But I cannot repeat all the strangers told them about the manners and customs of their countrymen, the dress of the men and women, their fishing and hunting exploits, their fierce though petty wars with other tribes, and the wonderful life they lead throughout the summer and during the long, drear, sunless season of winter.
“Ah!” said Rory, with a bit of a sigh, “I do like to hear these men talk about their wild land in the Far West. We must come again and make them tell us a deal more. I’ve half a mind to set out with them when they return, and live among them for some months. I say, Ray, wouldn’t it be glorious to go surging over the ice-fields drawn by a hundred fleet-footed hounds?”
“Drawn by a hundred hounds!” cried Allan, laughing. “Draw it mild, Rory.”
“Well,” said Rory, “more or less, you know.”
“Besides,” Ralph put in, “these are not hounds, Rory; there is more of the wolf about them than the hound.”
“Och, botheration?” replied Rory; “you’re too particular. But if I went with these men, and dwelt among their tribes for a time, then I’d go to press when I came back to old England.”
“A book of adventure?” said Allan.
“Ah, yes!” said Rory; “a book, if you please, but not dry-as-dust prose, my boys! I’d write an epic poem.”
Talking thus, away they went on an exploring expedition, Rory riding the high horse, building any number of castles in the air, and giving the reins to his wonderful imagination.
“I reckon, Mr Rory,” said Seth, “that you’d make the fortune of any publisher that liked to take you up. You try New York, I guess that’d suit you; and, if you like, you shall write the life of old trapper Seth.”
“Glorious!” cried Rory; “‘A Life in the Forests of the Far West.’ Hurrah! I’ll do it! You wait a bit. Look, look! What is that?”
“It’s a white fox,” said Seth, bowling the animal over before the others had time to draw a bead on it.
But that white fox, with a few loons, and five guillemots – which, by the way, when skinned, are excellent eating – were all they bagged that day.
McBain and Stevenson had better luck though, they had seen a gigantic bear prowling around among the rough ice beneath the cliffs, and had called away a boat and gone after it.
“O! sah!” cried Freezing Powders, running up to McBain as he was going over the side. “Don’t go, sah! I can see de yellow bear’s moder and two piccaninnies on de ice. She is one berry bad woman. She make you dance to please de piccaninnies, den she gobble your head off. Don’t you go, sah! You not look nice widout a head. Dat am my impression, sah.”
There was nothing of the sensational about McBain’s adventure with the bear, but something of the sad. The captain of the Arrandoon was not the man to take the life of even a bear while in company of her young ones, but he well knew how terrible and how bloodthirsty such an animal is, and how cunning in her ferocity. He shuddered as he thought of Allan or Rory heedlessly passing the cave or crevasse in the rocks where she lay concealed, and being pounced upon and dragged in to be torn limb from limb. So he determined she must die.
Once landed, they almost immediately sighted her, and gave chase. Alone she might have escaped; but in dread terror the young ones leapt on her back and thus hampered her movements. (She-bears with young ones are easily got up to and killed on this account.) She then turned fiercely at bay, coming swiftly on to the attack, bent upon a fearful vengeance if she could only accomplish it.
“Stand by, Stevenson,” cried McBain, dropping on one knee, “to fire if I don’t kill at once.”
The monster held her head low as she advanced, and a less experienced hunter would have made this the target. McBain knew better. He aimed at the lower part of the neck, and the bear fell pierced through the great artery of the heart. Yet so near had he allowed the animal to come before firing, that Stevenson, trembling for his safety, had brought his own rifle to the shoulder.
Then those two poor young bears stood up to fight for their dead dam, giving vent to growls of grief and rage.
“We can take them alive, sir,” said Stevenson. “Come along, lads.” This last sentence was addressed to the boat’s crew. “Come along quick, and bring the ropes.”
Had old Seth been there, these young Bruins would soon have been lassoed. But McBain’s men were not over expert at such work. They did manage to rope one in a few minutes, but the other gave them a deal of trouble – sport one man erroneously called it. He invariably flew at the man who tried to throw the rope, and the man invariably made his feet his friends, thus giving another man a chance to try his skill. If he failed he had to run next, and so on until at long last one more adroit or more fortunate than his fellow succeeded in throwing the lasso over the young bear’s neck, and brought it half strangled to the ice.
“A present for you, Captain Grig,” cried McBain, pulling alongside the Canny Scotia with his double capture.
Silas was delighted when he saw the two live bears. “Heaven bless you, sir!” he exclaimed. “Why, sir, they’ll fetch forty pounds each in the London too. Forty pounds, sir! Think o’ that. Eighty pounds for the two o’ them. Keep my little wife and all the family for a month o’ Sundays. Hurrah! matie, luck’s turned.”
Chapter Eighteen.
A New Arrival – The Dogs – Trapper Seth Becomes Kennel-Man – Preparations for a Great Seal Hunt – The Greenland Bear
On the very day that McBain shot the great she-bear – for it was one of the largest that ever fell before a sportsman’s gun – on that day, and on the afternoon of that day, just as our heroes were about to leave the island and re-embark on the Arrandoon, there landed from off that saucy “little two-stick yacht” one of the tallest Yankees that ever stepped in boots.
Seth squeezed the hand of this countryman of his till tears sprang into the stranger’s eyes; and they were not tears of emotion, nor sentiment either, but of downright pain.
“I say, siree?” cried the newcomer, shaking his hand and looking at the tips of his fingers, “patriotism and brotherly love are both beautiful things in their way, but when it comes to squeezing the blood out from under a fellow’s finger-nails, then I say, bother brotherly love.”
“I’m proud to meet you, sir,” exclaimed Seth, “let us shake hands once more.”
“Never a shake, old man,” said the stranger; “let us admire each other at a respectable distance. But come, gentlemen all,” he continued, turning to the others, “you ain’t going on board just yet. Come up with me to my house. I daresay you’ve been there already; but come back and break bread with Nathaniel Cobb, sometimes called the Little Wonder, because I ain’t much more’n seven feet high.”
Nat Cobb’s boat’s crew were Norwegians every one of them, short, somewhat squat, fair-haired fellows, but as active and bustling as a corresponding number of well-bred fox-terriers. A couple of them were moving on ahead now, with an immense basket between them.
“That’s the dinner,” said the Little Wonder; “and you’ll find there’s enough for all hands, too.”
“Well, gentlemen,” Nat said, when everybody had done justice to the good things placed before them, “let us drink each other’s healths in a cup of fragrant mocha, for that’s the wine for Greenland weather. Gentlemen, I look around me at your smiling faces, and I pledge you and bid you welcome to my island of Jan Mayen.”
“Hallo!” thought Rory, “your island.”
“Yes, gentlemen,” continued Nat, looking as if he really read Rory’s thoughts, “my island. Six months and more ago I annexed it, and to-morrow once again the stars and stripes will proudly flutter from yonder flagstaff, and the bird o’ freedom will soar over this wild mountain land.”
Apart from his queer, half-boastful speech, Nat Cobb was a very agreeable companion.
He was very frank at all events.
After looking at Rory for the space of half a minute, he suddenly stretched out his hand.
“I like you,” he said, “muchly, and I like you all. It is from men like you that the mightiest republic in the world has been built. But why don’t you speak more, Rory, as your messmates call you?”
“Ach! troth?” said Rory, “and sure I’m driving tandem with the thinking.”
“And you’re wondering,” said Nat, “where a piece of elongated mortality like myself stretches himself of a night on board the Highflier?”
“Seeing,” replied Rory, laughing, “that you’re about as long as the keel, and maybe a bit longer, I may well wonder that same; and unless you lean against a mast, I don’t quite see how you can stretch yourself.”
“Well, young sir, I’ll tell you how I do it. I double up into four, and lie on my back! that is how it’s done.”
The Little Wonder went off with our party to the Arrandoon; and as Yankees are ever ready to trade, he had not been long on board when McBain had purchased from him a dozen of his best dogs. They were to be kept until the ship returned from a week’s sport among the old seals, then taken on board just before the Arrandoon left for the extreme north. Old Seth was duly told off to superintend the erection of kennels, forward near the bows, and old Seth was in his glory in consequence.
“I’ll feel myself o’ some kind o’ use now,” he said. “Kennel-man in ordinary to the Arrandoon, a free house and victuals found, I guess it ain’t half a bad sitivation.”
About a week after this – the Greenland sealer having been made as good as new again – the Jan Mayen fleet sailed away from the island, and directed its course about north-and-by-east. First on the line went the noble Arrandoon sailing, not steaming, for a nice beam wind was blowing; next came the Canny Scotia with her tall, tapering spars; and the saucy Highflier, with her fore-and-aft canvas, brought up the rear.
Nathaniel Cobb was Arctic meteorologist to a private company of American scientists, but his time was pretty much his own, and he didn’t mind spending a week or a fortnight of it among the old seals. He wanted a skin or two anyhow, he said, to make a warm carpet for his “house,” and some oil to burn for fuel, but promised that everything beyond what he really wanted which happened to fall to his gun should be given to Silas.
Silas Grig was never happier in his life than he was now. Luck had indeed turned, fortune was about to favour him for once in a way. His would be a bumper ship, full to the hatches, with a bing of skins on deck that he wouldn’t be able to find room for below. And when he returned to Peterhead, flags would fly and bands would play, and his little wife and he would live happy ever after.
McBain wanted to show his young companions a little genuine sport, and at the same time do a good turn to honest Silas, by helping him to a voyage; while the former, on the other hand, were all excitement and bustle, for the Arrandoon was about to be transformed into a sealer; and the idea being such a perfectly new one, was correspondingly appreciated.
The little fleet kept well together; it would not have suited them to part company, although, even on a wind, without the aid of her boilers, the Arrandoon could easily have shown her consorts a pair of clean heels. The doctor himself was led away with enthusiasm, and longed to draw a bead, as Seth called it, on a bear itself. He had chosen a rifle from the box, cleaned and polished it, and called it his own.
“I’ve never shot a wild beast,” he explained to Rory, “but, man, if I get the chance, I’ll have a try.”
“Bravo!” cried Rory, “and you’re sure to get the chance, you know.”
The ice was loose, although the weather was clear and very frosty. There was a heaving motion in the main pack that prevented the bergs from getting frozen together, but for all that the fleet kept well clear of it, for fear of getting beset. Patches of old seals might, it is true, have been found far in among the ice, but the risk was too great to run, so McBain kept to the outside edge, and the others followed his example.
Silas Grig was invited on board the Arrandoon; and proud he was when the captain told him that he could choose five-and-twenty of his best men, and superintend their preparations for going after the seals. The third mate might be one of the number, but neither Stevenson nor Mitchell was to be allowed to go, although McBain did not object to these officers, or even the engineers, having a day’s sport now and then.
It was a glorious morning – for Greenland – when Captain McBain called all hands, in order that Silas might choose the men who were to assist him in making his fortune. The sun was shining as brightly as ever it does in England, and there wasn’t too much wind to blow the cold through and through one. Either of the officers might have passed for old men, if white hairs make men look old, for their hair, whiskers, and moustachios were coated with hoar-frost ice. Our heroes had just finished breakfast, all of them having had a cold sea-bath to give them a glow before they sat down, and were now walking briskly up and down the quarter-deck, talking merrily and laughing.
The Scotia had her foreyard aback, and the Arrandoon had also stopped her way, and yonder was Silas in his boat coming rapidly over the rippling water towards the steamer, the skipper himself standing like a gondolier and steering with an oar in true whaler fashion.
“Now, lads,” cried Silas, when the men of the Arrandoon lay aft in obedience to orders. “You’re a fine lot, I must say; every man Jack o’ ye is better than the other; but I just want the men that have been to the country before. The men among ye that know a seal-club from a toastin’-fork, or a lowrie-tow from a bell-rope, just elevate a hand, will ye?”
(Lowrie-tow – the rope with which the men drag the skins to the ship’s side.)
No less than fifteen gloved hands were waved aloft. Silas was delighted, and did not take long to choose the remaining ten.
“You’ll go on the ice by twos, you know, men,” he continued, “and when one o’ ye tumbles into the water, why, the other’ll simply pull him out. Nothing easier.”
All these hands were to be clubsmen and draggers, while “the guns,” as they were called, comprised the following: Ralph, Rory, Allan, Sandy the surgeon, De Vere the aeronaut, Seth trapper, and the third mate, seven in all, and warranted to give a good account of the seals, and keep the men steadily on drag if the sport was anything like good.
Having made these preliminary arrangements, the men were dismissed, and Silas spent the rest of the day forward with old Ap the carpenter and the sail-maker. And very busy the whole four of them were, too, for three dozen daggers or seal-knives had to be fitted with sheaths of leather, and belts to go round the men’s waists, and three dozen lowrie-tows, with the same number of seal-clubs, had to be got ready.
I saw the other day an engraving of a sealing scene in Greenland, evidently done by an artist who had never been in the Arctic regions in his life, and who had therefore trusted to his imagination, which had led him far from the truth. In this picture there is a ship under canvas: error Number 1, for sealers always clue or brail up before the men go over the side. The ice is tall and pinnacled: error Number 2, for the ice the old seals lie on is either flat or hummocky. The men on the ice are leaping madly from berg to berg and clubbing old seals: error Number 3, for unless old seals get positively frozen out of the water by the pieces becoming fast together, they will not wait to be clubbed. You may catch a weasel asleep, but never an old seal. Lastly, in this picture, the men are wielding clubs that have evidently been borrowed from some gymnasium: this constitutes error Number 4, for seal-clubs are nothing like these. They are more like an ancient battle-axe; the shaft is about four or five feet long and made of strong, tough wood, while through the top of this terrible weapon is run the part that does the execution – a square piece of iron or steel – sharpened at one end, hammer-like at the other, and nearly a foot long. With this instrument a strong man has been known to lay a Greenland bear dead with one blow. No one of course would dare to attack a bear armed with a club alone, but instances have occurred where the bear has been the aggressor, and where the man had to defend himself as best he could.
One word parenthetically about the great Polar or ice bear. Until I had first seen the carcass of one lying flensed on the ice, I could not have believed that any wild beast could attain such gigantic proportions. The footprints of this monster were as large as an ordinary pair of kitchen bellows. The pastern, or ankle, seemed as wide as the paw, and as near as I could guess about thirty inches round; the forearms and hind-legs were of tremendous strength; so too were the shoulders and loin. An animal like this with one stroke can slay the largest seal in Greenland, and could serve the biggest lion that ever roared in an African jungle precisely the same. As to the voice, it is hardly so fearful as the lion’s, but heard, as I heard it one night on the pack, within two yards of me, it is sufficiently appalling, to say the least of it. It is a sort of half-cough, half roar. As trapper Seth described it after his adventure at the cave in Jan Mayen, when little Freezing Powders so nearly lost the number of his mess:
“The roar of a healthy Greenland bear, when the owner of it is so close ye could kick him, is a kind o’ confusin’; it shakes your innards considerable, and makes ye think the critter has swallowed the thick end of a thunderstorm and is tryin’ to work it up again.”
An elephant – a tusker – is no joke when he loses his temper and comes after you, nor is a lion or tiger when he thinks he can do you a mischief, but I would rather face either of them twice over than I would an ice bear with his back up, if I myself were unarmed. I was very young, by the way, when I found myself confronted with my first Greenland bear, but I well remember both what my thoughts were at the time, and what were my feelings. The truth is, I had made the captain promise he would give me a chance to go and fight one of these terrible giants of the ice. He did so in good time, and I confess that as the boat neared the pack – I being in the bows – I suddenly discovered that I was not half so brave as I had previously imagined. The bear did not run away, as I fear I had almost wished that he would. He simply waited, looking at us somewhat inquiringly; and when I landed, all alone, mind you, he came along to meet me, and inquire what I wanted, and I hated him while I envied him for his coolness. He seemed to say, “Why, you’re only a boy; just wait till I get alongside you, and I’ll show you how I treat boys. I’ll turn you inside out.” I had to wait. Wild horses couldn’t have tom me from the spot, where I had dropped on one knee. Oh! I can assure you, I would have liked, well enough, to run away, but with all the ship’s crew looking at me – ? No; death rather than live a coward. On came Bruin, much to my disgust; I would have felt as brave as a lion had he only shown me his heels. Then these questions chased each other through my brain: “How near will I let the beggar come before I fire? Shall I hit him on the head, or shoot him in the chest? and, What shall I do if the rifle misses fire?”
Bruin still advanced at a shambling trot. Then I brought my rifle to the shoulder and took aim, glancing along the glimmering barrel till I could only see the visé at the end, and immediately beyond that Bruin’s yellow breast. Bang, bang! I dare say it really was myself who pulled those two triggers of my double-barrelled rifle, but at the time I felt as if I had nothing at all to do with it. Then there was a shout from the boat, and a shout from the ship. Bruin was dead, and I was the hero; but somehow I did not feel that I deserved the praise which I received. Yet, after all, I daresay I only felt in this encounter as most boys would have felt. Doing anything dangerous is always nasty at first, but when one gains confidence in himself, then is the time one knows —
“That strange joy that warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel.”