THE COMING OF DAVID GIDGE.
White, who was still confined to the hut with his strained ankle,
announced that they no longer had any oil upon Cabot's return at dusk
from a day of fruitless hunting and outlook duty on the ice.
"That's bad," replied the latter, in a tone whose cheerfulness strove
to conceal his anxiety. "Now we'll have to burn the sled. Lucky thing
for us that it's of wood instead of being one of those bone affairs
such as we saw at Locked Harbour."
"Our provisions are nearly gone too," added White. "In fact we've only
enough for one more day."
"Oh, well! A lot of things can happen in a day, and some of them may
happen to us."
But the only thing worthy of note that happened on the following day
was a storm of such violence as to compel even stout-hearted Cabot to
remain behind the sheltering walls of the hut, and, while it raged, our
shivering lads, crouched above a tiny blaze of sled wood, ate their
last morsel of food. They still had a small quantity of tea, but that
was all. As soon, therefore, as the storm abated Cabot sallied forth
with his gun, still hopeful, in spite of many disappointments, of
finding some bird or beast that, by a lucky shot, might be brought to
the table.
The ice pack was of such vast extent that it seemed as though it must
support animal life of some kind, but Cabot traversed it that day for
many miles without finding so much as a track or a feather. That
night's supper was a pot of tea, and a similar one formed the sole
nourishment upon which Cabot again set forth the next morning for
another of those weary hunts.
This time he went further from the hut than he had dared go on previous
expeditions; but on them he had been hopeful and knew that even though
he failed in his hunting he would still find food awaiting him on his
return. Now he was desperate with hunger, and the knowledge that
failing in his present effort he would not have strength for another.
In his mind, too, he carried a vivid picture of poor White, crouching
in that wretched hut over an expiring blaze fed by the very last of
their wood.
"I simply can't go back empty-handed!" he cried aloud. "It would be
better not to go back at all, and let him hope for my coming to the
last."
So the young hunter pushed wearily and hopelessly on, until he found
himself at the foot of a line of icebergs that had been frozen into the
pack, where they resembled a range of fantastically shaped hills.
Cabot had seen them from a distance on a previous expedition, and had
wondered what lay beyond. Now he determined to find out, though he
knew if he once crossed them there would be little chance of regaining
the hut before dark. It was a laborious climb, and several times he
slid back to the place of starting, but each mishap of this kind only
made him the more determined to gain the top. At length, breathless
and bruised, crawling on hands and knees, he reached a point from which
he could look beyond the barrier. As he did so, he turned sick and
uttered a choking cry.
[Illustration: He reached a point from which he could look beyond the
barrier.]
What he saw in that first glance was so utterly incredible that it
could not be true, though if it were it would be the most welcome and
beautiful sight in all the world. Yet it was only a ship! Just one
ship and a lot of men! The ship was not even a handsome one, being
merely a three-masted steam sealer, greasy and smeared in every part
with coal soot from her tall smoke stack. She lay a mile or so away,
but well within the pack, through the outer edge of which she had
forced a passage. The men, evidently her crew, who were on the ice
near the foot of Cabot's ridge, were a disreputable looking lot,
ragged, dirty, unkempt, and as bloody as so many butchers. And that is
exactly what they were--butchers engaged in their legitimate business
of killing the seals that, coming up from the south to meet the
drifting ice pack, had crawled out on it by thousands to rear their
young.
This was all that Cabot saw; yet the sight so affected him that he
laughed and sobbed for joy. Then he stood up, and, with glad tears
blinding his eyes, tried to shout to the men beneath him, but could
only utter hoarse whispers; for, in his overpowering happiness, he had
almost lost the power of speech. As he could not call to them he began
to wave his arms to attract their attention, and then, all at once, he
was nearly paralysed by a hail from close at hand of:
"Hello there, ye bloomin' idjit! Wot's hup?"
Whirling around, Cabot saw, standing only a few rods away, a man who
had evidently just climbed the opposite side of the ridge. He
recognised him in an instant, as he must have done had he met him in
the most crowded street of a great city, so distinctively peculiar was
his figure.
"David! David Gidge!" he gasped, recovering his voice for the effort,
and in another moment, flinging his arms about the astonished mariner's
neck, he was pouring out a flood of incoherent words.
"Wal, I'll be jiggered!" remarked Mr. Gidge, as he disengaged himself
from Cabot's impulsive embrace and stepped back for a more
comprehensive view. "Your voice sounds familiar, Mister, but I can't
say as I ever seen you before. I took ye fust off fer a b'ar, and then
fer a Huskie. When I seen you was white, I 'lowed ye might be one of
the 'Marmaid's' crew, seeing as she was heading fer the pack 'bout the
time we struck it. Now, though, as I say, I'm jiggered ef I know
exectly who ye be."
"Why, Mr. Gidge, I'm Cabot Grant, who----"
"Of course. To be sartin! Now I know ye!" interrupted the other.
"But where's White? What hev ye done with Whiteway Baldwin?"
"He's back there on the ice helpless with a crippled leg, freezing and
starving to death; but if you'll come at once I'll show you the way,
and we may still be in time to save him."
With instant comprehension of the necessity for prompt action, Mr.
Gidge, who, as Cabot afterwards learned, was first mate of the sealer
"Labrador," turned and shouted in stentorian tones to the men who were
working below:
"Knock off, all hands, and follow me. Form a line and keep hailing
distance apart, so's we'll find our way back after dark. There's white
men starving on the ice. One of ye go to the ship and report. Move
lively! Now, lad, I'm ready."
Two hours later Cabot and David Gidge, with, a long line of men
streaming out behind them, reached the little hut. There was no answer
to the cheery shouts with which they approached it, and, as they
crawled through its low entrance, they were filled with anxious
misgivings. What if they were too late after all? No spark of fire
lighted the gloom or took from the deadly chill of the interior, and no
voice bade them welcome. But, as David Gidge struck a match, a low
moaning sounded from one side, and told them that White was at least
alive.
It took but a minute to remove him from the hut, together with the few
things worth taking away that it contained. Then it was left without a
shadow of regret, and the march to the distant ship was begun. Four
men carried White, who seemed to have sunk into a stupor, while two
more supported Cabot, who had become suddenly weak and so weary that he
begged to be allowed to sleep where he was.
"It's been a close call for both of 'em," said David Gidge, "and now,
men, we've got to make the quickest kind of time getting 'em back to
the ship."
Fortunately there were plenty of willing hands to which the burdens
might be shifted, for the "Labrador" carried a crew two hundred strong,
and, as the little party moved swiftly from one shouting man to
another, it constantly gained accessions.
At length the sealer was reached, and the rescued lads were taken to
her cabin, where the ship's doctor, having made every possible
preparation for their reception, awaited them. They were given hot
drinks, rubbed, fed, and placed between warm blankets, where poor,
weary Cabot was at last allowed to fall asleep without further
interruption.
The animal sought by the sealers of Newfoundland amid the furious
storms and crashing floes of the great ice pack is not the fur-bearing
seal of Alaska, but a variety of the much less important hair seal,
which may be seen almost anywhere along the Atlantic coast. From its
skin seal leather is made, but it is chiefly valuable for the oil
yielded by the layer of fat lying directly beneath the skin and
enveloping the entire body. These seals would hardly be worth hunting
unless they could be captured easily and in quantities; but, on their
native ice in early spring, the young seals are found in prime
condition and in vast numbers. Each helpless victim is killed by a
blow on the head, "sculped" or stripped of his pelt, and the flayed
body is left lying in a pool of its own blood.
The crew of a single vessel will thus destroy thousands of seals in a
day, and in some prosperous years the total kill of seals has passed
the half million mark. Now only about a dozen steamers are engaged in
the business, but by them from 200,000 to 300,000 seals are destroyed
each spring. The movements of sealing vessels are governed by rigidly
enforced laws that forbid them to leave port before the 12th of March,
to kill a seal before the 14th of the same month, or after the 20th of
April, and prohibit any steamer from making more than one trip during
this short open season. The crews are paid in shares of the catch, and
men are never difficult to obtain for the work, as the sealing season
comes when there is nothing else to be done.
As March was not yet ended when our lads were received aboard the
"Labrador," and as she would not return to port until the last minute
of the open season had expired, they had before them nearly a month in
which to recover their exhausted energies and learn the business of
sealing. White had suffered so severely, and reached such a precarious
condition, that he required every day of the allotted time for
recuperation, and even at its end his strength was by no means fully
restored. Cabot, on the other hand, woke after a thirty-six-hour nap,
ravenously hungry, and as fit as ever for anything that might offer.
After that, although he could never bring himself to assist in clubbing
baby seals to death, he took an active part in the other work of the
ship, thereby fully repaying the cost of the food eaten by himself and
White.
Of course, with their very first opportunity, both lads eagerly plied
David Gidge with questions concerning the welfare of the Baldwin family
and everything that had happened during their long absence. Thus they
learned to their dismay that another suit had been brought against the
Baldwin estate that threatened to swallow what little property had been
left, and that White, having been convicted of contempt of court for
continuing the lobster factory after an adverse decision had been
rendered, was now liable to a fine of one thousand dollars, or
imprisonment, as soon as he landed.
"But what has become of my mother and sister?" asked White.
"They are in Harbour Grace," answered David Gidge, "stopping with some
kin of mine. You see, all three of us was brung to St. Johns as
witnesses, and there wasn't money enough to take us back till I could
come sealing and make some."
"You are a trump, David Gidge!" exclaimed Cabot, while White gratefully
squeezed the honest fellow's hand.
"I promised to look arter 'em till you come back," said the sailorman,
simply.
At length the sealing season closed, and the prow of the "Labrador" was
turned homeward, but even now, after many an anxious discussion, our
lads were undecided as to what they should do upon landing. But a
solution of the problem came to Cabot on the day that the steamer
entered Conception Bay and anchored close off Bell Island, to await the
moving of a great ice mass that had drifted into the harbour.
"I know what we'll do!" he cried.