by Oliver Optic
CHAPTER IV
OVER A CLIFF
The storm that lulled Skipper Ed and his little partner to sleep alsolulled Abel Zachariah and Mrs. Abel and Bobby to sleep. Bobby's new bedwas finished. It was half the width of Abel's and Mrs. Abel's bed, butit was quite as long, for Bobby was to grow tall, and to become a bigand brave hunter. And, too, for present needs it must be of ample lengthto permit Mrs. Abel to lie down by Bobby's side of nights while shecrooned him to sleep with her quaint Eskimo lullabies.
Abel had expended great care in his handicraft, and derived a vast dealof satisfaction from the result. And when Mrs. Abel fitted the bunk witha fine feather bed which she made from the duck and goose featherswhich she had saved, and spread it with warm blankets and tucked Bobbyaway in it, he, too, seemed to find it entirely to his liking, for hewent to sleep at once, and slept as soundly as he could have slept in abed of carved mahogany, spread with counterpanes of silk and down.
Indeed, Bobby was in a fair way of being spoiled. His indulgent fosterparents could deny him nothing. They gratified his every wish and whim,even to the extent of tearing from its mother a little puppy dog, to thegreat distress of the dumb mother, and taking it into the house for himto play with.
Since Bobby's arrival Abel, devoting his spare moments to the task, hadcarved from walrus tusks six little ivory dogs, an ivory sledge, and alittle ivory Eskimo man, to represent the driver of the miniature team,for no dog team could be complete without a driver. Now, during the twodays' enforced leisure from out-of-door activities afforded him by theblizzard, he put the finishing touches upon his work. With infinitepatience he fashioned miniature harness for the ivory dogs, and,harnessing them to the ivory sledge, with due ceremony presented them toBobby. And Bobby, who was already learning to prattle Eskimo words,received the gift with unfeigned delight. Then he must learn the nameof each, which Abel patiently taught him to pronounce with proper accentand intonation: _inuit_--man; _tingmik_--dog; _komatik_--sledge.
This was the first of many toys that Abel made for Bobby in the weeksthat followed: a small dog whip, a fathom long, an exact counterpart ofAbel's own long whip, which was a full five fathoms long; a smallsledge, on which he could coast, and on which pups could haul him aboutover the ice; bow and arrow--nearly everything, indeed, that Abelbelieved his childish desires could crave.
When the storm had passed Skipper Ed and Jimmy came over on snowshoes,and Jimmy stopped for a week in Abel's cabin, with Mrs. Abel and Bobby,while Abel and Skipper Ed went away to hunt for seals. This was aglorious week for both lads, and with it began a comradeship andfriendship that was to last throughout their life and carry them inlater years side by side through many adventures.
The seal hunt was a success, and Abel and Skipper Ed returned with thebig boat loaded with seals. Then followed a season of activity. Theseals were skinned and dressed, the blubber placed in barrels in theporch, and the meat elevated to a stage outside where it was well out ofreach of the dogs, and was at hand to be used as dog food--and humanfood also during the winter.
The seal skins were turned over to Mrs. Abel, to soak and scrape andprepare for boots and other garments, which Abel and Skipper Ed andJimmy, as well as she herself, and Bobby, would require.
Bobby developed a vast liking for the choice morsels of the sealflippers and meat, which were always reserved for him, and it was notlong before he demanded his due share of the fresh blubber, too.
He loved, when Mrs. Abel was at work sewing the boots with sinew, tohelp her by chewing the edges of the oily leather, to soften and renderit pliable for the needle. Indeed, Bobby quickly developed into anEskimo child in all save the color of his skin, and texture and color ofhis hair, which persisted in remaining silky and yellow.
And thus the weeks passed. With the rapidly shortening days of November,cold increased with grim earnestness. Already the snow was gatheringdepth in the forest, and on the open spaces it lay frozen and hard, andthe sun now had no strength to soften it. A coating of ice crusted thebeach where the tide rose and fell, and this crackled and snapped as thewaves broke upon it. A strange, smoky vapor lay over the sea, shiftingin the east wind. The sea was "smoking," and was only waiting now, Abelsaid, for a calm, to freeze.
Then suddenly one night a great uncanny silence fell upon the world, andin the morning a gray level plain reached away, where the day before hadbeen the heaving billows of the bay. The sea was frozen at last, and formany long months there would be no breaking of waves upon the rocks orlapping of tides upon the sandy beach. The Frost King, grim andinexorable, had ascended his throne, and the world, subdued into uttersilence, lay prostrate and submissive at his feet.
Toward noon Jimmy came over, hauling behind him a sled, and upon it hissleeping bag of caribou skin, to say that Skipper Ed had gone thatmorning to his traps and would not return until the following evening,and Jimmy was to stay at Abel's over night. This was the custom whenSkipper Ed was away, and of course Jimmy was more than welcome with bothAbel and Mrs. Abel, and Bobby was delighted.
When dinner was over Abel, with a long stick, went down to inspect theice. He prodded it with the stick, and finding it to his satisfactionstepped out upon it, and still prodding ahead of him made a widecircuit. The ice bent as he walked, but sea ice is tough, and may beperfectly safe though it bends. And so Abel found it, for when he cameback he said "_Piovok"_ (it is good).
Bobby was wrapped well, and out he went with Jimmy for his first winterfrolic. A wonderful time they had, coasting down the steep bank andshooting far out upon the ice, or running over the ice, with Bobby onthe sled and Jimmy hauling him, until at last, quite weary with the fun,they returned to the cabin to play with the ivory dogs and sledge untilsupper time.
After this Jimmy came often with his sled, and he and Bobby coasted thesteep bank or rolled and tumbled in the snow, or built miniature snow_igloos_, while Bobby grew as tough and hardy as any little Eskimo boycould have been, which was very much to the satisfaction, not only ofMr. and Mrs. Abel, but of Skipper Ed, as well.
It was not long after the ice came that the missionary from Nain visitedthem, and met Bobby for the first time. He was a tall, jolly man, andmade much of Bobby, asking many questions about the manner of Bobby'scoming.
"It is very strange," said he. "Shall I not take him, Abel, to theMission, and care for him there? You do not want a white child."
But there was such a protest from both Abel and his wife, who insistedthat Bobby was their own child, sent them by God, that the missionarynever again suggested taking him from them. When the mail left thecoast, however, the following summer, he wrote to England a fulldescription of the occurrence, and the fact of Bobby's rescue andwhereabouts was published far and wide in British papers, but noinquiries ever came of it, and no one came to claim Bobby.
But we must not linger over this period of Bobby's life. When he wasfive years of age Skipper Ed began his lessons, coming over to AbelZachariah's cabin as often as possible, for the purpose, and now andagain he would take Bobby to his own cabin to stop a day or two with himand Jimmy.
He supplied Bobby with the books he needed, and Bobby studied hard andlearned quickly, and was fascinated with the work, for Skipper Ed hadthe rare faculty of making study appear a pleasant game, and it was agame which Bobby loved to play.
There was little else, indeed, to occupy his attention during longwinter evenings--no streets to play in, no parties, no theaters--and hemade more rapid progress than he probably would have made had heattended school in civilization, for Skipper Ed was a good tutor andJimmy, who was already quite a scholar, was also of great help to Bobbyin preparing lessons.
And as Bobby grew and developed, Abel, on his part, taught him to bekeenly alert, patient, self-reliant and resourceful--qualities thatevery successful hunter and wilderness dweller must possess.
He learned first with the miniature whip that Abel made him, and laterwith Abel's own long dog whip, to wield the long lash with precision. Heand Jimmy would practice for hours at a t
ime clipping a small bit of iceno larger than an egg from a hummock thirty feet away.
He played with the young puppies and trained them to haul him on hissmall sledge, and he would shout to them proudly, as large as life--andjust as Abel did when he drove the big team--"_Hu-it!"_ when he wantedthem to start; "_Ah!"_ when he wanted them to stop; "_Ouk! Ouk! Ouk_!"when he wanted them to turn to the right; "_Ra! Ra! Ra!"_ for a turn tothe left; "_Ok-su-it!"_ when he wished them to hurry; and with his whiphe enforced his commands.
He learned to shoot his bow and arrow, and to wield the harpoon andspear. Abel once fashioned for him, from a block of wood, a very goodimitation of a small seal, and Bobby and Jimmy had unending sportcasting their harpoons at it, and presently they became so expert thatseldom did they fail to make a "killing" strike.
When he was old enough Bobby learned to make his hunting implementshimself. Here, indeed, was required patience, perseverance, andresourcefulness, for his only tools were his knife and his ax, and hisonly material such as the wilderness produced; and to gain Abel'spraise, which was his high ambition, he must needs do his work with careand niceness. And thus Bobby was learning to be a man and a hunter.
Bobby was still a very young lad when Abel began to teach him the signsof the wilderness and the ways of the wild things that lived in thewoods. He learned to know the tracks of all the animals of the region,and even how long it had been since the animals that made the tracks hadpassed by. And he learned to make snares and traps, and how to handlehis gun--the wonderful gun which Abel told him God had sent with himfrom the Far Beyond--and shoot it quickly and accurately, for the manwho exists upon the wilderness must know how to do these things, and hissense of observation must be keenly trained; and he must train himselfto be alert.
One other accomplishment he acquired from Skipper Ed. He learned toswim. Even in midsummer these northern waters are icy cold. From thebreaking up of the ice in summer until the sea freezes again in winter,the natives spend their time upon the water or near it, yet it is rare,indeed, that one of them can swim. And so it was with Abel. He had neverin his life voluntarily gone into the sea. But Skipper Ed was a mightyswimmer, and under his instruction Jimmy had learned the art, and in thefourth summer after Bobby's arrival nothing would do but he, too, mustlearn. Much perseverance was necessary before Abel and Mrs. Abel gavetheir consent, but finally it was obtained, and in a little while Bobbywas as keen for a dip and a dive and a swim as were Skipper Ed and hispartner, Jimmy.
And so the years passed in toil, in pleasure, and in attainment--activeyears that were filled with glorious doing, and with never a heavymoment or idle wasting of time or vain dawdling.
"Never waste time," said Skipper Ed, one stormy winter's day when Bobbywas over there, and he and Bobby and Jimmy were luxuriating in their bigchairs before the fire. "If you can't be busy with your hands, be busywith your brain. You were put into the world for some purpose, and yourdestiny is the will of the Almighty. But we may spoil His will byrefusing to do the very best we can. The Almighty plans some fine thingfor each of us, but He leaves it with us to decide whether we will havethe fine things or not. What we're to be or to do comes to us gradually,just as the sun rises gradually. We never know ahead what He has plannedfor us. That's His big surprise.
"He may have put us into the world to do some great thing, and to becomea great and useful man, or we may be intended just to help other peopleto be noble and honest and true, by doing our duty always, and settingan example of honesty and nobility."
"Do you think you or Jimmy or I will ever be great men?" Bobby asked insome awe.
"Partner is a great man _now_" declared Jimmy. "He knows mosteverything!"
"No, not everything," laughed Skipper Ed. "Not everything, Partner.But," and he spoke gravely again, "I've always tried to do my duty asGod has pointed it out to me. Perhaps the Great Thing that I wasintended to do was to teach you two chaps what I could, and perhaps yourGreat Thing is to teach others, and perhaps working all together in thisway we may guide someone else to a great destiny.
"We are just hunters and fishermen. Aside from our own two families, wedon't see many people, except the missionary down at Nain, and theEskimos at the settlement there, and now and again in summer thefishermen on passing schooners. But that doesn't matter. Here Destinyplaced us, and here is our work, and we must do it the best we can.
"We should work hard when we have work to do; we should play hard whenwe are at play; we should think hard when we are neither working norplaying. We should not waste time idling. We should do our level best tofit ourselves for our destiny, whatever it may be."
This was one of many conversations of the sort that Skipper Ed had withthe boys. He was their comrade, their teacher, their adviser, and theirinspiration. And, be it said, with the constant inspiration, also, ofthe great wilderness and sea, with no other youthful companions orplaymates, and with little of the joy of sports with which boys incivilization are blessed, it was but natural that they should feel moredeeply the responsibility of life, and should ponder and take to heartmore seriously Skipper Ed's philosophy, than they would had their lotbeen cast in a city or a town.
It is not to be supposed, however, that they never got into mischief.They were too full of life and energy to avoid that. But they wereseldom or never instructed _not_ to do this or that, and their mischiefwas usually the result of indiscretion and error of judgment natural toyouth, rather than disobedience. Eskimos do not whip or punish theirchildren. They treat them rather, as comrades, and the boy's effort isto do as nearly as he can the things his elders do and in the manner inwhich they do them.
And this was the case with Abel and Mrs. Abel and Bobby. They neverpunished Bobby. It was the case also with Skipper Ed and Jimmy. SkipperEd, from the first, called Jimmy his partner, and talked to him andtreated him very much as he would have done had Jimmy been a grown-up.
From the very beginning Bobby had his escapades, which usually includedadventures. During the first summer after his arrival he fell into thewater with due regularity, but always, fortunately, within reach ofAbel's or Mrs. Abel's strong arms. Once he climbed into the big boat,undid the painter, and the tide had carried him well out to sea beforehis plight was discovered and he was rescued by Abel in the skiff. Andonce he was lost for a day in the forest, with Abel, Mrs. Abel, SkipperEd, and Jimmy searching frantically for him. They found him, quite tiredout with his wanderings, peacefully sleeping on the forest moss.
With these escapades and a thousand others, Bobby kept his fosterparents pretty constantly varying between a state of suspense and astate of joy, for they were vastly delighted when he emerged from anadventure, usually not much the worse for his experience.
Bobby's age was, of course, a matter of conjecture. Abel and Mrs. Abelmust needs have a definite date set down as his birthday, in order thatit might be duly and appropriately celebrated each year, and as aconvenient date they chose December 1 of the year in which he came tothem as his fourth birthday. This was a date when the autumn seal huntwould be finished, and the sea ice would be formed, when Abel might goto Nain with the dogs and bring back some sweets or other surprise.
Upon this reckoning Bobby was eight and Jimmy was twelve years of agewhen the two lads had their first real adventure together. It was in thespring. A westerly wind had cleared the bay of ice, and Abel and SkipperEd had gone north in the big boat two days before for the spring sealhunt, and were not expected back for a fortnight. Jimmy, during SkipperEd's absence, was stopping with Bobby and Mrs. Abel as usual, and thetwo boys were out bright and early to haul a trout net which was set inthe mouth of a river which flowed into the bay not far away.
It was one of those ideal days which come now and again to that northerncountry in spring, as though to emphasize by contrast the fact that thelong bleak winter is over. The sun shone brilliantly and the ripplingwaves of the nearly placid bay sparkled and glinted alluringly, spicyodors of the forest perfumed the air, and birds twittered gleefully.
"Let's
go egging, Bobby," Jimmy suggested, as the boys, pullingleisurely back from the river, turned Abel's old skiff to the beachlanding place below the cabin.
"All right," agreed Bobby, "let's do, as soon as we take care of thetrout. Mother said last night she'd like some eggs. We haven't had anyyet this year." Bobby always called Abel "Father," and Mrs. Abel"Mother."
"I'm sure there must be lots of ducks and gull and tern eggs out on theislands, and puffin and auk eggs on the cliffs along the shore. It'slots of fun!" said Jimmy enthusiastically.
So they hurried in with the trout, which they dressed, washed, andfinally salted down in a barrel. This required but a few minutes, andwhile they worked Mrs. Abel prepared a simple luncheon of bread,sufficient tea for a brewing, and a bottle of molasses for sweetening,and these, with their tea pail and cups and hunting bags, they carrieddown to the skiff, followed by Mrs. Abel's wishes for a pleasant day,and her "_Oksutingae_."
And so they set off down the bay to the islands, each pulling at a pairof oars and chatting gaily as they rowed, in fine spirits at theprospect, and enjoying their outing as only youth with enthusiasm canenjoy itself.
At the end of a three hours' row they turned the skiff to the slopingrock of an island shore, and landing, tied the painter to a big bowlder.
"This is a fine egg island," said Jimmy, as they set out with theirbags. "Partner brought me out here last year."
Squawking birds rose in every direction as they approached, and cloudsof gulls circled around crying the alarm. Down in rock crevasses alongthe shore they saw many sea pigeon eggs, and Bobby wanted to get them,but they were generally well out of reach.
"They're too small to bother with anyway," said Jimmy. "Come on."
"There! There!" shouted Bobby. "There goes an eider duck! And another!And another! _Their_ eggs are fine and big! Let's find the nests!"
Presently they discovered, under a low, scrubby bush, a down-lined nestcontaining eight greenish-drab eggs.
"There's one!" shouted Jimmy. "This is an eider's nest."
And so, hunting among the bushes and rocks, they soon had their bagsfilled with eider duck, tern, gull, and booby eggs, while the birds inhundreds flew hither and thither, violently protesting, with discordantnotes, the invasion and the looting. But the eggs were good to eat, andthe boys smacked their lips over the feasts in store--and Mrs. Abelwanted them; that was the chief consideration, after all.
"Now," said Jimmy, "let's go over to the mainland and boil the kettle.It's away past dinner time and I'm as hungry as a bear."
"All right," agreed Bobby. "I'm so hungry I've just got to eat. Where'llwe go?"
"I know a dandy place over here, and there's a brook coming in close toit where we can get good water. It's just a few minutes' pull--justbelow the ledges."
Ten minutes' strong rowing landed them on a gravelly beach near themouth of a brook, which rushed down to the bay through a deep gulch. Tothe eastward the gulch banks rose into high cliffs which overhung thesea. Kittiwakes, tube-nosed swimmers, ivory gulls, cormorants, littleauks and other birds were flying up and down and along the cliff's face,or perching upon ledges on the rock, and, like the birds on the island,making a great deal of discordant noise.
"It seems as though there were no end of birds," said Bobby, as theysecured their boat. "I'd like to see what kind of nests those make upthere, and after we eat I'm going to look at some of them."
"You can't get up there," said Jimmy. "I've tried it lots of times. Theytake good care to leave their eggs where nobody can get at them."
"Well, I'm going to try, anyhow," Bobby declared, as he turned to thebrook for a kettle of water.
"I wish we had something to boil eggs in," said he, as he set the kettleof water down by Jimmy, who was whittling shavings for the fire.
"What's the matter with the old tin bucket we use for bailing theskiff?" Jimmy suggested. "I don't believe it leaks enough to hurt."
"That's so!" said Bobby. "We can boil 'em in that."
With the ax--in this country men never venture from home without an ax,for in wilderness traveling it is often a life saver--Jimmy split somesticks, and then with his jackknife whittled shavings from the dryheart. He stopped his knife just short of the end of the stick, untilsix or eight long, thin shavings were made, then, with a twist of theblade, he broke off the stub with the shavings attached to it. Thus theshavings were held in a bunch.
Several of these bunches he made, working patiently, for patience andcare are as necessary in building a fire as in doing anything else, andSkipper Ed had taught him that whatever he did should be done with allthe care possible. And so in making a fire he gave as much care to thecutting of shavings and placing of sticks as though it had beensomething of the highest importance, and doing it in this way he seldomfailed to light his fire, rain or shine, with a single match. Firemaking in the open is a fine art.
When Jimmy had collected enough shavings for his purpose, he placed twoof his split sticks upon the ground at right angles to each other, anend of one close up to the end of the other. Then, holding a bunch ofshavings by the thick, or stub, end, he struck a match and lighted thethin end, and when it was blazing well placed the unlighted end upon thetwo sticks where they met. Other bunches of shavings he laid on this,the thin ends in the blaze, the thick ends elevated upon the sticks.Then came small splits, and bigger splits, and in a moment he had acrackling fire.
He now secured a pole six or seven feet in length, and fixed one endfirmly in the ground, with the other end sloped over the fire. On thishe hung first, by its bale, the old bailing kettle, filled with water,and then the tea pail, in such a way as to bring them directly over theblaze, and though the fire was a small one, it was not many minutesbefore the kettles boiled. Then while Bobby dropped half a dozen eggsinto the bailing kettle, Jimmy lifted the tea pail off, put some teainto it, and set it by the fire to brew.
"Now," said Jimmy, presently, "let's go for it."
And they ate, as only hungry boys can, and with the keen relish ofyouths who live in the open.
"Let's see if we can't get some of the eggs off the cliff now,"suggested Bobby, when they were through. "I know I can climb downthere."
"I've tried it plenty of times," said Jimmy, "and I don't believe it canbe done. You can't get in from this end, and the top hangs over so youcan't get in from the top."
"Let's go up on top and try to get down, anyhow," insisted Bobby. "Iknow what! There's a harpoon line in the skiff. Father always keeps itstuffed in under the seat aft. We can tie an end of it under my arms andyou can let me down, and then pull me back."
And so without loss of time the young adventurers secured the harpoonline, and climbing out of the gully followed the top of the cliff to aplace where birds were numerous.
Jimmy tied a bowline knot at the proper distance from one end of theline, passed the line around Bobby's body under the arms, ran the end ofthe line through the loop, and secured it. With this arrangement theline could not tighten and pinch, and still was tight enough to holdBobby securely.
"Now," said Jimmy, indicating a high bowlder, "I'll bring the linearound this rock, so I'll have a purchase on it and it can't slip awayfrom me, and let it out as you climb down. You holler when you want tostop and holler when you want to come up."
The plan worked admirably for a while. Very slowly Bobby descended,calling out now and again for Jimmy to "hold" while he picked eggs fromnests on shelving rocks.
At last his bag was full, and he was ready to ascend.
"All right, Jimmy. Pull up now," he called.
Jimmy pulled, but pull as he would he could not budge Bobby one inch. Hedid not dare release the line where it made its turn around thebowlder, for without the leverage he feared the line would get away fromhim, in which case Bobby would crash to the bottom of the cliff. SoJimmy pulled desperately. But it was of no avail, and presently he tookanother turn of the line around the bowlder, and secured it so that itcould not slip, and ran forward.
Bobby was shoutin
g to be drawn up, and Jimmy, throwing himself upon hisface and peering down over the edge of the cliff, saw Bobby dangling inmid air some forty feet below him and thirty feet above the deep blackwater. He also saw that, supported only by the line, Bobby was in astrained and perilous as well as most uncomfortable position.
His first impulse was to lower Bobby to the base of the cliff, and lethim wait there until he could get the boat, bring it around and take himoff. But he saw at a glance that at its foot the rocky cliff rose out ofthe deep water in a perpendicular wall, so smooth that there was noteven a hand hold to be had, and this was its condition for aconsiderable distance on either side. Neither was there hope that, inthe strong outgoing tide, and encumbered by clothing, Bobby could swimin the icy waters to a point where a footing could be had.
"Hurry, Jimmy; I can't stand this much longer! I can't stand it muchlonger!" Bobby shouted, as he caught a glimpse of Jimmy's head.
Jimmy in return shouted reassurance to Bobby, and ran back for anothereffort to pull him out. But again he pulled and pulled in vain. With allthe strength he had he could not pull Bobby up a single inch. With asickening dread at his heart, he refastened the line.