HOCKEY WITH SNOW-SHOES ON--THE ICE BREAKS UP--CHANGE OF QUARTERS--GOING
ON A BIG SHOOT--THE GREAT SNOW LAKE--INDIANS--THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST.
Winter wore away. Did our people in the _Snowbird_ think it long and
dreary? They certainly did not. To begin with, every one on board was
as healthy as a summer's day is long. It was mindful and provident of
McBain to have laid in a good supply of medicines, and these were about
the only stores in the ship that had never been as yet applied to.
The captain was a good and a wise disciplinarian, however. He well knew
the value of exercise in keeping illness far away, so he kept his men at
work. On dry days they would be sent in parties to the forest, to cut
down and drag home wood to keep up roaring fires in the ship and in the
hall as well. When snow was falling, which was less often than might be
imagined, he had them under cover in the hall, where there was room
enough for games of many kinds, and these were varied by regular
exercise with clubs in lieu of dumb-bells. In open weather games were
not forgotten out of doors, you may be quite sure. Rory proposed lawn
tennis.
"We could easily get it up, you know," he said.
"Nothing would be more simple," was McBain's reply, "but it is far too
slow with the thermometer at zero. There isn't chase enough in it."
"I have it," cried Allan, joyously.
"What?" asked Rory, eagerly.
"Why, _hockey_, to be sure; what we in Scotland call shinty, or shinny."
"It is shinny enough at times," added McBain, laughing; "but how would
you set about it? You'd need a large ball, a small one would get lost
in the snow."
"Yes," said Allan, "a large cork ball as big as a football, covered with
laced twine. Ap can make the balls, I know."
"And we can go off to the woods and cut our hockey sticks," said Rory;
"it will be capital fun."
There was no mistake about it, it was capital fun, Hockey is at all
times a glorious game, but hockey on the snow with snow-shoes on! Why
it beggars description. No wonder all hands entered into it with a
will. The amusement and excitement were intense, the fun and the frolic
immense, the tumbling and the scrimmaging and scrambling were something
to see, and having seen, to go to sleep and dream about and awake
laughing, and long to go to sleep and dream about it all over again.
The game ended at the goal in a mad _melee_, a medley of laughter and
shouting, a mixture of legs in the air, arms in the air, snow-shoes and
hockey clubs in the air, and heads and bodies anywhere. No wonder the
short winter's day wore to a close before they knew where they were. No
wonder that at the end of the games Allan McGregor, the inventor, was
dubbed the hero of the day, that he was cheered until the welkin rang,
that he was mounted shoulder high, and borne triumphantly back to the
_Snowbird_, Rory marching on in front with brandished hockey club,
leading a chorus which he had composed _on_ the spot and _for_ the
occasion.
But it must not be supposed that their life was all play; no, for
independent of long hours spent in the forest in quest of game, Rory,
Ralph, and Allan set themselves with a will to clean, dress, and arrange
the many hundreds of beautiful and valuable skins they had possessed
themselves of. This was a labour of love. These skins were part of the
cargo with which they hoped to reach their native land once more in
safety. Some of the smallest and prettiest of them Rory took extra
pains with, and when he had got them as soft and pliable as silk, he
perfumed them and stowed them in the big box Ap had made for him, and
where his sketch-book--well-filled by this time--lay, and a host of
curious nameless pebbles and crystals, polished horns, strange moths,
butterflies and beetles, beautifully-stuffed birds and rare eggs. It
was a splendid collection, and Rory's eyes used to sparkle as he gazed
upon them, and thought of the time when in the old castle he would show
all these things to Helen McGregor and her mother.
"Just look at him," Ralph would say at times like these; "he hasn't got
the pack-merchant idea out of his head yet."
Winter wore away. It was nearly three months since they had all sat
down together to their Christmas dinner in the hall. The mate of the
_Trefoil_, and the men more immediately under his command, hadn't been
idle all this time. They had been busy refining the oil, and a grand
lot they made of it, and it was now carefully stowed away in the
_Snowbird's_ tanks. The mate had not been disappointed in the size of
his fish, it had turned out even better than he expected, and would
greatly add to the wealth of the cargo of the lucky yacht. The water
had to be pumped from the tanks to make room for it, but that was no
loss, for fresh-water ice was procurable in any quantity. It lay on the
decks of the _Snowbird_ abaft the foremast in gigantic pieces, and a
very pretty sight it looked when the sun shone on it.
Fresh food and game of various kinds were now to be had in abundance.
Ay, and fish as well. Old Seth still continued to act as fisherman. He
caught them in that mysterious pool, which all the winter long had never
shown a single sign of freezing.
When all was quiet of a night, probably in the moonlight or under the
light from the splendid aurora, our heroes used to take a walk sometimes
towards the strange pool. They took their guns with them, but only to
protect themselves from prowling bears. Awful-looking heads used to
appear over the surface of the pool. In daylight these creatures never
showed--only when all was still at night. What they were they could not
tell; nor can I. Probably they were merely gigantic specimens of
bearded seals or sea-lions come up to breathe, and looked larger and
more dreadful in the uncertain light of moon or aurora.
Many though our heroes' adventures were, and thoroughly though they
enjoyed themselves, when the days began to get longer, when the snow
began to melt, and whistling winds blew softer through the forest trees,
and everything told them spring was on ahead, the thoughts that ere long
the _Snowbird_ would burst her icy bounds, that they would be once more
free, once more at sea, were very far from unpleasant to them.
On days now when there was but little frost in the air, and a breeze of
wind with sunlight, the _Snowbird's_ sails would be unstowed, bent, and
partially unfurled, to air them. Even this made the saucy yacht look
quite coquettish again. "Ho! ho!" she seemed to say to herself, "so
there _is_ a possibility, is there, that some of these days I may once
more sport my beauty in waters blue? Oh! then, blow, breezes, blow, and
melt the ice and snow, for indeed I'm heartily tired of it."
It would almost seem that the country around where the _Snowbird_ lay
was chosen as a winter residence _par excellence_ for the great Polar
bear. Perhaps the winter in the faraway and desolate regions around the
Pole is too rigorous for even his constitution; be this as it may, here
they were by the score, and all in all, well-nigh a hundred fleeces were
bagged in little over two months.
These snow-bears got more chary at last, however, and when the March
winds blew they entirely disappeared.
One day the beginning of the end of the ice came; a wind blew strong
from the east, and by noon all the bay behind the yacht was one heaving
mass of snow-clad pieces. It was well for the _Snowbird_ she was sturdy
and strong; the grinding bergs, small though they were, tried her
stability to the utmost, but the wind went down and the swell ceased;
yet fearing a repetition of the rough treatment, McBain determined to
seek a less exposed position farther to the west. The ice was now
loose, so as soon as there was enough wind to fill her sails progress
was commenced. It was slow hard work, but by dint of great exertion and
no little skill, a _portus salutis_ was found at last fifty miles
farther west, and here the captain determined to rest until the spring
was more advanced, and there was a likelihood of getting safely out to
sea:
The region in which they now found themselves was even more romantic and
wild than that which they had left. There was still room for more skins
in the _Snowbird_, so a big shoot was organised--quite a big shoot in
fact, for it would probably be the last they would enjoy in this strange
country.
The season was now sufficiently mild to render camping out to such
weather-beaten wanderers as the people of the _Snowbird_ practicable,
not to say enjoyable. So everything being got in readiness, the start
was made for up country, McBain himself taking charge of the expedition,
which mustered twenty men in all, ten or more of whom carried rifles,
but every one of whom was well armed. The principal tent was taken, and
the largest camping-kettle, a wonderful _multum-in-parvo_, that Seth
described as "a kind of invention that went by spirits-o'-wine, and was
warranted to cook for fifty hands, and wash up the crockery arterwards."
Rory did not forget his sketch-book, nor his wonderful boat, which one
man could carry--not in his waistcoat pocket, as Rory banteringly
averred, but on his back, and three men could row in.
They followed a gorge or canon, which led them gradually upwards and
inland. I call it "gorge," because I cannot call it glen or valley.
The bottom of it was in width pretty uniformly about the eighth part of
a mile, almost level, though covered with boulders and scanty scrub,
which rendered walking difficult. At each side rose, towering skywards,
black, wet, beetling cliffs, so perpendicular that not even a shrub, nor
grass itself, could find roothold on them, but on the top tall weird
pine-trees fringed the cliffs all along, and as they ascended, this
Titanic cutting so wound in and out, that on looking either back or away
ahead, nothing could be seen but the bare pine-fringed wall of rocks.
Seth laughed.
"You never seed such a place before, I reckon," he said, "but I have;
many's the one. You ain't likely to lose your way in a place like this,
anyhow."
It was almost nightfall ere the cliffs began to get lower and lower at
each side of them, and soon after they cleared the gorge, and came out
upon a broad buffalo-grass prairie, which must have been over a thousand
feet above the level of the sea.
And not far from the head of the gorge, near a clump of spruce firs, the
tent was pitched and the camp fire built, and Seth set about preparing a
wonderfully savoury stew. Seth's dinners always had the effect of
putting the partakers thereof on the best of terms with themselves.
After dinner you did not want to do much more that evening, but, well
wrapped in your furs, recline around the log fire, listen to stories and
sing songs, till sleep began to take your senses away, and then you did
not know a whit more until next morning, when you sprang from your couch
as fresh as a mountain trout.
If they had meant this expedition for a big shoot they were not
disappointed. The country all around was everything a sportsman could
wish. There was hill and dale, woodland, jungle, and plain, and there
was beauty in the landscape, too, and, far away over the green and
distant forest rose the grand old hills, raising their snowy heads
skywards, crag over crag and peak over peak, as far as eye could reach.
A week flew by, a fortnight passed, and the pile of skins got bigger and
bigger. They only now shot the more valuable furs, but skin of bear,
nor deer, nor lordly elk, was to be despised, while the smaller game
were killed for food.
Another week and it would be time to be returning, for spring comes all
at once in the latitudes they were now in. There was still a portion of
the country unexplored. Rory, from a hill-top, had caught sight of a
distant lake, and was fired with the ambition to launch his fairy boat
on its waters. On the very morning that Seth, Rory, and Allan set out
to seek for this lake, with two of the brawniest hands of the crew to
bear the boat, McBain came a little way with them.
"Take care of the boys, Seth," he said, with a strange, melancholy smile
playing over his face. "I had a queer dream last night. Be back
to-morrow, mind, before nightfall." The little party had their
compasses, and therefore struck a bee-line through the forest in the
direction in which they fancied the lake lay. On and on they went for
miles upon miles, and at last reached the banks of a broad river, and
here they encamped for lunch. Feeling refreshed, and hearing the roar
of a cataract, apparently some way down the stream, they took their road
along the banks to view it. They had not gone very far when they stood,
thunderstruck, by the brink of a tremendous subterranean cavern. Thence
came the roar of the cataract. The whole river disappeared suddenly
into the bowels of the earth [a phenomenon not unknown to travellers in
the wilds of America].
Marvelling much, they started off up-stream now, to seek for the lake.
After an hour's walking, the forest all at once receded a good mile from
the river, and the banks were no longer green, but banks of boulders
mixed with silver sand and patches of snow. Here and there a bridge of
solid snow spanned the river to great banks and hills of snow on the
other side. As they climbed higher and higher, the river by their right
met them with nearly all the speed of a cataract. But they can see the
top of the hill at last, and yonder is the half-yellow, half-transparent
stream leaping downwards as if over a weir.
And now they are up and the mystery is solved; the river is bursting
over the lip of a great lake, which stretches out before them for many
miles--forest on one side, hills beyond, and on the right a gigantic
ridge of snow. They call the lake the Great Snow Lake.
They took their way to the left along its banks, going on through the
woods that grew on its brink, until they came at last to an open glade,
green and moss-covered. Here they encamped for rest, and soon after
embarked on the strange lake, leaving the men to look after the
preparation of dinner against the time of their return.
Rory was charmed with his boat; he sat in the bows sketching. Allan
rowed, and Seth was busy fishing--no, _trying_ to fish; but he soon gave
up the attempt in despair, and almost at the same time Rory closed his
sketch-book. Silence, and a strange indefinable gloom, seemed to settle
down on the three. But there is silence everywhere around. Not a
ripple is on the leaden lake, not a breath sighs through the forest.
But, hark! a sullen plash in the water just round the point, and soon
another and another.
"There is some water-monster bathing round yonder," said Rory; "and
indeed I believe it's the land of enchantment we're in altogether."
They rounded the point, and found themselves in a bay surrounded by high
banks of sand and gravel, portions of the sides of which, loosened by
the thaw, were every now and then falling with a melancholy boom into
the deep black water beneath. Sad, and more silent than ever, with a
gloom on their hearts which they could not account for, they rowed away
back to the spot where they had left their men.
There was no smoke to welcome them, and when they pushed aside the
branches and rushed into the open, their hearts seemed to stand still
with dread at the sight that met their eyes. Only the embers of a
smouldering fire, and near it and beside it the two poor fellows they
had left happy and well--dead and _scalped_!
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They say that some of the Highlanders of Scotland possess the strange
gift, second sight. I know not, but McBain began to feel uneasy the
very moment his party had gone, and as the day wore on he became more
so.
"Ralph, boy," he said at last, "let us break up camp at once and follow
the boys."
"I'm ready now!" cried Ralph, alarmed at his captain's manner.
A meal was hastily served out, and in ten minutes more the start was
commenced.
The men marched in silence, partaking in a measure of the gloom of their
leader. There was no thought of shooting the game that crossed their
pathway. But the trail was easy. They reached the Great Snow Lake, and
bore round to the right, and soon entered the dark forest. Here in the
gloom the trail was more difficult to follow, and they soon lost it.
While they were waiting and doubting, the stillness of the forest was
broken by a yell, that not only startled the listeners, but chilled them
to the very marrow. Again and again it was repeated, mingled with
shouting and the sharp ring of rifles. It was a dread sound; it was
as--
"Though men fought upon the earth,
And fiends in upper air."
"On, men, on!" cried McBain; "our boys are yonder; they are being foully
massacred!"
As he spoke he dashed forward in the direction whence the sound
proceeded, followed by his brave fellows, and in a few minutes more had
cleared the forest and gained the glade where the unequal strife was
proceeding. And none too soon. Here were brave young Allan and stately
Seth, their backs against a tree, defending themselves, with rifles
clubbed, against a cloud of skin-clad savages armed with bows and
arrows, but brandishing only spear and tomahawk.
High o'er the din of the strife rang our people's British cheer. One
well-aimed volley, then McBain charged the very centre of the crowd, and
blows fell and men fell like wintry rain.
So quick and unexpected had been the onslaught that the savages were
beaten back in less time almost than it takes me to describe it--beaten
back into the forest and pursued as far as their own encampment. Here
they made a stand, and the battle raged for a whole hour; but when did
ever savages hold their own very long against the white man?
Let us draw a curtain on the scene that followed--the rout and the
pursuit, and the return to the glade where the fight commenced.
Stillness once more prevailed as our people re-entered it.
McBain glanced hastily and anxiously around. Where was Rory? Alas! he
had not far to look. Yonder he lay, where the fight had raged the
fiercest, on his back, quiet and still, with purple upturned face.
It was a painful scene, and down from the sky looked the round rising
moon, while daylight slowly faded into gloaming.
As the giant oak is bent before the gale, so bowed was McBain in his
grief. He knelt him down beside poor Rory and covered his face with his
hands. "My boy! my poor boy!" was all he could say.
Seth had taken but one glance at Rory's dark swollen face and another at
the rising moon. "I guess," he muttered, "there has been pizened arrows
flying around."
Then he disappeared in the forest.