The Ice Queen Read online

  Chapter XXIII.

  EXPLORING THE ISLAND.

  When all the property of our shipwrecked crew had been brought ashoreit made a very small heap, and the biggest part of that seemed to bethe bedding. Everybody noticed this, and it added a new gloom to thefeeling of discouragement caused by their weariness, by Katy's fright,and, most of all, by the hunger of which their slight breakfast hadonly taken away the edge.

  "Before we do anything else at all," said Captain Aleck, "we must havesomething more to eat. Do you feel strong enough to help us, Katy?"

  "Oh, yes, indeed. I've got quite rid of my foolish weakness."

  "That's good. Let us know if we can help you."

  Nobody felt in the mood for talking, and Jim really took a nap betweenthe rock and the fire. Though the air was still cold, the sunshine wasbright, and under the lee of the little cliff it was very comfortable;but poor Katy had hard work to keep her fingers from almost freezing.What she made was chocolate, fried bacon, and "griddle" cakes, thelast cooked in the skillet, and consuming every bit of buckwheat flourand a good share of the sugar. When the meal had been eaten to thelast scrap, and everybody had grown wide awake and cheerful, Aleckrapped on a box, and made a speech:

  "Attention, ladies and gentlemen! Though none of us have said muchabout it, you all know well enough that we're in a regular scrape, andthe sooner we discover how we're to get out of it the better. Now, Iam going to propose a plan, and if any of you don't like it you cansay so."

  "We'll do whatever you say," exclaimed Tug.

  "But I don't want to _say_ till we've talked it over. I rather thinkwe're on a small island a good many miles from land. I judge so fromwhat I know of the chart of the lake, and what I can guess of where wedrifted on that ice-floe. If so, I do not think anybody lives here, orever comes here in winter."

  "Regular desert island!" Jim was heard to mutter, in a tone thatshowed his mind busy with the romantic memory of Robinson Crusoe.

  "The first thing to do is to find out whether this is so or not. Now Ipropose that Jim and Katy should stay here--"

  "Oh, no, no," Katy interrupted, in an eager appeal. "Those dreadfuldogs might come back, and Jimmy is so little! I want you to stay withme, or else let me go with you."

  "That's rather rough on the boy," Aleck laughed. "However, I supposeit won't matter. Well, then, Tug, I think you and Jim had better goback in the country, and see what you can find, while I stay and watchover the goods and the sister. What do you say?"

  "Good plan," Tug replied. "I'm ready. Are you, Youngster?"

  "Yes, siree! But you'll let us take the gun, won't you, Aleck?"

  "Oh, yes, you can have the gun. If the dogs, or wolves, or whateverthey are, come at us while you're gone, Katy can fight them withfirebrands, and I--"

  "Oh, _you_ can climb a tree!" said his sister, merrily.

  "Yes, I can climb a tree."

  While Tug and Jim were gone, Aleck and Katy busied themselves inrepacking their goods in snug bundles, and in talking over theirstrange adventures. They were too anxious to feel very gay, butthought it foolish to give way to fretting until they had lost allhope. Two hours or more elapsed, and the sun had climbed to "highnoon" in the sky, before the explorers came back, bringing solemnfaces.

  "Island!" both called out as soon as they came near; "and a small oneat that."

  "Any people on it?" asked Katy.

  "Not a soul that I could see," Tug said. "I allow they come here insummer, though, for the trees have been cut down, and there's a roughlittle shanty on the other side."

  "Could we live in it?"

  "Didn't go inside; don't know. It's half full of snow. Better than noshelter at all, I suppose. It ain't far off. Suppose you all go overthere and look at it--Jim can show you where it is--while I guard thegrub against those pesky dogs. I don't wonder the brutes are savage,for I don't see how they could get anything to eat here."

  When the three had left the rocks at the beach, under Jim's guidance,they found themselves in a brushy wood consisting largely of hemlocksand pines, often closely matted together. A few minutes' walkingcarried them through this and up to a ridge of jagged limestone rocks,one point of which, a little distance off, stood up like a bigmonument. This ridge ran about east and west, and they had come up itssouthern side. Its northern face was very snowy, had few trees, andsloped down an eighth of a mile to the water.

  At one place on this northern beach several great rocks rose from thewater's edge, and among them stood a small grove of hemlocks and othertrees. In that thicket, Jimmy told them, the old shanty was placed.They thought it must be very small, or else well stowed away, forthey could see nothing of it. To get down to it was no easy task, forthe crevices and holes in the rocky hillside had drifted full of snow,and they were continually sinking in where they had expected to standfirm, or finding a solid rock ahead when they tried to flounder out.It was a chilled and ill-tempered trio that finally reached the beach,and sought the shelter of the thicket.

  Now it became easier to understand why the hut had been invisible fromabove, for it was only a shanty propped up between two great rocksthat helped to form its walls and support its roof. From the brokenoars and many fragments of nets, the old corks and other rubbish lyingabout, they saw at once that it had been built by fishermen, whoprobably came there to spend the night now and then, or, perhaps,stayed a week or so at a time in the summer.

  The door stood half open, and a snowdrift lay heaped upon thethreshold. Edging their way in, they found that the roof and wallswere tight, the little window unbroken, and several rough articles offurniture lying about. An old, rusty stove, one corner propped up onstones, and the pipe tumbled down, stood against the chimney of mudand sticks that was built up against one of the rocky walls.

  "This is splendid!" Katy cried. "Just look at that dear old stove!"

  "Yes, sis; I think we must move over here. But are you sure,Jim--how did you find out?--that this is an island, and not themainland?"

  THE CABIN ON THE ISLAND.]

  "From the top of that high point of rocks you can see the whole of it.I don't believe it is more than a mile up to the farther end, and nothalf that down to the other. The island is shaped something like adumb-bell, only one end is a good deal bigger than the other. We areon the little end here."

  "Well, Youngster, you're quite a geographer; but we can't stop to talkabout it now. Let's go back as quickly as we can, and bring part ofour goods over this afternoon; don't you think that's best?"

  "Oh, yes." And twenty minutes later, rosy and panting, Katy astonishedthe sleepy Tug by rushing into camp, followed closely, not by wildbeasts, as he thought would be the case, but by both the brothers shehad outsped.

  "It's so good!" she exclaimed, catching her breath, "to feel somethingbesides slippery ice under your feet! Now, what shall we take first?"

  By hard work and little resting the coming of twilight found themestablished in their new home. The last journey had been made afterthe bedding, by Tug and Aleck, while Jim and Katy cleared the snow allaway from the cabin door and off the bending roof, straightened up therickety old stove, and set a fire going. By the time the larger boyscame back, raising a whoop far up the hillside as they saw the smokecurling up between the hemlocks, the old hut was warm, and the tincover of the little iron pot was dancing, in its effort to hold backthe escaping steam.

  "Ugh!" said Tug, as he pushed the door open and threw down his bundleof blankets; "I'm as hungry as a wolf!"

  "If you think you can wait fifteen minutes, Mr. Montgomery, you'llhave a bee-yutiful supper. Can you do it?"

  "I 'low I can. I ain't a epi--epi--What d'ye call it?"

  "Epicure?"

  "That's the chap. I read the other day that the Tartars say he digshis grave with his teeth. I don't want a grave as bad as that yet."

  "I suppose that means that a man who lives on too rich food will dieby it."

  "Yes, I reckon so. But I 'low there's no danger in our case; eh,Aleck? Do you think dried b
eef and snow-birds too rich for yourdelicate stomach, my boy?"

  * * * * *

  That night all bunked down on the floor, for they were too weary tocare much for anything but a chance to sleep, and the sun was highbefore any of them found out, in their shady house, that it wasmorning. When breakfast was ready, and they had all sat down at therough shelf-table which the fishermen had fastened at one side of thecabin, Aleck called "Attention!" and said that it was time they werelooking the situation squarely in the face.

  "It's all very funny," he said, "to think ourselves Crusoes, and feelthat we are all right because we have a roof over us and a stove tokeep warm by. But Crusoe didn't need a roof nor a stove, for he was ina warm climate; and he had goats and birds, and shell-fish along therocks, and cocoanuts, and lots of other things. Crusoe was a king inhis palace beside us."

  The circle of faces grew rather grave.

  "Here we are, in midwinter, on an island in a fresh-water lake--andnot even water, but solid ice--where there are no oysters nor clams,no fruit-trees, and no animals--"

  "Except those dogs," Jim interrupted.

  "Even _they_ seem to have disappeared," Aleck went on; "and they arestarved almost to skin and bone. If a pack of dogs can't get anythingto eat, what are we four going to do? I tell you, it's a seriouscase."

  "Well," Tug rejoined, stoutly, "I, for one, don't give in yet. Lookwhat we did out on the ice! We can fish, and trap snow-birds--I saw aflock last evening; and maybe we can find some mussels near the beach,and so stick it out till the ice breaks up and the birds begin to comein the spring."

  "Tug, you're a brick, and I was wrong to feel so lowspirited," saidAleck, heartily. "I think you're a better fellow to be captain herethan I am. I resign."

  "Not by a long chalk!" exclaimed Tug. "Here, I'll put it to vote.Whoever wants Aleck to go out, and me to take my innings as captain,hold up his hand."