A BEARER OF TIDINGS.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLIII, Issue 2282, 29 January 1912, Page 2

A BEARER OF TIDINGS.

BY NORMAN DUNCAN. When I was a lad hardship and sudden peril were not unknown to me for I was wilderness-born and wilder-ness-bred. My father, the factor at Fort Red Wing, had not fallen into the habit of coddling me. So when the lost Hudson Bay Geological Expedition made Fort Red Wing in the spring—every man exhausted, indeed, but each maintaining a reassuring grip on life, except the young professor who had broken his leg a month back and had set it with his own hands —it was the most natural thing in the world that m> father should command me to take the news to Little Lake, whence it might be carried from post to post, all the way to the department at Ottawa. " And send the company doctor up," said he. " The little professor's leg is in a bad way, if I know anything about doctoring. So you'll make what haste you can." " Yes, sir," said I, unhesitatingly. " Keep the river until you come to the Great Bend. You can take the trail through the bush from there to Swift Rapids. If the ice is broken at the Rapids, you'll have to go round the mountain. That'll take a good half-day longer ; but don't be rash at the rapids, and keep an eye on the ice all along. The sun will b« rotting it by day now. It looks like a breakup already." " Shall I go alone, sir ?" said i. " No," said my father, no doubt perceiving the wish in the question. " I'll, have John g<\ with you for company." John was an Indian lad of my own age or thereabouts, who had been brought up at the fort—my companion and friend. I doubt if I shall ever find a stauncher one.

With him at my heels and a little packet of letters in my breast pocket I set out early the next day. It was late in March, and the sun, as the day (advanced, grew uncomfortably hot. "Here's easy going !" I cried, when we came to the river. " Bad ice !" John grunted. And it proved to be so —ice which the suns of clear weather had rotted and the frosts of night and cold days had not repaired. Rotten patches alternated with spaces of open water aod of thin ice, which the heavy frost of the night before had formed. When we came near to Great Bend, where we were to take to the woods, it was late in the afternoon, and the day was beginning to turn cold. We sped on even more cautiously, for in that place the current is swift and we knew that the water was running like mad beneath us. I was ahead of John picking the way ; aod I found to my cost, that the was was unsafe. In a venture offshore I rished too much. Of a sudden the ice let me through. It was like a fall feet foremost and when I came again to the possession of my faculties, with the passing of the shock, I found that my arms were beating the edge of the ice, which crumbled ('before them, and that the current was tugging mightily at my legs. ** Look out J" I gasped. The warning was neither heard nor heeded. John wa6 flat on his stomach, worming his way towards me — wriggling slowly on, his eyes glistening. Meanwhile I had rested my arms on the edge, which then crumbled no more ; but I was helpless to save myself, for the current had sucked my legs under the ice, and now held them securely there, sweeping them from side to side, all the while tugging as if to wrench me from my hold. The most I could do was to resist the pull, to grit my teeth and cling to the advantage I had. It was for John to make the rescue. There was an ominous crack from John's direction. When I turned my eyes to look he was lying still. Then I saw him wriggle out of danger, backing away like a crab. " John !" I screamed. The appeal seemed not to move him. He continued to wriggle from me. When he came to solid ice he took to his heels. I caught sight of him as he climbed the bank, and kept my eyes upon him until he disappeared over the crest. He had left me without a word. The water was cold and swift and the strength of my arms and back was wearing out. The current kept tugging and I realised, loth as I was to admit it, that half an hour would find me slipping under the ice. It was a grave mistake to admit it ; for at once fancy began to paint ugly pictures for me, and the probabilities, as it presented them soon flustered me almost beyond recovery. & "I was chest-high out af the water," I told myself. " Chesthigh ! Now my chin is within four inches of the ice. I've lost three inches. I'm lost !" With that I tried to release mj feet from the clutch of the current, to kick myself back to an upright position, to lift myself out. It was all worse than vain. The water was running so swiftly that it dangled my legs as it willed, and the rotten ice, momentarily, threatened to let me through. I lost a full inch of position. So I settled myself to wait for what might come, determined to yield nothing through terror or despair. My eyes were fixed stupidly upon the bend in the river, far down, where a spruce-clothed bluff was melting with the dusk. What with the cold and the drain upon my physical strength, it may be that my mind was a blank when relief came. At any rate, it seemed to have been an infinitely long time in coming ; and it was with a shock that John's words restored me to a vivid consciousness of my situation. ••Catch hold !" said he. ...He had crawled near me, although I had not known of his approach, and he was thrusting toward ' me the end of a long pole, which he had cut in the bush. It was lone, but not long enough. i

I reached for it, and my hand came within three feet of grasping it. John grunted and crept nearer. Still it was beyond me, and he dared venture no further. He withdrew the pole ; then he crept back and unfastened bis belt, working deliberately but swiftly he bound the belt to the end of the pole and came out again. He cast the belt within reach, as a fisherman casts a line. I caught it, clutched it, and was hauled from my predicament by main strength. " John," I said, as we drew near to the halfway cabin, " I know your blood, and it's all very well to be careful not to say too much ; but there's, such a thing as, saying too little. Whj didn't you tell me where you were going when you started for that pole ?" "Huh !" said John, as if his faithfulness to me in every fortune were quite beyond suspicion. "Yes, I know," I insisted ; "but a word or two would have saved me a deal of uneasiness." "Huh !" said he. We passed the night at the eabin, where a roaring Are warmed me and dried my clothes. My packed of letters was safe and dry, so 1 slept in peace, and we were both as chirpy as swallows when we set out next morning. It was a clear, still day, with the sun falling warmly upon us. Our way now lead through the bush for mile after mile—little hills and stony ground and swamp-land. By noon we were wet to the knees ; but this circumstance was then too insignificant for remark, although later it gave me the narrowest chance that ever came within my experience. We made Swift Rapids late in the afternoon, when the sun was low, and a frosty wind was freezing the pools by the way. The post at Little Lake lay not more than three miles beyond the foot of the Rapids, and when the swish and roar of waters first fell upon our ears we halloed most joyfully, for it seemed to us that we had come within reaching distance of our destination. " No," said John, when we stood on the shore of the river. " I think we can," said I. " No," he repeated. The rapids were clear of ice which had broken from the quiet water above the verge of the descent, and now lay heaped up from shore to shore, where the current subsided at the foot. The water was almost turbulent —swirling, shooting, foaming over great boulders. It went rushing between two high cliffs, foaming to the very feet of them, where not an inch of bank was showing. At the first glance it was no thoroughfare, but the only alternative was to go round the mountain, as my father had said, and I had no fancy to lengthen my journey by' four hours, so I searched the shore carefully for a passage. The face of the cliff was such that we could make our way one hundred yards- down stream.' It was just beyond that point that the difficulty lay. The rock jutted into the river, and rose nhcor from it ; neither foothold nor handhold was offered. But beyond, as I knew, it would be easy enough to clamber along the cliff, which was shelving and broken, and so at last come to the trail again. " There's the trouble, John," said I pointing to the jutting rock. "If we can get round that we can get the rest of the way without difficulty." " No go," said John. " Come." He jerked his head towards the bush, but I was not so easily persuaded, " We'll go down and look at that place," I replied. " There may be a way." There was a way—a clear easy way requiring no more than a bit of nerve to pass it, and I congratulated myself upon persißtlng*to its discovery. The path was by a stout ledge of ice, adhering to the cliff aud projecting out from it for about eighteen inches. The river had fallen. This ledge had been formed when it was at its highest, and when the water had subsided the ice had been left sticking to the rock. The edge was like a rim of ice that adheres to a tub when a bucketful of freezing water has been taken out. I clambered down to it, sounded it, and found it solid. Moreover, it seemed to lead all the way round, broadening and narrowing as it went but wide enough in every part. I was surefooted and unafraid, so at once I determined to essay the passage. " I am going to try it !" I called to John who was clinging to the cliff some yards behind and above me. " Don't follow until I call you." " Look out !" said he. "Oh, it's all right," I said confidentaliy. I turned my back to the rock and moved out, stepping sideways. It was not difficult until I came to a point where the cliff is overhanging—it may be a space of twelve feet or less ; then I had to stoop, and the awkward position made my situation precarious in the extreme, for the rock seemed all the while bent on thrusting me off. " A fall would be the end of me," I thought, " but I shall not fall." Pall I did, however, and that suddenly, just, after I had rounded the point, and was hidden from John's sight. The cold of the late afternoon had frozen my boots stiff ; they had been soaked in the swamp-lands, and the water was now all turned to ice. My soles were slippery and my feet were awkwardly managed. I slipped. My feet shot out from under me. A flash of terror went through me. Then I found myself lying on my hip on the edge of the shelf, with my feet dangling over the rapids, my shoulder pressing the cliff, my hands fiat on the ice, and my arms sustaining nearly the whole weight of my body. At that instant I heard a thud and a splash, as of something striking the water, and turning my eyes I perceived that a section of the snowledge had fallen from the cliff. It was not large, but it was between

John and me, and the space effectualI 5 shut him off from my assistance. My problem was to get to my again. But how ? The Grst effort persuaded me that it was impossible. My shoulder was against the cliff. When I attempted to raise myself to a seat on the ledge, I succeeded only in pressing my shoulder more firmly against the rock. Wriggle as I would, the wall behind me llept me where I was. I could not gain an inch. I needed no more, for that would have relieved my arms by throwing more of my weight upon my hips. I was in the position of a boy trying to draw himself to a position on on a window sail, with the difference that my heels were of no use to me, for they were dangling in space. My arms were faet tiring out. The inch I needed for relief was past gaining, and it seemed to me then that in a moment my arms would fail me, ami I should slip off into the river. “ Better go now,” I thought, '"before my arms are altogether worn out. I’ll need them for swimming.” But a glance down the river assured me that my chance in the rapids would be of the smallest. Not only was the water swift and turbulent, but it ran against the harrier of ice at the loot of the rapids, and it was evident that it would suck me under once it got me there. Nor was there any hope in John’s presence. I had told him to stay where he was until I called ; and to be sure in that spot would he stay. I might call now. But to what purpose ? He could do nothing to help me. He would come to the gap in the ledge, and from there peep sympathetically at me. Indeed, he might reach a pole to me, as he had done on the day before ; hat my hands were fully occupied, and I could not grasp it. 80 I put John out of my mind —for even in the experience of the previous day I had not yet learned my lesson —and I determined to follow the only course which lay open to me, desperate though it was. ** I’ll turn on my stomach,” I thought, “ and try to get to my knees on the ledge.” I accomplished the turn, but in tbe act I so nearly lost my hold that I lost my nead, and there was a gasping lapse of time before I recovered my calm. In this change I gained nothing. When I tried to get to my knees I butted my head against the overhanging rock ; nor could I lilt my foot to the ice, and roll over on my side, for the ledge was far too narnow for that. I had altered my position, but I had accomplished no change in my situation. If was impossible for me to rest more of my weight upon my breast than my hips had borne. My weakening arms had still to sustain it, and the river was going its swirling way below me, just as it had gone in the beginning. I had not helped myself at all. There was nothing for it, 1 thought, but to commit myself to the river and make as gallant a fight for life as I could. So at last I called John, that he might carry our tidings to their destination, and. return to Fort Red Wing with news of a sadly different kind. " Ho !" said John. He was staring round the point ol the rock ; and there he stood, unable to get nearer. “ Ice under,” said he, indicating a point below me, “ More ice. Let down.” " What 7” I cried. ” Where 7” ” More ice. Down there,” said he. Then I understood him. Another ledge such as that upon which I hung, had been formed in the same way, and was adhering to the rock beneath. No doubt there was a pool on the lower side of the point, and lust below me, and the current would and the upper ledge had hidden the ice. I had looked down from above, be no obstacle to the’ formation of lower one from me ; but John, standing by the gap in the upper, could see it plainly. So I had to let myself down until ray feet rested on the new ledge, and this I did, with extreme caution and the expenditure of the last ounce of strength in my arms. Then a glance assured me that the way was clear to the shelving cliff beyond. ” You go,” said ’John. ” I go round.” “ All right,” said I. " And, say, I wish I’d called you before.” ” Ho !” said he, as he vanished. When John reached the Little Lake post late that night, the tidings of the safe return of the Hudson Bay Geological Expedition were on the way south by another messenger, and the company’s physician was moving over the trail towards Fort Red Wing, making haste to the aid of the young professor, whom, indeed, he soon brought back to health. The passage by the ledge of ice had resulted in a gain of three hours, tint whether or not it saved the professor’s life Ido not know. Ido not think it did. It nearly cost me mine, hut I had no thought of that when I essayed it, so my experience reflects no credit upon me whatever. I take fewer rash and reckless chances now on land and water, and I am not so overreliant upon my own resources. I have learned that a friend's help is of value.— •* The Budget.”