Winter Adventures of Three Boys in the Great Lone Land

by Egerton Ryerson Young

“Plenty of snow to tumble into,” said Alec, who could not forget the way he had ploughed through it when his dogs ran away with him as they attempted to catch the wild cat.

Fortunately or unfortunately for the boys, there had been a good deal of wind in this part of the country since the last snowfall, and so now there was a large drift of perhaps twenty feet that had been blown into the bottom of the first steep hill. The guides, with some help, had, in the route through this deep snow, gone backward and forward a few times on their heavy snowshoes, and had packed down a trail sufficiently hard for the dogs and sleds. All the heavy sleds with their drivers went on ahead of the boys. Thus they, coming last, had the advantage of the packing of the snow.

Sam, jolly and reckless, was the first of the boys to make the descent, while the others followed closely behind, Frank being next to him, and Alec bringing up the rear.

For a time Sam succeeded very well in imitating the experienced drivers. He kept his feet well and firmly planted on the snowy surface, and held back his sled in fine style. The other boys also succeeded in starting well on the trail. They had not gone very far, however, before a small grey wolf, that had been hidden in one of the den-like recesses in the rocks, now thoroughly alarmed by the dingling of so many bells and the sounds of so many voices, suddenly sprang from his retreat, which was in the cliffs on the other side beyond the guide. Plunging into the deep snow, he made the most desperate efforts to escape by retreating up the distant hillside in front of the whole party. Fierce fires had raged through these woods a year so so before, nearly destroying the whole of the timber. The result was that the country was now here quite open and objects as large as a wolf could be seen for a long distance. From their higher position the boys and their dogs could much more distinctly see the wolf on the opposite hillside than could the rest of the party, who, having safely made the descent, were now on the beginning of the rise on the other side, awaiting the coming of the boys. They did not have long to wait. The sight of that wolf, so clearly seen in the bright sunshine of that wintry day on the snowy hillside, was too much for their brief discipline. Spitfire could not stand it. With a howl he was off, and well seconded were his efforts by the dogs he was leading. Sam was instantly jerked off his feet, but he pluckily held on to the tail rope of his sled. Well was it for him that his pants were made of mooseskin, for they had a good testing of their qualities now, as rapidly on them he was now tobogganing down that steep, slippery hillside.

Behind him came the other dog-trains. Of them the boys had also lost control. Such was the steepness of the hill that soon the momentum obtained by the sleds caused them to go faster than the dogs could run. Here was the real danger. Frank and Alec saw how it was faring with Sam, and were also quick to observe that with that wolf so plainly visible it would be utterly impossible for them on a downhill, slippery grade to control their now excited dogs, they, boylike, took the risks, and at once threw themselves upon their sleds and hung on to the deerskin thongs with which the loads were securely tied.

“Hurrah for somewhere!” shouted Alec.

“Clear the track!” was Frank’s hurried shout to Sam, whom he saw still in the trail, down which he was now furiously coming.

The guide on his snowshoes, in tramping out the trail had near the bottom made a little turn to the left in order to escape the deepest snowdrift which the wind had there piled up. The foremost trains, with their powerful, experienced drivers, had been able to make this détour all right, and now had stopped only a little way ahead.

By the time the trains of the boys had reached this part of the descent they were in a most thoroughly mixed-up condition. Boys, dogs, and sleds were literally so tangled up that they were to the rest of the party an indistinguishable mass as down they came, and at the bend in the road, instead of being able to turn, they all flew into the heavy drift of snow which was straight before them, and almost disappeared. There was quick work for the onlookers now to do. At first they had been almost convulsed with laughter, as they saw the mixed-up assortment coming down in such a way. Then, when the whole flew by and buried itself so thoroughly in the deep drift of light, fleecy snow, there was instantly a good deal of anxiety for the boys.

As they began the work of rescue the sight before them was unique. There is a hand working desperately, and here is a foot waving in the air. There is a dog’s head emerging as the animal makes a desperate struggle to get out, and there is the curly tail of another coming into view. Only such a land could show such a sight. Alec, the last to plunge in, was the first rescued, although he had been completely buried out of sight, as had been the others. Frank was the next pulled out, feet foremost. Sam was the last rescued. His tobogganing slide had been abruptly ended by his being entangled in the harness of Frank’s train coming on behind him. Then it seemed to him as though the head of the oncoming sled, like the cowcatcher on an engine, had picked him and the dogs up, and in an instant more, he said, he was sent flying as from a catapult into the drift, the instant the sled left the track. So far ahead was he thus shot, that the sleds stopped before they reached him, and so, although he was deeply buried, he was not run over.