The Long Labrador Trail | Page 4

two or even three pounds
of any other food that we carried. Its ingredients are ground dried beef,
tallow, sugar, raisins and currants.
We had planned to go north from St. Johns on the Labrador mail boat
Virginia Lake, which, as I had been informed by the Reid-
Newfoundland Company, was expected to sail from St. Johns on her
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