Ungava by Robert Michael Ballantyne (new reading TXT) 📖

up, and the pine tops nearly covered; and the open water in the lake was more encumbered than usual with icebergs.

"Now, La Roche," said Stanley, after they had surveyed the desolate scene for a few minutes in silence, "go fetch the shovel and we'll dig out the men. I daresay, poor fellows, they're beginning to wonder at the length of the night by this time."

La Roche prepared to descend into the tunnel, when their attention was arrested by a strange sound beneath the snow. In a few minutes the crust began to crack at a spot not more than two yards from where they stood; then there was a sudden rupture, accompanied by a growl, and followed by the appearance of the dishevelled head and arms of a man.

"Musha, boys, but I'm out!" Bryan coughed the snow from around his mouth, and winked it from his eyes, as he spoke. The first sight that met his bewildered gaze was three pair of expanded eyeballs and three double rows of grinning teeth, a few feet from his face. Uttering a cry of terror, he fell back into the hole, the snow closed over him, and he was gone!

It need scarcely be added that Frank and Stanley commenced to dig into this hole with as much vigour as their frequent explosions of laughter would allow. In a few minutes it was re-opened, and the men issued one by one from durance vile.

"Och, sirs, ye gave me a mortial start!" exclaimed Bryan, as he rose to view the second time. "I thought for sartin ye were all polar bears. Faix we've had a job o't down there. I'll be bound to say there's twinty ton o' snow--bad luck to it--in the middle o' the floor."

"There's work for us here that'll last two weeks, I guess," said Massan, as he and several of the others stooped down and gazed into the tunnel leading to the hall, at the end of which Edith's laughing face met their view.

"When did you awake, and begin to suspect that something was wrong?" inquired Stanley of Dick Prince.

"Awake!" cried Bryan, answering the question; "we awoke at laste a dozen times. I suppose it must have bin the time for brikfust; for, ye see, although we could ha' slept on long enough; our intariors couldn't, be no manes, forgit their needcessities."

"We shall have to work a bit yet ere these necessities are attended to, I fear," said Stanley. "Go, Francois, and one or two of you, and open up the dog-kennel. The rest of you get all the shovels you can lay hands on, and clear out the houses as fast as you can."

"Clear out de chimbleys fust, mes garcons," cried La Roche, looking up from the tunnel. "Den ve vill git dejeuner ready toute suite."

"That will we, lad," said Bryan, shouldering a spade and proceeding towards the chimney of the hall; while the rest of the party, breaking up into several groups, set to work, with spades, shovels, and such implements as were suitable, to cut passages through the square of the fort towards the doors of the several buildings. As Massan had said, it proved to be no light work. The north-west gale had launched the snow upon the exposed buildings of Fort Chimo until the drift was fifteen or sixteen feet deep, so that the mere cutting of passages was a matter of considerable time and severe labour.

Meanwhile, Maximus awoke, and sought to raise himself from his lair at the foot of the rock. But his first effort failed. The drift above him was too heavy. Abandoning, therefore, the idea of freeing himself by main force, he turned round on his side and began to scrape away the snow that was directly above his head. The masses that accumulated in the course of this process he forced down past his chest; and, as his motions tended to compress and crush the drift around him in all directions, he soon made room enough to work with ease. In ten minutes he approached so near to the surface as to be able, with a powerful effort, to burst it upwards, and step out of his strange dormitory into the sunshine.

This method of spending the night has been resorted to more than once by arctic travellers who had lost their way; and it is sad to think that many who have perished might have saved their lives had they known that burrowing could be practised with safety. The Esquimaux frequently spend the night in this manner, but they prefer building a snow-house to burrowing, if circumstances will permit.

Cutting a slice of seal-meat, and eating as he went, Maximus resumed his journey, and soon afterwards arrived at the fort, where he found the men busied in excavating their buried dwellings.

Here he stated the case of the old woman, and received such medicines as Stanley, in his amateur medical wisdom, saw fit to bestow. With these he started immediately to retrace his steps, having been directed to proceed, after administering them, to the lake where Frank meant to try the fishing under the ice. A family of Esquimaux had been established on another lake not so far distant from the fort; and having been taught by the fur-traders how to set nets under the ice, they succeeded in procuring more than enough for their subsistence. It was hoped, therefore, that the larger lake would afford a good supply; and, the weather having become decidedly fine, Frank prepared to set out on the following day.


CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.


AN EXCURSION--IGLOO BUILDING, AND FISHING UNDER THE ICE--A SNOW-TABLE AND A GOOD FEAST--EDITH SPENDS THE NIGHT UNDER A SNOW-ROOF FOR THE FIRST BUT NOT THE LAST TIME.

"Now then, Edith," cried Frank, looking in at the door of the hall, "your carriage waits, and Chimo is very restive."

"Coming, coming," exclaimed a treble voice within; "I'm getting new lines put to my snow-shoes, and will be ready in two minutes."

Two minutes, translated into female language, means ten, sometimes twenty. Frank knew this, and proceeded to re-adjust the sash that secured his leathern capote, as he walked towards the little sledge in front of the fort. He then tied down the ear-pieces of his fur cap more carefully, for it was very cold, though clear and sunny. The frost had set fast the lake opposite the fort, and, by thus removing the frost-cloud that overhung the open water farther out to sea, relieved the fort from the mists in which it was usually enveloped. By this time fifteen out of the "two" minutes having elapsed, he re-examined the lock of his gun, and adjusted the warm deerskin robe on Edith's little sledge, patted Chimo on the head, looked up at the clouds, and began to whistle.

"Now, Frank, here I am," cried Edith, running towards him with her snow-shoes in her hand, followed by her father and mother.

"Quiet, Chimo--down, sir!" said Frank, restraining the dog as it sought to bound towards its mistress. Being harnessed to the sledge, this was a very improper proceeding and was rebuked accordingly; so Chimo was fain to crouch on the snow and look back at Edith as Frank placed her in the sledge, and arranged the deerskin robes round her.

Edith wore a long fur cloak and cloth leggings. Her feet were protected from the cold by two pair of blanket socks, besides very thick moccasins of deerskin. The usual head-dress of civilised females in these regions is a round fur cap; but Edith had a peculiar affection for the Cree Indian headdress, and, upon the present occasion, wore one which was lined with fur and accommodated with ear-pieces, to defy the winter cold. The child's general appearance was somewhat rotund. Painters would probably have said there was a little too much breadth, perhaps, in the picture. Her pointed cap, however, with the little bow of ribbon on the top, gave her a piquant air, and did away with the heavy appearance of her costume to some extent; in fact, Edith looked like a fat little witch. But if she looked fat before being wrapped up in the sledge furs, she looked infinitely fatter when thus placed, and nothing of her visible except her two twinkling eyes. So grotesque was she that the whole party burst into a loud laugh as they surveyed her. The laugh made Chimo start off at full gallop, which caused Frank to grasp the line of the sledge that trailed behind, and hurry over the snow at a most undignified pace.

"Take care of her," cried Mr Stanley.

"Ay, ay," shouted Frank.--"Softly, Chimo--softly, you rascal!"

In ten minutes the travellers were round the point and fairly out of sight; but the shouts of Frank, and an occasional howl from Chimo, floated back on the breeze as Stanley and his wife returned leisurely to the hall.

The road, or rather the ground, over which Frank Morton drove Edith that day was exceedingly rough and rugged--so rough that we will not try the endurance of the reader by dragging him over it. We will merely indicate its general features. First of all, they drove about three miles along the level snow at the foot of the mountains. So far the road was good; and Chimo went along merrily to the music of the little thimble-like brass bells with which his harness was garnished. Then they came to a ravine, and Edith had to get out, put on her snow-shoes, and clamber up, holding by Frank's hand; while Chimo followed, dragging the sledge as he best could. Having gained one of the terraces, Edith slipped her feet out of the snow-shoe lines, jumped into the sledge, and was swept along to the next ravine, where she got out again, resumed her snow-shoes, and ascended as before. Thus they went up the ravines and along the terraces until the summit of the first mountain range was reached. Having rested here a few minutes, Edith once more got into the sledge, and Chimo set off. But as there was now a long piece of level ground over which for some miles they could travel in the direction of the coast, Frank took the sled-line in his hand, and held the dog at a quick walking pace. Afterwards they turned a little farther inland, and came into a more broken country, where they had sometimes to mount and sometimes to descend the hills. There were many gorges and narrow fissures in the ground here, some of which were covered over and so concealed with snow that the travellers ran some risk of falling into them. Indeed, at one place, so narrow was their escape that Chimo fell through the crust of snow, and disappeared into a fissure which descended a hundred feet sheer down; and the sledge would certainly have followed had not Frank held it back by the line; and Chimo was not hauled up again without great difficulty. After this, Frank went in front with a pole, and sounded the snow in dangerous-looking places as he went along.

Towards the afternoon they arrived at the lake where they intended to encamp, and, to their great delight, found Maximus there already. He had only arrived a few minutes before them, and was just going to commence the erection of a snow-house.

"Glad to see you, Maximus," cried Frank, as he drove up.