CHAPTER VII
In Which Billy Topsail Hears the Fur Trader's Story of a Jigger and a Cake of Ice in the Wind
"WOULDN'T think I'd been born on Cherry Hill, would you, now?" said the man with the fur cap.
The stranger had been landed at Ruddy Cove from Fortune Harbour. He had been in the far north, he said; and he was now waiting for the mail-boat to take him south. Billy Topsail and the lads of Ruddy Cove cocked their ears for a yarn.
"Fact!" said he, with a nod. "That's where I was born and bred. And do you know how I come to be away up here? No? Well, I'm a fur trader. I'm the man that bought the skin of that silver fox last winter for thirty dollars and sold it for two hundred and fifty. I'd rather be the man that bought it from me and sold it in London for six hundred. But I'm not."
"And you're bound for home, now?" the old skipper asked.
"Yes," he drawled. "I'm bound home for New York to see the folks. I've been away six years, and came nearer to leaving my bones up here in the north last spring than ever I did before. I've done some travelling in my time. You can take me at my word; I have."
The trader laughed uproariously. He was in a voluble mood. The old skipper knew that he needed but little encouragement to tell the story of his escape.
"It makes me think about that old riddle of the corked bottle," he said. "Ever hear it? This is it: If you had a bottle of ginger ale, how would you get the stuff out without breaking the bottle or drawing the cork? Can you answer that?"
"The answer doesn't strike me," said the skipper.
"That's just it," the trader burst out. "The way to do it doesn't 'strike you.' But if you had the bottle in your hands now and wanted the ginger ale, it would 'strike' you fast enough to push the cork in. Well, that was my case. You think of yourself on a little pan of ice, drifting straight out to sea with a strong offshore wind, water all round you and no paddle – just think of yourself in that case, and a way of getting ashore might not 'strike' you. But once you're there – once you're right on that pan of ice, with the hand of death on your collar – you'll think like lightning of all the things you can do. Yes, that was my case."
The listeners said nothing to interrupt the stocky, hard-featured, ill-clad little man while he mused.
"'Don't you be fool enough to try to cross the bay this evening,' says I to myself," he went on.
"But I'm a hundred-mile man, and I'd gone my hundred miles. I can carry grub on my back to last me just that far; and my grub was out. From what I knew of winds and ice, I judged that the ice would be four or five miles out to sea by dawn of the next day. So I didn't start out with the idea that the trip would be as easy as a promenade over Brooklyn Bridge of a moonlight night. Oh, no! I knew what I was doing. But it was a question of taking the risk or dragging myself into the settlement at Racquet Harbour in three days' time as lean as a car-horse from starvation. You see, it was forty miles round that bay and four across; and – my grub was out. Many a man loses his life in these parts by looking at the question in just that way.
"'Oh, no!' says I to myself. 'You'd much better take your chance of starving, and walk round.'
"It wasn't in human nature, though, to do it. Not when I knew that there was grub and a warm fire waiting for me at Racquet Harbour. Says I, 'I'll take the long chance and stand to win.' Don't you run away with the idea that the ice was a level field stretching from shore to shore, fitting the rocks, and kept as neat as a baseball diamond. It wasn't. Some day in the winter the wind had jammed the bay full of big rough chunks – they call them pans in this country – and the frost had stuck them all together. When the spring came, of course the sun began to melt that glue, and the whole floe was just ready to fall apart when I had the bad luck to make the coast. I was a day too late. I knew it. And I knew that the offshore wind would sweep the ice to sea the minute it broke up.
"I made the first hundred yards in ten minutes; the second in fifteen more. In half an hour I'd made half a mile. The ice was rough enough and flimsy enough to take the nerve out of any man. But that wasn't the worst; the worst was that there were hundreds of holes covered with a thin crust of snow – all right to look at, but treacherous. I knew that if I made the mistake of stepping on a crust instead of solid ice, I'd go through and down.
"I had four otter skins, some martens and ten fine fox skins in the pack on my back. To do anything in the water with that handicap was too much for me. So I wasn't at all particular about making time until I found that the night would catch me if I didn't wag along a little faster.
"No, sir!" the trader said. "I didn't want to be caught out there in the dark.
"By good luck, I struck some big pans about half-way over. Then I took to a dog-trot, and left the yards behind me in a way that cheered me up. Just before dusk I got near enough to the other side to feel proud of myself, and I began to think of what a fool I'd have been if I'd taken the shore route. A minute later I changed my mind. I felt the pack moving! Well, in a flash I said good-bye to Cherry Hill and the boys. Not many men are caught twice in a place like that. They never have the second chance.
"There I was, aboard a rotten floe and bound out to the big, lonely ocean at the rate of four miles an hour.
"'Oh, you might as well get ready to go, Jim,' thinks I. But I didn't give up. I loped along shoreward in a way that didn't take snow crust or air-holes into account. And I made the edge of the floe before the black hours of the night had come.
"There was a couple of hundred yards of cold water between me and the shore.
"'This is the time you think more of your life than your fur,' thinks I.
"There was a stray pan or two – little rafts of things – lying off the edge of the floe; and beyond them, scattered between the shore and me, half a dozen other pans were floating. How to get from one to the other was the puzzle. They were fifty or sixty yards apart, most of them, and I had no paddle. It was foolish to think of making a shift with my jacket for a sail; the wind was out, not in, and I had no rudder.
"What had I? Nothing that I could think of. It didn't strike me, as you say. I wish it had.
"'Anyhow,' says I to myself, 'I'll get as far as I can.'
"It was a short leap from the floe to the first pan. I made it easily. The second pan was farther off, but I thought I could jump the water between. So I took off my pack and threw it on the ice beside me. It almost broke my heart to do it, for I'd walked five hundred miles in the dead of winter for that fur; I'd been nearly starved and frozen, and I'd paid out hard-earned money. I put down my pack, took a short run, and jumped like a stag for the second pan.
"I landed on the spot I'd picked out. I can't complain of missing the mark, but instead of stopping there, I shot clear through and down into the water.
"Surprised? I was worse than that. I was dead scared. For a minute I thought I was going to rise under the ice and drown right there.
"How it happened I don't know; but I came up between the pans, and struck out for the one I'd left. I got to the pan, all right, and climbed aboard. There I was, on a little pan of ice, beyond reach of the floe and leaving the shore behind me, and cold and pretty well discouraged.
"There's the riddle of the corked bottle," said the trader, interrupting his narrative. "Now how do I happen to be sitting here?"
"I'm sure I can't tell," said the skipper.
"No more you should," said he, "for you don't know what I carried in my pack. But you see I had the bottle in my hands, and I wanted the ginger ale bad; so I thought fast and hard.
"It struck me that I might do something with my line and jigger.4 Don't you see the chance the barbed steel hooks and the forty fathom of line gave me? When I thought of that jigger I felt just like the man who is told to push the cork in when he can't draw it out. I'd got back to the pan where I'd thrown down my pack, you know; so there was the jigger, right at hand.
"It was getting dark by this time – getting dark fast, and the pans were drifting farther and farther apart.
"It was easy to hook the jigger in the nearest pan and draw my pan over to it; for that pan was five times the weight of the one I was on. The one beyond was about the same size; they came together at the half-way point. Of course this took time. I could hardly see the shore then, and it struck me that I might not be able to find it at all, when I came near enough to cast my jigger for it.
"About fifty yards off was a big pan. I swung the jigger round and round and suddenly let the line shoot through my fingers. When I hauled it in the jigger came too, for it hadn't taken hold. That made me feel bad. I felt worse when it came back the second time. But I'm not one of the kind that gives up. I kept right on casting that jigger until it landed in the right spot.
"My pan crossed over as I hauled in the line. That was all right; but there was no pan between me and the shore.
"'All up!' thinks I.
"It was dark. I could see neither pan nor shore. Before long I couldn't see a thing in the pitchy blackness.
"All the time I could feel the pan humping along towards the open sea. I didn't know how far off the shore was. I was in doubt about just where it was.
"'Is this pan turning round?' thinks I. Well, I couldn't tell; but I thought I'd take a flier at hooking a rock or a tree with the jigger.
"The jigger didn't take hold. I tried a dozen times, and every time I heard it splash the water. But I kept on trying – and would have kept on till morning if I'd needed to. You can take me at my word, I'm not the kind of fool that gives up – I've been in too many tight places for that. So, at last, I gave the jigger a fling that landed it somewhere where it held fast; but whether ice or shore I couldn't tell. If shore, all right; if ice, all wrong; and that's all I could do about it.
"'Now,' thinks I, as I began to haul in, 'it all depends on the fishing line. Will it break, or won't it?'
"It didn't. So the next morning, with my pack on my back, I tramped round the point to Racquet Harbour."
"What was it?" was Billy Topsail's foolish question. "Shore or ice?"
"If it hadn't been shore," said the trader, "I wouldn't be here."
CHAPTER VIII
In the Offshore Gale: In Which Billy Topsail Goes Seal Hunting and is Swept to Sea With the Floe
WHAT befell old Tom Topsail and his crew came in the course of the day's work. Fishermen and seal-hunters, such as the folk of Ruddy Cove, may not wait for favourable weather; when the fish are running, they must fish; when the seals are on the drift-ice offshore in the spring, they must hunt.
So on that lowering day, when the seals were sighted by the watch on Lookout Head, it was a mere matter of course that the men of the place should set out to the hunt.
"I s'pose," Tom Topsail drawled, "that we'd best get under way."
Bill Watt, his mate, scanned the sky in the northeast. It was heavy, cold and leaden; fluffy gray towards the zenith, and black where the clouds met the barren hills.
"I s'pose," said he, catching Topsail's drawl, "that 'twill snow afore long."
"Oh, aye," was the slow reply, "I s'pose 'twill."
Again Bill Watt faced the sullen sky. He felt that the supreme danger threatened – snow with wind.
"I s'pose," he said, "that 'twill blow, too."
"Oh, aye," Topsail replied, indifferently, "snow 'n' blow. We'll know what 'twill do when it begins," he added. "Billy, b'y!" he shouted.
In response Billy Topsail came bounding down the rocky path from the cottage. He was stout for his age, with broad shoulders, long thick arms and large hands. There was a boy's flush of expectation on his face, and the flash of a boy's delight in his eyes. He was willing for adventure.
"Bill an' me'll take the rodney," Topsail drawled. "I s'pose you might's well fetch the punt, an' we'll send you back with the first haul."
"Hooray!" cried Billy; and with that he waved his cap and sped back up the hill.
"Fetch your gaff, lad!" Topsail called after him. "Make haste! There's Joshua Rideout with his sail up. 'Tis time we was off."
"Looks more'n ever like snow," Bill Watt observed, while they waited. "I'm thinkin' 'twill snow."
"Oh, maybe 'twon't," said Topsail, optimistic in a lazy way.
The ice-floe was two miles or more off the coast; thence it stretched to the horizon – a vast, rough, blinding white field, formed of detached fragments. Some of the "pans" were acres in size; others were not big enough to bear the weight of a man; all were floating free, rising and falling with the ground swell.
The wind was light, the sea quiet, the sky thinly overcast. Had it not been for the threat of heavy weather in the northeast, it would have been an ideal day for the hunt. The punt and the rodney, the latter far in the lead, ran quietly out from the harbour, with their little sails all spread. From the punt Billy Topsail could soon see the small, scattered pack of seals – black dots against the white of the ice.
When the rodney made the field, the punts of the harbour fleet had disappeared in the winding lanes of open water that led through the floe. Tom Topsail was late. The nearer seals were all marked by the hunters who had already landed. The rodney would have to be taken farther in than the most venturesome hunter had yet dared to go – perilously far into the midst of the shifting pans.
The risk of sudden wind – the risk that the heavy fragments would "pack" and "nip" the boat – had to be taken if seals were to be killed.
"We got to go right in, Bill," said Topsail, as he furled the rodney's sails.
"I s'pose," was Watt's reply, with a backward glance to the northeast. "An' Billy?"
"'Tis not wise to take un in," Topsail answered, hastily. "We'll have un bide here."
Billy was hailed, and, to his great disappointment, warned to keep beyond the edge of the floe. Then the rodney shot into the lane, with Topsail and Bill Watt rowing like mad. She was soon lost to sight. Billy shipped his sail and paddled to the edge of the ice, to wait, as patiently as might be, for the reappearance of the rodney.
Patience soon gave way to impatience, impatience to anxiety, anxiety to great fear for the lives of his father and the mate, for the offshore gale was driving up; the blue-black clouds were already high and rising swiftly.
At last there came an ominous puff of wind. It swept over the sea from the coast, whipping up little waves in its course – frothy little waves, that hissed. Heavy flakes of snow began to fall. As the wind rose they fell faster, and came driving, swirling with it.
With the fall of the first flakes the harbour fleet came pell-mell from the floe. Not a man among them but wished himself in a sheltered place. Sails were raised in haste, warnings were shouted; then off went the boats, beating up to harbour with all sail set.
"Make sail, lad!" old Elisha Bull shouted to Billy, as his punt swung past.
Billy shook his head. "I'll beat back with father!" he cried.
"You'll lose yourself!" Elisha screamed, as a last warning, before his punt carried him out of hail.
But Billy still hung at the edge of the ice. His father had said, "Bide here till we come out," and "bide" there he would.
He kept watch for the rodney, but no rodney came. Minute after minute flew by. He hesitated. Was it not his duty to beat home? There was still the fair chance that he might be able to make the harbour. Did he not owe a duty to his mother – to himself?
But a crashing noise from the floe brought him instantly to a decision. He knew what that noise meant. The ice was feeling the force of the wind. It would pack and move out to sea. The lane by which the rodney had entered then slowly closed.
In horror Billy watched the great pans swing together. There was now no escape for the boat. The strong probability was that she would be crushed to splinters by the crowding of the ice; that indeed she had already been crushed; that the men were either drowned or cast away on the floe.
At once the lad's duty was plain to him. He must stay where he was. If his father and Bill Watt managed to get to the edge of the ice afoot, who else was to take them off?
The ice was moving out to sea, Billy knew. The pans were crunching, grinding, ever more noisily. But he let the punt drift as near as he dared, and so followed the pack towards the open, keeping watch, ever more hopelessly, for the black forms of the two men.
Soon, so fast did the sea rise, so wild was the wind, his own danger was very great. The ice was like a rocky shore to leeward. He began to fear that he would be wrecked.
Time and again the punt was nearly swamped, but Billy dared not drop the oars to bail. There was something more. His arms, stout and seasoned though they were, were giving out. It would not long be possible to keep the boat off the ice. He determined to land on the floe.
But the sea was breaking on the ice dead to leeward. It was impossible to make a landing there, so with great caution he paddled to the right, seeking a projecting point, behind which he might find shelter. At last he came to a cove. It narrowed to a long, winding arm, which apparently extended some distance into the floe.
There he found quiet water. He landed without difficulty at a point where the arm was no more than a few yards wide. Dusk was then approaching. The wind was bitterly cold, and the snow was thick and blinding.
It would not be safe, he knew, to leave the boat in the water, for at any moment the shifting pans might close and crush it. He tried to lift it out of the water, but his strength was not sufficient. He managed to get the bow on the ice; that was all.
"I'll just have to leave it," he thought. "I'll just have to trust that 'twill not be nipped."
Near by there was a hummock of ice. He sought the lee of it, and there, protected from the wind, he sat down to wait.
Often, when the men were spinning yarns in the cottages of Ruddy Cove of a winter night, he had listened, open-mouthed, to the tales of seal-hunters who had been cast away. Now he was himself drifting out to sea. He had no fire, no food, no shelter but a hummock of ice. He had the bitterness of the night to pass through – the hunger of to-morrow to face.
"But sure," he muttered, with characteristic hopefulness, "I've a boat, an' many a man has been cast away without one."
He thought he had better make another effort to haul the boat on the ice. Some movement of the pack might close the arm where it floated. So he stumbled towards the place.
He stared round in amazement and alarm; then he uttered a cry of terror. The open water had disappeared.
"She's been nipped!" he sobbed. "She's been nipped – nipped to splinters! I've lost meself!"
Night came fast. An hour before, so dense was the storm, nothing had been visible sixty paces away; now nothing was to be seen anywhere. Where was the rodney? Had his father and Bill Watt escaped from the floe by some new opening? Were they safe at home? Were they still on the floe? He called their names. The swish of the storm, the cracking and crunching of the ice as the wind swept it on – that was all that he heard.
For a long time he sat in dull despair. He hoped no longer.
By and by, when it was deep night, something occurred to distract him. He caught sight of a crimson glow, flaring and fading. It seemed to be in the sky, now far off, now near at hand. He started up.
"What's that?" he muttered.
CHAPTER IX
In Which Old Tom Topsail Burns His Punt and Billy Wanders in the Night and Three Lives Hang on a Change of the Wind
MEANWHILE, under the powerful strokes of old Tom Topsail and Bill Watt, the rodney had followed the open leads into the heart of the floe. From time to time Watt muttered a warning; but the spirit of the hunt fully possessed Tom, and his only cry was, "Push on! Push on!"
Seal after seal escaped, while the sky darkened. He was only the more determined not to go back empty-handed.
"I tells you," Watt objected, "we'll not get out. There's the wind now. And snow, man – snow!"
The warning was not to be disregarded. Topsail thought no more about seals. The storm was fairly upon them. His only concern was to escape from the floe. He was glad, indeed, that Billy had not followed them. He had that, at least, to be thankful for.
They turned the boat. Bending to the oars, they followed the lane by which they had entered. Confusion came with the wind and the snow. The lay of the pans seemed to have changed. It was changing every moment, as they perceived.
"Tom," gasped Watt, at last, "we're caught! 'Tis a blind lead we're in."
That was true; the lane had closed. They must seek another exit. So they turned the boat and followed the next lane that opened. It, too, was blocked.
They tried another, selected at random. In that blinding storm no choice was possible. Again disappointment; the lane narrowed to a point. They were nearly exhausted now, but they turned instantly to seek another way. That way was not to be found. The lane had closed behind them.
"Trapped!" muttered Watt.
"Aye, lad," Topsail said, solemnly, "trapped!"
They rested on their oars. Ice was on every hand. They stared into each other's eyes.
Then, for the second time, Watt ran his glance over the shores of the lake in which they floated. He started, then pointed in the direction from which they had come. Topsail needed no word of explanation. The ice was closing in. The pressure of the pack beyond would soon obliterate the lake. They rowed desperately for the nearest shore.
The ice was rapidly closing in. In such cases, as they knew, it often closed with a sudden rush at the end, crushing some pan which for a moment had held it in check.
When the boat struck the ice Watt jumped ashore with the painter. Topsail, leaping from seat to seat, followed instantly. At that moment there was a loud crack, like a clap of thunder. It was followed by a crunching noise.
"It's comin'!" screamed Topsail.
"Heave away!"
They caught the bow, lifted it out of the water, and with a united effort slowly hauled it out of harm's way. A moment later there was no sign of open water.
"Thank God!" gasped Topsail.
By this time the storm was a blizzard. The men had no shelter, and they were afraid to venture far from the boat in search of it. Neither would permit the other to stumble over the rough ice, chancing its pitfalls, for neither cared to be lost from the other.
Now they sat silent in the lee of the upturned boat, with the snow swirling about them; again they ran madly back and forth; yet again they swung their arms and stamped their feet. At last, do what they would, they shivered all the time. Then they sat quietly down.
"I'm wonderful glad Billy is safe home," Watt observed.
"I wisht I was sure o' that," said Topsail. "It looks bad for us, Bill, lad. The ice is drivin' out fast, an' I'm thinkin' 'twill blow steady for a day. It looks wonderful bad for us, an' I'd feel – easier in me mind – about the lad's mother – if I knowed he was safe home."
Late in the night Topsail turned to Watt. He had to nudge him to get his attention. "It's awful cold, Bill," he said. "We got the boat, lad. Eh? We got the boat."
"No, no, Tom! Not yet! We'd be sure doomed without the boat."
Half an hour passed. Again Topsail roused Watt.
"We're doomed if we don't," he said. "We can't stand it till mornin', lad. We can't wait no longer."
Watt blundered to his feet. Without a word he fumbled in the snow until he found what he sought. It was the axe. He handed it to Topsail.
"Do it, Tom!" he said, thickly. "I'm near gone."
Topsail attacked the boat. It was like murder, he thought. He struck blow after blow, blindly, viciously; gathered the splinters, made a little heap of them and set them afire. The fire blazed brightly. Soon it was roaring. The ice all around was lighted up. Above, the snow reflected the lurid glow.
Warmth and a cheerful light put life in the men. They crept as close to the fire as they could. Reason would shut out hope altogether, but hope came to them. Might not the storm abate? Might not the wind change? Might not they be picked up? In this strain they talked for a long time; and meanwhile they added the fuel, splinter by splinter.
"Father! 'Tis you!"
Topsail leaped to his feet and stared.
"'Tis Billy!" cried Watt.
Billy staggered into the circle of light. He stared stupidly at the fire. Then he tottered a step or two nearer, and stood swaying; and again he stared at the fire in a stupid way.
"I seed the fire!" he mumbled. "The punt's nipped, sir – an' I seed the fire – an' crawled over the ice. 'Twas hard to find you."
Tom Topsail and Bill Watt understood. They, too, had travelled rough ice in a blizzard, and they understood.
Billy was wet to the waist. That meant that, blinded by the snow or deceived by the night, he had slipped through some opening in the ice, some crack or hole. The bare thought of that lonely peril was enough to make the older men shudder. But they asked him no questions. They led him to the fire, prodigally replenished it, and sat him down between them. By and by he was so far recovered that he was able to support his father's argument that the wind had not changed.
"Oh, well," replied Watt, doggedly, "you can say what you likes; but I tells you that the wind's veered to the south. 'Twould not surprise me if the pack was drivin' Cape Wonder way."
"No, no, Bill," said Topsail sadly; "there's been no change. We're drivin' straight out. When the wind drops the pack'll go to pieces, an' then – "
Thus the argument was continued, intermittently, until near dawn. Of a sudden, then, they heard a low, far-off rumble. It was a significant, terrifying noise. It ran towards them, increasing in volume. It was like the bumping that runs through a freight-train when the engine comes to a sudden stop.
The pack trembled. There was then a fearful confusion of grinding, crashing sounds. Everywhere the ice was heaving and turning. The smaller pans were crushed; many of the greater ones were forced on end; some were lifted bodily out of the water, and fell back in fragments, broken by their own weight. On all sides were noise and awful upheaval. The great pan upon which the seal-hunters had landed was tipped up – up – up – until it was like the side of a steep hill. There it rested. Then came silence.
Bill Watt was right: the wind had changed; the pack had grounded on Cape Wonder. The three men from Ruddy Cove walked ashore in the morning.
Billy was the first to run up to the house. He went through the door like a gale of wind.
"We're safe, mother!" he shouted.
"I'm glad, dear," said his mother, quietly. "Breakfast is ready."
When Billy was older he learned the trick his mother had long ago mastered – to betray no excitement, whatever the situation.