_In Which the Sudden Death of Cracker is Contemplated as a Thing to
Be Desired, Billy Topsail's Whip Disappears, a Mutiny is Declared
and the Dogs Howl in the Darkness_
Past twelve o'clock and the night as black as a wolf's throat, with the
wind blowing a forty-mile gale, thick and stifling with snow, and the
ice broken up in ragged pans of varying, secret area--it was no time for
any man to stir abroad from the safe place he occupied. There were
patches of open water forming near by, and lanes of open water widening
and shifting with the drift and spreading of the ice; and somewhere
between the cliffs and the moving pack, which had broken away from them,
there was a long pitfall of water in the dark. The error of putting the
dogs in the traces and attempting to win the shore in a forlorn dash did
not even present itself to Billy Topsail's experienced wisdom. Billy
Topsail would wait for dawn, to be sure of his path and direction; and
meantime--there being no occasion for action--he got back into his
wolfskin bag and settled himself for sleep.
It was not hard to go to sleep. Peril of this sort was familiar to Billy
Topsail--precarious situations, with life at stake, created by wind,
ice, reefs, fog and the sea. There on the ice the situation was
completely disclosed and beyond control. Nothing was to be manipulated.
Nothing threatened, at any rate, for the moment. Consequently Billy
Topsail was not afraid. Had he discovered himself all at once alone in a
city; had he been required to confront a garter snake--he had never
clapped eyes on a snake----
* * * * *
Placidly reflecting on the factors of danger to be dealt with
subsequently, Billy Topsail caught ear, he thought, of a sob and whimper
from the midst of Teddy Brisk's dogskin robes. This was the little
fellow's first full-fledged adventure. He had been in scrapes
before--the little dangers of the harbour and the adjacent rocks and
waters and wilderness; gusts of wind; the lap of the sea; the confusion
of the near-by back country, and the like of that; but he had never been
cast away like the grown men of Tight Cove. And these passages, heroic
as they are, and stimulating as they may be to the ambition of the
little fellows who listen o' winter nights, are drear and terrifying
when first encountered.
Teddy Brisk was doubtless wanting his mother. Perhaps he sobbed. Yet he
had concealed his fear and homesickness from Billy Topsail; and that was
stoicism enough for any lad of his years--even a lad of the Labrador.
Billy Topsail offered him no comfort. It would have shamed the boy to
comfort him openly. Once ashore again Teddy Brisk would want to boast,
like his elders, and to spin his yarn:
"Well now, lads, there we was, ecod! 'way out there on the ice, me 'n'
Billy Topsail; an' the wind was blowin' a gale from the sou'west, an'
the snow was flyin' as thick as ever you seed the snow fly, an' the ice
was goin' out t' sea on the jump. An' I says t' Billy: 'I'm goin' t'
sleep, Billy--an' be blowed t' what comes of it!' An' so I falled asleep
as snug an' warm; an' then----"
Billy Topsail ignored the sob and whimper from the depths of the dogskin
robes.
"The lad haves t' be hardened," he reflected.
* * * * *
Dawn was windy. It was still snowing--a frosty mist of snow. Billy
Topsail put the dogs in the traces and stowed Teddy Brisk away in the
komatik. The dogs were uneasy. Something out of the way? What the
mischief was the matter? They came unwillingly. It seemed they must be
sensing a predicament. Billy Topsail whipped them to their work and
presently they bent well enough to the task.
Snow fell all that day. There were glimpses of Ginger Head. In a rift of
the gale Teddy Brisk caught sight of the knob of the Scotchman's
Breakfast.
Always, however, the way ashore was barred by open water. When Billy
Topsail caught sight of the Scotchman's Breakfast for the last time it
was in the southwest. This implied that the floe had got beyond the
heads of the bay and was moving into the waste reaches of the open sea.
At dusk Billy had circled the pan twice--hoping for chance contact with
another pan, to the east, and another, and still another; and thus a
path to shore. It was a big pan--a square mile or more as yet. When the
pinch came, if the pinch should come, Billy thought, the dogs would not
be hampered for room.
Why not kill the dogs? No; not yet. They were another man's dogs. In
the morning, if the wind held offshore----
Wind and snow would fail. There would be no harsher weather. Billy
Topsail made a little fire with his last billets of birchwood. He boiled
the kettle and spread a thick slice of bread with a meager discoloration
of molasses for Teddy Brisk. What chiefly interested Teddy Brisk was the
attitude of the dogs. It was not obedient. There was swagger in it. A
crack of the whip sent them leaping away, to be sure; but they intruded
again at once--and mutinously persisted in the intrusion.
Teddy Brisk put out a diffident hand towards Smoke. Smoke was an
obsequious brute. Ashore he would have been disgustingly grateful for
the caress. Now he would not accept it at all. He snarled and sprang
away. It was a defiant breach of discipline. What was the matter with
the dogs? They had gone saucy all at once. The devil was in the dogs.
Nor would they lie down; they withdrew, at last, in a pack, their hunger
discouraged, and wandered restlessly in the failing light near by.
Teddy Brisk could not account for this singular behaviour.
It alarmed him.
"Ah, well," said Billy Topsail, "they're all savage with hunger."
"Could you manage with nine, Billy?"
Billy Topsail laughed.
"With ease, my son," said he, "an' glad of it!"
"Is you strong enough t' kill a dog?"
"I'll find that out, Teddy, when the time comes."
"I was 'lowin' that one dog would feed the others an' keep un mild till
we gets ashore."
"I've that selfsame thing in mind."
Teddy said eagerly:
"Kill Cracker, Billy!"
"Cracker! Already? 'Twould be sheer murder."
"Aye, kill un now, Billy--ah, kill un right away now, won't you, b'y?
That dog haves a grudge on me. He've been watchin' me all day long."
"Ah, no! Hush now, Teddy!"
"I knows that dog, Billy!"
"Ah, now! The wind'll change afore long. We'll drift ashore--maybe in
the mornin'. An then----"
"He've his eye on me, Billy!"
Billy Topsail rose.
"You see my whip anywhere?"
"She's lyin' for'ard o' the komatik."
"She's not."
"She was."
"She've gone, b'y!"
"Ecod! Billy, Cracker haves her!"
It was not yet dark. Cracker was sitting close. It was an attitude of
jovial expectation. He was on his haunches--head on one side and tail
flapping the snow; and he had the walrus whip in his mouth. Apparently
he was in the mood to pursue a playful exploit. When Billy Topsail
approached he retreated--a little; and when Billy Topsail rushed he
dodged, with ease and increasing delight. When Billy Topsail whistled
him up and patted to him, and called "Hyuh! Hyuh!" and flattered him
with "Good ol' dog!" he yielded nothing more than a deepened attention
to the mischievous pleasure in hand.
Always he was beyond reach--just beyond reach. It was tantalizing.
Billy Topsail lost his temper. This was a blunder. It encouraged the
dog. To recover the whip was an imperative precaution; but Billy could
not accomplish it in a temper. Cracker was willful and agile and
determined; and when he had tired--it seemed--of his taunting game, he
whisked away, with the pack in chase, and was lost to sight in the gale.
It fell dark then; and presently, far away a dog howled, and there was
an answering howl, and a chorus of howls. They were gone for good. It
was a mutiny. Billy knew that his authority had departed with the symbol
of it.
He did not see the whip again.