Bobby of the Labrador Part 25

And, sure enough, lying about on the ice were a great number of little white b.a.l.l.s, so small and white they had escaped his notice at a distance, and each white ball was a new-born seal. That, then, was why old seals were so numerous and so fearless.

But Bobby had no time to think about this. Hunger was crying to be satisfied, and now that food was at hand he was hungrier than ever. As quickly as he could he dressed one of the seals, and as he had no means of cooking the meat made a satisfactory meal upon the raw flesh and blubber, after the manner of Eskimos.

This done he looked about him for a suitable place to build a shelter, and finding a good drift not far away set about his building with greater care than on the night before, and before noon time had a small but well-fas.h.i.+oned _igloo_ erected with a tunnel leading to the entrance that he might better be protected from the wind.

He now skinned and dressed the remaining seals, and spreading the skins for a bed on his _igloo_ floor felt himself very comfortably situated under the circ.u.mstances.

"Now," said he, surveying his work, "if I only had a lamp and a kettle I could get on all right till the ice drives ash.o.r.e or I'm picked up or the pack goes to pieces and I won't need to get along any more."

But this last thought he quickly put from him with the exclamation: "That's silly! I won't worry now till I have to. I'll just do my best for myself, and if the Lord wants me to live He'll show me how to save myself, or He'll save me."

Then Bobby sat down to think. The pieces of ice which he melted in his mouth in lieu of water he was convinced had a weakening effect upon him, and his mouth was becoming tender and sore from sucking them, and he preferred his meat cooked. He had plenty of matches in his pocket, for the man who lives always in the wilderness is never without a good supply, but since he had gone adrift they had been of no use to him, without means or method of making a fire.

"I've got it!" said he at last, springing up. "I'm sure it will work!"

Opening the jackknife he cut from one of the skins a large circular piece, and at regular intervals near the edge of this made small slits.

Then from the edge of a skin he cut a long, narrow thong, and proceeded to thread it through the slits. This done he tightened the thong, puckering the edge of the circular piece of skin until it a.s.sumed the form of a shallow bowl perhaps fifteen inches wide. This he set into a snow block in order that it might set firm and retain its shape. This was to be his Eskimo lamp.

Now he tore a strip from his s.h.i.+rt, folded it to proper size, filled his lamp with oil from the blubber, drove the point of his snow knife into the side of his _igloo_ in such manner that the side rested in a flat position on the top of the bowl, and saturating the cloth with the oil he arranged it upon the knife, taking care that it did not touch either side of the bowl. This he lighted, and to his great delight found that his lamp was a success.

It was easy to grill small pieces of seal meat over this, but the problem of melting ice for water was a puzzling one. Finally this, too, was solved, by improvising another bowl from sealskin and suspending over it a piece of ice. This bowl he held as near as possible to the flame without putting it in danger of scorching the skin. The ice, suspended by a thong directly above the bowl and a little on one side of the flame, began at once to drip water into the bowl. The water resulting was very oily and unclean, but Bobby in his position had neither a discriminating taste nor a discriminating appet.i.te.

"Well," said Bobby that evening when he had settled himself comfortably after a good meal of grilled meat, "this isn't as comfortable as home, but it's away ahead of raw meat and ice, and no _igloo_ at all. And it's safe for a while, anyhow."

And so our young adventurer took up his lonely life upon the s.h.i.+fting ice, and day after day he watched the baby seals grow, and wondered at it, for each morning they were visibly larger than they had been the previous night. And he wondered, too, that each mother should know her own little one, by merely sniffing about, for the babies, or "white coats" as he called them, were as like as peas.

Thus he had lived ten lonely days, and sometimes he believed G.o.d had forgotten him, when one morning a black streak appeared in the sky and then another and another, and something wonderful happened, for G.o.d had not forgotten Bobby and was guiding his destiny.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE s.h.i.+PS THAT CAME DOWN TO THE ICE

Closer and closer came the three black streaks, and presently the masts, then the funnels, and finally the hulls of three s.h.i.+ps appeared, first one, then another, then the third. Bobby watched them with awe and wonder. He even forgot for a time that a way was opening for his escape.

The three s.h.i.+ps were streaming directly toward the ice, and in the course of an hour after he had first sighted them the advance s.h.i.+p came to, half a mile or so from the floe, and not above a mile to the southward of him. Boats were lowered before the steamer had fully stopped, and immediately men swarmed over her sides and into them, and in a moment the boats put off for the ice, the men climbed out upon it and presently were running everywhere, beating to the right and to the left with clubs.

Then the boats returned to the s.h.i.+p to fetch more men, and still more, until there were more men upon the ice than Bobby had ever seen before, and all beating about them with their clubs. So it was with the other s.h.i.+ps as they came up; they, too, sent scores upon scores of men to the ice in boats.

Bobby was astonished beyond measure at what he saw, and at first he was afraid, and watched from a distance. But at last he recalled that he had heard of this thing before. These were the seal hunters from Newfoundland, and with bats they were slaying the young white-coat seals, and such of the old seals, also, as did not slip away from them into the water.

Finally some of the sealers from the first s.h.i.+p were making their way up over the ice in the direction of Bobby's _igloo_, and presently he knew they would be upon the very seals that he had watched with so much interest growing from day to day. Among these were two men with guns, instead of clubs, and these two devoted their attention to the old seals, which now and again they shot.

Overcome with awe and wonder, and timid in the presence of so many strangers, Bobby kept himself from view while he watched, though he knew that presently he would be called upon to present himself, in order that he might escape from the floe, for in all probability no other opportunity would come to him.

So, uncertain, expectant, and trembling with excitement, he remained concealed behind an ice hummock until the seal hunters in advance had nearly reached him, and further concealment was impossible. Then he stepped boldly out.

The effect of Bobby's appearance was instantaneous and wonderful. A man in the advance, looking up, saw the strangely clad figure apparently rise out of the ice itself. The man turned about and wildly broke for the boats. Then another and another took one terrified glance at the supposed apparition, and tarrying not, turned about to compete with the first in a mad race for the boats. Shouts of "Ghost! Ghost!" filled the air, and then the stampede and panic became general, though after the manner of panic-stricken crowds, perhaps none but the first two or three had the slightest idea why or from what they were running.

The two men with guns were still some little distance from Bobby when the stampede began. One of these men was perhaps twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, the other many years his senior. They were dressed after the manner of sportsmen, and were evidently not members of the sealing crew. They did not join in the stampede as the men rushed past them in wild flight and confusion, but in utter astonishment looked for its cause in the direction from which the men had come, and discovered nothing more terrifying than Bobby, standing alone and no less astonished at what had occurred than themselves, and more than half inclined to run as fast in the opposite direction as the sealers had run toward their boats.

"Uncle, there's an Eskimo!" exclaimed the younger of the two, observing Bobby's sealskin garments, but at that distance unable to note that his features were wholly unlike those of an Eskimo.

"Sure enough!" said the older man. "That explains it! The men weren't expecting to see any one, and they've taken him for a ghost! Come on, Edward. Let us interview him."

"How could an Eskimo get out here on the floe?" asked Edward, as they set out toward Bobby. "We're a long way from land."

"I don't know," said his companion. "We'll soon learn. But Eskimo hunters go a long way after seals, and he's probably on a hunting expedition."

"Why, he hasn't the features of an Eskimo, though he's dressed like one; and he's a handsome looking chap!" said Edward, in an undertone, as they drew near Bobby, who had overcome his inclination to run and had not moved.

"Good-morning!" greeted the older man a moment later, when they were within speaking distance.

"Good-morning, sir," said Bobby, timidly.

"We thought you were an Eskimo, and" laughing, "the men apparently thought you were a ghost. You gave them a fine fright."

"I didn't mean to frighten them," said Bobby apologetically.

"I only wanted them to take me off the ice."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I was hunting," explained Bobby. "The ice broke loose and cut Jimmy and me off from Skipper Ed"]

"Take you off the ice? Why, how did you get on it? We thought perhaps you were hunting."

"I was hunting," explained Bobby, "but now I'm adrift. I'm Bobby Zachariah, from Abel's Bay. The ice broke loose and cut Jimmy and me off from Skipper Ed, and Jimmy's drowned--"

Tears came into Bobby's eyes and he choked at the recollection.

"I'm Frederick Winslow," said the man kindly and sympathetically, taking Bobby's hand, "and this is my nephew Edward Norman. We do not know where Abel's Bay is, nor who Skipper Ed and Jimmy are, but we're glad we found you, and you're to go with us to the s.h.i.+p, and then you can tell us about it, and there'll be a way to send you home to Abel's Bay."

"Edward Norman!" exclaimed Bobby. "Why, that's Skipper Ed's name!"

"Who is Skipper Ed?" inquired Mr. Winslow. "But never mind. Don't explain now. You must be nearly starved if you've been adrift long. Come with us."

"I've been over a week--nearly two weeks, I think," said Bobby, "but I'm not hungry. I've had plenty of seals. Let me get my snow knife, sir.

It's in the _igloo_."

Then they went with Bobby and marveled at his _igloo_, and his crude lamp, which they must have as a souvenir, and that Bobby had not perished. And praised him for a brave lad, as they led him off. And Bobby, who saw nothing wonderful or strange in his _igloo_ or lamp, or anything he had done, said little, but followed timidly. And when the men he had frightened so badly learned that Bobby was a castaway and a very real person and not a ghost at all, they vied with one another in showering kindnesses upon him, for these men of the fleets, though a bit rough, and a bit superst.i.tious at times, have big brave hearts, filled with sympathy for their kind.

And so it came about that Bobby, who had come to the Coast a drifting waif of the sea, was carried from it by the sea. And now he was to see the land of strange trees and flowers and green fields of which Skipper Ed had so often told when they sat in the big chairs before the fire on winter evenings. And many other wonderful things were in store for Bobby.