Chapter Thirteen.
Unlooked-for Interruptions and Difficulties
No elaborate dissertation is needed to prove that we are ignorant of what the morrow may bring forth, and that the best-laid plans of men are at all times subject to dislocation. It is sufficient here to state that immediately after parting from the Indians, Paul Burns and Captain Trench had their plans and hopes, in regard to exploration, overturned in a sudden and effective though exceedingly simple manner.
On the evening of the day on which their travels were resumed they halted sooner than usual in order to have time to form their camp with some care, for the weather had suddenly become cold, and that night seemed particularly threatening.
Accordingly they selected a spot surrounded by dense bushes, canopied by the branches of a wide-spreading fir-tree, and backed by a precipitous cliff, which afforded complete shelter from a sharp nor’-west gale that was blowing at the time. In this calm retreat they erected a rough-and-ready wall of birch-bark and branches, which enclosed them on all sides except one, where a glorious fire was kindled—a fire that would have roasted anything from a tom-tit to an ox, and the roaring flames of which had to be occasionally subdued lest they should roast the whole encampment.
There, saturated, so to speak, with ruddy light and warmth, they revelled in the enjoyment of a hearty meal and social intercourse until the claims of tired Nature subdued Captain Trench and Oliver, leaving Paul and Hendrick to resume their eager and sometimes argumentative perusal of the Gospel according to John.
At last, they also succumbed to the irresistible influences of Nature, and lay down beside their fellows. Then it was that Nature—as if she had only waited for the opportunity—began to unfold her “little game” for overturning the sleepers’ plans. She quietly opened her storehouse of northern clouds, and silently dropped upon them a heavy shower of snow.
It was early in the season for such a shower, consequently the flakes were large. Had the cold been excessive the flakes would have been small. As it was, they covered the landscape by imperceptible but rapid degrees until everything turned from ghostly grey to ghastly white, which had the effect of lighting, somehow, the darkness of the night.
But in the midst of the effective though silent transformation the camp of our explorers remained unchanged; and the dying embers of the slowly sinking fire continued to cast their dull red glow on the recumbent forms which were thoroughly protected by the spreading fir-tree.
By degrees the morning light began to flow over the dreary scene, and at length it had the effect of rousing Oliver Trench from slumber. With the innate laziness of youth the lad turned on his other side, and was about to settle down to a further spell of sleep when he chanced to wink. That wink sufficed to reveal something that induced another wink, then a stare, then a start into a sitting posture, a rubbing of the eyes, an opening of the mouth, and a succession of exclamations, of which “Oh! hallo! I say!” and “Hi-i-i-i!” were among the least impressive.
Of course every one started up and made a sudden grasp at weapons, for the memory of the recent fight was still fresh.
“Winter!” exclaimed Paul and the captain, in the same breath.
“Not quite so bad as that,” remarked Hendrick, as he stepped out into the snow and began to look round him with an anxious expression; “but it may, nevertheless, put an end to your explorations if the snow continues.”
“Never a bit on’t, man!” exclaimed the captain promptly. “What! d’ye think we are to be frightened by a sprinkling of snow?”
To this Hendrick replied only with a gentle smile, as he returned and set about blowing up the embers of the fire which were still smouldering.
“There is more than a sprinkling, Master Trench,” observed Paul, as he began to overhaul the remnants of last night’s supper; “but I confess it would be greatly against the grain were we to be beaten at this point in our travels. Let us hope that the storm won’t last.”
“Anyhow we can go on till we can’t, daddy,” said Oliver, with a tremendous yawn and stretch.
“Well said, my son; as you once truly remarked, you are a chip of the ancient log.”
“Just so, daddy. Don’t quite finish that marrow bone; I want some of it.”
“There, you young rascal, I leave you the lion’s share,” returned the captain, throwing the bone in question to his son. “But now, Hendrick, what d’ye really think o’ this state of things? Shall we be forced to give in an’ ’bout ship?”
“No one can tell,” answered the hunter. “If the snow stops and the weather gets warm, all will be well. If not, it will be useless to continue our journeying till winter fairly sets in, and the snow becomes deep, and the rivers and lakes are frozen. In which case you must come and stay with me in my island home.”
“You are very good, Hendrick; but don’t let us talk of givin’ up till the masts go by the board. We will carry all sail till then,” said the captain, rather gloomily, for he felt that the hunter knew best.
This first snowfall occurred about the middle of October; there was, therefore, some reasonable prospect that it might melt under an improved state of the weather, and there was also the possibility of the fall ceasing, and still permitting them to advance.
Under the impulse of hope derived from these considerations, they set forth once more to the westward.
The prospect in that direction, however, was not cheering. Mountain succeeded mountain in irregular succession, rugged and bleak—the dark precipices and sombre pine-woods looking blacker by contrast with the newly-fallen snow. Some of the hills were wooded to their summits; others, bristling and castellated in outline, afforded no hold to the roots of trees, and stood out in naked sterility. Everywhere the land seemed to have put on its winter garb, and all day, as they advanced, snow continued to fall at intervals, so that wading through it became an exhausting labour, and Oliver’s immature frame began to suffer, though his brave spirit forbade him to complain.
That night there came another heavy fall, and when they awoke next morning it was found that the country was buried under a carpet of snow full three feet deep.
“Do you admit now, Master Trench, that the masts have gone by the board,” asked Paul, “and that it is impossible to carry sail any longer?”
“I admit nothing,” returned the captain grumpily.
“That’s right, daddy, never give in!” cried Oliver; “but what has Master Hendrick got to say to it?”
“We must turn in our tracks!” said the hunter gravely, “and make for home.”
“Home, indeed!” murmured the captain, whose mind naturally flew back to old England. “If we are to get to any sort of home at all, the sooner we set about making sail for it the better.”
There was something in the captain’s remark, as well as in his tone, which caused a slight flush on Hendrick’s brow, but he let no expression of feeling escape him. He only said—
“You are right, Captain Trench. We must set off with the least possible delay. Will you and your son start off in advance to get something fresh for breakfast while Master Paul and I remain to pack up and bring on our camp equipage? Hunters, you know, should travel light—we will do the heavy work for you.”
The captain was surprised, but replied at once—
“Most gladly, Master Hendrick, will I do your bidding; but as we don’t know what course to steer, won’t we be apt to go astray?”
“There is no fear of that, captain. See you yonder bluff with the bush on the top of it?”
“Where away, Master Hendrick? D’ye mean the one lyin’ to wind’ard o’ that cliff shaped like the side of a Dutch galliot?”
“The same. It is not more than a quarter of a mile off—make straight for that. You’ll be sure to fall in with game of some sort between this and that. Wait there till we come up, for we shall breakfast there. You can keep yourself warm by cutting wood and kindling a fire.”
Rather pleased than otherwise with this little bit of pioneer work that had been given him to do, Trench stepped boldly into the snow, carrying his cross-bow in one hand, and the hatchet over his shoulder with the other. He was surprised, indeed, to find that at the first step beyond the encampment he sank considerably above the knees, but, being wonderfully strong, he dashed the snow aside and was soon hid from view by intervening bushes. Oliver, bearing his bow and bludgeon, followed smartly in his track.
When they were gone Paul turned a look of inquiry on his companion. Hendrick returned the look with profound gravity, but there was a faint twinkle in his eyes which induced Paul to laugh.
“What mean you by this?” he asked.
“I mean that Master Trench will be the better of a lesson from experience. He will soon return—sooner, perhaps, than you expect.”
“Why so—how? I don’t understand.”
“Because,” returned the hunter, “it is next to impossible to travel over such ground in deep snow without snow-shoes. We must make these, whether we advance or retreat. Meanwhile you had better blow up the fire, and I will prepare breakfast.”
“Did you not tell the captain we were to breakfast on the bluff?”
“I did; but the captain will never reach the bluff. Methinks I hear him returning even now!”
The hunter was right. A quarter of an hour had barely elapsed when our sturdy mariner re-entered the encampment, blowing like a grampus and perspiring at every pore! Oliver was close at his heels, but not nearly so much exhausted, for he had not been obliged to “beat the track.”
“Master Hendrick,” gasped the captain, when he had recovered breath, “it’s my opinion that we have only come here to lay down our bones and give up the ghost—ay, and it’s no laughing business; Master Paul, as you’ll find when you try to haul your long legs out of a hole three futt deep at every step.”
“Three futt deep!” echoed Oliver, “why, it’s four futt if it’s an inch—look at me. I’ve been wadin’ up to the waist all the time!”
It need scarcely be said that their minds were much relieved when they were made acquainted with the true state of matters, and that by means of shoes that could be made by Hendrick, they would be enabled to traverse with comparative ease the snow-clad wilderness—which else were impassable.
But this work involved several days’ delay in camp. Hendrick fashioned the large though light wooden framework of the shoes—five feet long by eighteen inches broad—and Oliver cut several deerskins into fine threads, with which, and deer sinews, Paul and the captain, under direction, filled in the net-work of the frames when ready.
“Can you go after deer on such things?” asked the captain one night while they were all busy over this work.
“Ay, we can walk thirty or forty miles a day over deep snow with these shoes,” answered Hendrick.
“Where do the deer all come from?” asked Oliver, pausing in his work to sharpen his knife on a stone.
“If you mean where did the reindeer come from at first, I cannot tell,” said Hendrick. “Perhaps they came from the great unknown lands lying to the westward. But those in this island have settled down here for life, apparently like myself. I have hunted them in every part of the island, and know their habits well. Their movements are as regular as the seasons. The winter months they pass in the south, where the snow is not so deep as to prevent their scraping it away and getting at the lichens on which they feed. In spring—about March—they turn their faces northward, for then the snow begins to be softened by the increased power of the sun, so that they can get at the herbage beneath. They migrate to the north-west of the island in innumerable herds of from twenty to two hundred each—the animals following one another in single file, and each herd being led by a noble stag. Thus they move in thousands towards the hills of the west and nor’-west, where they arrive in April. Here, on the plains and mountains, they browse on their favourite mossy food and mountain herbage; and here they bring forth their young in May or June. In October, when the frosty nights set in, they again turn southward and march back to winter-quarters over the same tracks, with which, as you have seen, the whole country is seamed. Thus they proceed from year to year. They move over the land in parallel lines, save where mountain passes oblige them to converge, and at these points, I regret to say, my kinsmen! the Bethuck Indians, lie in wait and slaughter them in great numbers, merely for the sake of their tongues and other tit-bits.”
“There is no call for regret, Master Hendrick,” said Captain Trench. “Surely where the deer are in such numbers, the killing of a few more or less don’t matter much.”
“I think it wrong, captain, to slay God’s creatures wantonly,” returned the hunter. “Besides, if it is continued, I fear that the descendants of the present race of men will suffer from scarcity of food.”
That Hendrick’s fears were not groundless has been proved in many regions of the earth, where wanton destruction of game in former days has resulted in great scarcity or extinction at the present time.
In a few days a pair of snowshoes for each traveller was completed, and the party was prepared to set out with renewed vigour on their return to the hunter’s home.
Chapter Fourteen.
Tells of a Tremendous Storm and a Strange Shelter, etcetera
Proverbial philosophy teaches us that misfortunes seldom come singly. Newfoundland, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, does not seem to have been a place of refuge from the operation of that law.
On the morning of the day in which the explorers meant to commence the return journey, a storm of unwonted rigour burst upon them, and swept over the land with devastating violence—overturning trees, snapping off mighty limbs, uplifting the new-fallen snow in great masses, and hurling it in wild confusion into space, so that earth and sky seemed to commingle in a horrid chaos.
The first intimation the travellers had of the impending storm was the rending of a limb of the tree under which they reposed. The way in which Oliver Trench received the rude awakening might, in other circumstances, have raised a laugh, for he leaped up like a harlequin, with a glare of sudden amazement, and, plunging headlong away from the threatened danger, buried himself in the snow. From this he instantly emerged with an aspect similar to that of “Father Christmas,” minus the good-natured serenity of that liberal-hearted personage.
“Daddy!” he gasped, “are you there?”
The question was not uncalled for, the captain having made a plunge like that of his son, but unlike his son, having found it difficult to extricate himself quickly.
Paul and Hendrick had also sprung up, but the latter, remaining close to the stem of the tree, kept his eye watchfully on the branches.
“Come here—quick!” he cried—“the stem is our safeguard. Look out!”
As he spoke his voice was drowned in a crash which mingled with the shrieking blast, and a great branch fell to the ground. Fortunately the wind blew it sufficiently to one side to clear the camp. The air was so charged with snow particles that the captain and his son seemed to stagger out of a white mist as they returned to their comrades who were clinging to the weather-side of the tree.
“D’ye think it will go by the board?” asked the captain, as he observed Hendrick’s anxious gaze fixed on the swaying tree.
“It is a good stout stick,” replied his friend, “but the blast is powerful.”
The captain looked up at the thick stem with a doubtful expression, and then turned to Hendrick with a nautical shake of the head.
“I never saw a stick,” he said, “that would stand the like o’ that without fore an’ back stays, but it may be that shoregoin’ sticks are—”
He stopped abruptly, for a terrific crash almost stunned him, as the tree by which they stood went down, tearing its way through the adjacent branches in its fall, and causing the whole party to stagger.
“Keep still!” shouted Hendrick in a voice of stern command, as he glanced critically at the fallen tree.
“Yes,” he added, “it will do. Come here.”
He scrambled quickly among the crushed branches until he stood directly under the prostrate stem, which was supported by its roots and stouter branches. “Here,” said he, “we are safe.”
His comrades glanced upwards with uneasy expressions that showed they did not quite share his feelings of safety.
“Seems to me, Master Hendrick,” roared the captain, for the noise of the hurly-burly around was tremendous, “that it was safer where we were. What if the stem should sink further and flatten us?”
“As long as we stood to windward of it” replied Hendrick, “we were safe from the tree itself, though in danger from surrounding trees, but now, with this great trunk above us, other trees can do us no harm. As for the stem sinking lower, it can’t do that until this solid branch that supports it becomes rotten. Come now,” he added, “we will encamp here. Give me the axe, Oliver, and the three of you help to carry away the branches as I chop them off.”
In little more than an hour a circular space was cleared of snow and branches, and a hut was thus formed, with the great tree-stem for a ridge-pole, and innumerable branches, great and small, serving at once for walls and supports. Having rescued their newly made snow-shoes and brought them, with their other property, into this place of refuge, they sat or reclined on their deerskins to await the end of the storm. This event did not, however, seem to be near. Hour after hour they sat, scarcely able to converse because of the noise, and quite unable to kindle a fire. Towards evening, however, the wind veered round a little, and a hill close to their camp sheltered them from its direct force. At the same time, an eddy in the gale piled up the snow on the fallen tree till it almost buried them; converting their refuge into a sort of snow-hut, with a branchy framework inside. This change also permitted them to light a small fire and cook some venison, so that they made a sudden bound from a state of great discomfort and depression to one of considerable comfort and hilarity.
“A wonderful change,” observed Trench, looking round the now ruddy walls of their curious dwelling with great satisfaction. “About the quickest built house on record, I should think—and the strongest.”
“Yes, daddy, and built under the worst of circumstances too. What puzzles me is that such a tree should have given way at all.”
“Don’t you see, Olly,” said Paul, “that some of its roots are hollow, rotten at the core?”
“Ah! boy—same with men as trees,” remarked the captain, moralising. “Rotten at the core—sure to come down, sooner or later. Lay that to heart, Olly.”
“If ever I do come down, daddy, I hope it won’t be with so much noise. Why, it went off like a cannon.”
“A cannon!” echoed the captain. “More like as if the main-mast o’ the world had gone by the board!”
“What if the gale should last a week?” asked Olly.
“Then we shall have to stay here a week,” returned Hendrick; “but there’s no fear of that. The fiercer the gale the sooner the calm. It won’t delay us long.”
The hunter was right. The day following found the party en route, with a clear sky, bright sun, and sharp calm air. But the art of snow-shoe walking, though easy enough, is not learned in an hour.
“They’re clumsy things to look at—more like small boats flattened than anything else,” remarked the captain, when Hendrick had fastened the strange but indispensable instruments on his feet—as he had already fastened those of the other two.
“Now look at me,” said Hendrick. “I’ll take a turn round of a few hundred yards to show you how. The chief thing you have to guard against is treading with one shoe on the edge of the other, at the same time you must not straddle. Just pass the inner edge of one shoe over the inner edge of the other, and walk very much as if you had no snow-shoes on at all—so.”
He stepped off at a round pace, the broad and long shoes keeping him so well on the surface of the snow that he sank only a few inches.
“Why, it seems quite easy,” observed the captain.
“Remarkably so,” said Paul.
“Anybody can do that,” cried Oliver.
“Now then, up anchor—here goes!” said the captain.
He stepped out valiantly; took the first five paces like a trained walker; tripped at the sixth step, and went headlong down at the seventh, with such a wild plunge that his anxious son, running hastily to his aid, summarily shared his fate. Paul burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, lost his balance, and went down—as the captain said—stern foremost!
It was a perplexing commencement, but the ice having been broken, they managed in the course of a few hours to advance with only an occasional fall, and, before the next day had closed, walked almost as easily as their guide.
This was so far satisfactory. Our three travellers were quite charmed with their proficiency in the new mode of progression, when a sudden thaw set in and damped not only their spirits but their shoes. The netting and lines became flabby. The moccasins, with which Hendrick had supplied them from the bundle he carried for his own use, were reduced to something of the nature of tripe. The damp snow, which when rendered powdery by frost had fallen through the net-work of the shoes, now fell upon it in soft heaps and remained there, increasing the weight so much as to wrench joints and strain muscles, while the higher temperature rendered exertion fatiguing and clothing unbearable.
“I wonder how long I can stand this without my legs coming off,” said poor Oliver, giving way at last to a feeling of despair.
“Seems to me to get hotter and hotter,” growled his father, as he wiped the perspiration from his face with the tail of his coat—having lost the solitary handkerchief with which he had landed.
“I’m glad the thaw is so complete,” said Hendrick, “for it may perhaps clear away the snow altogether. It is too early for winter to begin in earnest. I would suggest now that we encamp again for a few days, to see whether the weather is really going to change; hunt a little, and rest a while. What say you?”
With a sigh of contentment the captain answered, “Amen!” Paul said, “Agreed!” and Oliver cried, “Hurrah!” at the same time throwing his cap in the air.
Two days after that they were enabled to continue the journey on snowless ground, with the unwieldy shoes slung at their backs.
The change, although decidedly an improvement was not perfect, for the ground had been made soft, the rivers and rills had been swollen, and the conditions altogether were rendered much less agreeable than they had been on the outward journey. The travellers enjoyed themselves greatly, notwithstanding, and the captain added many important jottings in what he styled the log-book of his memory as to bearings of salient points, distances, etcetera, while Paul took notes of the fauna and flora, soils, products, and geological features of the country, on the same convenient tablets.
“There can be no doubt about it,” said the latter one morning, as he surveyed the country around him.
“No doubt about what?” asked the captain.
“About the suitableness of this great island for the abode of man,” answered Paul; and then, continuing to speak with enthusiasm, “the indication of minerals is undoubted. See you that serpentine deposit mingled with a variety of other rocks, varying in colour from darkest green to yellow, and from the translucent to the almost transparent? Wherever that is seen, there we have good reason to believe that copper ore will be found.”
“If so,” observed Hendrick, “much copper ore will be found on the sea-coast, on the north side of the island, for I have seen the same rocks in many places there.”
“But there are indications of other metals,” continued Paul, “which I perceive; though my acquaintance with geological science is unfortunately not sufficient to make me certain, still, I think I can see that, besides copper, nickel, lead, and iron may be dug from the mines of Newfoundland; indeed, I should not wonder if silver and gold were also to be found. Of the existence of coal-beds there can be no doubt, though what their extent may be I cannot guess; but of this I am certain, that the day cannot be far distant when the mineral and forest wealth of this land shall be developed by a large and thriving population.”
“It may be as you say, Paul,” remarked Captain Trench, with a dubious shake of the head; “but if you had lived as long as I have, and seen as much of the world and its ways, you wouldn’t be quite so sanguine about the thriving population or the speedy development. You see, hitches are apt to occur in the affairs of men which cause wonderful delays, and tanglements come about that take years to unravel.”
If Captain Trench had been a professional prophet he could hardly have hit the nail more fairly on the head, for he indicated exactly what bad government has actually done for Newfoundland—only he might have said centuries instead of years—for its internal resources, even at the present time, remain to a very great extent undeveloped. However, not being a professional prophet, but merely an ancient mariner, the captain wound up his remark with a recommendation to hoist all sail and lay their course, as there was no saying how long the mild weather would last.
For several days after this they plodded steadily onward, sometimes over the mountains or across the grassy plains, where migrating reindeer supplied them with abundant venison; at other times among lakelets and streams, whose excellent fish and innumerable wildfowl provided them with variety for the table and music for the ear. Now and then they saw the great moose-deer, which rivals the horse in size, and once Hendrick shot one, at a time when they chanced to have consumed their last caribou steak, and happened to enter a great forest without anything for supper in their wallets. For, occasionally, circumstances may render men supperless even when surrounded by plenty.
At last they reached the great lake, with its beautiful islands, where Hendrick had set up his home.
The hunter became very silent as they drew near to its shores.
“You seem anxious,” remarked Paul, as they approached the lake. “Have you reason to fear aught?”
“None—none,” replied his friend quickly; “but I never return after a long absence without feeling anxious.”
A loud halloo soon brought the echoing answer in the shrill voice of little Oscar, whose canoe quickly shot out from the creek. It was speedily followed by the deerskin boat, and, when near enough to be heard, the reply to Hendrick’s anxious inquiry was the gratifying assurance—“All’s well!”