FLOAT-SHOOTING.--A GENERAL FIELD-DAY.--CHANGES OF THE ICE.
The next morning, the boats, which were all provided with runners, were
drawn to the bar, and Carlo's sled carried, besides the lunch and
ammunition of the party, a dozen wooden duck decoys, weighted and roped,
for open water.
Davies and Creamer gave up their box and outfit to one-armed Peter, as
they were about to try their new paddle-boat. She was duly launched, and
Ben placed himself forward, between the paddle-boxes, ready to do the
steering and shooting, while Creamer acted as the motive power,
transmitted by a belt and pulleys. Although somewhat high out of water,
she moved off easily, and made little noise when running slowly; and
taking the first of the ebb, the pair moved eastward into the opening
ice.
George and Ben Lund, in their new-fashioned centre-wheel, made poorer
progress, but hurried out "to get ahead of the skimmin'-dish," as they
styled La Salle's light, shallow craft. He let them go, and stationing
George and Regnar in the ice-boat, put out his floating decoys in the
nearest waters, and, cutting slabs of ice, built a high wall around his
own boat, which he drew up on the ice. Carlo incontinently plunged into
the straw under the half-deck of the larger boat, and soon all was ready
for the expected birds.
Meanwhile, upon the stranded berg which lay immovable off the southern
face of the island, gathered the new comers, whose Bacchanal approach
has of late been chronicled. Had they had any outfit of decoys, and
known how to use them, they could not but have had good sport; and even
as it was, so many birds passed and repassed them, that a good shot
could not have failed to secure at least a few ducks. But, however
unfortunate in securing any trophies, they failed not in the weight or
constancy of their fire.
Not a flock passed within a quarter of a mile but received a volley; not
a loon that showed his distant head above water but went down under the
fire of a platoon; and not a frightened duck darted overhead but heard
the air behind him torn with whistling shot enough to have exterminated
his whole tribe.
From time to time a lull in the storm would occur, and then peals of
laughter would come across the intervening waters; and looking up, the
irritated sportsmen generally beheld a tableau of inverted
pocket-flasks, and feats of strength with a rapidly lightening ale-keg.
But, although our friends bore the proximity of these city gunners with
great patience for a while, an event soon occurred which brought matters
to a focus.
A flock of geese were seen approaching from the eastward, and La Salle,
cautioning the boys, crouched down in his boat and "called." Peter
followed suit, and so did the party on the bergs. The flock swung within
a hundred yards of Peter, who held his fire, and then, seeing the
floating decoys, swung round to leeward of them, and setting their
wings, scaled slowly in, passing within about two hundred and fifty
yards of the party on the berg.
Of course they opened fire at once, with shot of all sorts and sizes,
doing no execution but sending a bullet from one of their guns straight
over the heads of La Salle and his friends. A flock or two of ducks and
brent made similar attempts to alight, but every shot was spoiled in the
same way.
La Salle was indignant, and the boys were at a white heat, when, without
any birds being between them, the report of a heavily charged gun was
heard, and a few heavy shot struck the ice near the boats, while the
drunken crowd yelled in triumph as the water, by its ripples, showed the
great distance attained by the shot.
"I'll shoot, too, the next chance, and so may you, boys. Elevate well,
and fire when the birds are between us and the berg," said La Salle.
It was not long before three geese attempted to scale in as the others
had done, and were fired at as before, the bullet this time striking the
water in line of the boat, and whistling a few feet above it. The birds,
somewhat frightened, got within a hundred yards before swinging off, and
all three discharged their large shot simultaneously. A single goose
fell with a broken wing, and Carlo, springing out of the boat, plunged
into the water. Charley watched the effect of his shot on the party on
the berg. One stood just then in bold relief against the distant
horizon, displaying the broader part of his physique to view while
taking an observation with a brandy-bottle. Suddenly a faint yell was
heard, the bottle dropped on the berg, the hands that had held it
frantically clutched at the coat-tails of the victim, and an agonized
_pas seul_ told that the "Baby" had well avenged the wrongs of her
owner.
Half an hour later, the party had evacuated their position, bag and
baggage, "carrying their wounded," who, from the stern-sheets of their
boat, shook his fist in savage pantomime at the innocent La Salle and
his amused companions. Some weeks later he learned that a single large
shot had, without piercing the cloth, raised a contusion about the size
of a pigeon's egg, on muscles whose comfort, for a fortnight after,
emphatically tabooed the use of chairs, and made a feather bed an
indispensable adjunct to repose.
After a long chase Carlo secured his bird, and swimming to the nearest
shore, ran around the edge of the ice, in a way which showed his
appreciation of the difference between running, and swimming against a
five-knot tide. Securing the bird, he was allowed to shake himself, and
was then called into the boat, from which a good lookout was kept, as
there now existed some chance for good management and skilful shooting.
The first victims were a flock of black ducks, which with the usual
readiness to decoy of these birds, had flown in and lit among the decoys
before La Salle could warn his boys, who had their backs turned at the
time. They managed, however, to hear him, and poured in a sharp volley,
killing four in the water, while La Salle picked a brace out on the
wing.
Regnar, who had a breech-loader, got ready in time to kill a brace of
Moniac duck out of a flock which swept past uttering their singularly
desolate call of "Ouac-a-wee, ouac-a-wee!" and by the time these birds
were retrieved, several faint reports to the eastward were heard, and a
vast cloud of geese of both kinds rose just above the floating ice, and
swept up towards the bar. Most of these settled down among the floes;
but one large flock of brent swept over Peter, in answer to his almost
perfect calling. The leaders of the flock were in the very act of
alighting when he fired, and a dozen, at least, lay dead when the white
smoke of his volley cleared away.
"I must have one turn with my float," said La Salle, after the three had
taken lunch and had their share of a pint of hot, strong coffee
prepared in the Crimean lantern. "The tide will soon turn, and I shall
work out into the ice and come up with it. You, boys, must look out for
the flying birds, and take in the floating decoys before they are
crushed or lost."
Launching the light boat, he fitted his rowlocks, and with a light pair
of sculls rowed for an hour out into the Gulf, taking care to keep well
to the eastward. At the end of that time he unshipped his sculls, took
in his rowlocks, fitted his sculling-oar into its muffled aperture, and
getting himself comfortably settled, grasped his oar with his left hand,
and with his eyes just peering over the gunwale, let the light boat
drift with the returning tide, and its fantastic burden of water-worn
congelations.
He had not floated two hundred yards, before a change of the ice
revealed a small flock of seven geese, quietly feeding along the border
of a low piece of field ice. Cocking his gun and laying it ready to
hand, La Salle drifted nearer and nearer, keeping barely enough headway
to steer her, bow on. The gander, a noble bird, suddenly raised his head
to gaze at the advancing boat. All the rest instantly raised theirs
ready for immediate flight. The anxious sportsman lay motionless,
ceasing the play of his scull, and the birds, gradually relaxing their
necks, turned and swam rapidly away.
Still, La Salle tried not to pursue, and the gander, finding that the
boat did not get any nearer, stopped, looked, started, stopped, and
went to feeding again, followed in all things, of course, by his
companions. Then the delicate oar began its noiseless sweep, and
gradually the sharp prow crept nearer, passing, one by one, sluggish
floes and fantastic pinnacles, until again the wary leader raised his
head as if in perplexity and doubt. There, to be sure, was the bit of
ice he had taken fright at before, nearer than ever; but it floated as
harmlessly as the cake just beside it, from whose edges he had gleaned
rootlets of young and tender eel-grass not half an hour ago. So the poor
overmatched bird doubtless argued; and ashamed of his fears, which were
but too well founded, and doubtful of his instincts, which he should
have trusted, the gander turned again to the little eddy of sea-wrack
amid which, with soft guttural love-calls, he summoned his harem to many
a dainty morsel.
Triumphantly shone the deadly eye which glittered beneath the snowy cap;
noiselessly swung the ashen oar, and as unerringly set as Destiny, and
remorseless as Death, the knife-like bow slid through the black waters.
One hundred, ninety, eighty, seventy, fifty, forty yards only, divide
the doomed birds from the boat, and the white gunwale is hidden from
their view by the interposition of the very floe along whose edge they
are feeding. Steadily La Salle drives the prow gently against the ice,
then drops his oar, and grasps his heavy gun. He hazards a glance: the
birds, scarce thirty yards away, are unsuspectingly feeding in a close
body; he rises to a sitting posture, raises his gun, and whistles
shrilly and long. Instantly the birds raise their heads, gathering
around their leader. Bang! The thunder-roll of the report, reverberating
amid the ice, is the death-sentence of the flock. Not one escaped; the
distance was too short, the aim too sure, the charge of _mitraille_ too
close and heavy.
[Illustration]
A flying shot at a flock of eider duck added a male, with snowy crest,
and three plump, brown females; and a successful approach to a small
flock of brent made up fifteen birds under the half-deck of the little
craft. It was almost dark when, with little time to spare, La Salle came
flying through the fast-coming ice, and dashed across the narrow lane of
water, between the immovable covering of the bar, and the advancing,
tide-borne ice-islands.
The boys had just drawn in their decoys, and loaded their sled with the
birds taken from the boat, besides three geese and a brent, which they
had shot during his absence. The other boats had already landed, and
been drawn in far up on the ice. Regnar did not know if the centre-wheel
had got anything, but Davies and Creamer had four geese, five brent, and
a black duck. Peter had gone home with a sled-load of fowl, and, in
short, the day had been generally satisfactory all round.
That night, however, all were tired, wet, and half blind with the
ceaseless glare of the each-day-warmer sun; nor did any care to spend in
listening to idle tales, the hours which might better be given to sleep.
Such, for more than a week longer, was their experience, varied only by
a few brief frosts, during which, however, the hot coffee made in their
lantern-stove was unanimously voted "just the thing."
"Snow-blindness" set in, and Ben had once or twice to leave the ice;
while George Waring experienced several attacks, and had a linen cloth
full of pulverized clay--the best application known--kept in the boat
for emergencies.
By the middle of the next week, a narrow channel had opened up to the
city; and Creamer and Davies, piling their decoys beside their deserted
box, and leaving Lund to haul them to the shelter of his woods, took the
first flood, and paddled briskly homeward, leaving Indian Peter and La
Salle in the latter's stand; while Regnar, who had become a proficient
with the small boat, struck out for the broken ice lying to the east.
"Good by, Charley; when shall I tell them to expect you?" said Ben, as
he started his wheels, and the boat, heavily laden with fowl, moved
northward.
"O, at the end of the week, at farthest. Much obliged to you for taking
those birds. I'll have a load Saturday. Good by."
"Good by," said Hughie and Ben, once more; and then they bent to their
task, churning into foam the rippleless surface, which bore them on its
swift but unnoticeable tide towards home, leaving behind their comrade,
his savage companion, and their boyish associates, to experience
adventures without parallel in all the strange hunting-lore of those
northern seas.