OFF TO THE "SENA"
And so it was that the famine ended. There was small variety for the
table, to be sure, but there was always plenty of good venison, varied
with ptarmigans, and now and again a porcupine. And after all they were
able to go to the ice edge on the winter seal hunt, and a profitable
hunt it proved.
Thus the years passed, and thus they were filled with ups and downs and
many adventures and hard work, and withal plenty of good fun, too, to
flavor them, as years are bound to be in that land of stern and active
existence.
But there was always time for study, and when Bobby was in his sixteenth
year he and Jimmy could boast of having read Caesar and Cicero and
Xenophon, and they were delving into Virgil and the Iliad. Under Skipper
Ed's tutorship Bobby had advanced as far in his studies as most boys of
his age in civilization, who have all the advantages of the best
schools. And Skipper Ed was proud of his progress, and proud of Jimmy's
progress too, as indeed he had reason to be, for neither of them was a
waster of time. There was no inducement to be laggards.
Their hearts were clean and their vision was clear. Their view was not
cut off or circumscribed by the frivolous and ofttimes vicious
amusements that stand as a wall around life's outlook in the town. Their
view and their hope were as wide as the wilderness and the sea, rugged
and stern but mighty and majestic and limitless--God's unspoiled
works--and God was a living God to them.
Bobby at this age had developed into a big, husky lad. He could drive
the dog team as well as Abel. He had already killed many seals, and he
was an excellent hunter for his years. To Abel Zachariah and Mrs. Abel
he was a dutiful, affectionate son. They, too, were proud of him, and
looked upon him as the finest lad in the whole land, and Abel boasted
that when he grew to be a man he would be the finest hunter on the
coast.
It happened that early in February following Bobby's fifteenth birthday
Abel wrenched an ankle so badly that he could not go about his duties,
or even hobble outside the cabin door. The responsibility of providing
for the little household, therefore, fell upon Bobby. And Bobby, though
keenly sympathetic, was nevertheless glad of an opportunity to show his
prowess.
He squared his shoulders, and regardless of cold and storm set about the
work, determined to prove that he was a man in the things he could
accomplish, if not in years; and he succeeded so well that he won high
praise from Abel. Certainly Abel himself could not have done better with
the fox trapping, which at this season was the chief employment. Bobby
kept the house, too, so well supplied with rabbits and ptarmigans,
through his incessant hunting, that presently there were enough hanging
frozen in the porch to last till the coming of warm weather.
One evening near the end of February Bobby announced, as he entered the
cabin after giving the dogs their daily feed:
"There's only enough seal meat left to last the dogs a week. I'll have
to go to the _sena_ and kill some more."
"You do not know how to do that kind of hunting," objected Abel. "It is
not like hunting seals from a boat, or like spearing them through their
breathing holes in the ice. Feed the dogs only once every two days, and
perhaps before the meat is gone my foot will be strong enough for me to
go to the _sena_."
"I was there with you last year," Bobby insisted. "Jimmy will go with
me. He has been to the _sena_ with you twice, and he knows how. We will
be careful."
And at last Abel surrendered, for he could not long deny Bobby any
reasonable thing that the lad set his heart upon, and after all Bobby
had proved himself a good and careful hunter; and they needed seals.
Skipper Ed had not kept dogs since the slaughter of his team in the year
of famine. He hunted and trapped more after the manner of the Indian
than the Eskimo, going long journeys inland on snowshoes, and now Jimmy
accompanied him. And living quite alone, as he had during his earlier
years on the coast, there was no one who could have fed or cared for
dogs when Skipper Ed was absent upon these trapping expeditions. It was
therefore only during the two or three years preceding the year of
famine, when Jimmy was old enough to care for them, and wished them,
that he had a team.
Abel, on the other hand, after the manner of Eskimos, set his traps
nearer the shore, that he might, so far as possible, make the rounds of
them with dogs.
Abel, therefore, had constant need of dogs, and he now had sixteen fine
big fellows, which so nearly resembled the great wolves of the barrens
that were dogs and wolves to intermingle only the practiced eye could
distinguish the one from the other. These dogs never barked, but howled
with the weird, dismal howl of the wolf. And when they were hungry they
were such dangerous, savage brutes that it was unsafe for a stranger,
unless armed with a cudgel, to wander among them.
With sixteen dogs Abel could muster two ordinary teams of eight dogs
each, or one powerful team of ten or twelve, or even the entire number.
Skipper Ed and Jimmy, when they required the services of dogs, could
always borrow a team from Abel, and to repay this courtesy it was their
custom to join in the autumn and spring seal hunts, and to contribute
the carcasses of the seals they killed to Abel, retaining only the
skins, which Mrs. Abel dressed and made up for them into boots and
winter garments and sleeping bags, as needs demanded.
It was a Saturday evening when Bobby finally received Abel's consent for
him to go to the _sena_ seal hunting. He was preparing to go over, as
was his custom on Saturdays, to spend the evening with Skipper Ed and
Jimmy in reading and study, and when he had eaten his supper he donned
his snowshoes and _netsek_[D] and hurried eagerly away to Skipper Ed's
cabin to invite Jimmy to join him in the adventure.
[Footnote D: An Eskimo garment of seal skin, which is drawn on over the
head like a shirt, and has a hood to protect the head. When this garment
is made of caribou skin it is called a _kulutuk_, and when made of
cloth, an _adikey_.]
"Yes, to be sure, Partner, you must go with Bobby," said Skipper Ed.
"But it's going to be bleak and cold out there. It's a man's work at
this season, hunting at the _sena_, and a strong man's work, too.
Perhaps I had better go along. Then we can take two teams of dogs."
"That will be dandy!" exclaimed Bobby, "We'll have a fine time!"
"Yes, Partner, come!" urged Jimmy. "You can leave your traps for a
week."
"I think I can--yes, I'll go," Skipper Ed decided. "I was never hunting
at the _sena_ but twice, though, and I've never forgotten my first
experience. It was a good many years ago, before you came, Partner. I
went with Abel. We had a hard time of it that year, for stormy weather
came up and we nearly perished in a blizzard."
"We'll build a snow _igloo_" said Bobby, "and be pretty comfortable.
We'll take Father's snow knives and two of his old stone lamps. We'll
have plenty of seal oil to burn. You know there's no wood out there, and
it isn't worth while hauling any."
"Yes," agreed Skipper Ed, "we'll need the lamps, though I don't like
them. I never could get used to them, and I never liked to go too far
from wood."
And so it came to pass that in the bright moonlight of Monday morning
they lashed upon the two _komatiks_ a good supply of hardtack and boiled
salt pork--the only provisions that would not freeze too hard to
eat--with tea, and sleeping bags, and numerous articles of equipment
for their own use and comfort, and a day's supply of seal meat for the
dogs.
Then the dogs were caught and harnessed, and in great excitement began
to strain at the traces and howl their eagerness to be off. _Oksunaes_
were shouted to Abel and Mrs. Abel, and Bobby, grasping the front of one
_komatik_, and Skipper Ed the front of the other, they pulled them
sharply to one side to break them loose, shouting to the teams as they
did so: "_Hu-it! Hu-it!_" Then they flung themselves upon the
_komatiks_, and away they dashed, down the steep and slippery incline,
and off through the shore hummocks at a wild, mad gallop.
They were away to the _sena_, and the Great Adventure, at last.