by Oliver Optic
CHAPTER XIX
OFF TO THE "SENA"
And so it was that the famine ended. There was small variety for thetable, to be sure, but there was always plenty of good venison, variedwith ptarmigans, and now and again a porcupine. And after all they wereable to go to the ice edge on the winter seal hunt, and a profitablehunt it proved.
Thus the years passed, and thus they were filled with ups and downs andmany adventures and hard work, and withal plenty of good fun, too, toflavor them, as years are bound to be in that land of stern and activeexistence.
But there was always time for study, and when Bobby was in his sixteenthyear he and Jimmy could boast of having read Caesar and Cicero andXenophon, and they were delving into Virgil and the Iliad. Under SkipperEd's tutorship Bobby had advanced as far in his studies as most boys ofhis age in civilization, who have all the advantages of the bestschools. And Skipper Ed was proud of his progress, and proud of Jimmy'sprogress too, as indeed he had reason to be, for neither of them was awaster of time. There was no inducement to be laggards.
Their hearts were clean and their vision was clear. Their view was notcut off or circumscribed by the frivolous and ofttimes viciousamusements that stand as a wall around life's outlook in the town. Theirview and their hope were as wide as the wilderness and the sea, ruggedand stern but mighty and majestic and limitless--God's unspoiledworks--and God was a living God to them.
Bobby at this age had developed into a big, husky lad. He could drivethe dog team as well as Abel. He had already killed many seals, and hewas an excellent hunter for his years. To Abel Zachariah and Mrs. Abelhe was a dutiful, affectionate son. They, too, were proud of him, andlooked upon him as the finest lad in the whole land, and Abel boastedthat when he grew to be a man he would be the finest hunter on thecoast.
It happened that early in February following Bobby's fifteenth birthdayAbel wrenched an ankle so badly that he could not go about his duties,or even hobble outside the cabin door. The responsibility of providingfor the little household, therefore, fell upon Bobby. And Bobby, thoughkeenly sympathetic, was nevertheless glad of an opportunity to show hisprowess.
He squared his shoulders, and regardless of cold and storm set about thework, determined to prove that he was a man in the things he couldaccomplish, if not in years; and he succeeded so well that he won highpraise from Abel. Certainly Abel himself could not have done better withthe fox trapping, which at this season was the chief employment. Bobbykept the house, too, so well supplied with rabbits and ptarmigans,through his incessant hunting, that presently there were enough hangingfrozen in the porch to last till the coming of warm weather.
One evening near the end of February Bobby announced, as he entered thecabin after giving the dogs their daily feed:
"There's only enough seal meat left to last the dogs a week. I'll haveto go to the _sena_ and kill some more."
"You do not know how to do that kind of hunting," objected Abel. "It isnot like hunting seals from a boat, or like spearing them through theirbreathing holes in the ice. Feed the dogs only once every two days, andperhaps before the meat is gone my foot will be strong enough for me togo to the _sena_."
"I was there with you last year," Bobby insisted. "Jimmy will go withme. He has been to the _sena_ with you twice, and he knows how. We willbe careful."
And at last Abel surrendered, for he could not long deny Bobby anyreasonable thing that the lad set his heart upon, and after all Bobbyhad proved himself a good and careful hunter; and they needed seals.
Skipper Ed had not kept dogs since the slaughter of his team in the yearof famine. He hunted and trapped more after the manner of the Indianthan the Eskimo, going long journeys inland on snowshoes, and now Jimmyaccompanied him. And living quite alone, as he had during his earlieryears on the coast, there was no one who could have fed or cared fordogs when Skipper Ed was absent upon these trapping expeditions. It wastherefore only during the two or three years preceding the year offamine, when Jimmy was old enough to care for them, and wished them,that he had a team.
Abel, on the other hand, after the manner of Eskimos, set his trapsnearer the shore, that he might, so far as possible, make the rounds ofthem with dogs.
Abel, therefore, had constant need of dogs, and he now had sixteen finebig fellows, which so nearly resembled the great wolves of the barrensthat were dogs and wolves to intermingle only the practiced eye coulddistinguish the one from the other. These dogs never barked, but howledwith the weird, dismal howl of the wolf. And when they were hungry theywere such dangerous, savage brutes that it was unsafe for a stranger,unless armed with a cudgel, to wander among them.
With sixteen dogs Abel could muster two ordinary teams of eight dogseach, or one powerful team of ten or twelve, or even the entire number.
Skipper Ed and Jimmy, when they required the services of dogs, couldalways borrow a team from Abel, and to repay this courtesy it was theircustom to join in the autumn and spring seal hunts, and to contributethe carcasses of the seals they killed to Abel, retaining only theskins, which Mrs. Abel dressed and made up for them into boots andwinter garments and sleeping bags, as needs demanded.
It was a Saturday evening when Bobby finally received Abel's consent forhim to go to the _sena_ seal hunting. He was preparing to go over, aswas his custom on Saturdays, to spend the evening with Skipper Ed andJimmy in reading and study, and when he had eaten his supper he donnedhis snowshoes and _netsek_[D] and hurried eagerly away to Skipper Ed'scabin to invite Jimmy to join him in the adventure.
[Footnote D: An Eskimo garment of seal skin, which is drawn on over thehead like a shirt, and has a hood to protect the head. When this garmentis made of caribou skin it is called a _kulutuk_, and when made ofcloth, an _adikey_.]
"Yes, to be sure, Partner, you must go with Bobby," said Skipper Ed."But it's going to be bleak and cold out there. It's a man's work atthis season, hunting at the _sena_, and a strong man's work, too.Perhaps I had better go along. Then we can take two teams of dogs."
"That will be dandy!" exclaimed Bobby, "We'll have a fine time!"
"Yes, Partner, come!" urged Jimmy. "You can leave your traps for aweek."
"I think I can--yes, I'll go," Skipper Ed decided. "I was never huntingat the _sena_ but twice, though, and I've never forgotten my firstexperience. It was a good many years ago, before you came, Partner. Iwent with Abel. We had a hard time of it that year, for stormy weathercame up and we nearly perished in a blizzard."
"We'll build a snow _igloo_" said Bobby, "and be pretty comfortable.We'll take Father's snow knives and two of his old stone lamps. We'llhave plenty of seal oil to burn. You know there's no wood out there, andit isn't worth while hauling any."
"Yes," agreed Skipper Ed, "we'll need the lamps, though I don't likethem. I never could get used to them, and I never liked to go too farfrom wood."
And so it came to pass that in the bright moonlight of Monday morningthey lashed upon the two _komatiks_ a good supply of hardtack and boiledsalt pork--the only provisions that would not freeze too hard toeat--with tea, and sleeping bags, and numerous articles of equipmentfor their own use and comfort, and a day's supply of seal meat for thedogs.
Then the dogs were caught and harnessed, and in great excitement beganto strain at the traces and howl their eagerness to be off. _Oksunaes_were shouted to Abel and Mrs. Abel, and Bobby, grasping the front of one_komatik_, and Skipper Ed the front of the other, they pulled themsharply to one side to break them loose, shouting to the teams as theydid so: "_Hu-it! Hu-it!_" Then they flung themselves upon the_komatiks_, and away they dashed, down the steep and slippery incline,and off through the shore hummocks at a wild, mad gallop.
They were away to the _sena_, and the Great Adventure, at last.