What Greeley said was never known, for at that moment a distant sound rung like a trumpet-call on the ear of La Salle, and amid the gathering vapors of the leaden eastern sky, his quick eye marked the wedge-like phalanx of the distant geese, whose leader had already marked the long lines of decoys, which promised so much of needed rest and welcome companionship, but concealed in their treacherous array nothing but terror and death.
"There they are, Kennedy! Throw your everlasting paper down, and get your gun ready. Put your ammunition where you can get at it quick; if you want to reload. Ah, here comes the wind in good earnest!"
A gust of wind out of the north-east whistled across the floes, and the next moment a thick snow-squall shut out the distant shores, the lowering icebergs, the decoys of their friends, in fact, everything a hundred yards away.
"Where are the geese?" asked Kennedy, as, with their backs to the wind, the two peered eagerly into the impenetrable pouderie to leeward.
"They were about two miles away, in line of that hummock, when the squall set in. I'll try a call, and see if we can get an answer."
"Huk! huk!" There was a long silence, unbroken save by the whistle of the blasts and the metallic rattle of the sleety snow:
"Ah-huk! ah-huk! ah—"
"There they are to windward. Down, close; keep cool, and fire at the head of the flock, when I say fire!" said La Salle, hurriedly, for scarce sixty yards to windward, with outstretched necks and widespread pinions, headed by their huge and wary leader, the weary birds, eager to alight, but apprehensive of unseen danger, swung round to the south-west, and then, setting their wings, with confused cries, "scaled" slowly up against the storm to the hindmost decoy.
"Hŭ-ŭk! hŭ-ŭk!" called La Salle, slowly and more softly.
"Huk! hū-uk!" answered the huge leader, not a score of yards away, and scarce ten feet from the ice.