Left on the Labrador | Page 4

on like that now!" Toby placed his hand soothingly upon Charley's arm. "Dad says a man can get out of most fixes, and he keeps his head and don't get scared. Dad knows. He's wonderful fine about gettin' out of fixes. Dad'll know what to do. He'll be gettin' you out of your fix easy as a swile[1] slips off a rock. You'll see!"
Helpless to do otherwise, Charley submitted, and Toby led him down to the boat, and when Charley was seated astern, and Toby was pulling for the huts, a half mile away, with the strong, sure stroke of an expert boatman, Toby counselled:
"Don't be lettin' yourself get worked up with worry, now. Dad says worry and frettin' never makes a bad job better."
"It's terrible! It's terrible!" exclaimed Charley in agony. "I've been left behind! I've no place to go, and I'll starve and freeze!"
"'Tisn't so bad, now," Toby argued. "You be safe and sound and well. Maybe the mail boat folk'll be missin' you and come back."
"Do you think they will?" asked Charley, ready to grasp at a straw of hope.
"I'm not knowin'," answered Toby cautiously, "but leastways you'll be safe enough."
Toby's assurance gave little comfort to Charley. The snow was now falling so heavily that he could scarcely see the huts perched upon the rocky hillside, and there was no other indication of human life in the great wide, bleak wilderness that surrounded them. The bare rocks, the falling snow, and the sound of the sea beating upon the cliffs beyond Pinch-In Tickle filled his heart with hopelessness and helplessness. As uncomfortable and unhappy as he had been upon the ship, he now thought of it as a haven of refuge and luxury. If it would only come back for him! Why had he gone ashore! He had dreamed of adventures, but never an adventure like this.
"Here's the landin'."
Toby had drawn the boat alongside a great flat rock that formed a natural wharf. He sprang nimbly out, painter in hand, and while he steadied the boat Charley followed.
Above the landing were three unpainted and dilapidated cabins. Smoke was issuing from a stovepipe that protruded through the roof of the smallest of these, and toward this Toby led the way.
"This is our fishin' place," Toby volunteered. "We fishes here in summer, and lives in the house where you sees the smoke. The other houses belongs to Mr. McClung from Newfoundland. The mail boat were takin' he and three men that fishes with he, and their gear, and they takes Dad's fish, too."
"You stay here, don't you? You'll stay here till the ship comes back for me, won't you?" asked Charley pleadingly.
"We goes up the bay to-morrow marnin' to our tilt, our winter house at Double Up Cove," said Toby, "but I'm thinkin' that if the ship's comin' back she'll be back before night. Nobody stays out here in winter. 'Tis wonderful cold here when the wind blows down over the hills and in from the sea, with no trees to break un, and 'tis a poor place for huntin', and no wood is handy for the fire."
"What'll I do when you go?" asked Charley in fresh dismay.
"You'll not be stoppin' here whatever," assured Toby. "Dad'll know what to do. He'll get you out of this fix! Don't you worry now."
Toby opened the door of the cabin, and the two boys entered. A tall, broad-shouldered, bearded man stood by one of the two windows cleaning a gun. A round-faced, plump little woman was at the stove, transferring from a kettle to a large earthen bowl something that filled the room with a most delicious odour, and a girl of twelve years or thereabouts was placing dishes upon the table.
"Dad," said Toby addressing the man, "I brings with me Charley Norton who was a passenger on the mail boat, and while he's ashore the mail boat goes off and leaves he."
"That's a fix now! That's a fix to be in! I calls that a mean trick for the mail boat to be playin'!" He spoke in a big voice that quite suited his size, but which startled Charley, and did not reassure him. "What's to be done about un now? What be you thinkin' to do?"
"I don't know. I don't know what to do," answered Charley timidly.
Toby's Dad put down the gun he was cleaning and wiped his hand on a cloth.
"Leastways we'll make the best of un," he said, taking Charley's hand in a bear-like clasp. "Besides bein' Toby's Dad, I'm Skipper Zebulon Twig of Double Up Cove, and this is Mrs. Twig and this is Vi'let, the smartest little maid on The Labrador."
Skipper Zebulon Twig laughed so heartily that Charley forgot his difficulty for a moment, and laughed too, while he shook hands with Mrs. Twig, who had,