CHAPTER VII
_In Which Billy Topsail Hears the Fur Trader's Story of a Jigger and a Cake of Ice in the Wind_
"WOULDN'T think I'd been born on Cherry Hill, would you, now?" said theman with the fur cap.
The stranger had been landed at Ruddy Cove from Fortune Harbour. Hehad been in the far north, he said; and he was now waiting for themail-boat to take him south. Billy Topsail and the lads of Ruddy Covecocked their ears for a yarn.
"Fact!" said he, with a nod. "That's where I was born and bred. And doyou know how I come to be away up here? No? Well, I'm a fur trader. I'mthe man that bought the skin of that silver fox last winter for thirtydollars and sold it for two hundred and fifty. I'd rather be the manthat bought it from me and sold it in London for six hundred. But I'mnot."
"And you're bound for home, now?" the old skipper asked.
"Yes," he drawled. "I'm bound home for New York to see the folks. I'vebeen away six years, and came nearer to leaving my bones up here in thenorth last spring than ever I did before. I've done some travelling inmy time. You can take me at my word; I have."
The trader laughed uproariously. He was in a voluble mood. The oldskipper knew that he needed but little encouragement to tell the storyof his escape.
"It makes me think about that old riddle of the corked bottle," hesaid. "Ever hear it? This is it: If you had a bottle of ginger ale, howwould you get the stuff out without breaking the bottle or drawing thecork? Can you answer that?"
"The answer doesn't strike me," said the skipper.
"That's just it," the trader burst out. "The way to do it doesn't'strike you.' But if you had the bottle in your hands now and wantedthe ginger ale, it would 'strike' you fast enough to push the corkin. Well, that was my case. You think of yourself on a little pan ofice, drifting straight out to sea with a strong offshore wind, waterall round you and no paddle--just think of yourself in that case,and a way of getting ashore might not 'strike' you. But once you'rethere--once you're right on that pan of ice, with the hand of death onyour collar--you'll think like lightning of all the things you can do.Yes, that was my case."
The listeners said nothing to interrupt the stocky, hard-featured,ill-clad little man while he mused.
"'Don't you be fool enough to try to cross the bay this evening,' saysI to myself," he went on.
"But I'm a hundred-mile man, and I'd gone my hundred miles. I cancarry grub on my back to last me just that far; and my grub was out.From what I knew of winds and ice, I judged that the ice would befour or five miles out to sea by dawn of the next day. So I didn'tstart out with the idea that the trip would be as easy as a promenadeover Brooklyn Bridge of a moonlight night. Oh, no! I knew what I wasdoing. But it was a question of taking the risk or dragging myself intothe settlement at Racquet Harbour in three days' time as lean as acar-horse from starvation. You see, it was forty miles round that bayand four across; and--my grub was out. Many a man loses his life inthese parts by looking at the question in just that way.
"JUMPED LIKE A STAG FOR THE SECOND PAN."]
"'Oh, no!' says I to myself. 'You'd much better take your chance ofstarving, and walk round.'
"It wasn't in human nature, though, to do it. Not when I knew thatthere was grub and a warm fire waiting for me at Racquet Harbour. SaysI, 'I'll take the long chance and stand to win.' Don't you run awaywith the idea that the ice was a level field stretching from shore toshore, fitting the rocks, and kept as neat as a baseball diamond. Itwasn't. Some day in the winter the wind had jammed the bay full of bigrough chunks--they call them pans in this country--and the frost hadstuck them all together. When the spring came, of course the sun beganto melt that glue, and the whole floe was just ready to fall apart whenI had the bad luck to make the coast. I was a day too late. I knew it.And I knew that the offshore wind would sweep the ice to sea the minuteit broke up.
"I made the first hundred yards in ten minutes; the second in fifteenmore. In half an hour I'd made half a mile. The ice was rough enoughand flimsy enough to take the nerve out of any man. But that wasn't theworst; the worst was that there were hundreds of holes covered witha thin crust of snow--all right to look at, but treacherous. I knewthat if I made the mistake of stepping on a crust instead of solid ice,I'd go through and down.
"I had four otter skins, some martens and ten fine fox skins in thepack on my back. To do anything in the water with that handicap wastoo much for me. So I wasn't at all particular about making time untilI found that the night would catch me if I didn't wag along a littlefaster.
"No, sir!" the trader said. "I didn't want to be caught out there inthe dark.
"By good luck, I struck some big pans about half-way over. Then I tookto a dog-trot, and left the yards behind me in a way that cheered meup. Just before dusk I got near enough to the other side to feel proudof myself, and I began to think of what a fool I'd have been if I'dtaken the shore route. A minute later I changed my mind. I felt thepack moving! Well, in a flash I said good-bye to Cherry Hill and theboys. Not many men are caught twice in a place like that. They neverhave the second chance.
"There I was, aboard a rotten floe and bound out to the big, lonelyocean at the rate of four miles an hour.
"'Oh, you might as well get ready to go, Jim,' thinks I. But I didn'tgive up. I loped along shoreward in a way that didn't take snow crustor air-holes into account. And I made the edge of the floe before theblack hours of the night had come.
"There was a couple of hundred yards of cold water between me and theshore.
"'This is the time you think more of your life than your fur,' thinks I.
"There was a stray pan or two--little rafts of things--lying off theedge of the floe; and beyond them, scattered between the shore and me,half a dozen other pans were floating. How to get from one to the otherwas the puzzle. They were fifty or sixty yards apart, most of them,and I had no paddle. It was foolish to think of making a shift with myjacket for a sail; the wind was out, not in, and I had no rudder.
"What had I? Nothing that I could think of. It didn't _strike_ me, asyou say. I wish it had.
"'Anyhow,' says I to myself, 'I'll get as far as I can.'
"It was a short leap from the floe to the first pan. I made it easily.The second pan was farther off, but I thought I could jump the waterbetween. So I took off my pack and threw it on the ice beside me. Italmost broke my heart to do it, for I'd walked five hundred miles inthe dead of winter for that fur; I'd been nearly starved and frozen,and I'd paid out hard-earned money. I put down my pack, took a shortrun, and jumped like a stag for the second pan.
"I landed on the spot I'd picked out. I can't complain of missing themark, but instead of stopping there, I shot clear through and down intothe water.
"Surprised? I was worse than that. I was dead scared. For a minute Ithought I was going to rise under the ice and drown right there.
"How it happened I don't know; but I came up between the pans, andstruck out for the one I'd left. I got to the pan, all right, andclimbed aboard. There I was, on a little pan of ice, beyond reach ofthe floe and leaving the shore behind me, and cold and pretty welldiscouraged.
"There's the riddle of the corked bottle," said the trader,interrupting his narrative. "Now how do I happen to be sitting here?"
"I'm sure I can't tell," said the skipper.
"No more you should," said he, "for you don't know what I carried in mypack. But you see I had the bottle in my hands, and I wanted the gingerale bad; so I thought fast and hard.
"It struck me that I might do something with my line and jigger.[4]Don't you see the chance the barbed steel hooks and the forty fathom ofline gave me? When I thought of that jigger I felt just like the manwho is told to push the cork in when he can't draw it out. I'd got backto the pan where I'd thrown down my pack, you know; so there was thejigger, right at hand.
"It was getting dark by this time--getting dark fast, and the pans weredrifting farther and farther apart.
"It was easy to hook the jigger in the nearest pan and dra
w my pan overto it; for that pan was five times the weight of the one I was on. Theone beyond was about the same size; they came together at the half-waypoint. Of course this took time. I could hardly see the shore then, andit struck me that I might not be able to find it at all, when I camenear enough to cast my jigger for it.
"About fifty yards off was a big pan. I swung the jigger round andround and suddenly let the line shoot through my fingers. When I hauledit in the jigger came too, for it hadn't taken hold. That made me feelbad. I felt worse when it came back the second time. But I'm not one ofthe kind that gives up. I kept right on casting that jigger until itlanded in the right spot.
"My pan crossed over as I hauled in the line. That was all right; butthere was no pan between me and the shore.
"'All up!' thinks I.
"It was dark. I could see neither pan nor shore. Before long I couldn'tsee a thing in the pitchy blackness.
"All the time I could feel the pan humping along towards the open sea.I didn't know how far off the shore was. I was in doubt about justwhere it was.
"'Is this pan turning round?' thinks I. Well, I couldn't tell; but Ithought I'd take a flier at hooking a rock or a tree with the jigger.
"The jigger didn't take hold. I tried a dozen times, and every time Iheard it splash the water. But I kept on trying--and would have kepton till morning if I'd needed to. You can take me at my word, I'm notthe kind of fool that gives up--I've been in too many tight places forthat. So, at last, I gave the jigger a fling that landed it somewherewhere it held fast; but whether ice or shore I couldn't tell. If shore,all right; if ice, all wrong; and that's all I could do about it.
"'Now,' thinks I, as I began to haul in, 'it all depends on the fishingline. Will it break, or won't it?'
"It didn't. So the next morning, with my pack on my back, I trampedround the point to Racquet Harbour."
"What was it?" was Billy Topsail's foolish question. "Shore or ice?"
"If it hadn't been shore," said the trader, "I wouldn't be here."
FOOTNOTE:
[4] A jigger is a lead fish, about three inches long, which spreadsinto two large barbed hooks at one end; the other end is attached toabout forty fathoms of stout line. Jiggers are used to jerk fish fromthe water where there is no bait.
The Adventures of Billy Topsail Page 10