His heart leaped with joy as he saw the bear stop, bite again at the wound, this time near its hind quarters, and then with a roar of rage turn from Jimmy toward himself.
He would not risk another shot at that distance. He would wait now for his enemy to come to close quarters, and with nimble fingers he slipped a loaded sh.e.l.l into the empty barrel, that when the time came to shoot he might have two bullets at his disposal instead of one. He had never felt so perfectly cool and steady in his life, nor so absolutely unafraid, as now, while he stood erect and waited.
The bear was not twenty feet away when he fired his first shot. It staggered, shook its head for a moment, and then rushed on. Bobby drew a careful bead and fired again. The bear fell forward, pawed the rocks, regained its feet, and lunged at Bobby.
CHAPTER XI
WHEN THE ICEBERG TURNED
But the bear had spent its vitality, and as Bobby sprang nimbly aside it fell at the very spot upon which the young hunter had stood when he delivered his last shot, struggled a little, gave a gasp or two, and died. And when Jimmy came running up a moment later Bobby with great pride was standing by the side of his prostrate victim.
"We got him, Jimmy! We got him!" said he in high glee, touching the carca.s.s with his toe.
"But, Bobby, what a chance you took!" Jimmy exclaimed. "Supposing you hadn"t stopped him!"
"No chance of that at all," declared Bobby in his usual positive tone.
"All I wanted was time to load, and I knew I"d get him."
"Well, I"m thankful you got him, instead of he getting you, and I was afraid for a minute he was going to get us both," and Jimmy breathed relief, as he placed his foot against the dead bear. "My, but he"s a big one! I don"t think I ever saw a bigger one!"
"He _is_ a ripper!" admitted Bobby proudly. "Won"t the folks be glad!"
And Bobby was justified in his pride. He had fired upon the beast in the first instance, not through the l.u.s.t of killing but because he was prompted to do so by the instinct of the hunter who lives upon the product of his weapons. In this far northern land it is the instinct of self-preservation to kill, for here if man would live he must kill.
In Labrador they butcher wild animals for food just as we butcher steers and sheep and hogs for food, and the only difference is that the wild creature, matching its instincts and fleetness and strength against the hunter"s skill, has a reasonable chance of escape, while our domestic animals, deprived of liberty, are driven helpless to the slaughter.
In our kindlier clime the rich soil, too, produces vegetables and fruits upon which we might do very well, if necessary, without ever eating meat; but in the bleak land where Bobby and Jimmy lived the summer is short and the soil is barren, and there are no vegetables, and no fruits save scattered berries on the inland hillsides. And so it is that here men must depend upon flesh and fish for their existence and they must kill if they would live.
Every lad on The Labrador, therefore, is taught from earliest youth to take pride in his profession of hunter and trapper and fisherman--for on The Labrador every man is a professional hunter and trapper and fisherman--and to strive for skill and the praise of his elders, and Bobby was no exception to the rule.
And so it came about that Bobby at the age of thirteen proved himself a bold and brave hunter, and standing now over the carca.s.s of his victim he felt a vast and consistent pride in his success; for it was no small achievement for a lad of his years to have killed, single-handed and poorly armed, a full grown polar bear. It was an accomplishment, indeed, in which a grown man and a more experienced hunter than Bobby might have taken pride; and a grown man could scarcely have employed better tactics, or shown greater skill and courage, after the first foolhardy shot had been fired.
But this was Bobby"s way. It was an exhibition of his old trait of getting himself and Jimmy into a sc.r.a.pe and then by quick action and practical methods getting them safely out of it again.
Skipper Ed and Abel had heard the reports of Bobby"s gun, and they knew that something unusual was on foot. The first shot did not disturb them.
That, they knew, was for the seal for which Bobby had taken the gun. But no self-respecting seal will remain as a target to be fired at repeatedly, and the shots that followed told their practiced ears that more important game than a seal was the object of the fusillade. And so, without parley, each seized his rifle, and together they set out across the island, and thus it happened that presently they came upon Bobby and Jimmy admiring the prize.
"Jimmy and I got a bear! A ripping big one, too!" said Bobby as the two men came up to them, giving Jimmy equal credit, for if he was positive, Bobby was also generous, and wished his friend to share in the glory of his triumphs and achievements.
"Bobby got him alone," corrected Jimmy. "I legged it, and if it hadn"t been for Bobby he"d have caught me."
"Oh, you know better than that," protested Bobby. "You got in his way, so he"d take after you, and that gave me time to load, and shoot him."
"_Peauke! Peauke!_" exclaimed Abel. "A fine fat bear."
"Good for you, Bobby!" commented Skipper Ed, looking the carca.s.s over.
"I never killed as big a bear as that myself. Good work!"
"And we"ll have some meat now, and won"t have to eat just fish all summer," said Bobby, who had the respect of most healthy boys for his stomach.
"We"ll feast like kings," agreed Skipper Ed. "Flesh as well as fish.
Great luck! Great luck! And I"ll be bound not another lad of your age could have got a bear like that with just a shotgun. Why, neither Abel nor I would have tackled him with just a shotgun. No, sir, we wouldn"t!"
And Skipper Ed put it to Abel, who declared he never would have risked a shotgun unless he had a spear, also, to protect himself.
Deftly and quickly they skinned and dressed the carca.s.s, wasting no part of the flesh, save the liver, which they fed to the dogs, for, as every one knows, the liver of the polar bear is poisonous and unfit for human consumption.
"I could eat a steak right now," suggested Bobby, when the meat was stowed.
But there was no time now to cook bear steaks, for a breeze had sprung up and they must needs take advantage of it, and Skipper Ed and Jimmy had already hoisted sail.
"Never mind," said Abel, "I"ll show you! I"ll show you!" and with an air of mystery, and chuckling to himself, Abel hurriedly gathered some flat stones which he piled into the boat.
"Now," suggested Abel, when they were at last moving, "you take the tiller, Bobby, and we"ll see about the bear steaks."
With much care he proceeded to arrange the stones in the bottom of the boat until presently a very excellent fireplace was built, and so arranged that the boat itself was well protected. No wood save driftwood was to be found on Itigailit Island or on the near-by sh.o.r.es, and therefore both Abel"s boat and Skipper Ed"s boat had been provided with sufficient firewood to meet the needs of their camp for several days.
And so, with fuel at hand, Abel quickly had a cozy fire blazing in his fireplace and Mrs. Abel, laughing and enjoying the novel experience of cooking in a boat, had some tea brewing and some bear"s steaks sizzling in the pan in a jiffy.
Skipper Ed"s trap boat, though a fine sea craft, was not so fast a sailer in a light breeze as Abel"s, and though Skipper Ed and Jimmy had left the island some little time in advance the boats were now so close that Abel could make himself heard, and standing in the bow he bawled:
"_Pujolik! Pujolik!_" (A steamer! A steamer!)
A steamship in these waters was uncommon. No steamer had ever come into the bay, indeed--for they were still in the bay--at least within the memory of man, and eager to see what manner of ship it might be Skipper Ed and Jimmy were on their feet in an instant, eagerly searching the eastern horizon.
Abel was immediately convulsed with laughter, and Mrs. Abel laughed, and Bobby laughed, and when Skipper Ed and Jimmy, failing to discover the steamer, or any signs of it, turned inquiringly back toward Abel, still standing in the bow, Abel pointed to the smoke rising from the fire, and repeated:
"_Pujolik! Pujolik_!"
Then Skipper Ed and Jimmy understood, and they laughed too. It was a great joke, Abel thought, and for an hour afterward he indulged at intervals in quiet chuckles, and even after the two boats had drawn alongside, and tea and fried bear"s steaks had been pa.s.sed to Skipper Ed and Jimmy, that they too might share in the feast, Abel laughed.
It was noon the following day when the boats drew up to the old landing place on Itigailit Island, and an hour later the two tents were pitched on Abel Zachariah"s old camping ground, and everything was as snug and settled, and they were all as perfectly at home, as though they had been living there for months.
Then the dogs in the skiffs were brought ash.o.r.e and released from their two days" confinement, and Abel"s train and Skipper Ed"s train, after the manner of Eskimo dogs, immediately engaged in a pitched battle. They began by snarling and snapping at one another with ugly, bared fangs, and then followed a rush toward each other and they became a rolling, tumbling ma.s.s of fearsome, fighting creatures, and had to be beaten asunder with stout sticks before they could be induced to settle into their quiet and uneventful summer existence.
When all was arranged Bobby, after his custom, walked quietly back to the cairn which he had built in previous summers to mark the grave of the mysterious man that Abel and Mrs. Abel had buried so many years before, and Jimmy went with him.
"I often wonder," said Bobby, as he replaced some stones that winter storms had loosed, "who the man was and how he came by his death. I remember I called him Uncle Robert, but I can"t remember much else about him, and that is like a dream."
"I wonder if he really was your uncle?" suggested Jimmy.
"I don"t know," said Bobby. "I try to remember, until my head is spinning with it, and sometimes it seems as though I am going to remember what happened away back there. It"s just as though I had lived before, and I think of bright lights, and beautiful things, and wonderful people. I wonder if Father and Mother are right, and what I remember is heaven? Do you think so, Jimmy?"
"I--I wonder, now!" Jimmy"s voice was filled with awe. "Maybe you did come from heaven, Bobby!"
"I don"t believe so," and Bobby was practical again. "I don"t feel as though I"d ever been an angel, and I don"t look it, do I?"