CHAPTER XVIII
THE WINTER OF FAMINE
Faintly over the waters, but quite loud enough for Bobby to hear, came ahail, and Bobby was on his feet in an instant, shouting with all thepower of his lusty young lungs. Then he ran to his cave and got his gun,and fired three shots at intervals of a few seconds, and with the lastshot listened tense with eagerness and excitement.
This was a signal that he and Jimmy had agreed upon. It meant, "Come! Iwant you," and when at home if Jimmy wished Bobby to come over toSkipper Ed's cabin, or Bobby wished Jimmy to come to Abel Zachariah'scabin, it was the way they called one another. And when the signal washeard, two shots were fired in quick succession to say, "I hear, and Iwill come," or two shots with an interval between, to say, "I hear you,but I can't come." Then it was the duty of the one who had fired thethree shots in the beginning, whether or not his invitation had beenaccepted, to fire a single shot to say: "I hear you and understand."
And so it was that Bobby listened eagerly. If the hail had come from theboat returning from the seal hunt, Jimmy would surely answer.
He had but a moment to wait when two quickly fired shots rang out overthe water. His excitement could scarcely contain itself as he fired oneanswering shot. Everything was working splendidly, after all! They weregetting in from the seal hunt ahead of the freeze-up, and he was toreach home none the worse for his adventure.
Bobby was lavish now with his wood. Darkness was settling and he piledthe wood upon the fire until its flames leaped up into a great blaze asa beacon, to guide the boat to a safe landing among the rocks.
And so it came to pass that Bobby was found and rescued, and he and Abeland Skipper Ed and Jimmy were glad enough to see one another again andto relate to one another their various experiences. And Mrs. Abel,mourning in the cabin, was given great joy, for she had believed thatBobby had been lost without doubt in the storm.
The seal hunt was, as Bobby had feared it would be, almost a failure.But four small seals had been killed when the storm came upon thehunters, and they were forced to retreat, that they might reach homebefore the sea froze. These four seals, together with what remained ofthe meat from the spring hunt, were the only provisions they had for thedogs until February, when they could go to the ice edge, or _sena_, forthe winter hunt, for then the seals would be on the ice.
Even with scant rations this would be little more than half enough tokeep the animals in serviceable condition, for there were a good manydogs to feed. Abel's two teams, together with an extra dog or two tofill the place of any that might be injured, numbered eighteen, whileSkipper Ed kept seven. This made a total of twenty-five dogs to beprovided for, and twenty-five big wolf dogs will consume a vast amountof food during a winter.
So they held a consultation, and Skipper Ed decided that he could dovery well without dogs if Abel would permit him the use of a team nowand again.
"Partner and I have kept dogs only these last two years, anyhow," saidSkipper Ed. "Our hunting and trapping is chiefly inland, and we haven'tmuch use for them. I don't want to see any of the dogs suffer for thewant of something to eat, and if Partner is willing we'll kill them, andlet you have the carcasses to feed to your teams. What do you say,Partner?"
"We'll kill them." Jimmy agreed, regretfully.
Abel also decided that it would be wise to reduce the number of his owndogs to fifteen, and thus the problem was solved.
Winter settled with almost unexampled cold, and with a succession offearful storms. It was a winter, too, of awful hardship and privation tothe people of the Coast. The Eskimos to the northward depended chieflyupon seals for their own living as well as for dog food, and with them,as with Abel Zachariah and Skipper Ed, the seal hunt was cut off by theearly blizzard, and few seals were killed.
Abel and Skipper Ed, however, relied more largely upon the cod fishing,and it had been their custom for many years to barter away the fish theycaught to trading schooners which visited them for that purpose at theirfishing places before they returned to winter quarters. In this way theyusually purchased sufficient flour and pork, tea and molasses to do themuntil the following spring, and when open water came again they wouldsail to the mission station and purchase with the furs their traps hadyielded them, fresh supplies.
The attack of measles this year, however, had so interfered with theirfishing that their small catch had purchased from the traders scarcelyenough flour and pork and tea to last them until the new year. And soone day late in December Abel and Skipper Ed drove the two dog teamsover to the Nain Mission, expecting to obtain there the supplies theyneeded.
"I'm sorry," said the missionary, "but I can spare you verylittle--almost nothing. The seal hunt was a failure with the people alldown north, and they are starving, and I must take care of them. Thisyear there are so many needy ones our stock will go only a little way.I'll divide it the best way I know how, but, God help the poor folk, itwon't go far, and I'm praying God to send caribou or send seals."
"We'll get on somehow," said Skipper Ed. "The timber is back of us andwe'll get rabbits and partridges, and make out. Give the Eskimos whatyou have. They're on barren ground and don't have the chance we have.There'll be better luck for us all by and by. Better luck."
And with only a half barrel of flour and some tea they returned toAbel's Bay to face the winter and make their fight against naturewithout complaint. For no truly brave man will complain when things gowrong in the game of life. And up there on The Labrador the game of lifeis a man's game and every man who wins must play it like a man, withfaith and courage.
The weeks that followed were trying and tedious ones. Sometimes therewas not much to eat, when the hunting was poor, but they thanked Godthere was always something.
But when February came at last there was not food enough to render itpossible for them to make the long journey to the ice edge with safety.Living now was from hand to mouth. Each day they must hunt for what theywould eat that day. Grouse and rabbits were the game upon which theyusually relied, but Fate had cast this as one of those years when therabbits disappear from the land as it is said they do every nine years.Be that as it may, not one was killed that winter and not a track wasseen. For them to go to the ice without food was too great a risk. Ifthey went and failed to find seals and were overtaken by a storm theywould perish.
This was the condition of affairs when Bobby and Jimmy set out one cold,clear morning to hunt for ptarmigans, the white grouse of the North. Notfar away was a barren hill whose top was kept clean swept of snow by thewinds, and up this hill they climbed, for sometimes ptarmigans are foundin places like this, feeding upon the frozen moss berries which cling tothe rocks.
Bobby was in advance, and from the summit of the hill he scanned thegreat expanse of snow reaching away over the endless rolling country tothe westward. And looking, he discovered in the distance a dark, movingmass slowly drawing down another hillside. For a moment he wasspeechless with joy, but it was for only a moment, and then he shouted:
"_Tuktu! Tuktu! Tuktu!_" (Caribou, or reindeer.)
Bobby's excited cry brought Jimmy up on a run, and when he looked andsaw, he, too, shouted, and was no less excited than Bobby.
"Caribou! The caribou are coming!"
That was enough to send them back on a run for Abel and Skipper Ed andtheir rifles and all the ammunition they could muster, and then all fourturned back to meet the caribou.
On and on came the great herd, in a far-reaching, endless mass,thousands upon thousands of them, and they were heading directly for thehill where the four eager hunters waited.
At length the mass reached them, and what followed was not a hunt but aslaughter, and when they were through more than a hundred caribou laystretched upon the snow, and still the caribou came.
The period of starvation was at an end. Comfort and plenty had appearedat their very door.
The dogs were harnessed, and as many of the carcasses as they could usefor man and dog food were hauled down, some to Abel Zachariah's cabinand some to Sk
ipper Ed's. And bright and early the following morningAbel set out to the mission station and Skipper Ed to Abraham Moses'cabin, to bid the starving people come and help themselves and feast,and in the end not a caribou of all those that were killed was wasted.
And so it was that the Almighty looked after these children of His, andso He cares for His children even in the wild wastes of Labrador.
"Good luck! Good luck at last!" said Skipper Ed.