Bob was for a moment paralyzed by the immense proportions that the bear displayed, and almost forgot that he had more bullets at his disposal. But he quickly recalled himself and throwing a cartridge into the chamber, aimed the rifle more carefully and fired again. This time the bullet went true to the mark, and the great body fell limp to the ice.

As he surveyed the carca.s.s a moment later he patted his rifle, and said;

"'Tis sure a rare fine gun. I ne'er could ha' killed un wi' my old un.". "Now th' Lard _must_ be watchin' me or He wouldn't ha' sent th'

bear, an' He wouldn't ha' sent un if He weren't wantin' us t' live.

Th' Lard must be hearin' mother's an' Emily's prayers now, after all--He must be."

The bear was a great windfall. It would give Bob and the Eskimos food for themselves and oil for their lamp, and the lad was imbued with new hope as he hurried off to summon Netseksoak and Aluktook to aid him in bringing the carca.s.s to the igloo.

The afternoon was well advanced before he found the two Eskimos, and when he told them of his good fortune they were very much elated, and all three started back immediately to the scene of the bear hunt. As they approached it Aluktook shouted an exclamation and pointed towards the south. Bob and Netseksoak looked, and there, dimly outlined in the distance but still plainly distinguishable, was the black hull of a vessel with two masts glistening in the sunshine.

"Tis th' hand o' Providence!" exclaimed Bob.

The three shook hands and laughed and did everything to show their delight short of hugging each other, and then ran towards the vessel, suddenly possessed of a vague fear that it might sail away before they were seen. Bob fired several shots out of his rifle as he ran, to attract the attention of the crew, but as they approached they could see no sign of life, and they soon found that it was a schooner frozen tight and fast in the ice pack.

When they at last reached it Bob read, painted in bold letters, the name, "Maid of the North."

XXIV

THE ESCAPE

They lost no time in climbing on deck, and what was their astonishment when they reached there to find the vessel quite deserted. Everything was in spick and span order both in the cabin and above decks. It was now nearly dark and an examination of her hold had to be deferred until the following day. One thing was certain, however. No one had occupied the cabin for some time, and no one had boarded or left the vessel since the last snow-storm, for no footprints were to be found on the ice near her.

It was truly a great mystery, and the only solution that occurred to Bob was that the ice pack had "pinched" the schooner and opened her up below, and the crew had made a hurried escape in one of the boats.

This he knew sometimes occurred on the coast, and if it were the case, and her hull had been crushed below the water line, it was of course only a question of the ice breaking up, which might occur at any time, when she would go to the bottom. There was one small boat on deck, and if an examination in the morning disclosed the unseaworthiness of the craft, this small boat would at least serve them as a means of escape from the ice pack.

Whatever the condition of the vessel, the night was calm and the ice was hard, and there was no probability of a break-up that would release her from her firm fastenings before morning; and they decided, therefore, to make themselves comfortable aboard. There was a stove in the cabin and another in the forecastle, plenty of blankets were in the berths, and provisions--actual luxuries--down forward. Bob was afraid that it was a dream and that he would wake up presently to the realities of the igloo and raw dog meat, and the hopelessness of it all.

He and the Eskimos lighted the lamps, started a fire in the galley stove, put the kettle over, fried some bacon, and finally sat down to a feast of bacon, tea, ship's biscuit, b.u.t.ter, sugar, and even jam to top off with. It was the best meal, Bob declared, that he had ever eaten in all his life.

"An' if un turns out t' be a dream, 'twill be th' finest kind o' one,"

was his emphatic decision.

How the three laughed and talked and enjoyed themselves over their supper, and how Bob revelled in the soft, warm blankets of Captain Hanks' berth when he finally, for the first time in weeks, was enabled to undress and crawl into bed, can better be imagined than described.

After an early breakfast the next morning the first care was to examine the hold, and very much to their satisfaction, and at the same time mystification, for they could not now understand why the schooner had been abandoned, they found the hull quite sound and the schooner to all appearances perfectly seaworthy.

Another astonishment awaited Bob, too, when he came upon the quant.i.ties of fur, and the stock of provisions and other goods that he found below decks.

"'Tis enough t' stock a company's post!" he exclaimed. But its real intrinsic value was quite beyond his comprehension.

When it was settled, beyond doubt, that the _Maid of the North_ was entirely worthy of their confidence and in no danger of sinking, the three returned to the igloo and transferred their sleeping bags and few belongings, as well as the dogs, to their new quarters on board of her.

After this was done they skinned and dressed the polar bear, which still lay upon the ice where it had been killed, and some of the flesh was fed to the half famished dogs. Bob insisted upon giving them an additional allowance, after the two Eskimos had fed them, for he said that they, too, should share in the good fortune, though Netseksoak expressed the opinion that the dogs ought to have been quite satisfied to escape being eaten.

The choicest cuts of the bear's meat the men kept for their own consumption, and Bob rescued the liver also, when Aluktook was about to throw it to the dogs, for he was very fond of caribou liver and saw no reason why that of the polar bear should not prove just as palatable. He fried some of it for supper, but when he placed it on the table both Aluktook and Netseksoak refused to touch it, declaring it unfit to eat, and warned Bob against it.

"There's an evil spirit in it," they said with conviction, "and it makes men sick."

This was very amusing to Bob, and disregarding their warning he ate heartily of it himself, wondering all the time what heathen superst.i.tion it was that prejudiced Eskimos against such good food, for, as he had observed, they would usually eat nearly anything in the way of flesh, and a great many things that he would not eat.

In a little while Bob began to realize that something was wrong. He felt queerly, and was soon attacked with nausea and vomiting. For two or three days he was very sick indeed and the Eskimos both told him that it was the effect of the evil spirit in the liver, and that he would surely die, and for a day or so he believed that he really should.

Whether the bear liver was under the curse of evil spirits or was in itself poisonous were questions that did not interest Bob. He knew it had made him sick and that was enough for him, and what remained of the liver went to the dogs, when he was able to be about again.

The days pa.s.sed wearily enough for the men in their floating prison, impatient as they were at their enforced inactivity, but still helpless to do anything to quicken their release. May was dragging to an end and June was at hand, and still the ice pack, firm and unbroken, refused to loose its bands. Slowly--imperceptibly to the watchers on board the _Maid of the North_--it was drifting to the southward on the bosom of the Arctic current. But the sun, constantly gaining more power, was rotting the ice, and it was inevitable that sooner or later the pack must fall to pieces and release the schooner and its occupants from their bondage. Then would come another danger.

If the wind blew strong and the seas ran high, the heavy pans of ice pounding against the hull might crush it in and send the vessel to the bottom. Therefore, while longing for release, there was at the same time an element of anxiety connected with it.

Finally the looked for happened. One afternoon a heavy bank of clouds, black and ominous, appeared in the western sky. A light puff of wind presaged the blow that was to follow, and in a little while the gale was on.

The _Maid of the North_, it will be understood, lay in bay ice, and all the ice to the south of her was bay ice. This was much lighter than that coming from more northerly points, and when the open sea which skirted the western edge of the field began to rise and sweep in upon this rotten ice the waves crumbled and crumpled it up before their mighty force like a piece of cardboard. It was a time of the most intense anxiety for the three men.

Just at dusk, amid the roar of wind and smashing ice, the vessel gave a lurch, and suddenly she was free. Fortunately her rudder was not carried away, as they had feared it would be, and when she answered the helm, Bob whispered,

"Thank th' Lard."

They were at the mercy of the wind during the next few hours, and there was little that could be done to help themselves until towards morning, when the gale subsided. Then, with daylight, under short sail they began working the vessel out of the "slob" ice that surrounded it, and before dark that night were in the open sea, with now only a moderate breeze blowing, which fortunately had shifted to the northward.

Here they found themselves beset by a new peril. Icebergs, great, towering, fearsome ma.s.ses, lay all about them, and to make matters worse a thick gray fog settled over the ocean, obscuring everything ten fathoms distant. They brought the vessel about and lay to in the wind, but even then drifted dangerously near one towering ice ma.s.s, and once a berg that could not have been half a mile away turned over with a terrifying roar. It seemed as though a collision was inevitable before daylight, but the night pa.s.sed without mishap, and when the morning sun lifted the fog the ship was still unharmed.

There was no land anywhere to be seen. What position they were in Bob did not know, and had no way of finding out. He did know, however, that somewhere to the westward lay the Labrador coast, and this they must try to reach.

Fortunately he could read the compa.s.s, and by its aid took as nearly as possible a due westerly course.

Alutook and Netseksoak, expert as they were in the handling of kayaks, had no knowledge of the management of larger craft like the _Maid of the North_, and without question accepted Bob as commander and followed his directions implicitly and faithfully; and he handled the vessel well, for he was a good sailor, as all lads of the Labrador are.

They made excellent headway, and were favoured with a season of good weather, and like the barometer Bob's spirits rose. But he dared to plan nothing beyond the present action. A hundred times he had planned and pictured the home-coming, but each time Fate, or the will of a Providence that he could not understand, had intervened, and with the crushing of each new hope and the wiping out of each delightful picture that his imagination drew, he decided to look not into the future, but do his best in the present and trust to Providence for the rest, for, as he expressed it,

"Th' Lard's makin' His own plans an' He's not wantin' me t' be meddlin' wi' un, an' so He's not lettin' me do th' way I lays out t'

do, an' I'll be makin' no more plans, but takin' things as they comes along."

In this frame of mind he held the vessel steadily to her course and kept a constant lookout for land or a sail, and on the morning of the third day after the release from the ice pack was rewarded by a shout from Netseksoak announcing land at last. Eagerly he looked, and in the distance, dimly, but still there, appeared the sh.o.r.e in low, dark outline against the horizon.

Towards noon a sail was sighted, and late in the afternoon they pa.s.sed within hailing distance of a fishing schooner bound down north. He shouted to the fishermen who, at the rail, were curiously watching the _Maid of the North_, as she plowed past them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "He held the vessel steadily to her course"]

"What land may that be?" pointing at a high, rocky head that jutted out into the water two miles away.

"Th' Devil's Head," came the reply.

"An' what's th' day o' th' month?"

"Th' fifteenth o' June," rang out the answer. "Where un hail from?"