Adrift in the Ice-Fields | Page 5

the ice at six o'clock, after a cup of hot coffee
and a lunch of sandwiches. Here's luck all round, gentlemen."
The toasts were drank by the three elderly men, and re-echoed by the
younger ones, who chose not to avail themselves of the proffered
stimulant, and then all sought repose in their allotted quarters. Fifteen
minutes later the house was in utter darkness and silence, through
which the varied breathings of sixteen adults and children would have
given ample opportunities for comparison to any waking auditor, had
such there been; but no one kept awake, and to all intents and purposes
"silence reigned supreme."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
BUILDING THE ICE-HOUSES.--MATTHEW COLLINS'S GHOST.
At daybreak the gunners arose, and without disturbing the members of
the family, took some strong, hot coffee, prepared by the indefatigable
Creamer, and ate a breakfast, or rather lunch, of cold meats and bread
and butter, after which all proceeded to don their shooting costume,
which, being unlike that worn in any other sport, is worthy of
description here.
In ice-shooting, every color but pure white is totally inadmissible; for
the faintest shade of any other color shows black and prominent against

the spotless background of glittering ice-field and snow-covered cliffs.
Risk and his partner wore over their ordinary clothing long frocks of
white flannel, with white "havelocks" over their seal-skin caps, and
their gray, homespun pants were covered to the knee by seal-skin
Esquimaux boots--the best of all water-proof walking-gear for cold
weather. Risk carried the single ducking-piece before mentioned, but
Davies had a Blissett breech-loading double-barrel. They had chosen
their location to the north of the island, near a channel usually opening
early in the season, but now covered with ice that would have borne the
weight of an elephant. With much banter as to who should count first
blood, the party separated at the door; the younger Davies and Creamer,
with Kennedy and La Salle, plunging into the drifted fields to the
eastward, and in Indian file, trampling a track to be daily used
henceforward, until the snows should disappear forever. The two
former relied on over-frocks of strong cotton, and a kind of white
night-caps, while La Salle wore a heavy shooting-coat of white
mole-skin, seal-skin boots reaching to the knee, and armed with
"crampets," or small iron spikes, to prevent slipping, while a white
cover slipped over his Astrachan cap, completed his outre costume.
Kennedy, however, outshone all others in the strangeness of his
shooting apparel. Huge "arctics" were strapped on his feet, from which
seemed to spring, as from massive roots, his small, thin form, clad in a
scanty robe de chambre of cotton flannel, surmounted by a broad
sou'wester, carefully covered by a voluminous white pocket
handkerchief. The general effect was that of a gigantic mushroom
carrying a heavy gun, and wearing a huge pair of blue goggles.
La Salle alone of the four carried a huge single gun of number six
gauge, and carrying a quarter of a pound of heavy shot to tremendous
distances. The others used heavy muzzle-loading double-barrels. A
brisk walk of fifteen minutes brought them to the extremity of the
island, and from a low promontory they saw before them the Bay, and
the East Bar, the scene of their future labors.
Below them the Bar, marked by a low ridge, rising above the level of
the lower shallows,--for the tide was at ebb,--trended away nearly a
league into the spacious bay, covered everywhere with ice, level,

smooth, and glittering in the rising sun, save where, here and there, a
huge white hummock or lofty pinnacle, the fragments of some
disintegrated berg, drifted from Greenland or Labrador, rose along the
Bar, where the early winter gales had stranded them. Leaping down
upon the ice-foot, the party hastened to their respective stands, nearly a
mile out on the Bar--Davies being some four hundred yards from that
of La Salle.
The "stand" of the former was a water-tight box of pine, painted white,
and about six feet square by four deep, which was quickly sunk into the
snow-covered ice to about half its depth; the snow and ice removed by
the shovel, being afterwards piled against the sides, beaten hard and
smooth, and finally cemented by the use of water, which in a few
moments froze the whole into the semblance of one of the thousands of
hummocks, which marked the presence of crusted snow-drifts on the
level ice.
La Salle, however, had provided better for comfort and the vicissitudes
of sea-fowl shooting; occupying a broad, flat-bottomed boat, furnished
with steel-shod runners, and "half-decked" fore-and-aft, further
defended from the sea and spray by weather-boards, which left open a
small well, capable of seating four persons. Four movable boards,
fastened by metal hooks, raised the sides of the well