Chapter 18

THE WINTER OF FAMINE

Faintly over the waters, but quite loud enough for Bobby to hear, came a hail, and Bobby was on his feet in an instant, shouting with all the power 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 last shot listened tense with eagerness and excitement.

This was a signal that he and Jimmy had agreed upon. It meant, "Come! I want you," and when at home if Jimmy wished Bobby to come over to Skipper Ed's cabin, or Bobby wished Jimmy to come to Abel Zachariah's cabin, it was the way they called one another. And when the signal was heard, two shots were fired in quick succession to say, "I hear, and I will 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 the three shots in the beginning, whether or not his invitation had been accepted, 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 the boat returning from the seal hunt, Jimmy would surely answer.

He had but a moment to wait when two quickly fired shots rang out over the water. His excitement could scarcely contain itself as he fired one answering shot. Everything was working splendidly, after all! They were getting in from the seal hunt ahead of the freeze-up, and he was to reach home none the worse for his adventure.

Bobby was lavish now with his wood. Darkness was settling and he piled the wood upon the fire until its flames leaped up into a great blaze as a 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 Abel and Skipper Ed and Jimmy were glad enough to see one another again and to relate to one another their various experiences. And Mrs. Abel, mourning in the cabin, was given great joy, for she had believed that Bobby 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 the hunters, and they were forced to retreat, that they might reach home before the sea froze. These four seals, together with what remained of the meat from the spring hunt, were the only provisions they had for the dogs until February, when they could go to the ice edge, or _sena_, for the winter hunt, for then the seals would be on the ice.

Even with scant rations this would be little more than half enough to keep the animals in serviceable condition, for there were a good many dogs to feed. Abel's two teams, together with an extra dog or two to fill the place of any that might be injured, numbered eighteen, while Skipper Ed kept seven. This made a total of twenty-five dogs to be provided for, and twenty-five big wolf dogs will consume a vast amount of food during a winter.

So they held a consultation, and Skipper Ed decided that he could do very well without dogs if Abel would permit him the use of a team now and again.

"Partner and I have kept dogs only these last two years, anyhow," said Skipper Ed. "Our hunting and trapping is chiefly inland, and we haven't much use for them. I don't want to see any of the dogs suffer for the want of something to eat, and if Partner is willing we'll kill them, and let 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 own dogs to fifteen, and thus the problem was solved.

Winter settled with almost unexampled cold, and with a succession of fearful storms. It was a winter, too, of awful hardship and privation to the people of the Coast. The Eskimos to the northward depended chiefly upon 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 the early 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 they caught to trading schooners which visited them for that purpose at their fishing places before they returned to winter quarters. In this way they usually purchased sufficient flour and pork, tea and molasses to do them until the following spring, and when open water came again they would sail to the mission station and purchase with the furs their traps had yielded them, fresh supplies.

The attack of measles this year, however, had so interfered with their fishing that their small catch had purchased from the traders scarcely enough flour and pork and tea to last them until the new year. And so one day late in December Abel and Skipper Ed drove the two dog teams over to the Nain Mission, expecting to obtain there the supplies they needed.

"I'm sorry," said the missionary, "but I can spare you very little--almost nothing. The seal hunt was a failure with the people all down north, and they are starving, and I must take care of them. This year 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, it won'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 and we'll get rabbits and partridges, and make out. Give the Eskimos what you 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 to Abel's Bay to face the winter and make their fight against nature without complaint. For no truly brave man will complain when things go wrong in the game of life. And up there on The Labrador the game of life is a man's game and every man who wins must play it like a man, with faith and courage.

The weeks that followed were trying and tedious ones. Sometimes there was not much to eat, when the hunting was poor, but they thanked God there was always something.

But when February came at last there was not food enough to render it possible 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 they would eat that day. Grouse and rabbits were the game upon which they usually relied, but Fate had cast this as one of those years when the rabbits 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 was seen. For them to go to the ice without food was too great a risk. If they went and failed to find seals and were overtaken by a storm they would 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. Not far away was a barren hill whose top was kept clean swept of snow by the winds, and up this hill they climbed, for sometimes ptarmigans are found in places like this, feeding upon the frozen moss berries which cling to the rocks.

Bobby was in advance, and from the summit of the hill he scanned the great expanse of snow reaching away over the endless rolling country to the westward. And looking, he discovered in the distance a dark, moving mass slowly drawing down another hillside. For a moment he was speechless 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 and saw, 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 and their rifles and all the ammunition they could muster, and then all four turned 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 the hill where the four eager hunters waited.

At length the mass reached them, and what followed was not a hunt but a slaughter, and when they were through more than a hundred caribou lay stretched upon the snow, and still the caribou came.

The period of starvation was at an end. Comfort and plenty had appeared at their very door.

The dogs were harnessed, and as many of the carcasses as they could use for man and dog food were hauled down, some to Abel Zachariah's cabin and some to Skipper Ed's. And bright and early the following morning Abel 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, and so He cares for His children even in the wild wastes of Labrador.

"Good luck! Good luck at last!" said Skipper Ed.