The cold was not particularly severe when the Selache arrived, but when Dampier went ashore next morning to pick a log from which they could hew a mast the temperature suddenly fell, and that night the drift ice from the river mouth closed in on them. When the late daylight broke the schooner was frozen fast, and they knew it would be several months before she moved again. It was before the gold rush, and in winter Alaska was practically cut off from all communication with the south. No man would have attempted to traverse the tremendous snow-wrapped desolation of almost impassable hills and trackless forests that lay between them and the nearest of the commercial factories on the north, or the canneries on the other hand. Besides, the canneries were shut up in winter time. They were prisoners, and could only wait with what patience they could muster until the thaw set them free again.
CHAPTER XVIII
A DELICATE ERRAND
There was a sharp frost outside, and the prairie was white with a thin sprinkle of snow, when a little party sat down to supper in the Hastings homestead, one Saturday evening. Hastings sat at the head of the table, Mrs. Hastings at the foot with her little daughters, and Agatha, Sproatly, and Winifred between them. Sproatly and Winifred had just driven over from the railroad settlement, as they did now and then, and that was why the meal, which was usually served early in the evening, had been delayed an hour or so. The two hired men, whom Mrs. Hastings had not kept waiting, had gone out to some task in the barn or stables.
Sproatly took a bundle of papers out of his pocket and laid them on the table. There had been a remarkable change in his appearance, for he now wore store clothes, and the skin coat he had taken off when he came in was a new one. It occurred to Mrs. Hastings that there was a certain significance in this, though Sproatly had changed his occupation some time before, and now drove about the prairie as an agent for certain makers of agricultural implements.
“I called for your mail and Gregory’s before we left,” he said. “I had to go around to see Hawtrey, which is partly what made us so late, though Winifred couldn’t get away as soon as she expected. They have floods of wheat coming in to the elevators and I understand that the milling people can’t take another bushel in.”
Mrs. Hastings glanced at Agatha, who understood what the look meant, for Sproatly had hitherto spoken of Winifred circumspectly as Miss Rawlinson.
Hastings took the papers which Agatha handed to him and laid them aside.