THE GRAND FLIGHT.--A GOOD STRATAGEM.--THE PACKET LIGHT.
At sunrise the next morning, the sportsmen hurried through their frugal
meal, and hastened to their various "ice-houses;" for a great change had
taken place in the weather, which, although the rain had ceased and the
sky had cleared somewhat, was still mild and spring-like. Even as they
lit their cigars at the door, they heard far up the cove the calls of
the wild geese, and a scattering volley which told that the Indians had
been early at their posts. Above the others arose two heavy reports,
which Davies declared could come from no other gun than Peter's
newly-acquired double-barrel.
With hastened steps the East Bar party took the ice, La Salle drawing
behind him a long "taboggin," or Indian sled, consisting merely of a
long, wide, half-inch board, turned up at one end, and forming, in fact,
a single broad runner, which cannot upset, and will bear a heavy load
over the lightest snow without sinking too deeply. On it were placed,
besides his own gun and that of Kennedy, a heavy target rifle, a large
lunch-box, and an ample bucket containing ammunition.
"You mean to 'lay them out' to-day, I guess, Charley," said Creamer,
good-humoredly. "You ain't apt to want ammunition, any way."
"What will you take for to-day's bag, cash down?" asked Ben, laughing.
"Here are our decoys," said La Salle, pointing to several dark objects
partially imbedded in the ice, but marking an almost perfect straight
line from the boat to the inner shore of the island.
"We had a rather narrow escape," remarked Kennedy, picking up one of the
decoys; "and it was well thought of to secure a retreat to our boat, in
case we had failed to reach the shore."
Little time, however, was lost in conversation. The "boat" and "box"
were to be cleared of the snow which had drifted inside, and concealed
by fragments of ice, in place of those which the rain had melted away.
The decoys were to be rearranged, heading to windward, and at least half
an hour was consumed in making these necessary arrangements. At last all
was ready, the guns, ammunition, &c., were placed in the boat, and La
Salle had gone to hide the sledge behind a neighboring hummock, when,
turning his head, he saw Davies and Creamer running hastily to their
box, and Kennedy frantically gesticulating and calling on him to do the
same.
With the best speed he could make on such slippery footing, La Salle
crossed the intervening space, and threw himself down into the boat,
panting and breathless with exertion. After a moment's breathing space,
he slowly raised his head so that his eyes could just see over the edge
of the shooting-boat. To the east he heard the decoy-calls of Creamer
and Davies, and, somewhere between himself and them, the low,
questioning calls of the wished-for geese.
"They are near us somewhere, Kennedy," he whispered, "and, I guess,
coming in to our decoys. Don't fire until I tell you. Here they come.
No, they sheer off. Yes, there's one scaling down; there's another.
They're all coming. We've got them now."
The goose is far from being the silly fowl which popular belief supposes
him to be, even when tamed and subdued, and, in a state of nature, is
one of the most wary of birds. The flock in question, flying in from the
narrow, open channels of the Gulf, had seen the decoys, and heard the
calls of Ben and Creamer, who had not yet completed their preparations.
Swooping around the box at a safe distance, the wary leader decided that
all was not right there, and swung over the leading decoys of La Salle,
and doubtless wondering at the apathy of the strange geese which refused
to answer his calls, gave a signal which caused his flock to describe a
circle around the boat, full forty rods away. Still nothing could be
seen which could warrant a well-founded suspicion; and one or two of the
younger birds, impatient of restraint, and anxious for rest and food,
set their broad pinions, and, with outstretched wings, scaled down to
the decoys, alighting on the ice not twenty feet from the muzzles of the
concealed guns. Their apparent safety decided the rest, and in twenty
seconds as many geese, with clamorous cries, were hovering over the
heads of La Salle and his companions.
It takes a quick eye, steady hand, and good judgment, to kill a
partridge in November, when, with a rush of wings like an embryo
whirlwind, he gets up under your feet, and brushes the dew from the
underbrush with his whizzing wings. It is not every amateur that can
kill woodcock in close cover, or well-grown snipe on a windy day; but
there are few, who can do these things, who can kill with both barrels
in their first goose-shooting. The size and number of the birds, the
wary and cautious manner of their approach, the nice modulations
necessary to "call" them successfully, and the reckless sweep with which
they seem to throw aside all fear, and rush into the very jaws of
death,--all these combine to unsettle the nerves and aim of the novice.
All this Kennedy experienced, as he saw above him twenty outstretched
necks, with jetty heads, whose eyes he felt _must_ discern the ambush;
twenty snowy bellies, against which as many pairs of black, broad,
webbed feet showed with beautiful effect, and forty broad pinions, which
seemed to shut out the sky from view, and present a mark which no one
could fail to hit. At the word he pointed his heavy gun at the centre of
the thickest part of the flock and fired. At the first barrel a dead
bird fell almost into the boat; but the second seemed without effect. La
Salle "lined" four as they flapped their huge wings hurriedly, striving
to flee from the hidden danger, killing three and breaking the wing of a
fourth, who fluttered down to the ice, and began to run, or, rather, to
waddle rapidly away.
Kennedy seemed about to go after the wounded bird, but La Salle laid his
hand on his arm.
"Don't move, Kennedy, and he will get us another bird," said he,
reloading his heavy gun with a long-range shot cartridge. "We can get
that bird any time; and there is his mate flying round and round in a
circle."
"You won't get a shot at her," said Kennedy, as she warily kept out of
ordinary range, and finally alighted near the gander, which, weak with
pain and loss of blood, had lain down on the ice about one hundred and
fifty yards distant.
"I should not despair of killing her with 'the Baby,' charged as she now
is, even at a far greater distance; but I have a surer weapon for such a
mark in this target-rifle."
As he spoke, he drew from under the half-deck of the boat a heavy
sporting-rifle, carrying about sixty balls to the pound, and sighted
with "globe" or "peep" sights. Taking a polished gauge which hung at his
watch-chain, he set the rear sight, and, cocking the piece, set the
hair-trigger. Noiselessly raising the muzzle above the gunwale, he ran
his eye along the sights. A whip-like crack echoed across the ice, and
the goose, pierced through the lower part of the neck, fell dead by the
side of her wounded mate, which, frightened by the report, hastened to
increase the distance between him and such a dangerous neighborhood.
"I'll save you a half-mile run, Kennedy," said La Salle, raising "the
Baby" to his face.
The wounded bird suddenly paused, drew himself up to his full height,
and spread his wings, or rather his uninjured pinion. The huge gun
roared. The closely-packed _mitraille_ tore the icy crust into powder,
fifty yards beyond the doomed bird, which settled, throbbing with a
mortal tremor, upon the ice, shot through the head.
"That was a splendid shot of yours, La Salle," said Kennedy, in
amazement.
"You are wrong in that statement, Kennedy," replied he. "The shot any
one could have made, but the reach of that gun, with Eley's cartridge,
is something tremendous. When I first had her I fired at a flock at
about four hundred yards distance. Of course I killed none, but I paced
three hundred and twenty-five yards, and found clean-cut scores, four
and five inches long, in the crust, at that distance; and I have more
than once killed brant geese out of a flock at forty rods."
"Look, Charley! What a sight!" interrupted Kennedy. The sky had cleared,
the sun shone brightly, the wind had gone down, and the strange
stillness of a calm winter's day was unbroken. From the west high above
the reach of the heaviest gun, and almost beyond the carry of the rifle,
came the long-expected vanguard of the migrating hosts of heaven. Flock
upon flock, each in the wedge-shaped phalanx of two converging lines,
which ever characterize the flight of these birds, each headed by a
wary, powerful leader, whose clarion call came shrill and clear down
through the still ether, came in one common line of flight, hundreds and
thousands of geese. All that afternoon their passage was incessant, but
no open pool offered rest and food to that weary host, and in that fine,
still atmosphere it was useless to attempt to deceive by crude
imitations of the calls of these birds. And so, as the leaders of the
migratory host saw from their lofty altitude the earth below, for many a
league, spread out like a map, from which to choose a halting-place, the
marksmen of the icy levels had little but the interest of the unusual
spectacle for their afternoon's watching. Now and then, in answer to
their repeated calls, a single goose would detach itself from the flock
and scale down through the air, as if to alight, but nearly always would
repent in time, and with quickened pinions return to its companions.
Still, occasionally, one would determine to alight, and setting its
wings, circle around one of the stands, and finally be seen, by the
occupants of other ice-houses, to sweep close in to the concealed
ambush. Then would follow a puff or two of smoke, a few distant reports,
and the dead bird, held up in triumph, would convey to his distant
friends the sportsman's fortune.
Several birds fell in this way to the lot of our friends of the East
Bar, and La Salle and Kennedy got one each; but the sport was too
tedious, and La Salle, taking a bullet-bag and powder-flask from his
box, proceeded to count out ten bullets, which he laid carefully before
him.
"I am going to try to bring down at least one goose from those flocks
which pass over us nearly every moment. They are certainly four hundred
yards high, and I shall aim at the leader of the flock in every case,
giving him about ten feet allowance for headway."
The first ball was without effect, although the leader swerved like a
frightened steed as the deadly missile sung past him. The second cut a
feather from the tail of the bird aimed at; and the third failed
likewise. At the fourth shot the leader swerved as before, and then kept
on his way.
"You might as well try to kill them a mile off, as at that distance,"
said Kennedy, disparagingly.
"I hit a bird in that flock, and I think the leader, at that; for I
heard the rap of the ball as it struck. It may have been only through
his quill-feathers. No; there's the bird I hit. See, he can't keep up
with the flock."
The huge gander last fired at had hardly gone a hundred yards, ere,
despite his endeavors, he had lowered several feet below the flock. In
the next decade, the distance was increased to sixty feet, and in the
third to as many yards. In the last hundred yards of his flight he sank
rapidly, although struggling nobly to regain the flock; and when about
fifty yards above the ice, he towered up a few feet into the air, and
fell over backward, stone dead, with a rifle-shot transfixing his body,
in the region of the heart. On weighing him he turned the scale at
fifteen pounds.
Of the remaining six shots but one was effective--breaking the wing-tip
of a young female, which was secured for a live decoy.
Kennedy now proposed a plan for approaching a large flock, which had
alighted about a half mile distant on the sea-ice. Taking the taboggin,
which was painted white, from its concealment, he tied to its curved
front a thin slab of snowy ice, and laying his gun behind it, approached
the flock as near as possible, under cover of the hummocks. About three
hundred yards of level ice still intervened, and lying down behind his
snow-screen, he slowly moved his ingenious stalking-horse towards the
flock. Had he understood the nature of the birds thoroughly, it is
probable that his device would have succeeded splendidly; but when he
was still about a hundred yards distant, the wary leader became
suspicious, and gave a note of alarm. In an instant the whole flock,
with outstretched necks, stood prepared for flight. Had he lain still,
it is probable that the birds would have relaxed their suspicious
watchfulness, and allowed him to get nearer; but thinking that he should
lose all if he tried a nearer approach, he fired, killing one and
wounding another, both of which were secured.
Just before dark a slight wind sprang up, and a few flocks, flying low
about the harbor, came in among the decoys, and for a time the fire was
quite heavy, and the sport most exciting. Taken all round, this day was
the best of the season. Ben and Creamer received fifteen, La Salle and
Kennedy twelve, and Davies and Risk eighteen birds--in all, forty-five
geese. On arriving home they found a hearty supper awaiting their
attention, after a due observance had been paid to the rites of the
toilet. This observance seemed to demand much more time than ever
before, to the great amusement of Lund, who had anticipated as much all
day.
"Are all you folks going sparkin', that you are so careful of your
complexions? Goodness! why, you've more pomatums, oils, and soaps than
any court beauty!"
There was some truth in this latter charge, for Ben and Creamer, after
washing and a very gingerly use of the towel, anointed their flaming
visages with almond oil. Kennedy, in his turn, approached the only
mirror the house afforded, and applied to his blistered nose and
excoriated cheeks the major part of a box of Holloway's Ointment; and
even La Salle's dark face seemed to have acquired its share of burning
from the ice-reflected rays of the sun. Davies and Risk, when called to
supper, smelled strongly of rose-scented cold-cream; and Lund was
unsparing in sarcastic remarks on the extreme floridness of complexion
of the entire party.
"Ben, don't have any powder lying round loose to-morrow, with such a
face as that. As for Creamer, he can't have any cotton sheets to-night,
for fear of a conflagration. I don't think I ever saw anybody burn as
bad as Kennedy has; and this is only the first day, too. A few days more
like this would peel him down to an 'atomy. As to La Salle, he's too
black to take any more color, but Risk and Davies won't dare to go home
for a good two weeks at least."
In truth, the whole party had received a notable tanning, for the
winter's sun, weak as it is compared with its summer fervor, has never
such an effect upon the exposed skin, as when its rays are reflected
from the millions of tiny specula of the glistening ice-field. The free
use of soothing and cooling ointments will prevent the blistering and
tan, to a great extent; but many on their "first hunt" lose the cuticle
from the entire face; and many a seal has been lost on the floes, owing
to the rapid decomposition produced by the sun's feeble rays thus
intensified.
Notwithstanding their "tanning", however, the party were in splendid
spirits, and ate their roast goose, potatoes, and hot bread with a gusto
which far more delicate viands at home would fail to provoke. As the
meal proceeded, and the merry jest went round, all feelings of fatigue,
pain, and discomfort were lost in the revulsion of comfort which a full
meal produces in a man of thoroughly healthy physique. How few of us in
the crowded cities know, or indeed can appreciate, the pleasures of the
hardy sportsman. To bear wet, cold, and discomfort; to exercise
patience, skill, and endurance; and to undergo the extreme point of
fatigue, was the sum of nearly every day's experience of the members of
the party; but when their heavy guns and cumbrous clothing were laid
aside, the rough chair and cushionless settle afforded luxurious rest,
the craving appetite made their coarse fare a delightsome feast, and
when, warm, full-fed, and refreshed, they invoked the dreamy solace of
the deity Nicotiana, the sense of animal pleasure and satisfaction was
complete.
"Is your pipe filled, Creamer?" asked Lund, carelessly.
"Yes; but you'll not get it until you give us the story you're to tell
us this night. Faith, there's not one of us can beat you at the same
trade, and it's little of fact that you'll give us, any how."
"For shame, Hughie, to malign the credibility of an old friend in that
way, and me the father of a family. I'm almost ready to swear that you
shan't have a yarn from me for the whole spring. To accuse me of
yarning--me that--"
"That humbugged the whole Associated Press of the United States no
longer ago than the war with the southerns. I mind myself how you told
them at Shediac, that the Alabama was down among the fishermen in the
bay, like a hawk among a flock of pigeons. Faith, you had twenty of them
taken and burned before you stopped that time, and the telegraph
operator at Point de Chêne was hopping all the evening between the boat
and the office, like a pea in a hot skillet," retorted La Salle,
laughing. "Ah, Lund! you mustn't plead innocent with us, who have been
humbugged by you too many times already. But come, captain, draw on your
imagination, and give us a regular stunner--one without a word of truth
in it."
"Well, gentlemen," answered Lund, deliberately, "I ain't got anything to
say to that young jackanapes, for nobody _that_ ever heard _him_ tell
stories will ever believe anything he says again. But I mean to have my
revenge somehow, and so I'll tell you a story that is as true as
gospel, and yet you'll hardly believe a word of it. We who live here on
this little island call it the story of
"THE PACKET LIGHT.
"About thirty years ago, my wife's father, old Mr. Bridges, lived in a
snug little log house down in the next field, towards the Point. He was
a young man then, and my wife here was a little girl, unable to do more
than to drive home the cows, or help mind the younger children. The
island is uncivilized enough now, sir, but in those days, besides the
old French military road to St. Peter's, and a government mail route to
St. Eleanor's, there was nothing but bridle-paths and rough trails
through the woods. Men came to market with horses in straw harnesses,
dragging carts with block-wheels sawn from the butt of a big pine; and
often when twenty or thirty of them were drinking into old Katty
Frazer's, the beasts would get hungry, and eat each other loose.
"It was next to an impossibility to get any money in exchange for
produce or labor, and everything was paid for in orders on the different
dealers for so many shillings' or pounds' worth of goods. In winter a
whale-boat on runners carried the mail between the Wood Islands and
Pictou, and in summer a small schooner, called the Packet, sailed with
the mail, and what few passengers presented themselves, between the
capital and the same port.
"It was in the last of November that year that the Packet made her last
cruise. The weather was freezing cold, with a thick sky, and heavy
squalls from the south of west, when she struck on the East Bar, near
the main channel. They put down the helm, thinking to slide off; but she
only swung broadside to the waves, and as the tide was at ebb, she was
soon hard and fast, with the sea making a clean breach over her.
"Captain Coffin, with the four other men, got into the rigging with a
flag of some kind, which they fastened at half mast, as a signal of
distress. It was about midday when they ran on the bar, and Bridges saw
them, and realized their danger at once; and their cries for help at
times rose above the roar of the ravenous seas. With the help of his
wife he launched a light boat, but long before he got into the sweep of
the heavier breakers, he saw that she could never live on the bar, and
it was with great difficulty that he regained the shore. At nightfall,
although the hull was badly shattered, no one had perished, and the tide
had so far abated that the party could easily have waded ashore; and
Captain Coffin and another man, after vainly attempting to induce the
other three to accompany them, started themselves.
"The others charged them with cowardice in leaving the vessel, said that
the wind would go down, and they could get the craft off at flood-tide,
and so prevailed over the better judgment of the captain and his
companion that they returned to the fated vessel, and prepared, as well
as possible, for the returning tide.
"As the tide rose, the sea came with little, if any, diminution of fury;
and until nearly midnight Bridges watched the signal lantern, which
called in vain for the aid which it was not in the power of man to
bestow. Intense cold was added to the other horrors of their situation,
and the heavy seas came each hour in lessened fury, as the water
thickened into 'sludge.' At eleven o'clock the tide was at its height;
the seas had ceased to sweep across the hogged and sunken hull, and a
sheet of thin ice reached from the shore to the vessel's side. Captain
Coffin tried the ice, and, finding that it would bear his weight,
decided to try to reach the Blockhouse Light, which shone brightly three
miles away.
"He summoned the others; but two of the others, who had persuaded him to
remain on board, were already frozen to death; the third decided to make
the attempt, but walked feebly and with uncertain steps, and about a
mile from the vessel succumbed to the piercing cold, falling into that
fatal sleep from which few ever waken, in this life at least. Coffin's
companion, a strong, hardy sailor, reached the light-house alive, but
swooned away, and could not be resuscitated; and Coffin barely escaped
with his life. He was terribly frost-bitten, but was thawed out in a
puncheon of cold water, the right foot, however, dropping off at the
ankle; but he escaped with life, after terrible suffering.
"The schooner sank, in the spring, at the edge of the channel, when the
moving ice forced her into deeper water; and at very low tides her
battered hull may still be seen by the passing boatman. But ever since
that fatal night, whenever a storm from that quarter is threatened, a
ball of fire is seen to emerge from the depths where lies the fated
packet, and to sway and swing above the water, as the signal lantern did
on the swaying mast of that doomed vessel. Then, if you but watch
patiently, the ball is seen to expand into a sheet of crimson light,
terribly and weirdly beautiful, until the eye can discern the shadowy
outline of a ship, or rather schooner, of fire, with hull and masts,
stays and sails; and then the apparition again assumes the shape of a
ball, which is lost in the sea.
"At times it appears twice or thrice in the same night, and often the
herring-fisher, after setting his nets along the bar, sees behind his
boat, as he nears the shore, the apparition of the 'packet light.' Since
that night of wreck and death, no dweller on this island has passed a
year without seeing it, and it is so common that its appearance awakens
no fear; and among the fishers of Point Prime, and the farmers of the
opposite shores, there are few who will not bear witness to the truth of
my story."
* * * * *
"It is a little singular," said Risk, "that a ship is the only
inanimate object ever seen as an individual apparition. There are not
many of these ghostly ships on the seas, however. I do not remember to
have heard of more than one--that of the celebrated 'Flying Dutchman,'
off the Cape of Good Hope."
"It's no wonder, sir," said Lund, warmly, "that sailors suppose ships to
be haunted, and also to be capable of becoming ghosts themselves, when
you sit down and think how differently every one views a vessel, as
compared with a house, or store, or engine. Why, there are no two ships
alike, and two were never built just alike. There are lucky and unlucky
ships, and ships that almost steer themselves, while others need a whole
watch at the tiller in a dead calm. But I think that you are mistaken as
to the 'Flying Dutchman' being the only other 'flyer,' as the sailors
call them, for they are often seen in the Pacific, in the 'Trades.'"
"I can't swear to the truth of Mr. Lund's story, but I can affirm that
the 'fire ship' is a myth, universally recognized among the sea-going
population of our coast, from the Florida Keys to the mouth of the St.
Lawrence. Off the coral reefs, the crime-accursed slaver or pirate
haunts the scene of her terrible deeds. Amid the breakers of Block
Island, the ship wrecked, a generation ago, by the cruel avarice of men
long since dead, still revisits the fatal spot when the storm is again
on the eve of breaking forth in resistless fury. The waters of Boston
harbor, two centuries ago, presented to the wondering eyes of 'divers
sober and godly' persons, apparitions similar to those narrated by our
veracious friend, the captain. The lumberers of the St. John tell, with
bated breath, of an antique French caravel, which sails up the Carleton
Falls, where no mortal vessel or steamer can follow. And the farmers and
fishermen of Chester Bay still see the weird, unearthly beacon which
marks the spot where the privateer Teaser, chased by an overwhelming
English fleet, was hurled heavenward by the desperate act of one of her
officers, who had broken his parole. As for the Gulf, the myth exists in
a half dozen diverse forms, and all equally well authenticated by
hundreds of eye-witnesses, if you can believe the narrators."
"Well, La Salle, I see you don't put much more faith in my story than in
the thing I saw the night you came here. Now, I hope it won't be so, for
it is borne in my mind, and I can't get over it, that I shall see some
of you vanish into mist, as I saw those men. So, gentlemen, be very
careful, for I fear that some of us are very near their fate."
* * * * *
There is a cord of fear in every man's heart which throbs more or less
responsively to the relation of the wonders of that "debatable land,"
which, by some, is believed to lie "on the boundaries of another world."
La Salle felt impressed in spite of himself, and the whole party seemed
grave and unwilling to pursue the subject. The silence was, however,
broken by Kennedy.
"I am going home to-morrow," said he, "and therefore am not likely to be
one of the unfortunates over whom a mysterious but melancholy fate
impends. I have never found in the Tribune anything calculated to
encourage a belief in ghosts of men, or vessels either; and what Horace
Greeley can't swallow I can't. But I shall make minutes of this little
matter, and if anything does happen, will forward a full account, in
detail, to that truly great man. Come, La Salle; it's time we were abed.
Good night, gentlemen."
[Illustration]