"Well, it's over, and all is well, and we're none the worse for it. Now drink your hot tea, lads," counseled Skipper Ed. "We've work to do before we sleep."
They ate their hardtack biscuit, and sipped the hot tea silently for a little, listening the while to the snug and cheerful crackle of wood and roar of flames in the big box stove.
"Now," said Skipper Ed finally, "we'll haul the wolves into the porch, and make them safe, for the dogs are like to tear at them, and injure the pelts."
The following morning the carcasses of five additional wolves were discovered at the place where they had first fired upon the pack. Two of the dogs, mangled and torn by wolf fangs, were dead, and three others were so badly injured that for a long time they were unfitted for driving. But the others had discreetly decided that it was better "to run away and live to fight another day," and were none the worse for their scrimmage.
Bobby, of course, ran over to Abel's cabin to tell the great news of the battle, and Abel and Mrs. Abel must needs return with him to assist in removing the pelts from the animals, and to spend the day with Skipper Ed and his partner. And a merry day it was for all of them, for wolf pelts could be traded at the mission store for necessaries. And none of them gave heed or thought to the danger the pelts had cost, save to give thanks to God for His deliverance; for dangers in that land are an incident of the game of life, and there the game of life is truly a man's game.
CHAPTER IX
THE FISHING PLACES
Like every other healthy lad of his years Bobby loved fun and adventure, though he had early learned to carry upon his broad shoulders a full portion of the responsibilities of the household. In the bleak land where he lived there is no shifting of these responsibilities. Everyman, and every boy, too, must do his share to wrest a living from the sea and rocks, and Bobby had no thought but to do his part. If a boy cannot do one thing in Labrador, he can do another. He can cut wood, hunt small game, attend the fish nets, jig cod—there are a thousand things that he can do, and make sport of as he does them, too, as Bobby did, until he grows to man's estate.
Each summer Abel and Mrs. Abel returned to their old fishing place on Itigailit Island, and of course Bobby went with them, and did his share in jigging cod; and each summer Skipper Ed and Jimmy went to Skipper Ed's old fishing place—the place where he had found his forlorn little partner that stormy autumn day, when they had sealed their bargain with a handshake.