"You'll be comin' along with me," suggested Toby. "Dad'll be knowin'
what to do."
"But the boat has gone! How can I get home?" Charley almost sobbed,
quite beside himself with despair and terror.
"Don't be takin' on like that now!" Toby placed his hand soothingly upon
Charley's arm. "Dad says a man can get out of most fixes, and he keeps
his head and don't get scared. Dad knows. He's wonderful fine about
gettin' out of fixes. Dad'll know what to do. He'll be gettin' you out
of your fix easy as a swile[1] slips off a rock. You'll see!"
Helpless to do otherwise, Charley submitted, and Toby led him down to
the boat, and when Charley was seated astern, and Toby was pulling for
the huts, a half mile away, with the strong, sure stroke of an expert
boatman, Toby counselled:
"Don't be lettin' yourself get worked up with worry, now. Dad says
worry and frettin' never makes a bad job better."
"It's terrible! It's terrible!" exclaimed Charley in agony. "I've been
left behind! I've no place to go, and I'll starve and freeze!"
"'Tisn't so bad, now," Toby argued. "You be safe and sound and well.
Maybe the mail boat folk'll be missin' you and come back."
"Do you think they will?" asked Charley, ready to grasp at a straw of
hope.
"I'm not knowin'," answered Toby cautiously, "but leastways you'll be
safe enough."
Toby's assurance gave little comfort to Charley. The snow was now
falling so heavily that he could scarcely see the huts perched upon the
rocky hillside, and there was no other indication of human life in the
great wide, bleak wilderness that surrounded them. The bare rocks, the
falling snow, and the sound of the sea beating upon the cliffs beyond
Pinch-In Tickle filled his heart with hopelessness and helplessness. As
uncomfortable and unhappy as he had been upon the ship, he now thought
of it as a haven of refuge and luxury. If it would only come back for
him! Why had he gone ashore! He had dreamed of adventures, but never an
adventure like this.
"Here's the landin'."
Toby had drawn the boat alongside a great flat rock that formed a
natural wharf. He sprang nimbly out, painter in hand, and while he
steadied the boat Charley followed.
Above the landing were three unpainted and dilapidated cabins. Smoke was
issuing from a stovepipe that protruded through the roof of the smallest
of these, and toward this Toby led the way.
"This is our fishin' place," Toby volunteered. "We fishes here in
summer, and lives in the house where you sees the smoke. The other
houses belongs to Mr. McClung from Newfoundland. The mail boat were
takin' he and three men that fishes with he, and their gear, and they
takes Dad's fish, too."
"You stay here, don't you? You'll stay here till the ship comes back for
me, won't you?" asked Charley pleadingly.
"We goes up the bay to-morrow marnin' to our tilt, our winter house at
Double Up Cove," said Toby, "but I'm thinkin' that if the ship's comin'
back she'll be back before night. Nobody stays out here in winter. 'Tis
wonderful cold here when the wind blows down over the hills and in from
the sea, with no trees to break un, and 'tis a poor place for huntin',
and no wood is handy for the fire."
"What'll I do when you go?" asked Charley in fresh dismay.
"You'll not be stoppin' here _what_ever," assured Toby. "Dad'll know
what to do. He'll get you out of _this_ fix! Don't you worry now."
Toby opened the door of the cabin, and the two boys entered. A tall,
broad-shouldered, bearded man stood by one of the two windows cleaning a
gun. A round-faced, plump little woman was at the stove, transferring
from a kettle to a large earthen bowl something that filled the room
with a most delicious odour, and a girl of twelve years or thereabouts
was placing dishes upon the table.
"Dad," said Toby addressing the man, "I brings with me Charley Norton
who was a passenger on the mail boat, and while he's ashore the mail
boat goes off and leaves he."
"That's a fix now! _That's_ a fix to be in! I calls that a mean trick
for the mail boat to be playin'!" He spoke in a big voice that quite
suited his size, but which startled Charley, and did not reassure him.
"What's to be done about un now? What be _you_ thinkin' to do?"
"I don't know. I don't know what to do," answered Charley timidly.
Toby's Dad put down the gun he was cleaning and wiped his hand on a
cloth.
"Leastways we'll make the best of un," he said, taking Charley's hand in
a bear-like clasp. "Besides bein' Toby's Dad, I'm Skipper Zebulon Twig
of Double Up Cove, and this is Mrs. Twig and this is Vi'let, the
smartest little maid on The Labrador."
Skipper Zebulon Twig laughed so heartily that Charley forgot his
difficulty for a moment, and laughed too, while he shook hands with Mrs.
Twig, who had, Charley thought, a nice motherly way, and with Violet,
who took his hand shyly.
"Now," said Skipper Zeb, "you're in a fix. You're cast away. The worst
fix a man can get in, to my thinkin', is to be cast away on a rock, or
on the ice, without grub. But you're cast away _with_ grub, and that's
not so bad. There's a pot of stewed bear's meat with dumplin' just
ready. We'll set in and eat, and then talk about your fix. 'Tis hard to
think a way out of fixes with an empty belly, and we'll fill ours. Then
we'll get to the bottom of this fix. We'll find a way out of un. You'll
see!"