CHAPTER VI
At this crushing news, Fred left his post and went back with Maurice, who explained what had happened.
They had found a good camping-ground, where wood was abundant, and had tried to light a fire. But the remaining matches proved to have been badly dampened; the heads were pasty or entirely soaked off. One by one they fizzled and went out. As a last hope, Maurice had hurried back to their night camp for fire, only to find that the wet log had smouldered down and gone dead out.
The spot was about two thirds of a mile away, south from the river. A great windrow of hemlocks and jack-pines had fallen together, and afforded plenty of wood. On one of the logs sat Macgregor, with his elbows on his knees, and his chin in his hands, the picture of despair; and at his feet was a litter of bark and kindling, and a dozen burnt matches.
They all sat down together in silence, and nobody found a word of comfort.
It was a brilliantly clear day, but the temperature had certainly not risen to zero, and a slight, cutting wind blew from the west. The sun shone in an icy blue sky, but there was no heat in its rays.
"If we only had a cartridge," said Fred, "we might make a fire with the gun flash."
They all made another vain search of their pockets, in the faint hope of finding a cartridge or an overlooked match head.
"If we don't find some way to make a fire before sunset," said Macgregor gloomily, "we'll have to attack the cabin to-night. I really don't believe we could live through a night without fire, with nothing to eat, especially as we had no sleep last night."
"Surely if we went up to the cabin, they'd give us some fire," Maurice protested. "They wouldn't let us die in the snow."
"That's just what they count on us to do," said the Scotchman bitterly.
No one said anything about renewing the guard on the cabin. Nothing seemed to matter much—nothing except the cold. The morsels of half-raw food they had eaten that morning did not keep them from being ravenously hungry again, and an empty stomach is poor protection against Arctic cold.
Like the rest of them, Fred was heavily clad, but the cold seemed to find his skin as if he were naked. He began to feel numb to the bone, lethargic, incapable of moving. Then he realized his danger, forced himself awake, and tried to think of some expedient for making a fire.
Flints could not be found under three feet of snow. A burning-glass—if they only had one! It should have been included in the outfit.
And then an idea flashed upon him. He jumped up suddenly.
"Wait here for me, fellows!" he cried.
He rushed off toward the river, and came back in a few minutes with a piece of clear ice, almost as large as his palm, and an inch or two thick. He slipped off his mittens, and began to rub it between his hands, so as to melt it down with the heat of his skin.
"See what it is? Burning-glass!" he exclaimed.
"But you can't make a burning-glass of ice!" said Maurice.
"Why not? Anyhow, I'm going to try."
But before he had worked the ice long, he had to stop, for his hands seemed freezing. While he beat and rubbed them, Maurice, incredulous but willing, took the lump of ice, and shaped it down while the heat lasted in his hands. He then passed it on to Macgregor, who in turn handed it to Fred again. He finally succeeded in melting and curving it roughly into the proper shape.
He tried it on the back of his hand. An irregular but small and intensely hot spot of light concentrated itself there.
"I do believe it will work!" Peter cried.
They hastily collected a handful of fine, dry hair moss from the fir branches, and peeled filmy shreds of birch bark. Fred brought the "glass" to bear on the little heap. His numbed hands trembled so that he could hardly hold it still. For some time there was no result. Then a thin thread of smoke began to arise. The boys held their breath. The hair moss suddenly sparkled and flamed. A shred of bark caught. Peter interposed a large roll. It flared up.
"Hurrah! We've got it!" cried Macgregor. "Fred, you've saved our lives, I do believe."
They piled on twigs, branches, and heavy lumps of wood, and soon had a brisk fire going. Better still, they were now assured of having always the means of making one—at least, whenever the sun shone.
The magical influence of the fire gave back to them a little of their cheerfulness. They warmed themselves thoroughly, and then started to have another look at the outlaws, and to see whether they could find any small game. For now that they no longer suffered from the cold, their stomachs cried loudly for food.
Leaving the empty rifles by the fire, they armed themselves with clubs and poles for hunting, and had good hopes of being able to knock over a partridge or a hare. But the grouse seemed to have turned wild. They saw only two at a great distance. No hares showed themselves, nor could they find any trace of porcupines on the trees.
Skulking within sight of the cabin, they perceived one of the Frenchmen carrying in logs of wood for the fire—some of those that Fred himself had cut. Mitchell stood by, smoking his pipe, with a rifle under his arm. Fred fancied he could smell frying venison as the door was opened.
Plainly the outlaws were on the alert still. The boys crouched, unseen and unheard, among the hemlocks; but if they had been armed, they could easily have picked off the two men at the door. And they had come to such a state of rage and desperation that they would very likely have done it.
They found no comfort in the fact that the robbers showed no inclination to leave the place. The boys were perplexed at their staying, but probably the men had no reason to hurry, and, finding themselves comfortably placed, had decided to remain where they were while the extreme cold snap lasted.
In spite of the cold, the boys remained on watch for some time after the men had gone indoors. Suddenly Peter laid his hand on Fred's shoulder, and nodded backward.
A deer had come out of the thickets within thirty yards of where they lay,—a fine, fat buck,—and stood looking uneasily, sniffing, and cocking its ears in their direction. Then, without showing any particular alarm, it walked on, and passing within twenty yards of them, disappeared again.
They had to let it go; it was perhaps the cruelest moment they had lived through.
Deer might be out of the question, but if they were to keep alive, it was absolutely necessary that they should find something, and they separated in order to look for small game.
In the course of an hour or two they all straggled back to the camp fire, half frozen and empty-handed. Macgregor indeed had seen a partridge, but his muscles had been so benumbed that he missed his throw.
After warming themselves, they made another expedition—all but Maurice, who had neuralgic pains in his face, and who remained by the fire. But again Peter and Fred came back without game.
The sun had set by this time, and it was hopeless to try again. A hungry night was inevitable, but they tried so to arrange matters that at any rate they would be warm. They gathered all the wood that they could break off or lift. Then with their snowshoes they dug down to the ground, heaping the snow up in a rampart behind them, and piled in balsam twigs, and trusted that in this pit they would be able to sleep.
It grew dark rapidly, and the wind rose. The fire, flaring and smoking, drove smoke and sparks into their faces until their eyes streamed. It made the leeward side of the fire almost unbearable, whereas the windward side was freezingly cold.
The temperature was perhaps not quite so low as the night before, but the gale made it far more disagreeable. Regardless of smoke and sparks, they had to sit as near the fire as they dared, or risk freezing. Sleep was impossible.
All three of them were faint and sick with starvation, but the plight of Maurice was the most wretched. His neuralgia had grown agonizing; his face was badly swollen, and he sat with his head buried in his arms, and his inflamed cheek turned to the heat.
Much as they sympathized with him, they could do nothing to relieve him, except to try to keep up the fire. This task caused them endless trouble. The high wind made it burn furiously fast, and the small branches they had gathered were licked up like magic. They had thought there was enough fuel for the night, but soon after midnight Fred and Peter were foraging about in the deep snow and the storm for a fresh supply.
Toward morning their endurance broke down. They piled on all the rest of the wood, and went to sleep huddled up by the fire, reckless whether they froze or not.
Fred was awakened from a painful and uneasy slumber by Peter's shaking his arm.
"Your ears are frozen," the Scotchman was saying. "Rub them with snow at once."
While asleep, Fred had fallen back beyond the range of heat. It was broad daylight, and snowing fast. The fire was low. All of them were covered with white, and Maurice was still asleep, sitting up, with his head fallen forward on his knees.
Never in his life did Fred feel so unwilling to move. He did not feel cold; he hardly felt anything. All he wanted was to stay as he was and be let alone.
But Macgregor insisted on rousing him, dragged him up, protesting, and rubbed snow on his ears. Fred was very angry, but the scuffle set his blood moving again. His ears were not badly frozen, but the skin came off as he rubbed them. They bled, and the blood froze on as it ran, and made him a rather ghastly spectacle.
DRAGGED HIM UP, PROTESTING, AND RUBBED SNOW ON HIS EARS
Maurice was awakened by the disturbance, and sat up stiffly. He declared that his neuralgia was much better.
They built up the fire again, and sat beside it, shivering. Fred felt utterly incapable either of action or of thought, and even his hunger had grown numbed. Maurice obviously felt no better, and Macgregor, who seemed to retain a little energy, looked at them both with a face of the gravest concern. Presently he rose, put on his snowshoes, took a long pole, and started away with an air of determination.
Maurice and Fred remained sitting by the fire in a sort of lethargy, and exchanged hardly a word. Macgregor was gone almost an hour; then he came back at a run, covered with snow, and carrying a dead hare. He skinned the animal, cleaned it, cut it into pieces, and set it to roast. At the odor of the roasting meat, the boys' appetites revived, and they began to take the fragments from the spits before they were half cooked. The scorched, unsalted meat was even more tasteless and nauseating than that of the grouse, but they all bolted it voraciously, and washed it down by eating snow.
Almost immediately afterward they were taken with distressing cramps and vomiting, which left both Maurice and Fred in a state of weak collapse. Macgregor suffered least, perhaps because he had eaten less incautiously. He alone bore the burden of the rest of that day. He brought wood, kept the fire up, and propped Fred and Maurice up on piles of hemlock branches. There were some small pieces of the hare remaining, and he finally made the boys chew them, and swallow the juice. It seemed to do them good; at any rate, the nausea did not return. Then the Scotchman spoke.
"Look here," he said, "we've got to do it this very night—get back into the cabin, I mean. We've gone almost too far now, and by another day we'll be too weak to move."
"But how'll we do it, Peter?" asked Fred weakly.
"There's only one way. We'll wait till after midnight, when they'll be asleep, and then burst in the door, aim our rifles at them, and get hold of their guns before they can recover their wits."
"They'll have the door barricaded. We'll be shot down before we can break in."
"I know it's a long chance, but we're living by a succession of miracles as it is. It can't last, and I'd as soon be shot as frozen to death. I'm most afraid of the dogs. They'll make an awful uproar, and probably spring at us as soon as we get in."
As far as Fred was concerned, he felt ready for the attempt, or rather, perhaps, that it made no difference what he did. Maurice also assented, but their force seemed a pitifully small one with which to oppose four able-bodied, well-armed men.
It was then late in the afternoon. Peter began to work energetically at gathering wood enough to last until they should try their desperate chance, and Fred and Maurice tried to help him. It had stopped snowing and had cleared. The night promised to be intensely cold.
Suddenly, faint and far, but very distinct, the sound of a rifle-shot resounded through the trees. They listened, and looked at one another.
"One of those ruffians has gone hunting," Maurice remarked.
"So he has," said Peter. "And see here," he added, with a suddenly brightening face, "this gives us a chance. Let's ambush that fellow as he comes in. We'll knock him down and stun him. That'll make one less against us, and we'll have his rifle and cartridges. Perhaps he'll have something to eat on him. Boys, it doubles our chances."
The plan did look promising. At any rate, it would, if successful, give them a firearm. The shot must have been fired fully a mile away; but they put on their snowshoes at once, and hastened in the direction of the cabin.
The light was failing fast as they stopped about two hundred yards from the hut, trying to guess just where the returning hunter would pass. It was very still, and they would be able to hear his footsteps for a long way.
But they waited for nearly half an hour, and the woods were dusky when at last their strained ears caught the regular creak, crunch, and shuffle of snowshoes in the distance. They were posted too far to the right, and they had to run fifty yards in order to cross the man's path. There they crouched behind the hemlocks, in great fear lest their enemy had heard their steps. But in another minute they caught sight of him. The man was alone, muffled in a great capote, carrying a rifle over his shoulder, and something on his back—possibly his game. His face was indistinguishable, but he looked like one of the French Canadians.
On he came with a steady stride, now in sight, and now concealed by the thickets. He passed within ten feet of the ambush where the boys crouched palpitating.
"Now! Tackle him!" Macgregor cried.