"That's the way with every hunter," said Skipper Ed. "He's always looking for a silver, and it makes him the keener for the work, and drives away monotony. He's always expecting a silver, though year in and year out he gets nothing but reds and whites, with now and again a cross, to make him think that his silver is prowling around somewhere close by."

"I'd feel rich if I ever caught a silver!" broke in Bobby. "And wouldn't I get some things for Father and Mother, though! A new rifle and shotgun and traps, and--loads of things!"

"So you're looking for a silver, too," said Skipper Ed, all of them laughing heartily. "That's the way it goes--everyone is looking for a silver fox, and that keeps everyone always hopeful and gives vim for labor. When they don't have silvers or don't hunt and trap, they're looking for something else that takes the place of a silver--some great success. It's ambition to catch silvers, and the hope of catching them, that makes the world go round."

"Well, I never got one yet," said Bobby, "and there's one due me by this time. Every one gets a silver some time in his life."

"Not every one," corrected Skipper Ed. "Well, shall we haul the seals over in the morning, and then go home to see if we've got any silvers in the traps?"

"I suppose so," agreed Bobby, regretfully. "It's hard to leave this fine hunting, but I suppose there'll be good hunting till the ice goes out, and anyway we've got all we can use."

So with break of day on Friday they loaded their sledges, and all that day hauled seals to their cache, and when night came and they returned in the dark to the _sena igloo_, some seals still remained to be hauled on Sat.u.r.day.

But the sun did not show himself on Sat.u.r.day morning, for the sky was heavily overcast, and before they reached Itigailit Island with the first load of seals snow was falling and the wind was rising. They hurried with all their might, for it was evident a storm was about to break with the fury of the North, and out on the open ice field, where the wind rides un.o.bstructed and unbridled, these storms reach terrible proportions.

So they pushed the dogs back to the _sena_ at the fastest gait to which they could urge them. Skipper Ed and Jimmy were in advance and had Skipper Ed's _komatik_ loaded with the larger proportion of the remaining seals, and were lashing the load into place, when Bobby arrived.

"I've got a heavier load than yours will be, so I'll go on with it,"

Skipper Ed shouted as Bobby drove up. "There are only two small ones left for you, and the cooking outfit and your snow knives in the _igloo_. Don't forget them. You and Jimmy will likely overtake me. Hurry along."

"All right," answered Bobby. "We'll catch you before you reach smooth ice."

So Skipper Ed drove away with never a thought of catastrophe, and was quickly swallowed up by the thickening snow, while Bobby and Jimmy loaded the seals and the things from the _igloo_ upon the sledge, and, spurred by the rising wind and snow, hurried with all their might.

Already great seas were booming and breaking with a roar upon the ice, and as the boys turned the dogs back upon the trail they observed a waving motion of the ice beneath them, which was rapidly becoming more apparent. At one moment the dogs would be hauling the sledge up an incline, and at the next moment the sledge would be coasting down another incline close upon the heels of the team, as the heaving ice a.s.sumed the motion of the seas which rolled beneath.

As they receded from the ice edge, however, this motion diminished, until finally it was hardly perceptible at all, and there seemed no further cause for alarm or great speed, and the dogs, which were weary with the two days' heavy hauling, were permitted to proceed at their own leisurely gait.

At length through the snow they saw Skipper Ed waiting for them, but when he was a.s.sured they were following he proceeded.

"_Ah!_" Bobby shouted to his dogs a moment later, bringing them suddenly to a stop. "I've dropped my whip somewhere. Jimmy, watch the team while I run back after it."

Twenty minutes elapsed before he returned with the whip, and they drove on.

Skipper Ed, satisfied that Bobby and Jimmy were close at his heels, did not halt again until well out over the smooth ice and near to Itigailit Island, when he heard behind him a strange rumbling and crackling. He halted and listened, and strained his eyes through the drifting snow for a glimpse of the boys. They were not visible, and, springing from his _komatik_, he ran back in the direction from which he had come and as fast as he could run, and presently, with a sickening sensation at his heart, was brought to a halt by a broad black s.p.a.ce of open water.

The great ice pack upon which they had been hunting had broken loose from the sh.o.r.e ice, and tide and wind were driving it seaward. Already the chasm between him and the floe had widened to over thirty feet, and it was rapidly growing wider. The minutes dragged and when at last Bobby and Jimmy came into view on the opposite side of the chasm it was a full two hundred feet in breadth. They shouted to the dogs and rushed to the edge of the open water, but there was no hope of their escape. They had delayed too long. They were adrift on the ice floe, which was steadily taking them seaward.

CHAPTER XXIII

IT WAS G.o.d'S WILL

Skipper Ed was appalled and stunned. A sense of great weakness came upon him, and he swayed, and with an effort prevented his knees from doubling under him. His vision became clouded, like the vision of one in a dream.

His brain became paralyzed, inert, and he was hardly able to comprehend the terrible tragedy that he believed inevitable.

Had there been any means at his command whereby he could at least have attempted a rescue, it would have served as a safety valve. But he was utterly and absolutely helpless to so much as lift a finger to relieve the two boys whom he loved so well and who had become so much a part of his life.

And there was Abel Zachariah and Mrs. Abel. Vaguely he remembered them and the great sorrow that this thing would bring upon them. He knew well that they would place none of the responsibility upon himself, but, nevertheless, he could but feel that had he remained with the boys they would now have been safe.

Home? His cabin would never be home to him again, without his partner.

He could never go over to Abel Zachariah's again of evenings, with no Bobby there. Only two days ago he had thanked G.o.d for sparing the lives of the boys, and how proud he had been of their heroic action, and their pluck, too, after he had got them safe into the _igloo_!

He could see them now--barely see them through the snow. He watched their faint outlines, and then the swirling snow hid them, and the ice floe and only black waters remained.

Then it was that Skipper Ed fell to his knees, and, kneeling there in the driving Arctic storm and bitter cold, prayed G.o.d, as he had never prayed before, to work a miracle, and spare his loved ones to him.

Nothing, he remembered, was beyond G.o.d's power, and G.o.d was good.

When, presently, he arose from his knees, Skipper Ed felt strangely relieved. A part, at least, of the load was lifted from his heart. He could not account for the sensation, but, nevertheless, he felt stronger, and a degree of his old courage had returned.

He stood for a little longer gazing seaward, but nothing was to be seen but black, turbulent, surly waters and swirling snow, and at length he turned reluctantly back to his sledge.

The dogs were lying down, and already nearly covered by the drift. He called to them to go forward, and, arriving at the _igloo_, listlessly unharnessed and fed them, and retreated to the shelter of the _igloo_ to think.

He could eat nothing that night, but he brewed some strong tea over the stone lamp. Then he lighted his pipe and sat silent, for a long while, forgetting to smoke.

With every hour the wind increased in force, and before midnight one of those awful blizzards, so characteristic of Labrador at this season, was at its height. Once Skipper Ed removed the snow block at the entrance of the _igloo_, and partly crawled out with a view to looking about, but he was nearly smothered by drift, and quickly drew back again into the _igloo_ and replaced the snow block.

"The poor lads!" said he. "G.o.d help and pity them, and" he added reverently, "if it be Thy will, O G.o.d, preserve their lives."

Skipper Ed finally slipped into his sleeping bag and fell into a troubled sleep, to awake, as morning approached, with a great weight upon his heart, and with his waking moment came the realization of its cause. He arose upon his elbow and listened. The tempest had pa.s.sed.

He sprang up, and drawing on his _netsek_ and moccasins, for these were the only garments he had removed upon lying down, he went out and looked about him. The stars were shining brilliantly, and an occasional gust of wind was the only reminder of the storm. Mounds of snow marked the place where the dogs were sleeping, covered by the drift. The morning was bitterly cold.

He ran down to the ice edge, and gazed eagerly seaward, but nowhere could he see the ice pack. It had vanished utterly.

A sense of awful loneliness fell upon Skipper Ed. Reluctantly he returned to the _igloo_ and prepared his breakfast, which he ate sparingly. Then until day broke he sat pondering the situation. There was nothing he could do, and he decided at length to return at once to Abel Zachariah's, and report the calamity.

When he emerged again from the _igloo_ the last breath of the storm had ceased to blow and a dead calm prevailed. He loaded the _komatik_, and calling the dogs from beneath their coverlets of snow, harnessed them, and without delay set out for the head of Abel's Bay.

It was long after dark when the dogs, straining at their traces and yelping, rushed in through the ice hummocks below Abel's cabin. The cabin was dark, but a light flashed in the window as the sledge ascended the incline. Abel and Mrs. Abel had heard the approach, and when the sledge came to a stop before the door they were there to give welcome and greetings.

"Where is Bobby? And where is Jimmy?" asked Abel. "Are they coming?"

"They will never come," answered Skipper Ed.

Abel and Mrs. Abel understood, for tragedies, in that stern land, are common, and always the people seem steeled to meet them. And so in silence they led the way into the cabin, and in silence they sat, uttering no word, while Skipper Ed related what had happened. And though still there was no crying and no wailing from the stricken couple, Skipper Ed knew that they felt no less keenly their loss, and he knew that they had lost what was dearer to them than their own life.

"And now," said Skipper Ed, when he was through, "I will unharness the dogs and take care of the things on the _komatik_."

"Yes," said Abel, "we will look after the dogs. You will stop with us tonight, for your _igloosuak_ (cabin) is cold."

And when they had cared for the dogs and had eaten the supper which Mrs.

Abel prepared, Abel Zachariah took his Eskimo Bible from the shelf and read from it, and then they sang a hymn, and when the three knelt in evening devotion he thanked G.o.d for the son He had sent them out of the mists from the Far Beyond where storms are born, and had seen fit to call back again into the mists, for the son had been a good son and had made brighter and happier many years of their life. It was G.o.d's will, and G.o.d's will was law, and it was not for them to question the righteousness of His acts.

And that night when Mrs. Abel turned down the blankets on Bobby's bed for Skipper Ed, she thought of the time when Bobby was little, and she lay by his side of evenings to croon him to sleep with her quaint Eskimo lullabies.