Part 3 (1/2)

Shelby was a close second in the matter of efficiency. He was a big chap, not handsome, but good-looking, in a dark, dignified way, and of a lithe, sinewy strength that enabled him to endure as well as to meet hards.h.i.+p bravely.

Not that they looked especially for hards.h.i.+ps. Discomfort, even unpleasantness, they did antic.i.p.ate, but nothing of more importance than inclement weather or possible colds or coughs. And against the latter ills Mrs. Crane had provided both remedies and preventions to such an extent that some were discarded as excess weight.

For the necessities of their trip, including as they did, canoe, tent, blankets, tarpaulins, duffel bags, shooting irons and cooking utensils,--besides food, were of no small bulk and weight even divided among four porters.

And Blair, though possessed of will and energy quite equaling the others', was less physically fit to stand the hard going.

It was already August when they were treated to a first sight of the Labrador.

”Great Scott!” exclaimed Shelby, ”and Shackelton, and Peary,--yes and old Doc Cook! What an outlook! If those breaking waves were looking for a stern and rockbound coast to dash on, they missed it when they chose the New England sh.o.r.e instead of this! I've seen crags and cliffs, I've climbed the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn, but this puts it over all the earth! How do we get in, anyway?”

”Great, isn't it?” and Peter lay back in his inadequate little deck chair and beamed at the desolation he saw.

For the coast of Labrador is nearly a thousand miles of barren bleakness and forbidding and foreboding rock wall. After buffeting untold ages of icy gales and biting storms the bare rocks seem to discourage human approach and crave only their own black solitude.

The one softening element was the fog that rode the sea, and now and then swooped down, hiding the dangerous reefs until the danger was increased tenfold by the obscurity.

”Oh, great!” mocked Shelby. ”You can have mine. I'm going to stay on the boat and go back.”

”Yes, you are!” grinned Peter, knowing full well how little importance to attach to that speech; ”inside of a week, you'll be crazy about it.”

”I am now,” said Blair, slowly. ”Most weird sight I ever saw. The rocks seem like sentient giants ready to eat each other. Termagant Nature, unleashed and rampant.”

”Idea all right,” said Crane, lazily, ”but your verbiage isn't hand-picked, seems to me.”

”You can put it more poetically, if you like, but it's the thing itself that gets me, not the sand-papered description of it.”

”n.o.body wants you to sand-paper it, but you ought to hew to the line a little more nearly----”

”Lines be bothered! Free verse is the thing for this place!”

”I want free verse and I want fresh air,” bantered Peter, ”and Lasca, down by the Brandywine,--or wherever it was that Friend Lasca hung out.”

”You're harking back to your school days and Friday afternoon declamation,” put in Shelby, ”and Lasca was down by the Rio Grande.”

”Only Alaska isn't down there at all,” Blair informed them, quite seriously, and the others roared.

After delays, changes and transfers made necessary by the uncertainties of Labrador travel, they came at last to Hamilton Inlet, and the little steamer approached the trading post at Rigolet.

”Reminds me of Hamilton Harbor, Bermuda,” observed Shelby, s.h.i.+vering as he drew his furs round him.

”Oh, how can you!” exclaimed Blair; ”that heavenly Paradise of a place,--and this!”

”But you'd rather be here?” and Crane shook a warning fist at him.

”Yes,--oh, yes! This is the life!” and if Blair wasn't quite sincere he gave a fair imitation of telling the truth.

”Will you look at the dogs!” cried Crane. ”I didn't know there were so many in the world!”