Masters of the Wheat-Lands Part 39

Wyllard could barely make out the schooner, which had apparently followed them, a blur of dusky canvas against a bank of haze, and then as the boat slid down into a hollow there was nothing but the low-hung, lowering sky. It was evident to him that if they were to make a landing it must be done promptly.

"We'll pull around the point first, anyway," he decided.

A shower of fine snow that blotted out the schooner broke upon them, and the work was arduous. They were pulling to windward now, and it was necessary to watch the seas that ranged up ahead and to handle the boat circ.u.mspectly while the freshening breeze blew the spray over them. They had to fight for every fathom, and once or twice the little craft nearly rolled over with them. It became apparent by degrees that, as they could not have reached the schooner had they attempted it, they were pulling for their lives, and that the one way of escape open to them was to find an egress of some kind around the point, the ragged tongue of which was horribly close to lee of them. When the snow cleared for a minute or two, they saw that Dampier had driven the _Selache_ further off the ice.

The schooner was hove to now, and there was a black figure high up in her shrouds.

A bitter rush of wind hurled the spray about them, and the boat fell off almost beam-on to the sea, in spite of all that they could do. The icy brine washed into the boat, and it seemed almost certain that she would swamp or roll over before they could get way on her. Still, pulling desperately, they drove her around the point. Gasping and dripping they made their last effort. A sea rolled up ahead, and as the boat swung up with it Wyllard had a momentary glimpse of an opening not far away. He shouted to his companions, but could not tell whether they heard and understood him, for after that he was conscious only of rowing savagely until another sea broke into the boat and she struck. There was a crash, and she swung clear with the backwash, with all one side smashed in.

Then she swung in again just beyond a tongue of ice over which the froth was pouring tumultuously, and the Indian jumped from the bow. He had the painter with him, and for half a minute, standing in the foam, he held the boat somehow, while they hurled a few of the carefully made-up packages that composed her important freight as far on to the ice as possible.

As Wyllard, who seized one sled frame, jumped, the disabled boat rolled over. He landed on his hands and knees, but in another moment he was on his feet, and he and the Indian clutched at Charly, who drove towards them amid a long wash of foam. They dragged him clear, and as he stood up dripping without his cap a sudden haze of snow whirled about them.

There was no sign of the schooner, and they could scarcely see the broken ice some sixty yards away. They had made the landing, wet through, with about half their stores, and it was evident that their boat would not carry them across the narrowest lane of water, even if they could have recovered her. The sea rumbled along the edge of the ice, and they could not tell whether the frozen wall extended as far as the beach. They looked at one another until Wyllard spoke.

"We have got the hand-sled, and some, at least, of the things," he said.

"The sooner we start for the beach the sooner we'll get there."

It was a relief to load the sled, and when that was done they put themselves into the hide traces and set off across the ice. Their traveling was arduous work apart from the hauling of the load, for the ice was rough and broken, and covered for the most part with softening snow. They had only gum-boots with soft hide moccasins under them, for snow-shoes are used only in Eastern Canada, and it takes one a long while to learn to walk on them.

Sometimes the three men sank almost knee-deep, sometimes they slipped and scrambled on uncovered ledges, but they pushed on with the sled bouncing and sliding unevenly behind them, until the afternoon had almost gone.

They set up the wet tent behind a hummock, and crouched inside it upon a ground-sheet, while Charly boiled a kettle on the little oil blast stove. The wind hurled the snow upon the straining canvas, which stood the buffeting. When they had eaten a simple meal Charly put the stove out and the darkness was not broken except when one of them struck a match to light his pipe. They had but one strip of rubber sheeting between them and the snow, for the water had gotten into the sleeping bags. Their clothes dried upon them with the heat of their bodies. They said nothing for a while, and Wyllard was half asleep when Charly spoke.

"I've been thinking about that boat," he remarked. "Though I don't know that we could have done it, we ought to have tried to pull her out."

"Why?" asked Wyllard. "She'd have been all to pieces, anyway.

"I'm figuring it out like this. If Dampier wasn't up in the shrouds when we made the landing he'd sent somebody. We could see him up against the sky, but we'd be much less clear to him low down with the ice and the surf about us. Besides, it was snowing quite fast then. Well, I don't know what Dampier saw, but I guess he'd have made out that we hadn't hauled the boat up, anyway. The trouble is that with the wind freshening and it getting thick he'd have to thrash the schooner out and lie to until it cleared. When he runs in again it's quite likely that he'll find the boat and an oar or two. Seems to me that's going to worry him considerable."

Wyllard, drowsy as he was, agreed with this view of the matter. He realized that it would have been quite impossible for Dampier to send them any a.s.sistance, and it was merely a question whether they should retrace their steps to the edge of the ice next morning and make him some signal. Against this there was the strong probability that he would not run in, if the gale and snow continued, and the fact that it was desirable to make the beach as soon as possible in case the ice broke up before they reached it. What was rather more to the purpose, Wyllard was quietly determined on pus.h.i.+ng on.

"It can't be helped," he said simply. "We'll start for the beach as soon as it's daylight."

Charly made no answer, and the brawny, dark-skinned Siwash, who spoke English reasonably well, merely grunted. Unless it seemed necessary, he seldom said anything at all. Bred to the sea, and living on the seal and salmon, an additional hazard or two or an extra strain on his tough body did not count for much with him. He had been accustomed to sleep wet through with icy water, and to crouch for hours with numbed hands clenched on the steering-paddle while the long sea canoe scudded furiously over the big combers before bitter gale or driving snow.

Wyllard, who rolled over, pulled a wet sleeping-bag across him, and after that there was silence in the little rocking tent.

Charly's deductions had been proved correct, for when the breeze freshened Dampier climbed into the shrouds. He had noticed the ominous blackness to windward, and he knew what it meant. That was why he had hauled down a reef in the schooner's mainsail, and now kept the vessel out a little from the ice. As the light faded he found it very difficult to see the boat against the white wash of the seas that recoiled from the ice, but when the snow was whirling about him he decided that she was in some peril unless her crew could pull her around the point. It was evident that this would be a difficult matter, though he had only an occasional glimpse of her now. He waved an arm to the helmsman, who understood that he was to run the schooner in. There was a rattle of blocks as the booms swung out, and as the _Selache_ sped away before the rapidly freshening breeze it seemed to Dampier that he saw the boat hurled upon the ice. A blinding haze of snow suddenly shut out everything, and the skipper hastened down to the deck. He stood beside the wheel for several minutes. Gazing forward, he could see nothing except the filmy whiteness and the tops of the seas that had steadily been getting steeper. The schooner was driving furiously down upon the ice, but it was evident that to send Wyllard any a.s.sistance was utterly beyond his power. He could have hove to the schooner while he got the bigger boat over, and two men might have pulled towards the ice with the breeze astern of them, but it was perfectly clear that they could have neither made a landing nor have pulled her back again. It was also uncertain whether he and the other man could have brought the schooner round or have gotten more sail off her. He stood still until they heard the wash of the sea upon the ice close to lee of them, and then it was a hard-clenched hand he raised in sign to the helmsman.

"On the wind! Haul lee sheets!" he commanded.

The _Selache_ came round a little, heading off the ice, and when she drove away with the foam seething white beneath one depressed rail and the spray whirling high about her plunging bows, there was a tense look in the white men's faces as they gazed into the thickening white haze to lee of her. They thrashed her out until Dampier decided that there was sufficient water between him and the ice, and then stripped most of the sail off her, and she lay to until next morning, when they once more got sail on her and ran in again. The breeze had fallen a little, it was rather clearer, and they picked up the point, though it had somewhat changed its shape. They got a boat over, and the two men who went off in her found a few broken planks, a couple of oars, and Charly's cap was.h.i.+ng up and down in the surf. They had very little doubt as to what that meant.

CHAPTER XXV

NEWS OF DISASTER

When the boat reached the schooner Dampier went off with one of the men, and with difficulty contrived to make a landing on the ice only to find it covered with a trackless sheet of slushy snow. Though Dampier floundered sh.o.r.ewards a mile or two, there was nothing except the shattered boat to suggest what had befallen Wyllard and his companions.

The skipper, who retraced his steps with a heavy heart, retained little hope of seeing them again. Dampier waited two days until a strong breeze blew him off the ice, which was rapidly breaking up, and he then stood out for the open sea, where he hove the _Selache_ to for a week or so.

After that he proceeded northward to the inlet Wyllard and he had agreed to.

Dampier was convinced that this was useless, but as the opening was almost clear of ice he sailed the schooner in, and spent a week or two scouring the surrounding country. He found it a desolation, still partly covered with slushy snow, out of which ridges of volcanic rock rose here and there. On two of these spots a couple of days' march from the schooner, he made a depot of provisions, and piled a heap of stones beside them. At times, when it was clear, he could see the top of a great range high up against the western sky, but those times were rare.

For the most part, the wilderness was swept by rain or wrapped in clammy fog.

There was, however, no sign of Wyllard, and at last Dampier, coming back jaded and dejected from another fruitless search, after the time agreed upon had expired, shut himself up alone for a couple of hours in the little cabin. He was certain now that Wyllard and his companions had been drowned while attempting to make a landing on the ice, since they would have joined him at the inlet as arranged had this not been the case. The distance was by no means great, and there were no Russian settlements on that part of the coast. The skipper sat very still with a clenched hand upon the little table, balancing conjecture against conjecture, and then regretfully decided that there was only one course open to him. It was dark when he went up on deck again, but the men were sitting smoking about the windla.s.s forward.

"You can heave some of that cable in, boys," he announced. "We'll clear out for Vancouver at sun-up."

The men said nothing, but they s.h.i.+pped the levers, and Dampier went back to the cabin, for the clank of the windla.s.s and the ringing of the cable jarred upon him.

Early next morning the _Selache_ stood out to sea, and once they had left behind them the fog and rain near the coast, she carried fine weather with her across the Pacific. On reaching Vancouver, Dampier had some trouble with the authorities, to whom it was necessary to report the drowning of three of his crew, but he was more fortunate than he expected, and after placing the schooner for sale with a broker, he left the city one evening on the Atlantic train. Three days later he was driving across the prairie towards the Hastings homestead. The members were sitting together in the big general room after supper, when the wagon Dampier had hired swung into sight over the crest of a hill.

It was a still, hot evening, and, as the windows were open wide, a faint beat of hoofs came up across the tall wheat and dusty prairie before the wagon topped the rise. Hastings, who sat in a cane chair near the window, with his pipe in his hand, looked up as he heard it.

"Somebody driving in," he remarked. "I shouldn't be astonished if it's Gregory. He talked about coming over the last time I saw him."

"If he wants to talk about a deal in wheat, he can stay away," said Mrs.

Hastings sharply. "If all one hears is true, he has lost quite a few of Harry's dollars on the market lately."

Hastings looked troubled at this. "I'd sooner think it was his own money he'd thrown away."

"That's quite out of the question. He hasn't any."

"Well," said Hastings, with an air of reflection, "I'll get Sproatly to make inquiries. He'll probably be along with Winifred this evening, and if he finds that Gregory is getting in rather deep I'll have a word or two with him. I can't have him wasting Harry's money, and, as one of the executors, I have a right to protest."

Agatha started at the last word. It had an ominous ring, and she fancied that Hastings had noticed the effect on her, for he glanced at her curiously. Turning from him, she rose and walked to the window.

The wheat stretched across the foreground, tall and darkly green, and beyond it the white gra.s.s ran back to the hill, which cut sharply against a red and smoky glow. The sun had gone down some time before, and there was an exhilarating coolness in the air. Somehow the sight reminded her of another evening, when she had looked out across the prairie from a seat at Wyllard's table. Almost a year had pa.s.sed since then.

The wagon drew nearer down the long slope of the hill, and the beat of hoofs that grew steadily louder in a sharp staccato made the memories clearer. She had heard Dampier riding in the night Wyllard had received his summons, and now she wondered who the approaching stranger was, and what his business could be. She did not know why, but she thought it was not Gregory.

Presently Hastings looked round again. "It's the team Bramfield hires out at the settlement," he said. "None of our friends would get him to drive them in. There seem to be two men in the wagon. Bramfield will be one. I can't make out the other."

Mrs. Hastings, who was evidently becoming curious about the unexpected guest, went to his side, and they stood watching the wagon until Agatha made an abrupt movement.

"It's Captain Dampier!" she exclaimed with foreboding in her voice.

She stood tensely still, with lips slightly parted, and a strained look in her eyes, while Hastings gazed at the wagon for another moment or two.

"Yes," he said, and his voice was harsh, "it's Dampier. The other man's surely Bramfield. Harry's not with him."

He glanced at Agatha, who turned away, and sat down in the nearest chair. She made no comment, and there was an oppressive silence, through which the beat of hoofs and rattle of wheels rang more distinctly.

It seemed a long time before Dampier came in. He shook hands with Agatha and Mrs. Hastings diffidently.