A LONELY JOURNEY
Weary as Jimmy was, he lay awake for a long time, torn by emotions and
filled with misgivings and wild imaginings. Would he ever see good old
Partner again? Would he ever see the cozy cabin that had been his home
through all these happy years? Would he ever again sit, snug in his big
arm chair before the big box stove with its roaring fire, while Skipper
Ed helped him with his studies or told him stories of the far-off fairy
land of civilization?
Then for a time he fell to thinking about Bobby, and, in his old way, to
worrying, and to wondering if, after all, he could not or should not
make one more attempt to rescue his comrade.
"I never should have let him go that last time," he moaned. "If he
perishes it will be my fault! I'm older and I should have thought
further! I should have kept him back! But I'm so in the habit of letting
him go ahead! Oh, I should have held him back! I should have held him
back!"
And in this soliloquy Jimmy unconsciously admitted, though he did not
know it, that Bobby was his leader still, as he always had been, and
that Bobby's will and judgment dominated. Bobby had decided to go upon
that last attempt to find snow suitable for an _igloo_, and Bobby went,
and Jimmy could no more successfully have interposed his judgment
against Bobby's than he could have stopped the blowing of the wind.
"No," he admitted to himself at last, "I could not have done anything
more to find Bobby. In this terrible storm I would have perished, for it
is physically impossible to move about."
And so presently Jimmy, easing his conscience, permitted his better
judgment to prevail, though once he had been upon the point of digging
out of his retreat and throwing himself again into the maelstrom of
suffocating snow and darkness. And then he prayed the good Lord to
preserve Bobby's life and his own, and to guide them back to safety, as
only He could, for they were in His care.
Even under the snowdrift that had quickly covered him Jimmy could hear
the shrieking wind and thunderous pounding of ice and seas, and there
was little wonder that at last he fancied the floe rising and falling
beneath him, and he lay in momentary expectation of being cast into the
water and crushed beneath mighty ice pans.
But Jimmy was young, and nature's demands were strong upon him, and
presently, snug under his accumulating blanket of snow, a drowsy warmth
stole over him, and he slept.
How long he had been sleeping Jimmy did not know, when he awoke from a
dream that he and Skipper Ed and Bobby were in a snow _Igloo_ and the
top had fallen in and was suffocating him with its weight. For a moment,
until he marshaled his wandering wits, he believed it no dream at all,
but a reality, and then as the happenings of the previous afternoon and
night were remembered, he realized his position, and Bobby's going, and
he began wildly digging away the snow with his hands.
It was a hard task, but at last he made an opening through the drift,
and was astonished as he forced his way out to find that it was broad
day and the sun shone brightly and a dead calm prevailed.
But a wild terror came upon him as he looked about. Less than fifty feet
from the place where he had lain waves were breaking over the edge of
the ice. On the opposite side and very close to him lay the land, and
the ice upon which he stood was jammed against the land ice, offering
him a clear road to safety.
But safety now meant nothing to Jimmy. The main ice pack from which his
little section had broken, lay glimmering in the sunlight a full two
miles to the southeast and well out to sea, and Bobby was either on that
pack or had been lost in the sea. The discovery made Jimmy numb with
fear and consternation.
He recognized the land near him as the farthermost point of Cape
Harrigan. The pack in its southward drift had come in contact with Cape
Harrigan's long projection of land, the wind had severed the pack, and,
while the comparatively small section of floe upon which he stood had
remained jammed against the land, the main floe, reaching far out beyond
the obstruction of the cape, had been swept on and on, and was now
floating steadily southward.
In frantic frenzy Jimmy ran about and shouted, and searched every nook
and turn of his little corner of the original floe for Bobby, but there
was no trace of his missing comrade. Again and again he searched, but
without reward. Bobby was gone and Jimmy no longer had any doubt that he
had perished.
With heavy heart he at last set about with his snow knife, digging the
_komatik_ from under the drift and getting his load in order, and then
he roused the dogs from their drifts and drove them to the land. The
great floe was now but a speck upon the far horizon.
There was nothing more he could do. He felt very much as Skipper Ed had
felt the day before, and was feeling that very morning, and he
remembered, and repeated over and over again, what Skipper Ed had so
often said: "Our destiny is in God's hands, and our destiny is His
will."
Jimmy's travels had carried him south nearly to Cape Harrigan on two or
three occasions when he had been with Skipper Ed in their trap boat in
summer, and he knew that he could not be above two days' journey from
the head of Abel's Bay, for now it was March and the days were growing
long. And between Cape Harrigan and Abel's Bay was a Hudson's Bay
trading post where he and Skipper Ed sometimes traded furs and salt
trout for flour and pork and tea, and beyond this point he knew the
sledge route well.
So, as there was nothing else to be done, he turned the dog team
northward, in the hope that he might find the trading post and the old
familiar trail.
The weather was keen, the air was filled with floating rime, which
shimmered and sparkled in the sunshine, and Jimmy's garments were
covered with it, but, plodding disconsolately on and on, his heart heavy
with the tragedy and his thoughts filled with Bobby and the happy years
of comradeship that were ended, he did not feel or heed the cold or
dazzling glitter of the snow, until in mid-afternoon his eyes began to
trouble him, and he realized that snow-blindness was threatening.
Presently, however, the long, wolf-like howl of dogs came down to him
over the ice, and rounding a point of land he discovered, directly ahead
of him, and nestling at the foot of a great barren hill, the white
buildings of the fort. His dogs immediately broke into a run, and a few
moments later he was safe at the post.
The factor and the people were very hospitable and kind to Jimmy, after
the manner of the Coast. They agreed that he had left nothing undone
that he could have done. The tragedy was, after all, an incident of
life, and all in a day's work, and to some extent they reconciled him
with himself, but they could not ease his sorrow.
They would not permit Jimmy to proceed further that night, though at
first he protested that he must, that he might so much the sooner ease
Skipper Ed's anxiety, so far as his own safety was concerned. But the
preceding twenty-four hours had tried his physical powers, and when he
entered the heated post kitchen his eyes became so inflamed that he
consented to stay.
The dogs, which had not received their daily portion the previous
evening, were ravenous, and when they were fed Jimmy stretched his
sleeping bag upon the floor in the kitchen and slipped into it, and
almost immediately fell into deep slumber.
A mild attack of snow blindness held Jimmy prisoner all the next day.
This was exceedingly disappointing. Bright and early the following
morning, however, wearing a pair of smoked goggles to protect his eyes
from the daily increasing sun glare, he set out for home, and only
halted for a little at the cabin of Abraham Moses, the nearest neighbor
of Skipper Ed and Abel Zachariah, where he must needs stop for tea and
bread, else Abraham would feel offended.
It was near sunset when he arrived again at Abel Zachariah's. They met
him as they had met Skipper Ed, and welcomed him warmly, and when they
heard his story of Bobby's disappearance they had no blame for him and
no complaint, but said again that God had sent them Bobby, and God had
called him back again, and God knew best, for He was good. And then
Jimmy left them and hurried eagerly on to the cabin home that so
recently had seemed lost to him forever. How good it looked that cold
winter evening, and when he quietly pushed the door open and silently
entered, and surprised Skipper Ed with his coming, and when Skipper Ed
clasped him in his arms and thanked God over and over again for sparing
his partner, Jimmy sank down in his chair and cried.