Part 9

He was just beginning to think that if he did not die of bear he would of mosquito, and that on the whole the bear might be the lesser evil, when to his delight he heard, faint in the distance, the voices of the returning rescue party.

The bear heard them too, and with many grunts and backward looks at the "cache" rolled off into the scrub.

It was now perfectly safe for Rogers to cross the open to the shack, but so shaken were his nerves that he could not have left the shelter of the tree for all the gold in Canada.

He waited till he could see the figures of the returning men moving in the scrub, and then sent forth a long hail.

"Boys! Oh, boys! Come quick and bring a gun!"

A figure halted, listened, then started at a run towards him, slipping cartridges into a Winchester as he came. It was Fox, the Southerner, and as he caught sight of Rogers his natural ironical speech slipped from him.

"Why, sonny," he said, "you are sho'ly playing touchwood."

And Rogers realized with something of a shock in what a limp, nerveless manner he was clinging to that friendly pine. He straightened himself up with a shaky laugh.

"No," he said, "it's been puss-in-the-corner, with the biggest cinnamon I have ever seen. He went off there to the right when he heard you coming. For Heaven's sake, try for a shot at him."

But Fox was already off through the scrub, murmuring to himself as he hurried, "Puss in-the-corner! My sakes! An' whatever ha-ad the young fool done with his gun?"

Rogers crossed over to the shack, where he found Bantling anxious to hear the trouble, but casting a concerned and hungry eye round in search of the supper that should have been awaiting them, and was not. However, a fire of dry pine-knots was soon lit, a frying-pan put on with cold pork and beans, tea made, and they exchanged accounts of adventures as they ate.

It seemed that Fox and Bantling had been led by the Swede about two miles down the river bank, over very bad ground full of muskegs, which are patches of slimy bog and water. When they reached the scene of the catastrophe, they found three men calmly sitting round a fire they had built on the bank, smoking their pipes and staring at their boat, which they had left forlornly wedged between two rocks, not far out from the bank, without even attempting to unload her. It was a queer-looking craft, like an enormous punt, with a great square sail, heaped untidily with a mixed pile of stores without any attempt at balance. The wonder was that they had managed to get so far.

It was a typical case of incompetence expecting to succeed in a country that will only consent to accept the best that every man has to give. Men start off to venture up the unknown reaches of these Arctic rivers without the slightest knowledge of what is before them. They will vaguely announce that the only essential is "grit," and deem such things as a knowledge of carpentry and shipbuilding and a smattering of geology entirely superfluous.

Such a party were these four men, all their boasted grit taken clean out of them, by hardship, sitting down before their stranded boat, trading on the unwritten law of the wild that each man must help his brother.

Bantling and Fox set them to work unloading, which they did with much grumbling; then yoked them into the tow-lines and set them to haul, while they stood up to their waists in water levering up the boat with spruce poles. When she at last floated it was with several seams badly sprung, which meant she had to be beached and caulked.

Having seen to this, and feeling they had done enough, the two Americans started back, having been away nearly two days.

Bantling had just finished the account of their labours, and he and Rogers had had supper and been back to the other clearing to fetch the latter's blanket and rifle, when Fox strode disgustedly up to the fire.

"Get him?" he repeated scornfully, in reply to their eager inquiries. "Never got a sight of him. If you hadn't been so unmistakably scared limp, Rogers, I should think you'd been pulling my leg."

Rogers, in proof of good faith, recounted his harrowing experience once more.

"But you never left your gun behind along with your blanket?" demanded Fox.

"Well," said Rogers, hesitatingly, "you see, it was so hot, and I was only just coming back to see everything was all right and get some grub. It seemed so useless to bring it up here just to lug it back."

"An' you air supposed to know the country!" was the Southerner's comment upon these excuses, delivered in tones of deepest scorn.

For the rest of the evening, smoking round their glowing fire, the three men raked over their memories in search of queer experiences with which to cap the events of the day.

They turned in at last about ten o'clock. Fox and Bantling had bunks on either side of the shack beyond the stove. Rogers's was across the end, opposite them. He was just slipping into that moment of exquisite rest before sleep comes when it is positive pain to be roused, when a drawling voice said:--

"Oh, sonny, next time you go out walkin' in this little ol' country don't use rifles to prop trees with; it's quite likely to come expensive. An' don't get dreamin' of bears--if you can help it," he added, with a chuckle.

A disgusted grunt was the only answer, as Rogers dived still deeper under his blankets. "Bang!" Bantling awoke with a start and felt for his revolver, with a vague idea of Indians. "Bang!" Something fell with a crash and a rattle. "It's the stove-pipe," thought Bantling. "Bang!" And he heard the thud of a bullet entering wood.

The Yankee collected his scattered wits and lit a candle. By its light he discovered the Southerner sitting up in bed, his usually calm, lean, brown face working with excitement, blazing wildly in every direction.

Rogers had bolted from his bunk and was crouching in the farthest corner. A large flake of wood chipped from a log above him had fallen on his pillow, and lay there to show what had awakened him to the dangers of the situation. The sheet-iron stove-pipe which carried off the smoke through the roof hung limply in two, a shot having undermined the strength of the joint at the elbow, and, as Bantling was taking in all this, a tiny looking-glass that one of them had hung on the wall fell in a tinkling shower of splinters from another shot, while Fox muttered wildly:--

"Mind that bear! Don't let him get away on you. I've hit him once in the shoulder."

To be shut up in a shack fourteen feet by ten with a man afflicted by nightmare in the form of imaginary bears to be shot is not an enviable situation, and for Rogers it was an extremely dangerous one, as Fox was shooting straight at him. Bantling slipped from his bunk and, striding across the hut, seized the dreamer's wrist in a paralyzing grip. With the touch Fox's eyes, which had been wide open all the time, lost their unseeing stare. He turned a bewildered gaze from the hand on his wrist to the angry face above him.

"There was a bear," he explained, mildly. "Did I get him?"

"Get him!" said Bantling, wrathfully. "You fool! You nearly got Rogers! And look at the damage you've done!"

As the situation dawned on Fox his dismay knew no bounds.

"I'm real sorry, you fellows," he said. "I guess I've had a touch of the worst kind of nightmare. Bantling, you'd better take charge of my six-shooter."

"You bet your life!" replied Bantling, briefly, but with immense feeling, as he took possession.

"I'm real sorry," said Fox again, turning to Rogers, "to have given you such a time. It appears it isn't me who ought to tell folks not to dream about bears, and I guess it'll be as well for the health of you fellows, if not my own, that I shouldn't eat quite such a hearty meal in future just before turnin' in."

The Life of a Steeplejack.

BY WILL LARKINS.

In this impressive article, =Mr. W. Larkins=, the well-known steeplejack, of Bow, London, sets forth some of his most exciting experiences in the way of felling chimneys and repairing steeples--a form of "high art" which has perils peculiarly its own. The striking photographs which accompany the text lend additional realism to a straightforward narrative.

I come of a race of steeplejacks. My father earned his living at the business, and met his death at it, falling from a church spire at Dumbarton, in Scotland.

Strictly speaking, the work is not really and truly so extraordinarily hazardous as people seem to think--that is to say, if a man takes proper precautions. Steeple-climbing is very much like mountaineering in this respect: it is the foolhardy folk who get hurt, and those who are inexperienced or careless.

Look at myself, for instance. I have been climbing since I was seven, and am now past thirty, and I have never met with an accident. But, then, I am a life-long abstainer and non-smoker, and I take no risks that forethought is able to provide against.

Narrow escapes I have had in plenty, but they hardly count in my line of business. All dangerous trades involve risks to those following them.

A rotten coping; a puff of wind, coming up unexpectedly from nowhere in particular; a loose brick, or a piece of decayed ironwork--any one of these may easily spell death.

Then, too, there are what, for want of a better term, I may call "outside risks": outside the regular run of our hazards, that is to say. For example, I once came very near to losing my life through being attacked by a swarm of bees while repairing a tower at Culmstock, in Devonshire. I had to descend very quickly, but I returned at two o'clock in the morning and asphyxiated the lot while they were asleep. Incidentally, I secured for myself thirty pounds of very excellent honey. The insects had been there for years, having found their way into the interior through a cavity left by a scaffold-pole used in erecting the edifice.

Another nasty experience that befell me occurred so recently as October, 1908. I was engaged to fell two lofty stacks at Millwall. They were each about a hundred feet high, and were known locally as the "leaning chimneys," being about four feet six inches out of the perpendicular.

This peculiarity made the task of cutting into their bases a somewhat ticklish one, since it was difficult to say, even approximately, when they were going to fall. Also, of course, I had to perform the work on the side to which they were inclined.

However, the first one toppled over all right, the "groaning" of the undermined mass, as it swayed ever so slightly to its fall, giving me timely warning of what was about to happen. But the second one collapsed far more suddenly, with the result that the "heel" of the falling portion actually "kicked" me clean off the base that remained standing! I fell fifteen feet, turning a complete somersault and alighting on all fours. I was somewhat shaken, but quite uninjured.

The biggest job I have undertaken up till now has been the decorating and repairing of the Nelson column in Trafalgar Square. This was my Matterhorn, so to speak.

I carried out the decorations to the order of the Navy League. It was the year 1905, the centenary of the great Admiral's crowning victory and death, and it was determined to do the thing in style. Nearly forty tons of laurel were used, and the greater portion of this had to be carried aloft and fixed to the column at varying heights right up to the top.

My orders as to not damaging the memorial in any way were most stringent; no nails or spikes of any kind were to be driven into it. This meant devising an altogether new method of ascent.

I thought out many plans, but eventually decided to lash ladders to the structure by means of ropes passed round and round it. It was a ticklish, trying job, but it was accomplished without hitch or mishap of any kind.

Two sets of ladders were used, placed opposite to one another. This was necessary, as the column measures forty feet in circumference--too far to pass a rope round with ease. The most difficult part of the ascent to negotiate was the cornice at the top of the column. This is the heaviest projection for "throw-back" work in England, and I had to climb up and over it with my back to the ground, for all the world like a fly on a ceiling.

I am not ashamed to confess that I breathed more freely when I had rounded the obstruction, and was able to cautiously slide myself on to the platform which supports the statue. From below this appears flat, but it is really bevelled, with a sharp slope outwards. I found it, too, covered with an inch-thick layer of greasy soot; so that to walk about on it was exceedingly risky. However, once I got the life-line secured to the statue all was plain sailing.

I discovered a crack in the hero's arm, which I afterwards repaired. When I tell people this they not infrequently ask, on the spur of the moment, "Which arm?" Of course, the figure has only one.

By the way, I have read many accounts of the statue, professing to give its size and dimensions, and they are nearly all wrong. The exact measurements, as taken by my assistant, and afterwards carefully verified by myself, are as follows.

The figure itself is seventeen feet four and a half inches in height, and it measures five feet three inches across the shoulders. The sword which hangs by its side is seven feet nine and a half inches long.

Besides repairing the statue I also re-pointed the column from top to bottom. It is a splendidly-executed piece of work, solid granite throughout, and should have lasted for centuries, but the authorities have allowed an underground railway station to be excavated right at its base, and this must undoubtedly have weakened the foundations. I do not wish to pose as an alarmist, but I should not be greatly surprised if, owing to this cause, the memorial suddenly collapsed some day, like the Campanile at Venice.

Speaking of statues, I had the task of repairing that of the first Duke of Sutherland. It stands out in my memory as the very coldest and most uncomfortable piece of work I ever undertook. The memorial is situated on top of Ben Bhragie, a mountain more than twelve hundred feet high, near Golspie, Sutherlandshire. The figure is of colossal size--thirty-three feet six inches from heel to head--and the pedestal on which it stands measures ninety feet from base to summit.

The time was mid-winter; there was five feet of snow on the mountain, and gale followed gale with irritating persistency. Ladders and gear froze solid during the night, so that it became necessary in the morning for me to chop my way to the top through the ice that had accumulated meanwhile. The ascent and descent of the mountain, too, proved so long and arduous that I could only put in about two hours' work in a day. Altogether, I was not sorry when the job was completed.

Personally, I consider there is more risk in felling chimneys and such-like structures than in climbing them; that is to say, when they are felled in "my" way. The old-fashioned method was to undermine the base and prop it up with timber. This was then saturated with a mixture of oil and tar and set on fire. When it burnt through, down came the chimney.

The other way, which I may truthfully lay claim to have invented, is to cut away the bricks without under-pinning, keeping a sharp look-out aloft meanwhile. Sometimes I stand a small, straight twig upright in the gash. When this bends ever so little it is a sign to me that the thousand tons or so of masonry above me is inclining away from the perpendicular, and that its collapse is imminent.

One has to be very careful and very agile. I remember felling a shaft at Summerstown, near Tooting. It was brick-built and circular, a hundred and forty feet high, and weighed about eight hundred tons. Experience has taught me that this kind of chimney can usually be cut about halfway through at the base before it shows signs of giving way.

On this occasion, however, the collapse came when I was barely a third of the way through, and with scarcely any warning. I leapt aside, but the descending stack grazed my scalp as I slipped from under. I was able to realize then something of the feelings of Marmion when he galloped out of Tantallon Castle across the rising drawbridge, and felt the falling portcullis bars "raze his plume."

There were probably not far short of a thousand people present, and in the silence that followed the fall of the stack they sent up, as with one voice, a loud cry of horror. I was completely hidden from view by the clouds of dust that always arise on these occasions, and they were quite sure I had been killed. All I lost, however, were my tools and cap and jacket, which were buried under the mass of masonry. They are there now.

It transpired afterwards that the chimney had been built too close to the banks of the Wandle River, so that its foundations had become undermined--hence its premature collapse.

One reads not infrequently of fights with madmen in mid-air. I used to regard these as fiction pure and simple, until such an adventure actually befell myself.

It happened at Deptford, about two years ago. I had been engaged to repair the outside of the top of the shaft at the waterworks there. The fires were not drawn, and the heated fumes and smoke that were continually being belched from the mouth of the chimney made the job a far from pleasant one, especially as the day happened to be exceptionally warm, with scarcely a breath of air stirring.

Still, a "jack" takes but little notice of these things, and I and my two assistants worked steadily on for some hours. I was just thinking of giving the word to knock off for dinner, when the man nearest me suddenly stopped of his own accord, threw down his tools, straightened himself up on the coping, facing inwards, and clasped his hands above his head, like a man about to take a dive--which was, in point of fact, precisely what he was going to do. Only, it was not into water that he intended plunging, but straight down the reeking chimney, to be presently incinerated by the flaming furnaces far below!

I think the two of us that were left divined his intention at the same moment. "Quick! Grab him!" I cried, and we both dashed at him. Only just in time, for his head and shoulders were disappearing within the mouth of the shaft as we clutched him by the legs. It was a wonder that he did not drag us down with him, for he struggled fiercely. But it was two to one, and eventually we overpowered him and hauled him out on the coping.

There he lay, limp and gasping, half choked with the fumes, while we bound him hand and foot with a ladder-rope. Then, with assistance, we managed to lower him to the ground. The doctors said that the heat of the sun had temporarily affected his brain.

Another nasty turn I had was while I was engaged in repairing the steeple of a church in Wiltshire. I was sitting in a cradle under a coping, while my man was standing on the projection immediately above my head. He leaned over to ask me a question, lost his balance, and the next thing I knew was that his body was hurtling downwards past me through the empty air. I nearly followed him, so sick and unnerved was I at the sight.

This may sound strange, but I think any man who has done much climbing, whether on mountains or on steeples and other high artificial erections, will bear me out when I say that to witness an accident of this kind, and to know oneself impotent either to prevent or assist, is one of the most terrifying experiences that it is possible to conceive. Whymper has left it on record how, when during his most memorable ascent Lord Frederick Douglas and his friend fell to their deaths, he was so utterly unnerved for the time being that he could only cling to the face of the precipice, trembling and crying, unable to move a step one way or the other.

Luckily the end of my little adventure partook rather of the nature of comedy than tragedy. When I mustered up courage to look down, I saw my mate sitting on the corrugated iron roof of a building far below, vigorously rubbing that portion of his anatomy upon which schoolboys are popularly supposed to be birched.

He had fallen squarely upon it, and the resilient roof, acting like a spring mattress, had broken his fall, bouncing him up and down some half-a-dozen times with continually decreasing momentum until at last he came to rest. He was much bruised and shaken, but no bones were broken, and after a few days' rest was as fit as a fiddle again.

Most jobs a steeplejack has to undertake are hard ones; hard, that is to say, from the point of view of manual labour. Occasionally, however, one drops across one that is ridiculously easy.

For example, I was called to Truro because the vane on top of the steeple of its famous cathedral refused to work. Residents were making obvious jokes about its being a weather_hen_, and not a weathercock at all, because it "sat so tight."

I travelled three hundred miles on the level, and then climbed four hundred feet into the air, with visions of displaced masonry and fractured ironwork before my eyes, only to find that the socket in which the vane worked was badly in need of oiling. I rather think that that is a record in big efforts for little objects. Three hundred miles by rail, four hundred feet by ladder--and all to grease a weathercock!

This, by the way, was the highest steeple I ever climbed, also the most southerly, except the French Cathedral, Jersey. The most northerly was that which surmounts Dornoch Cathedral. This is Mr. Andrew Carnegie's regular place of worship, and quite close to his residence, Skibo Castle.

"I suppose," I remarked to some of the local residents, "that Mr. Carnegie is pretty generous round here?"

"No," they replied; "he has made it a rule not to give anything to any charity that is situated within twenty miles of Skibo."