THE WILD DOGS AGAIN.
Aleck's hand alone was shown; and though he held both of his arms as
high as he could, the other side had the majority, and would not
accept his resignation.
"Suppose we see just exactly what we have in the way of provisions,"
Katy suggested. "It won't take long to make out the list," she added,
with a grim little smile.
They began at once, and the small housewife wrote down the list as
fast as the stores were examined, guessing at the weights. There were
found about eleven pounds of dried beef; bacon, one "side;" flour,
about six pounds; corn-meal, ten pounds; beans, three pounds; coffee,
two pounds; tea, a quarter of a pound; chocolate, half a cake; sugar,
three pounds; small quantities of salt, pepper, soda, and so on; some
crumbs of crackers and cookies in the bottom of a bag; a small piece
of dried yeast; and a few swallows of the brandy that had been so
useful at the time of Aleck's accident on the drifting ice.
They had nearly all the bedding, cooking utensils, and tools with
which they had started three weeks before; but the oil for their
lantern and their matches were nearly used up or lost; their powder
was low, for part of it had been spoiled by water; their clothes were
badly worn; and their only canvas, since the loss of their tent, was
the small "spare piece."
"It's plain," said Aleck, as this overhauling was finished, "that we
must put ourselves upon a regular allowance. The provisions won't last
us a week unless we save them carefully."
"And it's plain that we must raise some more, so I reckon I'd better
get to work at bird-traps."
"Yes, the sooner the better. As for me, I want to learn all I can
about the island. There may be something of use to us at the other
end, so I shall take a long walk, and see what I can find."
"Mayn't I go with you?" Jim asked, eagerly.
"Yes, Youngster, if you think you can stand it."
"No trouble about that," replied the little fellow, courageously. He
had grown very manly during the past month.
The brothers started off, taking the gun with them, and saying that
they would be back about three o'clock.
As soon as they had gone Tug set about his traps in one corner of the
house, behind the stove, while Katy went to work to make the hut a
little more homelike.
The cabin was about twelve feet square, and one side was the smooth
face of a great rock, against which was heaped the rude chimney of mud
and stones. In front of this the stove was placed, and behind it, on
the side of the room farthest from the door, the fishermen had built a
bunk.
"You must call that your bedroom," Tug said, and he helped Katy to set
up in front of it poles sustaining a curtain made of a shawl.
"Now," said the lad, when this had been arranged, "you must have a
mattress."
So, taking the axe, he went out, and soon came back with a great
armful of hemlock boughs, and then a second one, with which he heaped
the bunk, laying them all very smoothly, and making a delightful bed.
"I'm thinkin' we'll have to fix some more bunks for ourselves," said
the boy, as he tried this springy couch. "That's a heap better 'n the
soft side of a plank."
Then with a hemlock broom Katy swept the floor, and spread down the
canvas as a carpet. Finding in her little trunk some clothing wrapped
in an old _Harper's Weekly_, she cut out the pictures and tacked them
up, and finally she washed the grimy window to let more light in, so
that the rough little house soon came to look quite warm and cosey.
Meanwhile Tug, getting out his few tools, had made the triggers of
half a dozen such box-traps as they had caught snow-birds with when
living on the ice, and one other queer little arrangement, of sticks
delicately balanced, an upright one in the middle bearing at its top a
bit of red rag:
"What in the world is _that_?" Katy inquired with much curiosity.
"Oh, it's a bit of a contrivance to stand over a hole in the ice where
I propose to place a 'set' line for fish--that is, you know, a line
that I bait and leave set for a while, trusting to luck to catch
something. The minute a fish gets the hook through his lips and begins
to flop around, he will set this flag a-fluttering and so let me know
it. I might make him ring a little bell if I had one."
"I should say," Katy remarked laughingly, "that to make a captured and
dying fish ring his own funeral knell was adding insult to injury."
At length Tug pulled on his overcoat and announced that he was going
to look for a good fishing-place.
He was gone nearly an hour, during which Katy busied herself in
mending her sadly torn dress, and in thinking. But the latter was by
no means a pleasant occupation, and she was glad to see Tug come back,
rubbing his ears, for the day was a cold one.
"I think I have found a real likely place for fishing," he told her.
"There is a little cove the other side of this thicket, with a marsh
around it, and a pretty narrow entrance. I reckon the water's deep
enough in there for fish to be skulking, and I dropped my line right
in the middle. I set the traps near here, but didn't see any birds."
"Do you think--" Katy stopped suddenly, laying one hand on Tug's arm,
and holding up the other warningly, while her face grew pale. Rex, who
had been lying by the stove quietly licking his injured paw, rose up
and growled deeply.
"There! Did you not hear it?"
"I did. It's them pesky dogs," cried Tug, and hurried to the window,
while Rex began to bark furiously. "There are the boys on the hill
backing down, and two--no, three--dogs following them. Where's that
axe? I'll fix 'em!"
And before Katy could quite understand what was the matter, the boy
had burst out, and was tearing up the hill to the support of his
friends. Rex wanted to go too, but Katy held him fast, as she stood
watching the boys flourishing their weapons, and frightening the dogs
back, while they slowly retreated. As they came nearer to the house
the animals ceased pursuing, and relieved their disappointment by
savage barks and prolonged howls.
"Well," exclaimed Tug, in the country speech he always used when
excited, "I allow them curs are the most or'nary critters I ever
see!"
"They followed us all the way from the other side of the neck," said
Jim, dropping limp into a broken-legged chair, which tumbled him over
backward.
"Where did you go, and what did you see?" was Katy's anxious question,
choking down her laughter at the plaintive Youngster's accident.
Aleck then told them that from the highest point of the hill he could
study the whole island, which was everywhere surrounded by ice, and
that eastward he could see what he thought was another island several
miles away; but that to the southward it was too misty for a long
sight. Going on down the hill, they crossed a neck or isthmus of sand
and rocks between two marshy bays, and entered some woods, which
seemed to cover pretty much all the rest of the island. Pushing
through this, and gathering a good many dried grapes, which were worth
a hungry man's attention if he had plenty of time, they reached the
shore somewhere near the farther end of the island without finding any
signs that anybody had ever been there before. On the shore, however,
by a cove, they found a tumbled-down shanty, and a little clearing
where once had been a camp. They were going on still farther, when
suddenly they were attacked by the three dogs, and thought it best to
retreat. The dogs followed, and they had to fight them off all the
way.
"One of them was a giant of a mastiff," said Aleck, "and we were
more afraid of him than of the smaller ones, which seemed to be two
well-grown pups. I think these dogs must have been left here last
summer by somebody. There seems to be four of them altogether--two old
ones and two young ones--though we have never seen more than three at
once. How they have managed to live beats me. I don't see anything for
them to eat. I wish you had some bullets, Tug. We never can hurt 'em
much with small shot."
[Illustration: ATTACKED BY THE DOGS.]
"They'll steal everything from the traps, too," Jim piped in. "By the
way, Tug, have you set any yet?"
Then Tug told what he had been doing, and said he must go before it
became dark and see if anything had been taken. So, wrapping himself
up, he took the gun and went off, while Aleck and Jim gathered a
supply of wood for the night, and Katy began to get supper. By the
time this was ready, and the red glare of a threatening sunset had
tinged the snow and suffused the clouds with crimson, Tug came back,
bringing nothing at all. It was not a very merry party, therefore,
that sat around the table that evening listening to the doleful cries
of the outcast dogs, which still kept watch on the hillside.