Winter Adventures of Three Boys - Egerton R. Young (electronic book reader .TXT) 📗

to avail themselves of as much of the ice route as possible, as it is so much easier travelling on the ice than in the forest, where there is no trail.

When the sleds reached the spot where they were to enter the forest they found that the guide and his Indian comrade had cut down some dry trees and made up a splendid fire. No sooner had the trains arrived than some of the sleds were hastily untied, the deerskin wrappings which were on all were opened, and a couple of large kettles were speedily filled with the clear, light snow and placed on the roaring fire. So light and feathery is the snow that the kettles have to be filled and refilled a good many times ere sufficient is put in to make them full of water. Then the provision bags were opened, and abundance of food was taken out for all.

One of the Indians, who was skillful at this kind of work, was detailed as special cook and general waiter for Mr Ross and the boys. Very quickly he had ready the dinner of the good things Mrs Ross had prepared for them. The boys were surprised at the quantity of the fat food that was placed before them, and were almost ashamed of the vigour and capacity of their appetites. Nature, true to her instincts, puts in the craving for the kind of food most essential for people in different parts of the world.

About an hour was allowed for the dinner halt, and then the journey was resumed. There were the usual mishaps that necessarily belonged to this mode of travel. Sleds were occasionally upset, and if at the time anyone happened to be riding, he was buried in the snow, from which he emerged none the worse for the plunge, but generally amidst the laughter of those more fortunate. Several times a fox or some other animal ran across the trail, and then it required some effort and sternness to control the dogs and prevent them from starting off after these animals, which are their natural foes. The older dogs had learned somewhat by experience the folly of trying while thus harnessed to heavy sleds to capture wild foxes, and so merely confined their efforts to loud barkings and a little more vigorous tugging at their traces. The younger and less disciplined trains, however, with less discretion and more zeal, at once dashed away from the beaten trail made by the trains ahead of them, and recklessly plunged into the forest after the game.

"Who would imagine," said Frank, "that dogs so heavily loaded could thus fairly fly over the snow-covered logs and rocks and among the trees at such a rate?"

They learned then, and in many an experience afterward, of the latent strength there is in an apparently wearied dog. Only give him the stimulus to develop it, and it is simply surprising to all who witness it.

Alec's fleet train was the most excited and intractable. Bruce could not stand the sight of a saucy fox or a snarling wild cat passing across the trail, only a few hundred feet ahead of him, with any degree of equanimity. After him he must and would go, in spite of Alec's hardest efforts to keep him in the trail. Bruce, with the other three dogs, about as eager as himself, would often leave the track and with a spurt get off several hundred yards in the woods before he could be stopped. Sometimes their stopping would be rather abrupt. Generally the trees were so close together that it was not long ere the head of the sled came in violent collision with a great one. This, of course, stopped them most effectually. At other times, while Bruce, the leader, decided to take one side of a small tree, the dog next to him took the other side. This divergency of views on the part of the dogs also quickly put an end to their advance.

Alec, in his determined efforts to arrest their progress at these times, did not always escape unscathed. When in a bad forest where the snow was deep, he often would stumble and fall, and, before he could regain his feet, had acted the part of a snowplough as he was rapidly dragged along. He received some painful bruises, but he pluckily kept to his work, and so had his dogs in fairly good submission before many such trips were made.

A laughable but fortunately not dangerous adventure happened to the boys and their trains at a place called by the Indians the Wolf's Cove, on account of the many wolves that formerly infested the place. There it was necessary to cross a very deep valley, or ravine. The hillsides were very steep and slippery under the heavy snowfall. As the dog-sleds have no brakes upon them, the only way of arresting their speedy motion when going down a steep hill is for the driver to hold back the sled by the strong rope which is always attached to the rear end and is called the tail rope.

If the hill is steep or slippery, and the load heavy, this is a difficult operation and requires much care. Owing to the way in which the dogs are attached to the sleds, the drivers are utterly powerless to render any assistance in arresting the progress of the sled.

When the sleds reached the ravine there was a short halt ere the first descent was made.

The old, experienced Indian drivers were of the opinion that the boys were not strong or heavy enough on their moccasined feet to hold back their sleds, and suggested that, after they themselves had gone down with the loads, they return and take charge of the trains of the boys. This help, kindly offered, was rejected by the lads, who, having managed fairly well thus far, except where the passing game bothered them, were anxious to try this new experiment.

Mr Ross at first was also a little dubious about it, but youthful enthusiasm and love of new adventures conquered. While the first sleds were descending the boys and the rest of the party not immediately occupied watched the operation with a good deal of interest.

"Faith," said Sam, "it's as easy as sliding down the banisters."

"The hill seems greased for the occasion," said Frank, as he noticed the ease and rapidity with which the sleds slid down in spite of the grip and strong holdback of the heavy, experienced Indian drivers.

"Plenty of snow to tumble into," said Alec, who could not forget the way he had ploughed through it when his dogs ran away with him as they attempted to catch the wild cat.

Fortunately or unfortunately for the boys, there had been a good deal of wind in this part of the country since the last snowfall, and so now there was a large drift of perhaps twenty feet that had been blown into the bottom of the first steep hill. The guides, with some help, had, in the route through this deep snow, gone backward and forward a few times on their heavy snowshoes, and had packed down a trail sufficiently hard for the dogs and sleds. All the heavy sleds with their drivers went on ahead of the boys. Thus they, coming last, had the advantage of the packing of the snow.

Sam, jolly and reckless, was the first of the boys to make the descent, while the others followed closely behind, Frank being next to him, and Alec bringing up the rear.

For a time Sam succeeded very well in imitating the experienced drivers. He kept his feet well and firmly planted on the snowy surface, and held back his sled in fine style. The other boys also succeeded in starting well on the trail. They had not gone very far, however, before a small grey wolf, that had been hidden in one of the den-like recesses in the rocks, now thoroughly alarmed by the dingling of so many bells and the sounds of so many voices, suddenly sprang from his retreat, which was in the cliffs on the other side beyond the guide. Plunging into the deep snow, he made the most desperate efforts to escape by retreating up the distant hillside in front of the whole party. Fierce fires had raged through these woods a year so so before, nearly destroying the whole of the timber. The result was that the country was now here quite open and objects as large as a wolf could be seen for a long distance. From their higher position the boys and their dogs could much more distinctly see the wolf on the opposite hillside than could the rest of the party, who, having safely made the descent, were now on the beginning of the rise on the other side, awaiting the coming of the boys. They did not have long to wait. The sight of that wolf, so clearly seen in the bright sunshine of that wintry day on the snowy hillside, was too much for their brief discipline. Spitfire could not stand it. With a howl he was off, and well seconded were his efforts by the dogs he was leading. Sam was instantly jerked off his feet, but he pluckily held on to the tail rope of his sled. Well was it for him that his pants were made of mooseskin, for they had a good testing of their qualities now, as rapidly on them he was now tobogganing down that steep, slippery hillside.

Behind him came the other dog-trains. Of them the boys had also lost control. Such was the steepness of the hill that soon the momentum obtained by the sleds caused them to go faster than the dogs could run. Here was the real danger. Frank and Alec saw how it was faring with Sam, and were also quick to observe that with that wolf so plainly visible it would be utterly impossible for them on a downhill, slippery grade to control their now excited dogs, they, boylike, took the risks, and at once threw themselves upon their sleds, and hung on to the deerskin thongs, with which the loads were securely tied.

"Hurrah for somewhere!" shouted Alec.

"Clear the track!" was Frank's hurried shout to Sam, whom he saw still in the trail, down which he was now furiously coming.

The guide on his snowshoes, in tramping out the trail had near the bottom made a little turn to the left in order to escape the deepest snowdrift which the wind had there piled up. The foremost trains, with their powerful, experienced drivers, had been able to make this detour all right, and now had stopped only a little way ahead.

By the time the trains of the boys had reached this part of the descent they were in a most thoroughly mixed-up condition. Boys, dogs, and sleds were literally so tangled up that they were to the rest of the party an indistinguishable mass as down they came, and at the bend in the road, instead of being able to turn, they all flew into the heavy drift of snow which was straight before them, and almost disappeared. There was quick work for the onlookers now to do. At first they had been almost convulsed with laughter, as they saw the mixed-up assortment coming down in such a way. Then, when the whole flew by and buried itself so thoroughly in