_In Which Archie Armstrong and Billy Topsail Say Good-bye to Toby
Farr for the Present, and, Bound Down to Our Harbour with Doctor
Luke, Enter Into an Arrangement, From Which Issues the Discovery of
a Mysterious Letter and Sixty Seconds of Cold Thrill_
What happened next was the astonishing meeting of Archie Armstrong and
Billy Topsail in Tom Lute's cottage on Amen Island. The rising blast of
wind that threatened to interrupt Doctor Luke's passage of Ship's Run,
and thus cost Terry Lute the "fiddle finger" he cherished, so dealt with
the floe, at sea, where the men of the _Rough and Tumble_ were at work,
that Archie was cut off from return to the ship. At first the adventure
wore a grave appearance; but Archie knew the coast, and was aware, also,
that the land near which the _Rough and Tumble_ had debarked her crew in
the morning was the land of Amen Island.
That there was an hospitable settlement on Amen Island, Cap'n Saul had
told him. It was towards Amen Island, then, that his endeavour was
directed, when the shifting ice cut him off from the ship and dusk
caught him on the floe. And he had no great difficulty in making the
shore. The floe, in the grip of the wind, drifted towards the land and
came in contact with it before night fell.
Archie had a long, stumbling search for the cottages of Amen. That was
the most trying aspect of his experience. In the end, however, pretty
well worn out, but triumphant, he caught sight of the light in Tom
Lute's cottage; and he knocked on the door and pushed into the kitchen
just when Doctor Luke, having lanced Terry Lute's finger, and having
been informed that Terry Lute's fiddle was a jew's-harp, had joined
Billy Topsail in the hearty laughter that the amazing disclosure
excited.
It was late then. Archie and Billy and Doctor Luke were all feeling the
effect of the physical labour of that stormy night; and when Billy and
Archie had exchanged news in sufficient measure to ease their curiosity,
and when Doctor Luke and Archie, who were old friends, had accomplished
the same satisfying end, and Black Walt and his assistant had departed,
and when Terry Lute and Tom Lute and Terry Lute's mother had recovered
from their delight, the simple household turned in to sleep as best it
could.
In the morning--which means almost immediately after dawn--Archie
Armstrong insisted upon his own way. And his own way was happy and
acceptable. The _Rough and Tumble_ lay offshore. She was within sight
from the window of Tom Lute's cottage. Undoubtedly Cap'n Saul had a
searching party--probably the whole crew-out after Archie Armstrong; and
undoubtedly the old man was in a fever and fury of anxiety--a fury of
anxiety because, no great wind having blown, and the ice having been
driven against the coast, his alarm for Archie's safety need not be
great, whereas the delay caused by Archie's misadventure would surely
arouse a furious impatience.
Consequently Archie sought to relieve both his anxiety and his
impatience; and to this end he set out over the ice, with Billy Topsail
and Doctor Luke, to board the _Rough and Tumble_, where Billy Topsail
was wanting to shake the hand of his old friend, Bill o' Burnt Bay, and
Archie was eager to have Doctor Luke "inspect" Toby Farr and his
grandfather. It was in Archie's mind to "make a man" of Toby.
"Cap'n Saul," said Archie, by and by, "will you be sailing to the
s'uth'ard?"
"A mad question!" Cap'n Saul growled.
"Yes; but, sir----"
"Isn't you got no sense at all? How can I tell where the ice will go?"
Archie grinned.
"It wasn't very bright, sir," he admitted. "Still, Cap'n Saul, is there
any chance----"
"Why?"
"I want to go down with Doctor Luke, sir, to Our Harbour. But I don't
want to be left on the coast until the mail-boat comes north. If you
think you _might_ be in the neighbourhood of Our Harbour, and could send
a boat ashore for me, sir, I'll take a chance."
"I might," Cap'n Saul replied. "An' the way the ice sets, I think I
will. Will that do ye?"
"It will, sir!"
"If the ice goes t' sea----"
"You'll leave me. I understand that."
"I'll leave ye like a rat!"
Archie laughed.
"Billy," said he, gleefully, "I'll go south with you!" And to Cap'n
Saul: "How long will you give me, sir?"
"I'll give you a week."
"Make it ten days, sir?"
"Archie," Cap'n Saul replied, "I thought you was a b'y o' some sense.
How can I say a week or ten days? I'll pick you up if I can. An' that's
all I'll say. What I'm here for is _swiles_. An' swiles I'll have, b'y,
no matter whether you're left on the coast or not."
Archie flushed.
"Cap'n Saul, sir," said he, "I beg pardon. You see, sir, I--I----"
Cap'n Saul clapped him on the back.
"Archie, b'y," said he, putting an arm over the boy's shoulder, "I'll
pick you up if I can. An' if I can't"--Cap'n Saul accomplished a heavy
wink--"there'll be some good reason why I don't. Now, you mark me!"
Upon that understanding Archie packed a seaman's bag and went back to
Amen Island with Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail. First, however, he shook
the hand of Bill o' Burnt Bay, and shook the hand of Toby Farr, and
shook the hand of Jonathan Farr. And Billy Topsail shook hands with
them all, too. Billy Topsail liked the quality of Toby Farr. They were
to go through a gale of wind together--Archie and Billy and Bill and
Jonathan and little Toby Farr. And Billy and Archie were to learn more
of the quality of Toby Farr--to stand awed in the presence of the
courage and nobility of Jonathan Farr.
* * * * *
Thus it came about that Doctor Luke, Billy Topsail and Archie Armstrong,
near dusk, two days later, drove Doctor Luke's dogs into
Bread-and-Butter Tickle, on the way south to Doctor Luke's hospital at
Our Harbour. There was sickness near by--at Round Cove and Explosion
Bight; and as Doctor Luke was in haste, he was in something of a
quandary. Doctor Luke's solution and immediate decision were sufficient.
Billy Topsail was to carry medicine and directions, especially
directions, which had a good deal to do with the virtues of fresh air,
to ease the slight trouble at Explosion Bight, and Doctor Luke would
himself attend to the serious case at Round Cove, setting off at once
and returning before noon of the next day, all being well.
Billy's errand was the longer; it might be two or three days before he
could get back--Explosion Bight lay beyond Poor Luck Barrens--but at any
rate a start for Our Harbour would be made as soon as he got back. As
for Archie Armstrong, he was to kick his heels and feed the dogs at
Bread-and-Butter Tickle--a prospect that he did not greatly enjoy, but
was disposed to make the best of. As it turned out, the issue of the
whole arrangement gave him sixty seconds of thrill that he will never
forget.
In the operation of the plan, returning from Explosion Bight, where he
had executed his directions, dusk of a scowling day caught Billy Topsail
on the edge of the woods. And that was a grave matter--Billy Topsail was
in driven haste. As the white wilderness day had drawn on, from a drab
dawn to a blinding noon, and from noon to the drear, frosty approach of
night, the impression of urgency, in the mystery that troubled him, grew
large and whipped him faster.
When he loped from the timber into the wind, high above the sea, he was
dog-tired and breathless. It was offshore weather then; a black night
threatened; it was blowing in tepid gray gusts from the southwest; a
flutter of wet snow was in the gale. In the pool of ghostly, leaden
dark, below Spear Rock, of Yellow Head, the ice of Skeleton Arm was
wrenched from the coast; and with an accumulation of Arctic bergs and
drift-pans, blown in by the last nor'easter, it was sluggishly moving
into the black shadows of the open sea. And having observed the
catastrophe, in a swift, sweeping flash, Billy Topsail stopped dead on
the ridge of Spear Rock, dismayed and confounded.
To camp on Spear Rock was no incident of his dogged intention.
Bread-and-Butter Tickle, to which a persistent, feverish impression of
urgency, divined from the puzzling character of the incident of the
night before, had driven Billy Topsail since the drab dawn of that day,
lay across the darkening reaches of Skeleton Arm. In the snug basin,
beyond the heads of the narrows, the lamps were lighted in the cottages
of the place. It was a twinkling, beckoning hospitality; it invited
Billy Topsail to supper and to bed--to the conclusion of his haste and
to the relief of his mystification.
But on the Labrador coast, as elsewhere, the longest way round is often
the shortest way home. It was two miles across Skeleton Arm to
Bread-and-Butter Tickle, on a direct line from Spear Head; it was four
miles alongshore to Rattle Water Inlet, at the head of Skeleton Arm, and
eight from Rattle Water to the lights of Bread-and-Butter. Billy Topsail
reflected upon the discrepancy--the flurry of snow, too, and the swift
approach and thick quality of the night; and having surveyed the ice,
the fragments of which seemed still to be sufficiently in contact for
crossing, he clambered down Spear Head to the shore of the sea.
"Can I cross?" he wondered.
After further reflection:
"I don't know," he concluded.
What mystified Billy Topsail, and drove and challenged him, as he had
never been mystified and driven and challenged before, was a letter.
Billy Topsail had come through the scrub timber and barrens beyond the
first wild hills of Long-Age Inlet; and having came to the fork in the
trail from Run-By-Guess to Poor Luck Barrens, where he was to camp for
the night, he had been confronted by a new-cut stick, stoutly upright in
the snow of the trail, and a flutter of red flannel rag, and a letter,
snapped in the cleft head of the stick.
That the solitary wilderness of his journey should be so concerned with
the outport world of that coast as to produce a letter was amazing; and
that the letter should present itself, in the nick of time, where,
probably, no other traveller except the mail-man had passed since the
first snow fell, and that a fluttering flannel rag should declare its
whereabouts, as though confidently beseeching instant conveyance to its
destination, was more stimulating to Billy Topsail's reflection than
mere amazement could be.
"Now," thought he, "what's this?"
It was darkly, vitally mysterious.
"'Tis the queerest thing ever I knowed!"
The letter was a folded brown paper, sealed tight, doubtless with a
paste of flour and water; and it was inscribed in an illiterate scrawl:
BREDNBUTR--which Billy Topsail had the wit to decipher at once.
Bread-and-Butter--nobody in particular at Bread-and-Butter; anybody at
all at Bread-and-Butter. Need was signified; haste was besought--a
letter in a cleft stick, left to do its own errand, served by its own
resources, with a fluttering red flannel rag to arrest and entreat the
traveller.
Obviously it was intended for the mail-man. But the mail-man, old Bob
Likely, with his long round--the mail-man, where was he? Billy Topsail
did not open the letter; it was sealed--it was an inviolate mystery.
Fingering it, scrutinizing it, in astonished curiosity, he reflected,
however, upon the coincidence of its immediate discovery--the tracks
were fresh in the snow and the brown paper was not yet weather-stained;
and so remarkable did the coincidence appear that he was presently
obsessed with the impulse to fulfill it.
He pushed back his cap in bewilderment.
"Jus' seems t' me," he reflected, gravely, "as if I was _meant_ t' come
along an' find this letter."
It was, truly, a moving coincidence.
"I ought t' be shot," Billy Topsail determined, "if I doesn't get this
here letter t' Bread-and-Butter the morrow night!"