Ungava Bob | Page 8

quite sure he would--and how she would go away to the doctor's to be made well and strong again as she used to be and the romps they were to have when that happy time came.
"An' Bob," said Emily, "every night before I goes to sleep when I says my 'Now I lay me down to sleep' prayer, I'll say to God 'an' keep Bob out o' danger an' bring he home safe.'"
"Aye, Emily," answered Bob, "an' I'll say to God, 'Make Emily fine an' strong again.'"
Before daybreak on Monday morning breakfast was eaten, and the boat loaded for a start at dawn. Emily was not yet awake when the time came to say farewell and Bob kissed her as she slept. Poor Mrs. Gray could not restrain the tears, and Bob felt a great choking in his throat--but he swallowed it bravely.
"Don't be feelin' bad, mother. I'm t' be rare careful in th' bush, and you'll see me well and hearty wi' a fine hunt, wi' th' open water," said he, as he kissed her.
"I knows you'll be careful, an' I'll try not t' worry, but I has a forebodin' o' somethin' t' happen--somethin' that's t' happen t' you, Bob--oh, I feels that somethin's t' happen. Emily'll be missin' you dreadful, Bob. An'--'twill be sore lonesome for your father an' me without our boy."
"Ready, Bob!" shouted Dick from the boat.
"Don't forget your prayers, lad, an' remember that your mother's prayin' for you every mornin' an' every night."
"Yes, mother, I'll remember all you said."
She watched him from the door as he walked down to the shore with his father, and the boat, heavily laden, pushed out into the Bay, and she watched still, until it disappeared around the point, above. Then she turned back into the room and had a good cry before she went about her work again.
If she had known what those distant hills held for her boy--if her intuition had been knowledge--she would never have let him go.

III
AN ADVENTURE WITH A BEAR
The boat turned out into the broad channel and into Goose Bay. There was little or no wind, and when the sun broke gloriously over the white-capped peaks of the Mealy Mountains it shone upon a sea as smooth as a mill pond, with scarcely a ripple to disturb it. The men worked laboriously and silently at their oars. A harbour seal pushed its head above the water, looked at the toiling men curiously for a moment, then disappeared below the surface, leaving an eddy where it had been. Gulls soared overhead, their white wings and bodies looking very pure and beautiful in the sunlight. High in the air a flock of ducks passed to the southward. From somewhere in the distance came the honk of a wild goose. The air was laden with the scent of the great forest of spruce and balsam fir, whose dark green barrier came down from the rock-bound, hazy hills in the distance to the very water's edge, where tamarack groves, turned yellow by the early frosts, reflected the sunlight like settings of rich gold.
"'Tis fine! 'tis grand!" exclaimed Bob at last, as he rested a moment on his oars to drink in the scene and breathe deeply the rare, fragrant atmosphere. "'Tis sure a fine world we're in."
"Aye, 'tis fine enough now," remarked Ed, stopping to cut pieces from a plug of tobacco, and then cramming them into his pipe. "But," he continued, prophetically, as he struck a match and held it between his hands for the sulphur to burn off, "bide a bit, an' you'll find it ugly enough when th' snows blow t' smother ye, an' yer racquets sink with ye t' yer knees, and th' frost freezes yer face and the ice sticks t' yer very eyelashes until ye can't see--then," continued he, puffing vigorously at his pipe, "then 'tis a sorry world--aye, a sorry an' a hard world for folks t' make a livin' in."
It was mid-forenoon when they reached Rabbit Island--a small wooded island where the passing dog drivers always stop in winter to make tea and snatch a mouthful of hard biscuit while the dogs have a half hour's rest.
"An' here we'll boil th' kettle," suggested Dick. "I'm fair starved with an early breakfast and the pull at the oars."
"We're ready enough for that," assented Bill. "Th' wind's prickin' up a bit from th' east'rd, an' when we starts I thinks we may hoist the sails."
"Yes, th' wind's prickin' up an' we'll have a fair breeze t' help us past th' Traverspine, I hopes."
The landing was made. Bob and Ed each took an axe to cut into suitable lengths some of the plentiful dead wood lying right to hand, while Dick whittled some shavings and started the fire. Bill brought a kettle (a