Bobby was gone and Jimmy no longer had any doubt that he
had perished.
With heavy heart he at last set about with his snow knife, digging the
_komatik_ from under the drift and getting his load in order, and then
he roused the dogs from their drifts and drove them to the land. The
great floe was now but a speck upon the far horizon.
There was nothing more he could do. He felt very much as Skipper Ed had
felt the day before, and was feeling that very morning, and he
remembered, and repeated over and over again, what Skipper Ed had so
often said: "Our destiny is in God's hands, and our destiny is His
will."
Jimmy's travels had carried him south nearly to Cape Harrigan on two or
three occasions when he had been with Skipper Ed in their trap boat in
summer, and he knew that he could not be above two days' journey from
the head of Abel's Bay, for now it was March and the days were growing
long. And between Cape Harrigan and Abel's Bay was a Hudson's Bay
trading post where he and Skipper Ed sometimes traded furs and salt
trout for flour and pork and tea, and beyond this point he knew the
sledge route well.
So, as there was nothing else to be done, he turned the dog team
northward, in the hope that he might find the trading post and the old
familiar trail.
The weather was keen, the air was filled with floating rime, which
shimmered and sparkled in the sunshine, and Jimmy's garments were
covered with it, but, plodding disconsolately on and on, his heart heavy
with the tragedy and his thoughts filled with Bobby and the happy years
of comradeship that were ended, he did not feel or heed the cold or
dazzling glitter of the snow, until in mid-afternoon his eyes began to
trouble him, and he realized that snow-blindness was threatening.
Pages:
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183