The Adventures of Billy Topsail. Duncan Norman

he, "for you don't know what I carried in my pack. But you see I had the bottle in my hands, and I wanted the ginger ale bad; so I thought fast and hard.

      "It struck me that I might do something with my line and jigger.4 Don't you see the chance the barbed steel hooks and the forty fathom of line gave me? When I thought of that jigger I felt just like the man who is told to push the cork in when he can't draw it out. I'd got back to the pan where I'd thrown down my pack, you know; so there was the jigger, right at hand.

      "It was getting dark by this time – getting dark fast, and the pans were drifting farther and farther apart.

      "It was easy to hook the jigger in the nearest pan and draw my pan over to it; for that pan was five times the weight of the one I was on. The one beyond was about the same size; they came together at the half-way point. Of course this took time. I could hardly see the shore then, and it struck me that I might not be able to find it at all, when I came near enough to cast my jigger for it.

      "About fifty yards off was a big pan. I swung the jigger round and round and suddenly let the line shoot through my fingers. When I hauled it in the jigger came too, for it hadn't taken hold. That made me feel bad. I felt worse when it came back the second time. But I'm not one of the kind that gives up. I kept right on casting that jigger until it landed in the right spot.

      "My pan crossed over as I hauled in the line. That was all right; but there was no pan between me and the shore.

      "'All up!' thinks I.

      "It was dark. I could see neither pan nor shore. Before long I couldn't see a thing in the pitchy blackness.

      "All the time I could feel the pan humping along towards the open sea. I didn't know how far off the shore was. I was in doubt about just where it was.

      "'Is this pan turning round?' thinks I. Well, I couldn't tell; but I thought I'd take a flier at hooking a rock or a tree with the jigger.

      "The jigger didn't take hold. I tried a dozen times, and every time I heard it splash the water. But I kept on trying – and would have kept on till morning if I'd needed to. You can take me at my word, I'm not the kind of fool that gives up – I've been in too many tight places for that. So, at last, I gave the jigger a fling that landed it somewhere where it held fast; but whether ice or shore I couldn't tell. If shore, all right; if ice, all wrong; and that's all I could do about it.

      "'Now,' thinks I, as I began to haul in, 'it all depends on the fishing line. Will it break, or won't it?'

      "It didn't. So the next morning, with my pack on my back, I tramped round the point to Racquet Harbour."

      "What was it?" was Billy Topsail's foolish question. "Shore or ice?"

      "If it hadn't been shore," said the trader, "I wouldn't be here."

      CHAPTER VIII

      In the Offshore Gale: In Which Billy Topsail Goes Seal Hunting and is Swept to Sea With the Floe

      WHAT befell old Tom Topsail and his crew came in the course of the day's work. Fishermen and seal-hunters, such as the folk of Ruddy Cove, may not wait for favourable weather; when the fish are running, they must fish; when the seals are on the drift-ice offshore in the spring, they must hunt.

      So on that lowering day, when the seals were sighted by the watch on Lookout Head, it was a mere matter of course that the men of the place should set out to the hunt.

      "I s'pose," Tom Topsail drawled, "that we'd best get under way."

      Bill Watt, his mate, scanned the sky in the northeast. It was heavy, cold and leaden; fluffy gray towards the zenith, and black where the clouds met the barren hills.

      "I s'pose," said he, catching Topsail's drawl, "that 'twill snow afore long."

      "Oh, aye," was the slow reply, "I s'pose 'twill."

      Again Bill Watt faced the sullen sky. He felt that the supreme danger threatened – snow with wind.

      "I s'pose," he said, "that 'twill blow, too."

      "Oh, aye," Topsail replied, indifferently, "snow 'n' blow. We'll know what 'twill do when it begins," he added. "Billy, b'y!" he shouted.

      In response Billy Topsail came bounding down the rocky path from the cottage. He was stout for his age, with broad shoulders, long thick arms and large hands. There was a boy's flush of expectation on his face, and the flash of a boy's delight in his eyes. He was willing for adventure.

      "Bill an' me'll take the rodney," Topsail drawled. "I s'pose you might's well fetch the punt, an' we'll send you back with the first haul."

      "Hooray!" cried Billy; and with that he waved his cap and sped back up the hill.

      "Fetch your gaff, lad!" Topsail called after him. "Make haste! There's Joshua Rideout with his sail up. 'Tis time we was off."

      "Looks more'n ever like snow," Bill Watt observed, while they waited. "I'm thinkin' 'twill snow."

      "Oh, maybe 'twon't," said Topsail, optimistic in a lazy way.

      The ice-floe was two miles or more off the coast; thence it stretched to the horizon – a vast, rough, blinding white field, formed of detached fragments. Some of the "pans" were acres in size; others were not big enough to bear the weight of a man; all were floating free, rising and falling with the ground swell.

      The wind was light, the sea quiet, the sky thinly overcast. Had it not been for the threat of heavy weather in the northeast, it would have been an ideal day for the hunt. The punt and the rodney, the latter far in the lead, ran quietly out from the harbour, with their little sails all spread. From the punt Billy Topsail could soon see the small, scattered pack of seals – black dots against the white of the ice.

      When the rodney made the field, the punts of the harbour fleet had disappeared in the winding lanes of open water that led through the floe. Tom Topsail was late. The nearer seals were all marked by the hunters who had already landed. The rodney would have to be taken farther in than the most venturesome hunter had yet dared to go – perilously far into the midst of the shifting pans.

      The risk of sudden wind – the risk that the heavy fragments would "pack" and "nip" the boat – had to be taken if seals were to be killed.

      "We got to go right in, Bill," said Topsail, as he furled the rodney's sails.

      "I s'pose," was Watt's reply, with a backward glance to the northeast. "An' Billy?"

      "'Tis not wise to take un in," Topsail answered, hastily. "We'll have un bide here."

      Billy was hailed, and, to his great disappointment, warned to keep beyond the edge of the floe. Then the rodney shot into the lane, with Topsail and Bill Watt rowing like mad. She was soon lost to sight. Billy shipped his sail and paddled to the edge of the ice, to wait, as patiently as might be, for the reappearance of the rodney.

      Patience soon gave way to impatience, impatience to anxiety, anxiety to great fear for the lives of his father and the mate, for the offshore gale was driving up; the blue-black clouds were already high and rising swiftly.

      At last there came an ominous puff of wind. It swept over the sea from the coast, whipping up little waves in its course – frothy little waves, that hissed. Heavy flakes of snow began to fall. As the wind rose they fell faster, and came driving, swirling with it.

      With the fall of the first flakes the harbour fleet came pell-mell from the floe. Not a man among them but wished himself in a sheltered place. Sails were raised in haste, warnings were shouted; then off went the boats, beating up to harbour with all sail set.

      "Make sail, lad!" old Elisha Bull shouted to Billy, as his punt swung past.

      Billy shook his head. "I'll beat back with father!" he cried.

      "You'll lose yourself!" Elisha screamed, as a last warning, before his punt carried him out of hail.

      But Billy still hung at the edge of the ice. His father had said, "Bide here till we come out," and "bide" there he would.

      He kept watch for the rodney, but no rodney came. Minute after minute flew by. He hesitated. Was it

4

A jigger is a lead fish, about three inches long, which spreads into two large barbed hooks at one end; the other end is attached to about forty fathoms of stout line. Jiggers are used to jerk fish from the water where there is no bait.