Chapter 15

MAROONED IN AN ARCTIC BLIZZARD

That was indeed a winter of bitter cold and of almost unexampled severity. It came suddenly, too, and with scant warning, as we shall see, and a full fortnight in advance of the time when it should have come.

Abel and Skipper Ed took Jimmy with them that year upon their autumn seal hunt. It was deemed wise to leave Bobby behind with Mrs. Abel, despite his protest. Though he was willing enough to remain when Mrs. Abel declared that because of her recent illness she wished some one to stay at home and assist her, for she did not feel equal to the task, unassisted, of making things snug for the winter. And of course there was none but Bobby to stay.

And so it came about that Bobby, with many longings and regrets, though cheerful enough withal, stood down on the beach one frosty September morning and watched Abel Zachariah and Skipper Ed and Jimmy sail away for the hunt, while he comforted himself with the thought that another year he, too, would go.

Indeed, he had already taken part in the spring hunt, and though he gave no hint that he had guessed what was in their minds, he knew well enough that the plea that he was needed at home to assist Mrs. Abel at the work was a subterfuge of his foster parents, instigated, he had no doubt, by Skipper Ed. He was also satisfied that the real reason why he was left at home was because they deemed him not yet strong enough, as a result of his own recent illness, to withstand the unavoidable exposure and hardships to which the seal hunters would be subjected on the open and unprotected coast. And he had to confess to himself that he had not indeed recovered the full measure of his activity and hardihood, and that there was reason and justice in their course.

A raw wind was blowing, but a fair wind, and in a little while the boat, bowling before the breeze with all sail set, was lost to view. Then, disconsolately, Bobby turned back to the cabin, but Mrs. Abel took good care that he was kept so busy that he soon forgot his disappointment in work.

And that day he and Mrs. Abel had a jolly dinner of boiled goose, and tea, and that evening they sat a full hour beyond their bedtime while she recounted to him in her own quaint way the story of his coming from the place where mists and storms are born, and told him how he was sent by God to be their son, and how little he was, and how ill he was when Abel first placed him in her arms, and how she had hugged him to her, and had nursed away his fever, and how glad she and Abel had always been that God had sent them a son.

The days passed thus until they lengthened into a week. Though Bobby was content enough, it was but natural that he should be a bit lonesome now and again, and eagerly wish the fortnight gone that yet must pass before the return of the seal hunters.

The wild geese and ducks were still in flight, coming in great flocks from the lakes of the vast unknown interior and from the farther north, on their way to milder southern climes. There were several marshes near Abel's Bay where the migrating flocks tarried for a time to rest and feed, and of mornings they would pass with a great roar of wings and loud honking from the bay to these marshes, and at night they would return.

It was Bobby's custom morning and night to lie in wait for them with his shotgun, and he always returned to the cabin with as many birds as he could carry. These were hung in the entrance shed of the cabin, where they would freeze and remain fresh and good until needed for the table. And thus he too was doing his part in providing for the long winter which was at hand.

The goose-hunting season was always one of great sport for Bobby, but this year he found it lonesome enough without Jimmy's company. It was this loneliness, no doubt, that prompted him, one morning in the beginning of the second week after the departure of the seal hunters, to take Abel Zachariah's old skiff and pull far down the bay in the hope that he might kill a seal on his own account. It was a gray day, with leaden clouds hanging low. Patches of snow lay upon the ground. The bay, throbbing with a gentle swell, was somber and dark.

Bobby rowed the old skiff down the bay and past the bird islands near which he and Jimmy had their adventure on the cliff, but no seals were to be seen, and presently he turned his attention to the numerous sea pigeons which were swimming here and there. The young birds were quite full-grown now, and it was great fun shooting at them and watching them dive and rise again unharmed, though sometimes one would be just a fraction of a second too slow and the shot would find it, and then its downy body would float upon the water, and Bobby would pick it up and drop it into the boat and turn his attention to another, which might escape, or might be added to Bobby's bag.

This was exciting sport--so exciting that Bobby could not bring himself to give it up until a full two hours past noonday, and even then he would not have done so had not a rising northeast wind created a chop which made shooting from the skiff so difficult and inaccurate that it lost its interest.

Then Bobby discovered that he was possessed of a great hunger, and he ran the skiff ashore on a wooded point, and in a snug hollow in the lee of a knoll and surrounded by a grove of thick spruce trees, where he was well sheltered from the keen northeast wind, he lighted a fire, plucked and dressed one of the fifteen sea pigeons he had secured, and impaling it upon a stick proceeded to grill it for his dinner.

He was thus busily engaged when snow began to fall. Thicker and thicker it came, but Bobby was well protected and he finished his cooking and his meal without a thought of danger or concern for his safety. And, when he had eaten, reluctant to leave his cozy fire, he tarried still another half hour.

"Well," said he, rising at length, "the snow's getting thick and I'd better be pulling back. My! I didn't know it was so late! It's getting dusk, already, and it'll be good and dark before I get home!"

Then, to his amazement, he discovered when he emerged from his sheltered nook that the wind had risen tremendously, that the cold had visibly increased, and that the chop had developed into a considerable sea, and that the snow, too, driving before the wind, was blinding thick.

Bobby was not, however, alarmed, though he realized there was no time to be lost if he would reach home before the full force of the rising blizzard was upon him, and he chided himself for his delay. But the old skiff was a good sea boat, and Bobby was a good sea-man, and he pulled fearlessly out upon the wind-swept waters. And here the driving snow soon swallowed up the land, but Bobby was not afraid, and pulling with all his might turned down before the storm.

For a little while all went well, and Bobby was congratulating himself that after all he would reach home before it became too dark to see. Then suddenly a big sea broke over his stern, and left the skiff half filled with water. This was serious. He could not relinquish the oars to bail out the water. Another such deluge would smother him.

Then he realized that the seas had grown too big for him to weather, and his one hope was to make a landing. He searched his mind for a section of the shore within his reach, sufficiently free from jagged rocks and sufficiently sheltered to offer him a safe landing, and all at once he bethought himself of the bird island where he and Jimmy had gone egging, and which he had visited many times since.

He was, fortunately, very near the island and when he heard the surf beating upon its rocky shores he determined quickly to make an effort to run upon its lee shore. Here, he argued, he could bail the water from the skiff, and then could pull across to the mainland, where he could haul up the skiff and walk home. It would be a disagreeable tramp in the storm, but it was his safest and his only course.

But even in the lee of the island the seas were running high and dashing upon the rocks with such force that for the instant he held off, hesitating. There was no other course, however. The half-submerged skiff would never live to reach the mainland. With every passing minute conditions were growing worse.

And so, watching for an opportune moment, Bobby drove for the shore. A roller carried the skiff on its crest, dropped it with a crash upon the rocks, and receded. Bobby sprang out, seized the painter, and running forward secured it to a bowlder, that the next sea might not carry it away.

Then, watching his opportunity, little by little and with much tugging and effort, he drew the skiff to a safe position beyond the waves, and as he did so he discovered that the water which it held ran freely out of it, and that one of its planks had been smashed, and in the bottom of the skiff was a great hole.

And there he was, wet to the skin, stranded upon a wind-swept, treeless island, with a useless skiff and with never a tool--not even an ax--with which to make repairs. And there he was, too, without shelter, and the first terrible blizzard of a Labrador winter rising, in its fury and awful cold, about him. And whether or not there was any wood about that could be gathered with bare hands he did not know. But more important than wood was cover from the storm, for without protection from the blizzard Bobby was well aware he could never survive the night.