The Incredible Journey

The Hunters are now on a ship journeying up the St. Lawrence River in Quebec toward Montreal. They are filled with sweet anticipation at the prospect of returning to their home. Each family member is most tenderly anticipating their joyful reunion with the animal that rightly belongs to each. Elizabeth eagerly awaits her reunion with Tao, whom she hopes has not forgotten her, and for whom she has purchased a new red collar. Peter does not doubt that Bodger will give him the warmest welcome upon his arrival, while their father cannot wait to take Luath out on a hunting expedition as soon as possible.

Situated a thousand miles westbound from the ship that carries the Hunters, John Longridge finds himself stymied in misery and confusion. Together, he and Mrs. Oakes have pieced together the mystery of the animals’ absence.

When Mrs. Oakes eventually informed him of the animals’ absence from his cabin in the woods, Longridge thought back to Luath’s peculiar and uncharacteristic gesture of offering his paw and a steady gaze when he last saw him, and surmised that he has led his companions on a journey back to their home. Deeply aggrieved, Mrs. Oakes chides that there is not even a remote possibility that the elder Bodger has made it more than a few miles before succumbing to the harsh wilderness. According to her calculation, Tao is the only one who had any hope of surviving. Together, they put the word out about the lost animals, and some of the stories of the humans who encountered them make their way back to them—most notably that of Helvi’s encounter with Tao. They also hear that a slightly batty old man named Jeremy Aubyn recently entertained a few guests in his cabin, whom he described as “delightful people”—but this story is dismissed as the probable appearance not of the three animals, but of indigenous people or prospectors.

The animals remain lost to Longridge and Oakes, and Longridge dreads informing his friends of this fact. He regrets offering to house them at all, feeling that they would undoubtedly be safe and sound now had he not done so. As he and Mrs. Oakes study a map in order to look at the hundreds-miles-long route that the animals must have taken towards the Hunter family home, as well as the treacherous Ironmouth Mountain Range, they conclude that the animals must have perished.

At night, Longridge reminisces about Bodger taking up unwelcome residence in his bed on his last night with the animals. He thinks miserably to himself, “Tonight...I’d give him the whole bed! I’d even sleep in the basket myself—if only he would come back!” (135). 

Through many phone calls and determined petitioning of community members near and far, Longridge and Hunter have been able to collect the tales of various sightings of their beloved animal trio. Through these accounts, they have pieced together the trail that the animals took: “They had taken an almost perfect compass course due west and the line he had drawn on the map had been remarkably accurate” (138).

The man whose collie Bodger attacked was an ill-tempered farmer who recounted his tale of the dog via telephone call to the Hunters from Joe Wood’s General Store in Philipville. The man’s disdain for the spirited Bodger brought the first smile to Peter’s face regarding the ordeal of the lost animals. Helvi Nurmi has been reached by telephone in order to give a tearful account of her time with Tao.

Peter is convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that his beloved Bodger is dead. In contrast, Elizabeth is firmly convinced that her dear Tao will make it back to her. She is the only one among the humans who know and love the trio with this conviction.

Longridge has come to visit the Hunters—“partly to get away from the depressing telephone calls from well-meaning but ill-informed people, and partly because it [is] Peter’s twelfth birthday the following Sunday” (140). He and the Hunters have consequently embarked on a camping trip to the Hunters’ summer cottage located on Lake Windigo. “At first there had been some qualms from Elizabeth about leaving the house in case Tao should choose that week end to return, but Longridge showed her that Lake Windigo lay on the direct westward route that he had traced on the map, and reminded her that Tao knew the surrounding area for miles from his many expeditions with the dogs” (140). This convinced Elizabeth to go on the trip in good spirits, and she has packed the new red collar she bought for Tao in her bag for good measure. Longridge fears that the girl’s optimism will soon be proven wrong.

Upon the party’s arrival at the summer cottage, Peter busies himself with his new camera. Elizabeth whiles her time away in the treehouse she and her brother constructed during their last visit.

On the last afternoon of their trip, which is the Sunday that is Peter’s birthday, everyone goes on a last forest jaunt. They plan to take Allen Lake Trail up a hill to Lookout Point, and then to return to the lake.

As they set out, each individual is quiet as they ruminate on their own private thoughts. Jim reminisces about the many walks he has taken through the forest with Luath by his side, and thinks mournfully that “a walk without a dog [lacks] savor” (141). He feels a deep twinge of grief while recalling Mackenzie’s account of his beloved Luath, loyally towing the felled mallard to shore with his inflamed jaw.

Peter, for his part, gets lost in a reverie as he recalls this time last year—“when he had tried to train Bodger as a gun dog by throwing a stuffed leather glove into the bush after firing a BB gun: the willing co-operation and eager retrieves the first day; then, increasingly limp-tailed boredom and sulky ears, followed by deepening deafness, limping paws, and an unbearable air of martyrdom; and terminated two days running so subtly, by Bodger’s appearance out of the bush with a diligent, puzzled expression—but no leather glove” (142). Peter smiles to himself when he recalls that Bodger cleverly had begun burying not only the first stuffed glove, but also the second one—in a bid to end the training. He then sighs with a feeling of deep bereavement.

The Hunters and Longridge enjoy a long afternoon in the gorgeously calm and majestic wilderness. Then, suddenly, Elizabeth hears a dog barking. She excitedly tells the others as she becomes sure that the dog is Luath. Her father and mother are quick to tell her that she is imagining it, until Peter also begins to hear it. The entire party hushes in electric anticipation. And then, “hurtling through the bushes on the high hillside of the trail a small, black-tipped wheaten body [leaps] the last six feet down with careless grace and [lands] softly at their feet. The unearthly, discordant wail of a welcoming Siamese [rents] the air” (144).

Elizabeth encloses Tao in a joyful embrace, and the equally joyous Tao wraps his paws about her neck. Then, when Luath, too, comes bounding into view and reunites with the children’s profoundly joyous father, Longridge must avert his gaze and pretend to loosen Tao’s paws in order to stop himself from openly crying.

There is much raucous celebration as all of the humans welcome the prancing animals home. Then, a silence falls as all turn their eyes toward Peter. Peter, clearly still sad, plays off his disappointment and tells the others that, while he is glad Luath and Tao have returned, he is going to head back to the Lookout to see if he can catch a good snapshot of a whisky-jack. He obliges Longridge, who volunteers to accompany him.

The man and boy walk on in silence until it is eventually time to return. Then, “down the trail, out of the darkness of the bush and into the light of the slanting bars of sunlight, joggling along with his peculiar nautical roll, came—Ch. Boroughcastle Brigadier of Doune” (147). It’s Bodger. Peter runs as he never has before in order to receive his old friend. “John Longridge [turns] away, then, and [leaves] them, an indistinguishable tangle of boy and dog, in a world of their own making. He [starts] down the trail as in a dream, his eyes unseeing” (147). Halfway down the trail, Tao zooms past him. He has returned in order to end his journey in the company of his old friend.