Kitabı oku: «The Cruise of the Snowbird: A Story of Arctic Adventure», sayfa 14
He awoke at last like the proverbial giant refreshed, and found his pillow sitting up alongside of him, and gazing down at him with loving hazel eyes.
“Hullo, Oscar!” he said: “day is breaking yonder in the east; it is almost time we were moving.”
The dog shook himself as much as to say, —
“I’m ready at a moment’s notice to guide you safely home.”
There was a broad belt of red light in the distant horizon and towards this Oscar attempted to lead his master, with many a bound and many a bark.
But Allan wouldn’t budge.
“Not in that direction, Oscar, old boy,” he said; “our road lies towards the setting, not the rising sun.”
“Bow, wow!” barked Oscar, as if reasoning with him, “bow, wow, wow, wow!”
There was something in the dog’s demeanour that set Allan a-thinking. Could the animal really be right and he wrong? He examined the belt of red light more carefully now. Was that the east? Was that indeed the crimson clad vanguard that heralds the coming day? Nay, it could not be, the red was a more lurid red, the light was a fitful light, and as he gazed he could distinctly make out a confused rolling of great clouds over it. Then all at once the truth flashed across his mind.
The forest was on fire!
How this happened the reader may at once be told: sparks from McBain’s camp fire had towards morning ignited the withered needles that had fallen from the pine-trees, the brushwood had caught, and next the underwood of the spruce-trees, and at the very moment that Allan was gazing skywards his friends were rushing headlong through the woods, pursued by the devouring element.
Would they ever meet Allan again?
Chapter Twenty One
Narrow Escape – A Terrible Scene – Allan and Oscar – A Gloomy Evening – Reunion – Seth’s Adventure – A Welcome Back
For a minute or more escape from the terrible fire seemed to our heroes an utter impossibility. The smoke that curled and swirled around them was blinding, the roar of the flames was deafening. No wonder they hesitated what to do or which way to flee. Their camp fire had been lit not far from the river’s brink, but the stream at this part ran deep, and dark, and sullen; to plunge into it was only to court death in a different form. But all at once the wind seemed to increase to almost a gale; it blew in their faces cold and fierce, the smoke lifted off, and suddenly their senses and presence of mind were restored; and while behind them the flames mounted higher and higher, and seemed to rage more fiercely every moment, they dashed off and away against that wind. It was terribly strong now; they felt as if they were breasting the waves against the tide, but it was their only chance. Farther down the stream they would doubtless find a ford, and once across the river they were safe.
It was indeed a race for life, and for fully half-an-hour it was doubtful if they would win it. The withered heath and grass, and the stunted shrubs which grew next to the banks of the stream, caught fire even against the wind, and this communicated with the forest, so that the flames seemed to chase them, and to keep alongside of them, at one and the same time. But at last they reach a spot where the river widens out, and they know by the ripple on it that it cannot be deep, so in they plunge and begin to ford, and they have not gone ten yards ere the fire has taken possession of the bank they left. There can be no going back now, but the current is strong, and deeper in some places than their waists, yet they stem it manfully, holding their rifles high, and supporting each other whenever a slip is made. They reach the opposite bank at last, and Seth is the first to clamber out and to help the others up. They climb to the top of the ravine, ere ever they pause to gaze behind them.
The scene they looked upon was awful in its sublimity.
The flames were doing their work with fearful speed. The fire had rolled backwards and appeared embracing all the wooded country. The spruce thickets seemed to suffer the worst; from them the flames rose the highest, shooting hundreds of feet into the air in great gleaming tongues of fire, that fed upon and licked up the very clouds of smoke themselves. The air, for miles to leeward, was filled with sparks as dense as snowflakes. But strangest sight of all was to see the tall alpine pines. Other trees tottered and crashed and fell as the fierce heat attacked them; not so they, they seemed to defy the flames, and as the fire rolled back seeking for more pliant material on which to vent its fury, and the wind blew round their stems, their bark caught fire and they stood forth against the blackness like trees of molten gold.
There were here and there in the forest bold rocky bluffs, rising hundreds of feet above the trees. These were lighted up as the fire swept past them, as with the brightness of the noontide sun, and on their summits our heroes could distinctly perceive flocks of tall antlered deer, and near them frightened cowering wolves and even bears; all alike had taken refuge on these heights from the fury of the flames that held sway beneath them.
For a short time only the scene held the little party spellbound. Ralph was the first to speak.
“Alas! poor Oscar!” he said in a mournful tone, “he must have perished in the flames.”
It was only natural they should come to this conclusion, but at that moment Oscar and Allan too were safe enough, and journeying onwards in hopes of finding them.
Allan could now understand perfectly and clearly every phase of the situation. His friends if alive were some miles, many miles in all probability, up-stream, the dog had escaped from their camp fire, the fire had originated at their camp, and to escape destruction they must have crossed the stream. Allan had never seen a forest on fire before, but he had seen the heather, and he knew something about the dangerous rapidity with which flames can spread along in the open. As soon, therefore, as there was a glimmering of daylight, he stripped at the river’s brink, tied his clothes into a bundle with his plaid, and swam to the other side, the dog following as if he understood the move entirely and quite approved of it.
It was well he had done so, for another hour’s journey along that winding river’s banks brought him face to face with the raging fire. But wind as it might, Allan determined not to lose sight of it again; he made all speed nevertheless. He knew his friends must wait now until the charred and blackened ground cooled down before they re-crossed the river and recommenced the search.
Yet, reader, we who know that Allan is safe cannot fully sympathise with his friends in the gloom and anxiety that settled down on their hearts. When the excitement caused by the fire and their narrow escape from destruction wore off, it left behind it an utter hopelessness and despair, which it is difficult to describe. When they had lain down to sleep on the previous evening, they were full of confidence that they would soon come up with Allan. Seth had pronounced the trail a fresh one, and assured them he would find the lost boy before another sunset. Rory was full of fun, even pronouncing Allan a “rogue of a runaway,” and saying that “sure the search for him was only a wild-goose chase after all said and done, and Allan the goose.”
But now where was that confidence? Where was hope? Dead. Dead, just as they had not a single doubt Allan and his poor dog were at that moment. And oh! to think that it was their own carelessness that had caused that dreadful fire, which they felt sure must have cost Allan his precious life. They would, however, so they determined, resume the search; but what an aimless one it would be now, with track and trail gone for ever!
Seth lit a fire; he even cooked food, but no one cared to speak, much less to eat! and so the day wore gloomily away. The wind, which had gone down at noon, began to rise again and moan mournfully among the swaying branches, and a few drops of rain fell. There would be neither moon nor stars to-night. The sky was overcast with grey and leaden cumulus drifting before the restless wind, and night was coming on a good hour before its time.
They crept closer together. They gathered more closely to the log fire.
“Boys,” said McBain, and he spoke with some difficulty, as if his heart were very full indeed – “boys, the shieling (Highland cot) where I lived when a child on the braes of Arrandoon was a very humble one indeed; my father was a poor man, but a brave and pious one; not that I mean to boast of that, but there wasn’t a morning passed without a prayer being said, and a song being sung in praise of Him we children were all taught to fear, and reverence, and trust. He taught us to say those beloved words, ‘Thy will be done.’ Oh! boys, it is easy to breathe that prayer when everything is going well with us, but in gloom and trouble like the present, it is true courage and true worship if we can speak the words not with lips but with hearts.”
After a pause, —
“I think,” McBain continued, “if anything has happened to poor Allan, it will be our duty to get back as speedily as may be to Scotland, and forego our voyage farther north.”
Now, at that very moment Allan and his dog were within sight of the camp fire; he was holding Oscar by the collar, and meditating what would be the best and least startling way to make known his presence.
Should he fire his rifle in the air? That would be better than suddenly appearing like a ghost among them.
But Oscar settled the difficulty in a way of his own. He bounded away from his master’s grasp with a joyful bark, and next moment was careering like a mad thing round and round the group at the fire.
This way of breaking the intelligence of Allan’s safety was very abrupt, but it was very satisfactory.
When the surprised greetings with which Allan was hailed had in some measure subsided – when he had explained the part that Oscar had played, and told them that but for the great fire he never would have believed that he had been going eastwards instead of west – then McBain said, in his old quiet manner, —
“You see, boys, there is a Providence in all things, and, on the whole, I’m not sorry that this should have happened.”
But twenty years at the very least seemed to have fallen off the load of the trapper’s age.
Seth knew what men were, and so he heaped more wood on the fire, and set about at once getting supper ready.
Sapper would never have suggested itself to anybody if Allan had not returned.
The journey “home,” as the good yacht was always called, was commenced the very next morning, and accomplished in eight-and-forty hours.
A red deer fell to Allan’s gun by the way.
“I do believe,” said Allan, “it is the self-same rascal that led me such a dance.”
“We’ll have a haunch off him, then,” said McBain, “to roast when we go back, and so celebrate your return.”
“The chief’s return,” said Ralph, laughing.
“The prodigal son’s bedad,” said Rory; “but I’m going to have that stag’s head. Isn’t he a lordly fellow, with his kingly antlers! I’ll stuff it, an oh! sure, if we ever do get back to Arrandoon, it’s myself will hang it in the hall in commemoration of the great wild-goose chase.”
By means of their compasses and trapper Seth’s skill they were able to march in almost a bee-line upon what they termed their own ravine. But not during any portion of the journey was Seth idle. He was scanning every yard of the ground around him, studying every feature of the landscape, and making so many strange marks upon the trees, that at last Rory asked him, —
“Whatever are you about, friend Seth? Is it a button off your coat you’ve lost, or what is the meaning of your strange earnestness?”
Seth smiled grimly.
“I guess,” he replied, “we may have to make tracks across this bit of country once or twice after the snow is on the ground. Shouldn’t like to be lost, should you?”
Rory shrugged his shoulders.
When they were having their mid-day meal Rory returned to the charge.
“Were ever you lost in the snow?” he said to Seth.
“More’n once,” replied Seth.
“Tell us.”
“Once in partikler,” said Seth, “three of us were movin’ around in a wild bit o’ country. It were skootin’ after the b’ars we were, with our snow-shoes on, for the snow were plaguey deep. I was a bit younger then, and I calculate that accounted for a deal of my headlong stupidity. Anyhow, we lost our way, and when we got our bearings again, night was beginning to fall, and as we didn’t fancy passing it away from the log fire, we just made about all the haste we knew how to. I knew every tree, even with snow on ’em, but I hadn’t taken correct note of the rocks and gullies and such. And presently, blame me, gentlemen, if I didn’t miss my footing and go tumbling down to the bottom of a pit, twenty feet deep if it were an inch. I didn’t go quite alone, though. No, I just drops my gun and clutches Jager by the hand, and down we goes together in the most affectionate manner ever you could wish to see.
“Nat Weekley was a-comin’ sliding up some ways in the rear. He was lookin’ at his toes like, and didn’t see us disappear, but he told us afterwards he kind o’ missed us all of a suddint, you see, and guessed we’d gone somewheres down into the bowels o’ the earth. He was an amoosin kind of a ’possum, was old Nat. Presently he discovered our hole, and laying himself cautiously down on the lower side of it, so’s he shouldn’t fall, he peers over the brink. He couldn’t see us for a bit, with the blinding snow-powder we’d raised. But Nat wasn’t going to be done.
“‘Anybody down there?’ says Nat, quite unconcernedly.
“‘To be sure there is,’ says we; ‘didn’t you see us go in?’
“‘No,’ said Nat; ‘what did you go in for?’
“‘Don’t know,’ said I, sulkily.
“‘How are you going to get out?’ says Nat.
“‘Nary a bit o’ me knows,’ I says; ‘we came down so plaguey fast we didn’t take time to consider.’
“‘Went to look for summut, I reckon?’
“‘Oh!’ cries Jager, ‘cease your banter, Nat.’
“‘A pretty pair o’ babes in the wood you’ll make, won’t you! Do you know it’ll soon be dark?’
“‘Poor consolation that,’ I says.
“‘Pitch dark,’ roars Nat, ‘and nary a morsel o’ fire you’ll be able to light. And I reckon too it’s in a b’ar’s hole you are, and presently the b’ar will be coming home, and then there’ll be the piper to pay. There’ll be five minutes of a rough house down there, I can tell ye.’
“We felt kind o’ riled now, and didn’t reply, and so Nat went on:
“‘I kind o’ sees ye now,’ he says. ‘I can just dimly descry ye, you looks about as frisky as a pair o’ bull buffaloes. Ha! ha! ha! You’ll be precious cold before long, though,’ Nat continues. ‘Now don’t say Nat’s a bad old sort. He’s going to throw ye down his flask; maybe ye can’t catch it, so behold, Nat puts it in the pocket of his big skin coat, and pitches it down into your hole. Don’t think it’s the b’ar, cause he won’t come home till it’s just a trifle darker, and then – ha! ha! ha! – I thinks I sees the dust he’ll raise. Good-bye, my sylvan beauties. Good night, babies. Take care of your little selves; don’t catch cold whatever ye do.’
“But all this was only Nat’s fun, ye see. He carried a right good heart within him, I can tell you, and he wasn’t above five hours gone when back he comes with two more of our friends carrying a big lantern, a long rope, and an axe, and in about ten minutes more Jager and I were both on the brink; but I can tell ye, gentlemen, it was about the coldest five hours ever trapper Seth spent in his little existence.”
The anxiety on board the yacht for the past few days had been very deep indeed, but as our heroes drew once more near to their home, and Stevenson made sure they were all there, dogs and all.
“Hurrah, boys!” he cried to his men; “man the rigging!”
Ay, and they did too, and it would have done your heart good to have heard that ringing cheer, and it wasn’t one cheer either, but three times three, and one more to keep them whole.
McBain and his little party made noble response, you may be well sure; and meanwhile Peter, with his bagpipes, had mounted into the foretop and played them Highland welcome as they once more jumped on board of the saucy Snowbird.
What a delightful evening they spent afterwards in the snuggery! They were often in the habit of inviting one of the mates aft, or even weird little Magnus, with his budget of wonderful tales, but to-night they must needs have it all to themselves, and it was quite one bell in the middle watch ere they thought of retiring, and even after that they must all go on deck to have a look around.
Not a breath of wind, not a cloud in the sky, and stars as big as saucers.
“Jack Frost has come while we’ve been talking,” said McBain. “Look here, boys.”
He threw a bit of wood overboard as he spoke; it rang as it alighted on the surface of the ice.
Chapter Twenty Two
Frost and no Skates! – Rory Disconsolate – McBain to the Rescue – A Roaring Day and a Merry Night – A Mysterious Pool
King Frost had come – and come, too, with a will, for when Rory went on deck next morning the ice was all around the yacht, hard and smooth and black.
“It is frozen in we are,” said Rory – “frozen in entirely, and never a vestige of a skate in the ship. Just look, Allan, that ice is bearing already! What could have possessed us to leave Scotland without skates?”
“It is provoking,” remarked Allan, looking at the ice with a rueful countenance.
“Well, we can’t go back home for them, that is certain sure. D’ye think, now, that old Ap could manufacture us a few pairs?”
“He is very handy,” Allan said; “but I question if he could manufacture skates.”
“However,” said Rory, “the ice is bearing; we can slide if we can’t skate. So I, for one, am going over the side presently.”
“Not to-day, Rory boy,” said a quiet voice behind him, while at the same time a hand was laid gently on his shoulder – “not to-day, Rory, it wouldn’t be safe,” said McBain. “I know you would risk it, but I love you too well to allow it.”
“And sure, isn’t your word law, then?” replied Rory.
McBain smiled, and no more was said on the subject; but for all that Rory had the ice on his mind all day, and that accounted for his having been seen in close confab with old Ap for a whole hour, during which pieces of wood and bits of iron were critically looked at, and many strange tools examined and designs drawn on paper by Rory’s deft artistic fingers. But the result of all this may be summed up in the little word nil. Ap had taken much snuff during this consultation, but, “No, no; look, you see,” he said, at last, “if it were a box now, or a barrel, or a boat, I could manage it; but skates, look you, is more science than art.”
So Rory had rather a long face when he came aft again, which was something most unusual for Rory. But his was the nature that is easily cast down, and just as easily elevated again. His spirits were about zero before dinner; they rose somewhat during that meal, and fell once more when the cloth was removed.
“Do you think,” asked Ralph of McBain, “that the frost will hold?”
“Oh,” cried Rory, “don’t talk of the frost! sure it is the provokingest thing that ever was, that the three of us should have forgotten our skates. I’m going to get my fiddle.”
“Wait a moment,” said McBain.
“Steward,” he continued, “serve out warm clothing to-morrow for these young gentlemen, and remind them to put on their pea-jackets; we are going to have such a frost as you never even dreamt of in Scotland. Don’t forget to put them on, boys; and Peter, ‘dubbing’ for the boots mind, no more paste blacking.”
“Ay, ay, sir!” said Peter.
“And don’t forget the paper blankets.”
“That I won’t, sir!” from Peter.
Now while McBain was speaking Rory’s face was a study; the clouds were fast disappearing from his brow, his eye was getting brighter every moment. At last, up he jumped, all glee and excitement.
“Hurrah!” he cried, seizing the captain by the hand. “It is true, isn’t it? Oh! you know what I’d be saying. The skates, you know! Never expect me to believe that the man who thought beforehand about warm clothes for his boys, and dubbing and paper blankets, was unmindful of their pleasures as well.”
“Peter, bring the box,” said McBain, quietly laughing.
Peter brought the box, and a large one it was too.
Three dozen pairs of the best skates that ever glided over the glassy surface of pond or lake.
Rory looked at them for a moment, then admiringly at McBain.
“I was going to get my fiddle,” says Rory, “and it would be a pity to spoil a good intention; but troth, boys, it isn’t a lament I’ll be playing now, at all, at all.”
Nor was it. Rory’s fiddle spoke – it laughed, it screamed; it told of all the joyousness of the boy’s heart, and it put everybody in the same humour that he himself and his fiddle were in.
Next morning broke bright and clear; Rory and Allan were both up even before the stars had faded, and by the time they had enjoyed the luxury of the morning tub – for that they meant to keep up all the year round, being quite convinced of the good of it – and dressed themselves, laughing and joking all the time, Peter had the breakfast laid and ready.
The ice was hard and solid as steel, and glittered like crystal in the rays of the morning sun, and you may be sure our heroes made the best of it, and not they alone, but one half at least of the yacht’s officers and crew. The whole day was given up to the enchanting amusement of skating, and to frolic and fun. Wonderful to say, old Ap proved himself quite an adept in the art, and the figures this little figure-head of a man cut, and the antics he performed, astonished every one.
But Seth, alas! was but a poor show; he never had had skates on his feet before, so his attempts to keep upright were ridiculous in the extreme. But Seth did not mind that a bit, and his pluck was of a very exalted order, for, much as his anatomy must have been damaged by the innumerable falls he got, he was no sooner down than he was up again. Allan and Ralph took pity on him at last, and taking each a hand of the old man, glided away down the ice with him crowing with delight.
“But, sure, then,” cried Rory, “and it’s myself will have a partner too.”
And so he linked up with old Ap, old Ap in paper cap and immensity of apron, Rory in pilot coat and Tam o’ Shanter. What a comical couple they looked! Yes, I grant you they looked comical, but what of that? Their skating far eclipsed anything in the field, and there really was no such thing as tiring either Ap or Rory.
And hadn’t they appetites for dinner that day! Allan’s haunch of venison smoked on the board; and Stevenson, Mitchell, and the mate of the Trefoil had been invited to partake, as there was plenty for everybody, and some to send forward afterwards.
“Now,” said McBain, after the cloth had been removed, and cups of fragrant coffee had been duly discussed, “what say you, gentlemen, if we leave the Snowbird to herself for an hour or two, pipe all hands over the side, and go on shore and open the new hall?”
“A grand idea!” cried Ralph and Allan in a breath. “Capital!” said Rory.
And in less than an hour, reader, everything was prepared: a great fire of logs and coals was cracking and blazing on the ample hearth of the hall, a fire that warmed the place from end to end, a fire at which an ox might have been roasted. The piano had been transported on shore; at this instrument Ralph presided, and near him stood Rory, fiddle in hand. McBain was duly elected chairman, and the impromptu concert had commenced. The officers occupied the front seats, the men sat respectfully on forms in the rear. Had you been there you would have observed, too, that the crew had paid some little attention to their toilet before coming on shore; they had doffed their work-a-day clothing, and donned their best. Even Ap had laid aside his immensity of apron, and came out in navy blue, and Seth was once again encased in that brass-buttoned coat of his, and looked, as Rory said, “all smiles, from top to toe.”
McBain felt himself in duty bound to make a kind of formal speech before the music began. He could be pithy and to the point if he couldn’t be eloquent.
“Officers and men,” he said, “of the British yacht, Snowbird, – We are met here to-night to try, – despite the fact, which nobody minds, that we are far from our native land, – if we can’t spend a pleasant evening. We have been together now for many months, together in sunshine and storm, together in our dangers, together in our pleasures, and I don’t think there has ever been an unpleasant word spoken fore or aft, nor has a grumbler ever lifted up his voice. But we have a long dreary winter before us, and perils perhaps to pass through which we little wot of. But as we’ve stood together hitherto, so will we to the end, let it be sweet or let it be bitter. And it is our duty to help keep up each other’s hearts. I purpose having many such meetings here as the present, and let us just make up our minds to amuse and be amused. Everybody can do something if he tries; he who cannot sing can tell a story, and if there be any one single mother’s son amongst us who is too diffident to do anything, why just let him keep a merry face on his figure-head, and, there, we’ll forgive him! That’s all.”
McBain sat down amidst a chorus of cheers, and the music began. Ralph played a battle piece. That suited his touch to a “t,” Rory told him, and led an encore as soon as it was finished. Then Rory himself had to come to the front with his fiddle, and he played a selection of Irish airs, arranged by himself. Then there was a duet between Allan and Ralph; then McBain himself strode on the stage with a stirring old Highland song, that brought his hearers back to stirring old Highland times in the feudal days of old, when men flew fiercely to sword and claymore, as the fiery cross was borne swiftly through the glen, and wrong had to be righted in the brave old fashion. Stevenson followed suit with a sea song; he had a deep bass voice, and his rendering of “Tom Bowling” was most effective.
It was Rory’s turn once more. He brought out a real Irish shillalah from somewhere, stuck his hat, with an old clay pipe in it, on one side of his head, and gave the company a song so comical, with a brogue so rich, that he quite brought down the house. It was not one encore, but two he got; in fact, he became the hero of the evening. Both Mitchell and the mate of the Trefoil found something to sing, and Ap and Magnus something to say if they couldn’t sing. Magnus’s story was as weird and wild as he looked himself while telling it; Ap’s was a simple relation of a daring deed done at sea during the herring-fishery season. After this Seth spun one of his trapper yarns, and the music began again. A sailor’s hornpipe this time – a rattling nerve-jogging tune that set the men all on a fidget. They beat time with their fingers, they tapped a tattoo with their toes; and when they couldn’t stand it a moment longer, why they simply started up in a bold and manly British fashion, cleared the floor, and gave vent to their feelings through their legs and their feet.
The dancing became fast and furious after that, and when Ralph and Rory were tired of playing they came to the floor, and Peter took their place with his bagpipes. But the longest time has an end, and at last Ap’s shrill pipe summoned all hands on board.
There was little need of sleeping-draughts for any one on board the Snowbird that night.
The frost held, our heroes could tell that before they left their beds, so intensely cold was it. Glad were they now of the addition of the paper blankets served out by Peter; eider-down quilts could hardly have made them feel more comfortable.
The frost held, they could tell that when they went to their tubs. Peter had placed the water in each bath only an hour before, but the ice was already so hard that instead of getting in at once Rory squatted down to look at it, and he did not like the looks of it either. The sponge was as hard as a sledge-hammer, so he took that to break the ice with. Then he tried one foot in, and quickly drew it out again and shook it. The water felt like molten lead.
“I wonder now,” he said to himself, “if brother Ralph will venture on a cold plunge on such a morning as this.”
And, wondering thus, he rolled his shoulders up in his door-curtain, and, poking his head into the passage, hailed Ralph.
“Hullo, there!” he cried; “Ralph! Porpy!”
“Hullo!” cried Ralph; “I’ll Porpy you if I come into your den!”
“Well, but tell me this, old man,” said Rory; “I want to know if you’re going to do a flounder this morning?”
“To be sure!” said Ralph. “Listen!”
Rory listened, and could hear him plashing.
McBain passed along at the moment, and, hearing the conversation, he took part in it to this extent, —
“Boys that don’t have their baths don’t have their breakfasts.”
“In that case,” said Rory, “I’m in too!” And next moment he was plashing away like a live dolphin. But hardly was he dressed than there came all over him such a glorious warm glow, that he would have gone through the same ordeal again had there been any occasion. At the same time he felt so exhilarated in spirits that nothing would serve him but he must burst into song.
The frost held, they could tell that when they met in the saloon and glanced at the windows; the tracery thereon was so beautiful, that even at the risk of letting his breakfast get cold, Rory must needs run for his sketch-book and make two pictures at least. Meanwhile, Ralph had settled down to serious eating. You see, there was very little poetry about honest Ralph, he was more solid than imaginative.
After breakfast our trio took to the ice again. They soon had evidence that some one had been there before them, for about a mile along the shore, and a little way out to sea, they saw that several poles had been planted, and on each pole fluttered a red flag. They looked inquiringly at McBain.
“You wonder what the meaning of that is?” said McBain; “and I myself cannot altogether explain it.”
