During the evening he displayed to me the skin of a large wolf which he had killed a few days before, and told us the story of the killing.
“I were away, sir,” related he, “wi’ th’ dogs, savin’ one which I leaves to home, ‘tendin’ my fox traps. The woman (meaning his wife) were alone wi’ the young ones. In the evenin’ (afternoon) her hears a fightin’ of dogs outside, an’ thinkin’ one of the team was broke loose an’ run home, she starts to go out to beat the beasts an’ put a stop to the fightin’. But lookin’ out first before she goes, what does she see but the wolf that owned that skin, and right handy to the door he were, too. He were a big divil, as you sees, sir. She were scared. Her tries to take down the rifle—the one as is there on the pegs, sir. The wolf and the dog be now fightin’ agin’ the door, and she thinks they’s handy to breakin’ in, and it makes her a bit shaky in the hands, and she makes a slip and the rifle he goes off bang! makin’ that hole there marrin’ the timber above the windy. Then the wolf he goes off too; he be scared at the shootin’. When I comes home she tells me, and I lays fur the beast. ’Twere the next day and I were in the house when I hears the dogs fightin’ and I peers out the windy, and there I sees the wolf fightin’ wi’ the dogs, quite handy by the house. Well, sir, I just gits the rifle down and goes out, and when the dogs sees me they runs and leaves the wolf, and I up and knocks he over wi’ a bullet, and there’s his skin, worth a good four dollars, for he be an extra fine one, sir.”
We sat up late that night listening to Tom’s stories.
The next morning was leaden gray, and promised snow. With the hope of reaching Pottle’s Bay before dark we started forward early, and at one o’clock in the afternoon were in the soft snow of the spruce-covered neck. Traveling was very bad and progress so slow that darkness found us still amongst the scrubby firs. Martin and I walked ahead of the dogs, making a path and cutting away the growth where it was too thick to permit the passage of the teams.
Martin was guiding us by so circuitous a path that finally I began to suspect he had lost his way, and, calling a halt, suggested that we had better make a shelter and stop until daylight, particularly as the snow was now falling. When you are lost in the bush it is a good rule to stop where you are until you make certain of your course. Martin in this instance, however, seemed very positive that we were going in the right direction, though off the usual trail, and he said that in another hour or so we would certainly come out and find the salt-water ice of Hamilton Inlet. So after an argument I agreed to proceed and trust in his assurances.
Easton, who was driving the rear team, was completely tired out with the exertion of steering the komatik through the brush and untangling the dogs, which seemed to take a delight in spreading out and getting their traces fast around the numerous small trees, and I went to the rear to relieve him for a time from the exhausting work.
It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when we at length came upon the ice of a brook which Martin admitted he had never seen before and confessed that he was completely lost. I ordered a halt at once until daylight. We drank some cold water, ate some hard-tack and then stretched our sleeping bags upon the snow and, all of us weary, lay down to let the drift cover us while we slept.
At dawn we were up, and with a bit of jerked venison in my hand to serve for breakfast, I left the others to lash the load on the komatiks and follow me and started on ahead. I had walked but half a mile when I came upon the rough hummocks of the Inlet ice. Before noon we found shelter from the now heavily driving snowstorm in a livyere’s hut and here remained until the following morning.
Just beyond this point, in crossing a neck of land, we came upon a small hut and, as is usual on the Labrador, stopped for a moment. The people of the coast always expect travelers to stop and have a cup of tea with them, and feel that they have been slighted if this is not done. Here I found a widow named Newell, whom I knew, and her two or three small children. It was a miserable hut, without even the ordinary comforts of the poorer coast cabins, only one side of the earthen floor partially covered with rough boards, and the people destitute of food. Mrs. Newell told me that the other livyeres were giving her what little they had to eat, and had saved them during the winter from actual starvation. I had some hardtack and tea in my “grub bag,” and these I left with her.
Two days later we pulled in at Rigolet and were greeted by my friend Fraser. It was almost like getting home again, for now I was on old, familiar ground. A good budget of letters that had come during the previous summer awaited us and how eagerly we read them! This was the first communication we had received from our home folks since the previous June and it was now February twenty-first.