THE DOGS AND THE SNOW--THE SLEDGE-DOG--TRAINING CARIBOU--A DINNER-PARTY
INTERRUPTED--THE RACE FOR LIFE.
"What's `agley'?" asked Rory of Allan, on the morning after the great
snowfall.
"What is _what_?" Allan replied, looking at his friend in some
surprise.
"What's `agley'?" repeated Rory. "Sure, now, can't you speak your own
language?"
"Oh yes," said Allan; "but I don't know that anything in particular is
agley this morning. Is there anything agley with you?"
"Be easy with a poor boy," said Rory. "Troth, it is the meaning of the
word I'd be after getting hold of."
"Ah! now I see," said Allan. "Well, `agley' means `deviation from a
straight line;' `out of the plumb,' in other words."
"I thought as much," Rory remarked in a thoughtful manner, "and it is
your own darling poet that says,--
"`The best-laid schemes of mice and men
Gang aft agley,
And leave us nought but grief and pain
For promised joy.'"
Rory finished the quotation with a bit of a sigh, that caused McBain to
say,--
"What _is_ the matter with you, boy Rory? Have you received a
disappointment of any kind?"
"Indeed, and I have then," replied boy Rory, "and I suppose I must
confess, for haven't Ap and myself been busy at it for the last three
weeks, making an ice-ship, and hadn't we got her all complete, keel and
hull and sails and all? and troth, she would have gone gliding over the
surface of the ice like a thing of life. It was only the wind we were
waiting for, and then we would have given you such a surprise, but
instead of the wind the snow comes. Isn't it a pity?"
"Oho!" cried Ralph, "and so that accounts for Rory's mysterious
disappearances; that accounts for Ap and he being closeted together for
an hour or two every day for weeks back. Sly Rory!"
"Yes," said Rory; "sly if you like, but it would have been such fine
fun, you know; and there isn't one of the three of you that wouldn't
have followed my example and gone in for ice-yachts too. And from all I
can learn it is the rarest sport in existence. Seth knows all about it,
and he says skating isn't a circumstance to it. Fancy gliding along
over the ice, on the wings of the wind, boys, at the rate of twenty
knots an hour!"
"It would have been nice, I must confess," said Ralph. "Something else
will turn up, though," McBain said. "What?" cried Rory, all excitement;
"are you going to invent a new pleasure for us, captain?"
"Your ice-yacht," replied McBain, "would have been a glorious idea if
the snow hadn't fallen, and in calm days I had meant to have got up
games of curling on the ice; and that, you know, is the most charming
game in the world."
"Without exception," said Allan, enthusiastically. "But the snow, the
snow!" sighed Rory. "The beautiful snow has fallen and spoiled
everything."
"Not quite so bad as that," said McBain, with an amused smile. "In a
day or two the snow will harden; we can then go long journeys and resume
our hunting expeditions." Walking on snow-shoes soon became not only
easy to our heroes, but positively pleasurable, so that they were able
to enjoy their rambles over the snow-clad country very much indeed.
As for the dogs, they seemed to feel that they could not possibly get
enough of the snow. The exuberance of great Oscar's joy when he went
out with his mister for a walk, the first thing every morning, was
highly comical to witness. Out for a _walk_, did I say? Nay, dear
reader, that word but poorly expresses the nature of Oscar's pedal
progression. It was not a walk, but a glorious compound of dance,
scamper, race, run; gallop, and gambol. Had you been ever so old it
would have made you feel young again to behold him. He knew while Allan
was dressing that he meant to go out, and begin at once to exhibit signs
of impatience. He would yawn and stretch himself and wriggle and shake;
then he would open his mouth and endeavour to round a sentence in real
verbal English, and, failing in this, fall back upon dog language pure
and simple. Or he would stand as steady as a pointer, looking up at
Allan with his beautiful head turned on one side, and his mouth a little
open, just sufficiently so to show the tip of his bright pink tongue,
and his brown eyes would speak to his master. "Couldn't you," the dog
would seem to ask--"couldn't you get on your coat a little--oh, _ever_
so little!--faster? What can you want with a muffler? I don't wear a
muffler. And now you are looking for your fur cap, and there it is
right before your very eyes!"
"And," the dog would add, "I dare say we are out at last," and he would
hardly give his mister time to open the companion door for him.
But once over the side, "Hurrah!" he would seen to cry, then away he
would bound, and away, and away, and away, straight ahead as crow could
fly, through the snow and through the snow, which rose around him in
feathery clouds, till he appeared but a little dark speck in the
distance. This race straight ahead was meant to get rid of his
super-extra steam. Having expended this, back he would come with a rush
and a run, make pretence to jump his master down, but dive past him at
the very last moment. Then he would gambol in front of his master in
such a daft and comical fashion that made Allan laugh aloud; and, seeing
his master laughing, Oscar would laugh too, showing such a double
regiment of white, flashing, pearly teeth, that, with the quickness of
the dog's motions, they seemed to begin at his lips and go right away
down both sides of him as far as the tail.
Hurroosh! hurroosh! Each exclamation, reader, is meant to represent a
kind of a double-somersault, which I verily believe Oscar invented
himself. He performed it by leaping off the ground, bending sideways,
and going right round like a top, without touching the snow, with a
spring like that of a five-year-old salmon getting over a weir.
Hurroosh! hurroosh!
Then Allan would make a grab at his tail.
"Oh, that's your game!" Oscar would say; "then down _you_ go!"
And down Allan would roll, half-buried in the powdery snow, and not be
able to get up again for laughing; then away Oscar would rush, wildly
round and round in a complete circle, having a radius of some fifty
yards, with Allan McGregor on his broad back for a centre.
After half-an-hour of such furious fun, is it any wonder that Allan and
Oscar returned to breakfast with appetites like hunters?
The Skye terrier enjoyed the snow quite as much in his own little way as
Oscar did, and, indeed, he used to live in under it a goodly part of his
time every day. He in a manner buried himself alive. Plunket, the
mastiff, on the other hand, was always in the habit of taking his
pleasures in a quiet and dignified manner.
"Now, gentlemen," said old Seth one day, "I guess I can a kind o' prove
to you that my dog Plunket is useful, if he ain't ornamental."
And so the trapper set himself to manufacture a light sledge, and when
he had done so, and harnessed the great dog thereto, and seated himself
among the skins, it seemed about the most natural thing in the world for
that dog to draw the sledge, and Seth had never seemed so much at home
before as he did sitting behind him.
Oscar took very great interest in the yoking of the sledge-dog, as
Plunket soon came to be called, so much so that the happy thought
occurred to Rory to try him in harness too, and this was accordingly
done. He was made tracer to Plunket, and although he managed sometimes
to capsize the sledge in the snow, he soon became less rash, and settled
quietly down to the work.
A larger and very lightly-constructed sledge was then made, and in this
both Allan and Rory could travel over the snow with great ease, dragged
along by the two faithful dogs.
"What a glorious thing it would be," said Allan one day, "if we could
tame and harness a real caribou!"
"We can if we try, I think," said McBain. "Love and kindness will tame
almost any animal."
"First catch your hare," said Ralph.
But through Seth's skill a week had not passed before they were in
possession of not only one, but a pair of deer. A rude kind of a stable
was built for them on shore, and the taming commenced, and with such
good results that in little over three weeks they were both broken to
harness. Sledging now became quite a pastime, and great fun they found
it.
Although, owing to the rugged nature of the ground, it was impracticable
to venture far inland with the deer-sledge, they were able to take quite
long journeys along the seashore, and here many strange birds and beasts
fell to their guns, and they met with many adventures.
It is doubtful whether there is any animal in the world, that, for
strength and ferocity combined can be compared, to the polar bear, the
king of the sea of ice. I do not say that he is the bravest animal ever
I have met, but he is nevertheless daring enough in all conscience.
Daring and cunning too. A bear will attack one man, and even come out
of his way a long distance to do so, but I have never known an instance
of a single bear attacking a party of even two, unless he were chased,
and had to stand at bay.
Hitherto our heroes had not met, nor ever seen, this gigantic monster.
But the time came.
Allan and Rory were one morning very early astir, for in the company of
trapper Seth they were to make a long journey in pursuit of game, the
game in question being a smaller kind of seal, to be found in abundance
some distance along the coast to the east. So sledges were got out and
harnessed, a long time before the stars paled before the light of the
short Arctic winter day. The deer had been well fed, and were
consequently in fine form; they tossed their tall antlers in the air,
and seemed to spurn the very ground on which they trod.
It was a glorious morning for a sledge-drive; the snow was hard, and
just sufficiently packed to make an easy path. They skirted a great
forest that at times grew almost close to the edge of the sea, and long
before the sun gleamed up from the north-east, to sink again in the
north-west in little over an hour, they had put twenty goodly miles
between them and the _Snowbird_.
They were now at the scene of action--their shooting-ground--and, much
to their joy, they found the creatures they had come so far to seek.
The seals had come up out of the water to bask in the sun, and therefore
lay close, so that in little over an hour they had possessed themselves
of as many skins as they could conveniently carry, and were on the eve
of returning to the wood, where they had tied up their deer and left
their sledges.
"I wonder," said Rory, "what is at the other side of that far-off point
of land yonder, and what we would see if we rounded it."
"What a fellow you are for wondering, Rory!" said Allan. "Suppose now,
instead of wondering, we go and have a look?"
"Agreed," said Rory; and off they set, Seth preferring to stay behind
and get the skins packed.
It was a long road and a rough one; the snow was deeper than they could
have believed, but they had donned their snow-shoes, and so they reached
the point at last, just as the setting sun was tipping the far-off hills
with gold.
The scene beyond the point was indeed a strange one; as far as the eye
could reach it was a sea of ice, but ice entirely different from the
smooth unbroken snow-clad plain that lay around the _Snowbird_. For
here the ice, exposed to the whole force of the heaving billows, had
been broken up into a chaos of pieces of every conceivable size and
shape. Nor was this ice quite untenanted. On the contrary, Allan and
Rory had arrived in time to be witnesses of a very busy scene indeed,
and one that they would be unlikely ever to forget. Half-a-dozen
enormous bears were feasting on the body of an immense whale, not fifty
yards from where Rory and Allan now stood.
"Down, Rory!" cried Allan, throwing himself on his face; "here is a
chance for a bag, the like of which we never even dreamt of."
It was evident that the bears had not become aware of their presence,
either by sight, or scent, or sound; they kept on with their ghastly
feast.
Not quietly, though, but with much snarling and growling.
"Just hear them," whispered Rory. "Wouldn't you think they'd be content
with a whole whale? But, big and all as they are, it will be many a day
before they finish their dinner."
"They never will finish it," said Allan, "unless I have lost the art of
holding my rifle straight. Are you ready, Rory? Well, you take the
nearest Mr Bruin; aim straight for the skull. I mean to give that
centre gourmand a pill to aid his digestion."
They both fired at once, and with this result--the centre bear sprang
into the air, then fell dead on the snow; the near bear was only
wounded, he sprang on one of his fellows, and a most desperate combat
ensued. Another volley from behind the rock put a different complexion
on the matter, and one more bear dropped never to rise.
"Hand me a cartridge," said Rory, "I've just fired my last."
"In that case," cried Allan, in some alarm, "let us be off, for I have
only two more cartridges; and look you, we have irritated these
monsters, they are making directly for us."
This was true. A polar bear is at no time an animal of a very sweet
temper, but only just interrupt him at his dinner, and he will have
revenge if he possibly can.
"Shall we fire again?" said Rory.
"No, Rory, no. Come on quick, boy, there isn't a moment to lose."
Even as he spoke the foremost bear had gained the shore, and as soon as
he spied our heroes he uttered a growl of rage that seemed to awaken
every echo in the rocks, and with head down he came ferociously and
quickly on to the attack.
It was to be a race for life, that was evident from the first. On level
ground I think the advantage would have been all on the side of the men,
but here on the snow, and encumbered with their snow-shoes, the odds
were all on the side of the pursuers. Before they had run a hundred
yards this was evident. The bears were gaining, and there was fully a
mile to be covered.
"Come on quicker if you can," said Allan, who was the better runner.
"Couldn't we stop and drop the foremost?" said Rory.
"No, no; that would be madness. The others would have all the more time
to come up."
Presently Allan had recourse to a ruse which he had read of, but never
thought he would have to put in practice in order to save his life. He
took off his jacket and threw it upon the snow. The bears stopped to
sniff at it, and the temptation was now strong to fire, but he resisted
it. They had only two cartridges between them and death, so to speak,
and they did well to reserve them.
When old Seth had quietly stowed away the skins, he sat down to rest
himself on the edge of one of the sledges, and so, dreaming and musing,
a whole half-hour passed away. Then he began to get uneasy at the
non-appearance of the boys.
"And it's getting late, too," he said, as he shouldered his rifle.
"Seth will even go and seek them. Why," he added, after he had gone
some distance, "if yonder isn't both on 'em coming runnin'. And what is
that behind them? Why, may I be skivered if it ain't b'ars! Hurrah!
Seth to the rescue!"
And, so saying, the old trapper increased his walk to a run, and the
distance between him and the boys was rapidly lessened.
And dire need too, for both Allan and Rory were well-nigh exhausted, and
the foremost bear was barely forty yards behind them.
But Allan's time had come for decisive action. He threw himself on his
face, the better to make sure of his aim, and almost immediately after
the foremost bear came tumbling down. And now Seth came up, and another
Bruin speedily followed his companion into the land of darkness. The
others escaped into the forest.
It had been a very narrow escape, but McBain told Allan that very
evening that he was not sorry for it, as the adventure would surely
teach him caution.