Three Boys in the Wild North Land | Page 2

settle down at his father's business.
Alec was from Scotland, a genuine son of "the mountain and the flood." While a good student when at school, yet, when at home on his holidays, his highest joy had ever been under the guidance of the faithful old gillie to follow on the trail of the mountain deer. For a wider field than that offered by his native Highlands he had been so longing that his friends yielded to his importunities, and so now here he is with his comrades, full of eager anticipations.
Sam was from what his mother used to call "dear, dirty Dublin." He was full of life and fun; a jolly Irish boy of the finest type. Storms and privations might at times depress the spirits of the others; but Sam, true to his nationality, never lost his spirits or his good nature. So rapid had been his progress in his studies that he had pushed himself beyond his years, and so even his tutors had joined in his request that he should have the year off, which, spent in the invigorating air and healthful adventures in the Wild North Land, would doubtless be a blessing to both mind and body:
In the good ship Prince Arthur, of the Hudson Bay Company, our three young adventurers set sail in the month of May from the London docks. They met with no adventures worth recording until after they had left the Orkney Islands, where they had called for their last consignment of supplies and the latest mails. Here they also shipped some hardy Orkney men and Highlanders, who were going out in the employment of the Hudson Bay Company.
The Prince Arthur was a stanch sailing vessel, built especially for the Hudson Bay Company's trade. She was employed in carrying out to that country the outfit of goods required in the great fur trade. Her return cargoes were the valuable furs obtained in barter from the Indians. Her port was York Factory, on the western side of the Hudson Bay. Here her cargo was discharged and carried by scores of inland boats and canoes to the various trading posts in the different parts of that great country, which is larger than the whole continent of Europe.
So remote were some of those posts from the seaboard, and so difficult and slow were the methods of transporting the goods, that several years passed ere the fur secured from them reached the London markets, to which they were all consigned and where they were carried each year in the company's ships.
Although the Prince Arthur was far from being a first-class passenger ship, yet she was a good, seaworthy vessel, with plenty of room for the few passengers who travelled by her each year. These were principally gentlemen of the Hudson Bay Company's service and their friends, or missionaries going out or returning home.
Letters from influential friends secured for our three boys the considerate attention of the captain and the ship's officers, and their own bright ways won the friendship of all the sailors on board. On the whole they had a glorious passage. Some fogs at times perplexed them, and a few enormous icebergs were so near that careful tacking was required, to prevent accidents. The boys were filled with admiration at these great mountains of ice; some of them seemed like great islands, while others more closely resembled glorious cathedrals built in marble and emerald. At times, as the western sun shone upon them, they seemed to take on in parts every colour of the rainbow. With intense interest were they watched as they slowly drifted beyond the southern horizon.
One of the most exciting incidents of the journey was a battle between a great whale and a couple of swordfish. The unwieldy monster seemed to be no match for his nimble antagonists. His sole weapon seemed to be his enormous tail; but vain were his efforts to strike his quicker enemies. As far as could be judged from the deck of the ship, the swordfish were masters of the situation, and the blood-stained waters seemed to indicate that the battle would soon be over.
In the southern part of Davis Strait they encountered great fields of floating ice, on which were many herds of seals. The captain had the ship hove to and three boats lowered. In each one he permitted one of the boys to go with the sailors on this seal-hunting expedition. The seals, which are so very active in water, where they can swim with such grace and rapidity, are very helpless on land or ice, and so large numbers were killed by the sailors. While the boys were excited with the sport, they could not but feel sorry for the poor, helpless creatures as they looked at them out of their great