CHAPTER VIII.
FLOAT-SHOOTING.--A GENERAL FIELD-DAY.--CHANGES OF THE ICE.
The next morning, the boats, which were all provided with runners, weredrawn to the bar, and Carlo's sled carried, besides the lunch andammunition 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, asthey were about to try their new paddle-boat. She was duly launched, andBen placed himself forward, between the paddle-boxes, ready to do thesteering 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; andtaking the first of the ebb, the pair moved eastward into the openingice.
George and Ben Lund, in their new-fashioned centre-wheel, made poorerprogress, but hurried out "to get ahead of the skimmin'-dish," as theystyled La Salle's light, shallow craft. He let them go, and stationingGeorge and Regnar in the ice-boat, put out his floating decoys in thenearest waters, and, cutting slabs of ice, built a high wall around hisown boat, which he drew up on the ice. Carlo incontinently plunged intothe straw under the half-deck of the larger boat, and soon all was readyfor the expected birds.
Meanwhile, upon the stranded berg which lay immovable off the southernface of the island, gathered the new comers, whose Bacchanal approachhas of late been chronicled. Had they had any outfit of decoys, andknown how to use them, they could not but have had good sport; and evenas it was, so many birds passed and repassed them, that a good shotcould not have failed to secure at least a few ducks. But, howeverunfortunate in securing any trophies, they failed not in the weight orconstancy of their fire.
Not a flock passed within a quarter of a mile but received a volley; nota loon that showed his distant head above water but went down under thefire of a platoon; and not a frightened duck darted overhead but heardthe air behind him torn with whistling shot enough to have exterminatedhis whole tribe.
From time to time a lull in the storm would occur, and then peals oflaughter would come across the intervening waters; and looking up, theirritated sportsmen generally beheld a tableau of invertedpocket-flasks, and feats of strength with a rapidly lightening ale-keg.But, although our friends bore the proximity of these city gunners withgreat patience for a while, an event soon occurred which brought mattersto 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." Peterfollowed suit, and so did the party on the bergs. The flock swung withina hundred yards of Peter, who held his fire, and then, seeing thefloating decoys, swung round to leeward of them, and setting theirwings, scaled slowly in, passing within about two hundred and fiftyyards 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 straightover the heads of La Salle and his friends. A flock or two of ducks andbrent made similar attempts to alight, but every shot was spoiled in thesame way.
La Salle was indignant, and the boys were at a white heat, when, withoutany birds being between them, the report of a heavily charged gun washeard, and a few heavy shot struck the ice near the boats, while thedrunken crowd yelled in triumph as the water, by its ripples, showed thegreat 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 othershad done, and were fired at as before, the bullet this time striking thewater in line of the boat, and whistling a few feet above it. The birds,somewhat frightened, got within a hundred yards before swinging off, andall three discharged their large shot simultaneously. A single goosefell with a broken wing, and Carlo, springing out of the boat, plungedinto the water. Charley watched the effect of his shot on the party onthe berg. One stood just then in bold relief against the distanthorizon, displaying the broader part of his physique to view whiletaking an observation with a brandy-bottle. Suddenly a faint yell washeard, the bottle dropped on the berg, the hands that had held itfrantically clutched at the coat-tails of the victim, and an agonized_pas seul_ told that the "Baby" had well avenged the wrongs of herowner.
Half an hour later, the party had evacuated their position, bag andbaggage, "carrying their wounded," who, from the stern-sheets of theirboat, shook his fist in savage pantomime at the innocent La Salle andhis amused companions. Some weeks later he learned that a single largeshot had, without piercing the cloth, raised a contusion about the sizeof a pigeon's egg, on muscles whose comfort, for a fortnight after,emphatically tabooed the use of chairs, and made a feather bed anindispensable adjunct to repose.
After a long chase Carlo secured his bird, and swimming to the nearestshore, ran around the edge of the ice, in a way which showed hisappreciation of the difference between running, and swimming against afive-knot tide. Securing the bird, he was allowed to shake himself, andwas then called into the boat, from which a good lookout was kept, asthere now existed some chance for good management and skilful shooting.
The first victims were a flock of black ducks, which with the usualreadiness to decoy of these birds, had flown in and lit among the decoysbefore La Salle could warn his boys, who had their backs turned at thetime. 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 thewing.
Regnar, who had a breech-loader, got ready in time to kill a brace ofMoniac duck out of a flock which swept past uttering their singularlydesolate call of "Ouac-a-wee, ouac-a-wee!" and by the time these birdswere retrieved, several faint reports to the eastward were heard, and avast cloud of geese of both kinds rose just above the floating ice, andswept 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 almostperfect calling. The leaders of the flock were in the very act ofalighting when he fired, and a dozen, at least, lay dead when the whitesmoke of his volley cleared away.
"I must have one turn with my float," said La Salle, after the three hadtaken lunch and had their share of a pint of hot, strong coffeeprepared in the Crimean lantern. "The tide will soon turn, and I shallwork out into the ice and come up with it. You, boys, must look out forthe flying birds, and take in the floating decoys before they arecrushed or lost."
Launching the light boat, he fitted his rowlocks, and with a light pairof sculls rowed for an hour out into the Gulf, taking care to keep wellto the eastward. At the end of that time he unshipped his sculls, tookin his rowlocks, fitted his sculling-oar into its muffled aperture, andgetting himself comfortably settled, grasped his oar with his left hand,and with his eyes just peering over the gunwale, let the light boatdrift with the returning tide, and its fantastic burden of water-worncongelations.
He had not floated two hundred yards, before a change of the icerevealed a small flock of seven geese, quietly feeding along the borderof a low piece of field ice. Cocking his gun and laying it ready tohand, La Salle drifted nearer and nearer, keeping barely enough headwayto steer her, bow on. The gander, a noble bird, suddenly raised his headto gaze at the advancing boat. All the rest instantly raised theirsready for immediate flight. The anxious sportsman lay motionless,ceasing the play of his scull, and the birds, gradually relaxing theirnecks, turned and swam rapidly away.
Still, La Salle tried not to pursue, and the gander, finding that theboat did not get any nearer, stopped, looked, started, stopped, andwent to feeding again, followed in all things, of course, by hiscompanions. Then the delicate oar began its noiseless sweep, andgradually the sharp prow crept nearer, passing, one by one, sluggishfloes and fantastic pinnacles, until again the wary leader raised hishead as if in perplexity and doubt. There, to be sure, was the bit ofice he had taken fright at before, nearer than ever; but it floated asharmlessly as the cake just beside it, from whose edges
he had gleanedrootlets of young and tender eel-grass not half an hour ago. So the poorovermatched bird doubtless argued; and ashamed of his fears, which werebut too well founded, and doubtful of his instincts, which he shouldhave trusted, the gander turned again to the little eddy of sea-wrackamid which, with soft guttural love-calls, he summoned his harem to manya dainty morsel.
Triumphantly shone the deadly eye which glittered beneath the snowy cap;noiselessly swung the ashen oar, and as unerringly set as Destiny, andremorseless as Death, the knife-like bow slid through the black waters.One hundred, ninety, eighty, seventy, fifty, forty yards only, dividethe doomed birds from the boat, and the white gunwale is hidden fromtheir view by the interposition of the very floe along whose edge theyare feeding. Steadily La Salle drives the prow gently against the ice,then drops his oar, and grasps his heavy gun. He hazards a glance: thebirds, scarce thirty yards away, are unsuspectingly feeding in a closebody; he rises to a sitting posture, raises his gun, and whistlesshrilly and long. Instantly the birds raise their heads, gatheringaround their leader. Bang! The thunder-roll of the report, reverberatingamid the ice, is the death-sentence of the flock. Not one escaped; thedistance was too short, the aim too sure, the charge of _mitraille_ tooclose and heavy.
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 smallflock of brent made up fifteen birds under the half-deck of the littlecraft. It was almost dark when, with little time to spare, La Salle cameflying through the fast-coming ice, and dashed across the narrow lane ofwater, 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 thebirds taken from the boat, besides three geese and a brent, which theyhad shot during his absence. The other boats had already landed, andbeen drawn in far up on the ice. Regnar did not know if the centre-wheelhad got anything, but Davies and Creamer had four geese, five brent, anda black duck. Peter had gone home with a sled-load of fowl, and, inshort, the day had been generally satisfactory all round.
That night, however, all were tired, wet, and half blind with theceaseless glare of the each-day-warmer sun; nor did any care to spend inlistening to idle tales, the hours which might better be given to sleep.Such, for more than a week longer, was their experience, varied only bya few brief frosts, during which, however, the hot coffee made in theirlantern-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 clothfull of pulverized clay--the best application known--kept in the boatfor emergencies.
By the middle of the next week, a narrow channel had opened up to thecity; and Creamer and Davies, piling their decoys beside their desertedbox, and leaving Lund to haul them to the shelter of his woods, took thefirst flood, and paddled briskly homeward, leaving Indian Peter and LaSalle in the latter's stand; while Regnar, who had become a proficientwith 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, ashe started his wheels, and the boat, heavily laden with fowl, movednorthward.
"O, at the end of the week, at farthest. Much obliged to you for takingthose birds. I'll have a load Saturday. Good by."
"Good by," said Hughie and Ben, once more; and then they bent to theirtask, churning into foam the rippleless surface, which bore them on itsswift but unnoticeable tide towards home, leaving behind their comrade,his savage companion, and their boyish associates, to experienceadventures without parallel in all the strange hunting-lore of thosenorthern seas.