The Cruise of the Snowbird: A Story of Arctic Adventure

The few days succeeding a “big shoot” were nearly always spent in fishing. Strange to say, the fish in the river, of which there were abundance, could not be got to look at the flies our heroes had brought with them from home, so Seth came to the front again. He busked great gaudy flies, that the daintiest trout hadn’t the heart to resist.

It was autumn now, the leaves in the forest had first turned a dingier green, then the sunset of life stole over them. Rory had never seen such tinting before. You may be sure our dreamy boy couldn’t resist a temptation like this. He was painter as well as poet, and so he forgot to fish, forgot to shoot, forgot everything in his wanderings except the gorgeous scenery around him. He sketched and sketched, and stored his portfolio.

“How delighted she will be!” he often caught himself thinking, if not saying, when he succeeded with some happier effect than usual.

Autumn waned apace.

They went less often now to the distant shooting-grounds, but they went to the forest, McBain and all his merry men – at least, all that could be spared. They went to fell the trees and bring them home, for the captain had an idea, and this idea became a plan, and the plan was to build a house close to the shore near which lay the Snowbird– not a living-house, but a hall in which the men could take exercise, during the short and stormy days of the long Arctic winter that would very soon surround them. So every morning now a party went to the woods, with axe and adze, to fell and trim the pine-trees. The portion of the forest which was chosen stood high over a little green and bosky glen, adown which a streamlet ran, joining the great river about a mile below. One by one the trees were hurled down the steep sides of the glen, and dragged to the rivulet; they were then floated on to the river, and here formed into a raft, which could be guided seawards with long poles; the rest of the journey was easily accomplished by help of the cutter and gig. And so the work went cheerily on.

Old Ap was in his element now; his turn seemed to have come for enjoyment. He had rehabilitated himself in that wonderful old head-to-feet apron and his paper cap, and bustled about as lively as a superannuated cricket from “morning’s sun till dine,” giving orders here and orders there, and always humming a song, and never without his snuff-box.

The days grew shorter and shorter, winds moaned through the woods and brown leaves fell, and soon they sighed through leafless trees; then the birds of migration were found to have fled, even the buffaloes and the bisons went southwards after the sun, and the bears were no longer seen in the woods. But the building of the new hall went steadily on, and soon the roof was up and the flooring laid; and a fine strong structure it looked, though, as far as shape and architecture went, a stranger would have been puzzled to know what it was – whether church or market, mill or smithy. Never mind, there it was, and inside, at one end, there was a large fireplace built, big enough to accommodate a bull bison if he wanted roasting whole.

Ap was proud of his work, I can assure you, and after he had built a few forms for seats, he waxed still more ambitious, and commenced making chairs.

I am sorry to say a death occurred on board about this time: it was that of the yellowhammer, that had flown aboard after they had left Shetland. It was universally lamented, for though not much of a singer, it did what it could, and its little humble song could at any time recall to memory broomy braes and moorlands clad in golden-scented gorse.

The mornings were cold and sharp now, and in the long fore-nights the big lamp was lit in the snuggery, and a roaring fire in the stove was quite a treat.

On coming on deck one evening about sunset, this is what they saw on looking skywards. All around the horizon, for two spear-lengths high, was a slate-coloured haze; above this the mist was of a yellow hue, gradually merging into the blue of the open sky; and the sun was going down, looking like a great molten gong, his upper two-thirds a deep blood-red, the lower a lurid purple. The sea was waveless, yellow and glassy. A change was coming.

Chapter Nineteen

Winter Comes Apace – New Visitors from the North – A “Perwision o’ Natur’” – A Mad but Merry Scene – The Downfall of Snow-Stars – An Adventure, but where will it End?

In the far north – up in the high latitudes, as sailors are wont to call them – winter often comes on with startling rapidity. Nobody unaccustomed to these regions would believe that there could be so short an interval between the beautiful Indian summer, and the stern and rigorous Arctic winter. A few bright and almost balmy windless days, perhaps, herald its approach – days when there is a deep-abiding silence on mountain, plain, and sea, and silence in the great forests themselves, where all nature seems to be breathless, expectant, waiting for something to happen, something to come. The softer-leaved trees, the willows and water-ashes, the planes and the mountain mahoganies, that erst clad the glens in a cloud-land of green, are now stripped and bare, and the few brown leaves that cling here and there on some of the branches, tremble in the uncertain air, just as if the trees were things of life and were nervous, and were whispering to each other and saying, “Oh! we all know what is coming; would that we could be up and be off like the beasts and the birds of the forest that have all fled south! But we cannot, and our branches will be rent, our limbs will be torn and severed by the stormy breath of swift-advancing winter!” But those giants of the woodlands and hilltops, the cedars and tamaracs, the spruces and pines, stood forth bold and stately as in summer. No nervousness about them, their roots were fixed in the rocks themselves, and their sturdy limbs, still clothed in black and green, could bid defiance to every blast that could blow.

The beasts had not all gone away, though; there were bears in the woods, and wolves, and many kinds of smaller game, still left to afford sport for our wanderers; and there were gulls and guillemots, and innumerable wild fowl as well: and lo! here were several new visitors from the regions of the Pole itself; an Arctic fox or two might sometimes be seen skipping hither and thither, and in the water four or five different kinds of seals often came up to stare and marvel at the Snowbird, A whale, with her calf, was seen ploughing through the still waters of the bay, probably going still farther south for the winter months. A narwhal came quite a mile out of his lonely way to gaze at the yacht. He did not like her; he tossed his ivory spear angrily in the air, and plunged sullenly down into the depths again; and giant walruses would suddenly pop their terrible tusked and bearded heads, high out of the water to have a look at the intruder. But there were many more signs and wonders that told our heroes, in language that could not be mistaken, that King Winter would soon sweep down from his icy caves in the frozen north, and claim all the land and the sea round them as his own. Many of the denizens of the forest, for instance, got greyer in colour, and some even white, while every bird and every beast became sensibly larger.

“You see, young gentlemen,” said Seth, explainingly, to Allan and Rory, “here is how it be: soon’s they sniffs the change in the air they kinder knows winter is coming, so they just begins to tuck in and tuck in, and the more they tucks in the fatter they grows; and the fatter they grows, the longer and softer the fur or the feather grows. It’s a sort of a perwision o’ Natur’, ye see, to help them to stand the cold.”

“But,” said Rory, “this development of fat and fur or feather isn’t confined to wild animals and birds; just look at our dogs!”

The great Saint Bernard was coming trotting along the deck as Rory spoke, and all eyes were immediately bent upon him. Oscar seemed intensely pleased about something, but he really had got fat, and the coat which he had developed – all in one week, apparently – was simply marvellous to behold. And now Seth’s wolf, as he was called, came aft, and Oscar seemed actually to laugh all over, so did everybody else when they saw him; Plunket was no longer a wolf, all gaunt and lean and grim, there was not a rib to be seen in him, his skin was soft and sheeny, his gait no longer an ambling shamble, but a stately “pedal progression.” No wonder Oscar laughed; but when Spunkie joined the group, the Saint Bernard could not contain himself, and he must needs roll the terrier into the lee scuppers. “Just look at him!” Oscar seemed to cry; “why, he’s all coat together; no eyes, no tail, no nothing! Who’s for a game at football? Hurrah!” At this moment Ralph came on deck, and joined the group to see what all the fun was about. He had been down below having a bit of lunch. His presence seemed at once to bring the merriment to a sudden climax, for there was no mistake about it, Ralph had been getting stouter of late, though it had never struck anybody before. But now the moment they glanced at him both his friends went into fits. Allan laughed till the tears ran out of his eyes, and he had to lean against the bulwarks and hold his sides. Rory was worse; he was bent double like a jack-knife, and had to raise his right leg and slap his knee a dozen times before he was anything like composed. Meanwhile, poor quiet Ralph’s face, as he gazed wonderingly first at one and then at the other, was a perfect study.

“Have you both gone out of your minds?” he inquired at last.

“No, no?” cried Rory, “we’re laughing at you; you’ve got so fa – fa – fat! Ha! ha! ha!”

“You’re perfectly obese?” laughed Allan.

“He’s perfectly podgy, bedad!” cried Rory, turning Ralph round and round to examine him.

Seth looked on at the fun, chewing the end of a capstan bar, and Oscar kept on rolling Spunkie in the scuppers, but when McBain joined the group order was somewhat restored.

“Boys,” said McBain, smiling, “I declare to you I see a change in you all; one needn’t laugh at the other. Oh, don’t look at me! I know I’m adding inches to my waist, and so is Allan. And as for you, boy Rory – ”

“Yes,” said Rory, “as for me?”

“You’re rotund already,” said McBain.

“No more shape than a sun-fish,” added Ralph, revengefully.

Of course, after so daring a remark Ralph had to run for it, and so away he went, scampering along the deck with Rory in hot pursuit, but he had to save himself by making a back, over which Rory vaulted, and placed himself in position a few yards beyond.

“Oh?” cried Allan, “if it’s leapfrog, I’m in too.”

And off he went, bounding like a deer over Ralph, and over Rory.

“Keep the pot a-boiling!” cried Ralph.

And so, with many a shout and many a joke, round and round the Snowbird’s deck vaulted and ran our merry boy-heroes; but when it came to shoulders high, then their increase in bulk – the “perwision o’ Natur’,” as Seth termed it – told a tale. Ralph cleared Rory, but floundered over Allan, then Rory jumped on top of them both, and the whole three went rolling over on the deck, and Oscar and the wolf and the little Skye, who had been making bears of them, and legging them, all got mixed.

They extricated themselves at last, and then settled seriously to work. Off went their jackets.

“No more high leaps,” cried Ralph.

But behold, the fun gets infectious. McBain has joined the group, then Stevenson and Mitchell, and the mate of the Trefoil, and in less time than I take to tell it, there was a complete circle round the deck of the Snowbird. Every man Jack was there; it was pleasure without end; it was wonderful. But to see the performance of old Ap! In his flight around the charmed circle he leaped all in a piece, as it were, but he seemed positively to rebound like a cricket-ball; to ricochet like as shot upon water. Even Seth, with his long legs, who went about the game as if it were a matter of life and death, confessed afterwards that neither kids nor kangaroos were a circumstance to Ap.

And so on they went for half-an-hour and over; and had you gazed on that mad, merry scene, you would have declared that all hands had taken leave of their senses. No, you wouldn’t, though, for you would have joined the fun yourself.

“I reckon,” said Seth, after the ship had resumed its wonted calm, “that although we are going to be soldered up up here all winter, we ain’t going to let down our hearts about it.”

Now although the new hall was complete, and Ap had almost finished the last chair in it, it must not be supposed that the officers and crew of the Snowbird were idle. By no means; every day was now precious. They were as busy laying up stores as the Alpine hare. Stores of wood to burn, and stores of fresh provisions in case of emergency. The deer they shot, and one or two of the younger and smaller bison, were cut up with great precision and exactness by the old trapper, and the carcasses afterwards lashed against the masts in the fore and main tops to be frozen, and thus to remain fresh throughout the coming winter.

One morning, just after such a sunset as I tried to describe in last chapter, when Rory and Allan went on deck for their matutinal run before breakfast, they found, to their astonishment, that the shore and the trees, ay, and the ship itself, were clad in dazzling white. Not snow, though, but hoar-frost; only it was a hoar-frost such as it had never entered into their minds to imagine the like of. The sky seemed overcast with a strange purplish haze that hid the distant hills, and only revealed the scenery in the immediate neighbourhood. There wasn’t a breath of wind. There was silence everywhere shoreward, broken only now and then by the sullen splash of some giant sea mammal diving into the dark waters. And the hoar-frost kept falling, falling, falling.

It was a downfall of snow-stars and their spiculae; but these alighted on everything – on the sheets and shrouds and every horizontal spar, making them look five times their usual thickness; and the whole ship appeared as if enchanted; the men’s caps were white, their clothes were white, and their beards and hair, so that they looked like old, old men.

A great silvery-haired animal crept softly along the deck. Was it a polar bear? No, it was Oscar. He looked up in their faces with his plaintive brown eyes, as if beseeching them to tell him what it all meant.

But when, about an hour afterwards, they came on deck again and looked about them, they found that the purple mist had all cleared off, and that the sun was shining in a bright blue sky, towering high into which were the dazzling hills. The scene was extraordinary; it was magical, glorious. No snow that ever fell could have changed the landscape as those falling snow-stars had; for every twiglet, stem, and branch was white and silvery, and radiant as the sun itself, and the pines and soft-leaved trees were clad in a foliage more beautiful than that of summer itself.

It was a scene such as few men ever behold, and which but once to see is to remember for ever and ay.

It faded at last, though, as everything lovely does fade in this world, and before twelve of the clock the hoar-frost had melted and fallen from the branches, like showers of radiant diamonds.

Away through the dripping woodlands went Rory, Ralph, and Allan, in pursuit of game. Seth was to spend the day in fishing, for ere long the waters would be frozen over, and but few fish to be had, so all those that had been taken during the past week had been carefully salted, dried in smoke, and stored away.

With our three heroes this afternoon went a party of men with a rudely-constructed sledge, to bring back a load of logs for the general store.

“Who is the laziest of us three, I wonder?” said Ralph, as soon as they had got to the high ground, and the men had commenced to wood.

“Oh, I am, I think,” said Allan. “That leapfrog business is too much for a fat old fellow like me.”

“Very well,” said Ralph, “for once in a way we’ll grant that you are right, so you just stop and keep the ‘b’ars’ from the working party, and Rory and I will go down to the creek and see if we can’t find a duck or two.”

“All right,” said Allan; and down he sat on a fallen tree, and pulling a book from his pocket he began to read. So Allan sat there reading, and some fifty or sixty yards beneath him the men worked, singing and laughing as they plied the axe and saw. A whole half-hour was thus passed.

“This is slow work,” he thought at last, placing the book in his pocket. “I’ll creep quietly over to that bit of jungle – I’m sure to get a shot at something.”

If there was anything to shoot in the jungle the wind was all in his favour. He was down to leeward.

When he neared the thicket he threw himself on his hands and knees, and approaching, entered with caution.

There is no sport in the world a Scottish Highlander loves so much as that of deer-stalking. Is it any wonder, then, that when he found himself within fifty yards of a tall an tiered red deer his heart jumped for joy?

“One hundred and fifty pounds,” he said to himself, “if he weighs an ounce.”

He was just about to raise his rifle, when a dead branch snapped under him, and next moment the quarry had glided silently away.

“Anyhow,” thought Allan, “I’ll follow him up a little way. I’ve done a bit of this work at home, and he is a wary scamp, indeed, if he escapes me.”

He searched all through the piece of jungle first. This led him a goodly mile along the ravine, and into the forest, and he was about to give up the quest when he caught a glimpse of the animal’s white flag about a hundred yards away, but quickly getting farther off, though seeming in no great hurry. Keeping well under cover, Allan went on and on, determined if possible not to go back without a lordly haunch of venison on his shoulder. Before very long he found himself on the brink of a ravine. This puzzled him not a little. It was a ravine, but was it the ravine at the end of which he was sure to find his comrades? He did not care whether it was or not; he would cross and risk it, for yonder, on the opposite “brae,” were antlers; not one pair but many pairs.

So down he went, and, to his joy, found the stream was fordable.

Upwards now, with all the caution imaginable, crept this enthusiastic sportsman, upwards to where the all-unconscious herd were browsing. He was near them now, and was pushing the boughs aside to obtain a view, when, as ill luck would have it, a twig caught the trigger, the rifle went off, the deer stampeded, and poor Allan was left to mourn.

“Back homewards now, Allan,” a voice seemed to whisper to him. “Back, back; it isn’t the first time a deer has brought misfortune to the house of Arrandoon.”

Allan was a good mountaineer, and an excellent walker; he felt sure he could regain his party in an hour at most, but would daylight hold out as long? He feared it would not, and he knew it would get dark much sooner under the pine-trees, so he determined to follow the course of the stream. If it flowed at the bottom of the right ravine he was bound soon to rejoin his party. “Oh, of course it is the right ravine!” He found himself making this remark to himself a dozen times in a minute, as he commenced hurrying along the banks of the rivulet.

But now the shades of night began to fall, great black clouds rolled up and obscured the sky’s blue; there would neither be moon nor stars to guide him, so he increased his pace to as nearly a run as the rough nature of the ground would permit. But presently the trees got thicker and darker overhead, and he could no longer see the stream, and to advance farther were but madness.

He pauses now, and the dread of some coming evil falls like a shadow over his heart. In vain he shouts. There is no answer from the hills above; no answer from the dark woods. He fires his rifle again, it reverberates from rock to rock as if a volley had been fired. But the echo is the only response.

Chapter Twenty

Alone in the Beast-Haunted Wilderness – The Search Party – Agony of Thought – A Midnight Visitor – The Forest on Fire

The feeling of consternation on the minds of Ralph and Rory, when they returned to the working party and found that Allan was missing, may be better imagined than described. Mitchell was in command of the woodcutters, and not only he, but every one of the men, was interrogated as to what they knew or could tell of the sudden disappearance. They had all the self-same story to relate. They simply missed him, all at once as it were, from his seat. They had not noticed which way he had gone. They certainly did not hear the crack of his rifle; he had disappeared as quietly and suddenly as if he had been spirited away, and they very naturally imagined that he had got tired of waiting, and had gone along down to the river and creek to meet his friends.

Any search for a trail was altogether a waste of time. Had Seth himself been there, hardly could he have picked it up, for the gloom of night was fast settling down over mountain, and forest, and sea.

One thing, however, they could and did do. Coming speedily to the conclusion that Allan had gone more inland, probably after big game of some kind, they took a middle course, ’twixt east and south, and in a body marched upon a high bluff of barren ground, that rose up like an island in the centre of the spruce pines. Once on the top they could hear from all directions, if anything were to be heard. But alas! there was no answering shout to theirs, and the only reply to their firing was the faint echo of the rifles among the distant hills. Then a hopeless kind of sorrow seemed to settle down on every heart.

Neither Ralph nor Rory dared to express their thoughts in words. Allan their beloved companion was gone. The chances of their ever seeing him alive again were few, for what might not have happened to him already, or what might not happen to him during the night, all alone in this beast-haunted wilderness!

Was there any comfort to be had from the thought that he was simply lost? None. For how could they forget the many stories trapper Seth had told them of men lost on the prairies, on the plains, or in the woods and jungles; of how some suddenly lose all hope and heart, throw themselves on the ground, fall into a stupor, shiver and die; of how others lose all control over themselves, and rush hither and thither like wild beasts in confinement, and others who, instead of keeping cool and waiting for friendly help, become the victims of a restless mania?

It is strange how two people in an emergency like the present may be, at precisely the same moment of time, thinking of exactly the same thing, so that almost without the aid of words they may read each other’s soul. I have seen many instances of this, but am not psychologist enough to be able to account for it; but here now we have Ralph turning suddenly round to his companion, and looking for a brief moment inquiringly into his face, and Rory replying, “No, he left his compass in his cabin this morning, with his watch and chain.”

This was an answer to the very question Ralph was about to ask.

“Heaven help him, then!” said Ralph, with one brief glance skywards. Perhaps, reader, Heaven even then helped the utterer of that little prayer himself, and granted him presence of mind.

Anyhow, he at once began to give orders. Ralph had what might be called a larger and more grasping mind than Rory; the latter was as brave as brave could be, but Ralph was ever the better man in an emergency.

“Mitchell,” said our English hero, “there is no time to be lost. Take a few men with you, and go on board at once, and report this sad business to Captain McBain. He will know what to do as soon as it is daylight.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” said Mitchell, and choosing three men he ran quickly down the side of the hill, and the spruce forest swallowed them up.

“Now, lads,” continued Ralph, “go to work and collect wood, there is plenty about; we’ll build a fire on the hill here, and trust the rest to Providence.”

The men were glad to set to work, it revived hope in their hearts.

From the deck of the Snowbird, the eminence which Ralph and Rory occupied could be seen by daylight, so the fire could be seen burning steadily all the livelong night. Just after midnight McBain threw himself wearily on his cot to snatch a few hours’ rest. He was up again before daybreak, the fire was burning brightly then.