The Ice Queen Read online

  Chapter XXIV.

  THE WILD DOGS AGAIN.

  Aleck's hand alone was shown; and though he held both of his arms ashigh as he could, the other side had the majority, and would notaccept his resignation.

  "Suppose we see just exactly what we have in the way of provisions,"Katy suggested. "It won't take long to make out the list," she added,with a grim little smile.

  They began at once, and the small housewife wrote down the list asfast as the stores were examined, guessing at the weights. There werefound about eleven pounds of dried beef; bacon, one "side;" flour,about six pounds; corn-meal, ten pounds; beans, three pounds; coffee,two pounds; tea, a quarter of a pound; chocolate, half a cake; sugar,three pounds; small quantities of salt, pepper, soda, and so on; somecrumbs of crackers and cookies in the bottom of a bag; a small pieceof dried yeast; and a few swallows of the brandy that had been souseful at the time of Aleck's accident on the drifting ice.

  They had nearly all the bedding, cooking utensils, and tools withwhich they had started three weeks before; but the oil for theirlantern and their matches were nearly used up or lost; their powderwas low, for part of it had been spoiled by water; their clothes werebadly worn; and their only canvas, since the loss of their tent, wasthe small "spare piece."

  "It's plain," said Aleck, as this overhauling was finished, "that wemust put ourselves upon a regular allowance. The provisions won't lastus a week unless we save them carefully."

  "And it's plain that we must raise some more, so I reckon I'd betterget to work at bird-traps."

  "Yes, the sooner the better. As for me, I want to learn all I canabout the island. There may be something of use to us at the otherend, so I shall take a long walk, and see what I can find."

  "Mayn't I go with you?" Jim asked, eagerly.

  "Yes, Youngster, if you think you can stand it."

  "No trouble about that," replied the little fellow, courageously. Hehad grown very manly during the past month.

  The brothers started off, taking the gun with them, and saying thatthey would be back about three o'clock.

  As soon as they had gone Tug set about his traps in one corner of thehouse, behind the stove, while Katy went to work to make the hut alittle more homelike.

  The cabin was about twelve feet square, and one side was the smoothface of a great rock, against which was heaped the rude chimney of mudand stones. In front of this the stove was placed, and behind it, onthe side of the room farthest from the door, the fishermen had built abunk.

  "You must call that your bedroom," Tug said, and he helped Katy to setup in front of it poles sustaining a curtain made of a shawl.

  "Now," said the lad, when this had been arranged, "you must have amattress."

  So, taking the axe, he went out, and soon came back with a greatarmful of hemlock boughs, and then a second one, with which he heapedthe bunk, laying them all very smoothly, and making a delightful bed.

  "I'm thinkin' we'll have to fix some more bunks for ourselves," saidthe boy, as he tried this springy couch. "That's a heap better 'n thesoft side of a plank."

  Then with a hemlock broom Katy swept the floor, and spread down thecanvas as a carpet. Finding in her little trunk some clothing wrappedin an old _Harper's Weekly_, she cut out the pictures and tacked themup, and finally she washed the grimy window to let more light in, sothat the rough little house soon came to look quite warm and cosey.

  Meanwhile Tug, getting out his few tools, had made the triggers ofhalf a dozen such box-traps as they had caught snow-birds with whenliving on the ice, and one other queer little arrangement, of sticksdelicately balanced, an upright one in the middle bearing at its top abit of red rag:

  "What in the world is _that_?" Katy inquired with much curiosity.

  "Oh, it's a bit of a contrivance to stand over a hole in the ice whereI propose to place a 'set' line for fish--that is, you know, a linethat I bait and leave set for a while, trusting to luck to catchsomething. The minute a fish gets the hook through his lips and beginsto flop around, he will set this flag a-fluttering and so let me knowit. I might make him ring a little bell if I had one."

  "I should say," Katy remarked laughingly, "that to make a captured anddying fish ring his own funeral knell was adding insult to injury."

  At length Tug pulled on his overcoat and announced that he was goingto look for a good fishing-place.

  He was gone nearly an hour, during which Katy busied herself inmending her sadly torn dress, and in thinking. But the latter was byno means a pleasant occupation, and she was glad to see Tug come back,rubbing his ears, for the day was a cold one.

  "I think I have found a real likely place for fishing," he told her."There is a little cove the other side of this thicket, with a marsharound it, and a pretty narrow entrance. I reckon the water's deepenough in there for fish to be skulking, and I dropped my line rightin the middle. I set the traps near here, but didn't see any birds."

  "Do you think--" Katy stopped suddenly, laying one hand on Tug's arm,and holding up the other warningly, while her face grew pale. Rex, whohad been lying by the stove quietly licking his injured paw, rose upand growled deeply.

  "There! Did you not hear it?"

  "I did. It's them pesky dogs," cried Tug, and hurried to the window,while Rex began to bark furiously. "There are the boys on the hillbacking down, and two--no, three--dogs following them. Where's thataxe? I'll fix 'em!"

  And before Katy could quite understand what was the matter, the boyhad burst out, and was tearing up the hill to the support of hisfriends. Rex wanted to go too, but Katy held him fast, as she stoodwatching the boys flourishing their weapons, and frightening the dogsback, while they slowly retreated. As they came nearer to the housethe animals ceased pursuing, and relieved their disappointment bysavage barks and prolonged howls.

  "Well," exclaimed Tug, in the country speech he always used whenexcited, "I allow them curs are the most or'nary critters I eversee!"

  "They followed us all the way from the other side of the neck," saidJim, dropping limp into a broken-legged chair, which tumbled him overbackward.

  "Where did you go, and what did you see?" was Katy's anxious question,choking down her laughter at the plaintive Youngster's accident.

  Aleck then told them that from the highest point of the hill he couldstudy the whole island, which was everywhere surrounded by ice, andthat eastward he could see what he thought was another island severalmiles away; but that to the southward it was too misty for a longsight. Going on down the hill, they crossed a neck or isthmus of sandand rocks between two marshy bays, and entered some woods, whichseemed to cover pretty much all the rest of the island. Pushingthrough this, and gathering a good many dried grapes, which were wortha hungry man's attention if he had plenty of time, they reached theshore somewhere near the farther end of the island without finding anysigns that anybody had ever been there before. On the shore, however,by a cove, they found a tumbled-down shanty, and a little clearingwhere once had been a camp. They were going on still farther, whensuddenly they were attacked by the three dogs, and thought it best toretreat. The dogs followed, and they had to fight them off all theway.

  "One of them was a giant of a mastiff," said Aleck, "and we weremore afraid of him than of the smaller ones, which seemed to be twowell-grown pups. I think these dogs must have been left here lastsummer by somebody. There seems to be four of them altogether--two oldones and two young ones--though we have never seen more than three atonce. How they have managed to live beats me. I don't see anything forthem to eat. I wish you had some bullets, Tug. We never can hurt 'emmuch with small shot."

  ATTACKED BY THE DOGS.]

  "They'll steal everything from the traps, too," Jim piped in. "By theway, Tug, have you set any yet?"

  Then Tug told what he had been doing, and said he must go before itbecame dark and see if anything had been taken. So, wrapping himselfup, he took the gun and went off, while Aleck and Jim gathered asupply of wood for the night, and Katy began to get supper. By thetime this was
ready, and the red glare of a threatening sunset hadtinged the snow and suffused the clouds with crimson, Tug came back,bringing nothing at all. It was not a very merry party, therefore,that sat around the table that evening listening to the doleful criesof the outcast dogs, which still kept watch on the hillside.