Troop One of the Labrador by Dillon Wallace

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Then he ran and Doctor Joe ran, and thus they came upon the frightened
Jamie, standing uncertainly before his lean-to.

CHAPTER XX

"WOLVES!" YELLED ANDY

"Jamie! Jamie! We've been lookin' and lookin' for you!" shouted David,
quite overcome with excitement and relief.

"I'm so glad 'tis you!" exclaimed Jamie, tears springing to his eyes
as he recognized Doctor Joe and David. "I was scared!"

"Safe and sound as ever you could be, and all of us thinking you were
lost under a snow-drift!" Doctor Joe in vast good humour slapped Jamie
on the shoulder. "You gritty little rascal! I'll never worry about you
again! Here you are as able to take care of yourself as any man on The
Labrador! Come on now back to camp and we'll hear all about your
adventures when you've eaten. Are you hungry?"

"Wonderful hungry!" admitted Jamie.

"Aye, we'll be makin' haste, for Andy and the lads are sore worried,"
said David.

In single file, Doctor Joe and David tramping the trail for Jamie,
they set out for camp. An hour later they crossed the brook, and with
the first glimpse of the tents heard a shout of joy, as Andy and the
other lads discovered them and came running to meet them.

While Jamie satisfied an accumulated appetite he answered no end of
questions. Every one was vastly excited as he related the story of his
experience.

"'Tweren't Lem Horn's silver they has after all," Jamie declared.
"There were nothin' in the cache but the bottles they drinks from, and
they were thinkin' a wonderful lot o' them bottles."

David, in high indignation, was for setting out at once in search of
the two lumbermen, but it was decided that they had doubtless already
returned to the lumber camp.

"They'd probably say that they were only having sport with you, Jamie,
and meant you no harm," said Doctor Joe. "The people over at their
camp would believe them rather than a little Labrador lad. We may as
well waste no time with them. We'll leave them alone, and be thankful
that Jamie is safe and well except for the burned wrists, and they'll
soon be cured."

"And we'll be havin' a fine time campin' here," agreed Jamie. "I wants
to keep clear o' them men whatever."

It was a week later when they broke camp to return to The Jug, and
when the visiting lads said good-bye and set sail to their homes
across the Bay every one declared he had never had so good a time in
all his life.

With the coming of November the boats were hauled out of the water.
The shores were already crusted with ice and the temperature never
rose to the thawing point even in the midday sun. The mighty Frost
King had ascended his throne and was asserting his relentless power.
Presently all the world would be kneeling at his feet.

Buckskin moccasins with heavy blanket duffle socks of wool took the
place of sealskin boots. The dry snow would not again soften to wet
them until spring. The adiky, with its fur-trimmed hood, took the
place of the jacket, soon to be augmented by sealskin netseks or
caribou skin kulutuks.

"The Bay's smokin'," David announced one evening as he came in after
feeding the dogs. "She'll soon freeze now."

In the days that followed the smoke haze hung over the water until,
one morning, the Bay was fast, and the lapping of the waves was not to
be heard again for many months.

The nine sledge dogs were in fine fettle. Handsome, big fellows they
were, but fearsome and treacherous enough. They looked like sleek, fat
wolves, and they were, indeed, but domesticated wolves. Friendly they
seemed, but they were ever ready to take advantage of the helpless and
unwary, and their great white fangs were not above tearing their own
master into shreds should he ever be so careless as to stumble and
fall among them.

The sledge was taken out and overhauled by David. It was fourteen feet
long and two and a half feet wide. Twenty cross-bars formed the top.
Not a nail was used in its construction, for nails would not hold an
hour on rough ice. Everything was bound with sealskin thongs. The
sledge shoes were of iron. These David polished bright with sand, and
then applied a coating of seal oil. Finally the harness and long
sealskin traces were examined, and all was ready.

It was the end of November when the Bay froze, but there was no
certainty that travelling would be safe upon the sea ice beyond Fort
Pelican before the beginning of January. Therefore Doctor Joe confined
his visits to the Bay folk during December, and on his first tour Andy
served as driver with Jamie as passenger.

The dogs were harnessed after the Eskimo fashion. That is to say, "fan
shape," and not, as is customary in Alaska and among white men of the
far northwest, in tandem.

Leading from the komatik (sledge) in front was a single thong of
sealskin with a loop on its end. This was called the "bridle." Each
dog had an individual trace, its end passed through the loop in the
bridle and securely tied. Tinker, the leading dog, was fully
thirty-five feet from the komatik when his trace was stretched to its
full length. He had the longest trace of all. He was trained to
respond to shouted directions, turning to the right when "ouk" was
called, or left for "rudder," the word being repeated several times by
the driver in rapid succession. When it was desired that the dogs
should stop, "ah" was the order, and when they were to go forward
"ooisht," or "oksuit." The other dogs followed Tinker as a pack of
wolves follows the leader. The two dogs directly behind Tinker had
traces of equal length, but somewhat shorter, the pair behind them
still shorter, and so on to the last pair.

A long whip was used to keep them in subjection. This was of braided
walrus hide an inch thick at its butt and tapering to a thin lash. To
the butt was attached a short wooden handle a foot in length, to which
was fastened a loop which was hooked over the protruding end of the
forward cross-bar and the whip permitted to trail upon the ice when
not in use, and at the same time it was always within the driver's
reach.

The boys had practised the manipulation of the whip all their lives.
They could flick a square inch of ice at thirty feet with its tip. It
was capable of a gentle tap, or the force of a pistol shot, at its
wielder's discretion. The whip was the terror of the team, for even at
his distance Tinker, the leader, could be brought to account if he
failed to do his duty or obey commands.

There was little sickness in the Bay, and after patching up a
lumberman at Grampus River, and providing some medicine for old Molly
Budd's rheumatics, Andy and Jamie turned homeward with Doctor Joe.

Near the mouth of Grampus River there was a section of "bad ice" or
ice that was not always safe to be crossed, the result doubtless of
cross currents in the tide. To avoid this bad ice Andy followed the
shore for a considerable distance before turning northward for the
twelve-mile run directly across the Bay to The Jug.

It was a dull, cold, dreary day. The snow ground and squeaked under
the sledge runners. Now and again a confusion of shore ridges rendered
the hauling bad and the dogs lagged.

They were midway between Grampus River and the place where they were
to make the turn northward when Jamie warned:

"Look out, Andy! There's some loose dogs comin' out of the woods!
They'll be fightin' the team!"

Six big beasts, larger even than Thomas Angus's big dogs, were
trotting out of the woods and upon the ice a hundred yards in advance.
The team saw them, and with a howl rushed forward to the attack.

"Wolves!" yelled Andy. "They's wolves!"

The wolves were free. The dogs were bound by harness, and thus
fettered were no match for the big, wild creatures. Andy's rifle was
lashed upon the komatik. It was out of the question to free it in the
moment before the wolves were upon them, and it was to be a
hand-to-hand fight.

CHAPTER XXI

THE ALARM IN THE NIGHT

The clash came instantly. The wolf pack was upon the dogs, and dogs
and wolves were at once a howling, snarling, fighting mass. Great
bared fangs gleamed and snapped. It was a fight to the death, a
primordial fight for the survival of the fittest.

The attack was launched with such indescribable suddenness that Doctor
Joe and Jamie had scarcely time to drop from the komatik before it was
begun. Andy had instinctively seized his whip and began to ply it with
every opening that offered. The first stroke caught a big wolf across
the eyes, and with howls of pain it immediately endeavoured to
extricate itself from the fight. The lash had blinded it.

With feverish haste Doctor Joe and Jamie undid the axe and rifle from
the komatik, and Doctor Joe with the axe and Jamie with the rifle
charged the fighting beasts. A lucky blow from the axe split a wolf's
head. Jamie quickly found that to shoot at a distance he must take the
risk of killing one of the dogs, but watching for an opening, with the
muzzle of the rifle within an inch of a big wolf's body, he fired and
another wolf was disposed of.

In the meantime Andy had been plying the whip with such precision that
the foot of one of the wolves had been torn off and another wolf so
badly lacerated that as it broke temporarily away Jamie dropped it
with the rifle, and then shot the blind wolf which was now roaming
aimlessly about. A stroke from Doctor Joe's axe dispatched the fifth
animal, and the remaining wolf, now at the mercy of the dogs, was
literally torn into shreds.

Hardly five minutes had elapsed from the moment Jamie discovered the
pack trotting out of the woods until the fight was ended. The attack
had been made with such suddenness and such savage fierceness that
Doctor Joe and the boys had scarcely uttered a word.

Now there was the tangle of dogs to be straightened out, and Andy was
compelled to use his whip to drive them from the dead wolves and quiet
them. Hardly one of them had escaped injury from the wolf fangs, and
Dick, a faithful old fellow, was so badly mangled that Andy cut him
loose from the harness to follow the komatik home at his leisure.

[Illustration: IT WAS A FIGHT TO THE DEATH]

"Dick's too much hurt to do any hauling for a month whatever," said
Andy regretfully.

"He won't die, will he?" asked Jamie sympathetically.

"He'll get over un," Andy assured.

"The dogs had grit, now!" Jamie boasted. "There's nary a team in the
Bay could have fought like that!"

"And I noticed you had some grit too," said Doctor Joe. "A wolf's
fangs snapped within an inch of your leg, you young rascal, when you
held the rifle against that fellow you shot."

"I weren't thinkin' of that," said Jamie.

One of the pelts was so badly torn by the dogs as to be valueless. The
remaining carcasses were skinned, and the skins lashed upon the
sledge, and as they turned homeward Andy remarked:

"There's five good skins and they'll bring four dollars apiece
whatever. 'Tweren't a bad hunt when we weren't huntin'."

"You and Jamie can take the money you get for them and start a bank
account," suggested Doctor Joe. "I'll send it to St. John's and put it
in a bank for you, and then you'll have that test completed for both
the second and first class. There's no doubt you've earned it."

"Will you, sir? That's fine now!" exclaimed Andy. "Davy wasn't with
us, and he'll have to set traps to earn his. But he'll get a marten or
two, whatever."

"There's no doubt about David's catching the martens," said Doctor
Joe. "If there's a marten around he'll catch it."

It was dark when they reached The Jug. Margaret and David were quite
excited when they heard the story of the adventure, and mighty pleased
with its ending.

"'Twere a stray pack," said David, "and they were hungry. Pop had a
pack come at he that way once, but they just took one of the dogs and
ran off."

A wonderful Christmas they had at The Jug that year. Doctor Joe had no
end of surprises stowed away in mysterious boxes that he had brought
from New York and deposited in his old cabin at Break Cove. He and
David brought them over with the dogs on Christmas eve, and on
Christmas morning they were opened.

The one disappointment of the day was the failure of Thomas to be with
them. He had suggested at the time he departed for the Seal Lake
trails in the autumn that he might come out of the wilderness for
additional provisions at Christmas time, but it was a long and tedious
journey, and they knew it was one he would hardly undertake unless
pressed by need.

Christmas holiday week was always one of celebration at the Hudson's
Bay Company's Post. At this time trappers and Indians emerged from the
silent wilderness to barter their early catch of furs and to purchase
fresh supplies; and on New Year's eve it was the custom of the men and
women of the Bay to gather at the Post for the final festivities. All
day long sledge load after sledge load of jolly folk appeared to take
part in the great New Year's eve dance, and to enter into the shooting
contests and snowshoe and other races on New Year's day.

Eli and Mark Horn drove their team in at The Jug just at dinner time
on New Year's eve, and Eli invited Margaret to go on with them and
visit Kate Hodge, the daughter of the Post servant.

"We'll be short of lasses at the dance, and we needs un all," said
Eli.

"I'd like wonderful well to go," said Margaret wistfully.

"Go on," urged Doctor Joe. "You'll have a good time and the boys and I
will make out famously here. You get away seldom enough and see too
few people. 'Twill do you good, lass."

"Aye, come on now!" Eli urged. "We'll take you over snug and warm in
our komatik box. Kate'll be wonderful glad to see you, and we'll bring
you back the day after New Year."

"I'll go," Margaret consented, her eyes dancing with pleasure.

"And there'll be no prettier lass there," said Doctor Joe gallantly,
which brought a blush to Margaret's cheek and caused Eli to chuckle.

Margaret hastened her toilet and was ready in a jiffy. She was all
a-flutter with excitement when Eli tucked her in a box rigged on the
rear of the komatik, and wrapped her snugly with caribou skins.

"You must have had it in mind to capture Margaret when you left home,
Eli," Doctor Joe suggested with a twinkle in his eye. "Men don't take
travelling boxes when they go alone."

Eli grinned sheepishly as he broke the komatik loose, and the dogs
dashed away.

It was a dull cold day with a leaden sky, and snow was shifting
restlessly over the ice. The wind was in the south-east, and as they
entered the cabin David remarked:

"There'll be snow before to-morrow mornin'."

When they had eaten supper that evening and cleared the table David
stepped out for a look at the weather, and returning reported:

"'Twill be a nasty night. The snow's started and the wind's risin'.
'Tis wonderful frosty, too, for a wind."

"Let's see how cold it is," said Doctor Joe, stepping out to consult
his spirit thermometer. "Thirty-eight below zero. Frosty enough with a
gale, and a gale's rising," he reported. "I'm glad we're all snug
inside."

"Tell us a story," Jamie suggested, as they settled themselves
comfortably by the fire.

"There's dogs comin'!" Andy broke in.

David ran to the door, and a moment later ushered Eli Horn into the
cabin.

"What's the matter, Eli? Has anything happened?" asked Doctor Joe,
immediately concerned for Margaret's safety.

"Margaret's safe," said Eli with suppressed excitement. "There's
murder at the Post!"

Questions brought forth the fact that Eli and Margaret had reached the
Post at about half-past three and found the people in confusion. Three
lumbermen from Grampus River had come there. There had been a dispute
among them and one of them was stabbed. The other two had immediately
departed, presumably to return to the lumber camps. Eli did not know
how seriously the man was injured. He had not seen him. It had
occurred shortly before his arrival, and at Margaret's suggestion he
had turned directly about and returned to The Jug to fetch Doctor Joe
to attend the injured man.

"My dogs is fagged," said Eli, "and 'twere slow comin' back."

"David will take me over with his dogs. They're fresh, and will travel
faster," said Doctor Joe.

In ten minutes David was ready with the dogs harnessed, and the two
teams drove away into the darkness and storm.

Andy and Jamie were greatly excited. Tragedies enough happened up and
down the coast when men were drowned or lost in the ice or met with
fatal injuries. But never before in the Bay had one man been cut down
by the hand of another. It was a ghastly thought, and the awfulness of
it was perhaps accentuated by the snow dashing against the window
panes and the wind shrieking around the gables of the cabin.

It was near ten o'clock, long past their usual bedtime, and they were
still talking, for there was matter enough in their brains to banish
sleep, when the door suddenly opened and accompanied by the howl of
the wind a snow-covered figure lurched in upon them.

CHAPTER XXII

THE IMMUTABLE LAW OF GOD

"Peter! 'Tis Peter Sparks!" exclaimed Andy with vast relief to find it
was not a murderous lumberman.

"I'm comin' after Doctor Joe!" gasped Peter, as half frozen he drew
off his snow-caked netsek.

"Me rub your nose, Peter. She's froze, and your cheeks too," broke in
Andy, vigorously rubbing Peter's whitened nose and cheeks.

Peter was silent perforce while Andy manipulated the frosted parts
until circulation and colour were restored.

"Come to the fire now and warm up," directed Andy. "What you wantin'
of Doctor Joe?"

"There's been murder done, or clost to un!" Peter, at last free to
articulate, continued. "Murder at the lumber camp!"

"Murder!" repeated Jamie, awesomely.

"Aye, nigh to murder whatever!" Peter reiterated.

"Doctor Joe's gone to the Post," said Andy. "Eli Horn came for he. Two
of the lumber folk most killed another of un over there. Davy took
Doctor Joe over."

"And two of un most killed the boss at the camp," explained Peter.
"They comes there from the Post about six o'clock and were packin' a
flatsled with things. The boss asks un where they's goin'. They
answers some way that makes he mad, and he hits one of un. Then they
jumps at he and pounds and kicks he till he's like dead, and he don't
come to again. The two men has rifles and they keeps all the lumbermen
back, and off they goes with the flatsled, and they gets away."

"Will the boss die then?" asked Jamie in horror.

"With Doctor Joe gone he'll sure be dyin'," declared Peter
desperately. "His arm is broke and he's broke somewhere inside, and
his face is awful to look at, all pounded and kicked and bleedin'. Me
and Lige goes up to sit a bit and hear un tell their stories, and we
gets there just after the two men gets away. With Doctor Joe's
teachin' we fixes the boss up the best we can, and whilst Lige stays
to help look after he, I comes for Doctor Joe. Pop's to the Post with
the dogs and I has to walk, and facin' the wind 'twere hard. And now
Doctor Joe's gone, the poor man'll sure die!"

"You has wonderful grit to come!" said Jamie admiringly. "'Tis
wonderful frosty and nasty outside."

"'Twere to save the boss's life! 'Tis the scout law," Peter asserted
stoutly. "I'll be goin' to the Post now for Doctor Joe."

"You're nigh done up, Peter. You'll be stayin' here with Jamie. _I'm_
goin' to the Post for Doctor Joe," declared Andy.

"I am most done up," Peter confessed. "But the wind'll be in your back
goin' to the Post. She's just startin' though, and she'll be a
wonderful sight worse than she is now before you gets there. 'Twill be
terrible nasty."

"I'm goin' too," said Jamie.

"You're not goin'," said Andy. "I'm bigger and I can travel faster if
you're not comin'. 'Twould be wrong to leave Peter here alone."

"I'm _goin_!" repeated Jamie stubbornly.

"Won't you be stayin' with me?" pleaded Peter. "I--I'm afeared to stay
here alone with those two men like to come in on me."

"I'll stay," Jamie consented.

A blast of wind shook the cabin.

"I'm fearin' you can't do it, Andy! 'Twill soon be too much for flesh
and blood out on the Bay!" said Peter.

"'Tis in my scout oath to do my best," said Andy, adjusting the hood
of his sealskin netsek. "I'm goin', now."

Andy closed the door behind him. It was pitchy dark. The snow was
driving in blinding clouds, and he stood for a moment to catch his
breath. Then he felt his way down across The Jug and out upon the Bay
ice. Here the full force of the north-east blizzard met him. He
staggered and choked with the first blast, then in a temporary lull
forged ahead.

The storm, as Peter predicted, had not reached its height. Each
smothering blast of fury was stronger and fiercer than the one before
it. Andy took advantage of the lulls, and save when the heavier blasts
came and nearly swept him from his feet, maintained a steady trot. In
the swirl of snow-clouds he could see nothing a foot from his nose.
Once he found himself floundering through pressure ridges formed by
the tide near shore. This he calculated was the tip of a long point
jutting out into the Bay, half-way between The Jug and the Post. Ten
miles of the distance was behind him. He drew farther out upon the
ice.

There were times when Andy had to throw himself prone upon the ice
with his face down and sheltered by his arms to escape suffocation.

"'Tis gettin' wonderful nasty," he said, "but I'll have plenty o'
grit, like Jamie says, and with the Lord's help I'll pull through."

Then he found himself repeating over and over again the prayer:

"Dear Lord, help me through! 'Tis to save a life, and the scout oath!
Dear Lord, help me through!"

The gale had now risen to such terrific proportions that often he was
compelled to crawl upon his hands and knees. With each momentary lull
he would rise and stagger forward. His legs worked at these times
without conscious effort. It was strange his legs should be like that.
They had never felt like that before.

And so, crawling, staggering upright, crawling again, and lying for
minutes at a time with his face in his arms that he might breathe when
he was well-nigh overwhelmed and suffocated, Andy kept on.

He could recall little of the last hours on the ice. It was a
confused sensation of rising and falling, staggering and crawling
until he collided with an obstruction, and recognizing it as the jetty
at the Post, his brain roused to a degree of consciousness, and his
heart leaped with joy.

With much fumbling he succeeded in donning his snow-shoes, which were
slung upon his back, for the twenty yards that lay between the ice and
the buildings was covered with deep drift. Once he stepped upon a dog
that lay huddled and sleeping under the drift. It sprang out with a
snarl and snapped at his legs. A hundred of the savage creatures were
lying about in the snow.

Day comes late in Labrador. It was still pitchy dark outside when
Andy, at eight o'clock in the morning, lurched into the kitchen at the
Post house, and fell sprawling upon the floor. He had been battling
the storm for ten hours.

David and Margaret, Eli and Mark and several others were there. Doctor
Joe was at breakfast in the Factor's quarters, and they called him.
Andy's face was covered with a mass of caked snow and ice. His nose
and cheeks and chin were white and badly frosted, and upon removing
his mittens and moccasins, his hands and feet were found to be in the
same condition.

Mr. MacCreary, the factor, placed a bed at Doctor Joe's disposal, and
when the frost had been removed and circulation had been restored,
Andy was tucked into warm blankets.

"That chap had grit," remarked Mr. MacCreary as he and Doctor Joe left
David and Margaret by the bedside and Andy asleep. "The Angus boys are
all gritty fellows. They're the sort the Company needs."

"Yes," Doctor Joe agreed heartily, "and they never shirk their duty.
Andy is a Boy Scout, and he did what he considered his duty. Now I
must go to the lumber camp and fix up that boss, if he isn't beyond
fixing up."

With the coming of dawn the wind subsided and the snow ceased to fall.
Eli harnessed his dogs when it was light, and with the lumberman who
had been stabbed, but whose injuries were not after all serious, he
and Doctor Joe set out for Grampus River.

At the lumber camp they found Lige Sparks, Obadiah Button and Micah
Dunk installed as volunteer nurses. The man had a broken arm, three
broken ribs, and had suffered internal injuries that demanded prompt
attention.

"If Andy hadn't come for me, and if I'd been delayed much longer in
reaching the camp," said Doctor Joe later, "the man would have died.
Thanks to the boys, his life will be saved."

That day and that night Doctor Joe remained with his patient. On the
following morning it became necessary for him to return to The Jug for
additional dressings and medicines. Eli drove him over.

The sky was clear, and the morning was bitterly cold, with rime
hanging like a filmy veil in the air and glistening like flakes of
silver in the sunshine. Doctor Joe and Eli ran in turns by the side of
the komatik, while the dogs trotted briskly.

"What's that, now?" asked Eli, pointing to a black object far out on
the white field of ice, as they approached The Jug.

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