TAKING AN INVENTORY.—SETTING UP THE STOVE.

peter was already picking a dead goose, and Regnar and Waring were about to follow his example, when La Salle interposed.

"Let us skin the birds, for it may be that we shall be unable to land for several days, and if so, we shall need all the covering we can get, for this thaw is sure to be followed by a severe frost or two."

"Sposum tide turn, ice lun down to capes, then get ashore," said Peter, confidently.

La Salle drew out his watch.

"It was high tide at four o'clock, and it is now nearly seven. Peter, just climb to the top of the berg, and see how we drift."

Peter dropped his half-picked bird, ascended with eager agility, lined another projection of the floe with some object on the New Brunswick shore, seemed puzzled, looked more carefully, and then slowly descended, apparently sad and disheartened.[Pg 176]

"Well, Peter, how is it?" said La Salle, cheerfully.

"No good; ice lun north-west, against tide; no get ashore to-day," was the reluctant answer.

Regnar seemed little surprised, but Waring turned almost white with anxiety and disappointment.

"I thought as much," said La Salle, quietly. "With such a gale as this, the tide, whose rise and fall does not average four feet on this coast, often seems to run in one direction, and even to remain at flood for a day or two; but even if it did fall, this floe carries sail enough with this wind to make from two to three miles an hour against it. We shall probably have easterly and southerly winds until to-morrow, and must now be well up to Cape Bauld, and about mid-channel, say twelve miles from shore."

"Why not try land, then, with the boat? We four could surely make twelve mile in the course of the day," asked Regnar, somewhat impatiently for him.

"How deep is the snow and slush now, Regnie?" asked the leader of the little party, calmly.

"'Bout knee-deep on level ice," said the boy.

"Come up here, all of you," said La Salle, ascending the lookout.

The three followed, and found themselves scarcely able to stand at times, when a fiercer blast than usual swept up the strait, howling through the tortuous and intricate ravines and valleys of the ice-fields.

"Can we cross such a place as that?" asked La[Pg 177] Salle, pointing to where an edge of a large ice-field, suddenly lifted by the wedge-like brink of another, began a majestic and resistless encroachment, with the incalculable power communicated by the vast weight pressing behind it.

A body of ice, at least a yard in thickness, ran up a steep ascent of five or six feet, broke with its own weight, pressed on again up the steeper incline, broke again, and so continued to ascend and break off until a ridge a score of feet high, crested with glittering fragments of broken ice, interrupted the passage between the two floes.

Regnar was silent, and then said, resolutely,—

"We can try, at least."

"Well said, Regnie," cried La Salle; "but look again yonder." He pointed to a small lead of open water bounded with abrupt shores, which were surrounded with rounded balls and water-worn fragments of ice. A berg, losing its balance, fell with a loud splash, sank, and came to the surface with a bound, covering the water with wet snow and the ruins of the shattered pinnacles. "Can we also pass the heavy drags of the drifted snow, the baffling resistance of floating sludge, and such dangers as that?"

Turning, he descended under the lee of the shelter, where he was soon followed by the rest.

"What spose we do, then?" asked Peter. "We stay this place to die of cold and hunger?"[Pg 178]

"Peter, I'm ashamed of you," said La Salle. "Die, do you say, when we have food, shelter, fire, and covering? We must, indeed, stay here until the winds and sea give us a better chance to escape to the shore. Meanwhile let us try to make ourselves comfortable."

Accordingly the birds—six geese and eight brent—were divested of their skins, which furnished patches of warm covering, of from two to four square feet. The sinews of the legs were divided into threads, and, using a small sail-needle which he carried to clean the tube of his gun, La Salle proceeded to show Waring how to make a large robe, placing the larger skins in the middle, and forming a border of the smaller ones.

Meanwhile Regnar had cleared the snow from a space about twelve feet square in front of the door, and, with fragments of ice, cemented with wet snow, formed a walled enclosure which kept off the wind; and Peter, splitting two or three of the wooden decoys, soon built a fire, over which a pair of geese, spitted on sticks, were narrowly watched and sedulously turned, while La Salle made a cup of his carefully-treasured coffee.

As they sat eating their rude meal, Regnar broke the silence; for it may well be believed that no great hilarity pervaded the little party.

"As we not know how long we may be adrift, I[Pg 179] think we better take 'count stock. See how much wood, provisions, powder, shot, everyting."

"You are right, Regnie; we will set to work at once. I can tell how much food we have now. We have a little bread, coffee, sugar, and a tin of sardines, which I think we had better reserve for possible emergencies, also six candles, which we must not waste. I have a pound canister of powder untouched, and nearly half a pound more in my flask, with about five pounds of shot, and three dozen shot-cartridges of different sizes, say sixty charges in all. Besides that, my rifle lies in the boat, loaded, with a small bag of bullets, and a quarter-pound flask of rifle powder."

"I," said Waring, "have thirty cartridges for my breech-loader, and a few of the caps for them, in a box in my pocket."

"I have nearly a pound powder, some wads, caps, and 'bout two pounds of shot left," said Regnar.

"Spose I got half pound powder in old horn, box caps mos' full, an' tree poun' goose shot," said Peter.

"We have, then, somewhere between one hundred and fifty and two hundred rounds of ammunition, and provisions for a week, allowing ourselves no addition to the present stock. Count the decoys, Regnie, while I look up our tools, &c."

Regnie reported forty wooden decoys, twelve of sheet iron, eight of cork and canvas, and twelve wooden duck decoys. Besides these, there were[Pg 180] still untouched a dozen bunches of fir and spruce twigs, like those used in covering the floor of the ice-hut. In addition to these, La Salle found one large boat, the broken smaller one, a pair of oars, a pair of rowlocks, a short boat-hook, baler, two lead-lines and leads, two shovels, and two axes.

"We are well provided for a week of such weather as this, and have only to fear a sudden change to extreme cold. I therefore think the first thing for us to do, is to finish our feather quilt, enlarge our hut, and get up a stove as soon as possible."

A general expression of incredulity showed itself on the faces of the trio, which La Salle evidently interpreted rightly, and therefore hastened to explain himself.

"Of course we must first make our stove."

"Why, Charley, what on earth can we make our stove of?" said Waring.

"Sheet iron, of course."

"But where is the sheet iron to come from? We haven't any here—have we?"

"Ah, I know twelve decoys sheet-iron, only they painted."

"Yes, Regnie, you have guessed it. Those decoys are about as good sheet iron as is made, and we can burn the pa............