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Mustagan, while fearful of the effects of a powder explosion on the roof, yet resolved to try one. Skillfully throwing some powder in handfuls at the feet of the bears, he said to Sam and to the men: "Get back as far as possible, before I fire this train of powder. Pull your caps over your eyes, and put your heads to the ground."
Mustagan said that he had shot geese flying over the ice where they had fallen with such force that they had broken clean through ice so strong that men could walk over it with safety. "What do you think about it, Sam?" said Alec. "Think about it, do you ask me?" replied Sam. "I have done a deal of thinking about it.
"I killed beaver. Your turn first now," said Mustagan to Alec. "But I fire just after you." Alec had at Mr Ross's suggestion dropped a half dozen big buckshot in the barrel of his gun on the top of the charge of duckshot. The instant the first swan of the long straight line was in range he fired.
Ere he started Mustagan handed him a ball of deerskin twine, and told him to put that into his pocket, as he might need it before he came down again. Taking off his overcoat, and tightly fastening his leather coat around him with his sash belt, Alec gallantly began his difficult task.
Another source of interest to the boys was for Mr Ross to invite in some intelligent old Indian, like Memotas, Big Tom, Mustagan, Kinesasis, or Paulette, to tell some remarkable incident of his life, either as a hunter or traveller.
With these they were to at once smash in a place large enough for Mustagan and Sam to step through. They would each have one of the brightest torches, and so the old man believed that the sleeping animals would crowd from the bewildering light to the other side of the den.
To this suggestion of Big Tom's they all agreed, and immediately after returned to the camp fire, where Mustagan, in his simple yet picturesque way, told the story of his discovery. The poor mother could only say: "Thank God! He will yet restore to me my children." Mr Ross's lips quivered, but crushing down his own fears he said, as he comforted his sorrow-stricken wife: "Yes, thank God!
As Mustagan talked English they were not obliged to have an interpreter, and so enjoyed his company very much, and were always delighted when they could get him talking on his arctic adventures and narrow escapes in polar regions. He was a man with a marvellous history, as he had been employed in no less than five arctic expeditions.
He alone could not haul out the imprisoned man, and the men below could be of little service, as the rope if pulled on would surely get caught in the ragged edge of the rotten tree. It was now that Alec saw the value of Mustagan's forethought in giving him that ball of deerskin twine. Calling up to him Mustagan said: "Hold on to the end of that twine, and let the ball drop to me."
I want a full load, for I intend to run the whole distance on the home stretch." "Twenty miles on ice, with some slipping and falling and managing a lively dog-train, will seem a long journey ere it is ended," said Mustagan, a grand old Indian who that year had charge of the work of bringing home the fish.
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