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.