"I mind better," replied Sandy, "Jamie Hogg's wild story o' my brother craftsman, Allan Gordon, and how he wintered at the Pole in the cabin o' a whomilt Greenlandman, wi' Nannie and a rum cask for his companions. Dear me, how the roarins o' the bears outside used to amaze the puir chield every time he was foolish aneugh to let himsel grow sober! But gudesake, Innes, what's that?"
There was something sufficiently frightful in the interruption. A fearfully-prolonged howl was heard outside, mingling with the hurricane, and, in a moment after, the snorting and pawing of some animal at the door. Sandy snatched up his musket, hastily examined the pan, to ascertain that his powder had escaped the damp, and, setting it on full cock, pointed it to the place whence the noises proceeded. Innes armed himself with a hunting-spear. The sounds were repeated, but in a less frightful tone: they were occasioned evidently by a dog whining for admittance. "Some puir brute," said Sandy, "who has lost his master." And, opening the door, a large Newfoundland dog came rushing into the hut. With more than brute sagacity, he flung himself at the feet of the fur-gatherers, as if imploring protection and assistance; and then, springing up and laying hold of the skirts of Sandy's blanket, he began to tug him violently towards the door.
"Let us follow the animal," said Innes; "it may be the means of rescuing a fellow-creature from destruction; his master, I am convinced, is perishing in the snow."
"I shall not fail you, Innes," exclaimed Sandy; and, hastily wrapping their plaids around them, and snatching up, the one a loaded musket, the other a bottle of spirits, the fur-gatherers plunged fearlessly into the storm and the darkness.
A greenish-coloured light still glimmered faintly from the north, through the thick drift and the falling snow, too faint, indeed, to enable them to catch the outlines of surrounding objects, but sufficient to show them the dog moving over the ice a few yards before them, like a little black cloud. They followed hard in his track towards the bottom of the creek. The steep banks on either hand contracted as they advanced, till at length they could see their shagged summits high above them in the darkness, and could hear the storm raging in the pines, though it had become comparatively calm in the shelter below. The creek at length terminated in a semicircular recess, surrounded by a steep wall of precipices. The dog bounded forward to a fissure in the rock—and there, at the edge of a huge wreath of snow, which half shut up the entrance, lay what seemed, in the uncertain light, the dead body of a man. The dog howled piteously over it, breathed hard in the face, and then looked up imploringly to the fur-gatherers. Innes leaped over the wreath, followed by Sandy, and, on raising up the body, found, though the extremities were stiff and cold as the ice on which it lay, that life was not yet extinct.
"Some unlucky huntsman," said Sandy; "we maun carry him, Innes, to the log-house; life is sweet even among the deserts o' Hudson's Bay."
The perishing hunter muttered a few broken syllables, like a man in the confusion of a dream. "It grows dark, Catherine," he said, "and I am sick at heart, and cold."
"Puir, puir fallow!" exclaimed Sandy—"he's thinkin o' his wife or sweetheart; but he'll no perish this time, Innes, if we can help it. Pity, man, for the car and dogs; but minutes are precious, and we maun just lug him wi' us as we best may."
Rolling their plaids around the almost lifeless stranger, the fur-gatherers bore him away over the ice, the dog leaping and barking with very joy before them; and in less than half-an-hour they had all reached the log-house.
The means of restoring suspended animation, with which the casualties of so many Hudson's Bay winters had made Sandy well acquainted, were resorted to on this occasion with complete success; and the stranger gradually recovered. He proved to be one of the most trusted and influential of the company's managers—a native of Scotland, and much loved and respected among the inferior retainers of the settlement, for an obliging disposition and great rectitude of principle. He was a keen sportsman, and had left his place of residence in the morning, on a solitary hunting excursion, accompanied only by his dog. But, trusting to his youth and strength, the enthusiasm of the hunter had drawn him mile after mile from home; and, on the breaking out of the storm, he had lost his way among the interminable bays and creeks of the lake. On his recovery, he was profuse in his expressions of gratitude, and meant all that he said. He was, perhaps, not much afraid to die, he remarked, but then he had many inducements to live, and there were more than himself who had a stake in his life, and who would feel grateful to his preservers.