Silver Lake, Robert Michael Ballantyne [important books to read txt] 📗

till there's snow on the ground, so the moment there is enough of it we'll set off. Before starting, hows'ever, I must go off and try for a deer, for men can't walk well on fish alone; and when I'm away you can be getting the snow-shoes repaired, and the sled-lashings overhauled. We will set about all that to-morrow."

"But isn't to-morrow Sabbath?" said Nelly.

"So 'tis! I forgot; well, we can put it off till Monday."

It may be well here to remark that Mrs Gore, being a sincere Christian, had a great reverence for the Sabbath-day, and had imbued her children with some of her own spirit in regard to it.

During the troubles and anxieties of the period when the children were lost in the snow and captured by the Indians, they had lost count of the days of the week. Roy was not much troubled about this, but his sister's tender conscience caused her much uneasiness; and when they afterwards ran away from the Indians, and could do as they pleased, they agreed together to fix a Sabbath-day for themselves, beginning with the particular day on which it first occurred to them that they had not kept a Sabbath "for a long, long time."

"We can't find out the right day now, you know," observed Nelly, in an apologetic tone.

"Of course not," said Roy; "besides, it don't matter, because you remember how it is in the Ten Commandments: `Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work, but the _seventh_ day is the Sabbath.' We will keep _to-day_, then; work _six_ days, and then keep the _seventh_ day."

We have elsewhere observed that Roy was a bit of a philosopher. Having reasoned the matter out thus philosophically, the children held to their resolve; they travelled six days, and observed every seventh day as the Sabbath.

The particular Sabbath-day about which we are writing turned out to be a memorable one, as we shall see.

Roy and Nelly lay down that night, side by side, as was their wont, with their separate blankets wrapped around them, and their feet pointing towards the fire. Of course they never undressed at night on this journey, but washed their underclothing as they found time and opportunity.

Soon they were sound asleep, and their gentle breathing was the only sound that broke the stillness of the night. But snow was falling silently in thick heavy flakes, and it soon lay deep on the bosom of Silver Lake. Towards morning the wind arose, and snow-drift began to whirl round the hut, and block up its low doorway.

Still the brother and sister slumbered peacefully, undisturbed by the gathering storm.


CHAPTER ELEVEN.


A CHANGE IN THE WEATHER--RABBITS AND BEARS APPEAR.

"Hi! Hallo! I say, Nelly, what's all this?" There was good cause for the tone of surprise in which Roy uttered these words when he awoke, for the fireplace and the lower half of his own, as well as his sister's, blanket were covered with at least half a foot of snow. It had found its way in at the hole in the roof of the hut, and the wind had blown a great deal through the crevices of the doorway, so that a snow-wreath more than a foot high lay close to Nelly's elbow.

This was bad enough, but what made it worse was that a perfect hurricane was blowing outside. Fortunately the hut was sheltered by the woods, and by a high cliff on the windward side; but this cliff, although it broke the force of the gale, occasioned an eddy which sent fearful gusts and thick clouds of snow ever and anon full against the doorway.

"O Roy! what shall we do?" said Nelly, in an anxious tone.

"Don't know," said Roy, jumping up and tightening his belt; "you never can know what's got to be done till you've took an observation o' what's goin' on, as daddy used to say. Hallo! hold on. I say, if it goes on like this it'll blow the hut down. Come, Nelly, don't whimper; it's only a puff, after all, an' if it did capsize us, it wouldn't be the first time we had a tumble in the snow. Seems to me that we're goin' to have a stormy Sabbath, though. Rouse up, lass, and while you're clearin' off the snow, I'll go get a bundle o' sticks, and light the fire."

Roy stooped to pass under the low doorway, or, rather, hole of the hut, and bending his head to the blast passed out; while Nelly, whose heart was cheered by her brother's confident tone more than by his words, set about shovelling away the snow-drift with great activity.

Presently Roy returned, staggering under a heavy load of firewood.

"Ho! Nell," he cried, flinging down the wood with a clatter, "just you come an' see Silver Lake. Such a sight it is you never saw; but come slick off--never mind your belt; just roll your blanket round you, over head and ears--there," said he, assisting to fasten the rough garment, and seizing his sister's hand, "hold on tight by me."

"Oh, _what_ a storm!" gasped the little girl, as she staggered out and came within the full force of the gale.

It was indeed a storm, such as would have appalled the hearts of youngsters less accustomed to the woods than were our hero and heroine. But Roy and Nelly had been born and bred in the midst of stormy backwoods' elements, and were not easily alarmed, chiefly because they had become accustomed to estimate correctly the extent of most of the dangers that menaced them from time to time. A gale of the fiercest kind was blowing. In its passage it bent the trees until they groaned and creaked again; it tore off the smaller twigs and whisked them up into the air; it lifted the snow in masses out of the open spots in the woods, and hurled them in cloud-like volumes everywhere; and it roared and shrieked through the valleys and round the mountain tops as if a thousand evil spirits were let loose upon the scene.

Silver Lake was still silvery in its aspect, for the white drift was flying across it like the waves of a raging sea; but here, being exposed, the turmoil was so tremendous that there was no distinguishing between earth, lake, and sky. "Confusion, worse confounded" reigned every where, or rather, appeared to reign; for, in point of fact, _there is no confusion whatever_ in the works and ways of God. Common sense, if unfallen, would tell us that. The Word reveals it, and science of late years has added its testimony thereto.

Roy and Nelly very naturally came to the conclusion that things were in a very disordered state indeed on that Sabbath morning, so they returned to their hut, to spend the day as best they might.

Their first care was to kindle the fire and prepare breakfast. While Nelly was engaged in this, Roy went out and cut several small trees, with which he propped the hut all round to prevent it from being blown down. But it was discovered, first, that the fire would hardly kindle, and, second, that when it was kindled it filled the whole place with smoke. By dint of perseverance, however, breakfast was cooked and devoured, after which the fire was allowed to go out, as the smoke had almost blinded them.

"Never mind, Nell, cheer up," said Roy, on concluding breakfast; "we'll rig up a tent to keep the snow off us."

The snow, be it understood, had been falling into the fire, and, more or less, upon themselves, through the hole in the roof; so they made a tent inside the hut, by erecting two posts with a ridge-pole at a height of three feet from the ground, over which they spread one of their blankets. Under this tent they reclined with the other blankets spread over them, and chatted comfortably during the greater part of that day.

Of course their talk was chiefly of home, and of the mother who had been the sun and the joy of their existence up to that sad day when they were lost in the snow, and naturally they conversed of the Bible, and the hymns which their mother had made the chief objects of their contemplation on the Sabbaths they had spent at Fort Enterprise.

Monday was as bad as Sunday in regard to weather, but Tuesday dawned bright and calm, so that our wanderers were enabled to resume their avocations. The snow-shoes were put in order, the sled was overhauled and mended, and more fish were caught and hung up to dry. In the evening Roy loaded his gun with ball, put on his snow-shoes, and sallied forth alone to search for deer. He carried with him several small pieces of line wherewith to make rabbit snares; for, the moment the snow fell, innumerable tracks revealed the fact that there were thousands of rabbits in that region. Nelly, meanwhile, busied herself in putting the hut in order, and in repairing the mocassins which would be required for the journey home.

Lest any reader should wonder where our heroine found materials for all the mending and repairing referred to, we may remark that the Indians in the wilderness were, and still are, supplied with needles, beads, cloth, powder and shot, guns, axes, etcetera, etcetera, by the adventurous fur-traders, who penetrate deep and far into the wilderness of North America; and when Nelly and Roy ran away from their captors they took care to carry with them an ample supply of such things as they might require in their flight.

About half a mile from the hut Roy set several snares. He had often helped his father in such work, and knew exactly how to do it. Selecting a rabbit-track at a spot where it passed between two bushes, he set his snare so that it presented a loop in the centre of the path. This loop was fastened to the bough of a tree bent downwards, and so arranged that it held fast to a root in the ground; when a rabbit should endeavour to leap or force through it, he would necessarily pull away the fastening that held it down, and the bough would spring up and lift the hapless creature by the neck off the ground.

Having set half-a-dozen such snares, Roy continued his march in search of deer-tracks. He was unsuccessful, but to his surprise he came suddenly on the huge track of a bear! Being early in the season this particular bruin had not yet settled himself into his winter quarters, so Roy determined to make a trap for him. He had not much hope of catching him, but resolved to try, and not to tell Nelly of his discovery until he should see the result.

Against the face of a cliff he raised several huge stones so as to form a sort of box, or cave, or hole, the front of which was open, the sides being the stones referred to, and the back the cliff. Then he felled a tree as thick as his waist, which stood close by, and so managed that it fell near to his trap. By great exertions, and with the aid of a wooden lever prepared on the spot, he rolled this tree--when denuded of its branches--close to the mouth of the trap. Next he