"But how in the world are we to live two weeks here!" Wade exclaimed.

"Live by our wits," Kit observed.

"Looks as if we should have to give up coffee," Raed said, trying to get a laugh going.

"Why, I'm hungry now!" Wade cried out; "but I don't see anything to eat but ice and rocks!"

"It's half-past eleven," Kit announced, looking at his watch. "Seriously, what do you expect we can get hold of for grub, Raed?"

"Well, seals."

"Seals!" exclaimed Wade; "the oily, nasty trash!"

"Hunger may bring you to sing a different tune," Kit muttered. "I'm not sure that a seal's flipper might not be acceptable by to-morrow morning."

"There are plenty of kittiwakes and lumne and eiderducks about these islets," I suggested. "We can shoot some of them."

"And we can fish!" Weymouth exclaimed.

"Where's your hooks?" said Kit.

That question floored the fishing project.

"Well, we've got our muskets," replied Weymouth.

"How many cartridges in all?" Raed asked.

"Let's take account of them. They are like to be precious property."

"I've got eight," said Kit, counting them.

"I have seven," Wade announced.

"Six," said I.

"I took nine," Raed observed.

"You gave me five," reported Weymouth. "I have used one. Here's the other four."

"Thirty-four in all," said Raed. "Now, boys, these are worth their weight in gold to us. Not one must be wasted."

"My butcher-knife is like to come into good use." Donovan remarked, feeling the edge of it.

"Yes; and we've got our jack-knives too," said Kit.

"How about a fire?" Wade asked.

At that there were blank looks for a moment; till, with a queer grin, Donovan began to fumble in his waistcoat-pocket, and drew out, in close company with a rounded plug of tobacco, seven or eight grimy matches.

"Hurrah!" shouted Kit.

"You've allus been dippin' into me pretty strong about smokin'," said Don, looking around to Raed; "but you can't say that smokin' don't have its advantages sometimes."

"That's an argument for the weed that we can all appreciate at present, no mistake," Raed replied. "Don, keep hold of those matches, and see that they all strike fire, and I'll never preach to you again, so sure as my name is Warren Raedway."

Bang! A distant boom from the hated ship, now low down on the sea.

"The schooner is almost out of sight," said Kit. "She's a long way off. Perhaps it's the last time we shall ever set eyes on her pretty figure!"

"Oh, not so bad as that, I hope!" cried Raed. "Don't go to getting poetical, Kit. How about dinner? That's of more consequence just now than poetry. Time enough to make verses on this rather awkward episode when we're safe in Boston. Make a proposal for dinner, somebody. Wade's starving."

"What say for the sea-horse!" exclaimed Donovan.

"Yes; how about that walrus?" Kit demanded.

"That sea-horse has got us into a fine scrape," muttered Wade. "It would have been better if we had left him undisturbed on his island."

"That's neither this nor there, now," said Kit. "Question arises, Can we eat him? Is it fit to eat? Did ever anybody hear of their being eaten?"

"The Huskies eat them, I believe," said Raed.

"The Huskies! Well, I mean civilized folks; ship's crews?"

Nobody knew.

"The best way will be to try it for ourselves," remarked Donovan. "But we don't know that we killed him yet. We didn't stop to find out, you know."

"Then that is clearly the next thing to do," said Raed. "Let's go down to the boat, and take that round to the place where we fired at the second one."

"But how about the birds, the eider-ducks and kittiwakes?" said I. "We should find them more palatable than sea-horse—to begin with."

"Very well: you and Weymouth might go round the island to the left. It can't be more than a mile and a half or two miles. But do be prudent of your cartridges."

Boom!

Raed and Kit, with Wade and Donovan, then got into the boat, and pulled off round the islet to the right; while Weymouth and I, reloading our muskets, set off on our bird-hunt.

The west end of the island was considerably higher than the eastern portion. As we went on, we espied scores of little auks sitting upon the low cliffs.

"No use to waste powder on them," said Weymouth.

"But see there!" suddenly halting. "If those ain't geese, I'm mistaken,—out there on that gravel-flat, waddling along. Ain't those geese?"

Wild-geese they were, or, as some call them, Canada geese; nearly as large as our domestic geese, and of a gray slate-color. They did not seem to fear our approach much. We walked quietly up to fifty yards.

"I'll take that big gander," I said.

"All right," quoth Weymouth. "I'll take a goose."

We fired at them with a careful aim. Over went the gander and a goose. The rest flew with loud squallings, save one with a broken wing, which Weymouth rushed after, and pelted to death with stones.

"A pretty good haul!" he exclaimed, holding them up. "Weigh eight or ten pounds apiece. But I didn't expect to see wild-geese up here," he added.

We saw several flocks of them after that.

Half a mile farther round, we came upon a flock of razor-bills perched on the cliffs overhanging the water. They rose, and went croaking off toward the next islet, distant about three hundred yards, too quick for us to fire with caution.

"The sealers often get their eggs," Weymouth observed. "They're good fried, they say."

It then occurred to me that these eggs might be a very good and cheaply—as regarded ammunition—obtained article of food for us. Laying down our guns, we climbed up among the rocks, and spent nearly an hour searching for their nests. At length Weymouth found one with three eggs; and, a few moments after, two more. I had some doubt about the eggs being good so late in the season. There were plenty of empty nests about, looking as if there had been a brood raised already. These were doubtless second nests of pairs that had lost their first nests from the depredations of falcons, ravens, or perhaps foxes. To settle the point, we broke an egg: it looked sound. Weymouth then filled his cap with them.

Boom!

While climbing down to our muskets, I startled a canvas-backed duck sitting on a nest of eleven eggs. These I appropriated; and, before getting round to where we had fired on the sea-horse, Weymouth espied an eider-duck sitting on a shelf of the shore crags. From her we got five eggs of a beautiful pale-green color.

"No need of starving here, I should say," Weymouth remarked as we made our way along the ledges, pretty well laden with muskets, geese, and our caps full of eggs. "There won't be much bread, to be sure; but then a fellow can live on eggs and birds, can't he?"

"I hope so, Weymouth. Hard case for us if we can't."

"That's so. But don't you be down in the mouth about this scrape. I don't believe they'll catch 'The Curlew,' sir. Capt. Mazard will be back here, I think."

"I hope so."

Truly, I thought to myself, if this young sailor doesn't complain, and even tries to offer consolation to us who have got him in this predicament, it isn't for me to look glum about it; though I am bound to own that some of the most cheerless moments of my life were passed during the twenty-four hours succeeding the ominous appearance of the "Honorable Company's" ship.

A great shouting and heave-ho-ing told us of our near approach to where the rest of our party were; and, turning a bend of the crags, we discovered them all four tugging at a line.

"What are they dragging, I wonder?" Weymouth said to me. "Oh! I see. It's the sea-horse."

They were trying to pull the walrus up out of the water, where they had found him floundering about, fatally wounded with the slugs we had fired through his back. The sea about the rocks was discolored with his blood, and turbid with the dirt he had torn up. Donovan had slaughtered him with the butcher-knife; and, with the boat's painter noosed over the head of the carcass, they were now trying to draw it up on the ledge. Weymouth and I at once bore a hand; and it took all six of us, tugging hard, to get it up.

"What a mass of fat and flesh!" Kit exclaimed, puffing.

"I don't believe I could ever stomach it!" Wade groaned.

"We can offer you something better!" exclaimed Weymouth, holding up the geese. "What think of those fellows? Wild-geese! And look at these!" holding up his cap. "Nice fresh eggs!—to be had by the dozen! and nothing to pay, either!"

"Why, fellows, this is a sort of northern paradise!" cried Raed. "But what sticks me is how to cook those eggs and geese. I never could suck eggs."

"Just build a fire, and I'll show you how to cook 'em," Weymouth said.

"But what shall we have for fuel?" Kit demanded.

That was a staggerer.

Boom! It seemed as if those far-borne echoes would never die with the distance. A low, dismal, sullen sound! They gave us queer sensations. As each came rolling on the sea, our hearts would bound. Up to that moment, "The Curlew" had not been taken; but perhaps that shot had struck down her sails.

It was now half-past two. The vessels could hardly be less than twenty or twenty-five miles off. But there is nothing to absorb or deaden sound along those straits.

"Yes; where's your fuel?" demanded Wade.

We looked around: plenty of rocks, ice, and water, with a little coarse dirt, or gravel.

"Might burn the boat," Kit suggested.

"That seems too bad," said Raed. "Besides, how are we to get off the island here, supposing 'The Curlew' should not come back? or even suppose she should? She has no other boat."

"And we may want to go off to the other islands," I said.

"Well, if anybody can suggest anything better, I should like to hear it," replied Kit. "I don't want to burn the boat, I'm sure; but I can't see anything else that looks inflammable."

Neither could any of us, though we looked all around us very earnestly; till Donovan suddenly cried out,—

"Why not burn the old sea-horse?"

"Why, that's our victuals!" laughed Kit.

"I know it; but fire comes before victuals, unless you eat 'em raw like the Huskies."

"Will it burn?" Raed asked.

"Burn? yes. Why, on a sealer, they do all their trying-out the oil with a fire of seal-refuse. Why shouldn't it burn as well as a candle?"

"There's our wood-pile, then!" cried Raed, giving the carcass a kick. "Let's have a fire forthwith. Don, you slash out a hundred-weight or so."

"Don't cut the hide to pieces," Kit interposed: "we may want that to make a tent of."

Donovan whipped out his butcher-knife, and, stripping back the tough skin, cut out a pile of huge slices. Kit, meanwhile, got a piece of old thwart from the boat, and whittled up a heap of pine slivers. Two of the fat slices were then slit up into thin strips, and laid on the slivers. With great caution, Donovan struck a match on his jacket-sleeve. We all hovered around to keep off the wicked puffings of the wind. The slivers were lighted; they kindled: the fat meat began to sizzle; then caught fire from the pine; and soon a ruddy, spluttering flame was blazing with marvellous fierceness.

"Hurrah!" Kit shouted. "The first fire these grim old ledges have seen since they cooled their glowing, molten billows into flinty granite!"



CHAPTER XII.

The "Spider."—Fried Eggs.—The "Plates."—"Awful Fresh!"—No Salt.—Plans for getting Salt from Sea-Water.—Ice-Water.—Fried Goose.—Plans to escape.—A Gloomy Night.—Fight with a Walrus.—Another "Wood-Pile."—Wade Sick.—A Peevish Patient and a Fractious Doctor.—The Manufacture of Salt.

We stood and warmed our hands. It felt comfortable,—decidedly so; for though the sun was high and bright, yet the north-west wind drove smartly across the rocks above us. Currents of air fresh from the lair of icebergs can't be very warm ever. There was plenty of ice all about.

"Ready to cook those eggs, Weymouth?" Raed exclaimed. "You were going to furnish spider, kettle, or something of that sort, you know."

"Yes, sir; and all I'll ask is that some of you will be dressing a couple of those geese while I am gone. I've a mind to dine off goose to-day."

"Well, that's reasonable," said Donovan. "Go ahead, matey! Bring on your spider! We'll have the geese ready for it!"

"If you will go with me," Weymouth said, nodding over to where I was enjoying the fire. "Two may perhaps find what I want sooner than one."

I followed him.

"My idea is," said he, turning when we were off a few rods, "to get a flat, hollowing stone,—'bout as big over as a milk-pan, say; kind of hollowed out on the top side, just so grease won't run off it. We can set that up on small rocks, and let the fire run under. It'll soon get hot: then grease it, and break the eggs into it just as they do into a spider. You see?"

I saw it,—a very reasonable project. The only difficulty was to find such a stone. To do that we separated. Weymouth followed out along the shore, while I climbed up among the crags. There were plenty of flat rocks; but to find one sufficiently spider-shaped for our purpose was not so easy. At length I came upon one—a flake of felspar of a dull cream-color—hollowed enough on one side to hold a pint or upwards. But it was heavy: must have weighed fully a hundred pounds. I called to Weymouth: he was out of hearing. Nothing to do but carry it. So, after some mustering of my spare muscle, I picked it up, and, going along to a favorable spot, succeeded in getting down to the beach with it, whence I toiled along to our camp-fire. Weymouth had got there a little ahead of me with a flat stone worn smooth by the waves. It was not so thick as mine, nor so heavy: it was a sort of dark slate-stone. Forthwith a discussion arose as to the merits of the two spiders; which was finally decided in favor of the one I had found, from its being the whitest and cleanest-looking. Meanwhile Donovan had been feeding the fire so profusely, that all hands had been obliged to get back from it. Animal fat, like this of the walrus, makes an exceedingly hot flame. Three flat stones were set up edgewise, and the spider set on them. The flaming meat was then thrust under it so as to heat the spider. From its thickness, it took some minutes for it to become heated through; but, in the course of a quarter of an hour, Kit pronounced it ready. Weymouth cut out a chunk of walrus-blubber, with which he basted it, the melted fat collecting in a little puddle at the bottom.

"Now for the eggs!" he exclaimed.

Raed handed them to him, one by one; while he broke them on the edge of the butcher-knife, and dropped a half-dozen into the novel frying-pan.

"Better be getting your plates ready!" he shouted, turning them over with the knife to the tune of a mighty frizzling.

We all took the hint, and scattered to find flat stones for platters. 'Twas a singular assortment of kitchenware that we re-appeared with a few minutes later. Taking up the fried eggs with his knife, Weymouth tossed us each one, which we caught on our plates. Another batch was then broke into the spider, fried, and distributed like the first.

"Now then!" cried Kit. "Draw jack-knives, and dine!"

Several mouthfuls were eaten in silence.

"What think of 'em?" Weymouth asked, casting a sly glance around. "How do they go?"

"Rather oily!" grumbled Wade.

"Awful fresh!" Kit complained.

"Not a dust of salt in this camp!" Raed exclaimed.

"We never can live without any salt," said I. "Nothing will relish so fresh as these eggs."

"But where's your salt coming from?" Kit demanded.

"Plenty of it in the sea," said Donovan. "Might boil down some of the salt water."

"If we only had a kettle to boil it in," Raed added.

"Well, there's the old tin dipper in the boat that we used to bail out the rain-water with," replied Don. "We could keep that boiling. Might boil away six or seven quarts by morning. That would give quite a pinch of salt."

"That's the idea!" said Kit. "Let's get it going as soon as we can. Wash it out, and dip it up two-thirds full of water, Don. I'll fix a way to set it over the fire."

Meanwhile Weymouth was frying another dozen of eggs.

"I think I can suggest a better way of evaporating the sea-water," remarked Raed as Donovan came up with the two-quart dipper of water. "You see that little hollow in the ledge just the other side of the fire: that will hold several pailfuls, probably. The fire on the rocks must make that warm: you see if it isn't, Wash."

I was on that side. The ledge for several yards from the blaze was beginning to get warmed up.

"We might brush that out clean," Raed continued, "and fill it with water. It will evaporate fast there, and leave its salt on the bottom of the hollow. We can move the fire along a little nearer to make the rocks hotter. I'm not sure that we could not make the water boil in there."

The place was brushed, and a dozen bumperfuls turned into the hollow, where it soon began to steam.

"That'll do it!" exclaimed Kit. "Never mind: we shall have salt by to-morrow!"

After eating the eggs, one of the geese, which Donovan and Raed had dressed, was cut up raw, and fried on the spider. We had sharpened appetites; and, had the morsels been flavored with salt, it would not have tasted bad. Wade tried dipping his in the bumper of sea-water,—with no great satisfaction to his palate, I inferred; for he did not repeat the experiment.

"How about drink?" Kit observed at length. "I don't suppose there's a spring on the island. I'm getting thirsty. What's to be done for water?"

"Have to melt ice," Raed replied. "There's ice along the shore, among the rocks."

Kit started off, and presently came back with a large lump. Bits of it were broken off and put in the bumper, and held over the fire. The water thus obtained and cooled with ice was not salt exactly. Still it was not, as has sometimes been affirmed, pure fresh water, by any means: it had a brackish taste.

The weather, which had been clear during the day thus far, began to foul toward evening. It was now after six. The wind had veered to the south-west. Wild, straggling fogs, with black clouds higher up, were running into the north-east. Damp, cold gusts blew in from the water.

"We shall have a chilly night," Wade said, shivering a little. "Rain and sleet before morning, likely as not."

We set about preparing for it. A little back from the fire a wall of rough stones was hastily thrown up to the height of three feet or over, and continued for ten or twelve feet, with both ends brought round toward the fire. We then got the boat up out of the water, and, by hard lifting, raised it bottom-up, and laid it on our semicircular wall. It thus formed a kind of shed large enough to creep under. But, not satisfied with this, Donovan fell to work with his butcher-knife, and, in the course of an hour, had cleaved the skin off both sides of the walrus down to where it rested on the rock. Then, using the hafts of the oars as levers, we rolled the carcass on one side. The hide was then skinned off underneath; when, on rolling the carcass clean over, we had the hide off in one broad, immensely-heavy sheet. Raed estimated it to contain twenty square yards, reckoning the average girth of the walrus at twelve feet, and its length at fifteen feet. By means of the oars and thwarts as supports, the skin was then raised with the raw side up in tent form over the wall and boat, making shelter sufficient for us all to get under with comfort.

"Now let it storm, if it wants to!" cried Weymouth: "we've got a water-proof seal-skin at least!"

An arch of stones, with our spider set in the top, was then built over the fire to protect it from the weather.

"How long will this walrus last for firewood, suppose?" I asked.

"Oh! two or three days, for a guess," Donovan thought.

"After that, what?" said Wade.

"It's no use to trouble ourselves about that now," said Kit: "the Bible expressly forbids it. Besides, we've had trouble enough for one day. I'm for turning in and having a nap."

"Not much fun in turning in on a bare ledge, I fancy," Wade replied. "We shall miss our mattresses."

"A bare rock is a rather hard thing to bunk on, I do think," Raed remarked, peeping under the walrus-skin. "If we were in Maine, now, we should qualify that with a 'shake-down' of spruce-boughs. Didn't see any thing of the evergreen sort among the rocks, did you, Wash?"

We had not. It then occurred to me that we had observed several little shrubs common to the mountains of Labrador, and known to naturalists as the Labrador tea-plant.

"Any thing is better than the bare rock," Raed remarked, when I spoke of this shrub; and we all sallied out to glean an armful.

While thus engaged, Wade and Kit espied a bed of moss in a hollow between the crags, a portion of which was dry enough for our purpose. After bringing an armful of the tea-plant, we made a trip to the moss-patch. What we could all bring at once piled upon the coarse shrubs made a bed by no means to be despised by—cast-aways.

"I presume there's no need of mounting guard or setting a watch here," Donovan said.

"How do we know that some party of Huskies or Indians has not been watching our movements all day?" Weymouth suggested.

"I don't think it likely," said Raed. "We may all venture to go to sleep, I guess, and trust to Guard to keep watch for us."

"I don't know about that," Kit remarked, patting the old fellow's head. "He's eaten so much of our woodpile, that he will be but a drowsy sentinel, I'm afraid."

The fire was replenished with blubber; and we all lay down on our mossy beds inside our fresh-smelling tent.

The sun must have been still high in the north-west; but so wild and dark were the clouds, that it had grown quite dark by nine o'clock. The damp wind-gusts sighed; the surf swashed drearily on the rocks. Despite all our efforts to bear up and seem gay, a weight of doubt and danger rested heavily on our spirits. "Where is 'The Curlew' now?" was the question that would keep constantly recurring, followed by a still more ominous query, "What would become of us if she should not return?"

"Isn't there a town out on the Atlantic coast of Labrador, a town or a village, settled by the Moravian missionaries?" Raed asked suddenly, after we had been lying there quietly for some minutes.

"Seems to me there is," Kit replied after a moment of reflection.

"There's one indicated on our geography-maps, I'm pretty sure, called Nain, or some such scriptural name. Don't you remember it, Wash?"

I did distinctly; and also another, either above or below it on the coast, called Hopedale, colonized by missionaries from South Greenland.

"Those Moravians are very good folks, I've heard," Wade said. "They're a very pious, Christian people. I have read, too, that they have succeeded in Christianizing many of the coast Esquimaux."

"Those Huskies must make queer Christians!" exclaimed Donovan.

"How far do you suppose it is out to those towns, Nain, say, from here, for a guess?" Raed asked a few minutes after.

"I was just thinking of that," said Kit. "Well, I should say four hundred miles."

"Not less than six hundred," said Wade.

I thought it as likely to be seven or eight hundred.

"That would be a good way to travel on foot," muttered Raed reflectively.

"Yes, it would," said Kit. "Still I shouldn't quite despair of doing it if there was no other way out of this."

"How long would it take us, do you suppose?" Raed asked after another pause. "How many miles a day could we make, besides hunting and getting our food?"

"Not more than twelve on an average," Kit thought.

"Suppose it to be seven hundred miles, that would take us near sixty days," Raed remarked; "seventy, counting out Sundays."

"We never could do that in the world!" Wade exclaimed. "It would take us till midwinter, in this country! We should starve! We should freeze to death!"

"Couldn't very well do both," Kit observed rather dryly.

"The journey would be well-nigh impossible, I expect," Raed remarked. "On getting in from the coast, we should probably meet with no sea-fowl, no seals: in fact, I hardly know what we should be able to get for game. I have heard that caribou-deer are common in Labrador; but they are, as we know from experience in the wilderness about Mount Katahdin, very difficult to kill. And then our cartridges!"

"We might possibly attach ourselves to some party of Esquimaux going southward," Kit suggested.

"And be murdered by them for our guns and knives," exclaimed Wade.

"Oh, no! not so bad as that, I should hope. But let's go to sleep now, and discuss this to-morrow."

There was something horrible to our feelings in this thought of our perfect isolation from the world. I think Wade realized it, or at least felt it, more than either of the other boys. Kit either didn't or wouldn't seem to mind it much after the first hour or two. Raed probably saw the chances of our getting away more clearly than any of us; but I doubt if he felt the wretchedness of our situation so keenly as either Wade or myself. He was always cool and collected in his plans, and not a little inclined to stoicism as regarded personal danger. These philosophical persons are apt to be so. What the most of folks feel badly about they laugh at: it is better so, perhaps. Yet pity and sympathy are good things in their way. They help hold society together; and are, I think it likely, about its strongest bonds of union. As for Weymouth and Donovan, they bore it all very lightly: indeed, they didn't seem to give the subject any great thought, farther than to exclaim occasionally that it was "rough on us," and a "tough one." Sailors always have a vein of recklessness in their mental processes. It comes from their manner of life,—its constant peril. They learn the uselessness of "borrowing trouble."

Once in the night I woke,—woke from a pleasant dream of home. For several seconds I was utterly bewildered; did not know where I was. Then it burst upon me; and such a wave of desolation and trouble broke with the realization, that the tears would start in spite of all shame. It was raining on the green hide overhead with a peculiarly soft patter. The strong odor of burning fat from the fire filled our rude tent; to which were added the fresh, sick smells from the great newly-butchered carcass of the walrus. The boys were sound asleep, breathing heavily. Guard roused up at our feet to scratch himself, then snuggled down again. The wind howled dismally, throwing down gusts of rain. It dripped and pattered off the skin-covering on to the boat and on to the rocks. Now and then a faint scream from high aloft declared the passage of some lonely seabird; and the ceaseless swash and plash of the sleepless sea filled out in my mind a picture of home-sick misery. It is no time, or at least the worst of all times, to reflect on one's woes in the night when just awakened from dreams: better turn over and go to sleep again. But I had not got that lesson quite so well learned then, and so lay cultivating my wretchedness for nearly an hour, picturing our future wanderings among these northern solitudes, and our final starvation. "Perchance," I groaned to myself, "in after-years, some party of adventurers may come upon our white bones, what the gluttons leave of them." I even went farther; for I was presuming enough to imagine that our melancholy disappearance might become the subject of some future ballad. How would it begin? What would they say of me? What had I done in the world to deserve any thing by way of a line of praise or a tear of pity? Nothing that I could think of. At best, the ballad, if written at all (and of that I was beginning to have my doubts the more I thought it over), could but run,—

"Whilom in Boston town there dwelt a youth Who ne'er did well except in dying young."

That was as far as I could get with it: in fact, that was about all there was to be said by way of eulogy. The sea seemed to get hold of those two lines somehow, and kept repeating them with its eternal swish-swash, swash-swish.

The rain pattered it out in its heroic pentameters,—

Pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat!

Pity-pat, pat-pit, pat-pit, pity-pit, pit-pat!

All at once the regular rhythm of the sea was broken by a slight splash out of time. Instantly my morbid ear detected it, and I listened intently. Something was splashing along in the water.

"Sea-fowl," I hastily assured myself. No, that was not likely, either; for it was quite dark, and the sea rather rough.

"The Huskies trying to surprise us?" It might be. Something was certainly splashing the water very near. Why didn't Guard notice it? Talk about a dog's keen ears!—there lay the Newfoundland snoring loudest of anybody! Just then a scraping sound, accompanied by a dull rattling of the shingle among the rocks, startled me afresh. We were being surprised, stole upon, by something, undoubtedly. Repressing a strong inclination to yell out, I arose softly, and peeped past the drooping, flapping side of the walrus-skin. The splashings were now still more distinct; and I saw, dimly through the rain and darkness, a large, dark object near the water. What could it be? A hundred fearful fancies darted into my mind. Then there came a gruff snort; and the great dusky form heaved up higher on the rocks, upon which lay the carcass of the sea-horse. It seemed to be moving around it, making a dull, scraping noise. Suddenly a deep, horrid groan, ending in a prolonged bellow, burst on the damp air. Guard bounded up with a growl, and rushed out barking. Raed and Kit jumped up. They were all scrambling up. There was a moment of uncertain silence; then Kit cried,—

"Hollo! What was that?"

"Don't be scared," I said. "It's another walrus, I guess. Keep still; but get your guns ready."

"Another walrus, did you say?" muttered Raed, coming to look out.

"I think it's one come up to smell round the carcass of the one we've killed."

"So it is!" exclaimed Raed. "Like as not, it's this one's mate. What a hideous noise!" for the huge creature was giving vent to the most terrific snortings and snufflings.

We could hear it butt its head against the carcass.

"It has come round here hunting for its mate," said Kit. "That's its way of showing grief, I suppose."

Guard was darting up to it, barking furiously: but the great beast did not at first seem to pay much attention to the dog; till on a sudden it turned, with another dreadful bellowing,—we thought the dog had bitten one of its tail flippers,—and came waddling after him, snorting, and gnashing its tusks. Guard fell back toward our shelter.

"Shoot him!" Raed exclaimed.

Kit and Donovan both fired at the monster; but, with ferocious snorts, it kept after the dog.

"Run!" shouted Weymouth. "Out of this!" for the dog was backing right in upon us.

We had to scurry out in a hurry to avoid being penned there. Guard, like a fool, kept backing in that direction. By the time we had got clear of the shelter, he had got himself backed into it; and, the sea-horse essaying to follow him, the oar that held up the skin in front was knocked away, and down it came, burying the dog, and partially covering the walrus. A fearful uproar of barking, howling, and snorting, followed. Presently Guard got out from under, and ran yelping off, leaving his pursuer floundering about under the hide. Kit rushed up, and thrust his bayonet into the creature's exposed side; when with a mighty squirm it turned itself, knocking down the boat, and sending our stone wall flying in all directions. The battle was now fairly begun. We all closed in round the animal, thrusting at it with our bayonets anywhere we could stab. Yet it fought ferociously, with bellowings enough to make one's blood run chill. It seemed marvellous how a creature so unwieldy could turn itself so rapidly. Pain and rage made it no mean antagonist. Once Raed's musket was sent flying out of his hands several rods; and Wade, thrusting at its head, had his bayonet wrenched off at a single twist. We afterwards found it bent up and broken. I think Weymouth gave it a mortal wound by firing a bullet into its head; though Kit and I repeatedly ran our bayonets into its sides clean up to the rings. It succumbed at last, dying hard, with many a finishing thrust.

The gray morning light was beginning to outline the dreary shore. The chilly rain still poured. The reader can imagine in what a plight we were. The fire had gone out. Our skin-tent lay in a wad; and in the midst of our beds sprawled the dead sea-horse, weltering in its blood; while we ourselves, drenched with rain and bespattered with gore, stood round, steaming from our warlike exertions.

"This is a pretty how-d'y'-do!" Kit exclaimed. "Look at our 'shake downs!'—all blood and mire!"

"Well, we've got another wood-pile," said Donovan.

"I wish it had selected a more fitting time to make its appearance," Raed muttered. "It has demoralized us completely."

"Nothing to do but re-organize," laughed Kit. "Get the painter-line. Let's drag him off."

That was a heavy job, and took us nigh half an hour. Then there were the blood-soaked moss and tea-plant shrubs to get up and throw away, the wall to rebuild, the boat to set up, and the skin to repitch on the oars. All this time it continued to rain hard, with mingled flakes of snow. A tough time, we called it. And, after the tent was pitched again, we had no fire; and could only crouch, wet and shivering, on the bare ledge. I never felt more uncomfortable: my bones all ached; my head ached: I was sick. Wade was worse off than myself even. Throwing himself flat on the rock, he buried his face in his arms, and lay so for more than an hour. Raed and Kit sat blackguarding each other to keep up their spirits. Donovan was trying to dry some pine-splinters to build a fire with by sitting on them. Weymouth was cutting out blubber from the skinned carcass for the fire, so soon as the splinters could be dried. Two matches were burned trying to kindle the pine-shavings. We thought our fire dearly purchased at such a cost.

"Only four more," remarked Donovan gravely.

"We must not let it go out again," Raed said. "We must sit up, some of us, in future, to tend it."

Any thing like the dreary gloom of that morning I hope never to experience again. Sea, sky, and crags seemed all of one color,—lead. Seven or eight miles to southward, the mountains of the mainland (Labrador) showed their black bases under the fog-clouds. The great island to the south-east seemed to have been dipped in ink, so funereal was its hue.

The rain had frustrated our attempt at salt manufacture. We had to take our breakfast of fried goose in all the freshness of nature.

Our clothes gradually dried on us.

During the forenoon Kit sallied out on a hunting excursion, and, about noon, returned with a fine, plump, canvas-backed duck, which we ate for our dinner.

Toward four o'clock it stopped raining. Donovan and Weymouth improved the chance to skin the sea-horse we had killed during the night, it was rather larger than the first one, and had prodigious stiff, wiry whiskers about its upper lip, some of which we kept for a curiosity. They were over a foot in length, and as large as a coarse darning-needle. The tusks, too, were broken out, and laid aside.

During the night it faired; and the morning was sunny. Wade had become very unwell. He had taken cold from his drenching, and was shivering and feverish by turns. His courage, too, was clean down to zero. He knew we should never see home again, and didn't seem to care whether he lived or not. That is about as bad a way as a fellow can get into ever. I was little better than sick myself; and, while the others went off after eggs and game, I stayed to keep the fire going and take care of Wade. No small stint I had of it too; for he was peevish and touchy as a young badger. I knew he ought to take something hot of the herb-tea sort, and so started off and gathered a dipperful of the tea-plant leaves. Then, getting a lump of ice, I melted it, and made a strong dish of the "tea." Wade was lying under the shelter, face down into his coat-sleeve. Carrying in the steaming dipper, I told him I thought he had better take some of it: it would, I hoped, help his cold, &c.

No: he wouldn't touch it!

I then reasoned a while. This not having any perceptible effect, I next resorted to coaxing.

No: he wouldn't drink the stinking stuff!

Now, no doctor, I take it, likes to have his potions called "stinking stuff." I began to remonstrate; and from that—not being in a very amiable frame of mind—I ere long got mad, and was on the point of pitching into the sufferer, when it occurred to me that for a doctor to be caught thrashing his patient would be a very unbecoming spectacle! So I contented myself with giving him a "setting-up;" calling him, according to the best of my recollections, supported by the subsequent testimony of the patient, an "ungrateful dog," "peep," "nincompoop," et als.: after listening to which for a space, Wade got up and drank the tea. Peace was immediately restored with this act of obedience; and I proceeded to get him to bed. Pulling down the boat, I filled it half up with such of the shrubs and moss as had not been besmirched with the blood of the walrus. Wade then got into it. I made him a pillow of the geese-feathers by piling them into the bow under his head, and spreading over them my pocket-handkerchief. I next had him take off his boots, and set a hot rock from the fire at his feet. What to cover him up with was something of a problem. I managed it by putting on a layer of the moss, and laying the thwarts of the boat over this. Then, feeling somewhat fatigued after my labors, I crept in with him; and, ere long, we both went to sleep. The hunting-party coming back, two or three hours after, laden with eggs and brant geese, awoke me. Wade was sweating profusely beneath the boards and moss. We took care not to wake him till near eight o'clock, evening; when he got up, considerably better.

The next day (July 26) was spent in the manufacture of salt; not the manufacture of it exactly, either, but the extraction of it from sea-water. We were getting perfectly frantic for salt. The fresh food sickened us. I think we should soon have been really ill from the want of it. Filling the hollow in the ledge with the sea-water, we first tried to get fire enough about it to make the water boil. This we found it impossible to do, and so had recourse to a plan suggested by Kit. It was to get eight or ten stones about the size of the tin bumper, and heat them in the fire. When red-hot, these were successively rolled into the water in the hollow, raising great clouds of steam, and soon causing it to boil furiously. Continuing this stone-heating process for three or four hours, we succeeded in boiling away fully half a dozen pailfuls of water. There was then found to be a thin stratum of salt deposited along the bottom of the hollow. How we crowded around it, wetting the ends of our fingers, and licking it up! Eggs were then fried by the dozen, and eaten with a relish that only salt can give. I should add, however, that this appeared to me to be a very poor quality of salt; or else it had other mineral matter mixed with it, giving it a slightly bitter taste.

The quantity obtained at this our first boiling was so small, that we ate it all that night, and with our breakfast next morning.

The next forenoon was passed boiling down a second vatful. Wade and I attended to the salt-making, while the rest of the party went off to the islet next to the west after eggs and game. In the evening we provided ourselves with fresh "shake-downs" of moss and the tea-plant.

The 28th was devoted by Raed, Kit, and Donovan to a trip down to the mainland on the south. Raed wanted to see what sort of a country it was, with a view to our attempt at going down to Nain in case "The Curlew" should not come back. They did not get back till nine in the evening. They had found the hills and mountains along the coast to be mere barren ridges of lichen-clad rock, with moss-beds in the hollows. But from the summit of the high ridge, about two miles in from the shore, they had seen with the glass, to the southward, what seemed to be low thickets of stunted evergreen,—fir or spruce. From this Raed argued that fuel might be obtained by a party travelling through the country; and, from that, went on to picture these thickets to abound with deer and hares.



CHAPTER XIII.

More Salt.—Some Big Hailstones.—A Bright Aurora.—The Lookout.—An Oomiak heaves in Sight.—The Huskies land on a Neighboring Island.—Shall we join them?—A Bold, Singular, not to say Infamous, Proposition from Kit.—Some Sharp Talk.—Kit's Project carried by Vote.

During the 29th, 30th, and 31st (Sunday) of the month, we were employed much as upon the 27th; viz., boiling for salt, and egging along the cliffs. We wanted to get as much salt on hand as possible; and, by untiring industry, succeeded in getting about a quart ahead. But to do this we had been obliged to keep up a smart fire, which had consumed nearly all the walrus-blubber from both carcasses. Where to get the next supply of fuel was an open question. No more sea-horses had showed themselves. We concluded that this pair were all that had been in the vicinity.

On the night of the 31st, a terrible storm of wind, thunder, and hail, swept across the straits from the north-west. Raed picked up hailstones in front of our shelter, after the cloud had passed, which were two inches and a half in diameter. They struck down upon the rocks with almost incredible violence. Any ordinary canvas-tent would have been riddled by them: but our tough walrus-skin bore the brunt, and sheltered us completely. The sea, during the hail-fall, seemed to boil with a loud peculiar roar, and was white with bubbles and foam. There was a very bright aurora the following night. The next morning was fair; but a ghastly greenish haze gave the sky an aspect of strange pallor. Somehow we felt uneasy under it. After breakfast, Kit and I went up to the top of the ledges overlooking the straits to the north, east, and west, to see if we could discover any vessels. Some of us used generally to make our way up here every four or five hours to take a long look. For an hour we sat gazing off on the heaving expanse, flecked white with ice-patch, and bounded far to the north by a low line of black mountains. The breadth of the straits here was not far from seventeen leagues.

"Seven days since we were retired here," Kit remarked at length.

Seven days! It seemed seven ages.

"Kit, what do you think of the chance of our getting off from here?"

"Wash, I don't know: I don't dare to think."

"Do you really believe Capt. Mazard will come back?"

"Why, if he's not captured, nor wrecked in a gale, nor jammed up in the ice, he will come back."

"You have no doubt he will come back if he can?"

"Why, no: I know he will come if he can. He wouldn't leave us here. Besides, you know, Wash, that we owe him and all the crew for his and their services. I don't say that they would come back any quicker on that account: still they would be likely to want their pay, you know."

"That's true."

"But, Kit, if 'The Curlew' shouldn't make its appearance, do you believe we could get down to Nain, or any of those Esquimau coast-villages?"

"I don't know, Wash: we could try."

"Seven hundred miles through such a country as this! Would it be possible?"

"It would be no use to stay here, you know, if we found the schooner wasn't coming back. We must, of course, make an effort to get away. It would be foolish to stay here till winter came on. I don't suppose it would be possible for us to winter here: we should freeze to death in spite of every thing we could do. The cold is awfully intense through the winter months. Not even the Esquimaux try to winter on the straits here. Besides, it's about time for the sea-fowl to fly southward. We can't live after they're gone."

"But only think of a sixty-days' tramp over these barren mountains! Our boots wouldn't last a hundred miles! Our socks are worn through now!"

"Have to make moccasons."

"We never should get through alive. I don't believe Wade would stand it to go a quarter of the distance. He's sick now, and, worse still, has no courage. He acts strangely."

"Wade will rally when worst comes to worst, and be the head man in extremities."

"Do you think so?"

"I do. Wade is kind of hot-blooded, you know. Being left here so sudden struck him all in a heap. But he will show blood yet, if it comes to a real hand-to-hand struggle to save our lives. A boy that took his musket, and went right into a fair, stand-up battle of his own accord, as they say Wade did, won't give in here without showing us another side to his character. One thing, he feels the cold here worse than we do: it pinches him all up. But he will come out of his dumps yet. Don't badger him: he won't leave his bones here. Seriously, I have more fear for Weymouth and Donovan than for Wade. That is most always the way where there's hardship and suffering. Your great, strong, thoughtless fellow is the first to give out and fail up. You mark my words, now. If we have to undertake this journey, Weymouth and Donovan will be the first to sicken and fall behind. I don't believe they would ever get through it. But, after the first three days, Wade would lead us all. He will sort of rally and rise as the peril and hardship increase. He is kind of discouraged now, because he sees what's before us, and has to muster his energies to meet it; but he is getting a reserve of will-force in store. There's a good deal in that, I tell you! A strong will has carried many a fellow through hardships that would have killed men of twice the muscle without the will; and that's the way it will be with our two sailors, I'm afraid."

"But I am not in favor of making this trip overland," Kit added after we had sat musing a few minutes.

"What do you propose?"

"I think it best to work out of the straits in our boat, if we can."

I had thought of that plan.

"We could make a sail out of this walrus-hide, and watch our chance with a favorable breeze to scud us along from islet to islet on the south side here. We could run down into Ungava Bay, clean to the foot of it; and then, leaving the boat, go across to Nain. It couldn't be more than a hundred and fifty miles from the foot of the bay. We could start off, and, with a strong spurt, do it in a week from that place, I think. We should, at least, be sure of getting seals for food. But Raed don't think it best."

"Why not?"

"Well, he says, that, by the time we get into Ungava Bay, it will begin to freeze ice nights, enough to stop us. He thinks, too, that we should suffer a good deal more from cold on the water than on the land. Then we should have to wait for favorable winds, and be laid up through storms, besides the danger of getting capsized in gusts, and caught in the ice-patches. But he has agreed to leave it to the party to decide. I know the two sailors will vote to go by boat; but I'm not sure Raed is not right, after all. He's a better judge than any of the rest of us, I do suppose. I have a horror of starting off inland, though."

A very reasonable horror, I considered it. Any thing but toiling over sterile mountains, for me.

We sat there for a long time looking off, pondering the situation. Suddenly my eye caught on a tiny brown speck far to the northward. I watched it a moment, then spoke to Kit. He took out his glass and looked.

"That's some sort of a boat," he said at length. "Brown sail! That's a Husky boat, I reckon,—an oomiak."

I took the glass. The craft was heading southward; coming, it seemed, either for the islet we were on, or else the large island to the south-east. I could see black heads under the large irregular sail.

"Coming down to the Labrador side," Kit remarked. "I've heard that they spend the summer on the north side of the straits; go up in the spring, and come back here to Labrador in the latter part of the season."

"There are kayaks with it," he said, with the glass to his eye,—"one on each side; and there are one or two, perhaps more, behind."

In the course of an hour it had come down within three miles, bearing off toward the large island.

"We had best get out of sight, I guess," Kit observed. "Don't care to attract them or frighten them."

We went back a little behind the rocks; and Kit ran down to tell the rest of the party. They came back with them,—all but Weymouth, who was not very well, and had lain down for a nap.

"That's a big oomiak!" exclaimed Raed, taking a long look at it. "One—two—three—five—seven kayaks."

"How many do you make out in the big boat?" Kit asked.

"Nineteen—twenty; and I don't know how many behind the sail," Raed replied.

"Those are the women and children, I suppose," Wade said.

"Wade's thinking of the Husky belles," Kit remarked with a wink to me; "of the one he gave the scarf to. Let's see: what was her name?"

"Ikewna," I suggested.

"I've noticed Wade has been a little distrait for some time," Raed observed. "Possibly he sighs for the beauteous Ikewna!"

Wade laughed.

"Somebody else was a little sweet on a certain yellow-gloved damsel: rather stout she was, if I recollect aright. Mind who that was, Raed?"

"Ah! you refer to Pussay," Raed replied. "Well, she was a trifle adipose. But that's a merit in this country, I should judge. Lean folks never could stand these winters."

"And where now is the beautiful 'White Goose,' I wonder!" Kit exclaimed.

"And black-eyed Caubvick!" said I. "Answer, Echo!"

"This crew may be a part of the same lot," Donovan suggested.

"It isn't likely," said Raed. "We are now a hundred and fifty miles farther west than the Middle Savage Isles. It is hardly possible. But I dare say they are as much like them as peas in a pod."

The oomiak passed us about a mile to the eastward, and, approaching the shore of the large island, was luffed up to the wind handsomely. More than a dozen dogs leaped out, and went splashing to the shore. The men landed from the kayaks, and, wading out into the water, laid hold of the oomiak, and, guiding it in on the swell, carried it up high and dry. Several of the children had jumped out with the dogs. The women, old folks, and younger children, now followed. The shore fairly swarmed. We could hear them shouting, screaming, and jabbering, and the dogs barking. Guard looked off and growled slightly, turning his great dark eyes inquiringly to our faces.

"He don't like the looks of them," said Donovan: "remembers the fuss he had with them when they chased Palmleaf and him."

"They seem to be preparing to stop there, I should say," Kit remarked. "They've pulled up the oomiak some way from the water, out of reach of the tide, and are unloading it. There are quantities of skins, tents, harpoons, &c. There! they are all starting up from the water, loaded down with trumpery,—going off from the shore toward the middle of the island."

They had not seen us; and, after watching them disappear among the barren hillocks, we went back to our camp for dinner. Unless they came along to the extreme western end of the large island, they would not discover our camp. At first, we decided to have nothing to do with them. We had nothing in the "chymo" line except Wade's broken bayonet. They would only be a nuisance with us.

"But, if we could contrive to make them catch seals for us for fuel, it might be worth while to cultivate their acquaintance a little," Kit suggested.

"If we could get a seal a day from them for our fire, it might be a good plan enough," Wade thought.

"But we've nothing to pay them with; unless we paid them in promises of iron and knives when our ship comes back," I said. "I don't suppose our greenbacks would be a legal tender with them."

"But, in case 'The Curlew' should not come back, we might not be able to redeem our promises," Raed remarked.

"In that case," said Kit, "we might as well marry all their daughters, and take up our abode here. As their sons-in-law, we could perhaps excuse it to them."

"Possibly the daughters might object to this arrangement," said Wade.

"Why, you don't doubt your ability to win the affections of a Husky belle, do you?" demanded Kit, laughing.

"I doubt if our accomplishments would be rated very high among the fair Esquimaux," said Raed. "Not to be able to catch seals is deemed a great disgrace with them. Our going to them to beg seal-blubber would be a very black mark. We should be looked upon much in the light of paupers. No young Husky thinks of proposing to his lady-love till he has become an expert seal-catcher."

"It seems hard not to be thought eligible even by a Husky family," Kit observed. "But let's go over there and see what we can do. If we can't trade with them, we might lay them under contribution by force of arms. What say to beginning our career as conquerors by subjugating that island of Esquimaux, and levying a seal-tax? That's the way our Saxon ancestors first entered England. Has the sanction of history, you see,—as far down even as the ex-emperor Napoleon III."

"You can't be in earnest," said Raed, suddenly looking round to him.

"I am," said Kit. "Decidedly the easiest way (for us) to deal with them. If we were to go over there with a show of authority, they wouldn't make much resistance, I'm very sure. We would take possession of their oomiak. That would hold them to the island. They couldn't get off without that,—at least, the women and children couldn't; and the men would not desert their families."

"Now, there's a scheme of rapine worthy of Caesar!" sneered Raed. "Kit, I am ashamed of you!"

"I don't care. We're in a tight place. I don't mean them any harm. But, if we are going to be dependent on them for our supplies, it will be much better for us to have them under our authority. They're a mere set of ignorant heathens. We know more than they do; and it is but fair that the wisest should govern."

"That's the very argument the old piratical sea-kings of Norway used to use!" Raed exclaimed. "It's about a thousand years behind civilized times!"

"Not so far behind the times as that, I guess," Kit replied. "But I don't care: this is a force-put with us. We don't want to place ourselves in the power of those savages. Yet we need their assistance,—assistance for which we will repay them well when 'The Curlew' comes,—if it comes. Now, I say it is best for us, and will be better for them, to have them do as we want them to while we are on their island."

"In a word, you propose to make slaves of them," remarked Raed. "You mean to deprive them of their liberty."

"Yes, to a certain extent, I do."

"I am sorry to hear you talk in this way. I hoped no citizen of a free State would use language like that."

"Sorry to shock your sincere convictions," replied Kit; "but when it comes to making slaves of others, or being a slave myself, I should choose the former alternative always."

"But there's no such alternative in this case," Raed argued.

"Not exactly. Still I shall hold to my first opinion. If we are going to take supplies from them,—as it seems necessary that we should,—I think it will be better to have them under our control as long as we are here. You mistake me: I don't justify it from principle; but, as a temporary measure, I think it expedient."

"So was it expedient for the old Romans to attack and capture Corinth and Carthage, and just as fair and right."

"That merely shows how history repeats itself," laughed Kit.

"Don't laugh, sir!" cried Raed. "The principle is the same, as if, with a hundred thousand men at your back, you should land in England, and undertake to subdue that island instead of this."

"You have a very forcible way of putting things, I'll allow; but there's danger, Raed, of carrying general principles too far."

"For example," interrupted Wade. "Raed, with a number of other abolitionists, believed that all men ought to be free: so they kept to work stirring up bad feeling between the North and South till the war broke out, when they fell upon us with their armies and fleets, and committed the most wholesale piece of robbery that ever disgraced history,—robbed us of several billion dollars' worth of property, all at one swoop."

"To what sort of property do you refer?" Raed asked.

"Slaves."

"I thought so!"

"Then you are not disappointed in my 'principles,' as you choose to term them?"

"Not in the least!"

"I, at least, have never tried to conceal them."

"I should expect you to favor Kit's proposition; but I'm sadly surprised to hear Kit make it."

"Understand me!" exclaimed Kit. "I advocate it merely as a temporary measure, only justified by our necessity. I mean to pay them for all we have. But we haven't the pay here. They wouldn't trust us for what we want. Under these circumstances, I mean to assume the control of their affairs for a few days or weeks, as the case may be, and get what we must have by force of authority—till we can pay."

"It's nothing more nor less than robbery, Kit!" cried Raed; "a mere subterfuge, in open violation of the free principles of the noble land we hail from!"

"Too bad, I know," said Kit; "but 'needs must where a certain person drives.'"

"Kit, you shock me! Do you not believe in an allwise Providence?"

"Generally speaking, yes."

"A Power that takes care of us?"

"Yes, again; but it's after a sort not very flattering to the personal vanity of us poor mortals."

"One would naturally suppose, that, situated as we are at present, where the prospect of our getting through the next six months is so poor, you would hesitate at provoking that Power by such an act as this you propose."

"Raed, that's all bosh! If you mean to ask me if I believe that there is a Power that will interfere miraculously to rescue us from freezing or starving here, I answer promptly, I do not. God doesn't work so. Persons have to take the consequences of their own acts in this world, now-a-days. And as regards tempting Providence by doing any thing of the sort I proposed,—tempting it to some act of vengeance on us,—bosh again! God doesn't work that way at all. Besides, to come back to the subject in hand, I've no conscientious scruples about it; for I believe it to be the best thing we can do."

"I protest!" Raed exclaimed. "It is neither just nor right!"

"Well, how's this matter to be settled?" Wade demanded. "I suppose so rigid a republican as Raed will be willing to have it decided by vote?"

"Yes," said Raed, "though I lament the issue. Call our names, Kit. Those in favor of Kit's proposition will vote 'Yea:' those who believe it wrong will vote 'Nay.'"

Kit's voice trembled a little as he began.

"Raed?"

"Nay."

"Wash?"

"Nay."

"Wade?"

"Yea."

"Donovan?"

"Yea."

"Weymouth?"

"Yea."

"Not to include my own vote with the affirmative, there is a majority in favor of the measure we have just discussed," said Kit gravely.

"Please put it in words," said Raed.

"Why, we all know what I mean," replied Kit.

"But I want to hear it stated," insisted Raed.

"Well, then, there is a majority in favor of the temporary occupation and control of yonder island,—a measure justified by our necessity."

"You have put it very mildly," remarked Raed. "I should give it in very different terms. Kit, I am disgusted with this movement. I can't give it any sympathy whatever."

"You are not going to secede, I hope," sneered Wade.

"I am not," said Raed, turning in a passion. "I am, I hope, too good a patriot to be a secessionist, much less a rebel."

For a moment they looked straight at each other. Wade's eyes snapped, and his hands clinched.

"Here, here!—come, none of that!" exclaimed Kit, "or I'll thrash both of you. Wade, you are to blame. You said the first unkind thing. You ought to ask his pardon."

"He needn't do that," said Raed. "I was to blame as well as he."

"Well, that's magnanimous!" exclaimed Wade, suddenly relenting. "Beg'e' pardon, old fellow! I was to blame."

And we all laughed, in spite of the qualms sticking in our throats.



CHAPTER XIV.

We set up a Military Despotism on "Isle Aktok."—"No Better than Filibusters!"—The Seizure of the Oomiak.—The Seal-Tax.—A Case of Discipline.—Wutchee and Wunchee.—The Inside of a Husky Hut.—"Eigh, Eigh!"—An Esquimau Ball.—A Funeral.—Wutchee and Wunchee's Cookery.—The Esquimau Whip.

"Raed, will you act as leader, or captain?" Kit asked.

"I decline," was the reply. "It is hardly fair to ask me, I think. That honor—if you look upon it as such—is clearly yours."

"Very well, then. All hands launch the boat!"

It was done.

"Load in the walrus-hides."

They were rolled up and thrown in.

"Ship the spider too."

I carried it aboard.

"Now each man spend fifteen minutes attending to his musket! Get off all rust! See that the locks move easily! Load them, and fix the bayonets!"

This done, we called Guard, and embarked; not forgetting to take our dipper of salt, the walrus-tusks, and Wade's broken bayonet.

"Give 'way!" was the order.

Weymouth and Donovan dipped the oars; and we darted out from the little cove beneath the ledges where for seven days we had kept our camp-fire blazing. Kit took up a paddle, and from the stern directed our course toward the larger island.

"I can't see what better we are than any gang of desperadoes or filibusters," Raed remarked.

"Circumstances alter cases, Raed," replied Kit.

"Now, for God's sake, don't shed the blood of any of the poor wretches!" Raed said.

"Never fear: we will manage it without killing any of them, I guess."

On coming up within a quarter of a mile of the shore, we surveyed it carefully. There were none of the Esquimaux in sight, however, to oppose our landing; and the boat was rowed along to within four or five hundred yards of the place where the oomiak and kayaks had been drawn up on the shore. Landing, we drew up our boat between two large rocks, and went along to where the oomiak lay.

"What a great scow of a craft it is!" exclaimed Weymouth.

"Not less than thirty-five or forty feet long," Raed remarked.

"Seven feet wide, certain," said Wade.

"That's walrus-hide that it is covered with, I think," said Kit; "four or five hides sewed together. We might have our two sewed together for a tent."

"We'll have them do it for us after we've got our dynasty established," said Wade.

"Forward, now!" cried Kit.

We followed their trail up from their canoes; and, after crossing several ledgy ridges, at length espied their encampment, distant about half a mile from the water. It was in a hollow, surrounded by crags and rocks. The place had probably been chosen on account of its sheltered situation. It was doubtless an old haunt of theirs.

"Now form in line, boys," Kit requested, "and move on steadily!"

We did so, Guard walking soberly behind us. There were five tents of seal-skin clustered together near what we discovered to be a spring, or run, of water. Half a dozen Huskies were in sight, moving about the camp; and, the moment our approach was discovered, they came pouring out to the number of thirty or forty. As we came up, a few scattered, and ran off among the crags; but the greater part stood huddled together.

"Now keep cool, boys!" Kit advised. "Don't fire in any case, unless I give the word,—except Wade. He may fire his musket in the air when we come close to them, by way of giving them a foretaste of what we can do."

When we had come up facing them to within three or four yards, Kit gave the order to halt. Wade fired his musket. The swarthy, long-haired crowd stared hard at us in perfect silence. Kit then advanced a little, and pointing to us, and then to himself, exclaimed in a loud voice,—

"Cob-loo-nak!" ("Englishmen!")

And, by way of giving emphasis to the announcement, he repeated it several times. Then, pointing off to the east and north, he said,—

"Oomiak-sook!" ("Big ship!")

And, when this had been duly repeated, he cried out,—

"Chymo—aunay!" ("The trade is far off!")

"Now the next thing is to seize the oomiak," said he.

"We will make them help as bring it up here. I'll detail a party for that purpose."

He now pointed off to the shore with the word oomiak, and, stepping up to one of the men, laid his hand on his shoulder, and made signs for him to go with us. The man, a stout, short fellow, seemed partly to comprehend his meaning, and rather reluctantly moved out from his fellows.

"We shall want as many as seven or eight of them," remarked Wade.

"Form a ring around this one, then, while I get out another," said Kit.

But the second one backed off as Kit approached him, gesticulating, and shouting, "Na-mick, na-mick!" and, on Kit's laying his hand on his shoulder, he let out a "straight left" with considerable vim.

"Donovan," said Kit, "take hold of him!"

Don made a rush, and, clutching one hand into his hair, shook him about, tripped him up, and held the point of the butcher-knife at his throat. The savage howled and begged. With a single effort Donovan set him on his feet, and thrust him into the ring. The third, fourth, and fifth man came out at a mere tap on the shoulder. But the sixth—a little dark fellow—jumped back when Kit stepped up to him, and struck with a rough dagger-shaped weapon made of a walrus-tusk. Indeed, it was a wonder he had not stabbed him; for the movement was remarkably quick and cat-like. Donovan sprang forward; but Kit caught his arm, and dealt him a blow with his fist that sent him reeling to the ground. Don seized him by the collar of his bear-skin smock, and, with a twitch and a kick, sent him spinning into the ring. Several of the remaining men had run to their tents, and now re-appeared with harpoons in their hands. Kit took his musket, and, walking up to one of them, struck the dart out of his hand with a tweak of the bayonet, and then walked him along to the ring.

"I guess seven will be enough," said Wade.

"Well, keep round them," replied Kit. "Don't let 'em get away from us. Ready! Forward, march!"

We turned to go down to the oomiak, and had proceeded a few steps, when some of the savages about the huts suddenly shouted "Ka-ka, ka-ka!" In an instant their dogs, which had been growling and prowling about all the time, rushed after us, barking madly. Guard was a little behind us. They set upon him like hungry wolves. Such a barking and snarling! Kit and Wade, who formed the rear-guard, ran to the rescue. Wade laid on them with the butt of his musket; while Kit, with his bayonet, gave several of the gaunt, wolfish curs thrusts which speedily changed their growls to yelps of agony. The savages cried out dismally. Exclamations of "Mickee!" "Arkut mickee!" "Parut mickee!" besought us not to kill them. They had set them on to us, nevertheless. The dog riot suppressed, we moved on down to the shore. The oomiak was then turned bottom up, and the mast which had supported their sails thrust under it transversely about ten feet back of the bows. This mast was a stick of yellow pine, from Labrador probably, about fifteen feet long. It projected four or five feet on each side,—far enough for them to take hold to carry the oomiak on it. Wade ran out to our boat and brought one of the oars, which was thrust under, near the stern, in the same way. Kit then stationed six of the Huskies at the mast-pole forward, three on each side: the other he placed at the stern end of the scow. Weymouth took hold of one end of the paddle, and Donovan the other. Kit then made signs to the Huskies to lift at their pole. They raised it; and the sailors lifting the stern at the same time, and walking on, we had it fairly started. It was pretty heavy, however. The Esquimaux soon began to pant; seeing which, we had them set it down and rest every thirty or forty rods.

We were near an hour getting back to their huts. They had worked well. Their part of the load must have been somewhat over a hundred pounds per man, we thought.

"Better than niggers; a great deal better," Wade pronounced them. "I'm not sure that it wouldn't be a good plan to import them into the United States to work on our railroads."

"For slaves, I suppose," said Raed.

"No; not for slaves. Now that slavery is fairly abolished, I am not much in favor of its re-establishment. Take them down to work for fair wages. Should as lief have them as to have the Chinese, and risk it."

"That makes me think," Kit remarked, "that I have read that some ethnologists think the Esquimaux are a branch of the Chinese nation."

"You would send vessels like the cooly ships up here to kidnap them, I suppose," Raed observed. "You could only carry them away by main force. They are too much attached to their bleak home to leave it voluntarily."

"Well, what of that," said Wade. "Don't be so dreadfully afraid to have a little force used! If it would permanently better their condition, why not bring the whole nation of them farther south by force. A horde of ignorant savages like these don't always know what's best for them, by a long sight. If all these polar tribes could be brought down into a milder climate, it would be vastly better for them. So of the ignorant, brutish negroes of Africa: if they could be got out of their barbarous haunts, and brought up into the latitude of New York and Paris, it would be vastly better for them; and they might be made to do something useful in the world. Millions of hands are lying idle in Africa, which, under proper direction, might be turned to some account, and made to contribute both to the world's progress and their own happiness. But, of course, such savage tribes will never move of their own accord: it remains for more enlightened nations to move them."

"That's an argument for the re-opening of the slave-trade, I presume," Raed remarked.

"Oh, no! You judge me too severely. I meant just what I said; nothing more."

"If what Wade proposes could be done without violent usage, suffering, and injustice, I think it would be a great and good work," said Kit.

"Well, in that I agree with you fully," replied Raed; "but the trouble would be to find a nation or a company that would deal justly and humanely with such savages."

We let them rest an hour after bringing up the oomiak; then started them back to bring up our own boat, with our spider and walrus-skins. This took till nearly six o'clock, evening. The walrus-skins were then unrolled, and spread out on the ground.

"Now we want these sewed together," said Kit: "then we can pitch them on their oomiak-mast for a tent-pole."

Wade spread out the two skins so that the edges touched each other: then, beckoning to one of the men, he pointed first to the edges, next to the seams where the hide had been sewed on the oomiak, then off to the huts, pronouncing the word "hennelay" ("woman"). The savage understood him in a moment, and went off into the hut. Presently two chubby faces appeared at the doorway, but shrank back the moment we espied them. We could hear a great talking and urging going on inside. After a while, when we had gone to move the oomiak round so as to form one side of a sort of fort, they stole out, and came reluctantly along, the man following them, apparently to keep them from escaping. Seeing them approaching, Kit and Wade went to meet them, smiling and bowing, and pointing to the walrus-skins. They knew what was wanted, and fell to work to sew the two hides together, occasionally casting shy eyes toward us. What amused us was, that each was the exact counterpart of the other. They were just of a size, and of the same height. Face, features, and expression were identical. The man, who might possibly have been their father, but more probably their elder brother, saw our amazed looks, and said "Bi-coit-suk:" at least, it sounded like that. The meaning of the word we could only guess at. But, if bi-coit-suk does not mean twins, I am greatly mistaken. On questioning the man, using the word kina, and pointing to each, we learned, after he understood us, that one was named Wutchee, and the other Wunchee. The meanings of these words I have no need to translate: they were decidedly significant, and amused us a good deal. For sewing the hides together they used an awl of bone. The thread, which was of the sinew of some animal, was thrust through the awl-holes like a shoemaker's waxed-end, and drawn tight. When they had finished, Kit gave Wutchee (or Wunchee, for the life of me I couldn't tell which) a half-dozen pins from a round pin-ball he cherished, and three or four bright nickel five-cent bits. Wade then gave Wunchee (?) his pen-knife, and an old cuff-button he happened to have in his pocket. They accepted these presents as modest as you please; but it did seem a little droll to see them immediately fall to licking them all over with their tongues. They did not seem to act as if they considered the gifts fairly their own till they had licked them. We had not observed this practice among those who boarded us at the Middle Savage Isles; but with these the custom seemed a universal one among the women. Even if the gift were a rusty nail, they would lick it all the same. It is said that the mothers lick their young children over like she-bears. Wade also gave the man who had accompanied them the point of his broken bayonet. The fellow looked it over, and then, getting his harpoon, unlashed the bone blade, and substituted the bayonet-point in its place.

"He seems to understand its use," Kit remarked. "Hope he won't experiment with it on us unawares."

The walrus-skins were then raised on the oomiak mast, the edges resting on the bottoms of our boat and the oomiak, placed on both sides. Stones laid along the edges held them in place. Not to be too near our subjects (for they were rather noisy, and smelled pretty strong of rancid fat), we had placed our tent about two hundred feet away from their huts. While the rest had been pitching the tent, Wade and Weymouth had constructed a rough arch of stones, and set our spider in the top of it as we had previously arranged it.

"Ready for the seal!" said Wade.

"They've got seal-blubber about their huts; I saw some of the young ones eating chunks of it," Donovan remarked.

Several of the men had come round where we were at work, and among them the little dark chap who had tried to stab Kit. Wade went along to him, and pointing to his own mouth, and then toward the mouths of the rest of us, said, "Pussay" ("Seal"). But the fellow was still sullen, and stared defiantly.

"Have to discipline him a little, I reckon," Kit muttered.

Again Wade pronounced the word pussay, pointing off toward their huts.

"Na-mick!" exclaimed the Esquimau fractiously. "Na-mick! Ik pee-o nar-kut bok!" swinging his arms. "Ik pee-o askut ammee pussay!"

"Any idea what he said?" Wade asked, turning to Kit.

"No: but it was a refusal; I know by his actions.—Donovan, there's another job for you!"

Don went off a little to one side, and, working up toward him, made a sudden lunge, and had him by the hair in a twinkling. Such a shaking as the poor wretch got! Then, with a quick trip, Donovan laid him flat on his back, and, jerking out his big knife, began strapping it ominously on his boot-leg. Oh, how the terrified savage howled! Raed turned away in disgust. After frightening him nearly into fits with the knife, the stalwart sailor with a twitch threw him across his knee, and applied the flat of the butcher-knife to the seat of his seal-skin trousers with reports that must have been distinctly audible for a quarter of a mile. All the Huskies came rushing up, screaming and gesticulating. The dogs barked. There was a general uproar. After three or four dozen of these emphatic reminders of arbitrary power, Donovan set the shrieking wretch on his feet, and, still holding on to his hair, shouted in his face the word pussay a dozen times in a tone that might have been heard on the neighboring islands. Kit and Wade and Weymouth all fell to shouting the same word; catching the meaning of which, more than a dozen of the Huskies, men and women, ran to their huts, and brought pieces of seal-blubber to the amount of several hundred-weight. The little dark chap disappeared, and we saw no more of him for two days.

"Now we want some eggs," said Kit. "What's the word for egg?"

"Wau-ve," Raed replied.

Wade then called wau-ve several times to the crowd. They ran off again, and in a few minutes returned with fifteen or twenty of the razor-bill's eggs; and a party immediately set off toward the cliffs for more.

"I admire their promptness," Kit observed, laughing.

"They are beginning to respect us," said Wade.

"But would it not have been far better to have come over here and asked them kindly for what we wanted?" Raed demanded.

"No," said Kit; "for we should not have got it."

"I don't know about that," replied Raed.

"I know we shouldn't," said Wade. "We should have got a square na-mick to start with; and I am inclined to believe they would have attacked us with their daggers and harpoons. Then we should have been obliged to kill a lot of them in self-defence. As it is, we haven't hurt anybody yet. A dose of spanks won't injure any of them, I'll warrant."

"But this whole business is revolting,—to me, at least," Raed continued.

"Oh, I guess you will stand it!" laughed Kit. "But, Raed, if I were you, I wouldn't show quite so much of my righteous indignation. You want your supper as well as the rest of us."

"No doubt."

"Well, honestly, old fellow, I could not see any better way to get it for you."

"Well, I hoped never to eat a supper procured by slave-labor."

"You won't notice any great difference in the taste, I dare say," replied Wade.

Donovan was preparing splints from the old thwart, and covering them with the blubber in the arch. Ten or a dozen of the Esquimaux were looking on. When he struck a match on his sleeve, exclamations of wonder broke out. Matches were a novelty with them. From their strange looks, and glances toward each other, we concluded that they took us to be either great saints, or devils; most likely the latter, from the way we had previously deported ourselves. The eggs were fried, and eaten with a sprinkling of salt. A fire of seal-blubber was probably a very extravagant luxury in the eyes of our Husky subjects. They had no fire while we were with them, save their flickering stone lamps. Yet the use of cooked food seemed not to be wholly unknown among them. On several occasions we saw them boiling, or at least parboiling, a duck in a stone kettle over five or six of their lamps set together. They often gave food cooked in this way to their young children, and in cases where any of their number are sick. If wood were plenty, they would doubtless soon come to relish it best; since it is undoubtedly the scarcity of wood which has driven them to raw food.

Whatever we did,—in our cooking, eating, and in all our movements,—we were sure of a curious and admiring crowd. There were, in all, thirty-seven of the Esquimaux on the island,—nine men and eleven women, adults: the remaining seventeen ranged from one to eighteen years apparently. So far as we could learn, they kept little or no record of their ages. One man, whom they called Shug-la-wina, seemed to exercise a sort of authority over the rest; but whether it was from any hereditary claim to power, or simply from the fact that he was rather larger in stature than the others, was not very clear. Another, the little dark chap whom Donovan had punished for his snappishness, was almost continually slapping and cuffing the rest about. His name was Twee-gock. Besides Wutchee and Wunchee, there were, of the girls, one named Coonee,—a very laughing little creature,—and another called Iglooee ("hut-keeper" or "house-keeper"). Neither of these was so large nor so handsome as Wutchee or Wunchee. The last two were Kit and Wade's favorites.

They were quaint little creatures, just about four feet and a half in height; chubby, and rather fleshy; and would have weighed rising a hundred pounds, probably. Their faces were rather larger in proportion than our American girls, rounder and flatter; noses inclined to the pug order; eyes black, and pretty well drawn up at the inner corners; cheek-bones rather high, though their flesh prevented them from appearing disagreeably prominent; mouths large, showing large white teeth; ears big enough to hear well; hair black, straight, and occasionally pugged up behind; complexion swarthy, though, in their case, tolerably clear; feet very small; and hands sizable. Add to this description an ever-genial, pleased expression of countenance, with considerable sprightliness of manner dashed with something like naivete; then picture them in trousers and jackets, with their hoods, and those irresistibly comical "tails,"—and you have Wutchee and Wunchee, the belles of our island kingdom.

After our supper of eggs, of which they soon brought as many as seven or eight dozen, Raed proposed that we should take a look at the interior of some of their huts. So, leaving the two sailors with Guard on sentinel duty, we went along to the hut belonging to Shug-la-wina, and by signs expressed our desire to go in. He pulled aside the flap in front, and we stepped under. The tent-frame was of small sticks of the yellow pine, with a straight ridge-pole. Over the frame was thrown a covering of cured seal-skin or walrus-skin. A stone lamp, suspended by seal-skin thongs, hung at the farther end. It was burning feebly. The wick seemed to be of long fibers of moss. The lamp itself was simply an open bowl hollowed out of a stone, about the size of a two-quart measure. The oil was the fat of seals or walruses. On one side there was a quantity of fox-skins and bear-skins thrown down promiscuously. Upon these reclined Shug-la-wina's wife Took-la-pok and his daughter Iglooee. Kit made them a present of three pins each. On the other side of the hut there was stowed a sledge, with runners of bone firmly lashed together with thongs. On it was a stone pot, hollowed, like the lamp, out of a large stone. Several harpoons stood in the farther corner. A coil of thong lay on the sledge; also two whips with short handles of bone, but exceedingly long lashes,—not less than fifteen or twenty feet in length. There were lying about half a dozen tusks of the walrus, and, on a low stone shelf, a hundred-weight or more of seal-pork. We were turning to go out, when Wade pointed to the end of a bow and the heads of two arrows protruding from under the furs. Kit took them up; but Shug-la-wina very gravely took them from his hands, and returned them to their hiding-place. The bow was of some dark bone, I thought,—possibly whalebone; the bow-string of sinew; and the arrows of wood, but provided with rough iron heads. The sight of these iron heads surprised us a little, as well as the discovery in another hut of an English case-knife. That knife, doubtless, had a history. On going out, Wade took up one of the bear-skins, and pointed off to our tent.

"Abb," replied the Esquimau, nodding.

We took it along with us. The other huts were much the same as Shug-la-wina's. We got a bear-skin from each. Wutchee and Wunchee gave us two. These skins, spread over a "shake-down" of moss, made us a very comfortable bed.

By this time it was past ten o'clock; and, after arranging for regular sentinel duty,—two hours in each watch,—we turned in on our bear-skins, save Weymouth, who had the first watch. But we were horribly disturbed by the incessant barking, growling, and fighting of their dogs. Such a set of vicious, snarling curs do not exist in any other quarter of the world, I hope. They were decidedly the most troublesome of our new subjects. Guard could not stir out away from us without being assaulted tooth and nail. Fights of from two to half a dozen combatants were in progress all night; and not only that night, but each succeeding night. Several times some one or other of the Huskies would rush out from their huts, and lay about them with their long whips, shouting "Eigh, eigh, eigh!" We could hear the whips snap, followed by piteous yelps and long-drawn howls. Then there would be silence for perhaps ten minutes: by that time another fight would be in full blast.

"What, for thunder sake, do they keep so many dogs for?" growled Donovan.

"To draw their sledges in winter," I heard Raed explaining to him....

[Seventeen pages, containing, as appears from the chapter-head, an account of an Esquimau ball, a funeral, also of Wutchee's and Wunchee's cookery, are here missing from the manuscript. The young author is now absent with the party in Brazil.—ED.]

Strange how these people can live without salt! They make no use of it with their food; eat fresh seal-blubber, mainly, all their lives. No wonder they look flabby! And yet they are a happy set; always laughing, joking, and badgering each other. Very likely their joys are not of a very high order: but I doubt whether civilization would make them much happier; though, according to the theory of us civilized folks, it ought to. They lead an easy life,—easy, in a savage way; though breaking up dog-fights does keep them pretty tolerably busy. To-day (Aug. 7) we had a perfect dog-war. Three or four of the ravening, howling curs assaulted Guard under the very flap of our tent. Donovan caught up a musket, and, running out, pinned one of them down with the bayonet, and held him for some seconds. On letting him up, the dog ran off howling, with the blood streaming out of him. Instantly all the rest set after him, barking like furies. Round and round the huts they went, all snarling and snapping at the wounded one. Presently out rushed old Shug-la-wina and Twee-gock with their whips, shouting "Eigh, eigh!" and laying about them. The ends of the thongs cracked like pistol-shots. The hair and hide flew up from the dogs' backs. As fast as one got a crack, he would leap up and run off, licking at the spot. How the boys laughed!

"That's a savage weapon!" exclaimed Wade. "I should about as lief take a shot from a revolver as one of those 'cracks' on my bare skin. Moses, how it would sting!"

"I don't believe it would hurt through anybody's thick coat," Donovan remarked.

"Humph! it would cut right through to a fellow's hide!" exclaimed Kit.

"Nonsense!"

"Bet you don't dare to let one of them crack at you!"

"I wouldn't let one of them snap at my back, for fear he would hit my ears or hands instead; but I had just as lief let him crack at my leg below my knee, under my boot-leg, as not."

"Agreed!"

Kit ran to get old Shug-la-wina with his whip.

"Bet my musket against yours that you can't stand three cracks on your boot-leg!" laughed Wade.

"I take it!" cried Donovan.

In a few minutes Kit came back with the old Esquimau and his whip. Signs were made; and Donovan raised his foot on a rock, exposing his boot-leg. The veteran Husky began to yeh-yeh! He understood. Standing off about twenty-five feet, he gathered the lash up; then, swinging the handle around his head, let the long thong go circling around him like a black snake. Faster and faster revolved the black gyres,—twenty times, I have no doubt. Presently he fetched a snap. The black thong shot out like lightning. Thut! A bit of the leather flew up, spinning in the air. Donovan caught away his leg with a profane exclamation. We crowded round. There was a hole in the boot-leg!

"Gracious!" exclaimed Weymouth.

Don jerked off his boot. On the calf of his leg there was a mark about half an inch wide, and an inch or more in length, red as blood, and rapidly puffing up.

"Have another?" demanded Wade.

"Not much! One will do for me!"

We naturally picked up a good many words of their language; though of its structure—if it have any—we learned little. Other anxieties occupied our minds so fully, that we were not very attentive scholars. Like the Indians of our Territories, the Esquimaux seemed much addicted to running a whole sentence into a single word, or what sounded like it, of immense length. These sentence-words we could make very little of. But of their detached words, standing for familiar things, I add a vocabulary from such as I can now call to mind:—

Pillitay, Give. Give me something. Igloo, A hut. Igloo-ee, A hut-keeper. Wau-ve, An egg. Mickee, A dog. Tuk-tuk, A reindeer. Muck-tu, A caribou. Tuck-tu, Seal-blubber. Nenook, A bear. Chymo, Trade; barter. Eigh! Stop! Hold up! Get out! Karrack, Wood. Tyma, Good. Mai, Good. Negga-mai, Not good. Na-mick, No. Abb, Yes. Singipok, Sleep. Kayak, A canoe. Coonee, A kiss. Cobloo-nak, An Englishman. Pee-o mee-wanga, I want. Aunay, Far off. Ye-meck, Water. Hennelay, A woman. We-we, A white goose. Muck-mhameek, A knife. Kolipsut, A lamp. Pussay, A seal. Awak, A walrus. Ka-ka! Go 'long! St-'boy! Oomiak, A large boat. Oomiak-sook, A ship. Kannau-weet-ameg, A dart. Kina? What is it? What's that? Twau-ve! Begone! Leave!



CHAPTER XV.

Winter at Hand.—We hold a Serious Council.—"Cold! oh, how Cold!"—A Midnight Gun.—The Return of "The Curlew."—"A J'yful 'Casion."—A Grand Distribution of Presents.—Good-by to the Husky Girls.—A Singular Savage Song.—We All get Sentimental.—Adieu to "Isle Aktok."—Homeward Bound.—We engage "The Curlew" and her Captain for Another Year.

Aug. 11.—Water froze last night nearly half an inch of ice. It seemed like December in our home latitude. All day the sky was hazy and cold, with driving mists. The wind blew from the north and north-west almost continually. A fortnight had made a great change in the weather. Summer seemed to be fast merging into winter. During the afternoon and evening we held a serious "council of war;" for all hope of the return of "The Curlew" was now well-nigh abandoned. After some discussion, it was voted to stay here on the island during the winter, rather than attempt either to get out of the straits in our boat, or reach Nain overland. During the morning Shug-la-wina had come to our tent, and pointed to the oomiak then off to the southward. We knew that it was to urge us to allow them to depart southward into Labrador. The question now arose with us, Should we allow them to go according to their habit? Raed thought we ought to let them go, and not subject them to the peril of a winter passed here on the island; but Kit and Wade opposed this proposition in toto.

"Once on the mainland," said Kit, "and our control over them will cease. They would either desert us, or else be joined by numbers whom we should find it impossible to govern. Not an inch shall they budge from here while I stay."

And in this view he was supported by Wade and the sailors. Indeed, I voted to keep them with us myself. To let them go seemed suicidal.

"But they may all starve here before spring," Raed urged. "That would be terrible!"

"Well, we must take measures to see that they don't starve," replied Kit. "Now's our chance to show them the advantages of our administration. To-morrow we must begin a regular autumnal hunt. Every seal and every bear, and such of the sea-fowl as have not already flown, we must capture for winter-store. We must keep them at it sharp. There's no need of starving, if we manage rightly. To-morrow we will begin a regular hunt,—send out hunting-parties every day. Whatever is brought in we will take charge of, and deal out as they need."

"In case they were like to starve, a lot of these worthless dogs could be killed for them to eat," said Donovan. "It wouldn't hurt my feelings to slaughter the whole pack of them."

"It no need to come to that, if we manage rightly," replied Kit.

Thus it was left. The only cause for immediate alarm was the ghastly fact, that we had only eleven cartridges remaining.

Toward evening it came on to snow. A dreary night settled down upon the island. But we lighted our Husky lamp [it would appear that they had procured a stone lamp from the Esquimaux], and made things as cheery as we could. For the past week we had given up sentinel-duty, save what Guard could do. There seemed no call for it. About ten we all lay down on our bear-skins, and, covering them over us, were soon comfortable. But, somehow, that night my head was full of dreams. I dreamed everything a fellow could well imagine, and a good many things no one ever could imagine awake. I went all over the stern experiences of the past two months. Again we were hunting bears in "Mazard's Bay." Again we were tossing amid the ice. At that stage of my fancies, the dogs probably got to fighting; for suddenly I was back on our desolate isle. It was mid-winter; cold! oh, how cold! The island was a mass of ice. Wutchee and Wunchee had frozen: we were all freezing. Suddenly one of the Company's ships hove in sight, sailing over the ice-fields, and began a bombardment of our island. They had found us at last, and now were about to shell us out, together with our miserable subjects. How their heavy guns roared! Their shells came dropping down with ruinous explosions. Then one came roaring into our tent. There was a moment of horrible suspense. The fuse tizzed. Bang! We were blown to atoms!

I started. It had waked me,—something had. The lamp gave a sickly light. Kit was getting up too; so was Wade. I was already on my feet, near where we had stacked our guns.

"Did you fire a musket?" Kit demanded.

"What did you fire at?" exclaimed Wade.

Raed was rousing up; so were the sailors. I hastily disavowed any shooting on my part.

"Well, what was that, then?"

"Certainly heard something," said Wade.

"I thought some of you fired," Raed observed.

They were all a little suspicious of me.

"He fired one of those muskets in his sleep!" I heard Wade whisper to Kit as we pulled aside the flap of the tent to look out.

It was still snowing stormily. A cold, fine gust blew in our faces. A bleak, dim light rested on the whitened earth. It was half-past two, morning. Kit had turned back to the stack of muskets, to see if any of them had been discharged doubtless, when like a thunder-peal came the quick report of a cannon. It made us jump. Then in a moment we saw it in each other's suddenly-brightening faces.

"The Curlew!" shouted Donovan.

Catching up our hats, and seizing each a musket, we rushed out into the storm. A dozen of the Esquimaux had come to the doors of their huts, jabbering. Without stopping to enlighten them, however, we pulled up our jacket-collars, and ran off toward the shore, stumbling over stones and blundering into holes in our headlong haste; Guard racing ahead, barking loudly.

In less than five minutes we had passed over the intervening half mile, and were coming out on the shore, where the snowy rocks stood dim-white and ghostly against the wild, black ocean, tumbling in with heavy swash and roar. So thick was the storm, and so dark was the air, that we could scarcely see a hundred yards in any direction. Bringing up among a lot of Husky kayaks lying amid the snow, we paused to listen. Momentarily a blaze of fire reddened the sea and the white flakes for a second, and the sharp report of our old howitzer shook the stormy air.

"Hurrah!" yelled Kit.

"Hurrah, hurrah!"

Crack, crack, crack, went the muskets!

"Hurrah!" came faintly from out the storm, a quarter of a mile off.

We danced, we capered, at the risk of our necks, among the slippery kayaks. We fairly hooted for joy.

"Have you got the boat there?" hailed Capt. Mazard with the trumpet. "Will you come off now?"

"Boat laid up!" shouted Kit. "Wait till light!"

"All right!" was the reply.

Nothing more could be done then. We went back to our tent.

"I suppose we ought to help the Huskies get their oomiak back to the water," Kit remarked.

"Yes; it would be a rather hard job for them alone," said Wade.

Shug-la-wina came peeping into the tent with an inquiring look.

"Oomiak-sook!" Kit said, pointing off to the sea.

He yeh-yehed, and went away.

"We must make it up to these poor people all we can," said Kit.

"We'll make them such a present as they never saw before!" Raed exclaimed.

It was already growing light. We pulled down our tent to get out the oomiak-mast; and mustering the men, all of them, got the oomiak on the mast-pole and the oars, as before, and carried it back to the shore. There was no resistance now. They were all yeh-yeh-ing and heh-heh-ing. This took about an hour. We then carried our own boat down in the same way. The whole population followed us. By this time it was broad daylight. The storm had slackened to a few straggling flakes. There lay "The Curlew," stern to the shore, headed to the wind, off five or six hundred yards. We could not resist the temptation of jumping into the boat and pulling out to her instantly. How beautiful she looked to us! Why, I do believe we could have imitated poor little Wutchee and Wunchee, standing back there on the snowy ledges, and licked the schooner all over! We came up under the side. Such a cheer! Capt. Mazard's honest, brave face glowing with pleasure, and all the rest of the crew hearty with rough affection! 'Twas a sight to do a fellow's eyes good.

"Boys, this is hunky!"

"Well, ain't it, captain?"

"You're all there, aren't ye? Well, how do you do?" helping us over the rail. "You don't look as if you had starved."

"Starved?—no! Catch us starving! We've got a whole tribe to back us. But Bonney, old boy, what's the matter with your arm?" exclaimed Kit.