"Blue water, indeed!" retorted Creamer; "who ever saw blue water on soundings! I'll lay a plug of navy tobacco there isn't open water enough there away to float La Salle's gunning-float comfortably."
"Well, Hughie," slowly replied the practiced pilot, who was really little disposed to vaunt his knowledge of coast and weather, "the tide will soon decide whether you or I, or both of us, are right. It is just full flood now, and the ice is pressed in so against the land, that I know there can be no openings along the Point, and but very small ones where I think it looks like one. It seems to me that a water-vapor is rising out there, by yonder high pinnacle just in range of the pool below the ice-foot; but the tide will soon let us know if there are any large leads open within a dozen miles."
"There's a sign in your favor," cried La Salle, pointing in the direction of the supposed 'lead.' "There's a flock of Brent geese, and they can't live away from open water. See, Ben, they are heading right in for the East Bar, and if we were only there we might depend upon a shot."
La Salle was right; the flock of birds, identified plainly by their smaller size, their tumultuous order of flying, and especially by their harsh, rolling call, like a pack of hounds in cry, swept in from sea, wheeled around one of the resting flocks of Canada geese, alighted near them, took flight again, and, sweeping in an irregular course over and among the higher points of the icy labyrinth, disappeared behind the eastern promontory, as if in search of the open water, which winter had so securely locked up in icy bonds.
As the sun sank behind the neighboring firs, his reddening light fell on a bright blue streak, which seemed to glow like a stream of quicksilver between two heavy bodies of "piled ice." With the ebb, the narrow, glittering canal began to widen, piercing nearer to the islet, until, heading towards the westward, it lay little more than four miles from the interested spectators. The shadowy pinions of many flocks of water-fowl were seen exploring its course, and the neighboring geese, one by one, took flight, and, with clamorous calls, winged their way to its borders.
"I give it up," said Creamer.
"Never mind, Hughie," said Ben, "I'll pay the wager; for, with open water so close to us, the first good storm will soon sweep the bay clear to the bar."
"Yes, a sharp north-easter would soon do that for you; but all the heavy winds may be northerly and westerly for three weeks to come yet," said Lund; "I've known the ice to hold here until the first week of May."
"Well," returned La Salle, "I'm sure I hope it won't be so late this year, for the stock of flour on the island is very small, and many of the poor folks can't afford to buy any, and are living on potatoes almost altogether. They say, too, that there is much suffering among the farmers at the North Point."
"Yes," said Ben; "I saw a man from Lot Ten last week, and he said that the French were eating their seed-grain, and feeding their cattle, or such as were left alive, on birch and beech tops."