Part 23 (1/2)

”What a cold, desolate-looking place!” said Hamilton, as the party stood still to recover breath before taking their way over the plain to the spot where the accountant's traps were set. ”It looks much more like the frozen sea than a river.”

”It can scarcely be called a river at this place,” remarked the accountant, ”seeing that the water hereabouts is brackish, and the tides ebb and flow a good way up. In fact, this is the extreme mouth of North River, and if you turn your eyes a little to the right, towards yonder ice-hummock in the plain, you behold the frozen sea itself.”

”Where are your traps set?” inquired Harry.

”Down in the hollow, behind yon point covered with brushwood.”

”Oh, we shall soon get to them then; come along,” cried Harry.

Harry was mistaken, however. He had not yet learned by experience the extreme difficulty of judging of distance in the uncertain light of night--a difficulty that was increased by the ignorance of the locality, and by the gleams of moons.h.i.+ne that shot through the driving clouds and threw confused fantastic shadows over the plain. The point which he had at first supposed was covered with low bushes, and about a hundred yards off, proved to be clad in reality with large bushes and small trees, and lay at a distance of two miles.

”I think you have been mistaken in supposing the point so near, Harry,”

said Hamilton, as he trudged on beside his friend.

”A fact evident to the naked eye,” replied Harry. ”How do your feet stand it, eh? Beginning to lose bark yet?”

Hamilton did not feel quite sure. ”I think,” said he softly, ”that there is a blister under the big toe of my left foot. It feels very painful.”

”If you feel at all _uncertain_ about it, you may rest a.s.sured that there _is_ a blister. These things don't give much pain at first. I'm sorry to tell you, my dear fellow, that you'll be painfully aware of the fact to-morrow. However, don't distress yourself; it's a part of the experience that everyone goes through in this country. Besides,”

said Harry smiling, ”we can send to the fort for medical advice.”

”Don't bother the poor fellow, and hold your tongue. Harry,” said the accountant, who now began to tread more cautiously as he approached the place where the traps were set.

”How many traps have you?” inquired Harry in a low tone.

”Three,” replied the accountant.

”Do you know I have a very strange feeling about my heels--or rather a want of feeling,” said Hamilton, smiling dubiously.

”A want of feeling! what do you mean?” cried the accountant, stopping suddenly and confronting his young friend.

”Oh, I daresay it's nothing,” he exclaimed, looking as if ashamed of having spoken of it; ”only I feel exactly as if both my heels were cut off, and I were walking on tip-toe!”

”Say you so? then right about wheel. Your heels are frozen, man, and you'll lose them if you don't look sharp.”

”Frozen!” cried Hamilton, with a look of incredulity.

”Ay, frozen; and it's lucky you told me. I've a place up in the woods here, which I call my winter camp, where we can get you put to rights.

But step out; the longer we are about it the worse for you.”

Harry Somerville was at first disposed to think that the accountant jested, but seeing that he turned his back towards his traps, and made for the nearest point of the thick woods with a stride that betokened thorough sincerity, he became anxious too, and followed as fast as possible.

The place to which the accountant led his young friends was a group of fir trees which grew on a little knoll, that rose a few feet above the surrounding level country. At the foot of this hillock a small rivulet or burn ran in summer, but the only evidence of its presence now was the absence of willow bushes all along its covered narrow bed. A level tract was thus formed by nature, free from all underwood, and running inland about the distance of a mile, where it was lost in the swamp whence the stream issued. The wooded knoll or hillock lay at the mouth of this brook, and being the only elevated spot in the neighbourhood, besides having the largest trees growing on it, had been selected by the accountant as a convenient place for ”camping out” on, when he visited his traps in winter, and happened to be either too late or disinclined to return home. Moreover, the spreading fir branches afforded an excellent shelter alike from wind and snow in the centre of the clump, while from the margin was obtained a partial view of the river and the sea beyond. Indeed, from this look-out there was a very fine prospect on clear winter nights of the white landscape, enlivened occasionally by groups of arctic foxes, which might be seen scampering about in sport, and gambolling among the hummocks of ice like young kittens.

”Now we shall turn up here,” said the accountant, as he walked a short way up the brook before mentioned, and halted in front of what appeared to be an impenetrable ma.s.s of bushes.

”We shall have to cut our way, then,” said Harry, looking to the right and left in the vain hope of discovering a place where, the bushes being less dense, they might effect an entrance into the knoll or grove.