The Wilderness Castaways

“Keep at it, and you’ll learn,” encouraged Remington.

At that moment “whiz-z-z” and Ainsworth’s reel fairly hummed, with forty yards of line run out before he could check it—a flash of spray—a great silver bar in the air! The leap was full two feet! Splash! It doubled, demanded more line, fought as only a salmon can fight, the supple steel rod bent and curved, but the angler, his face tense with excitement, held his advantage.

“Good! Bully!” shouted Remington with each play. “Look out! That’s the way! Easy! That’s it!”

Again and again the fish fought for the head of the rapid, but at length, conquered, it was drawn in, and with Remington’s assistance landed—a fine big salmon.

“That was great!” exclaimed Paul. “Guess there is some fun in it after all.”

“Fun! Just strike one, and you’ll say it’s the best ever!” Ainsworth was justly proud.

A few minutes later, “Whiz-z-z” again, and “Whiz-z-z!” Two silver flashes! Two fountains of spray! Two mighty splashes! Paul and Remington had each hooked a salmon at nearly the same instant! And then there was fun! Ainsworth could hardly contain himself as he watched the play, shouting directions and cautions to one and the other. There was danger of getting their lines tangled when both fish darted up stream at once, or made dives for the bank at the same time, in efforts to free themselves. Finally Paul’s fish rushed in upon him, gained slack line, shook loose the hook and was free.

Paul could have cried with disappointment and vexation.

“Just my luck!” he exclaimed, as he saw Remington land a fine salmon.

“Oh, no, don’t get discouraged. You did mighty well for the first time,” encouraged Remington.

“I notice you landed yours, all right,” said Paul pettishly.

“But I may lose the next one. The uncertainty of whether you’ll land them or not after you’ve hooked them is half the fun.”

“I can’t see that–”

“Whiz-z-z”—away went his line again before he could finish. For half an hour, directed by Remington, he played the fish, and was at length rewarded with as fine a salmon as Ainsworth’s—considerably larger than Remington’s.

“What fun! Oh, but it’s great!” he exclaimed as, all a-tremble with excitement, he examined his catch.

“They’re here all right, and they’re taking flies. We’ve got all the fish Tom can take care of today, and we’ve had a week’s fun in two hours. What do you fellows say to climbing that barren hill?” suggested Remington. “I’m anxious to see what the country is like behind those cliffs.”

Paul was loath to go. The sport had set his blood a-tingling with excitement and he would much have preferred to remain behind and fish, but Ainsworth agreed with Remington, and his sense of courtesy to his host bade him join them.

“We’ll stretch our lines to dry before we go, Paul. Never put your line up wet or it will rot, and some day you’ll lose a fine fish,” advised Remington, who had noticed Paul lean his rod against a tree.

Their lines stretched, they wandered up the defile down which the river plunged in its mad impatience to reach the sea. Here they were in a dark forest of stunted spruce, but very quickly, as they began the ascent of the hill, trees gave way to straggling brush, and brush at length to bare rocks.

“There’s a view for you,” said Remington when the summit was reached.

“Magnificent!” exclaimed Ainsworth.

“Pretty rough country.”

“But grand! Stupendously grand!”

To the west, a shimmering vista, lay Hudson Bay; to the east, to the north, to the south, stretched a tumbled, boundless mass of rocky ridges, interspersed with starved forests of spruce. Here and there a lake sparkled in the distance. Below them the river, a twisting, winding thread of silver, coursed down to the sea.

The sensations that had come to Paul in Hudson Strait when he first beheld the distant wilderness and the sailless sea, thrilled him again—first fear and shrinking, then an inward, inexplicable sense of power and freedom.

“And no one lives there,” he said, more to himself than to his companions.

“No one but Indians,” said Remington. “Eskimos on the coast. They all live as close to nature as man can live, and they fight that wilderness pretty constantly for existence. It’s a land of the survival of the fittest.”

Later, on other occasions during their stay in Richmond Gulf, Paul visited the barren hill. He would steal away alone, and for an hour at a time sit upon its rocky summit, and revel in the rugged beauties of the landscape. Here he felt a something well up within him, a desire to do something—an indescribable longing he could not define.

The lure and the power of the wilderness were exerting their influence. This was the world just as God had made it, untouched by the hand of man. Rugged mountains, patches of green forests, sparkling lakes, the distant sea, the blue sky, and silence. There were no brick walls to limit the vision, no tall chimneys belching out smudges of black smoke to defile the atmosphere, no rushing crowd to distract. Nowhere does one get so close to God as in the wilderness. The wilderness is the temple of pure thoughts, of high ambitions. Here man’s soul expands as nowhere else on earth.

When the three returned to camp they found the tents set up and everything snug and in order. A fragrant and cozy seat of spruce boughs had been arranged by Dan and Kuglutuk before a roaring log fire, and, by no means the least attractive of the preparations, a delicious supper of salmon awaited them, which they attacked with a will, for the exercise had given them an unusual appetite.

“I never ate such fish before,” Paul declared, between mouthfuls.

When supper was finished the two men lighted cigars, and chatted, while Paul reclined upon the boughs and gazed into the blaze. Presently Tom and Dan joined them, and Dan, producing his harmonica, began to play a soft, low air, while Tom cut some tobacco from a plug, rolled it between the palms of his hands, stuffed it into a pipe, lighted it with a brand from the fire and handing the plug to Kuglutuk who followed his example, contentedly settled back to smoke and enjoy the warmth, for the evening was chilly.

“Them was fine salmon you gets this evenin’,” Tom remarked.

“Yes,” said Remington, “fine ones, and I hope we’ll have more tomorrow.”

“Dandies!” broke in Paul, “and dandy fun landing them!”

“Yes, ’tis rare sport landin’ un. And does you like troutin’?”

“Yes, to be sure. We expected to get trout here,” answered Remington.

“Th’ husky’s tellin’ me they’s plenty to be had a bit up the streams, sir, and big uns—wonderful big uns, by his tell, sir.”

“We’ll have to try them tomorrow.”

“Where did you learn to speak Eskimo, Tom?” asked Ainsworth.

“Where’d I learn un, sir? I never learned un. I allus knew un. I were born, sir, on the Labrador. My mother were a woman of Zoar, sir, an’ a half-breed. They talks mostly husky thereabouts. The first words she ever says to me, sir, was husky, an’ when I were a wee lad she talks all her baby talk to me in husky.”

“But your father was a white man?”

“Oh, aye, sir, he were from Conception Bay. He were down on the Labrador fishin’, an’ he meets my mother, an’ likes she, an’ th’ missionary marries un. Then he stays at Zoar an’ traps in winter, an’ there I were born, sir.”

“Are your parents still living, then?”

“Oh, no, sir. They both dies when I were a bit of a lad, sir—seven year old or thereabouts. ’Twere in winter, an’ my father is out to his traps. My mother expects him home in th’ evenin’, an’ when it gets dark an’ he never comes she’s much worried, for he’s always before comin’ when he’s promisin’, sir. He were a wonderful true man t’ keep his word, sir, even t’ wallopin’ me when I does things he’s denied me to do, an’ is deservin’ th’ wallopin’.

“Well, as th’ evenin’ gets on an’ he’s not comin’, my mother cries a bit an’ says somethin’s been befallin’ he, sir, out in the bush, an’ when she rouses me from sleep before the break of day th’ next mornin’, she’s in a wonderful bad state worryin’. She tells me she’s goin’ t’ look for he, an’ I’m t’ watch th’ baby.

“She goes, sir, an’ she don’t come back that day or that night or th’ next day. Snow comes fallin’ thick an’ th’ weather grows dreadful nasty. Th’ baby cries most o’ th’ time, an’ I carries un some. I knows th’ baby’s hungry, but I has no way t’ feed un. After awhile it stops cryin’ when I lays un on th’ bed.

“That were a wonderful cold night, sir. When mornin’ comes th’ baby’s still quiet, an’ I says to myself, ‘I’ll let un sleep.’

“Th’ bread’s all gone, an’ I only has a bit of salt fish t’ eat, an’ th’ fire I puts on in th’ stove burns slow. But th’ snow’s stopped in th’ night.

“Th’ baby don’t cry no more, but I does, for I don’t know why my father an’ mother don’t come, an’ I’m cryin’ when I hears dogs outside. I wipes away th’ tears quick, for I’m wantin’ no one t’ catch me cryin’.