Bobby of the Labrador by Dillon Wallace

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"The snow must have covered me all up," he exclaimed with sudden
enlightenment, "and I'll be at the bottom of a big drift pretty soon,
and that's what's making me warm."

It was dark, and he struck a match to investigate, and sure enough,
every chink and crevice, even his door, was packed with snow, and not a
breath of air stirred within. Gradually the sound of the shrieking wind
and pounding sea seemed farther and farther away, and he heard it as one
hears something in the distance.

"Mother's going to be scared for me," he mused, as he rearranged his bed
of boughs. "She'll think I'm lost, and I'm sorry. She'll be all right
when I get home, though. It is a fine mess to get into."

Then his thoughts turned to Abel Zachariah and Skipper Ed and Jimmy,
somewhere out on the coast and weathering the same storm. But they had a
tent and a stove, and they would be comfortable enough, he had no doubt.

But there was the seal hunt. Winter had come to cut off the seal hunt
two weeks too soon, and they could scarcely have made a beginning. That
was a serious matter. The failure of the fishing season, now coupled
with an undoubted failure of the autumn seal hunt, would pinch them
harder than they had ever been pinched before. Without the seals they
would not be able to keep all of their dogs, and the dogs were a
necessity of their life.

All of these thoughts passed through Bobby's mind as he lay in the dense
darkness of his den. But he was young and he was optimistic, and
disturbing thoughts presently gave way to a picture of the snug little
cabin at the head of Abel's Bay and of its roaring fire in the big box
stove, and with the picture the sound of the storm drew farther and
farther away until it became at last one of Mrs. Abel's quaint Eskimo
lullabies, that she crooned to him when he was little, and Bobby slept.

And there under the snow drift he slept as peacefully as he could have
slept in his bed at home in the cabin at Abel's Bay, and just as
peacefully as he could ever have slept in a much finer bed in that misty
and forgotten past before he drifted down from the sea to be a part of
the life of the stern and desolate Labrador.

And so God prepares and tempers us, to our lot, and shows us how to be
happy and content, if we are willing, in whatever land He places us,
and with whatever He provides for us. And thus He was tempering Bobby
and directing him to his destiny.

CHAPTER XVII

PRISONER ON A BARREN ISLAND

Because his bed of boughs was snug and comfortable, and because there
was nothing else to do and nowhere to go, and it was the best way,
anyhow, to spend the hours of imprisonment that would last until the
blizzard spent itself, Bobby gave himself the luxury of a long sleep.
But even then it was still dark when he awoke, and at first he was
puzzled, for he was sure he had slept away hours enough for daylight to
have come. He could hear the raging storm and pounding seas in a muffled
roar, as though far away, while he lay for a little while wondering at
the darkness.

The air had grown close and stifling, and presently he arose and struck
a match. It glowed for a moment but refused to burn. He struck another
and then another, with like result. The matches were perfectly dry, for
he carried them in a small, closely corked bottle. He could not
understand it in the least. He struck another. It flashed, but like the
others went out.

Then he suddenly remembered that Skipper Ed had once said fire would not
burn in air from which the oxygen had been taken, for then the air would
be "dead," and that a person would exhaust all the air in a close room
in a short time, and therefore rooms should be well ventilated. And with
this he realized what had happened. His air had been cut off and all
that remained was dead.

The drift had covered his den to a great depth while he slept, and the
wind had packed the snow so hard that the air could no longer circulate
through it.

It was necessary that an opening be made quickly or he would smother,
and this he set about to do with all his might. He removed some of the
sticks with which he had closed the doorway, and using one of them as a
tool dug away the snow, until light at last began to filter through, and
he knew it was day, and presently he broke the outer crust of the drift.
A flood of pure but bitterly cold air poured in upon him, and he
breathed deeply and felt refreshed.

He had dug his opening straight out from the place which he had arranged
for a door, and he now made it large enough to permit the passage of his
body as he crawled upon hands and knees.

The storm had in no degree abated. The velocity of the wind was so
terrific that had Bobby not stood in the shelter of the drift-covered
bowlder he could not have kept upon his feet. The air was so filled with
driving snow as to be suffocating. A tremendous sea was running and
great waves were pounding and breaking upon the rocks with terrific
roar, though no glimpse of them could he get through the snow clouds
that enveloped him.

There was nothing to be done but to return to his burrow and make
himself as comfortable as circumstances would permit. His first care
was to clear away the snow which he had thrown back under the boat as
he dug his way out, and which partially filled his cave. And when this
was done he selected a sharp stick and with it made three or four air
holes in the roof of the drift above his door, to furnish ventilation,
for it was not long before the entrance of the passageway was again
closed.

Bobby was very hungry, as every healthy boy the world over is sure to be
when he rises in the morning, and when he had completed the ventilation
of his cave to his satisfaction he proceeded to make a small fire over
which to grill one of his birds, never doubting the smoke would pass out
of the ventilating holes that he had made through the top of the drift.
But to his chagrin the smoke did not rise and was presently so thick as
to blind and choke him, and he found it necessary to put the fire out.
And so it came about that in the end he had to content himself with
eating his sea pigeon uncooked, which after all was no great hardship.

All that day and all the next day the storm continued and Bobby was held
prisoner in his cave, and he was thankful enough that he had the cave to
shelter him.

When he awoke, however, on the morning of the third day of his
captivity, and forced his way out of doors, he was met by sunshine and
his heart bounded with joy. It was only behind bowlders and the clumps
of bushes scattered here and there, and in sheltered corners where
drifts had formed, that snow remained upon the island. Elsewhere the
wind had swept the rocks clean.

The gale that had racked the world had passed, but a brisk breeze was
blowing down from the north, sharp with winter cold. The sea, too, had
subsided, though even yet big rollers were driving and pounding upon the
rocky shore.

"Now," said Bobby, "with the first calm night, when the water quiets
down, the bay will freeze, and then I can walk in on the ice. But
they'll have to hurry in from the seal hunt or they'll be caught out
there and won't be able to bring the boat in this winter. I can stand it
a little while, and I hope the freeze-up won't come till they get back
home."

But Bobby lost no time in needless calculation. What was of highest
immediate importance was the satisfaction of his appetite, which as
usual was protesting against delay.

He had been eating raw sea pigeon quite long enough, and he proposed now
to enjoy the great treat of a grilled bird. And so without troubling
himself with vain regrets of what he might have done or might not have
done, he proceeded to fetch wood from his cave and to build a fire, and
a good one it was to be, too, in the lee of his bowlder. And when the
wood was crackling merrily he made a comfortable seat of boughs upon
which to sit while he cooked and ate the one sea pigeon which he allowed
himself.

Bobby had never eaten a sea pigeon that seemed quite so small as that
one, and it required a large degree of self-denial and self-restraint to
observe the rule of economy which he had imposed upon himself on the
evening he was wrecked. He had decided then that two sea pigeons a day,
one in the morning and one in the evening, were all he could afford. For
who could tell how long it might be before he would make his escape? And
there were no birds or other game to be had on the island at this
season, and when those he had were gone there would be hungry days to
face. Though he declared to himself when picking the last bone of his
breakfast that he could never possibly be any hungrier than at that very
moment.

Nor could he afford a large fire in future. He calculated that he had
already collected enough wood to last him, with small and carefully
constructed fires, one day, and a survey of the island and its
possibilities revealed the fact that all the additional fuel he could
garner from the rocks would scarcely last him, even with rigid economy,
another week.

While confined to his cave during the period of the blizzard he had
satisfied his thirst with bits of ice. Now his fire was built close to a
little hollow in the rock, and, placing snow near the fire, it melted,
and the water running into the hollow settled there, and gave him drink.

And so, making the best of his resources, Bobby prepared for his siege,
which he felt quite sure would end only when the bay froze and he could
make his escape over the ice. A great part of the daylight hours were
spent in collecting bits of wood. This kept him exercising, and kept
his blood warm.

Already the sea was smoking. The freeze-up was close at hand. With each
hour the merciless winter cold increased in strength. That evening when
he entered his cave he closed the entrance with snow, that it might be
kept warm, but nevertheless he spent an uncomfortable night, and he was
glad enough to crawl out in the morning and light his fire.

That was a cheerless day. The sun shone through a gray veil, and offered
little warmth. There was no more wood to gather, and to save his little
stock he ran up and down upon the rocks that he might drive away the
cold with exercise.

The sun was low when he lighted his evening fire, and as he prepared his
sea pigeon for supper he remembered with regret that he had but one bird
remaining.

"And I've been hungry ever since I've been here," he remarked to
himself. "I'm half starved this minute."

He was thinking a great deal now of what he should have to eat when he
reached home, and planning for this and that. And, oh, for some good
hot tea!

And so, thinking, and dreading to go to his cheerless cave, he sat while
his fire burned low and the sun sank from sight and the long and gloomy
twilight gathered.

"I'll spare another stick or two," he said, replenishing the fire. "I
can't go into that hole yet."

The fire blazed up, and the twilight grew thicker, and the fire had
nearly burned out again while Bobby, dreaming of home and Mrs. Abel, and
wondering where Abel Zachariah and Skipper Ed and Jimmy were, fell into
a doze. Then it was that something unlooked for startled him into sudden
wakefulness.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WINTER OF FAMINE

Faintly over the waters, but quite loud enough for Bobby to hear, came a
hail, and Bobby was on his feet in an instant, shouting with all the
power of his lusty young lungs. Then he ran to his cave and got his gun,
and fired three shots at intervals of a few seconds, and with the last
shot listened tense with eagerness and excitement.

This was a signal that he and Jimmy had agreed upon. It meant, "Come! I
want you," and when at home if Jimmy wished Bobby to come over to
Skipper Ed's cabin, or Bobby wished Jimmy to come to Abel Zachariah's
cabin, it was the way they called one another. And when the signal was
heard, two shots were fired in quick succession to say, "I hear, and I
will come," or two shots with an interval between, to say, "I hear you,
but I can't come." Then it was the duty of the one who had fired the
three shots in the beginning, whether or not his invitation had been
accepted, to fire a single shot to say: "I hear you and understand."

And so it was that Bobby listened eagerly. If the hail had come from the
boat returning from the seal hunt, Jimmy would surely answer.

He had but a moment to wait when two quickly fired shots rang out over
the water. His excitement could scarcely contain itself as he fired one
answering shot. Everything was working splendidly, after all! They were
getting in from the seal hunt ahead of the freeze-up, and he was to
reach home none the worse for his adventure.

Bobby was lavish now with his wood. Darkness was settling and he piled
the wood upon the fire until its flames leaped up into a great blaze as
a beacon, to guide the boat to a safe landing among the rocks.

And so it came to pass that Bobby was found and rescued, and he and Abel
and Skipper Ed and Jimmy were glad enough to see one another again and
to relate to one another their various experiences. And Mrs. Abel,
mourning in the cabin, was given great joy, for she had believed that
Bobby had been lost without doubt in the storm.

The seal hunt was, as Bobby had feared it would be, almost a failure.
But four small seals had been killed when the storm came upon the
hunters, and they were forced to retreat, that they might reach home
before the sea froze. These four seals, together with what remained of
the meat from the spring hunt, were the only provisions they had for the
dogs until February, when they could go to the ice edge, or _sena_, for
the winter hunt, for then the seals would be on the ice.

Even with scant rations this would be little more than half enough to
keep the animals in serviceable condition, for there were a good many
dogs to feed. Abel's two teams, together with an extra dog or two to
fill the place of any that might be injured, numbered eighteen, while
Skipper Ed kept seven. This made a total of twenty-five dogs to be
provided for, and twenty-five big wolf dogs will consume a vast amount
of food during a winter.

So they held a consultation, and Skipper Ed decided that he could do
very well without dogs if Abel would permit him the use of a team now
and again.

"Partner and I have kept dogs only these last two years, anyhow," said
Skipper Ed. "Our hunting and trapping is chiefly inland, and we haven't
much use for them. I don't want to see any of the dogs suffer for the
want of something to eat, and if Partner is willing we'll kill them, and
let you have the carcasses to feed to your teams. What do you say,
Partner?"

"We'll kill them." Jimmy agreed, regretfully.

Abel also decided that it would be wise to reduce the number of his own
dogs to fifteen, and thus the problem was solved.

Winter settled with almost unexampled cold, and with a succession of
fearful storms. It was a winter, too, of awful hardship and privation to
the people of the Coast. The Eskimos to the northward depended chiefly
upon seals for their own living as well as for dog food, and with them,
as with Abel Zachariah and Skipper Ed, the seal hunt was cut off by the
early blizzard, and few seals were killed.

Abel and Skipper Ed, however, relied more largely upon the cod fishing,
and it had been their custom for many years to barter away the fish they
caught to trading schooners which visited them for that purpose at their
fishing places before they returned to winter quarters. In this way they
usually purchased sufficient flour and pork, tea and molasses to do them
until the following spring, and when open water came again they would
sail to the mission station and purchase with the furs their traps had
yielded them, fresh supplies.

The attack of measles this year, however, had so interfered with their
fishing that their small catch had purchased from the traders scarcely
enough flour and pork and tea to last them until the new year. And so
one day late in December Abel and Skipper Ed drove the two dog teams
over to the Nain Mission, expecting to obtain there the supplies they
needed.

"I'm sorry," said the missionary, "but I can spare you very
little--almost nothing. The seal hunt was a failure with the people all
down north, and they are starving, and I must take care of them. This
year there are so many needy ones our stock will go only a little way.
I'll divide it the best way I know how, but, God help the poor folk, it
won't go far, and I'm praying God to send caribou or send seals."

"We'll get on somehow," said Skipper Ed. "The timber is back of us and
we'll get rabbits and partridges, and make out. Give the Eskimos what
you have. They're on barren ground and don't have the chance we have.
There'll be better luck for us all by and by. Better luck."

And with only a half barrel of flour and some tea they returned to
Abel's Bay to face the winter and make their fight against nature
without complaint. For no truly brave man will complain when things go
wrong in the game of life. And up there on The Labrador the game of life
is a man's game and every man who wins must play it like a man, with
faith and courage.

The weeks that followed were trying and tedious ones. Sometimes there
was not much to eat, when the hunting was poor, but they thanked God
there was always something.

But when February came at last there was not food enough to render it
possible for them to make the long journey to the ice edge with safety.
Living now was from hand to mouth. Each day they must hunt for what they
would eat that day. Grouse and rabbits were the game upon which they
usually relied, but Fate had cast this as one of those years when the
rabbits disappear from the land as it is said they do every nine years.
Be that as it may, not one was killed that winter and not a track was
seen. For them to go to the ice without food was too great a risk. If
they went and failed to find seals and were overtaken by a storm they
would perish.

This was the condition of affairs when Bobby and Jimmy set out one cold,
clear morning to hunt for ptarmigans, the white grouse of the North. Not
far away was a barren hill whose top was kept clean swept of snow by the
winds, and up this hill they climbed, for sometimes ptarmigans are found
in places like this, feeding upon the frozen moss berries which cling to
the rocks.

Bobby was in advance, and from the summit of the hill he scanned the
great expanse of snow reaching away over the endless rolling country to
the westward. And looking, he discovered in the distance a dark, moving
mass slowly drawing down another hillside. For a moment he was
speechless with joy, but it was for only a moment, and then he shouted:

"_Tuktu! Tuktu! Tuktu!_" (Caribou, or reindeer.)

Bobby's excited cry brought Jimmy up on a run, and when he looked and
saw, he, too, shouted, and was no less excited than Bobby.

"Caribou! The caribou are coming!"

That was enough to send them back on a run for Abel and Skipper Ed and
their rifles and all the ammunition they could muster, and then all four
turned back to meet the caribou.

On and on came the great herd, in a far-reaching, endless mass,
thousands upon thousands of them, and they were heading directly for the
hill where the four eager hunters waited.

At length the mass reached them, and what followed was not a hunt but a
slaughter, and when they were through more than a hundred caribou lay
stretched upon the snow, and still the caribou came.

The period of starvation was at an end. Comfort and plenty had appeared
at their very door.

The dogs were harnessed, and as many of the carcasses as they could use
for man and dog food were hauled down, some to Abel Zachariah's cabin
and some to Skipper Ed's. And bright and early the following morning
Abel set out to the mission station and Skipper Ed to Abraham Moses'
cabin, to bid the starving people come and help themselves and feast,
and in the end not a caribou of all those that were killed was wasted.

And so it was that the Almighty looked after these children of His, and
so He cares for His children even in the wild wastes of Labrador.

"Good luck! Good luck at last!" said Skipper Ed.

CHAPTER XIX

OFF TO THE "SENA"

And so it was that the famine ended. There was small variety for the
table, to be sure, but there was always plenty of good venison, varied
with ptarmigans, and now and again a porcupine. And after all they were
able to go to the ice edge on the winter seal hunt, and a profitable
hunt it proved.

Thus the years passed, and thus they were filled with ups and downs and
many adventures and hard work, and withal plenty of good fun, too, to
flavor them, as years are bound to be in that land of stern and active
existence.

But there was always time for study, and when Bobby was in his sixteenth
year he and Jimmy could boast of having read Caesar and Cicero and
Xenophon, and they were delving into Virgil and the Iliad. Under Skipper
Ed's tutorship Bobby had advanced as far in his studies as most boys of
his age in civilization, who have all the advantages of the best
schools. And Skipper Ed was proud of his progress, and proud of Jimmy's
progress too, as indeed he had reason to be, for neither of them was a
waster of time. There was no inducement to be laggards.

Their hearts were clean and their vision was clear. Their view was not
cut off or circumscribed by the frivolous and ofttimes vicious
amusements that stand as a wall around life's outlook in the town. Their
view and their hope were as wide as the wilderness and the sea, rugged
and stern but mighty and majestic and limitless--God's unspoiled
works--and God was a living God to them.

Bobby at this age had developed into a big, husky lad. He could drive
the dog team as well as Abel. He had already killed many seals, and he
was an excellent hunter for his years. To Abel Zachariah and Mrs. Abel
he was a dutiful, affectionate son. They, too, were proud of him, and
looked upon him as the finest lad in the whole land, and Abel boasted
that when he grew to be a man he would be the finest hunter on the
coast.

It happened that early in February following Bobby's fifteenth birthday
Abel wrenched an ankle so badly that he could not go about his duties,
or even hobble outside the cabin door. The responsibility of providing
for the little household, therefore, fell upon Bobby. And Bobby, though
keenly sympathetic, was nevertheless glad of an opportunity to show his
prowess.

He squared his shoulders, and regardless of cold and storm set about the
work, determined to prove that he was a man in the things he could
accomplish, if not in years; and he succeeded so well that he won high
praise from Abel. Certainly Abel himself could not have done better with
the fox trapping, which at this season was the chief employment. Bobby
kept the house, too, so well supplied with rabbits and ptarmigans,
through his incessant hunting, that presently there were enough hanging
frozen in the porch to last till the coming of warm weather.

One evening near the end of February Bobby announced, as he entered the
cabin after giving the dogs their daily feed:

"There's only enough seal meat left to last the dogs a week. I'll have
to go to the _sena_ and kill some more."

"You do not know how to do that kind of hunting," objected Abel. "It is
not like hunting seals from a boat, or like spearing them through their
breathing holes in the ice. Feed the dogs only once every two days, and
perhaps before the meat is gone my foot will be strong enough for me to
go to the _sena_."

"I was there with you last year," Bobby insisted. "Jimmy will go with
me. He has been to the _sena_ with you twice, and he knows how. We will
be careful."

And at last Abel surrendered, for he could not long deny Bobby any
reasonable thing that the lad set his heart upon, and after all Bobby
had proved himself a good and careful hunter; and they needed seals.

Skipper Ed had not kept dogs since the slaughter of his team in the year
of famine. He hunted and trapped more after the manner of the Indian
than the Eskimo, going long journeys inland on snowshoes, and now Jimmy
accompanied him. And living quite alone, as he had during his earlier
years on the coast, there was no one who could have fed or cared for
dogs when Skipper Ed was absent upon these trapping expeditions. It was
therefore only during the two or three years preceding the year of
famine, when Jimmy was old enough to care for them, and wished them,
that he had a team.

Abel, on the other hand, after the manner of Eskimos, set his traps
nearer the shore, that he might, so far as possible, make the rounds of
them with dogs.

Abel, therefore, had constant need of dogs, and he now had sixteen fine
big fellows, which so nearly resembled the great wolves of the barrens
that were dogs and wolves to intermingle only the practiced eye could
distinguish the one from the other. These dogs never barked, but howled
with the weird, dismal howl of the wolf. And when they were hungry they
were such dangerous, savage brutes that it was unsafe for a stranger,
unless armed with a cudgel, to wander among them.

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