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Troop One of the Labrador

Chapter 3 'TIS THE GHOST OF LONG JOHN

Word Count: 2277    |    Released on: 30/11/2017

he tide to help them, worked the big boat down through The Jug and past the Point into Eskimo Bay. In the shelter of The

ere stowed, the rudder shipped, and with David at the tiller Doctor Joe lighted his pipe and settl

ing hills far to the northward. The huge black back of a grampus rose a hundred feet from the boat and with a noise like the loud exhaust of steam sank again beneath the surface of the Bay. Now and again a seal raised its head and looked curiously at the travellers and

y're comin' up south now. We'll have a hunt when we gets home. T

y Andy e

! I can tie every

un too!"

!" broke in Doctor Joe. "Suppose we

lieved David at the tiller that he might try his hand at them; David not only tied all the knots illustrated in the h

ed as he laid the rope down. "'Tis strange

m, so in doing it you haven't learned anything new. Let us make up our minds as scouts to learn something new every day-something we never knew before, no matter how sma

ppose we begin with the scout law. With your good memories you'll learn it before we go ashore to-night. I want you to learn the twelve

ld them that "A Scout is kind" meant that they must not only be kind to people, b

stop us huntin' seals and deer an

ts and pigs for food in the country I came from and to get skins for boots and gloves. In the same way we are permitted to kill game when necessary. But we're not to kill anything that's harmless unless we need it for some purpose. The Indians and other people about here shoot at loons for sport. I'v

ed, "but I'll never shoot at a loon again. 'Tis the same with gulls an

husiastically. "Now what do you think

?" asked David. "We always eats u

ridges in summer. They always have broods of little partridges then. If you kill the mother all

. "'Tis wicked to kill un! I'll never kill

bout that!" declared Andy. "Nobody has ever thou

l you be showing kindness to the mother and little partridges, but if the mother is permitted to live and raise her brood, all the

s lighted in the stove and a cosy lunch of fried pork and bread, and hot tea sweetened with molasses, was eaten with an appetite and relish such as only th

the west when David, indicat

's good water there and '

mp there," Doc

, as the boat approached the

fat porcupine was discovered high up in a spruc

for supper?" And

's have un for supper.

unfortunate porcupine tumbling to the ground, and Andy

unced. "We'll get wood for the fire, David, and

e. The ridge rope was quickly stretched between the trees and the tent securely pegged down. Then David and Jamie broke a quantity of low-hanging spruce boughs, which they s

as done by placing the butt end of the bough firmly against the ground with half the bough, the convex side uppermost, overlapping the bough above it, as shingles are lapped on a roof. Th

or the evening, and when, presently, David and Jamie joined them, a cheerful fi

liberal portion, and Andy poured tea, David put fresh wood upon the fire, for the evening had grown cold and frosty with the setti

. "You knows how to cook

l fine stew!"

uch to do with it as I, and the porcupine had a good de

od. Beyond the narrow circle of light a black wall rises, and behind the wall lies the wilderness with its unfathomed mysteries. Out in the darkness wild creatures move, silent, stealthy and u

their home. Here they found rest and comfort and protection from the savage wild beasts that roamed the forests. It was a place of veneration. The primitive instinct, perchance inherited from those far-off ancestors of ours, slumbering in our s

canny light of the Aurora Borealis flashed up in the north, its long, weird fingers of changing colours movi

ple of waves upon the shore, each busy with

er see a gh

e else ever saw one except in imagin

, pointing toward the darkness beyond the fire

dge and Uncle Billy and plenty of folks. They says the ghost of Long John, the old Injun that

g John's ghost myself one evenin'. I weren

Labradormen that ghosts of men who have been drowned or killed return

d up his hand for silence, a

closely followed by the boys, stepped down beyond the fire glow. In dim outline they could see the silho

ong John!" breathed

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