"It will depend somewhat on the captain of the vessel—what sort of a man he is," said Kit. "He may be one of the high and mighty sort, full of overgrown notions of the company's authority."

Another jet of white smoke puffed out from the side of the ship, followed in a few seconds by another dull bang.

"We'll stand by our colors in any case," remarked Capt. Mazard, attaching our flag to the signal halliards.

Raed and Kit ran to hoist it. Up it went to the peak of the bright-yellow mast,—the bonny bright stars and stripes.

"All hands weigh anchor!" ordered Capt. Mazard.

"Load the howitzer!" cried Kit. "Let's answer their gun in coin!"

While we were loading, the schooner was brought round.

Wade must have got in a pretty heavy charge; for the report was a stunner.

"Load again," said Kit; "and put in a ball this time. Let's load the rifle too."

The captain turned and regarded us doubtfully, then looked off toward the ship. "The Curlew" was driving lazily forward, and, crossing the channel between the island under which we had been lying and the ice-field, passed slowly along the latter at a distance of a hundred and fifty or two hundred yards. We thus had the ice-island between us and the possibly hostile ship. With our glasses we now watched her movements attentively. A number of officers were on the quarter-deck.

"You don't call that a ship-of-war?" Wade said at length.

"Oh, no!" replied the captain; "though it is probably an armed ship. All the company's ships go armed, I've heard."

"There!" exclaimed Kit. "They're letting down a boat!"

"That's so!" cried Wade. "They're going to pay us a visit sure!"

"They probably don't want to trust their heavy-laden ship up here among the islands," said the captain.

"It's their long-boat, I think," said Kit. "One, two, three, four, five!—why, there are not less than fifteen or twenty men in it! And see there!—weapons!"

As the boat pulled away from the side, the sun flashed brightly from a dozen gleaming blades.

"Cutlasses!" exclaimed Raed, turning a little pale.

I am ready to confess, that, for a moment, I felt as weak as a rag. The vengeful gleam of the light on hostile steel is apt, I think, to give one such a feeling the first time he sees it. The captain stood leaning on the rail, with the glass to his eye, evidently at his wits' end, and in no little trepidation. Very likely at that moment he wished our expedition had gone to Jericho before he had undertaken it. Raed, I think, was the first to rally his courage. I presume he had thought more on the subject previously than the rest of us had done. The sudden appearance of the ship had therefore taken him less by surprise than it did us.

"It looks as if they were going to board us—if we let them," he said quietly. "That's the way it looks; isn't it, captain?"

"I should say that it did, decidedly," Capt. Mazard replied.

"Boys!" exclaimed Raed, looking round to us, and to the sailors, who had gathered about us in some anxiety,—"boys! if we let those fellows yonder board us, in an hour we shall all be close prisoners, in irons perhaps, and down in the hold of that ship. We shall be carried out to Fort York, kept there a month in a dungeon likely as any way, then sent to England to be tried—for daring to sail into Hudson Bay and trade with the Esquimaux! What say, boys?—shall we let them come aboard and take us?"

"No, sir!" cried Kit.

"Not much!" exclaimed Donovan. "We'll fight first!"

"Capt. Mazard," continued Raed, "I'm really sorry to have been the means of placing you in such a predicament. 'The Curlew' will undoubtedly be condemned if seized. They would clap a prize-crew into her the first thing, and start her for England. But there's no need of giving her up to them. That's not a ship-of-war. We've got arms, and can fight as well as they. We can beat off that boat, I'll be bound to say: and as for their ship, I don't believe they'll care to take her up here between the islands; and if they do,—why, we can sail away from them. But, for my own part, I had rather fight, and take an even chance of being killed, than be taken prisoner, and spend five months below decks."

"Fight it is, then!" exclaimed the captain doggedly.

By this time the boat was pulling up the channel to the north of the ice-field, within a mile of us.

"We might crowd sail, and stand away to the north of the islands here," I argued.

"Yes; but we don't know how this roadstead ends farther on," replied Raed.

"It may be choked up with ice or small islets," said Kit. "In that case we should run into a trap, where they would only have to follow us to be sure of us. We might abandon the schooner, and get ashore; but that would be nearly as bad as being taken prisoner—on this coast."

"Here's clear sailing round this ice-field," remarked the captain. "My plan is to keep their ship on the opposite of it from us. If they give chase, we'll sail round it."

"But how about their boat?" demanded Wade.

"We must beat it off!" exclaimed the captain determinedly.

"Then we've not a moment to lose!" cried Raed.—"Here, Donovan! help me move the howitzer to the stern.—Kit, you and Wash and Wade get up the muskets and load them. Bring up the cartridges, and get caps and everything ready."

The howitzer went rattling into the stern, and was pointed out over the taffrail. The big rifle followed it. To the approaching boat their muzzles must have looked a trifle grim, I fancy. Matches and splints were got ready, as well as wads and balls. The muskets were charged, and the bayonets fixed. The schooner was kept moving gradually along at about the same distance from the ice. Bonney was stationed at the wheel, and Corliss at the sheets. Old Trull stood by the howitzer. The rest of us took each a musket, and formed in line along the after-bulwarks. Palmleaf, who in the midst of these martial preparations had been enjoying a pleasant after-breakfast snooze, was now called, and bade to stand by Corliss at the sheets. His astonishment at the sight which the deck presented to his lately-awakened optics was very great; the greater, that no one would take the trouble to answer his anxious questions.

The boat had now come up to within a quarter of a mile. With cutlasses flashing, and oars dipping all together, they came closing in with a long, even stroke.

"We don't want them much within a hundred yards of us," said Capt. Mazard in a low tone.

"I'll hail them," replied Raed, taking the speaking-trumpet, which the captain had brought along.

The crisis was close at hand. We clutched the stocks of our rifles, and stood ready. There was, I am sure, no blenching nor flinching from the encounter which seemed imminent. We could see the faces of the men in the boat, the red face of the officer in the stern. The men were armed with carbines and broad sabers. They had come within easy hail.

"Present arms!" commanded Capt. Mazard in clear tones.

Eight of us, with our rifles, stood fast.

"Repel boarders!"

Instantly we dropped on one knee, and brought our pieces to bear over the rail, the bayonets flashing as brightly as their own.

"Boat ahoy!" shouted Raed through the trumpet.

"Ahoy yourself!" roared the red-faced man in the stern. "What ship is that, anyway?"

This was rather insulting talk: nevertheless, Raed answered civilly and promptly,—

"The schooner-yacht 'Curlew' of Portland."

"Where bound? What are you doing here?"

"Bound on a cruise into Hudson Bay!" responded Raed coolly; "for scientific purposes," he added.

"Scientific devils!" blustered the officer. "You can't fool us so! You're in here on a trading-voyage. We saw a kayak go off from you not an hour ago."

Not caring to bandy words, Raed made no reply; and we knelt there, with our muskets covering them, in silence. They had stopped rowing. and were falling behind a little; for "The Curlew" plowed leisurely on.

"Why don't you heave to?" shouted the irate commander of the boat. "I must look at your papers! Heave to while I come alongside!"

"You can't bring that armed boat alongside of this schooner!" replied Raed. "No objections to your examining our papers; but we're not green enough to let you bring an armed crew aboard of us."

"Then we shall come without letting! Give way there!"

But his men hesitated. The sight of our muskets, and old Trull holding a blazing splinter over the howitzer, was a little too much even for the sturdy pluck of English sailors.

"Bring that boat another length nearer," shouted Raed, slow and distinctly, "and we shall open fire on you!"

"The devil you will!"

"Yes, we will!"

At that we all cocked our muskets. The sharp clicking was, no doubt, distinctly audible in the boat. The officer thundered out a torrent of oaths and abuse; to all of which Raed made no reply. They did not advance, however. We meant business; and I guess they thought so. Our stubborn silence was not misconstrued.

"How do I know that you're not a set of pirates?" roared the Englishman. "You look like it! But wait till I get back to 'The Rosamond.' and I'll knock some of the impudence out of you, you young filibusters!" And with a parting malediction, which showed wonderful ingenuity in blasphemy, he growled out an order to back water; when the boat was turned, and headed for the ship.

"Give 'em three cheers!" said Kit.

Whereupon we jumped up, gave three and a big groan; at which the red face in the stern turned, and stared long and evilly at us.

"No wonder he's mad!" exclaimed Raed. "Had to row clean round this ice-field, and now has got to row back for his pains! Thought he was going to scare us just about into fits. Got rather disagreeably disappointed."

"He was pretty well set up, I take it," remarked the captain. "Had probably taken a drop before coming off. His men knew it. When he gave the order to 'give way,' they hung back: didn't care about it."

"They knew better," said Donovan. "We could have knocked every one of them on the head before they could have got up the side. It ain't as if 'The Curlew' was loaded down, and lay low in the water. It's about as much as a man can do to get from a boat up over the bulwarks. They might have hit some of us with their carbines; but they couldn't have boarded us, and they knew it."

"You noticed what he said about knocking the impudence out of us?" said Wade. "That means that we shall hear a noise and have cannon-shot whistling about our ears, I suppose."

"Shouldn't wonder," said Kit.

"Have to work to hurt us much, I reckon," remarked the captain. "The distance across the ice-island here can't be much under two miles and a half."

"Still, if they've got a rifled Whitworth or an Armstrong, they may send some shots pretty near us," said Wade.

"The English used to kindly send you Southern fellows a few Armstrongs occasionally, I have heard," said Raed.

"Yes, they did,—just by way of testing Lincoln's blockade. Very good guns they were too. We ought to have had more of them. I tell you, if they have a good twenty-four-pound Armstrong rifle, and a gunner that knows anything, they may give us a job of carpenterwork—to stop the holes."

"We might increase the distance another quarter of a mile," remarked Kit, "by standing off from the ice and making the circle a little larger."

"We'll do so," said the captain. "Port the helm, Bonney!"

During the next half-hour the schooner veered off two or three cables' lengths. We watched the boat pulling back to the ship. It was nearly an hour getting around the ice-island. Finally it ran in alongside, and was taken up. With our glasses we could see that there was a good deal of running and hurrying about the deck.

"Some tall swearing going on there!" laughed Kit.

"Now look out for your heads!" said Raed. "They are pointing a gun! I can see the muzzle of it! It has an ugly look!"

Some five minutes more passed, when puff came a little cloud of smoke. We held our breaths. It gives a fellow a queer sensation to know that a deadly projectile is coming for him. It might have been four seconds, though it seemed longer, when we saw the ice fly up rapidly in three or four places half a mile from the schooner as the ball came skipping along, and, bounding off the edge of the ice-field, plunged into the sea with a sullen sudge, throwing up a white fountain ten or a dozen feet high, which fell splashing back. We all felt immensely relieved.

"That didn't come within three hundred yards of us," said Kit.

"They'll give her more elevation next time," said Wade. "I don't believe that was an Armstrong slug, though: it acted too sort of lazy."

"Look out, now!" exclaimed Raed. "They are going to give us another!"

Puff—one—two—three—four! The ball struck near the edge of the ice-field, rose with a mighty bound twenty or thirty feet, and, describing a fine curve, struck spat upon the water; and again, rose, to plunge heavily down into the ocean two hundred feet off the port quarter.

"That was better," said Raed. "They are creeping up to us! The next one may come aboard!"

"But that's nothing more than an ordinary old twenty-four-pounder," said Wade. "Bet they haven't got a rifled gun. Lucky for us!"

"I wish we had a good Dahlgren fifty-pound rifle!" exclaimed Kit: "we would just make them get out of that quick! Wouldn't it be fun to chase them off through the straits here, with our big gun barking at their heels!"

"There they go again!" shouted the captain. "Look out!"

We caught a momentary glimpse of the shot high in air, and held our breaths again as it came whirling down with a quick thud into the sea a few hundred feet astern, and a little beyond us.

"Gracious!" cried Kit. "If that had struck on the deck, it would have gone down, clean down through, I do believe!"

"Not so bad as that, I guess," said the captain. "That heap of sand-ballast in the hold would stop it, I reckon."

"Think so?"

"Oh, yes!"

There was real comfort in that thought. It was therefore with diminished apprehension that we saw a fourth shot come roaring down a cable's length forward, and beyond the bows, and, a few seconds after, heard the dull boom following the shot. The report was always two or three seconds behind the ball.

They fired three more of the "high ones," as Kit called them. None of these came any nearer than the fourth had done. Then they tried another at a less elevation, which struck on the ice-field, and came skipping along as the first had done; but it fell short.

"Old Red-face will have to give it up, I guess."' said Kit. "He wants to hit us awfully, though! If he hadn't a loaded ship, bet you, we should see him coming up the channel between the islands there, swearing like a piper."

"In that case we would just 'bout ship, and lead him on a chase round this ice-island till he got sick of it," remarked the captain. "'The Curlew' can give him points, and outsail that great hulk anywhere."

"He's euchred, and may as well go about his business," laughed Weymouth.

"And that's just what he's concluding to do, I guess," said Donovan, who had borrowed my glass for a moment. "The ship's going round to the wind."

"Yes, there she goes!" exclaimed Wade.

"Possibly they may bear up through the channel to the west of the ice-island," said Raed.

"Hope he will, if he wants to," remarked Capt. Mazard. "Nothing would suit me better than to race with him."

In fifteen or twenty minutes the ship was off the entrance of the channel; but she held on her course, and had soon passed it.

"Now that old fellow feels bad!" laughed Kit. "How savage he will be for the next twenty-four hours! I pity the sailors! He will have two or three of them 'spread-eagled' by sunset to pay for this, the old wretch! He looked just like that sort of a man."

"I wonder what our Husky friends thought of this little bombardment!" exclaimed Wade, looking off toward the mainland. "Don't see anything of them."

"Presume we sha'n't get that old 'sachem' that saw Palmleaf to visit us again in a hurry," said Kit.

We watched the ship going off to the south-west for several hours, till she gradually sank from view.

"Well, captain," said Raed, "you are not going to let this adventure frighten you, I hope."

"Oh, no! I guess we can take care of ourselves. Only, in future, I think we had better keep a sharper lookout, not to let another ship come up within three miles without our knowing it."

It was now after four o'clock, P.M. Not caring to follow too closely after the company's ship, we beat back to our anchorage of the previous evening, and anchored for the night.

Saw nothing more of the Esquimaux; and, early the next morning, sailed out into the straits, and continued on during the whole day, keeping the mountains of the mainland to the northward well in sight at a distance of eight or ten miles, and occasionally sighting high islands to the south of the straits.

By five o'clock, afternoon, we were off a third group of islands on the north side, known as the "Upper Savage Isles." During the evening and night we passed them a few miles to the south,—a score of black, craggy islets. Even the bright light of the waning sun could not enliven their utter desolation. Drear, oh, how drear! with their thunder-battered peaks rising abruptly from the ocean, casting long black shadows to the eastward. Many of them were mere tide-washed ledges, environed by ice-fields.

About nine o'clock, evening, the ice-patches began to thicken ahead. By ten we were battering heavily among it, with considerable danger of staving in the bows. The foresail was accordingly taken in, and double reefs put in the mainsail. The weather had changed, with heavy lowering clouds and a rapidly-falling thermometer. Nevertheless we boys turned in, and went to sleep. Experience was beginning to teach us to sleep when we could. The heavy rumble of thunder roused us. Bright, sudden flashes gleamed through the bull's-eyes. The motion of the schooner had changed.

"What's up, I wonder?" asked Kit, sitting up on the side of his mattress.

Another heavy thunder-peal burst, rattling overhead. Hastily putting on our coats and caps, we went on deck, where a scene of such wild and terrible grandeur presented itself, that I speak of it, even at this lapse of time, with a shudder; knowing, too, that I can give no adequate idea of it in words. I will not say that I am not glad to have witnessed it; but I should not want to see it again. To the lovers of the awfully sublime, it would have been worth a journey around the earth. It seemed as if all the vast antagonistic forces of Nature had been suddenly confronted with each other. The schooner had been hove to in the lee of an ice-field engirdling one of the smaller islets, with all sail taken in save the jib. Weymouth was at the wheel; the captain stood near him; Hobbs and Donovan were in the bow; Bonney stood by the jib-halliards. On the port side the ice-field showed like a pavement of alabaster on a sea of ink, contrasting wildly with the black, rolling clouds, which, like the folds of a huge shroud, draped the heavens in darkness. On the starboard, the heaving waters, black as night, were covered with pure white ice-cakes, striking and battering together with heavy grindings. The lightnings played against the inky clouds, forked, zigzag, and dazzling to the eye. The thunder-echoes, unmuffled by vegetation, were reverberated from bare granitic mountains and naked ice-fields with a hollow rattle that deafened and appalled us; and, in the intervals of thunder, the hoarse bark of bears, and their affrighted growlings, were borne to our ears with savage distinctness. Mingled with these noises came the screams and cries of scores of sea-birds, wheeling and darting about.

It was half-past two, morning.

"What a fearfully grand scene!" exclaimed Wade.

And I recollect that we all laughed in his face, the words seemed so utterly inadequate to express what, by common consent, was accorded unutterable. An hour later, the blackness of the heavens had rolled away to the westward, a fog began to rise, and morning light effaced the awful panorama of night.

By six o'clock the fog was so dense that nothing could be seen a half cable's length, and continued thus till afternoon, during which time we lay hove to under the lee of the ice. But by two o'clock a smart breeze from the north lifted it. The schooner was put about, and, under close-reefed sails, went bumping through the interminable ice-patches which seem ever to choke these straits. The mountains to the northward showed white after the squalls of last night; and the seals were leaping as briskly amid the ice-cakes as if the terrific scenery of the previous evening had but given zest to their unwieldy antics.



CHAPTER IX.

A Barren Shore, and a Strange Animal, which is captured by blowing up its Den.—Palmleaf falls in with the Esquimaux, and is chased by them.—"Twau-ve!"—"A Close Shave."—An Attack threatened.—The Savages dispersed with the Howitzer.

To avoid the thick patches of heavy ice which were this afternoon driving out toward the Atlantic, we bore up quite near the mainland on the north side, and continued beating on, with the wind north all night, at the rate of—at a guess—two knots per hour. It was dull work. We turned in at twelve, and slept soundly till five, when the noisy rattling of the cable through the hawse aroused us. The wind had died out, and they had dropped the anchor in forty-three fathoms. It was a cloudy morning: every thing had a leaden, dead look. We were about half a mile from the shore; and after breakfast, having nothing better to do, fell to examining it with our glasses. Shelving ledges rose up, terrace on terrace, into dark mountains, back two and three miles from the sea. The whole landscape seemed made up of water, granite, and ice. The black, leathern lichens added to the gloomy aspect of the shore-rocks, on which the waves were beating—forever beating—with sullen plashings. Terrible must be the aspect of this coast in winter. Now the hundreds of water-fowl wheeling over it, and enlivening the crags with their cries, softened its grimness. Farther along the shore-ledges Kit presently espied a black animal of some kind, and called our attention to it.

"He seems to be eating something there," said he.

We looked at it.

"It's not an Esquimau dog, is it?" Wade asked.

"Oh, no! head don't look like a dog's," observed Kit. "Besides, their dogs are not so dark-colored as that."

"This seems from here to be almost or quite black," Raed remarked; "as black as Guard. Not quite so large, though."

Wade thought it was fully as large.

"If we were in Maine, I should say it was a small black bear," said Kit; "but I have never heard of a black bear being seen north of Hudson Straits."

The head seemed to me to be too small for a bear.

"Captain, what do you think of that animal?" Kit asked, handing him his glass.

Capt. Mazard looked.

"If it hadn't such short legs, I should pronounce it a black wolf," he replied. "It's too large for a fisher, isn't it? I don't know that fishers are found so far north, either. How is that?"

"Hearne, in his 'Northern Journey,' speaks of the fisher being met with, farther west, in latitude as far north as this," said I.

"But that's too big for a fisher," said Raed; "too thick and heavy. A fisher is slimmer."

"Who knows but it may be a new species!" exclaimed Kit, laughing. "Now's a chance to distinguish ourselves as naturalists. If we can discover a new animal of that size in this age of natural history, and prove that we are the discoverers, it will be monument enough for us: we can then afford to retire on our laurels. Call it a long Latin name, and tack our own names, with the ending ii or us on them, to that, and you're all right for distant posterity. That's what some of our enterprising young naturalists, who swarm out from Yale and Cambridge, seem to think. Only a few weeks ago, I was reading of a new sort of minute infusorial insect or mollusk, I don't pretend to understand which, bearing the name of 'Mussa Braziliensis Hartii Verrill.' Now, I like that. There's a noble aspiration for fame as well as euphony. Only it's a little heavy on the poor mollusk to make him draw these aspiring young gentlemen up the steep heights of ambition. But if they can afford to risk two names on a tiny bit of jelly as big as the head of a pin, say, I think we should be justified in putting all four of ours on to this big beast over here. And, since the captain thinks it's like a wolf, suppose we call it 'Lupus rabidus Additonii Burleighii Raedwayvius'"—

"There, that'll do!" cried Raed. "You've spelt! Go up head!"

"There's another creature coming along the rocks!" exclaimed Wade. "That's a bear! He's coming out where the black one is!"

"There," said Raed, "you can see now that the bear is much the larger."

"Yes; but a white bear is considerably larger than a black bear," replied Kit.

"Look quick!" cried Wade. "There's going to be a brush! See the black one bristle up!"

"He's got something there he don't want to give up," said the captain.

"Bear says, 'I'll take your place at that,'" laughed Kit. "He walks up to him. By George! did you see the black one jump at him? Bear sent him spinning with his paw. He won't go off. Stands there growling, I'll bet."

"I should really like to know what sort of a beast that is," said Raed. "Captain, have the boat let down, if you please. I would like to go over there."

"Good chance to get another bear-skin," observed Kit. "We need one more."

The boat was lowered; and we four, with Guard, and Weymouth and Don to row, got into it, and paddled across toward where the bear was feeding, and the black creature, sitting up like a dog, watching him. We worked up quietly to within about half a cable's length (three hundred and sixty feet) without disturbing them. It was a pretty large bear: but the black animal did not seem more than two-thirds as large as Guard; and, the nearer we came to it, the more in doubt we were as to its species.

"I never saw any thing at all like it," remarked Raed.

"Wouldn't it be jolly if it should prove to be a new, undiscovered animal!" exclaimed Wade.

"That's rather too good to be true," replied Kit; "but we'll see."

Just then Guard got his eye on them, and barked gruffly. The bear looked round: so did the black creature.

"Kit, you and Wade take the bear," advised Raed. "Wash and I will fire at the black one. Get good aim, now."

We took as good aim as the rocking of the boat would permit, and fired nearly together. The bear growled out savagely: the black beast snarled.

"There they go!" exclaimed Weymouth.

The bear was running off along the shore, galloping like a hog. The black animal was going straight back over the ledges.

"Pull in quick!" shouted Raed.

The boat was rowed up to the shore. Jumping out, we pulled it up on the rocks.

"Here, Guard!" cried Kit, running forward to where the ledges gave a better view. "There he goes! take him now!" for we had got a momentary glimpse of the black animal crossing the crest of a ledge several hundred yards away.

"Come on, Weymouth!" exclaimed Wade; "and you, Donovan! Let's we three go after the bear. They'll take care of the new species: we'll go for the old."

Kit had run on after Guard. Raed and I followed as fast as we could. The Newfoundland, chasing partly by sight and partly by scent, was already a good way ahead; and we soon lost sight of him among the ledgy hillocks and ridges. We could hear him barking; but the rocks echoed the sound so confusedly, that it was hard telling where he was. Hundreds of kittiwakes were starting up all about us too, with such a chorus of cries that it was not very clear which was dog. Presently we lost sound of Guard altogether, and wandered on at random for ten or fifteen minutes, but finally met him coming back. As soon as he saw us, he turned and led off again; and, following him for thirty or forty rods, we came to a fissure between two large rocky fragments, partially overlaid by a third. Guard ran up, and by a bark seemed to say, "In here!" Kit thrust in his musket, and we heard a growl.

"Holed him!" cried Raed.

"Pretty strong posish, though," said Kit, looking about. "If we only had a big pry here, we might heave up this top rock, and so get at him."

"I don't suppose there's a tree big enough to use as a lever within a hundred miles of here," remarked Raed, looking around.

We ran in our muskets, but could not touch the creature. He seemed to have crept round an angle of one of the bottom rocks, so as to be well out of reach and out of range. The hole was scarcely large enough to admit Guard, and the dog did not seem greatly disposed to go in. We fired our muskets, one at a time, holding the muzzles inside the opening, hoping to frighten the animal out; but he didn't see fit to leave his stronghold.

"If we had only a pound or two of powder here," observed Raed, examining the crevices about the rocks, "I think we might mine this top rock, and blow it up."

"That will be the only way to get at him," said Kit.

"Well, we can go back to the schooner for some," I suggested.

"Yes," said Kit. "Raed, you and Guard stay here and watch him. Wash and I will go for the powder."

We started off, and, on getting back to the beach, found Wade, with Weymouth and Donovan, standing near the boat.

"Where's your bear?" Kit demanded.

"You say," laughed Weymouth, "you were one of the two that shot at him."

"He showed too much speed for us," said Donovan.

"But where's your new species?" Wade inquired.

"Oh! he's all right,—up here in a hole."

"That so? Here's what he was eating when the bear drove him away," pointing down among the rocks, where a lot of large bones lay partly in the water.

"What kind of an animal was that?" Kit asked.

"A finback, I think," replied Weymouth. "Died or got killed among the ice, and the waves washed the carcass up here. Been dead a good while."

"I should say so, by the smell. Putrid, isn't it? Why, that beast must have had a strong stomach!"

Weymouth and Donovan went off to the schooner after the powder in our places, and came back in about twenty minutes. Palmleaf was with them.

"You haven't come on another bear-hunt, I hope!" cried Wade.

"No, sar. Don't tink much of dem bars, sar. Got a voice jest like ole massa down Souf. 'Spression very much like his when he used ter take at us cullered folks with his bowie-knife."

"Pity he hadn't overtaken you with it!" Wade exclaimed, to hector him. "He would have saved the hangman a job—not far distant."

"Dere's a difference ob 'pinions as to where de noose ought ter come," muttered the affronted darky. "Some tinks it's in one place, some in anoder."

Securing the boat by the painter to a rock, we went up over the ledges to where Raed was doing sentinel duty before the fissure.

"Has he made any demonstrations?" Kit asked.

"Growls a little occasionally," said Raed. "I've been looking at the cracks under this top rock. This on the right is the one to mine, I think. I've cleared it out: it's all ready for the powder. What have you got for a slow match?"

Donovan had brought a bit of rope, which he picked to pieces, while Kit and Raed sifted in the powder. The tow was then laid in a long trail, running back some two feet from the crack.

"Now be ready to shoot when the blast goes off," advised Raed. "He may jump out and run. Palmleaf, you keep Guard back."

The rest of us took our stand off thirty or forty yards, and, cocking our guns, stood ready to shoot. Raed then lighted a match, touched the tow, and retired with alacrity. It flamed up, and ran along the train; then suddenly went nearly out, but blazed again, and crept slowly up to the powder; when whank! and the rock hopped out from between the others, and rolled spitefully along the ground. We stood with our guns to our shoulders, and our fingers on the triggers. But the beast didn't show himself.

"Possibly it killed him," said Kit.

Raed picked up some rough pebbles, and pitched one over between the rocks. Instantly there was a scramble, and our black-furred friend leaped out and ran.

Crack-k-k-k!—a running fire. Guard rushed after him. The creature fell at the reports, but scrambled up as the dog charged upon him, and tried to defend himself. But the bullets had riddled him. In an instant, Guard had him by the throat: he was dead. There were five shot-holes in the carcass: one of them, at least, must have been received when we fired at him from the boat.

It was a very strong, muscular creature, with short stout legs and broad feet, with claws not so sharp and retractile as a lynx's; seemingly intermediate between a cat's claws and a dog's nails. The tail was quite long and bushy: indeed, the creature was rather shaggy, than otherwise. The head and mouth were not large for the body. The teeth seemed to me much like those of a lynx. I have no doubt that it was a glutton (Gulo luscus), or wolverine, as they are indifferently called; though none of us had at that time previously seen one of these creatures. Donovan and Weymouth undertook to skin it; and, while they were thus employed, the rest of us, with Palmleaf and Guard, went off to shoot a dozen kittiwakes. We had gone nearly half a mile, I presume, and secured five birds, when Wade called out to us to see a large eagle, or hawk, which was wheeling slowly about a high crag off to the left.

"It's a white-headed eagle, isn't it?" said he.

Kit thought it might be. But Raed and I both thought not. It seemed scarcely so large; and, so far as we could see, the head was not white. It occurred to me that it might be the famous gerfalcon, or Icelandic eagle; and, on mentioning this supposition, Raed and Kit both agreed with me that it seemed likely. Wishing, if possible, to secure it, I crept along under the crag, and, watching my chance as it came circling over, fired. 'Twas a very long shot. I had little expectation of hitting: yet my bullet must have struck it; for it flapped over, and came toppling down till within a hundred feet of the top of the crag, when it recovered itself, mounted a little, but gradually settled in the air till lost from sight behind the crag. Thinking it barely possible that it might fall to the ground, I sent Palmleaf with Guard round where the acclivity was not so great, to look for it. The negro had seen the bird fall, and started off. I let him take my musket, and, with the rest of the boys, went down to the water, which was distant from where we then were not more than a hundred rods. Donovan and Weymouth had already finished skinning the glutton, and gone down to the boat. Knowing we had followed off to the left, they embarked, and came paddling along to pick us up. They came up; and we got in with our kittiwakes, and then stood off a few yards to wait for the negro. I had not expected he would be gone so long. We were looking for him every moment; when suddenly we heard the report of his musket, apparently a long way behind the crag.

"Confound the darky!" muttered Raed. "What could possess him to go so far?"

"Perhaps the eagle kept flying on," suggested Kit.

We waited fifteen or twenty minutes. No signs of him.

"You don't suppose the rascal's got lost, do you?" Wade said.

"No need of that, I should imagine," replied Raed.

We waited ten or fifteen minutes longer.

"We might as well go after him," Kit was saying; when, at a distance, a great shouting and uproar arose, accompanied by the barking of dogs and all the other accompaniments of a general row and rumpus.

"What the dickens is up now?" exclaimed Kit.

"It's the Huskies!" cried Weymouth.

"You don't suppose they are after Palmleaf, do you?" Raed demanded.

We listened eagerly. The hubbub was increasing; and, a moment later, we espied the negro bursting over the ledges off to the left at a headlong run, with a whole crowd of Esquimaux only a few rods behind, brandishing their harpoons and darts. There were dogs, too. Guard was running with Palmleaf, facing about every few leaps, and barking savagely. All the dogs were barking; all the Huskies were ta-yar-r-r-ing and chasing on.

"They'll have him!" shouted Kit. "To the rescue!"

A smart pull of the oars sent the boat up to the rocks. Raed and Kit and Wade sprang out, cocking their muskets; Donovan followed with one of the oars; and I seized the boat-hook, and started after them. Palmleaf was tearing down toward the water, running for his life. He had lost the musket. Seeing us, he set up a piteous howl of terror. He had distanced his pursuers a little. The savages were now six or eight rods behind; but the dogs were at his heels, and were only kept off him by the sudden facings and savage growls of Guard, who valiantly stemmed the canine avalanche. We met him about fifty yards from the boat, and raised a loud hurrah.

"Into the boat with you!" Raed sang out to him.

The dogs howled and snarled viciously at us. Donovan cut at them with his oar right and left; while Raed, Kit, and Wade levelled their muskets at the horde of rushing, breathless savages, who seemed not to have seen us at all till that moment, so intent had they been after the negro. Discovering us, the front ones tried to pull up; and, those behind running up, they were all crowded together, shouting and screaming, and punching each other with their harpoons.

"Avast there!" shouted Donovan, flourishing his oar.

"Halt!" ordered Wade.

While Kit, remembering a word of Esquimaux, bade them "Twau-ve" ("Begone") at the top of his voice.

I must say that they were a wicked-looking lot,—the front ones, at least,—comprising some of the largest Esquimaux we had yet seen. There must have been thirty or forty in the front groups; and others were momentarily rushing in from behind. The dogs, too, fifty or sixty at least calculation,—great, gaunt, wolfish, yellow curs,—looked almost as dangerous as their masters.

"We must get out of this!" exclaimed Raed; for they were beginning to brandish their harpoons menacingly, and shout and howl still louder.

"If we turn, they'll set upon us before we can get into the boat!" muttered Kit.

"Fire over their heads, to gain time!" shouted Wade. "Ready!"

The three muskets cracked. A great ta-yar-r-r and screeching followed the reports; under cover of which and the smoke we legged it for the boat, and, tumbling in, were shoved hastily off by Weymouth. Before we had got twenty yards, however, the savages were on the bank, yelling, and throwing stones, several of which fell in among us; but we were soon out of their reach.

"That's what I call a pretty close shave!" exclaimed Donovan, panting.

"We couldn't have stood against them much longer," said Kit. "I didn't suppose they had so much ferocity about them. Those we saw down at the middle islands were kittenish enough."

"These may belong to a different tribe," replied Raed.

Palmleaf, completely exhausted, lay all in a heap in the bow. We pulled off to the schooner. The savages and their dogs kept up a confused medley of howls and shouts: it was hard distinguishing the human cries from the canine.

Capt. Mazard and the men were leaning over the rail, waiting. They had been watching the fracas, and understood it as little as we did.

"What's the row?" demanded the captain as we came under the stern. "What's all that beastly noise about?"

"Ask Palmleaf," said Wade.

"I saw you fire," continued the captain. "You didn't kill any of them, did you?"

"Oh, no!" said Raed. "We fired high to frighten them."

"I'm glad you didn't kill any of the poor wretches."

"Tell us how it happened, Palmleaf," said Kit.

"Did you come upon them? or did they come upon you?" I asked.

"Why, I was gwine arter dat hawk, you know," said the African, still sober from his terror and his race.

"Yes."

"He was fell down ober behind de crag, as you said he'd be; but he flew up 'fore I'd gut near 'im, an' kep' flyin' up."

"And you kept following him," added Raed. "Well, what next? How far did you go?"

"Oh! I went a long ways. I meant ter fotch 'im."

"Half a mile?"

"Yes, sar; should tink so."

"Did you fire at the eagle?" Kit asked.

"Yes, sar: seed him settin' on a ledge, an' fired. He flew, and I chased arter him agin."

"But how did you come to meet the Huskies?" demanded the captain.

"Well, sar, I'se runnin' along, payin' all my 'tention to de hawk, when all ter once I come plump onto two ob dere wimin folks wid a lot ob twine tings in dere han's."

"Snaring birds," said Raed. "Go on!"

"Dey seed me, an' stud lookin', wid dere hair all ober dere faces."

"That stopped you, I suppose?" said Wade.

"I jest halted up a bit, an' cast my eye t'wurds dem."

"You paid the most of your ''tention' to them, then?" continued Wade maliciously.

"Jest stopped a minit."

"To say a word to them on your own account, I'll warrant."

"Thought I'd jest speak an' tell dem dey needn't be ser 'fraid on me."

"Shut up, Wade!" interposed Kit. "Let him tell his story. What did the women do?"

"Dey turned an' haked it, an' hollered as loud as dey cud squawk."

Wade and the captain began to laugh.

"A black man with a black dog was too much for them!" exclaimed Raed. "Well, what next, Palmleaf?"

"Dey run'd; an' twan't a minit 'fore a whole gang ob de men cum runnin' up, wid dere picked bone tings in dere han's."

"That'll do," said Kit. "We know the rest."

"What became of my musket?" I asked.

"I dunno. I tink I mus' ha' dropped it."

"It does look like that," Kit remarked.

"See here, you 'Fifteenth Amendment'!" exclaimed the captain, turning to him: "you had better stay aboard in future."

"I tink so too, sar," said Palmleaf.

The crowd on the shore had grown larger. There could not have been much less than two hundred of them, we thought. The women and children had come. A pack of wolves could hardly have made a greater or more discordant din. We went to dinner, and, after that, lay down to rest a while; but when we went on deck again at three, P.M., the crowd was still there, in greater numbers than before.

"I wonder what they can be waiting for so long," said Wade.

There was little or no wind, or we should have weighed anchor and made off. After watching them a while longer, we went down to read. But, about four, the captain called us. We went up.

"That was what they were waiting for," said he, pointing off the starboard quarter.

About a mile below the place where the Esquimaux were collected, a whole fleet of kayaks were coming along the shore.

"Waiting for their boats," remarked the captain.

"They're coming off to us!"

"Do you suppose they really have hostile intentions?" Raed asked.

"From their movements on shore, and their shouts and howls, I should say that it was not impossible. No knowing what notions they've got into their heads about the 'black man.'"

"Likely as not their priests, if they've got any, have told them they ought to attack us," said Wade.

"There are fifty-seven of those kayaks and three oomiaks coming along the shore!" said Kit, who had been watching them with a glass.

"Hark! The crowd on shore have caught sight of them! What a yelling!"

"I do really believe they mean to attack us," Raed observed. "This must be some nasty superstition on their part; some of their religious nonsense."

"Well, we shall have to defend ourselves," said Kit.

"Of course, we sha'n't let them board us," replied Wade.

"Poor fools!" continued Raed. "It would be too bad if we have to kill any of them."

"Can't we frighten them out of it in some way?" I inquired.

"Might fire on them with the howitzer," Kit suggested, "with nothing but powder."

"That would only make them bolder, when they saw that nothing came out of it," said Capt. Mazard.

"Put in a ball, then," said Kit.

"That would be as bad as shooting them here alongside."

"It might be fired so as not to be very likely to hit them," said Raed. "Couldn't it, Wade?"

"Yes: might put in a small charge, and skip the ball, ricochet it along the water."

"Let's try it," said Kit.

The howitzer was pushed across to the starboard side.

"Remember that there's a pretty heavy charge in there now," said Wade. "Better send that over their heads!"

The gun was accordingly elevated to near thirty degrees. Raed then touched it off. The Esquimaux, of course, heard the report; but I doubt if they saw or heard any thing of the ball. It doubtless went a thousand feet over their heads; and just then, too, the kayaks and oomiaks came up where they were standing, and a great hubbub was occasioned by their arrival.

"Try 'em again!" exclaimed Donovan.

"Give them a skipping shot this time," said Wade.

A light charge of powder was then put in, with a ball, as before. The gun was not elevated this time; indeed, I believe Raed depressed it a few degrees. We watched with a great deal of curiosity, if nothing more, while Kit lighted a splint and touched the priming. A sharp, light report; and, a second later, the ball struck on the water off four or five hundred yards, and ricochetted,—skip—skip—skip—skip—spat into the loose shingle on the beach, making the small stones and gravel fly in all directions. The Huskies jumped away lively. Very likely the pebbles flew with some considerable violence. But in a moment they were swarming about the kayaks again, uttering loud cries. With the reenforcement they had just received, they numbered full a hundred or a hundred and fifty men. Should they make a determined effort to board us, we might have our hands full, or at least have to shoot a score or two of the poor ignorant wretches; which seemed a pitiable alternative.

"Load again!" cried Wade. "Let me try a shot!"

About the same quantity of powder was used as before. Wade did not depress the muzzle, if I recollect aright, at all. Consequently, on firing, the ball did not touch the water till near the shore, when it skipped once, and bounded to the beach, going among a whole pack of the howling dogs. A dreadful "Ti-yi" came wafted to our ears. One, at least, had been hit. With a glass we could see him writhing and jumping about. At this some of the crowd ran off up the ledges for several rods, and stood gazing anxiously off toward the schooner.

"Give 'em another!" exclaimed the captain.

But, while we were loading, twenty or thirty got into their kayaks; and, one of the oomiaks had eight or ten in it ere Wade was ready to give them a third shot. He depressed it three degrees this time. The ball hit the water about half way to the shore, and, skipping on, struck under the stem of a kayak, throwing it into the air, and, glancing against the side of the skin-clad oomiak, dashed it over and over. The crew were pitched headlong into the water. Pieces of the bone framework flew up. The skin itself seemed to have been turned wrong side out.

"Knocked it into a cocked hat!" exclaimed Kit.

"I hope none of them were killed," said Raed.

"I can't see that any of them were," remarked the captain. "They've all scrambled out, I believe. But it has scared them properly. Lord! just see them hake it, as Palmleaf says, up those rocks! Give 'em another before they get over this scare. Knock their old kayaks to pieces: that frightens them worst of any thing. Let me have a shot."

Reloading, the captain fired, smashing one end of another oomiak. Men, women, and dogs had taken to their heels, and were scampering off among the hillocks. Kit then fired a ball at an elevation of twenty degrees, which went roaring over their heads: we saw them all looking up, then haking it for dear life.

"Routed!" exclaimed Raed. "No blood shed either, except that dog's."

"Poor puppy!" said Wade. "I can see him lying there. Wonder it hadn't hit some of them."

"Well, it's the best thing we could do," said Kit. "Even if some of them had been hit, it would be better than fighting them out here."

"Still, I am very glad not to have slaughtered any of the poor creatures," remarked Raed.

"Don't say too much; they may come back," Capt. Mazard observed.

But, though there was not sufficient wind to enable us to get away till three o'clock the next day, we saw nothing more of them.



CHAPTER X.

The Dip of the Needle.—The North Magnetic Pole.—A Kayak Bottom up, with its Owner Head down.—Ice-Patches.—Anchoring to an Ice-floe.—A Bear-hunt in the Fog.—Bruin charges his Enemies.—Soundings.—The Depth of the Straits.

Before we were up next morning "The Curlew" was on her way.

A great number of small islands, not even indicated on our chart, compelled us to veer to the southward during the forenoon.

For several days the needle of our compass had been giving us some trouble by its strong inclination to dip. Three times, since starting, we had been obliged to move the sliding weight out a little on the bar. The farther north we got, the stronger was the tendency of the north pole, or end of the needle, to point downward, and the south pole to rise up correspondingly. By running the sliding weight out a little toward the south pole, its leverage was increased, and the parallel position restored. This was what Capt. Mazard was doing when we went on deck that morning.

"How do you account for this dipping of the needle?" he asked Raed.

"By the present theory of magnetism, the earth itself is considered to be a magnet with two poles," replied Raed. "These poles attract and repel the corresponding poles of a magnetic needle, just as another large needle would. The nearer we get up to the north magnetic pole of the earth, the more the pole of our needle is pulled down toward it. We're not such a great distance from it now. What's our latitude this morning?"

"63 deg. 27'."

"Capt. Ross, in the expedition of 1829, made out the earth's north magnetic pole to be in 70 deg. north latitude, farther west, in the upper part of Hudson Bay. At that place he reports that a magnetic needle, suspended so that it turned easily, pointed directly downward."

"We've got a needle hung in a graduated scale downstairs," remarked Kit.

We had nearly forgotten it, however.

"Bring it up," said Raed.

Wade went after it.

It was set on the deck, and, after vibrating a few seconds, came to rest at a dip of about 83 deg..

"If we were up at the point Capt. Ross reached, it would point directly down, or at 90 deg., I suppose," said Kit.

"That's what he reported," said Raed. "There's no reason to doubt it."

"But where is the south pole?" Wade asked.

"That has never been exactly reached," said Raed. "It is supposed to be in 75 deg., south latitude, south of New Holland, in the Southern Ocean. A point has been reached where the dip is 88-2/3 deg., however."

"Of course this magnetic pole that Ross found in 70 deg. is not the bona fide north pole of the earth," Wade observed.

"Oh, no!" said the captain. "The genuine north pole is not so easily reached."

"It's curious what this magnetic attraction is," said Kit reflectively.

"It is now considered to be the same thing as electricity, is it not?" I asked.

"Yes," replied Kit; "but whether they are a fluid or a force is not so clear. Tyndall and Faraday think they are a sort of force."

"It is found that this dip of the needle, or, in other words, the position of the magnetic poles, varies with the amount of heat which the earth receives from the sun," remarked Raed. "We know that heat can be changed into electricity, and, consequently, into magnetism. So, at those seasons of the year when the earth receives least sun-heat, there is least electric and magnetic force."

"That only confirms me in my belief that the luminiferous ether through which light and heat come from the sun is really the electric and magnetic element itself," remarked Kit; "that strange fluid which runs through the earth as water does through a sponge, making currents, the direction of which are indicated by these magnetic poles. The same silent fluid which makes this needle point down to the deck makes the telegraphic instrument click, makes the northern lights, and makes the lightning."

"I agree with you exactly," said Raed.

It's no use talking with these two fellows: they've made a regular hobby of this thing, and ride it every chance they get.

Prince Henry's Foreland, on the south side of the straits, was in sight at noon, distant, we presumed,—from our estimate of the width of the passage at this place,—about eleven leagues. It is a high, bold promontory of the south main of Labrador. At this distance it rises prominently from the sea. The glass shows it to be bare, and destitute of vegetation. By two o'clock, P.M., we had passed the scattered islets, and bore up toward the north main again to avoid the floating ice. At five we were running close under a single high island of perhaps an acre in extent, and rising full a hundred feet above the sea, when old Trull, who was in the bows, called sharply to the man at the wheel to put the helm a-starboard.

"What's that for?" shouted the captain, who was standing near the binnacle.

"Come and take a look at this, sur," replied the old man.

Kit and I were just coming up the companion-stairs, and ran forward with the captain. A long, leather-colored fish, as we thought at first, was floating just under the starboard bow.

"Thought it was a low ledge," said the old man. "I see 'twan't a moment after. I take that to be a sea-sarpent, sur."

As the object was certainly twenty feet long, and not more than a foot and a half in diameter, Trull's supposition had the benefit of outside resemblance. The captain seized one of the pike-poles, and made a jab at it; but the schooner, under full headway, had passed it too far.

"Get a musket!" shouted Kit.

We all made a rush down stairs for the gun-rack. Only three were loaded. Catching up one of these, I ran up.

"Off astern there!" cried Weymouth.

We were already fifty yards away; but, getting a glimpse of it, I fired. There was no movement.

"Missed him!" exclaimed Wade. "I'll bore him!"

He fired. Still there was no apparent motion.

"Miss number two," said I.

Kit then took a careful aim, and banged away. The creature didn't stir.

"Number three," laughed Wade.

"That fish must either bear a charmed life, or else it's ball-proof!" Kit exclaimed.

Meanwhile "The Curlew" was being brought round. The captain was getting interested. Raed brought up one of our long cod-lines with the grapnel on it,—the same contrivance with which old Trull had drawn in the boat some days before; and, on getting back within twenty yards, he threw it off. It struck into the water beyond, and, on being drawn in, played over the back of the leathern object till one of the hooks caught fast. Still there was no movement.

"There can't be any life in it," said Wade.

Raed pulled in slowly, the captain assisting him, till they had drawn it up under the bows. It certainly looked as much like a sea-serpent as any thing yet. A strong line, with another grapple, was then let down, and hooked into it with a jerk. Donovan and Hobbs tugged away at it; one foot—two feet—three feet.

"Humph!" exclaimed the captain. "One of those Husky kayaks!"

Four feet—five feet—six feet. Something rose with it, dripping underneath.

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Raed, turning away.

"There's an Esquimaux in it, hanging head down!" cried Kit.

The sailors crowded round. It was a ghastly sight. The legs of the corpse were still fast inside the little hoop around the hole in the deck in which the man had sat. His arms hung down limp and dripping. His long black hair streamed with water. He might have been floating there head down for a week.

"Wal, I shouldn't s'pose the darn'd fool need to have expected any thing else!" exclaimed Corliss. "To go to sea with his feet fast in such a little skite of a craft as that! Might ha' known the darned thing 'ud 'a' capsized an' drownded him."

"What shall we do with it?" I asked. "We might sink it with three or four of those six-pound shot, I suppose."

"No, no!" exclaimed Wade. "We can't afford six-pound shots to bury the heathen: it's as much as we can do to get enough to kill them with."

"Oh, don't, Wade!" said Raed. "It's a sad sight at best."

"Of course it is. But then we've only got seventeen balls left, and no knowing how many battles to fight."

This last argument was a clincher.

"Let go!" ordered the captain.

Don and Hobbs shook the line violently, but couldn't tear out the grapple from the tough seal-skin.

"Well, let go line and all, then!" cried the captain.

With a dull plash the kayak fell back into the sea; and we all turned away.

At midnight the ice-patches were thickening rapidly; and by two o'clock all sail had to be taken in, the bumps had grown so frequent and heavy. On the port side lay a large ice-floe of many acres extent. The schooner gradually drifted up to it. Raed and Kit had gone on deck.

"I think we may as well make fast to it," I heard the captain say; and, a moment later, the order was given to get out the ice-anchors.

Wade and I then went up. "The Curlew" lay broadside against the floe. The wind, with a current caused perhaps by the tide, held us up to it so forcibly, that the vessel careened slightly. Weymouth and Hobbs were getting down on to the ice with the ice-chisels in their hands, and, going off twenty or thirty yards, began to cut holes. The ice-anchors were then thrown over on to the floe. To each of them was bent one of our two-and-a-half-inch hawsers. The anchors themselves were, as will probably be remembered, simply large, strong grapnels. Dragging them along to the holes, they were hooked into the ice, and the hawsers drawn in tight from deck. Planks, secured to the rail by lines, were then run down to bear the chafe. This was our process of anchoring to ice. Sometimes three or four grapnels were used when the tendency to swing off was greater. To-night there was so much floating ice all about, that the swell was almost entirely broken, and the schooner lay as quiet as if in a country lake. A watch was set, and we turned in again.

Breakfast at six. Fog thick and flat on the ice. The breeze in the night, blowing against the schooner, had turned the ice-field completely round. Occasionally a cake of ice would bump up against us. We could hear them grinding together all about; yet the wind was light, otherwise we might have had heavier thumps. About seven o'clock we heard a splashing out along the floe.

"Seals!" remarked the captain.

"Bet you, I'll have one of those fellows!" exclaimed Donovan, catching up a pike-pole, and dropping over the rail.

"Can he get near enough to kill them with a pole, suppose?" Wade queried.

"That's the way the sealers kill them," replied the captain. "Send the men out on the ice with nothing but clubs and knives. The seals can't move very fast: nothing but their flippers to help themselves with. The men run along the edges of the ice, and get between them and the water. The seals make for the water; and the men knock them on the heads with clubs, and then butcher them."

"It's a horribly bloody business, I should think," said Raed.

"Well, not so bad as a Brighton slaughter-pen, quite," rejoined the captain. "But I never much admired it, I must confess."

Just then Donovan came racing out of the fog, and, jumping for the rail, drew his legs up as if he believed them in great peril.

"What ails you?" Kit cried out. "What are you running from?"

"Oh! nothing—much," replied Donovan, panting. "Met—a—bear out here: that's all."

"Met a bear!" exclaimed Raed.

"Yes. I was going along, trying to get by some of the seals. All at once I was face to face with a mighty great chap, on the same business with myself, I suppose. Thought I wouldn't wait. He looked pretty big. I'd nothing but the pole, you know."

"We must have him!" exclaimed Wade.

"Best way will be to let down the boat, and work round the floe to prevent his taking to the water," advised the captain. "They will swim like ducks three or four miles at a time."

While the boat was being let down, Kit and I ran to load the muskets.

"I'm going to put the bayonets on our two," said Kit. "They'll be handy if we should come to close quarters with him."

Raed and Wade, with the captain, were getting ready to go out on the ice. Weymouth and Hobbs were already in the boat. Kit and I followed.

"Now be very careful about firing in this fog," the captain called after us. "We are going off to the right, round the edge of the floe on that side. You keep off on the left to see that he don't escape that way. Head him up toward the schooner if you can; but look out how you shoot."

Old Trull and Corliss, each with a gun, had been stationed at the rail to shoot the bear from the deck if he should come out in sight.

Thus arranged, we pulled away, veering in and out among the ice-patches, and keeping about twenty yards from the floe. We could just see the edge of it rising a few feet from the water.

"Guess the bear run from Don after all his fright," said Weymouth when we had gone a hundred yards or more.

He was not on our side, we felt pretty sure; and, a few minutes later, Guard barked, and we heard the captain shouting from across the field.

"Here he is over here!" And a moment after, "Gone over towards your side! Look out for him!"

We looked out as sharply as we could for fog: nevertheless, the first notice we got of his arrival in our vicinity was a splash into the water several rods farther on.

"Give way sharp," shouted Kit, "or we shall lose him!"

The boat leaped under the strong stroke; and, a moment after, we saw the bear climbing out on to a cake, which tipped up as he got on to it.

"Give him your shot, Wash!" Kit exclaimed.

We were not more than fifty feet away. I aimed for his head, and let go. The bullet clipped one of his ears merely, and he turned round with a dreadfully savage growl. Of course it was a bad shot; but some allowance must be made for the rocking of the boat. As he turned to us, the ice-cake tipped and rolled under him, nearly throwing him off; at which he growled and barked out all the louder. Kit hesitated to fire.

"He might make a break, and get his paws on to the boat before we could back off, if you shouldn't kill him," said Hobbs.

"Load as quick as you can, Wash," Kit said. "I'll wait till we have a reserve shot."

Meanwhile we heard voices coming out on the floe. Guard began to bark again, and came jumping from cake to cake out within a few rods of the bear, and rather between us and him.

"Be ready, now," said Kit; when some one of the party on the floe fired on a sudden.

Instantly the bear jumped for the dog; and the dog, turning, leaped for a little cake between him and the boat. The bear splashed through, and gained the cake Guard had stood on.

Crack—crack! from the floe.

The bear growled frightfully as he felt the bullets, and plunged after the dog. We both fired as he went down into the water. Guard's paws were already on the gunwale, when the bear rose, head and paws, and swept the dog down with him, souse! A howl and a growl mingled. The water was streaked red with the bear's blood. The captain and Wade and Donovan came leaping out from one fragment to another. Up popped the dog's black head. Something bumped the bottom of the boat simultaneously. The bear had come up under us, and floated out on the port side, a great mass of dripping, struggling white hair. Everybody was shouting now. Wade fired. Bits of blazing cartridge-paper flew into our faces. Kit and I thrust wildly with our bayonets; but the poor beast had already ceased all offensive warfare. He was dead enough. But who had killed him it was hard saying. No less than seven bullets had been fired into him from "a standard weapon," as Wade calls our muskets. We towed the carcass up to the edge of the floe, and pulled it up. The captain estimated its gross weight to be from four hundred and fifty to five hundred pounds. This was the largest one we had killed. Donovan and Weymouth and Hobbs were occupied the rest of the forenoon skinning it.

It being a favorable opportunity, we improved it to make soundings. From where we lay moored to the floe, the nearest island was about three leagues to the east, and the northern main from ten to twelve miles. For sounding we had a twenty-four-pound iron weight, with a staple leaded into it for the line. Dropping it out of the stern, we ran out a hundred and seventy-three fathoms before it slacked. The depth of the strait at that place was given at ten hundred and thirty-eight feet. I should add, that this was considerably deeper than we had found it below that point.



CHAPTER XI.

"Isle Aktok."—A Sea-Horse and a Sea-Horse Hunt.—In High Spirits.—Sudden Interruption of the Hunt.—A Heavy Gun.—The Race to the Ledge-Tops.—Too Late.—A Disheartening Spectacle.—Surprised by the Company's Ship.—The Schooner in Peril.—Capt. Hazard bravely waits.—The Flight of "The Curlew" amid a Shower of Balls.—The Chase.—Left on the Islet.—A Gloomy Prospect.—"What shall we have for Grub to ate?"—Wild-Geese.—Egging.—"Boom!"—A Sea-Horse Fire.

Toward night the wind changed to north, and thinned out the patch-ice, driving it southward, so that by ten o'clock, evening, we were able to get in our ice-anchors and make sail, continuing our voyage, and making about four knots an hour till nine o'clock next morning, when we were off a small island, the first of a straggling group on the south side of the strait. South-east of this islet was another large island, which we at first mistook for the south main, but, after comparing the chart, concluded that it was "Isle Aktok." To the north the mainland, with its fringe of ledgy isles, was in sight, distant not far from thirteen leagues. We had been bearing southward considerably all night, falling off from the wind, which was north-west. We were now, as nearly as we could reckon it up, a hundred and nineteen leagues inside the entrance of the straits at Cape Resolution. Raed and I were below making a sort of map of the straits, looking over the charts, etc., when Kit came running down.

"There's a sea-horse off here on the island!" said he.

"A sea-horse!" exclaimed Raed.

"A walrus!" I cried; for we had not, thus far, got sight of one of these creatures, though we had expected to find them in numbers throughout the straits. But, so far as our observation goes, they are very rare there.

Taking our glasses, we ran hastily up. Wade was looking off.

"Out there where the ice is jammed in against this lower end of the island," directed Kit.

The distance was about a mile.

"Don't you see that great black bunch lying among the ice there?" continued he. "See his white tusks!"

Bringing our keen little telescopes to bear, we soon had him up under our noses,—a great, dark-hided, clumsy beast, with a hideous countenance and white tusks; not so big as an elephant's, to be sure, but big enough to give their possessor a very formidable appearance.

"Seems to be taking his ease there," said Wade. "Same creature that the old writers call a morse, isn't it?"

"I believe so," replied Raed.

"Wonder if our proper name, Morse, is from that?" said I.

"Shouldn't wonder," said Kit. "Many of our best family names are from a humbler origin than that. But we must improve this chance to hunt that old chap: may not get another. And it won't do, nohow, to come clean up here to Hudson Bay and not go sea-horse-hunting once."

"Right, my boy!" cried Raed. "Captain, we want to go on a walrus-hunt. Can the schooner be brought round, and the boat manned for that purpose?"

"Certainly, sir. 'The Curlew' is at your service, as also her boat."

"Then let me invite you to participate in the exercise," said Raed, laughing.

"Nothing would suit me better. But as the wind is fresh, and the schooner liable to drift, I doubt if it will be prudent for me to leave her so long. You have my best wishes for your success, however. I shall watch the chase with interest through my glass; and, better still, I will see that Palmleaf has dinner ready at your return.—Here, Weymouth and Donovan, let down the boat, and row these youthful huntsmen to yonder ice-bound shore!"

Ah! if we had foreseen the results of that hunt, we should scarcely have been so jocose, I fancy. Well, coming events are wisely hidden from us, they say; but, by jolly! a fellow could afford to pay well for a glimpse at the future once in a while.

Each of us boys took a musket and eight or ten cartridges. I'm not likely to forget what we took with us, in a hurry.

"We'll put the bayonets on, I guess," Kit remarked. "It's a big lump of a beast. These are just the things for giving long-range stabs with."

"Don't forget the caps!" cried Raed, already half way up the companion-way.

The wind was rather raw that morning: we put on our thick pea-jackets. Weymouth and Don were already down in the boat, which they had brought alongside.

"Here, Don, stick that in your waistband!" exclaimed Kit, who had come up last, tossing him one of our new butcher-knives.

"All right, sir!"

"Wish you would give me a musket," said Weymouth.

"You shall have one!" cried Wade, running back for it.

"Come, Guard!" shouted Kit. "Here, sir!" and the shaggy Newfoundland came bouncing down into the boat.

We got in and pulled off.

"Make for that little cove up above the ice where the sea-horse lies," directed Raed. "We'll land there, and then creep over the rocks toward him."

Kit caught up the extra paddle, and began to scull. We shot over the waves; we joked and laughed. Somehow, we were all as merry as grigs that morning.

Running into the cove, the boat was pulled up from the water, and securely fastened. Up at this end of the straits the tide did not rise nearly so high,—not more than eight or ten feet during the springs.

"Now whisht!" said Raed, taking up his musket. "Back, Guard! Still, or we shall frighten the old gentleman!"

"He was lying there all sedate when we slid into the cove," said Kit. "Asleep, I guess."

"We'll wake him shortly," said Wade. "But you say they are a large species of seal. Won't he take to the water, and stay under any length of time?"

"That's it, exactly," replied Kit. "We mustn't let him take to the water—before we riddle him."

"But they're said to have a precious tough hide," said I. "Perhaps we can't riddle so easy."

"Should like to see anything in the shape of hide that one of these rifle slugs won't go through," replied Kit.

"Sh-h-h!" from Raed, holding back a warning hand: he was a little ahead of us. "Creep up still! Peep by me! See him! By Jove! he's wiggling off the ice! Jump up and shoot him!"

We sprang up, cocking our muskets, just in time to get a glimpse and hear the great seal splash heavily into the sea. Wade and Kit fired as the waters buried him; Guard rushed past, and Donovan bounded down the rocks, butcher-knife in hand.

"Too late!" exclaimed Raed.

We ran down to the spot. The water went off deep from the ice on which it had lain. It was nowhere in sight. Dirt and gravel had been scattered out on to the ice, and its ordure lay about. Evidently this was one of its permanent sunning-places.

"Get back among the rocks, and watch for him!" exclaimed Kit. "Only thing we can do now."

"I suppose so," said Raed.

We secreted ourselves a little back from the water behind different rocks and in little hollows, and, with guns rested ready to fire, waited for the re-appearance of the big seal. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed; but he didn't re-appear much.

"I say," Wade whispered: "this is getting a little played!"

We were all beginning to think so, when a horrible noise—a sound as much like the sudden bellow of a mad bull as anything I can compare it with—resounded from the other side of the island.

"What, for Heaven's sake, is that?" Kit exclaimed.

"Must be another of these sea-horses calling to the one over here," said Raed, after listening a moment.

"Let's work round there, then," I said.

The noise seemed to have been four or five hundred yards off. Keeping the dog behind us, we hurried round by the east shore to avoid climbing the higher ledges, which rose sixty or seventy feet along the middle of the islet. These bare, flinty ledges, when not encumbered by bowlders, are grand things to run on. One can get over them at an astonishing pace. Once, as we ran on, we heard the bellow repeated, and, on coming within twenty or thirty rods of where it had seemed to be, stopped to reconnoitre.

"Bet you, he's right under that high ledge that juts out over the water there," said Kit.

"Wait a moment," whispered Wade: "we may hear him again." And, in fact, before his words were well out, the same deep, harsh sound grumbled up from the shore.

"Under that ledge, as I guessed!" exclaimed Kit.

"Sounds like an enormous bull-frog intensified," Raed muttered.

We crept down toward the brink of the ledge, Kit and Wade a little ahead. Arriving at the crest, they peered over cautiously, and with muskets cocked.

"Here he is!" Kit whispered back of his hand.

We stole up. There, on a little bunch of ice not yet thawed off the shore, lay the unsuspecting monster,—a great brown-black, unwieldy body. There is no living creature to which I can easily compare it. I should judge it would have weighed a ton,—more perhaps; for it was immensely thick and broad: though the head struck me as very small for its bulk otherwise.

"Now, all together!" whispered Raed. "Aim at its body above and back of its forward flippers. Ready! Fire!"

We let drive. The great creature gave a hoarse grunt, and, raising itself on its finlike legs, floundered over into the sea.

"Round the ledge!" shouted Kit. "He won't get far, I don't believe!"

Guard was tearing down, barking loudly; and we had started to run, when, above the shouting and barking, the sudden boom of a cannon was heard.

"Hark!" cried Weymouth.

"Hold on, hold on, fellows!" Raed exclaimed.

"Wasn't that our howitzer?" Donovan asked. "Sounded like it."

"It's the cap'n firing, for a joke, to let us know he heard us," Weymouth suggested.

"Oh! he wouldn't do that," replied Raed.

"Of course he wouldn't!" exclaimed Donovan. "He ain't that sort of a man!"

"That's a summons!" said Wade, coming hurriedly back up the rocks; for he and Kit were a little ahead. "Put for the top of the ledges up here! We can see from there!"

We had got twenty yards, perhaps, when a second loud report made the rocks rattle to it.

"There's trouble!" exclaimed Wade at my heels, as we climbed up the steep side.

An undefinable fear had blanched all our faces. Scarcely had the echoes of the gun died out among the crags when another heavier report made the islet jar under our feet.

"Oh, there!" exclaimed Raed despairingly.

Donovan was a step ahead; but Kit and I sprang past him now. Another shelving incline of forty or fifty yards, and the blue sea burst into view over the rocks. My eyes burned in their sockets from the violent exertion. At first I saw only "The Curlew" with her great white sails both broadside to us, and our bright gay flag streaming out. A glance showed that she had been brought round, and that the sails were flapping wildly. A jet of flame streamed out from her side; and, like a warning-call, the sharp report crashed on our ears, infinitely louder now we had gained the top. All this in a second.

"Why! what is it?" I exclaimed. Turning, I saw them all staring off to the west.

Heavens! there, under full sail, was a large ship not two miles off! How like the shadow of doom she loomed up! and how suddenly white the faces of Kit and Wade just beyond me looked! We had thought we were on the lookout for this very thing; and yet it seemed to us now a complete surprise. We were stunned.

Bang! A heavy cannon; and the water flew up in a long white streak far past "The Curlew" as the big shot went driving by. The ship was within a mile and a half of her, and we here on the islet three-fourths of a mile away! Yet there stood "The Curlew" motionless on the waves; and there stood Capt. Mazard, waving his hat for us, his glass glittering in his other hand.

"To the boat!" yelled Weymouth, leaping down the rocks. "He wouldn't go without us!"

"Stop!" shouted Raed. "It's no use! Don't you see how the ship's closing in?"

Then, catching off his cap, he waved it slowly toward the east. We saw the captain's glass go up to his eye. Again Raed motioned him to go.

Bang! A higher shot. It strikes a quarter of a mile ahead of the schooner, and goes skipping on. But the captain is still looking off to us, as if loath to desert us. A third time Raed waves his cap. He turns. Round go the booms. "The Curlew" starts off with a bound. The flag streams out wildly in the strong north-west wind.

Bang! That ball hits the sea a long way ahead of its mark. Even in these brief seconds the great shadowy ship has come perceptibly nearer. How she bowls along! We can see the white mass of foam at the bows as she rides up the swells.

A queer, lost feeling had come over me. In an instant it all seemed to have gone on at a far-past date. Looking back to that time now, I see, as in a picture, our forlorn little party standing there on the black, weathered ledges, gazing off,—Weymouth half a dozen rods down the rocks, where he had stopped when Raed called to him; Donovan a few rods to the right, shading his eyes with his hand; Raed with his arms folded tightly; Kit staring hard at the ship; Wade dancing about, swearing a little, with the tears coming into his eyes; myself leaning weakly on a musket, limp as a shoe-string; and poor old Guard whining dismally, with an occasional howl,—all gazing off at the rapidly-moving vessels.

"It was no use," Raed said, his voice seeming to break the spell. "We couldn't have got off to the schooner. See how swiftly the ship comes on! If the captain had waited for us to pull off, or even started up and let us go off diagonally, the ship would have come so near, that there would have been no escaping her guns. I don't know as there is now. If any of those shot should strike the masts, or tear through the sails, there would be no getting away.

"I want you to look at it just as I do," Raed continued; for we none of us had said a word. "If we had tried to get on board, 'The Curlew' would certainly have been captured, and we with her. Now she stands a chance of getting off."

Bang! What a tremendous gun! The large ship was getting off opposite. The report made the ledge tremble under us.

"Hadn't we better get out of sight?" Donovan said. "They may see us, and send a boat over here."

"No danger of that, I think," replied Raed. "They want to run the schooner down, and wouldn't care to leave their boat so far behind. This strong north-west wind favors them. Still I don't think they are gaining much. They're not going over ten or eleven knots. 'The Curlew' will beat that, I hope,—if none of those big shots hit her," taking out his glass. "How beautiful she looks!"

"But, Raed," remarked Kit soberly, "they will chase her clean out the straits into the Atlantic, even if they do not capture her."

"They may."

"And she'll be rather short-handed for men," observed Donovan.

"That's too true."

"Then what are the chances of her getting back here for us?" cried Wade.

Bang! from the great white mass of bulging canvas now fairly opposite us. The smoke drifted out of her bows. We could hear the rattle of her blocks, the swash of the sea, and the roar of sails; and, quite distinct on the fresh breeze, the gruff commands to reload.

"Capt. Mazard won't leave us here if he lives and has his liberty," said Raed.

"Oh, he'll come back if he can!" exclaimed Donovan. "He's true blue!"

"But what if he can't," Kit observed quietly. "What a situation for us! Here we are a thousand miles from a civilized town or a civilized people, and in a worse than trackless wilderness! The season, too, is passing. The straits will soon be closed with ice."

"Only think of it!" Wade cried out,—"here on this frozen coast, with winter coming on! In a month it will be severe weather here. We've nothing but our cloth clothing!"

Wade turned away; and for many minutes we were all silent.

Bang!

"Come, fellows!" Raed exclaimed at length. "This won't do! Wade has got the gloomiest side out! Come, rally from this! See, they're not gaining on the schooner! Look how she's bowling away! They haven't hit her yet. Kit! Wash! I say, fellows, it looks a little bad, I own. But never say die; or, if you must die,—why, die game. That's the doctrine you are always preaching, Kit. Isn't it, now? Tell me!"

"But to be frozen or starved to death among these desolate ledges!" muttered Kit.

"Is not a cheery prospect, I'll admit," Raed finished for him. "Rather trying to a fellow's philosophy, isn't it?"

Bang!

"She isn't hit yet," remarked Donovan, who had taken Raed's glass. "She slides on gay as a cricket. I can see the cap'n throwing water with the skeet against the sails to make 'em draw better."

"How, for Heaven's sake, did that ship come to get up so near before they saw her?" Kit exclaimed suddenly.

We looked off to the west. The dozen straggling islets beyond us extended off in irregular order toward the north-west.

"I think," said Raed, "that the ship must have come up a little to the south of those outer islands. Our folks could not have seen her, then, till she came past."

"I don't call that the same ship that fired on us a week ago," Weymouth remarked.

"Oh, no!" said Kit. "That ship, 'The Rosamond,' can't more than have reached the nearest of the Company's trading-posts by this time."

"She probably spoke this ship coming out, and told them to be on the lookout for us," said Raed.

"Old Red-face doubtless charged them to give us particular fits," Kit replied.

"And they've got us in a tight place, no mistake," Wade remarked gloomily. "We're rusticated up here among the icebergs; sequestered in a cool spot."

Bang!

"Gracious! I believe that one hit 'The Curlew'!" Donovan exclaimed. "The captain and old Trull—I believe it's Trull—ran aft, and are looking over the taffrail!"

Kit pulled out his glass and looked. I had not taken mine, nor had Wade. The schooner was now three or four miles down the straits, and the ship was a good way past us.

"No great harm done, I guess," Kit said at length. "The captain ran down into the cabin, but came up a few moments after; and they are standing about the deck as before."

"As long as they miss the standing rigging, and don't hit the sails, there's no danger," Raed observed.

"That ship is a mighty fast sailer," Weymouth said.

"Ought to be, I should think," Donovan replied. "Look at the sail she's got on! They've been getting out studding-sails too. This strong gale drives her along like thunder!"

"I don't see that she gains," Raed remarked. "We shall see 'The Curlew' back here for us yet."

"Not very soon, I'm afraid," Wade said.

"Well, not to-night, I dare say," replied Raed.

"How long do you set it?" Kit asked, taking down his glass. "Suppose the captain is lucky enough to get away from them: how long do you think it will be before he will get back here for us?"

"That, of course, depends on how far they chase him," said Raed.

"They'll chase him just as far as they can," replied Kit. "Why not? It's right on their way home. They'll chase the schooner clean out the straits."

"The captain may turn down into Ungava Bay, on the south side of the straits," Raed replied.

"No, he won't do that," Kit contended. "That bay is full of islands, and choked with ice; and our charts ar'n't worth the paper they're made out on."

"Well, if he has to run out into the Atlantic, he may not be back for ten days."

"Ten days!" exclaimed Wade. "If we see him in a month, we need to think we're lucky."

Bang!

"That's a pleasant sound for us, isn't it, now?" Kit demanded,—"expecting every shot will lose us the schooner, and leave us two thousand miles from home on a more than barren coast!"

"I shall look for 'The Curlew' in ten days," Raed remarked. "And I don't think we had better leave here, to go off any great distance, till we feel sure she's not coming back for us. If she's not back in two weeks, I shall think we have got to shirk for ourselves."