Left on Labrador Part 35

"We never should get through alive. I don't believe Wade would stand it to go a quarter of the distance. He's sick now, and, worse still, has no courage. He acts strangely."

"Wade will rally when worst comes to worst, and be the head man in extremities."

"Do you think so?"

"I do. Wade is kind of hot-blooded, you know. Being left here so sudden struck him all in a heap. But he will show blood yet, if it comes to a real hand-to-hand struggle to save our lives. A boy that took his musket, and went right into a fair, stand-up battle of his own accord, as they say Wade did, won't give in here without showing us another side to his character. One thing, he feels the cold here worse than we do: it pinches him all up. But he will come out of his dumps yet. Don't badger him: he won't leave his bones here. Seriously, I have more fear for Weymouth and Donovan than for Wade. That is most always the way where there's hards.h.i.+p and suffering. Your great, strong, thoughtless fellow is the first to give out and fail up. You mark my words, now. If we have to undertake this journey, Weymouth and Donovan will be the first to sicken and fall behind. I don't believe they would ever get through it. But, after the first three days, Wade would lead us all. He will sort of rally and rise as the peril and hards.h.i.+p increase. He is kind of discouraged now, because he sees what's before us, and has to muster his energies to meet it; but he is getting a reserve of will-force in store. There's a good deal in that, I tell you! A strong will has carried many a fellow through hards.h.i.+ps that would have killed men of twice the muscle without the will; and that's the way it will be with our two sailors, I'm afraid."

"But I am not in favor of making this trip overland," Kit added after we had sat musing a few minutes.

"What do you propose?"

"I think it best to work out of the straits in our boat, if we can."

I had thought of that plan.

"We could make a sail out of this walrus-hide, and watch our chance with a favorable breeze to scud us along from islet to islet on the south side here. We could run down into Ungava Bay, clean to the foot of it; and then, leaving the boat, go across to Nain. It couldn't be more than a hundred and fifty miles from the foot of the bay. We could start off, and, with a strong spurt, do it in a week from that place, I think. We should, at least, be sure of getting seals for food. But Raed don't think it best."

"Why not?"

"Well, he says, that, by the time we get into Ungava Bay, it will begin to freeze ice nights, enough to stop us. He thinks, too, that we should suffer a good deal more from cold on the water than on the land. Then we should have to wait for favorable winds, and be laid up through storms, besides the danger of getting capsized in gusts, and caught in the ice-patches. But he has agreed to leave it to the party to decide. I know the two sailors will vote to go by boat; but I'm not sure Raed is not right, after all. He's a better judge than any of the rest of us, I do suppose. I have a horror of starting off inland, though."

A very reasonable horror, I considered it. Any thing but toiling over sterile mountains, for me.

We sat there for a long time looking off, pondering the situation.

Suddenly my eye caught on a tiny brown speck far to the northward. I watched it a moment, then spoke to Kit. He took out his gla.s.s and looked.

"That's some sort of a boat," he said at length. "Brown sail! That's a Husky boat, I reckon,--an _oomiak_."

I took the gla.s.s. The craft was heading southward; coming, it seemed, either for the islet we were on, or else the large island to the south-east. I could see black heads under the large irregular sail.

"Coming down to the Labrador side," Kit remarked. "I've heard that they spend the summer on the north side of the straits; go up in the spring, and come back here to Labrador in the latter part of the season."

"There are _kayaks_ with it," he said, with the gla.s.s to his eye,--"one on each side; and there are one or two, perhaps more, behind."

In the course of an hour it had come down within three miles, bearing off toward the large island.

"We had best get out of sight, I guess," Kit observed. "Don't care to attract them or frighten them."

We went back a little behind the rocks; and Kit ran down to tell the rest of the party. They came back with them,--all but Weymouth, who was not very well, and had lain down for a nap.

"That's a big _oomiak_!" exclaimed Raed, taking a long look at it.

"One--two--three--five--seven _kayaks_."

"How many do you make out in the big boat?" Kit asked.

"Nineteen--twenty; and I don't know how many behind the sail," Raed replied.

"Those are the women and children, I suppose," Wade said.

"Wade's thinking of the Husky belles," Kit remarked with a wink to me; "of the one he gave the scarf to. Let's see: what was her name?"

"_Ikewna_," I suggested.

"I've noticed Wade has been a little _distrait_ for some time," Raed observed. "Possibly he sighs for the beauteous _Ikewna_!"

Wade laughed.

"Somebody else was a little sweet on a certain yellow-gloved damsel: rather stout she was, if I recollect aright. Mind who that was, Raed?"

"Ah! you refer to _Pussay_," Raed replied. "Well, she was a trifle adipose. But that's a merit in this country, I should judge. Lean folks never could stand these winters."

"And where now is the beautiful '_White Goose_,' I wonder!" Kit exclaimed.

"And black-eyed _Caubvick_!" said I. "Answer, Echo!"

"This crew may be a part of the same lot," Donovan suggested.

"It isn't likely," said Raed. "We are now a hundred and fifty miles farther west than the Middle Savage Isles. It is hardly possible. But I dare say they are as much like them as peas in a pod."

The _oomiak_ pa.s.sed us about a mile to the eastward, and, approaching the sh.o.r.e of the large island, was luffed up to the wind handsomely.

More than a dozen dogs leaped out, and went splas.h.i.+ng to the sh.o.r.e.

The men landed from the _kayaks_, and, wading out into the water, laid hold of the _oomiak_, and, guiding it in on the swell, carried it up high and dry. Several of the children had jumped out with the dogs.

The women, old folks, and younger children, now followed. The sh.o.r.e fairly swarmed. We could hear them shouting, screaming, and jabbering, and the dogs barking. Guard looked off and growled slightly, turning his great dark eyes inquiringly to our faces.

"He don't like the looks of them," said Donovan: "remembers the fuss he had with them when they chased Palmleaf and him."

"They seem to be preparing to stop there, I should say," Kit remarked.

"They've pulled up the _oomiak_ some way from the water, out of reach of the tide, and are unloading it. There are quant.i.ties of skins, tents, harpoons, &c. There! they are all starting up from the water, loaded down with trumpery,--going off from the sh.o.r.e toward the middle of the island."

They had not seen us; and, after watching them disappear among the barren hillocks, we went back to our camp for dinner. Unless they came along to the extreme western end of the large island, they would not discover our camp. At first, we decided to have nothing to do with them. We had nothing in the "_chymo_" line except Wade's broken bayonet. They would only be a nuisance with us.

"But, if we could contrive to make them catch seals for us for fuel, it might be worth while to cultivate their acquaintance a little," Kit suggested.

"If we could get a seal a day from them for our fire, it might be a good plan enough," Wade thought.

"But we've nothing to pay them with; unless we paid them in promises of iron and knives when our _s.h.i.+p comes back_," I said. "I don't suppose our greenbacks would be a legal tender with them."

"But, in case 'The Curlew' should _not_ come back, we might not be able to redeem our promises," Raed remarked.

"In that case," said Kit, "we might as well marry all their daughters, and take up our abode here. As their sons-in-law, we could perhaps excuse it to them."

"Possibly the daughters might object to this arrangement," said Wade.

"Why, you don't doubt your ability to win the affections of a Husky belle, do you?" demanded Kit, laughing.

"I doubt if our accomplishments would be rated very high among the fair Esquimaux," said Raed. "Not to be able to catch seals is deemed a great disgrace with them. Our going to them to beg seal-blubber would be a very black mark. We should be looked upon much in the light of paupers. No young Husky thinks of proposing to his lady-love till he has become an expert seal-catcher."

"It seems hard not to be thought eligible even by a Husky family," Kit observed. "But let's go over there and see what we can do. If we can't trade with them, we might lay them under contribution by force of arms. What say to beginning our career as conquerors by subjugating that island of Esquimaux, and levying a seal-tax? That's the way our Saxon ancestors first entered England. Has the sanction of history, you see,--as far down even as the ex-emperor Napoleon III."