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

and so resolved to try and find a place where the sun's rays could be utilised. Straightening out his dogs, he drove along the ice for a mile or so before he reached a place that seemed to suit him. When he had found what he thought would do he set to work at once, for the day was now advancing.

The spot selected was a solid-looking piece of ice not much longer or wider each way than his dogs and cariole. It projected somewhat into the water, and on the icy side were several dark places where the ice was rotten, on account of its crystallisation by the sun's rays. Here Sam with renewed vigour set to work. He made rapid progress, and found that all he had to do was to cut the firm ice that lay between these different dark spots where the ice had lost all of its cohesive power Sam found ere he had finished that his dogs were getting strangely nervous, and to keep them from rushing off he had to turn the train around and tie them to the cariole. While doing this he discovered the cause of their fear, and was also thankful that he was with them in the middle of his now floating raft. The strong wind blowing directly up the channel, narrow though it was, had so agitated the water that there was a good deal of force in it, and so now, even before Sam had completely severed the ice from the main body, the water had begun to cause it to slightly move. Dogs are more sensitive than human beings, and so they had noticed it before Sam had, and while he was trying to quiet them the whole thing broke loose and began slowly to move north.

As this novel raft broke loose it was quite unsteady for a few minutes, and Sam saw with disgust his axe slide into the water and disappear. However, he still had the ice chisel, with its strong handle, which was about eight feet in length. At first he had all he could do to quiet his excited dogs. They acted as though they would plunge into the water in spite of all his efforts. Some soothing words, and also some vigorous kicks, quieted those of different temperaments, and they settled down at last and seemed to say: "Well, if our master can stand this, surely we ought to be able to." Not until Sam felt that he had his dogs well under control did he make any effort to get his novel raft across the channel. But when they all lay still and quiet he took up his ice chisel and was ready for work. He vigorously pushed against the icy shore from which he had broken loose, but his strength did not at first seem to make much impression, as the wind was somewhat against him, and so his raft at times ground roughly against the side from which he had broken away. However, he was slowly working north, and he was not discouraged. Sam was always an observant lad. When on shipboard he had been interested in watching the sailors shift the sails to catch the changing winds. So now an idea came to him, and he resolved to see what could be done with an improvised sail, even if it were only made out of a large buffalo robe. Lashing one side of the robe to the pole of his ice chisel, he then firmly fastened one end of it to the head of his cariole. Cutting two holes in the outer corners of the robe, he there tied a couple of strong deerskin strings. Then, taking his place in his cariole, he pulled his sail up against the wind and awaited the result.

He was not very sure just how to manage to get across the channel, but he had no anxiety about getting further off, as that was an impossibility, as he was now jammed up against the ice. So he pulled in his sail and then let it out, until at length he found the right angle for the brisk wind to cause him to gradually draw away from the side he had been on. When in the middle of the channel so pleased was he with his novel craft that he let out his sail, and for a time sped along north between the two icy shores. Then, observing an indenture in the ice to the east sufficiently large to serve for a harbour for his queer vessel, he steered for it and safely ran in, but struck the icy landing place with such a crash that his raft was split in the middle under him. However, all he had to do was to hang on to his cariole and straighten out his dogs by the calls they well understood. In an instant they sprang ashore, and easily dragged Sam and the cariole after them. Facing toward the distant home, the dogs required no special urging, and so rapidly, yet carefully watching against the treacherous places, they hurried on, and about sundown home was reached.

Mr and Mrs Ross had begun to feel anxious about him, and so were not only relieved by his return, but very much amused by the characteristic account he gave of his adventure on the ice raft.

In the meantime, although it was not quite dark, there was no word as yet from Frank and Alec, who with some Indians had gone off early in the morning on a duck-shooting excursion.

Following the geese, the hunting of which has been so fully described in a previous chapter, came the ducks in great flocks. They could be seen in great multitudes during every hour of the day, and the whistling sounds that accompany their rapid flights could be heard every hour of the night. They seemed to be of about every known variety, from the great grey ducks down to the smallest teals. The Indians were after them incessantly, and killed great numbers of them. They resorted to no such elaborate preparations in hunting them as they did at the goose huntings, but shot them at the various points along which they seemed to crowd, and in the many pieces of open water on the marshy shores, where they tried to find some favourite food. The boys were out almost every day, either with Mr Ross or some trusted Indians, and had some capital sport.

The morning that Sam had prepared to have a good long final run with his dogs, Frank and Alec had gone to what was called the Old Fort, where the mighty Nelson, gathering in Lake Winnipeg the waters of many rivers, begins in its full strength its fierce, rapid, onward career, that ends only when it reaches the Hudson Bay. This has been for generations a favourite shooting ground of the Indians, and here for the day the two lads and their Indian attendants came. They had made the journey very early in the morning, and so their dogs had had no trouble with the ice, which in the night frost had quickly become firm and hard. In the friendly shelter of some trees they had secured their dog-trains. Here building a fire, their Indian cook had a second breakfast soon ready for them. While eating it they could hear the cries of many wild birds, that the now strong south wind was bringing over them. Flocks of wild geese, principally the waveys, a very much smaller variety than the great grey geese, were quite numerous, as well as an occasional one of the larger kinds. Swans flew by in straight lines with such rapidity that many a shot was lost in trying to shoot them. Pelicans were also there in great numbers, and the boys were intensely interested in their awkward, and at times comical, movements. As they are not good for food, only one or two were shot, as curiosities. Cranes stalked along on their long, slender legs in the marshy places, while snipe and many similar birds ran rapidly along the sandy shores. The ducks were everywhere, and so the shooting was everything that our enthusiastic hunters could desire.

The Indians, toward noon, began to get uneasy about the return trip, on account of the effects of the sun's rays and the south winds on the ice. They suggested an early start, but so fascinated had the boys become in the shooting that they kept putting it off from hour to hour. However, the return trip was at length begun, and then the boys saw the wisdom of the Indians' suggestion for an earlier start, and heartily wished they had agreed to it. Playgreen Lake, which in the morning seemed still one great mass of glittering ice, now appeared half broken up. Wherever the ice had burst in the winter, and there frozen up again, now there were long channels of open water. Suspicious-looking pools of water were on the ice in many places, and so the outlook for the return trip was anything but pleasant. Frank's train was the first to come to grief. His heavy dogs in passing over a dark-looking patch of ice broke through, and were with much difficulty pulled out. What amazed him and Alec was that the ice was still over two feet thick where the accident occurred, but under the effects of the rays of the sun it had simply disintegrated into long icy crystals that had no cohesiveness, and so when they were trodden upon they afforded little more support than so much water.

The dripping dogs were no sooner hauled out, and once more started, than the appearance of a flock of geese, in one of the open stretches of water, was too great a temptation to be resisted. The trains were halted, and Frank and Alec took their guns, and crept round to an icy hillock, from which they would be able to get a capital shot. In a few minutes the guns rang out their reports, and up rose the great flocks of geese, as well as many ducks and other birds. Frank and Alec had both been successful, and so speedily they dashed over the ice to attempt to secure their geese, which seemed to be only badly wounded. As the Indians, who were in charge of the dogs, saw them thus recklessly dashing straight for the open water they instantly started the dog- trains toward them. They were none too soon, for the boys, apparently seeing only their splendid game struggling in the narrow channel, noticed not the dangerous black spots on the ice. Poor Frank, who was a little in advance, almost suddenly disappeared. Down he went, and that so quickly that he had not time even to throw from him his gun, which speedily sank.

He had all he could do to save himself as he sank in the icy crystals that sounded around him like the smashing of scores of panes of glass. Alec, alarmed at Frank's sad plight, madly rushed to his rescue, but ere he had gone a dozen yards he too found himself, as he afterward expressed it, like a person dropping into a well. Fortunately, he was holding his gun crossways to his body, and as the hole of rotten ice into which he so speedily dropped was but a small one the gun struck solid ice each side, and as he had held on securely to it he did not fall in as completely as