Read Online Lost in the Barrens by Farley Mowat - Free Book Online Page B

died abruptly at the time of the accident. Until this moment he had deliberately ignored the massive stone ruin which had once been his goal, and which now lay close at hand.
    Now he looked at it, looming mysteriously above him, and thought, “I came here to see you, and got in a mess doing it. I might as well take a good look while I’m here!”
    Resolutely he limped to the crest of the ridge and stood staring at the ruins.
    Whatever the structure had once been, it was now hardly more than a rough rectangle of rocks about fifteen feet square and ten feet high. Jamie was sure that no Eskimo or Indian would have constructed anything so massive and so regular in outline; but he was also sure that no white man had come this way before. “Funny,” he thought as he hobbled closer, “it looks like a fort or a watchtower without any doors or windows.”
    He began to poke about among the moss-grown rocks at the base. Arctic hares had been using the crevices between the stones as hiding places, and as Jamie fumbled among the rocks one of the big hares leaped out almost at his feet and fled like a gray ghost. Jamie got to his feet and circled the building looking for an opening. But he found none. The whole thing seemed to be one solid mass of masonry.Jamie began to think it was only a huge cairn, or monument, and not a building at all.
    He went back to the place where the hare had jumped out and here he found a deep crevice in the rocks. He peered in, and what he saw made his heart beat faster.
    The crevice led into a cave, and in the semidarkness Jamie saw the vague outline of something that was certainly not stone. He lowered himself to his knees and squeezed his head and shoulders through the opening.
    His body blocked out the light but his outstretched hands touched something cold and rough. He gripped it, and backed out of the hole dragging the object with him.
    As the sunlight fell upon it Jamie’s eyes grew wide with wonder, for in his hand he held a sword! And what a sword it was. Four feet in length, it had a double-edged blade and a two-handed hilt. It was the sort of weapon that only a giant of a man could have handled. The blade was deeply pitted and rusted and on the hilt were broad rings of gold, turned greenish by centuries of weather.
    Fascinated, Jamie hefted the heavy weapon, then he laid it down and crawled back into the hole. Again his hands touched something and he scrambled out, bringing with him a bowlike helmet of some metal that had resisted the attacks of rust. Two hornlike studs were fastened to the sides of the helmet.
    Jamie had seen pictures of such a helmet as this in his schoolbooks, and he recognized it at once.
    â€œThis is the kind of helmet Eric the Red and Leif theLucky wore!” he whispered. “And that means—that the ancient Vikings must have built this place!”
    Unable to contain his excitement, Jamie hobbled to the edge of the hill and began calling for Awasin.
    Down by the riverbank the Indian boy heard the cries, and the ever-present fear of Eskimos returned. Grabbing the three trout he had caught, he raced full tilt up the long slope to the camp.
    Jamie was not there! He dropped the fish and grabbed the rifle, then a scuffling noise from the crest above him made him turn.
    Awasin was levelheaded, but this time he almost panicked. A huge, horned head, dull green in color, peered over the summit of the hill, and an unseen hand brandished a mighty weapon such as Awasin had never seen before in all his life. He raised the rifle with shaking hands and was on the point of firing blindly at the apparition. His finger tightened convulsively on the trigger.
    Fortunately in that instant the spell was broken. Jamie caught his foot between two rocks, and fell. The helmet rolled away revealing his shock of blond hair and the sunburned face.
    â€œHey!” he yelled. “Help me up, you dope. And watch where you point that gun!”
    A few minutes later