Arctic Adventures
The mate was anxious to return at once with the news of our success, and to guide the party to the shore. He hoped, with a good night’s rest, to be able to set off early in the morning, and to perform a great part of the distance before nightfall.
Sandy suggested, that it would be as well if some of us remained, as it would be necessary to carry but few articles on the sledge, and the dogs would the more easily perform the journey. He offered to go with Ewen and Croil, but to this the mate would not agree, and announced his intention to set off with Croil, leaving the rest of us to build a snow-hut for the reception of the party.
We had brought, I should have said, a couple of lamps with sufficient oil. We were therefore provided with one of the chief necessaries of life. We hoped also to shoot a bear, or perhaps some birds, to increase our stock of provisions.
When morning returned, however, a storm was blowing outside the bay, though within we were tolerably sheltered from its fury. To have attempted to cross the ice while it continued would have been madness.
The mate and Sandy therefore assisted us in putting up a hut. We had abundance of snow from a drift collected on the opposite side of the bay, though we soon exhausted that which lay immediately round us. The storm, however, increased to such an extent that we were compelled to take shelter within our tent, which, had it not been surrounded by a snow wall, would inevitably have been blown down. As we sat crowded together in our tent, waiting for the cessation of the storm, the howling and roaring of the wind among the rocks in no way served to raise our spirits, but rather increased the gloomy forebodings of evil which stole over us.
The mate announced his intention of taking a look round, to see what prospect there was of the weather clearing.
“Stay here, lads,” he said, taking up his gun, “there’s no reason why you should be exposed to the cold. I’m more accustomed to it than you are.”
“Not more than me, sir,” said Sandy; “I’ll go with you, if you like.”
“No, no, boatswain. You stay and look after the others. You are older than I am, at all events, and require more rest.”
Saying this the mate went out and closed the door of the tent.
Ewen, Croil, and the seaman were asleep. Sandy and I talked on for some time.
“Wonder the mate doesn’t come back,” said the boatswain. “I’m afraid something has happened to him. He can’t have lost his way on the ice, but he may have slipped over a rock, or into a seal hole, if any are to be found close in shore.”
We waited a little longer, and at length Sandy, starting up, exclaimed, “We must go and look for him.”
Just then our ears were saluted by a loud roar, which made the rest of the party jump up. We all hastened out. No one was to be seen.
“Where did the sound come from?” asked Sandy. “I thought it was quite near.”
“From the other side of the rock,” I answered.
We hastened towards the spot, in the direction to which I pointed. We all had our guns in our hands ready for an encounter with a bear, which we expected to see. What was my horror on getting round the rock to discover the mate on the ground, a huge shaggy monster standing over him. We crept on, afraid, should we shout, that the bear might carry off his victim. Whether the mate was dead or alive, we could not tell, but he lay perfectly still. Sandy was leading, but he was not a first-rate shot, and I would rather have trusted to my own rifle. At last the bear made a movement, and Sandy, thinking he was going to bite the mate, fired, but he only wounded the animal in the back. What was my horror to see it seize the mate by the body and scamper off with him. We all fired, but dared not aim at the animal’s head, believing that the mate was still alive, for fear of killing him. I stopped to reload, as did Ewen.
“After him, lads,” shouted Sandy, but the bear was far too fleet for us to overtake, and to our grief and dismay disappeared with his victim behind the rocks to the northward.
We searched in vain for our companion. Though we traced the way the bear had gone by the crimson stains on the white snow, it convinced us that the poor mate was killed. To follow further would have been useless. With sad hearts we returned to our tent, almost frozen by the cold blast, to spend the most melancholy night we had yet passed.
We had now to settle on our future proceedings. Sandy had become the leader of the party. He proposed returning to the ship, but none of us wished to be left behind, and preferred rather to undergo the toils and risks of the journey than to remain on shore. But of this Sandy would not hear. He declared that he could go very well with only one of us, and that the other three by remaining – I acting as officer – could manage well enough by ourselves.
At last I gave in, and Sandy with the seaman set off as soon as the wind had abated. We watched them as they made their way over the plain of ice, their forms diminishing into mere dots, then finally disappearing. We in the meantime were working away to complete our hut and to render it as habitable as possible. The flesh of the bear we had killed afforded us an ample supply of food, while the fat served to increase our stock of fuel. There was probably drift-wood on the shore, but except a few pieces which stuck up above the snow, we could obtain none. We took care of every scrap we could find, not to burn, but to manufacture into such articles as we might require. In the crevices of the rocks we discovered some low creeping plants which in any other region would have been bushes, but were here a mere collection of twigs, no thicker than our little fingers, just appearing above the ground. We agreed that each should take certain duties, and it was settled that Croil should stay at home and look after the hut, employing himself in either cooking or scraping the bear’s skin to make it fit for use as a covering. Should we kill a sufficient number of bears, we intended to fasten the skins of some of them together so as to form a roof to our hut, while others would make great-coats or bed coverings.
Soon after Sandy and his companion had departed, Ewen and I took our guns both for the sake of exercise and to try and shoot bears, reindeers, or musk-oxen which we thought it possible might be found in that region. We were not aware that the latter animals had migrated southward by that time, or indeed that they were likely to be found only on level ground where the depth of the snow was not sufficient to prevent them from getting at the moss or lichens beneath. I was thankful to have Ewen as my companion. He had greatly improved since he came on board and showed that he possessed qualities which I did not before suspect, so that I felt for him as I should for a brother. The atmosphere had become calm and comparatively warm though the snow remained hard and crisp.
Ewen and I kept under the cliffs and were tempted to make our way much further south than we had hitherto gone, in the hopes of discovering some opening into the interior of the country. We at last reached a part of the cliffs where, though very rugged, they were less precipitous than in other parts. The sun was sinking behind them, but we still had abundance of daylight for exploring. Ewen offered to climb to the top in the hopes of obtaining an extensive view and perhaps of finding level ground where we should have the chance of finding deer or oxen. There was no reason why we should both run the risk, for a risk there was, though a slight one.
“Let me make the attempt alone, while you remain below, and point out to me the best path to take,” he said.
I did not much like to do this, but he declared that if I insisted on going he would give up the expedition. As I saw the sense of his proposal, I consented, and he commenced climbing up, rifle in hand. He had gone some distance when I saw a creature creeping along the rocks above his head, and directly afterwards, as it came more into sight, I saw that it was a huge bear. I shouted to him, to draw his attention to it, should he not have discovered the animal. He stopped and began to descend to a position from whence he could take a steady aim at the monster, should it come within his reach. What was my horror directly afterwards to see two other bears crawling out from among the rocks by which they had hitherto been concealed, evidently having discovered him. It seemed impossible that he should escape. I shouted to him, when he again began clambering up the rock. To my dismay, as he did so the first bear crawled down and seated itself on a point so as to intercept him.
The two other creatures got closer and closer with the evident intention of seizing him. I trembled for his safety, and hurried to the nearest spot from which I could take a steady aim.
“Never mind the fellow above you,” I shouted. “If you will shoot the ere nearest to you, I will manage the other, and we will then tackle the third if he attempts to come down.”
I could well enter into Ewen’s feelings. It was surprising, in the perilous position in which he was placed, that he should have retained any presence of mind.
Following my advice, he sat himself down on the rock and took aim, waiting until I should fire.
“Now!” I cried, and we both pulled our triggers at the same moment.
I own that I trembled lest either one or both of us might miss, in which case it seemed impossible that he should escape destruction. As the smoke cleared away from before my eyes, I saw the bears in motion, but instead of advancing they both fell back and came tumbling down the cliff close to where I was standing. I rapidly loaded, as did Ewen. We had still another antagonist to contend with, whom he must tackle alone, for I could not help him.
Just as I expected to see the bear crawling down the rocks to seize my friend, to my infinite satisfaction, the creature, alarmed by the reports, turned tail and began clambering up the cliff.
I shouted to Ewen not to shoot, as, should he only wound the bear, it might in its rage turn and attack him. I also had to look after one of the others, who though wounded, was not dead, and recovering from its fall, was looking about apparently for the foe who had injured it. On espying me it began to advance, growling furiously. As blood was flowing from behind its shoulder, I hoped that it might soon drop, but in the meantime it might tear me to pieces, and perhaps treat Ewen in the same way. To run from a bear is at all times very dangerous, unless to gain protection of some sort at no great distance; for the bear – clumsy as it looks – can run much faster than a man. I, therefore, having reloaded my rifle, stood with it ready to send a shot through the animal’s head. I waited until the wounded bear was almost close upon me, and I could not refrain from uttering a shout of satisfaction as it rolled over perfectly dead. Ewen in the meantime, approaching the other, had finished it by firing a bullet through its head.
“I wish that we had the sledge to take home the meat and skins,” observed Ewen, “but we must carry as much as we can.”
Our fear was that, should we leave the meat, other bears, of whom there appeared to be a whole colony in the neighbourhood, would come and devour it. We managed to get off the skins, which were likely to prove most valuable to us; and, loaded with them and a portion of the meat, we returned to the hut, where we found Croil anxiously looking out for us. He too, had seen a couple of bears moving across the bay, and was afraid that we might have been attacked by them, and suffered the fate of the poor mate.
Chapter Eight
We now waited in anxious expectation for the arrival of our shipmates, but they did not appear. The days were getting shorter, the nights longer. The cold was increasing. Often and often we gazed out over the ice. As far as we could judge no change had taken place in it. A vast snow-covered plain, with here and there mountainous heights of ice could be seen extending as far as the horizon. Unfortunately we had not brought a telescope, or we thought that we might have discovered our friends. At length we began to entertain the most serious apprehensions as to their fate.
We had one evening turned in, and, having closed the door of the hut, had lighted our lamp and composed ourselves to sleep, when Ewen roused me up.
“I heard a shout!” he exclaimed, “they must be coming.”
We slipped into our day clothing, and hurried out, carrying our rifles in our hands, for we never moved without them.
Again there was a shout: we replied to it with all our might. Some one was evidently approaching. More clearly to show our position, I fired off my rifle, and sent Croil in to light a small piece of drift-wood the only thing we possessed to serve as a torch. Again and again we shouted: at length we caught sight through the gloom of night of some dark spots moving over the snow.
“Hurrah!” cried Ewen, “there are our shipmates!” Soon after he had spoken I discovered three of the dogs dragging the sledge and two men following them. The one was Sandy, the other Hans the seaman.
Hurrying forward we led them up to the hut. Sandy could scarcely speak.
“We are well-nigh starved, and I thought we should never get back,” he said at length.
“Where are our shipmates? Why haven’t they come?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you all about it when we have had some food and rest. Can you give us something to eat?”
“Plenty,” I answered, leading him and Hans into the hut, while Ewen and Croil unharnessed the poor dogs, who looked well-nigh famished. Ewen gave them some bears’ flesh, and they devoured it with a greediness which showed that they had gone long without a meal.
We soon had some slices of meat frying on our stove and some snow melting. After the two weary travellers had eaten, and drank some hot coffee, Sandy gave us the alarming intelligence that he had been unable to reach the camp. On arriving at the edge of the land-ice, what was his dismay to discover a wide gap between it and the field in the midst of which our friends were encamped, and which was in motion drifting southward. Still, hoping that it might again come in contact with the land-ice, he determined to move in the same direction. He caught sight indeed of a flag and what he took to be a portion of the wreck, though at so great a distance that he did not suppose the sound of his rifle, which he fired off, would be heard. No object indeed would have been gained had it been so, as it would have been impossible for one party to communicate with the other. For two days he followed the floe, but the distance between it and the land-ice increased. At length the ice over which he was travelling became so rough that he could proceed no further; he lost sight of the floe and its living freight, and was reluctantly compelled to return for want of food. One of the dogs gave in and it was killed and eaten. The last morsels had been consumed the day before he and Hans reached the hut. Their joy at finding us still there may be imagined, for had we by any chance fallen in with natives and accompanied them to the south, they fully expected to perish.
As soon as the meal was over, the two weary travellers lay down to sleep. Croil imitated their example, while Ewen and I sat up by the light of the lamp, I mending clothes and my friend engaged in preparing a small tub for holding bear’s grease to serve us for fuel. Our conversation naturally took a melancholy turn. The thought that the floe on which were my brother and his companions might be dashed to pieces, and that they would perish miserably, was painful in the extreme. We thought more of them, indeed, than of ourselves, though our position was truly perilous. Our only shelter during the intense cold of an Arctic winter was an ice hut. Hitherto the bears we had shot had afforded us food and fuel; but they might take their departure, and we should then have no other food on which to depend, until the return of spring should enable us to kill walruses and seals. No ships, even in the summer, were likely to penetrate so far north, for few whalers had got so near the pole as the Hardy Norseman had done, and destruction had overtaken her.
“Still I have heard that people have wintered in Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen, even with fewer means of supporting themselves than we possess,” observed Ewen. “We must not despair, Hugh, but trust in God; Sandy’s return to us is greatly to our advantage; for with his harpoon, when our powder is expended, he will be able to kill seals, and furnish us with food.”
“I am thinking of my brother Andrew, and the hopelessness of finding David,” I replied.
“But we do not know that he and the rest of the party are lost, and if your brother David is alive he may still make his escape wherever he may be.”
At last Ewen and I, having trimmed the lamp that it might keep alight, and maintain sufficient warmth in the hut, carefully closed the door and lay down to sleep.
There was no necessity for keeping a watch as was the case on the floe, nor had we the dread of an attack from hostile natives, for no human beings were likely to come near us. We should have been heartily ready to welcome any Esquimaux should they find us out.
I awoke at the usual hour, just before day-break, and getting up trimmed the lamp which had almost gone out, and set to work to prepare breakfast for my companions.
After a time I called up Ewen and Croil, but we allowed Sandy and Hans to sleep on, keeping the breakfast ready to give them the moment they should awake. It was noon before they opened their eyes, when having taken the food we offered them they fell asleep again. It was several days, indeed, before they got over the fatigue of their journey.
Sandy, when once himself again, was as anxious as any of us to make preparations for passing the winter. We talked of pushing southward to seek a more level region, but the lofty hills in the distance, without the appearance of any spot on which we could land, made us hesitate. As the days were now only of three hours’ duration, we feared that we should not have light for more than a very short journey, and it was impossible to endure the cold for any length of time after the sun had gone down. We had already a good supply of bear’s meat, but it was important to get more. Our store we had buried in a pit close to the hut, so that no roving bears could get at it. They are in no way particular, and would quite as readily feast on the flesh of their relatives as on any other meat. We had frequently seen their tracks made during the night close outside the hut, but they must have taken their departure, like spirits of another world, before dawn. They were not as hungry at this time of the year as they would be further on, when no seals were to be caught and the deer and other animals had migrated southward. At length the sun sank beneath the horizon, not again to rise until the end of a long winter’s night. The cold too had become so intense that we could only keep ourselves warm in the hut with the door closed and the lamp alight, but then it was almost too hot. We had, therefore, to make a window through which we could admit fresh air, without the necessity of opening the door; but when there was any wind we were obliged to fill up the aperture with snow, for the smallest orifice admitted a draught of air which pierced the hand like a needle when held up to it. The poor dogs had to be taken inside, for though we had built kennels for them close to the hut, there was a great risk of their being carried off by bears while we were asleep. Those “monarchs of the realms of ice,” as they are poetically called, had scented us out, and scarcely an hour passed but one made his appearance. Sometimes they got off, though we killed no inconsiderable number, thus adding to our stock of food, while their skins enabled us to make our beds as warm as we could desire. At length, however, they became more daring and troublesome, so that none of us could go out of the hut alone lest we should be carried off.
We had expended by this time so much of our powder that we had resolved to use no more of it until the return of spring, when we should require it on our journey southward.
How the winter went by I can scarcely describe. We had no books, but were never idle, being always employed in manufacturing articles with our knives, either from bones or pieces of drift-wood, or making shoes and clothing from the bears’ skins.
We were thus employed, having opened the window to admit some fresh air, and a few rays of the returning light of day, when, looking up, what should I see but the snout of a bear poked through the aperture, evidently enjoying the odours arising from some steaks frying on our stone.
Not at all disconcerted by the shouts we raised, for the sake of getting the savoury morsels, he began scraping away at the snow walls, in which, with his powerful claws, he could speedily have made an alarming breach.
Sandy, jumping up with his harpoon, which he had been polishing, in his hand, darted it with all his might at the bear. Fortunately his weapon did not stick in the animal’s throat, or he might, I confidently believe, have pulled down the whole structure in his struggles.
Uttering a roar of pain, the bear started back. His roar was repeated by several other bears outside, who must have joined it from sympathy, echoed by the dogs from the inside, who jumped about eager to attack their foes.
Ewen was about to open the door, when Sandy stopped him.
“Let us see how many of these gentlemen there are outside, for I’ve a notion there are more than we should wish to tackle,” he observed.
He and I looked out of the window, when we saw no less than three huge bears close to the hut, while the fellow we had wounded and several others were visible further off, watching the proceedings of their friends, whose evident intention it was to break in if they could, to eat the savoury steaks we were cooking, and us into the bargain. Notwithstanding our intention of not using our fire-arms, we must either kill the baars if we could not drive them off, or run the risk of being torn to pieces by them.
As they seemed resolved to pull our hut down for the sake of getting at us, we loaded our fire-arms and prepared for the defence of our fortress. Sandy desired me to take my post at the window, and to shoot down as many as I could, while he with the rest of the party opened the door and sallied out to attack the invaders. I advised him, however, to wait and see the result of my shots, unless the bears should actually begin to tear down the walls. Taking aim at the nearest, I fired. The thick smoke prevented me for some seconds from seeing the effect of my shot. Great was my satisfaction when I perceived the bear struggling on his back in the snow.
Ewen then handed me up his rifle, and while he reloaded mine, I took aim at the next bear, which I knocked over in the same fashion as I had the first; but strange to say, their companions, instead of being frightened and running away, came growling up as if resolved to revenge their deaths.
On seeing this, Sandy, who was looking over my shoulder, calling the rest of the party, opened the door, and fired a volley, all hands shouting at the same time at the top of their voices.
One of the bears fell; the rest, terrified and pursued by the dogs, who bolted out, took to flight. We called off our canine attendants, who were, however, very unwilling to return, coming slowly back, and every now and then facing round and barking furiously at the retreating bears.
Four of the animals had been killed, and we had made, as Sandy observed, “a good morning’s work.” It took us some time to cut them up and stow the flesh away in our pit, while the preparation of the skins gave us abundant occupation, though not a pleasant one in the confined hut.
Day after day went by; the sun remained longer and longer above the horizon; while the warmth sensibly increased, when there happened to be no wind, although the air was still cold enough to make our thick clothing indispensable.
We now began to make preparations for our journey southward, which must be performed before the land-ice should begin to break up.
I suggested that some of the party should first make a trip with part of our provisions, sufficient for three or four days, to the south, and there form a depot, so that we might not run the risk of starving should we fail to kill any animals, and this was agreed to.
