Produced by Wallace McLean, Edna Badalian and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
BOBBY OF THE LABRADOR
[Illustration: It was plain that retreat was hopelessly cut off]
Bobby of the Labrador
BY DILLON WALLACE
AUTHOR OF "THE FUR TRAIL ADVENTURERS," "THE LURE OF THE LABRADOR WILD,"
"THE WILDERNESS CASTAWAYS," ETC.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANK E. SCHOONOVER
[Illustration: A.C. McCLURG (Publishers Stamp)]
DEDICATED
TO
L.G.H.
WHO KNOWS WHY
If I may call you friend, I wish you this--
No gentle destiny throughout the years;
No soft content, or ease, or unearned bliss
Bereft of heart-ache where no sorrow nears,
But rather rugged trouble for a mate
To mold your soul against the coming blight,
To train you for the ruthless whip of fate
And build your heart up for the bitter fight.
If I may call you friend, I wish you more--
A rare philosophy no man may fake,
To put the game itself beyond the score
And take the tide of life as it may break;
To know the struggle that a man should know
Before he comes through with the winning hit,
And, though you slip before the charging foe,
To love the game too well to ever quit.
GRANTLAND RICE.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I The Boat That Came Down from the Sea
II The Mystery and Bobby
III Skipper Ed and His Partner
IV Over a Cliff
V The Rescue
VI With Passing Years
VII The Wolf Pack
VIII The Battle
IX The Fishing Places
X A Foolhardy Shot
XI When the Iceberg Turned
XII Adrift on the Open Sea
XIII How the _Good and Sure_ Brought Trouble
XIV Visions in Delirium
XV Marooned in an Arctic Blizzard
XVI A Snug Refuge
XVII Prisoner on a Barren Island
XVIII The Winter of Famine
XIX Off to the _Sena_
XX Jimmy's Sacrifice
XXI Who Was the Hero?
XXII A Storm and a Catastrophe
XXIII It Was God's Will
XXIV Under the Drifting Snow
XXV A Lonely Journey
XXVI Cast Away on the Ice
XXVII A Struggle for Existence
XXVIII The Ships That Came Down to the Ice
XXIX In Strange Lands
XXX The Mystery Cleared
ILLUSTRATIONS
It was plain that retreat was hopelessly cut off _Frontispiece_
"Hurry, Jimmy. I can't hang here much longer. I'm getting all numb"
Quick as a flash Bobby raised his gun to his shoulder
They ran by the side of the _komatik_ to keep warm
"I was hunting," explained Bobby. "The ice broke loose and cut Jimmy,
and me off from Skipper Ed"
Bobby of the Labrador
CHAPTER I
THE BOAT THAT CAME DOWN FROM THE SEA
Abel Zachariah was jigging cod. Cod were plentiful, and Abel Zachariah
was happy. It still lacked two hours of mid-day, and already he had
caught a skiffload of fish and had landed them on Itigailit Island,
where his tent was pitched.
Now, as he jigged a little off shore, he could see Mrs. Abel Zachariah,
the yellow sunshine spread all about her, splitting his morning catch on
a rude table at the foot of the sloping rocks. Above her stood the
little tent that was their summer home, and here and there the big
sledge dogs, now idle and lazy and fat, sprawled blissfully upon the
rocks enjoying the August morning, for this was their season of rest and
plenty.
With a feeling of deep content Abel drew in his line, unhooked a
flapping cod, returned the jigger to the water, and, as he resumed the
monotonous tightening and slackening of line, turned his eyes again to
the peaceful scene ashore.
Mrs. Abel in this brief interval had left the splitting table and had
ascended the sloping rock a little way, where she now stood, shading her
eyes with her right hand and gazing intently seaward. Suddenly she began
gesticulating wildly, and shouting, and over the water to Abel came the
words:
"_Umiak! Umiak!_" (A boat! A boat!)
Abel arose deliberately in his skiff, and looking in the direction in
which Mrs. Abel pointed discovered, coming out of the horizon, a boat,
rising and falling upon the swell. It carried no sail, and after careful
scrutiny Abel's sharp eyes could discern no man at the oars. This, then,
was the cause of Mrs. Abel's excitement. The boat was unmanned--a
derelict upon the broad Atlantic.
A drifting boat is fair booty on the Labrador coast. It is the
recognized property of the man who sees it and boards it first. And
should it be a trap boat he is indeed a fortunate man, for the value of
a trap boat is often greater than a whole season's catch of fish.
So Abel lost no time in hauling in and coiling his jigger line, in
adjusting his oars, and in pulling away toward the derelict with all the
strength his strong arms and sinewy body could muster.
Abel had wished for a good sea boat all his life. When the fishing
schooners now and again of a foggy night anchored behind Itigailit
Island he never failed to examine the fine big trap boats which they
carried. Sometimes he had ventured to inquire how much salt fish they
would accept in exchange for one. But he had never had enough fish, and
his desire to possess a boat seemed little less likely of fulfilment
than that of a boy with a dime in his pocket, covetously contemplating a
gold watch in the shop window.
But here, at last, drifting directly toward him, as though Old Ocean
meant it as a gift, propelled by a gentle breeze and an incoming tide,
came a boat that would cost him nothing but the getting. Fortune was
smiling upon Abel Zachariah this fine August morning.
Now and again as he approached the derelict, Abel rested upon his oars,
that he might turn about for a moment and feast his eyes upon his
prospective prize, and revel in the pleasure of anticipation about to be
realized.
And so, presently, he discovered that the boat was not a trap boat after
all, but a much finer craft than any trap boat he had ever seen. Its
lines were much more graceful, it had recently been painted, and, as it
rose and fell with the swell, a varnished gunwale glistened in the
sunlight. It was fully four fathoms and a half in length, and was
undoubtedly a ship's boat; and, being a ship's boat, was probably built
of hard wood, and therefore vastly superior to the spruce boats of the
fishermen.
Abel had fully satisfied himself upon these points before, keenly
expectant, he at length rowed alongside the derelict. Grasping its
gunwale to steady himself, he was about to step aboard when, with an
exclamation of astonishment and horror, he released his hold upon the
gunwale and resumed his seat in the skiff.
Stretched in the boat lay the body of a man. In the man's side was a
great gaping wound, and his clothing and the boat were spattered and
smeared with blood. The man was dead. In the fixed, cold stare of his
wide-open eyes was a look of hopeless appeal, and the ghastly terror of
one who had beheld some awful vision.