The Magnetic North Part 17

O'Flynn had come out of the Little Cabin, and seemed to be laboriously trundling something along the footpath. He got so excited when he heard the noise and saw the party that, inadvertently, he let his burden slide down the icy slope, b.u.mping and bouncing clumsily from one impediment to another.

"Faith, look at 'im! Sure, that fossle can't resthrain his j'y at seein' ye back. Mac, it's yer elephunt. I was takin' him in to the sate of honour be the foir. We thought it 'ud be a pleasant surprise fur ye.

Sure, ye'r more surprised to see 'im leppin' down the hill to meet ye, like a rale Irish tarrier."

Mac was angry, and didn't conceal the fact. As he ran to stop the thing before it should be dashed to pieces, the priest happened to glance back, and saw coming slowly along the river trail a solitary figure that seemed to make its way with difficulty.

"It looks as though you'd have more than you bargained for at the House-Warming," he said.

O'Flynn came down the hill babbling like a brook.

"Good-day to ye, Father. The blessin's o' Heaven on ye fur not kapin'

us starvin' anny longer. There's Potts been swearin', be this and be that, that yourself and the little divvle wudn't be at the Blow-Out at ahl, at ahl."

"You mean the Boy hasn't come back?" called out Mac. He leaned _Elephas primigenius_ against a tuft of willow banked round with snow, and turned gloomily as if to go back down the river again.

"Who's this?" They all stood and watched the limping traveller.

"Why it's--of course. I didn't know him with that thing tied over his cap"; and Mac went to meet him.

The Boy bettered his pace.

"How did I miss you?" demanded Mac.

"Well," said the Boy, looking rather mischievous, "I can't think how it happened on the way down, unless you pa.s.sed when I 'd gone uphill a piece after some tracks. I was lyin' under the m.u.f.f a few miles down when you came back, and you--well, I kind o' thought you seemed to have your hands full." Mac looked rigid and don't-you-try-to-chaff-me-sir.

"Besides," the Boy went on, "I couldn't cover the ground like you and Father Wills."

"What's the matter with you?"

"Oh, nothin' to howl about. But see here, Mac."

"Well?"

"Soon's I can walk I'll go and get you the rest o' that elephant."

There was no more said till they got up to the others, who had waited for the Indians to come back, and had unpacked Kaviak to spare him the jolting uphill.

O'Flynn was screaming with excitement as he saw that the bundle Nicholas was carrying had a head and two round eyes.

"The saints in glory be among us! What's that? Man alive, what _is_ it, be the Siven?"

"That," answered Mac with a proprietary air, "is a little Esquimaux boy, and I'm bringing him in to doctor his cold."

"Glory be! An Esquimer! And wid a cowld! Sure, he can have some o' my linnyeemint. Well, y'arre a boss collector, Mac! Faith, ye bang the Jews! And me thinkin' ye'd be satisfied wid yer elephunt. Not him, be the Siven! It's an Esquimer he must have to finish off his collection, wan wid the rale Arctic cowld in his head, and two eyes that goes snappin' through ye like black torpeders. Two sp.i.s.simens in wan day!

Yer growin' exthravagant, Mac. Why, musha, child, if I don't think yer the dandy Sp.i.s.simen o' the lot!"

CHAPTER IV

THE BLOW-OUT

"How good it is to invite men to the pleasant feast."

Comfortable as rock fireplace and stockade made the cabin now, the Colonel had been feeling all that morning that the official House-Warming was fore-doomed to failure. Nevertheless, as he was cook that week, he could not bring himself to treat altogether lightly his office of Master of the Feast. There would probably be no guests. Even their own little company would likely be incomplete, but t here was to be a spread that afternoon, "anyways."

Even had the Colonel needed any keeping up to the mark, the office would have been cheerfully undertaken by O'Flynn or by Potts, for whom interest in the gustatory aspect of the occasion was wholly undimmed by the threatened absence of Mac and the "little divvle."

"There'll be the more for us," said Potts enthusiastically.

O'Flynn's argument seemed to halt upon a reservation. He looked over the various contributions to the feast, set out on a board in front of the water-bucket, and, "It's mate I'm wis.h.i.+n' fur," says he.

"We've got fish."

"That's only mate on Fridays. We've had fish fur five days stiddy, an'

befure that, bacon three times a day wid sivin days to the week, an'

not enough bacon ayther, begob, whin all's said and done! Not enough to be fillin', and plenty to give us the scurrvy. May the divil dance on shorrt rations!"

"No scurvy in this camp for a while yet," said the Colonel, throwing some heavy objects into a pan and was.h.i.+ng them vigorously round and round.

"Pitaties!" O'Flynn's eyes dwelt lovingly on the rare food. "Ye've h.o.a.rded 'em too long, man, they've sprouted."

"That won't prevent you hoggin' more'n your share, I'll bet," said Potts pleasantly.

"I don't somehow like wasting the sprouts," observed the Colonel anxiously. "It's such a wonderful sight--something growing." He had cut one pallid slip, and held it tenderly between knife and thumb.

"Waste 'em with scurvy staring us in the face? Should think not. Mix 'em with cold potaters in a salad."

"No. Make slumgullion," commanded O'Flynn.

"What's that?" quoth the Colonel.

"Be the Siven! I only wonder I didn't think of it befure. Arre ye listening, Kentucky? Ye take lots o' wathur, an' if ye want it rich, ye take the wathur ye've boiled pitaties or cabbage in--a vegetable stock, ye mind--and ye add a little flour, salt, and pepper, an' a tomater if ye're in New York or 'Frisco, and ye boil all that together with a few fish-bones or bacon-rin's to make it rale tasty."

"Yes--well?"

"Well, an' that's slumgullion."

"Don't sound heady enough for a 'Blow-Out,'" said the Colonel. "We'll sober up on slumgullion to-morrow."

"Anyhow, it's mate I'm wis.h.i.+n' fur," sighed O'Flynn, subsiding among the tin-ware. "What's the good o' the little divvle and his thramps, if he can't bring home a burrud, or so much as the scut iv a rabbit furr the soup?"

"Well, he's contributed a bottle of California apricots, and we'll have boiled rice."

"An' punch, glory be!"

"Y-yes," answered the Colonel. "I've been thinkin' a good deal about the punch."