"Down!" whispered Toby. "Keep down where you is! Don't move! 'Tis a
swile!"
Charley lay prone upon the snow, scarcely daring to move, and Toby was
gone in a twinkling, moving as silently as a fox. It seemed an age that
Charley lay there before he discovered Toby edging, rifle in hand, to a
rock behind which he might have good vantage ground for a shot.
Charley, tense with excitement lest the seal might take alarm, watched
Toby's every movement as he wormed himself forward, then lay still, then
wormed forward again little by little. On his success might depend their
lives, and Charley realized it fully. The owl would not last long, and
would not go far to renew their wasted strength. The ice had not yet
formed upon the bay, and still many days might pass before it would
form.
At last Toby reached the rock, and Charley held his breath as Toby
slowly and deliberately adjusted the rifle at his shoulder and aimed.
Then the rifle rang out as music to Charley's ears. The seal gave a
spasmodic lurch toward the water, and then lay still. Toby's aim had
been sure, and the bullet had reached its mark in the head, the one
point where it would deal quick and certain death to the seal.
Both boys ran to their game, and fairly shouted with the joy of success.
They touched it with their moccasined toes, and felt it with their
hands.
"'Tis a dotar,"[5] said Toby. "Now we has plenty to eat till the bay
fastens over."
"The Lord is _surely_ helping us!" declared Charley devoutly. "Just when
I gave up all hope of ever getting away from this island you shot the
owl, and now we've got the seal!"
"Let's thank the Lard," suggested Toby. "Dad says 'tis a fine thing to
thank He for what He's givin' us, and tryin' to be doin' somethin' for
_He_ sometimes, and not be always just askin' He for somethin' and
takin' what He's givin' us without ever lettin' He know how much we
likes un."
"You thank Him, Toby. I don't know just how to do it," admitted Charley.
"Dad never says blessing or gives thanks at the table the way your
father does."
"I'll thank He," agreed Toby. "We'll be gettin' on our knees."
The two boys knelt.
"Lard, Charley and I be wonderful thankful for the owl and the swile You
sends us. And we'll be tryin' to think o' things to do for You, and we
has a chanst. Amen."
"That makes me feel better," Charley confessed. "Now what shall we do
with the seal?"
"I'll be gettin' a rope, and we'll haul he over to camp."
"I'll stay here and watch it till you come back," Charley volunteered.
"I'll be comin' right back, and the swile'll not be runnin' away,"
grinned Toby.
"I know it," Charley laughed, "but I just want to enjoy looking at it."
When Toby was gone, Charley stroked the seal caressingly. He was sure
now that all of their worries were at an end. His heart was light again,
and he stood up and looked out over the smoking waters, and breathed
deeply of the frosty air. How lovely the world was! How glorious it was
just to live! What an Odyssey of adventures he would have to relate
when he reached home! And still, he mused, as wonderful as these
adventures appeared to him they were a part of the routine of life in
the country, and not one of them unusual. Toby looked upon them as a
part of the day's work, and experiences that were to be expected.
Lost in retrospection, Charley was surprised by Toby's return with the
rope much sooner than he had expected him. The rope was fastened to the
seal, and the two boys, their hearts light with the certainty of food to
sustain them and end their long fast, hauled the carcass back to their
bivouac.
It was not easy to be abstemious in their eating. The broth from the owl
had aroused the full vigour of the appetite of both boys, which had to
some extent become dormant with long fasting. But they heeded the
warning Toby had borrowed from the Indians, and practicing self-denial
ate sparingly, though often.
Toby busied himself at once in removing the seal's entrails, before the
carcass could freeze, and this he did without skinning it, explaining to
Charley that if the ice formed before they had eaten the flesh, as he
expected it would, they could haul it home over the ice, at the end of
the rope, much more easily than they could carry the dismembered joints.
Extracting the liver, and laying it back under the lean-to on a piece of
bark, Toby remarked:
"We'll be eatin' the liver fried in a bit o' seal fat for breakfast. If
we just eats the owl to-day, I'm thinkin' by marnin' we can stand the
liver, or a piece of un. 'Tis stronger meat than the owl. After the
liver's gone, we'll be tryin' the flippers."
"All right," agreed Charley, happily. "Anything you say goes with me.
I'm going to have a good time here now until we get away."
"So'll I," said Toby, "and we'll not be startin' till the ice is strong
enough, whatever, so's not to be takin' any risk o' breakin' through.
'Tis never as thick outside as 'tis near shore."
When they awoke the next morning, a new and strange silence had fallen
upon the world. Toby sat up excitedly, and shaking Charley into
wakefulness, asked:
"Does you hear un? Does you hear un?"
"Hear what?" asked Charley, sleepily. "I don't hear a thing."
"Hear the stillness!" explained Toby. "The water's not lappin'! The bay
has fastened over! By to-morrow, whatever, we'll be leavin' here for
Double Up Cove!"
"Hurrah!" shouted Charley, now thoroughly awake. "Isn't it great, Toby!
We'll start to-morrow, and to-morrow night we'll be at good old Double
Up Cove again! Hurrah!"
Charley "heard" the silence, the impressive, gravelike silence that had
fallen upon the world. No longer was there a lapping of waters upon the
rocks. No breath of wind murmured through the trees. There was a silence
so complete, so absolute that Charley declared he could actually hear
it.
The boys hurried down to the shore to scan the bay, and sure enough it
lay gray and still under a coating of smooth, dark ice. Toby tried it
with a stick, and already it was tough enough to bear his weight near
shore.
"I'm doubtin' 'tis fast out in the middle yet," said Toby, "but she'll
be freezin' all day, and she'll be fast enough all over by to-morrow,
whatever."
It was a busy day of preparation and excitement. On the morrow they were
surely to be relieved from their island prison and from an experience
that had been most trying and that they would both remember while they
lived. All of the boat gear that they had brought ashore and other
equipment and belongings were gathered together in a pile.
"'Tisn't much," said Toby, "but 'twould make for weariness to pack un on
our backs. I'm thinkin' I'll fix up a riggin' to haul un. 'Twill be
easier than packin'."
He proceeded to lay two of the long boat oars parallel upon the snow,
and about eighteen inches apart. The blade end of the oars he connected
with half a dozen sticks, the end of the sticks lashed firmly to the
oars. The handle end of the oars he connected with a piece of rope,
drawn taut, and securely tied to the handles.
"Now stand betwixt the handles, Charley, and lift un up so's the rope'll
be against your chest," Toby directed.
Charley complied, and Toby tied another piece of rope to the end of one
of the oars, and where the chest rope was tied to it. Then passing the
rope up and in front of the shoulder, then behind the neck and down in
front of the other shoulder, he secured the loose end to the other oar.
"There, now," said Toby, surveying his work, "she'll ride on the ice
and she's right for easy haulin'. The rope up around the back o' your
neck holds she so you won't have to be holdin' she up with your hands,
and you can have un free, and the rope across your chest fixes un so's
you can haul by just walkin'."
"Am I going to haul this rig?" asked Charley.
"We'll be takin' turns at she and the seal," said Toby. "You'll be
haulin' the one you likes to haul best, and I'll be haulin' the other.
But I thinks this un'll be easier to haul than the seal. She'll be
slippin' over the ice wonderful easy. We'll be lashin' the outfit on the
sticks across the oar blades on the other end. 'Twill be light. We
hasn't much of un to take. We'll cache the other pair of oars here for
Dad to pick up next year when he's comin' up with the boat."
"All right," agreed Charley. "This rig will be dead easy to walk with on
the ice, and I think I'll take it and let you drag the seal, if you
don't mind."
"I'll be goin' ahead with the seal, if you likes the rig," planned Toby,
"and I'll take a stick to try the ice, so we'll be keepin' abroad from
any bad ice."
"You're wonderful, Toby!" exclaimed Charley admiringly. "I never would
have thought of fixing up a rig like this."
"'Twill be easier'n packin' the outfit on our backs," remarked Toby.
Under ordinary conditions Charley would have found the fishy flavour of
the seal's liver, and the still more highly flavoured flippers
objectionable, if not offensive, to his taste. But now he pronounced
them delectable, and his revived appetite found no grounds for complaint
or criticism. During the day they consumed the liver, and for the
evening meal a pair of flippers.
With the skin still in place that it might protect the meat and carcass
of the seal in dragging it over the ice, Toby cut some liberal slices of
meat in preparation for the frying pan in the morning, that there might
be no delay. He also prepared an extra portion for the next day's
luncheon, which he said they could eat cold.
Before they retired to their sleeping bags, Toby again led the way to
the ice, and tried it with his ax. It was fully two inches thick.
"She's fine and tough, and she's makin' for thickness fast," Toby
announced delightedly. "She'll be twice as thick by marnin', whatever!
She'd hold us now! Salt water ice is a wonderful sight tougher'n fresh
water ice."
[Illustration: SKIPPER ZEB'S OAR BROKE, AND THE BOAT WAS DRIVEN UPON A
ROCK.]
That night, snug in his sleeping bag, Charley recalled the many
adventures that had befallen him since his arrival at Pinch-In Tickle
nearly a month before. One peril after another had beset him, and now,
the worst of all, threatened starvation upon this desolate island, was
about to end, and he thanked God silently for his deliverance.
To the dwellers in that far, silent land adventures are an incident in
the game of life, and their existence is truly a man's game fashioned
for the sturdy of soul and strong of heart. Everywhere in that bleak
country adventure lurks, ever ready to spring upon the unwary. In the
mysterious and dark depths of the broad forests, in the open wastes of
the bleak barrens, in the breath of the sea winds it is met suddenly and
unexpectedly. And soon enough Charley was to meet it again in a struggle
for his very life, as we shall see.