summer Abel and Mrs. Abel returned to their old fishing place on Itigailit Island, and of course Bobby went with them, and did his share in jigging cod; and each summer Skipper Ed and Jimmy went to Skipper Ed"s old fishing place--the place where he had found his forlorn little partner that stormy autumn day, when they had sealed their bargain with a handshake.
The days of preparation for departure to the fishing were days of keen and pleasurable antic.i.p.ation for the boys. It was a break from the routine of the long winter, and brought with it the novelty of change.
These promised weeks upon the open sea were always weeks of delight, and above all else was the pleasure of seeing and sometimes visiting the fishing schooners which occasionally chanced their way.
The schooners had a wonderful fascination for the lads, for they came from the far-away and mysterious land of civilization of which Skipper Ed had told them so often and so much, and of which they had read so eagerly on long winter evenings.
It was more than a novelty to listen to the sailormen on the schooners talk of the strange happenings in that wonderful land, and to hear them sing their quaint old sea songs and chanteys, or relate marvelous stories of adventure.
Sometimes a skipper would drop them a newspaper, many weeks old to be sure, but as fresh and interesting to them as though it had come directly from the press. Or perchance--and this was a treasure indeed--an ill.u.s.trated magazine fell to their lot. And no line of paper or magazine, even to the last advertis.e.m.e.nt, but was read many and many times over. And no ill.u.s.tration in the magazines but held their attention for hours upon hours.
These old newspapers and magazines were preserved, and carried home to take their place as a valued source of entertainment on stormy winter days and long winter evenings. And finally the ill.u.s.trations and more interesting articles were clipped and pasted upon the walls until the interiors of Abel"s and Skipper Ed"s cabins became veritable picture galleries and libraries of reference.
But the eve of parting for their separate fishing places was always tinged with sadness and regret, for during these weeks they were denied one another"s companionship.
"If our fishing places were only close to each other, so we could fish together, wouldn"t it be fine!" suggested Bobby, one spring day as he and Jimmy sat on a rock below Abel"s cabin, looking expectantly out over the bay, while Abel, with Skipper Ed"s a.s.sistance, put the finishing touches upon the big boat in preparation for departure to their fishing places the next morning.
"Yes, wouldn"t it!" exclaimed Jimmy. "If we weren"t so busy, Partner and I would be dreadfully lonesome without you."
"And if it wasn"t for being busy I"d be dreadfully lonesome without you, too," admitted Bobby. "I always am, anyhow."
"Yes," said Jimmy, "so are we on days when the sea"s so rough we can"t fish."
"But it"s fine out there, and it"s always fine to get back, isn"t it, Jimmy?"
"Aye, "tis that!" declared Jimmy.
"But it makes me feel lonesome already," said Bobby, returning to the original proposition, "to think that I won"t see you and Skipper Ed for so long."