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Updated: June 24, 2025
Abel, and the lost happiness in the cabin which was his home; and of Skipper Ed and Jimmy, and of the old days that were now gone forever, when he and Jimmy had played together with never a thought of the terrible fate that awaited them; and of the adventure on the cliff, and the hundred other scrapes into which they had got and from which they had somehow always escaped unharmed; and even of the lonely grave on Itigailit Island, and the cairn of stones he had built upon it.
Though he could not have defined this impression or put his thoughts into words, he felt much as one would feel who had heard a dead man speak. He pushed his skiff a few yards away and, resting upon his oars, viewed the derelict from a respectful distance. His impulse was to row back to Itigailit Island at once and leave the boat and its ghastly, silent skipper to the mercies of the sea.
Each summer Abel and Mrs. Abel returned to their old fishing place on Itigailit Island, and of course Bobby went with them, and did his share in jigging cod; and each summer Skipper Ed and Jimmy went to Skipper Ed's old fishing place the place where he had found his forlorn little partner that stormy autumn day, when they had sealed their bargain with a handshake.
Abel, and provided for their comfort until in the fullness of years they went to their final rest; and how Edward erected a stone on Itigailit Island to his father's memory. But already our story has grown too long. We may be sure in the busy years that followed, Bobby and Jimmy never forgot the cabins at Abel's Bay, nor the cozy hours in the easy chairs before the big box stove.
Bobby and Jimmy were as glad, now, to return to the snug cabins as they had been to set out for Itigailit Island in the summer, and as they looked back over the few short weeks, the July day when they had their adventure with the bear seemed to them a long, long while ago.
And so Abel Zachariah, being a man of caution, held aloof from the boat which he had so eagerly set out to salvage; and sitting engrossed in contemplation, he in his skiff and the dead man in the derelict drifted for a while side by side toward Itigailit Island. And thus he was sitting silent and inactive when suddenly he was startled by the cry of a child in distress.
They put all the energy they could muster into their effort, but the paddles were very short and very narrow, and work as they would they presently discovered that tide and wind were mastering them, and instead of progressing toward Itigailit Island they were drifting seaward. "We can't make it!" said Jimmy at last. "No," agreed Bobby.
"What, sir!" exclaimed Jimmy, "are we as far south as that?" "Aye," said the captain, "we're just t' th' s'uth'ard o' Skipper Ed's fishin' place. An' weren't you comin' from there when you goes adrift?" "No, sir," explained Jimmy. "Partner and I are down at Itigailit Island with Abel Zachariah this year, and we went adrift from there." "An' there we goes, then!" said the captain.
The tarpaulin was remodeled into a second sail, and, one blustery morning, with their tent and all their belongings stowed into the boat, and the dogs in the skiff, which was in tow, they set sail for Abel's Bay, and left Itigailit Island and the lonely grave to the Arctic blasts that would presently sweep down upon it from the icy seas; and late on the following afternoon they reached the cabin which for many years was to be Bobby's home.
"We'll have to go back to the berg and wait for them to come for us." But even that they could not accomplish. Work as they would, the paddles proved hopelessly inefficient, and after an hour's desperate effort they realized that they were nearly as far to seaward from the iceberg as the iceberg was from Itigailit Island. "Well," said Bobby, at length, "we're in for it, and a fine fix it is."
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