Left on the Labrador: A Tale of Adventure Down North

by Dillon Wallace

"'Twere lucky I hears un." Toby stooped and felt of the fur of one of those he had shot. "They's prime, and we gets three of un, whatever. They pays six dollars for wolf skins at the post, and we'll be gettin' eighteen dollars for un. The dogs gets cut up some, but not so bad, and they'll get over un."

Charley made no response. He was not interested in the character or value of the fur. He was too close to the peril from which he had escaped. He had been face to face with what he had believed to be certain death. How could Toby treat the incident with so little concern, and apparently with so little appreciation of the grave danger just ended? He was giving first thought to the value of the pelts, as though that mattered in the least.

Toby, on his part, did not in any degree deprecate the peril in which Charley had been placed, but now that it was ended, why should he talk about it or even think about it? This was a habit of his life, a life of unremitting endeavour in a stern land with its own dangers and adventures which Toby accepted as a matter of course and to be expected. In his city streets Charley might dodge an automobile at a crossing and escape with his life by a hair's breadth, but Charley would scarcely give such an adventure a second thought. But to Toby such would have been an adventure to think and talk about and to remember with a thrill.

To Toby now, the matter of chief importance was the fact that he and Charley had earned the trade value of three wolf pelts, which was eighteen dollars, and that was a good day's wages. The danger was at an end and behind them, and no longer worth a thought; the reward was before them, and Toby began immediately, as a habit of life, to enjoy it in anticipation.

While life warmth was still in the carcasses, the boys turned their attention to the removal of the pelts, after first securing the dogs and repairing the broken bridle. As Charley worked his interest in his trophy grew, and he was as proud of it as he had ever been of anything in his life. He had killed a wolf at close quarters! It was an achievement to be proud of, and what normal boy or man would not have been proud of it?

This was the first pelt that Charley had ever secured by his own effort, and when they reached home he insisted upon stretching it himself, with a word or two of advice from Toby. Then, with a sheathknife, and with much pride, he scraped it free from every particle of clinging flesh and fat.

None of the dogs, as an examination disclosed, was seriously injured, though Tucker and Traps had suffered severe lacerations from the wolf fangs, and these two were relieved from team work for several days.

During the week following the adventure with the wolves, good fortune smiled upon the young hunters. More martens were captured, increasing the number of marten pelts to nine, and Toby shot an otter.

But the crowning event of the winter, and, Toby was sure, the big event of his life, came two days after the fox traps had been removed from the marsh to the barrens, when Toby found in one of them a silver fox. They all declared, as did Long Tom Ham, who came over from Lucky Bight to see the pelt, that it was the blackest, thickest and longest furred, and glossiest silver fox they had ever seen.

"'Tis rare fine fur," said Mrs. Twig, shaking out the pelt and holding it up to admire it when it was finally dry and Toby had removed it from the board that it might be packed carefully and safely away in one of the chests.