The Long Labrador Trail | Page 4

first trip on or about June tenth. This made it necessary for us to leave New York on the Red Cross Line steamer Rosalind sailing from Brooklyn on May thirtieth; and when, at eleven-thirty that Tuesday morning, the Rosalind cast loose from her wharf, we and our outfit were aboard, and our journey of eleven long months was begun.
As I waved farewell to our friends ashore I recalled that other day two years before, when Hubbard and I had stood on the Silvia's deck, and I said to myself:
"Well, this, too, is Hubbard's trip. His spirit is with me. It was he, not I, who planned this Labrador work, and if I succeed it will be because of him and his influence."
I was glad to be away. With every throb of the engine my heart grew lighter. I was not thinking of the perils I was to face with my new companions in that land where Hubbard and I had suffered so much. The young men with me were filled with enthusiasm at the prospect of adventure in the silent and mysterious country for which they were bound.
CHAPTER II
ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE UNKNOWN
"When shall we reach Rigolet, Captain?"
"Before daylight, I hopes, sir, if the fog holds off, but there's a mist settling, and if it gets too thick, we may have to come to."
Crowded with an unusual cargo of humanity, fishermen going to their summer work on "The Labrador" with their accompanying tackle and household goods, meeting with many vexatious delays in discharging the men and goods at the numerous ports of call, and impeded by fog and wind, the mail boat Virginia Lake had been much longer than is her wont on her trip "down north."
It was now June twenty-first. Six days before (June fifteenth), when we boarded the ship at St. Johns we had been informed that the steamer Harlow, with a cargo for the lumber mills at Kenemish, in Groswater Bay, was to leave Halifax that very afternoon. She could save us a long and disagreeable trip in an open boat, ninety miles up Groswater Bay, and I bad hoped that we might reach Rigolet in time to secure a passage for myself and party from that point. But the Harlow had no ports of call to make, and it was predicted that her passage from Halifax to Rigolet would be made in four days.
I had no hope now of reaching Rigolet before her, or of finding her there, and, resigned to my fate, I left the captain on the bridge and went below to my stateroom to rest until daylight. Some time in the night I was aroused by some one saying:
"We're at Rigolet, sir, and there's a ship at anchor close by."
Whether I had been asleep or not, I was fully awake now, and found that the captain had come to tell me of our arrival. The fog had held off and we had done much better than the captain's prediction. Hurrying into my clothes, I went on deck, from which, through the slight haze that hung over the water, I could discern the lights of a ship, and beyond, dimly visible, the old familiar line of Post buildings showing against the dark spruce-covered hills behind, where the great silent forest begins.
All was quiet save for the thud, thud, thud of the oarlocks of a small boat approaching our ship and the dismal howl of a solitary "husky" dog somewhere ashore. The captain had preceded me on deck, and in answer to my inquiries as to her identity said he did not know whether the stranger at anchor was the Harlow or not, but he thought it was.
We had to wait but a moment, however, for the information. The small boat was already alongside, and John Groves, a Goose Bay trader and one of my friends of two years before, clambered aboard and had me by the hand.
"I'm glad to see you, sir; and how is you?"
Assuring him that I was quite well, I asked the name of the other ship.
"The Harlow, sir, an' she's goin' to Kenemish with daylight."
"Well, I must get aboard of her then, and try to get a passage up. Is your flat free, John, to take me aboard of her?"
"Yes, sir. Step right in, sir. But I thinks you'd better go ashore, for the Harlow's purser's ashore. If you can't get passage on the Harlow my schooner's here doing nothin' while I goes to St. Johns for goods, and I'll have my men run you up to Nor'west River."
I thanked him and lost no time in going ashore in his boat, where I found Mr. James Fraser, the factor, and received a hearty welcome. In Mr. Fraser's office I found also the purser of the Harlow, and I quickly