The World of Ice

by R. M. Ballantyne

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

  JOURNEY RESUMED--THE HUNTERS MEET WITH BEARS AND HAVE A GREAT FIGHT, INWHICH THE DOGS ARE SUFFERERS--A BEAR'S DINNER--MODE IN WHICH ARCTICROCKS TRAVEL--THE ICE-BELT.

  In the abating of the great storm, referred to in the last chapter, thehunters sought to free themselves from their snowy prison, and succeededin burrowing, so to speak, upwards, after severe labour, for the hut wasburied in drift which the violence of the gale had rendered extremelycompact.

  O'Riley was the first to emerge into the upper world. Having dusted thesnow from his garments, and shaken himself like a Newfoundland dog, hemade sundry wry faces, and gazed round him with the look of a man thatdid not know very well what to do with himself.

  "It's a quare place, it is, intirely," he remarked, with a shake of thehead that betokened intense sagacity, while he seated himself on a moundof snow and watched his comrades as they busied themselves in draggingtheir sleeping-bags and cooking utensils from the cavern they had justquitted. O'Riley seemed to be in a contemplative mood, for he did notventure any further remark, although he looked unutterable things as heproceeded quietly to fill his little black pipe.

  "Ho, O'Riley! lend a hand, you lazy fellow," cried Fred; "work first andplay afterwards, you skulker."

  "Sure that same is what I'm doin'," replied O'Riley with a bland smilewhich he eclipsed in a cloud of smoke. "Haven't I bin workin' like anaagur for two hours to git out of that hole, and ain't I playin' a tuneon me pipe now? But I won't be cross-grained. I'll lind ye a hand avye behave yerself. It's a bad thing to be cross-grained," he continued,pocketing his pipe and assisting to arrange the sledge; "me owldgrandmother always towld me that, and she was wise, she wos, beyandordn'r. More like Salomon nor anything else."

  "She must have directed that remark specially to you, I think," saidFred--"let Dumps lead, West, he's tougher than the others,--did she not,O'Riley?"

  "Be no manes. It wos to the pig she said it. Most of her conversation(and she had a power of it) wos wid the pig, and many's the word o' goodadvice she gave it, as it sat in its usual place beside the fireforenint her; but it was all thrown away, it wos, for there wosn'tanother pig in all the length o' Ireland as had sich a will o' its own;and it had a screech, too, when it wasn't plaazed, as bate all the steamwhistles in the world, it did. I've often moralated on that same, andI've noticed that as it is wid pigs, so it is wid men and women--some ofthem at laste--the more advice ye give them, the less they take."

  "Down, Poker; quiet, good dog!" said West, as he endeavoured to restrainthe ardour of the team, which, being fresh and full fed, could scarcelybe held in by the united efforts of himself and Meetuck while theircompanions lashed their provisions, etcetera, on the sledge.

  "Hold on, lads!" cried Fred, as he fastened the last lashing. "We'll beready in a second. Now, then, jump on, two of you! Catch hold of thetail-line, Meetuck! All right!"

  "Hall right!" yelled the Esquimaux, as he let go the dogs and sprangupon the sledge.

  The team struggled and strained violently for a few seconds in theirefforts to overcome the _vis inertiae_ of the sledge, and it seemed asif the traces would part, but they were made of tough walrus hide, andheld on bravely, while the heavy vehicle gradually fetched way, and atlength flew over the floes at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour.Travelling, however, was not now quite as agreeable as it had been whenthey set out from the ship, for the floes were swept bare in some placesby the gale, while in other places large drifts had collected, so thatthe sledge was either swaying to and fro on the smooth ice, and swingingthe dogs almost off their feet, or it was plunging heavily through banksof soft snow.

  As the wind was still blowing fresh, and would have been dead againstthem had they attempted to return by a direct route to the ship, theymade for the shore, intending to avail themselves of the shelterafforded by the ice-belt. Meanwhile the carcass of the walrus, at leastas much of it as could not be packed on the sledge, was buried in thehut, and a spear planted above it to mark the spot.

  "Hah! an' it's cowld," said O'Riley, wrapping himself more closely inhis fur jumper as they sped along. "I wish we wos out o' the wind, Ido."

  "You'll have your wish soon, then," answered West, "for that row oficebergs we're coming to will shelter us nearly all the way to theland."

  "Surely you are taking us too much off to the right, Meetuck," saidFred; "we are getting farther away from the ship."

  "No fee. Be win' too 'trong. We turn hup 'long shore very quick,soon--ha!"

  Meetuck accompanied each word with a violent nod of his head, at thesame time opening and shutting his mouth and winking with both eyes,being apparently impressed with the conviction that such contortions ofvisage rendered his meaning more apparent.

  "Look! look! ho! Nannook, nannook!" (a bear, a bear!) whispered theEsquimaux with sudden animation, just as they gained the lee of thefirst iceberg.

  The words were unnecessary, however, for the whole party were lookingahead with the most intense eagerness at a bear which their suddenadvent had aroused from a nap in the crevice of the iceberg. A littlecub was discerned a moment after, standing by her side, and gazing atthe intruders with infantine astonishment. While the muskets were beingloosened and drawn out, Meetuck let slip all the dogs, and in a fewseconds they were engaged in active warfare with the enemy.

  "Oh! musha! Dumps is gone intirely!" The quadruped referred to wastossed to a height of about thirty feet, and alighted senseless upon theice. The bear seized him with her teeth and tossed him with anincredibly slight effort. The other dogs, nothing daunted by the fateof their comrade, attacked the couple in the rear, biting their heels,and so distracting their attention that they could not make an energeticattack in any direction. Another of the dogs, however, a young one,waxing reckless, ventured too near the old bear, and was seized by theback, and hurled high into the air, through which it wriggled violently,and descended with a sounding whack upon the ice. At the same moment avolley from the hunters sent several balls into the carcass of bothmother and cub; but, although badly wounded, neither of them evinced anysign of pain and exhaustion as they continued to battle with theremaining dogs.

  The dogs that had already fallen in the fray had not been used tobear-hunting--hence their signal defeat; but this was not the case withthe others, all of which were old campaigners; and Poker especially,although not old in years, was a practical fighter, having been trainednot to attack but to harass. The systematic and steady way in whichthey advanced before the bear, and retired, right and left, leading herinto a profitless pursuit, was very interesting to witness. Anothervolley from the hunters caused them to make off more rapidly, andwounded the cub severely, so much so that in a few minutes it began toflag. Seeing this, the mother placed it in front of her, and urged itforward with her snout so quickly that it was with the utmost difficultythe men could keep up with them. A well-directed shot, however, fromFred Ellice brought the old bear to the ground; but she rose instantly,and again advanced, pushing her cub before her, while the dogs continuedto embarrass her. They now began to fear that, in spite of dogs andmen, the wounded bears would escape, when an opportune crack in the icepresented itself, into which they both tumbled, followed by the yelping,and, we may add, limping, dogs. Before they could scramble up on theother side, Meetuck and Fred, being light of foot, gained upon themsufficiently to make sure shots.

  "There they go," cried Fred, as the she-bear bounced out of the crackwith Poker hanging to her heels. Poker's audacity had at lastoutstripped his sagacity, and the next moment he was performing atremendous somersault. Before he reached the ice, Meetuck and Fredfired simultaneously, and when the smoke cleared away, the old bear wasstretched out in death. Hitherto the cub had acted exclusively on thedefensive, and entrusted itself entirely to the protection of its dam,but now it seemed to change its character entirely. It sprang upon itsmother's body, and, assuming an attitude of extreme ferocity, kept thedogs at bay, snapping and snarling right and l
eft until the hunters cameup.

  For the first time since the chase began, a feeling of intense pitytouched Fred's heart, and he would have rejoiced at that moment had themother risen up, and made her escape with her cub. He steeled hisheart, however, by reflecting that fresh provisions were much wanted onboard the _Dolphin_; still, neither he nor his shipmates could bringthemselves to shoot the gallant little animal, and it is possible thatthey might have made up their minds to allow it to escape after all, hadnot Meetuck quietly ended their difficulty by putting a ball through itsheart.

  "Ah, then, Meetuck!" said O'Riley, shaking his head as they examinedtheir prize, "ye're a hard-hearted spalpeen, ye are, to kill a poorlittle baby like that in cowld blood. Well, it's yer natur', an' yertrade, so I s'pose it's all right."

  The weight of this bear, which was not of the largest size, wasafterwards found to be above five hundred pounds, and her length waseight feet nine inches. The cub weighed upwards of a hundred pounds,and was larger than a Newfoundland dog.

  The operation of cutting out the entrails, preparatory to packing on thesledge, was now commenced by Meetuck, whose practised hand applied theknife with the skill, though not with the delicacy, of a surgeon.

  "She has been a hungry bear, it seems," remarked Fred, as he watched theprogress of the work, "if we may judge from the emptiness of herstomach."

  "Och, but she's had a choice morsel, if it was a small wan!" exclaimedO'Riley in surprise, as he picked up a plug of tobacco. On furtherexamination being made, it was found that this bear had dined onraisins, tobacco, pork, and adhesive plaster! Such an extraordinarymixture of articles, of course, led the party to conclude that eithershe had helped herself to the stores of the _Dolphin_ placed on StoreIsland, or that she had fallen in with those of some other vessel. Thissubject afforded food for thought and conversation during the next houror two, as they drove towards the ship along the ice-belt of the shore.

  The ice-belt referred to is a zone of ice which extends along the shorefrom the unknown regions of the north. To the south it breaks up insummer and disappears altogether, but, in the latitude which ourtravellers had now reached, it was a permanent feature of the sceneryall the year round, following the curvatures and indentations of baysand rivers, and increasing in winter or diminishing in summer, but nevermelting entirely away. The surface of this ice-belt was covered withimmense masses of rock many tons in weight, which had fallen from thecliffs above. Pointing to one of these, as they drove along, Westremarked to Fred:

  "There is a mystery explained, sir; I have often wondered how hugesolitary stones, that no machinery of man's making could lift, have cometo be placed on sandy shores where there were no other rocks of any kindwithin many miles of them. The ice must have done it, I see."

  "True, West, the ice, if it could speak, would explain many things thatnow seem to us mysterious, and yonder goes a big rock on a journey thatmay perhaps terminate at a thousand miles to the south of this."

  The rock referred to was a large mass that became detached from thecliffs and fell, as he spoke, with a tremendous crash upon the ice-belt,along which it rolled for fifty yards. There it would lie all winter,and in spring the mass of ice to which it was attached would probablybreak off and float away with it to the south, gradually melting untilit allowed the rock to sink to the bottom of the sea, or depositing it,perchance, on some distant shore, where such rocks are not wont to lie--there to remain an object of speculation and wonderment to the unlearnedof all future ages.

  Some of the bergs close to which they passed on the journey were veryfantastically formed, and many of them were more than a mile long, withclear, blue, glassy surfaces, indicating that they had been but recentlythrown off from the great glacier of the north. Between two of thesethey drove for some time before they found that they were going into asort of blind alley.

  "Sure the road's gittin' narrower," observed O'Riley, as he glanced upat the blue walls, which rose perpendicularly to a height of sixty feeton either hand. "Have a care, Meetuck, or ye'll jam us up, ye will."

  "'Tis a pity we left the ice-belt," remarked Fred, "for this rough workamong the bergs is bad for man and dog. How say you, Meetuck, shall wetake to it again when we get through this place?"

  "Faix, then, well niver git through," said O'Riley, pointing to the endof the chasm, where a third iceberg had entirely closed the opening.

  The Esquimaux pulled up, and, after advancing on foot a short way toexamine, returned with a rueful expression on his countenance.

  "Ha! no passage, I suppose?" said Fred.

  "Bad luck to ye," cried O'Riley, "won't ye spaake?"

  "No rod--muss go back," replied Meetuck, turning the dogs in thedirection whence they had come, and resuming his place on the sledge.

  The party had to retrace their steps half a mile in consequence of thisunfortunate interruption, and return to the level track of the ice-belt,which they had left for a time and taken to the sea-ice, in order toavoid the sinuosities of the land. To add to their misfortunes, thedogs began to flag, so that they were obliged to walk behind the sledgeat a slow pace, and snow began to fall heavily. But they pressedforward manfully, and, having regained the shore-ice, continued to maketheir way northward towards the ship, which was now spoken of by theendearing name of home.