Chapter 18

FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH THE NATIVES.

Only once during their tedious imprisonment had our lads received evidence that human beings existed in that desolate country, and after they gained this information they hardly knew whether to rejoice or to regret that it had come to them. One morning, some weeks after their arrival in the basin, to which they had given the name of "Locked Harbour," Cabot, going on deck for a breath of air, made a discovery so startling that, for a moment, he could hardly credit the evidence of his eyes. Then he shouted to White:

"Come up here quick, old man, and take in the sight."

As the latter, who had been lighting a fire in the galley stove, obeyed this call, Cabot pointed to the beach, on which stood a row of human figures, gazing at the schooner as stolidly as so many graven images.

"Indians!" cried White, "and perhaps we can get them to show us the way to the nearest mission."

"Good enough!" rejoined Cabot in high excitement. "Let's go ashore and interview them before they have a chance to disappear as mysteriously as they have appeared. Where do you suppose they came from?"

"Can't imagine, and doubt if they'll ever tell. Probably they are wondering the same thing about us. I suppose, though, they are on their way towards the interior for the winter. But hold on a minute. We must take them some sort of a present. Grub is what they'll be most likely to appreciate, for the natives of this country are always hungry."

Acting upon his own suggestion, White dived below, to reappear a minute later with a bag of biscuit and a generous piece of salt pork, which he tossed into the dinghy. Then the excited lads pulled for the beach on which the strangers still waited in motionless expectation.

"Only a woman, a baby, and three children," remarked White, in a tone of disappointment, as they approached near enough to scrutinise the group. "Still, I suppose they can guide us out of here as well as any one else if they only will."

The strangers were as White had discovered--a woman and children, but one of these latter was a half-grown boy of such villainous appearance that Cabot promptly named him "Arsenic," because his looks were enough to poison anything. They were clad in rags, and were so miserably thin that they had evidently been on short rations for a long time. White's belief that they were hungry was borne out by the ravenous manner with which they fell upon the provisions he presented to them.

Arsenic seized the piece of pork and whipping out a knife cut it into strips, which he, his mother, and his sisters devoured raw, as though it were a delicacy to which they had long been strangers. The hard biscuit also made a magical disappearance, and when all were gone, Arsenic, looking up with a hideous grin, uttered the single word: "More."

"Good!" cried Cabot, "he can talk English. Now look here, young man, if we give you more--all you can carry, in fact, of pork, bread, flour, tea, and sugar, will you show us the road to the nearest mission--Ramah, Nain, or Hopedale?"

"Tea, shug," replied the boy, with an expectant grin.

"Yes, tea, sugar, and a lot of other things if you'll show us the way to Nain. You understand?"

"Tea, shug," repeated the young Indian, again grinning.

"We wantee git topside Nain. You sabe, Nain?" asked Cabot, pointing to his companion and himself, and then waving his hand comprehensively at the inland landscape.

"Tea, shug, more," answered the young savage, promptly, while his relatives regarded him admiringly as one who had mastered the art of conversing with foreigners.

"Perhaps he understands English better, or rather more, than he speaks it," suggested White.

"It is to be hoped that he does," replied Cabot. "Even then he might not comprehend more than one word in a thousand. But I tell you what. Let's go and get our own breakfast, pack up what stuff we intend to carry, make the schooner as snug as possible, and come back to the beach. Here we'll show these beggars what stuff we've brought, and give them to understand that it shall all be theirs when they get us to Nain. Then we'll start them up the trail, and follow wherever they lead. They are bound to fetch up somewhere. Even if they don't take us where we want to go, we will have provisions enough to last us a week or more, and can surely find our way back."

"I hate to leave them, for they might skip out while we were gone," objected White.

"That's so. Well then, why not invite them on board? They'll be safe there until we are ready to go. Say, Arsenic, you all come with we all to shipee, sabe? Get tea, sugar, plenty, eat heap, you understand?"

As Cabot said this he made motions for all the natives to enter the dinghy, and then pointed to the schooner.

It was evident that he was understood, and equally so that the woman declined his proposition, for she sat motionless, holding her baby, and with the younger children close by her side. The boy, however, expressed his willingness to visit the schooner by entering the dinghy and seating himself in its stern.

"That will do," said White. "The others won't run away without him, and he is the only one we want anyhow."

So the boat was rowed out to the anchored schooner, while those left on the beach watched the departure of their son and brother with the same apathy that they had shown towards all the other happenings of that eventful morning.

"Look at the young scarecrow, taking things as coolly as though he had always been used to having white men row him about a harbour," laughed Cabot, "and yet I don't suppose he was ever in a regular boat before."

"No," agreed White, "I don't suppose he ever was."

They did not allow Arsenic to enter the "Sea Bee's" cabin, but made him stay on deck, where, however, he appeared perfectly contented and at his ease. Here Cabot brought the various supplies for their proposed journey and put them up in neat packages while White prepared breakfast. The former had supposed that their guest would be greatly interested in what he was doing, but the young savage manifested the utmost indifference to all that took place. In fact he seemed to pay no attention to Cabot's movements, but squatted on the deck, and gazed in silent meditation at the beach, where his mother and sisters could be seen also seated in motionless expectation.

"I believe he is a perfect idiot," muttered Cabot, "and wonder that he knows enough to eat when he's hungry."

Then White called him, and he went below to breakfast.

"Do you think it is safe to leave that chap alone on deck with all those things?" asked the former.

"Take a look at him and see for yourself," replied Cabot.

So White crept noiselessly up the companion ladder and peeped cautiously out. Arsenic still squatted where Cabot had left him, gazing idiotically off into space. At the same time a close observer might have imagined that his beady eyes twinkled with a gleam of interest as White's head appeared above the companion coaming.

"I guess it is all right," said White, rejoining his friend.

"Of course it is. He couldn't swim ashore with the things, and there isn't any other way he could make off with them, except by taking them in the dinghy, and that chump couldn't any more manage a boat than a cow."

In spite of this assertion Cabot finished his meal with all speed, and then hurried on deck, where he uttered a cry of dismay. A single glance showed him that their guest, together with all the supplies prepared for their journey, was no longer where he had left him. A second glance disclosed the dinghy half way to the beach, while in her stern, sculling her swiftly along with practised hand, stood the wooden-headed young savage who didn't know how to manage a boat.

"Come back here, you sneak thief, or I'll fill you full of lead," yelled Cabot, and as the Indian paid not the slightest attention he drew his revolver and fired. He never knew where the bullet struck, but it certainly did not reach the mark he intended, for Arsenic merely increased the speed of his boat without even looking back.

So angry that he hardly realised what he was doing, Cabot cocked his pistol and attempted to fire again, but the lock only snapped harmlessly, and there was no report. Then he remembered that he had expended several shots the day before in a fruitless effort to attract attention on board a distant vessel seen from the lookout, and had neglected to reload.

As he started for the cabin in quest of more cartridges he came into collision with White hurrying on deck.

"What is the matter?" inquired the latter, as soon as he regained the breath thus knocked out of him.

"Oh, nothing at sill," replied Cabot, with ironical calmness, "only we've been played for a couple of hayseeds by a wooden-faced young heathen who don't know enough to go in when it rains. In his childish folly he has gone off with the dinghy, taking our provisions along as a souvenir of his visit, and he didn't even have the politeness to look round when I spoke to him. Oh! but it will be a chilly day for little Willy if I catch him again."

"I am glad you only spoke," remarked White. "When I heard you shoot I didn't know but what you had murdered him."

"Wish I had," growled Cabot, savagely. "Look at him now, and consider the cheek of the plain, every-day North American savage."

It was aggravating to see the young thief gain the beach and lift from the boat the provisions he had so deftly acquired. It was even more annoying to see the embryo warrior's grateful family pounce upon the prizes of his bow and spear, and to be forced to listen to the joyous cries with which they greeted their returned hero. Filled now with a bustling activity, the Indians quickly divided the spoil according to their strength; and then, without one backward glance, or a single look towards the schooner, they started up the narrow trail by the waterfall, with the triumphant Arsenic heading the procession, and in another minute had disappeared.

As the last fluttering rag vanished from sight, our lads, who had watched the latter part of this performance in silent wrath, turned to each other and burst out laughing.

"It was a dirty, mean, low-down trick!" cried Cabot. "At the same time he played it with a dexterity that compels my admiration. Now, what shall we do?"

"I suppose one of us will have to swim ashore and get that boat."

"What, through ice water? You are right, though, and as I am the biggest chump, I'll go."

Cabot was as good as his word, and did swim to the beach, though, as he afterwards said, he did not know whether his first plunge was made into ice water or molten lead. Then he and White followed the trail of their recent guests to the crest of the bluffs, but could not discover what direction they had taken from that point. So they returned to the schooner sadder but wiser than before, and wondered whether they were better or worse off on account of the recent visitation.

"If they carry news of us to one of the missions we will be better off," argued Cabot.

"But, if they don't, we are worse off, by at least the value of our stolen provisions," replied White.