Excerpt
On a foggy morning of early July in the year 1890, the Labrador mail boat, northward bound from St. Johns, felt her way cautiously into the mist-enveloped harbour of Fort Pelican and to her anchorage.
For six days the little steamer had been buffeted by wind and ice and fog, and when at last her engines ceased to throb and she lay at rest in harbour, Allen Shadrach Trowbridge of Boston, her only passenger, felt hugely relieved, for the voyage had been a most unpleasant one, and here he was to disembark.
In June, Allen Shadrach Trowbridge--or "Shad" Trowbridge as the fellows called him, and as we shall call him--had completed his freshman year in college. When college closed he set sail at once for Labrador, where he was to spend his summer holiday canoeing and fishing in the wilderness.
This was the first extended journey Shad Trowbridge had ever made quite alone. For many months he had been planning and preparing for it, and he promised himself it was to be an eventful experience.
He was standing now at the rail, as the ship anchored, peering eagerly through the mist at the group of low, whitewashed buildings which composed Fort Pelican post of the Hudson's Bay Company, and at the dim outline of dark forest behind--a clean-cut, square-shouldered, athletic young fellow, who carried his head with the air of one possessing a fair share of self-esteem and self-reliance, and whose square jaw suggested wilfulness if not determination.
The rugged surroundings thrilled him with promise of adventure. The historic post of the old fur traders, the boundless, mysterious forest, and the romantic life of the trappers and dusky tribes which it sheltered, were pregnant with interest. But his wildest dreams could not have foretold the part Shad Trowbridge was destined to play in this primordial land and life before he should bid farewell to its bleak coast.
"A rough-looking country," remarked the steward, joining Shad at the rail.
"It's glorious!" exclaimed Shad enthusiastically. "A real frontier! And back there is a real wilderness! Just the sort of wilderness I've dreamed about getting into all my life."
"The deck of the mail boat's about as near as I want to get to it," said the steward with a deprecatory shrug. "It's a land o' hard knocks and short grub. You'd better leave it to the livyeres and Indians, young man, and go back to God's country with the ship."
"No, thank you," said Shad. "I'm going to have a rattling good summer hunting and fishing here before I see the ship again."
"When we come on our next voyage, a fortnight from now, you'll be standing out there on the dock looking for us, and mighty glad to see us," laughed the steward. "You'll have all you want of The Labrador by then. Shall I put your things ashore?"
"Yes, if you please--all but the canoe. I'll paddle that over, if you'll send a man to help me launch it."
"Pooh!" thought Shad, as the steward left him. "'Hard knocks and short grub'! Of course there would be some hard knocks, but he expected that, for he was going to rough it! But with the woods full of game and fish there'd be plenty to eat! He didn't expect any Pullman-car jaunt; he could have had that at home. What kind of a fellow did the steward take him for, anyway?"A half-dozen natives on the boat wharf watched Shad curiously as he paddled to a low stretch of beach adjoining the wharf, and two of them strolled down to inspect his canoe when he lifted it out of the water and turned it upon its side at a safe distance above the lapping waves....