"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.