The Big Otter | Page 8

trousers.
There is nothing like the cry of "Fire!" for producing prompt action--or paralysis! Also for inducing imbecile stupidity. I could not find my moccasins! Thought is quick--quicker than words. Amputation at the knee joints stared me in the face for a certainty if I went out with naked feet. In desperation I seized my capote and thrust both feet into the sleeves, with some hazy intention of tying a knot on each wrist to protect the toes. Happily I espied my moccasins at the moment, pulled them on--left shoe on right foot, of course--and put the coat to its proper use.
By this time Salamander, contrary to all traditions of Indian stoicism, was yelling about the fort with his eyes a flame and his hair on end. The men were out in a few seconds with a ladder, and swarmed up to the roof of our house, without any definite notion as to what they meant to do. Mr Strang was also out, smothered in winter garments, and with an enormous Makinaw blanket over all. He was greatly excited, though the most self-possessed among us--as most chiefs are, or ought to be.
"Water! water!" shouted the men from the roof.
A keen breeze was blowing from what seemed the very heart of King Frost's dominion, and snow-drift fine as dust and penetrating as needles, was swirling about in the night-air.
Water! where was water to come from? The river was frozen almost to the bottom. Ice six feet thick covered the lakes and ponds. The sound of trickling water had not been heard for months. It had become an ancient memory. Water! why, it cost our cook's assistant a full hour every day to cut through the result of one night's frost in the water-hole before he could reach the water required for daily use, and what he did obtain had to be slowly dragged to the fort by that slowest of creatures, an ox. Nevertheless there was water. In the warmest corner of the kitchen--at that hour about zero--there stood a water-barrel.
"Run, cook--fetch a bucketful!" cried our chief.
Cook, who had "lost his head," obediently ran, seized a big earthenware jug, dipped it into the barrel, and smashed it to atoms on a cake of thick ice! This had the effect of partially recovering his head for him. He seized an axe, shattered the cake, caught up a bucket, dipped it full and rushed out spilling half its contents as he ran. The spillings became icicles before they reached the flaming chimney, but the frost, keen as it was, could not quite solidify the liquid in so short a space of time.
Blondin, the principal bearer of the winter packet who was a heroic man and chief actor in this scene, received the half-empty bucket.
"Bah!" he exclaimed, tossing bucket as well as water contemptuously down the wide chimney. "Bring shuvill, an' blunkits."
Blondin was a French-Canadian half-caste, and not a good linguist.
A shovel was thrown up to him. He seized it and shovelled volumes of snow from the house-top into the chimney. A moment later and two blankets were thrown up. Blondin spread one over the flames. It was shrivelled up instantly. He stuffed down the remains and spread the second blanket over them, while he shouted for a third. The third came, and, another bucket of water arriving at the same moment, with a large mass of snow detached from the roof, the whole were thrust down the chimney en masse, the flames were quenched and the house was saved.
During this exciting scene, I had begun to realise the great danger of fire in the chimney of a wooden house, and, with the aid of my comrades, had been throwing the contents of Bachelors' Hall out into the snow. We now ceased this process, and began to carry them back again, while the men crowded round the iron author of all the mischief to warm their half-frozen bodies. I now observed for the first time that Blondin had a black patch on the end of his nose. It was a handsome feature usually, but at that time it was red, swelled, and what may be termed blobby.
"What's the matter with it, Blondin?" I asked.
"My noz was froz," he replied curtly.
"You'd better have it looked to, or it'll be worse than froz, my man," said Lumley.
Blondin laughed and went off to attend to his nose in the men's house, accompanied by the others, while we set to work to clean ourselves and our abode. Thereafter, with moderated fire, we again got under our buffalo robes, where we spent the remainder of a disturbed night in thinking and dreaming about the thrilling contents of the winter packet.
CHAPTER THREE.
DEEPER DESOLATION.
Eight months of winter! Those who have read and entered into the spirit of Arctic voyagers, may have some