JOURNEY RESUMED--THE HUNTERS MEET WITH BEARS AND HAVE A GREAT FIGHT, IN
WHICH THE DOGS ARE SUFFERERS--A BEAR'S DINNER--MODE IN WHICH ARCTIC
ROCKS TRAVEL--THE ICE-BELT.
In the abating of the great storm, referred to in the last chapter, the
hunters sought to free themselves from their snowy prison, and succeeded
in burrowing, so to speak, upwards, after severe labour, for the hut was
buried in drift which the violence of the gale had rendered extremely
compact.
O'Riley was the first to emerge into the upper world. Having dusted the
snow from his garments, and shaken himself like a Newfoundland dog, he
made sundry wry faces, and gazed round him with the look of a man that
did not know very well what to do with himself.
"It's a quare place, it is, intirely," he remarked, with a shake of the
head that betokened intense sagacity, while he seated himself on a mound
of snow and watched his comrades as they busied themselves in dragging
their sleeping-bags and cooking utensils from the cavern they had just
quitted. O'Riley seemed to be in a contemplative mood, for he did not
venture any further remark, although he looked unutterable things as he
proceeded quietly to fill his little black pipe.
"Ho, O'Riley! lend a hand, you lazy fellow," cried Fred; "work first and
play afterwards, you skulker."
"Sure that same is what I'm doin'," replied O'Riley with a bland smile
which he eclipsed in a cloud of smoke. "Haven't I bin workin' like a
naagur for two hours to git out of that hole, and ain't I playin' a tune
on me pipe now? But I won't be cross-grained. I'll lind ye a hand av
ye behave yerself. It's a bad thing to be cross-grained," he continued,
pocketing his pipe and assisting to arrange the sledge; "me owld
grandmother always towld me that, and she was wise, she wos, beyand
ordn'r. More like Salomon nor anything else."
"She must have directed that remark specially to you, I think," said
Fred--"let Dumps lead, West, he's tougher than the others,--did she not,
O'Riley?"
"Be no manes. It wos to the pig she said it. Most of her conversation
(and she had a power of it) wos wid the pig, and many's the word o' good
advice she gave it, as it sat in its usual place beside the fire
forenint her; but it was all thrown away, it wos, for there wosn't
another pig in all the length o' Ireland as had sich a will o' its own;
and it had a screech, too, when it wasn't plaazed, as bate all the steam
whistles in the world, it did. I've often moralated on that same, and
I've noticed that as it is wid pigs, so it is wid men and women--some of
them at laste--the more advice ye give them, the less they take."
"Down, Poker; quiet, good dog!" said West, as he endeavoured to restrain
the ardour of the team, which, being fresh and full fed, could scarcely
be held in by the united efforts of himself and Meetuck while their
companions lashed their provisions, etcetera, on the sledge.
"Hold on, lads!" cried Fred, as he fastened the last lashing. "We'll be
ready in a second. Now, then, jump on, two of you! Catch hold of the
tail-line, Meetuck! All right!"
"Hall right!" yelled the Esquimaux, as he let go the dogs and sprang
upon the sledge.
The team struggled and strained violently for a few seconds in their
efforts to overcome the _vis inertiae_ of the sledge, and it seemed as
if the traces would part, but they were made of tough walrus hide, and
held on bravely, while the heavy vehicle gradually fetched way, and at
length flew over the floes at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour.
Travelling, however, was not now quite as agreeable as it had been when
they set out from the ship, for the floes were swept bare in some places
by the gale, while in other places large drifts had collected, so that
the sledge was either swaying to and fro on the smooth ice, and swinging
the dogs almost off their feet, or it was plunging heavily through banks
of soft snow.
As the wind was still blowing fresh, and would have been dead against
them had they attempted to return by a direct route to the ship, they
made for the shore, intending to avail themselves of the shelter
afforded by the ice-belt. Meanwhile the carcass of the walrus, at least
as much of it as could not be packed on the sledge, was buried in the
hut, and a spear planted above it to mark the spot.
"Hah! an' it's cowld," said O'Riley, wrapping himself more closely in
his fur jumper as they sped along. "I wish we wos out o' the wind, I
do."
"You'll have your wish soon, then," answered West, "for that row of
icebergs we're coming to will shelter us nearly all the way to the
land."
"Surely you are taking us too much off to the right, Meetuck," said
Fred; "we are getting farther away from the ship."
"No fee. Be win' too 'trong. We turn hup 'long shore very quick,
soon--ha!"
Meetuck accompanied each word with a violent nod of his head, at the
same time opening and shutting his mouth and winking with both eyes,
being apparently impressed with the conviction that such contortions of
visage rendered his meaning more apparent.
"Look! look! ho! Nannook, nannook!" (a bear, a bear!) whispered the
Esquimaux with sudden animation, just as they gained the lee of the
first iceberg.
The words were unnecessary, however, for the whole party were looking
ahead with the most intense eagerness at a bear which their sudden
advent had aroused from a nap in the crevice of the iceberg. A little
cub was discerned a moment after, standing by her side, and gazing at
the intruders with infantine astonishment. While the muskets were being
loosened and drawn out, Meetuck let slip all the dogs, and in a few
seconds they were engaged in active warfare with the enemy.
"Oh! musha! Dumps is gone intirely!" The quadruped referred to was
tossed to a height of about thirty feet, and alighted senseless upon the
ice. The bear seized him with her teeth and tossed him with an
incredibly slight effort. The other dogs, nothing daunted by the fate
of their comrade, attacked the couple in the rear, biting their heels,
and so distracting their attention that they could not make an energetic
attack in any direction. Another of the dogs, however, a young one,
waxing reckless, ventured too near the old bear, and was seized by the
back, and hurled high into the air, through which it wriggled violently,
and descended with a sounding whack upon the ice. At the same moment a
volley from the hunters sent several balls into the carcass of both
mother and cub; but, although badly wounded, neither of them evinced any
sign of pain and exhaustion as they continued to battle with the
remaining dogs.
The dogs that had already fallen in the fray had not been used to
bear-hunting--hence their signal defeat; but this was not the case with
the others, all of which were old campaigners; and Poker especially,
although not old in years, was a practical fighter, having been trained
not to attack but to harass. The systematic and steady way in which
they advanced before the bear, and retired, right and left, leading her
into a profitless pursuit, was very interesting to witness. Another
volley from the hunters caused them to make off more rapidly, and
wounded the cub severely, so much so that in a few minutes it began to
flag. Seeing this, the mother placed it in front of her, and urged it
forward with her snout so quickly that it was with the utmost difficulty
the men could keep up with them. A well-directed shot, however, from
Fred Ellice brought the old bear to the ground; but she rose instantly,
and again advanced, pushing her cub before her, while the dogs continued
to embarrass her. They now began to fear that, in spite of dogs and
men, the wounded bears would escape, when an opportune crack in the ice
presented itself, into which they both tumbled, followed by the yelping,
and, we may add, limping, dogs. Before they could scramble up on the
other side, Meetuck and Fred, being light of foot, gained upon them
sufficiently to make sure shots.
"There they go," cried Fred, as the she-bear bounced out of the crack
with Poker hanging to her heels. Poker's audacity had at last
outstripped his sagacity, and the next moment he was performing a
tremendous somersault. Before he reached the ice, Meetuck and Fred
fired simultaneously, and when the smoke cleared away, the old bear was
stretched out in death. Hitherto the cub had acted exclusively on the
defensive, and entrusted itself entirely to the protection of its dam,
but now it seemed to change its character entirely. It sprang upon its
mother's body, and, assuming an attitude of extreme ferocity, kept the
dogs at bay, snapping and snarling right and left until the hunters came
up.
For the first time since the chase began, a feeling of intense pity
touched Fred's heart, and he would have rejoiced at that moment had the
mother risen up, and made her escape with her cub. He steeled his
heart, however, by reflecting that fresh provisions were much wanted on
board the _Dolphin_; still, neither he nor his shipmates could bring
themselves to shoot the gallant little animal, and it is possible that
they might have made up their minds to allow it to escape after all, had
not Meetuck quietly ended their difficulty by putting a ball through its
heart.
"Ah, then, Meetuck!" said O'Riley, shaking his head as they examined
their prize, "ye're a hard-hearted spalpeen, ye are, to kill a poor
little baby like that in cowld blood. Well, it's yer natur', an' yer
trade, so I s'pose it's all right."
The weight of this bear, which was not of the largest size, was
afterwards found to be above five hundred pounds, and her length was
eight feet nine inches. The cub weighed upwards of a hundred pounds,
and was larger than a Newfoundland dog.
The operation of cutting out the entrails, preparatory to packing on the
sledge, was now commenced by Meetuck, whose practised hand applied the
knife with the skill, though not with the delicacy, of a surgeon.
"She has been a hungry bear, it seems," remarked Fred, as he watched the
progress of the work, "if we may judge from the emptiness of her
stomach."
"Och, but she's had a choice morsel, if it was a small wan!" exclaimed
O'Riley in surprise, as he picked up a plug of tobacco. On further
examination being made, it was found that this bear had dined on
raisins, tobacco, pork, and adhesive plaster! Such an extraordinary
mixture of articles, of course, led the party to conclude that either
she had helped herself to the stores of the _Dolphin_ placed on Store
Island, or that she had fallen in with those of some other vessel. This
subject afforded food for thought and conversation during the next hour
or two, as they drove towards the ship along the ice-belt of the shore.
The ice-belt referred to is a zone of ice which extends along the shore
from the unknown regions of the north. To the south it breaks up in
summer and disappears altogether, but, in the latitude which our
travellers had now reached, it was a permanent feature of the scenery
all the year round, following the curvatures and indentations of bays
and rivers, and increasing in winter or diminishing in summer, but never
melting entirely away. The surface of this ice-belt was covered with
immense masses of rock many tons in weight, which had fallen from the
cliffs above. Pointing to one of these, as they drove along, West
remarked to Fred:
"There is a mystery explained, sir; I have often wondered how huge
solitary stones, that no machinery of man's making could lift, have come
to be placed on sandy shores where there were no other rocks of any kind
within many miles of them. The ice must have done it, I see."
"True, West, the ice, if it could speak, would explain many things that
now seem to us mysterious, and yonder goes a big rock on a journey that
may perhaps terminate at a thousand miles to the south of this."
The rock referred to was a large mass that became detached from the
cliffs and fell, as he spoke, with a tremendous crash upon the ice-belt,
along which it rolled for fifty yards. There it would lie all winter,
and in spring the mass of ice to which it was attached would probably
break off and float away with it to the south, gradually melting until
it allowed the rock to sink to the bottom of the sea, or depositing it,
perchance, on some distant shore, where such rocks are not wont to lie--
there to remain an object of speculation and wonderment to the unlearned
of all future ages.
Some of the bergs close to which they passed on the journey were very
fantastically formed, and many of them were more than a mile long, with
clear, blue, glassy surfaces, indicating that they had been but recently
thrown off from the great glacier of the north. Between two of these
they drove for some time before they found that they were going into a
sort of blind alley.
"Sure the road's gittin' narrower," observed O'Riley, as he glanced up
at the blue walls, which rose perpendicularly to a height of sixty feet
on either hand. "Have a care, Meetuck, or ye'll jam us up, ye will."
"'Tis a pity we left the ice-belt," remarked Fred, "for this rough work
among the bergs is bad for man and dog. How say you, Meetuck, shall we
take to it again when we get through this place?"
"Faix, then, well niver git through," said O'Riley, pointing to the end
of the chasm, where a third iceberg had entirely closed the opening.
The Esquimaux pulled up, and, after advancing on foot a short way to
examine, returned with a rueful expression on his countenance.
"Ha! no passage, I suppose?" said Fred.
"Bad luck to ye," cried O'Riley, "won't ye spaake?"
"No rod--muss go back," replied Meetuck, turning the dogs in the
direction whence they had come, and resuming his place on the sledge.
The party had to retrace their steps half a mile in consequence of this
unfortunate interruption, and return to the level track of the ice-belt,
which they had left for a time and taken to the sea-ice, in order to
avoid the sinuosities of the land. To add to their misfortunes, the
dogs began to flag, so that they were obliged to walk behind the sledge
at a slow pace, and snow began to fall heavily. But they pressed
forward manfully, and, having regained the shore-ice, continued to make
their way northward towards the ship, which was now spoken of by the
endearing name of home.